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Comment by H8crilA | Hacker News Reader

Luckily individual soldiers without heavy equipment (at least some artillery) are more or less useless in a proper military showdown. Has been the case at least since WW2.

ISIS was a good example, they were being quickly defeated by pretty much everyone involved in the Syrian conflict.

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I think you should look into the middle east a bit more. Taliban are still around and now control the place.

Individuals might not have heavy weapons to start. But with enough time, weapon destructivness reaches a parity.

Yes you can wage guerilla warfare for extended periods of time if the conditions are right - i.e. if you have local support of the population, and someone outside is getting you the guns to harass the official administration / occupants.

Now think about whether either of those conditions apply in a particular scenario, then remember you need both. Afghans obviously hated being invaded and helped "their guys", they also had Peshawar.

Sounds like it applies here to me.

ISIS overran large portions of multiple countries before major powers started a coordinated effort of local ground operations and precision airstrikes to defeat it, and even then it took years.

Few ambushes and you have the heavy equipment. That's how many Ukrainian volunteer groups armed themselves - on russian forces.

The ambushed vehicles will run for max a few weeks without maintenance. Then there is ammo of which they use kilotons (thousands of tons), and you obviously can't really capture such a quantity of ammo. Though you can capture some ammo, sometimes.

The captured vehicles could often be serviced by either side. Also, some vehicles could be traded with foreign partners'. I bet you there are multiple T-90 and even more interesting vehicles in Yuma Proving Ground and other compounds, disassembled to the last screw.

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