NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Triplebaconation]

If you can come up with enough of the tactical woo that cops like you could probably some money though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LED_Incapacitator

[Gallia-]

Yeah it's not a terrible idea to con money out of people I guess. There are those "bomb detecting" dowsing rods and Guy Cramer has an income.

If you actually wanted to blind people TBH you'd be better off using a battlefield laser and just sweeping the crowd and scarring retinas. They'll probably panic because they suddenly can't see and start flailing around though.

[Triplebaconation]

Just say it makes people shit their pants - this is the holy grail of police technology.

[Purpelia]

My main concern with this is the fact that it would be used by police standing in lines facing crowds of wrongdoers and malcontents surrounded on all sides by fellow officers. So I don't want to harm the officers on the other side. Hence my questions about protection. I don't expect the crowd to come universally prepared.

[Gallia-]

The cops would just beat the shit out of them.

Surrounding a riot line is a great way to lose teeth I guess. Riots win by breaking the police line and forcing the officers to reform their line 200 yards down the street, not surrounding the police into little pockets and turning them more rioters by making them wear white masks and denim aprons, and handing out brochures about the dangers of aircraft noise on the circadian rhythm.

A riot squad is only in trouble when the rioters show up organized and effectively led and trained for extremely traditional infantry tactics. No one gives a hoot if they show up with paint cans and start smashing windows because they're harmless. It's when they start walking towards you with metal trash can kids and sawn-off 2x4s in formation is when you should be genuinely concerned. Most riot police aren't trained to handle effective, organized, disciplined resistance against an opposing formation of infantry (or what amounts to it) because this is not a typical riot. Instead, they break, scatter, and regroup semi-constantly down the street until the rioters/organized armed body of young men stop chasing them out of their neighborhood/suburb/farming village.

If you're planning on riot police fighting surrounded there are two things that happen:

1) The riot police beat the shit out of the rioters and re-organize into a proper line.
2) The rioters beat the shit out of the riot police and then them run away when they've gotten a few good whacks.

A bunch of dumb strobe lights aren't stopping the guys who do 2 because the guys who do 2 are already coming prepared to defeat the line of what amounts of to heavy infantry (in the Roman sense) by battering the line with rams, flanking the riot troops with skirmishers, and lighting water/fire trucks on fire with incendiary bombs. An annoying flashlight won't stop them because they'll just wear sunglasses or throw a rock at it and knock it over and then I guess all the cops shit themselves and also join the riot by trading in their plastic shields for metal trash can lids.

[Purpelia]

The cops would just beat the shit out of them.

You misread. It's not the riot squad that is surrounded. Rather, my idea for clearing riots is to surround the riot from all sides by blocking off all streets leading to it and than advance on them from all directions. And in that context I would be using these to flash and disorient rioters to make them easier to heard. So this would be like a band of potentially thousands to tens of thousands of rioters all hemmed in by an army of police from all sides. All flashing. And my concern is accidentally stunning the fellow officers advancing from the opposite side of the riot line to crush the scum in the middle.

[Gallia-]

An annoying flashlight won't stop them because they'll just wear sunglasses or throw a rock at it and knock it over

Riot cops don't need help beating up 15-20 year old children they can do that fine.

If they're fighting guys who actually know what they're doing they'll probably just have to shoot them or something.

[Purpelia]

An annoying flashlight won't stop them because they'll just wear sunglasses or throw a rock at it and knock it over

Riot cops don't need help beating up 15-20 year old children they can do that fine.

If they're fighting guys who actually know what they're doing they'll probably just have to shoot them or something.

I am working on a big post about this. Hence my data reasearch. For now assume that the riots are not very well organized but there are a lot of angry people with stones, fire bombs and the like. NO guns though.

[New Vihenia]

Looks to me a HPM is needed.

[Saranidia]

Does recruit NOI members for a north-African foreign legion cause problems?

[Purpelia]

Looks to me a HPM is needed.

What is that?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Tbqh if your riot problem is so gigantic there's always... "Pour le canaille, faut la mitraille." Otherwise just hand out bigger hand-to-hand weapons lmao.

[Gallia-]

Riot cops don't need help beating up 15-20 year old children they can do that fine.

If they're fighting guys who actually know what they're doing they'll probably just have to shoot them or something.

I am working on a big post about this. Hence my data reasearch. For now assume that the riots are not very well organized but there are a lot of angry people with stones, fire bombs and the like. NO guns though.

It would probably help your "data research" if you knew how actual "riots" tended to go in historic examples and why flashing lights are unlikely to deter them.

"Rioters" are almost always just disorganized masses of looters and arsonists and riot squads are almost always more organized than them, but in the rare cases where the rioters actually prepare and take the time to organize they can be vastly more capable than the police they try to fight. There's something highly energetic about airport zoning laws and turf expansion that makes people really willing to raise a genuine, atomic age peasant army with literal pitchforks and shields to burn down/flip over/topple the Tokyo MPD riot brigade. There's nothing really comparable besides maybe the Solidarity movement and the 1992 uprisings against Hussein that approach its organization, and Solidarity was mostly non-violent protests getting yelled at by ZOMO troops with 7.62mm.

The few times in the United States where riots tend to get out of control is less a case of organization of the rioters and more a case of swamping of metropolitan resources to handle mass looting/arson cases over a huge area, though. The last time America had an actually organized riot was probably the Whiskey Rebellion and everything since then has been a sort of general disorganized lawlessness because the cops are too busy containing protests at city hall's free speech zone over Lincoln's call for draft and suspension of habeas corpus. Very significant in size and scope but not particularly organized or really masterminded by any group of clever ringleaders at all.

Tbqh if your riot problem is so gigantic there's always... "Pour le canaille, faut la mitraille." Otherwise just hand out bigger hand-to-hand weapons lmao.

Rioter brings a lion to dumblan riot.

Dumblan cops bring a pack of Big Lynx that literally eat the lion.

[New Vihenia]

Looks to me a HPM is needed.

What is that?

HPM (High Powered Microwave), or ADS (Active Denial System). Basically a big car with big parabolic antenna that emit electromagnetic wave to heat the skin of the rioters.

Choice of frequency however can allow deeper penetration, so you could actually "cook" the rioters from the inside out.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Does recruiting dumb people (IQ of 95 on average) as Army truck drivers cause problems?

[Silver Commonwealth]

Now to some Fallout question - would the H&H Tools nail gun be a viable weapon, and if so, would it fit in the army, or rather more in something such special forces? Or perhaps it would rather be an improvised weapon and more of something that rebel groups would craft?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Does recruiting dumb people (IQ of 9 on average) as Army truck drivers cause problems?

If you have an IQ of 9 you are basically braindead.

[Ideal Britain]

Does recruiting dumb people (IQ of 9 on average) as Army truck drivers cause problems?

If you have an IQ of 9 you are basically braindead.

Typo I meant 95

[Purpelia]

It would probably help your "data research" if you knew how actual "riots" tended to go in historic examples and why flashing lights are unlikely to deter them.

The flashing lights would be something I'd deploy immediately before a charge. Also preferably I'd also have a system for having them on like big blinding lights to permanently shine a glare on the crowd. Either way it's a tool to aid in an immediate charge with shields up and weapons drawn. Like throwing a flashbang into a room before entering to clear it. Only hopefully with less of an explosion for PR reasons.

"Rioters" are almost always just disorganized masses of looters and arsonists and riot squads are almost always more organized than them, but in the rare cases where the rioters actually prepare and take the time to organize they can be vastly more capable than the police they try to fight. There's something highly energetic about airport zoning laws and turf expansion that makes people really willing to raise a genuine, atomic age peasant army with literal pitchforks and shields to burn down/flip over/topple the Tokyo MPD riot brigade. There's nothing really comparable besides maybe the Solidarity movement and the 1992 uprisings against Hussein that approach its organization, and Solidarity was mostly non-violent protests getting yelled at by ZOMO troops with 7.62mm.

The few times in the United States where riots tend to get out of control is less a case of organization of the rioters and more a case of swamping of metropolitan resources to handle mass looting/arson cases over a huge area, though. The last time America had an actually organized riot was probably the Whiskey Rebellion and everything since then has been a sort of general disorganized lawlessness because the cops are too busy containing protests at city hall's free speech zone over Lincoln's call for draft and suspension of habeas corpus. Very significant in size and scope but not particularly organized or really masterminded by any group of clever ringleaders at all.

I am not really concerned about an armed insurrection. For that I'd just roll out the tanks. But for the disorganized mob of looters and arsonists I want to make sure my force can make a heavy handed example of arresting EVERYONE. Also do so in a semi-cyberpunk modern tech way because that's the goal here.

What is that?

HPM (High Powered Microwave), or ADS (Active Denial System). Basically a big car with big parabolic antenna that emit electromagnetic wave to heat the skin of the rioters.

Choice of frequency however can allow deeper penetration, so you could actually "cook" the rioters from the inside out.

That sounds great aside from the fact it's way too big and heavy and would mess with my phalanx. Long story.

[Gallia-]

What is that?

HPM (High Powered Microwave), or ADS (Active Denial System). Basically a big car with big parabolic antenna that emit electromagnetic wave to heat the skin of the rioters.

Choice of frequency however can allow deeper penetration, so you could actually "cook" the rioters from the inside out.

ADS is like a strobe light for radar nerds. LRAD is it for acoustic engineers. It didn't work in Afghanistan so it probably wouldn't work in Chicago either.

If you really want to zap someone bring an actual air defense radar and point it at them. It'll get better results, but they will still be mediocre.

Competent rioters would just hold up the metal trash can lids to their faces and walk through it. Or they line their plastic lids with mylar and do the same thing.

Incompetents will be as easily deterred by beatings and baton charges as invisible beams of <insert energy here>.

The real purpose of these sort of bizarre no-physical-injury weapons is more or less because the United States has a certain fear about using live ammunition on rioters, probably because they are generally harmless to police officers or something, and so police have to find weirder and increasingly esoteric ways of getting around the matter. They also feel the need to innovate where there's no practical or actual reason to do so, I guess, so you get bizarre non-solutions like ADS/LRAD/electrolasers/strobe lights that are not particularly useful.

The reality is that between a 12 gauge shotgun, a riot line of officers with shields covering most of their torso (and football gear protecting the rest), some good mahogany batons, and a couple fire trucks and large animals like dogs (or pack hunting cougars) you have everything you need to suppress a riot. All the bases are covered and you want for nothing except maybe a small helicopter to see where the protest is moving and if it is being agitated. There is no fundamental difference between the race riots of Alabama in 196X and the race riots of Minnesota in 202X except that the latter probably has more expensive and stupider gizmos because LIFE ran an article 50 years ago showing the Birmingham police using fire hoses, dogs, batons, and 12 gauge shotguns to beat up some people in buses.

Stuff like ADS and LRAD are "neat" but they aren't useful in any real sense. Nor will they ever be. They are too easily countered and too difficult to make work properly in most situations. You can stop an industrial fire hose with sufficient discipline, after all, and that's about the most powerful non-lethal "weapon" a riot brigade will have its in arsenal. From then you go to loading shotguns and firing into the crowd. You can have a half step between 00 Buck and a water cannon if you want to use beanbags, but that's about it.

And if that fails you're facing something far more terrifying than any sort of puny rioter because any line of infantry that isn't broken by more than a couple shots of ranked fire of shotguns is more disciplined and capable than anything seen since the Caroleans. They're probably not human but rather actual terminators or something.

If you have an IQ of 9 you are basically braindead.

Typo I meant 95

95 isn't "dumb". It's quite average. On a test normalized for White Americans most Scots (and Irishmen) are around there. So much for the "Scottish Guards" being "super elite" I guess!

[Austrasien]

Light flashes don't stun people. At best they cause momentary pain and occasionally disorientation if the person is unprepared. The main value of a dazzler is it prevents people from seeing clearly in a certain direction.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Typo I meant 95

95 isn't "dumb". It's quite average. On a test normalized for White Americans most Scots (and Irishmen) are around there. So much for the "Scottish Guards" being "super elite" I guess!

Meanwhile in Azn: What are these plebs doing?
<.< >.>

[Purpelia]

Light flashes don't stun people. At best they cause momentary pain and occasionally disorientation if the person is unprepared. The main value of a dazzler is it prevents people from seeing clearly in a certain direction.

The direction of the angry police-falangite moving at you with his weapon.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Now to some Fallout question - would the H&H Tools nail gun be a viable weapon, and if so, would it fit in the army, or rather more in something such special forces? Or perhaps it would rather be an improvised weapon and more of something that rebel groups would craft?

Unlike a certain other weapon for speshul forces a nail gun doesn't punch through the front of a BMP-2.

[Silver Commonwealth]

Now to some Fallout question - would the H&H Tools nail gun be a viable weapon, and if so, would it fit in the army, or rather more in something such special forces? Or perhaps it would rather be an improvised weapon and more of something that rebel groups would craft?

Unlike a certain other weapon for speshul forces a nail gun doesn't punch through the front of a BMP-2.

Oh, special forces would definitely have way better weapons at their disposal than a nail gun, yeah. The nail gun for me just didn't seem like something which would be used by a regular soldier so it was one of the guesses.