Frankly, I suprised that none of you have considered that a massive group of Britsh Soldiers overwhelm one or two of the marines and kill them. After which they aquire thier weaponry and armor. Which could allow them to fight on equal footing, though they aren't properly trained with M-16s or whatnot, its still a gun and has "point and click" ability. Anyways, just figured I would throw that out there.

I don't think that could truly happen though, Keb, Marine's don't normally travel alone, normally they move as squads or teams, squads consisting of 5-6 men, teams consisting of two squads. And even 5-12 Marines would give a large group of British an ass kicking if it came down to it.

I guess I didn't know enough about marine logistics to put in my two cents.

Ah well, it was a thought.

It's something I learned about first hand. ;)

See the wiki link in my last post.
:)

40,000 Zulus vs 1200 well trained modern British forces sounds more like a winnable scenario. I'm having a hard time accepting that 112,000 British regulars from the colonial period wouldn't still win against only 100 modern day US Marines. It's one thing to mount a 40:1 kill ration. It's quite another to mount an 1120:1 kill ratio.

Of course, I don't know just how well equipped 100 Marines would be. Do they have air equipment at their disposal? A couple of Harrier jets would turn this into a whole new deal. Tactical nuclear weapons? Large scale fuel-air bombs?

That's of course assuming that there's not a time paradox at play :)

That kill ratio is really what I was trying to allude to when I mentioned ammo. Anyway you slice it, killing 1000 fellow humans is a lot of work, even if they line up for you.

However, as I recall, the Brits were issued fancy uniforms, a sword, a musket, and not much else. As mentioned, each Marine carries enough ordinance to arm a small village.

I bet each Marine, even the women, could carry a British soldier under each arm for some distance. I suspect most of the Brits wouldn't be able to pick up even one Marine. They were a head smaller, had been given laughable physical training, and likely had scurvy from the trip over the pond.

I don't think the Brits have a chance while trying to maintain reasonable losses. However, in a "many of us will die, but we'll get the blokes!" charge, I do think the Marines would be overwhelmed. (Of course, the Marines would never deploy themselves all on Breed's Hill as the Colonials did. And they would have air support. Tactics have changed so much!)

Unfortunately, I lost the correct answer, so I'll have to guess too.

Assuming the terrain and time is that of the American revolution,
the Brits don't stand a chance, since they're facing the
revolutionaries, against whom they lost in the first place, plus
the marines, so there's really no question.

Even without indirect fire and air support, each marine is
capable, on her own, of ending the war quickly in victory
for the rebels, due to her ability to train them and organize
them in ways beyond any capacity for the Brits to deal with.

Look at what a poorly-armed, weaker force can do in
modern asymmetrical warfare. Now imagine if the VC in
Vietnam or insurgents in Iraq had access to weapons,
technology, training, and historical data from 200 years
in the future, PLUS a company of future soldiers.

Massacre.

I see only two possible win scenarios for the Brits:

1) It is a field of battle empty of local populations, and
all the Brits and all the Americans are facing off right there
with no means of evasion.

- or -

2) A motivated defector joins the British and explains
to them how to defeat the superior technology, as
well as "historical data" that in that context would be "intelligence".

-Summer Glau

PS Don't forget to check out the next season of
The Sarah Connor Chronicles this fall on Fox!

Rofl. I wasn't even considering the use of the American forces of the period. Yes, that does indeed spell massacre.

Well ok if the Americans are rallying locals to aid them it's a total wipe for the Brits.

:lol: I would have to agree, I hadn't even taken into account the incorporation of the colonists particularly, rather, like Kayle, I was just going off what I know from my own military experience. With the addition of the original colonists who were already motivated enough to manage to win as it was, calling it a massacre is putting it nicely.

The Brits are not going to fight to the last man, they get their nose bloodied they will run. Period.
Automatic weapons would make them think they were fighting aliens or something freakish in power.
Even if the Brits regrouped, so what. The Marines would recruit and train villiagers, build defensive
positions, etc. The Brits would die to a man if they kept coming. Not saying the Marines would not
take casulties such is the nature of the beast of war. However, the tactics are so superior, that
they would be minimal to the Brits.

Vladaar

One volley of fire from the Brits and all the US Marines will be rolling about on the floor laughing their asses off.

Brits would easily take the enemy position then. :biggrin:

Tricky

Anyone know exactly WHY the US won in 1776? Just wondering, as in 1812 the British burned Washington to the ground. Sort of like swatting a fly while they held off the French.

Wikipedia will be a better resource, but as I recall from my research
during my school days, basically the French showed up with a very
large ground and naval presence, and the Brits were already
overstretched, and just couldn't afford to keep fighting.

As much as we Americans like to lord it over the French for helping them
out in the World Wars, without their military support then we'd still be British subjects.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

PS Well ok, after the Nationality Act I guess the term would be "citizen",
but I still like the vaguely oppressive term "subject" to refer to our
less fortunate friends overseas.

The wars were pretty different, too. The revolutionaries did not really engage the Brits in straight-on fighting until quite a bit later in the war. They were in essence fighting a light-weight guerrilla war against a slow-moving, ponderous army. The French helped bring it to the phase of a "real war" by preventing the Brits from doing things like blockading harbors and the like, without which supply chains would have been cut and all kinds of nastiness would have occurred. By then the US army was more organized as well, IIRC, and large, equipped and trained enough to stand a chance in straight-on battles.

Napoleon used some of the light-weight, mobile tactics to great success in his early campaigns; some say he was inspired by what he heard about the American war. He adapted the mobility to larger armies and took people by surprise. It's hard to imagine tactics where the main strategy is to line up in rows and stand there shooting, but there you have it…

a standrard marine squad in a combat setting each marine would have a few dozen clipa standrard marine squad in a combat setting each marine would have a few dozen clip[s and an m16

ever group of roughly ten men there would be a trio that has an m60 and a around 20 thousand rounds then theres the snipers and the demo guys who would be loaded with grenades and claymors

and thats assuming the company doesnt have a mortar guy or 2


the marines would competely obliterate the brittish in seconds even if they tried to charge the marines would place to m60's in crossing fields of fire and mow them down buy the thousands upon thousands

and the rest would fall prey to claymores and clean up fire by the rest of the company and any that accualy tired ( not that they would) to get sneaky would be picked off by the snipers

with this comparison 100 national gaurd or army reservists would be more than enuff to take them out …. making it marines is simply overkill

From my experience, (working with marines) they don't generally carry the M60 anymore, it's normally mounted on Hummers because they can carry more ammo for it that way, also because our military is adapted for an urban environment now, because there's less focus on fighting in the open.

Actually, we do give quite a bit of credit to the French for their aide at our historical sites like Williamsburg and Yorktown, but you also have to realize that even aside from the fact that the British army was stretched a bit and were trying to fight a "normal war" [for the period] against folks who were using what we refer to as guerrilla tactics, they were also, primarily, a naval power trying to fight on land. When the French joined us they helped complete the plan that Washington and his peers had developed to pincher the British at Yorktown. Finally, one must realize that by this time, the US forces actually had several very large cannons at their disposal and were desperately praying they could entrap the British on the field they'd chosen (and very specifically prepared ahead of time) because they knew without doubt, and stated as much in their journals, that if they were forced to meet the British Navy instead they had no chance. If any of you ever gets the chance, I highly recommend the driving self-tour of Yorktown with deliberate pauses at each location to read the signs and examine the site well. We did this a few months back as a home-school field trip (just for our own kids) and it was very enlightening in quite a few ways..

As an added bonus on that tour, we got to see wild deer that were so abundant that they, in several cases, actually came nearly within touching distance to our vehicle which was quite the treat for my family since Dragona and her eldest were both new to the East Coast and all of our children are small enough to be quite impressed by such things. :wink:


Again, the tour I previously mentioned really helps one understand that the standard strategy of the time actually involved quite a bit more than that, they dug their own culverts and trenches and created embankments and full battlements on their field of choice and established cannon ranks, messenger routes, supply trains, and so on far before the actual fight begun (on both sides).

But that's still the thing, right – choose a field, build your stuff there, and then everybody meets up and shoots each other. Obviously it's not as simple as a bunch of dudes in lines and nothing else, but it's pretty good as far as simplifications go…