The problem is that he "does what he needs to do", and then hides in the population, so the soldiers end up attacking the population.
In France, the Wehrmacht behaved very well, then the partisans began knifing the gemans in the back. Their officers reminded the town mayors that they had surrendered, and to hand over the culprits, which they did not. Thank God the Germans only lost their composture in a couple occasions, Oradour being one of them. Similar situations happened in Czechoslovakia, Russia and Pomerania
When Americans in Germany received fire from a surrendered village, even if it was from a lone Hitlerjugen, they simply rolled back out of the town, and erased same with artillery, wiping out children, old ladies, cats, dogs etc...
In Nam', the farmers were forced by the local VC to shoot at American positions at night, and eventually the Americans would respond by cleaning the area with 105s...
I would probably do the same if I were in Irak, and my soldiers were attacked by a civilian mob, or one guided by partisans hidden within their midst.
No, Guerrilas are bad business for those sides who use them...
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Originally Posted by KuKulzA28
Guerrilla warfare IS uncivilized. But the use of superior firepower to blow up miles of land and bombard cities is pretty uncivilized... people use those paths, work those fields, inhabit those cities. The civilians use the land and infrastructure. Then the soldiers roll in, from the time of conquistadores to the modern day with state of the art weaponry and guns. Against such firepower and great odds it can't blame the guerrillas for using the countryside and the population to hide and time their retaliation. Ideally the population also supports the guerrillas. However often when the guerillas lose the support of or never had the full support of the people, they resort to violence and terrorism to coerce the locals and resupply. It's a desperate and draining form of warfare. Spiteful to say the least. But for the guerrilla fighter armed with a low quality gun or a machete, indoctrinated in some political or nationalistic ideal, and facing better armed foreigners... he does what he needs to do.  Not that it's civilized, but war isn't to begin with - doesn't mean we should make it worse than it has to be I guess.
I think we should also distinguish between guerrilla warfare and hit-and-run warfare... if an Amazonian tribe is ambushing some deforesting Brazilians, that's a hit-and-run... but rebels in Guatemala, terrorizing creoles and Mayans alike, that's guerrilla warfare... it can be hard to draw the line sometimes |