What's the way to defend a small country nowadays?
If the opponent is several times bigger and stronger (and several times higher GDP), can you still make your small country too hard to take for it to be worth an invasion?
Assuming that the invader has several times more planes, can enough anti-air missiles prevent them from getting complete air superiority?
One example would be what Sweden could do against Russia (assuming that Sweden doesn't join nato before). We'll have to disregard the current state of the swedish military but is there any way Sweden could make itself so we'll defended that an invasion could never pay off?
What about Finland vs Russia with their long land border?
Is there a modern equivalent to covering your small country with bunkers and putting fixed artillery all around the coast?
What's the way to defend a small country nowadays?
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You need to add the stipulation that the bigger country would rather have the smaller one in tact. Otherwise they would just get drone striked, bombed, shelled into glass.
Geography.
Make yourself so hard to occupy that it wouldn't be worth it
Estonian militias, Iranian Basij, etc
Yeah, that should have been there too. However even if nukes would obviously make it impossible, could the smaller one somehow prevent getting bombed to shit with conventional bombs if the bigger one tried that?
How much can missile defenses and anti-air do against a much bigger country?
Guerrilla warfare. It's been shown to be the giant killer time and time again.
A very stupid idea I've been kicking around is a bunch of very small VLS silos and camera networks either connect to a central center responsible for them or the military unit stationed in that specific area(would probably be better). Have them fire off at approaching tank columns/aircrafts, not to stop the enemy attack but to give the friendly army a first strike advantage and wreck hostile morale.
What you're thinking of isn't too far off from the Spike NLOS trailer mounted system, it's a network of 25km+ range missiles that are fired from launchers that can be networked to a central control system
Pretty much this.
What the former head coach Johan Cruyff of the dutch national soccer team about playing against a weaker opponent once said sums it up quite nicely:
"They can't win against us, but we can lose against them."
Probably the most effective way would be the French strategy during the cold war- "dissuasion du faible au fort", as explained by Charles de Gaulle:
>I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is if there were 800 million French.
Or by Admiral Marc de Joybert:
> Sir, I have no quarrel with you, but I warn you in advance and with all possible clarity that if you invade me, I shall answer at the only credible level for my scale, which is the nuclear level. Whatever your defenses, you shan't prevent at least some of my missiles from reaching your home and causing the devastation that you are familiar with. So, renounce your endeavour and let us remain good friends.
Of course it's great against an occupation but can something be used to hold the border and prevent the whole country from getting occupied in the first place?
Like letting them come a short distance across the border and using something similar to guerilla warfare to stop the advancement of the invader?
You can't.
Basically make your population completely insufferable to be around (like perpetually drunk and they steal anything that isn't nailed down) so no will dare invade you because of all the bullshit they would have to deal with occupying your country.
The whole thing with insurgents is that they fight like they do because they can't face a conventional military in open combat, they'd be slaughtered
Build yourself a few nukes and a credible delivery system.
Z E G M A K K E R
The enemy force dropped a PGM into your silos before their tank columns attacked
Conscription, tons of small arms and cheap AT, guerrilla tactics.
Finland is impossible to occupy by the Russians because literally 20% of the population is armed and trained.
>Finland is impossible to occupy by the Russians because literally 20% of the population is armed and trained.
>This is what fingols believe
Russians would just spam MLRS and then enter empty cities
How about something like a countries military using tactics inspired by guerillas to hold a stop an advancement?
I don't mean normal guerilla warfare since obviously it wouldn't be possible to just lie low and wait until you find a good target. However, what about having some decently fortified places and high-intesity cut-and-run attacks to weaken the invaders so much that they don't have enough strength once they reach the fortified places?
The best strategy is fielding a large force of ballistic/cruise missiles to ensure that the large country will lose valuable internal infrastructure if they attack. The addition of chemical or nuclear weapons makes this even more effective.
Russia would get air superiority and the fact that all those finns can fight would just make the occupation extremely difficult to maintain (which might deter them) but I'm curious about making the it too expensive to achieve the occupation at all.
Step 1 is to harden infrastructure and stockpile food, medical supplies and fuel. Step two is to distribute the kind of weapons (and plans for them) that makes invasion an absolute pain in the ass. Mortars and mines absolutely fucking everywhere. I think if you managed to manufacture a ton of inertial guidance mortar shells programmable with a common smartphone that would be quite effective, since spotters could then easily coordinate attacks from several positions at once.
>guided mortars compatible with smartphones
Devilish.
It won't be stopped. You keep moving the fucking goal posts because somehow you have an autistic love for your tank-turret fort.
If an enemy country comes at you with such overwhelming conventional superiority that fighting at the border is simply not an option, then your only hope is a medium intensity insurgency movement that will make the cost of occupying your country not worth it.
And if they only want blood and not conquest, your fucked because they will start droning, bombing and shelling your country into dust, and you cant do a fucking thing about it.
Go full VC and live innatunnel
Gekoloniseerd
Best bet is guerrilla hit and run tactics. Look at Finland for example. They are always going to win on their turf bc they know it well.
Mine the absolute shit out of it and utilize all artillery aspects in the initial phase
Next utilize hit and run as much as possible with light armor and infantry
After your armor and infantry gets btfo, become insurgency.
Hate to say it but short of having thousands of SAMs lining the border the country in question will just get steamrolled by advanced fighter craft. We live in a day and age where building a big pill box will not save you from a bunker buster and any non heat sealing AA is pointless bc you can't hit a supersonic jet with a flak cannon.
Nukes ready
No I'm not moving the goalpost, just trying to get ideas about something I'm curious about.
Regarding the only hope, I'm hoping to find something that doesn't require all that loss. Guerilla warfare can be very good at ruining occupations but only happens after a disastrous defeat. I was hoping to find a way to make it too hard to occupy the country aö
who's the butterface?
Go with the Israeli/Swiss model -- universal military training and a rifle in every closet. Municipal armories with a fuckton of ammo and LMG's and Carl Gustavs would help too. Turn your country into an unconquerable morass by arming the population.
I'll try to give you as complete an answer as possible; keeping the infantry relegated to gurilla tactics is the best way to go. Using choke points, AT mines, etc. In addition to this they need extremely Mobil SAMs. A SAM mounted on a truck or fired from a javelin by some dickhead would be good enough to make them think twice. All your shitty milita has to do is shoots down one multi million dollar fighter/ transport a week and then fuck off and hide. Prolonged tactics like this are seriously enough to make the occupancy not worth it, economically.
Sweden had a pretty cool concept during the CW
Step one, conscript literally everyone, and give them basic gorilla warfare training on top of the regular army training.
Build a shitton of attack aircraft to overwelm your opponents AA and to sink as many of the landing ships you possibly can (all aircraft was expected to be lost after 48 hours, but it was considered worth it)
When that is done, send in a fuckton of small FACs, torpedo boats etc, and when they eventually reach the coast, blow up all harbors and fire away with another fuckton of costal artillery.
Anything that got past that was to get held back by infantry until the armored brigades could come and counterattack.
When that has failed, and the slavs eventually take over your land, refer to the training you got in step one and become Vietnam times a million.
>that an invasion could never pay off?
This is the main thing to keep in mind. As much as you most likely can't hope to win an all out war, that's most likely not what you need to stand up to either. If you have Russia across the border it's a Georgia or Ukraine style limited attack you need to be able to shoo away. Putin will grab anything that's just lying there, but he doesn't want all too many grieving babushkas camping out on the red square asking why their sons had to die.
Another thing to keep in mind is what exactly the objectives of your attacker would be. Russia attacks Sweden? They're probably after Gotland to help secure the Baltic airspace as they move in on the Baltic countries and/or Finland. Luckily it's an island, so you already have a good moat in place. Then mine/demolish any suitable ports or airfields they could arrive at, have some mobile ASM launchers sneaking about, whatever SAMs you can get, some subs in the waters, and toss up some aircraft mixed between interceptor duty and more ASMs. Suddenly the little green men can't just show up and do a Crimea, and with that any push into the Baltic also got a lot harder since the timing got a lot more uncertain. If the place stands too long NATO aircraft will make an attack on the baltics rather unpleasant, but go for Gotland first and you're just telling everyone that the baltic attack is about to happen.
>and you cant do a fucking thing about it.
Is this really certain though? Is there no way to defend against getting to bombed to shit by a superior airforce?
Is it cost eficcient to have a lot of rockets to make it hard and expensive to try to bomb the smaller country?
Yes I agree that big bunkers aren't the shit but is there really nothing else that can defend against a superior airforce?
>When that has failed, and the slavs eventually take over your land, refer to the training you got in step one and become Vietnam times a million.
As it used to say in the info pages of every phone book (and still does in the information brochure recently sent out to everyone), "We will never surrender. Every message that resistance is to cease is false."
>Is there no way to defend against getting to bombed to shit by a superior airforce?
NATO membership.
Preemptive air/missile strikes on enemy airfields is the only practical way to do it.
God that's fucking cool
The question has been answered multiple times. You even answered it yourself.
If your conventional forces are totally outmatched, your best option is to spread them out, blend in to the civilian population and wage an effective insurgent/guerillia/terrorist/ w.e campaign combined with scorched earth tactics. You won't defeat the enemy, but it will make his cost to hold your country too high if he's unwilling to unleash his superior forces on you to kill everything.
No amount of fancy tactics or high tech weaponry will prevent such an invasion.
It depends of geography since flatlands can be much more easily occupied than mountainous regions. The best option would be heavy investment in anti missile and air defense systems to prevent bombing your country to the stone age. Effective destruction of infrastructure to prevent large numbers of troops and to slow movement would be most effective. Guerrilla warfare and extensive use of traps/mines would be its only hope in hoping Russia quits
develop small nuclear weapons (suitcase nukes)
smuggle them into any potential enemy nation before hostilities begin, fund sleeper cells to start a life in that nation, bury the bomb in their basement. As soon as the enemy moves into your territory have them dig it up stick it in a truck and drive it to the nations capital
Decimate their government without any missile launches to be tracked back to you, deny any involvement with a smile on your face.
Diplomacy. Play off two bigger powers against one another. Make them woo you as a suitor but play hard to get. Occasionally give them some dog and pony show of gratitude for their own political mileage. Trade with them until there's too many rich billionaires with vested interests in their countries who won't want their golden goose killed. That's how you defend your small nation.
Build up better weapons and equipment than the enemy. For every man that went down, make sure he brings a few enemy soldiers to the afterlife together with him.
Make the enemy incur large casualties just to take over some tiny country. Bonus points if you trade with a lot of countries and getting invaded brings with it a large disturbance to many country's economy and they will come after the ass of whoever that invaded you.
This is what Ukraine did, and the US with EU are much more powerful than Russia. On top of that, more than 30% of Ukrainian exports/imports were conducted with Russia before 2014, and a lot of Russians has had relatives and friends in Ukraine + Putin said in 2008 that Crimea belongs to Ukraine. One small mistake in your "plan" leads to disaster.
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How do you protect that fancy system from the overwhelming air power of your enemy?
Do what the Russians did in Ukraine and what the Chinese plan to do in Taiwan, find government employees and kill them with their families before the war starts.
All citizens have the right to bear arms and are trained and proficient with arms. Make it so an kind of occupation would be the most expensive possible operation.
That and nukes out the wazoo.
Funny that they now actively import the invaders
>Estonian militias
What?:
If you invite someone its not an invasion tho.
>Finland is impossible to occupy
One of the dumbest things written on Jow Forums, and that's actually impressive.
imagine having a really mountainous pass guarded by a few dozen of these wired together, if done right it could be the biggest kill box in history.
How so? The Soviet Union and the US couldn’t beat the mujahideen in Afghanistan and one could argue the Finns are even better trained for this type of fighting
>guided mortars compatible with smartphones
thats a brilliant idea!
It’s a boring answer but the answer is the quality of the people is what matters. For example, Russia is a kleptocratic shithole with a paper military. Technically Russia is bigger and stronger than Norway but in reality Russia fail badly trying to invade a country like Norway.
ive heard of the Estonian defense league but that's essentially the national guard, aka barely a militia
Video made by FDF where Finnish ground forces doctrine is explained. English subtitles are available
N U K E S
U
K
E
S
The first invasion of Iraq was literally why North Korea moved towards nukes, same with Iran. Iraq WAS in the process of trying to have a nuclear program. The real red pill is that Iraq had WMDs and a nuclear centrifuge was found but the situation was so autistic in D.C. that they couldn't capitalize on it.
Yeah, it's suicide.
Europeans should be turning on tgeir own governments
I've been there. That's the USS Wisconsin at Nauticus.
Only problem is that most euros want this. Someone who wants to kill himself cant be stopped, he will find a way
You are aware Finland was literally ruled by Sweden and Russia for a millenium and they only became a state in 1918?
You are aware you are comparing Finns and Afghan tribesmen?
You are aware that it's just a question of resources and time?
You literally said it's IMPOSSIBLE. It's not.
>implying occupation is ultimate goal of every war
jeez
Offload your defense to the USA so you can instead spend your money on other things and then tout how much more cultured and better off you are than Americans.
That's basically the Finnish land doctrine.
>Don't hold ground
>Harrass harrass and harrass
>Set up ambush
>Escape innawoods before the russ- enemies can fire back
>When the undisclosed enemies from the east have overextended far enough use artillery and concentrated armour-formations to push them back
>Continue ad infinitum
Forrests, lakes and horrible winters are well suited for this sort of warfare. Lots of bottlenecks, favourable defensive positions and all the roads and bridges are ready to be blasted to shit as soon as someone invades.
The FDF is placing a lot of emphasis on anti-tank and anti-air capabilities, troop mobility and the independent operational capabilities. Basically fight guerilla style untill your nation is finally annexed and after that just keep doing what you're doing.
Our wartime troopcount is around 250k at this time, but between 18-50 we have 900,000 men and women with military training and a strongly favourable stance on national defence. A fairly homogenous population also helps.
The cities are already empty. It's Finland. Our population density is amazingly small.
Besides, we have the strongest artillery in Europe, so just spam MLRS right back at Ivan.
Like Israel you mean...
You are aware that Finland wasn't a nation state by any standards in the 1300s when the Swedes crusaded through.
The Soviets literally tried to occupy Finland twice in -39 and -41. Didn't happen now did it? Spurdo spärde.
A giant among dwarves
Counter artillery is much better in russia
You really can't compare Afghanistan to Finland. Finland used guerilla warfare in some cases but was very static in its defense for the most part.
Afghanistan also doesn't have a standing army opposing the US.
Do what the Swiz do, rig the entire fucking countries infrastructure to blow. Then toss in some Guerrilla warfare.
Is that a fucking child in full gear?
Finnish arty would be annihilated once Russian airforce starts working
>they
If your enemy invites them it is tho
>own
>euros want this
Please dont be this ignorant. The post ww2 occupation never ended. Our governments, media and the EU are all US-controlled institutes. And compared to how silent the average american is while his rights are being stripped one by one, the average Euro is organising for revolution.
One of the most immigrant rich countries are Seeden, and they didnt even take part in WW2, so whats up with the occupation shit?
And no, there wont be no fucking revolution in europe. No nazi-larpers or yellow vests are going to change that.
go full autistic with the guerrilla warfare
if the us can't beat goat fuckers with all their stuff nobody cans
childrens soldier would be a great idea you see i have this idea of not using the child in frontal operations or any of those where we give guns to them, i give the child a knife to defend itself and let him wander around looking like shit and ask soldiers for food now the great part is that the kid would stick with them if he cans and try to gather as much info and go back to the unit or if ist a single soldier when he doesn't see kill it with the knife decapitate it and put the head on a spike like romanians did to the turks, later on the kid would signal a unit near to capture all equipment
>Is there a modern equivalent to covering your small country with bunkers and putting fixed artillery all around the coast?
Albania
>avarage of 24 bunkers pr square kilometre
but the bunkers can get btfo by air strike
They did tho. Not directly, but the allies didnt care about that.
For your second point, you're wrong. You don't know what you are talking about.
dig deep and in a lot of verried spots.
North korea even with out their nukes has a shit ton tunnels and deeply defended equipment.
that's not enough to stop the ass rape a larger power can bring on you but it makes them have to either drop boring nukes and waves no less to get that deep or send men on foot to fight you on your soil deep underground.
Sounds like a shitty place to fight some one with home field advantage.
Best Korea also has their project samson type BS with the ability kill alot of people real fast, no one knows how many tubes are pointed at S.K. but its a safe assumption that if 50% of them actully still work they would harm alot of the south.
now that they have nukes and facilities that probably can house a large amount of its military (the people that matter in NK) id say attacking them would be a costly fruitless endevor even if we said fuck it and fought with out the kid gloves on.
also in the long rambling BS NK likely has sleeper cells in most major powers around the world waiting to do some real harm to our infstructure, that lone sniper in CA that droped the power grid for like 1 month by shooting parts that have a 6 year buiild time.......
>I refuse to scroll up proof read what the hell i just typed
Sauli Niinistö-Jugend
There is no world conspiracy of le ebil usa man controlling all of europe dumbnut, cut down on the crack, stop watching Alex Jones and realize that 99% of the population in europe does nothing to pepare for any conflict, conventional or not.
Some larpers on the extreme left and right does it, but they have both claimed that shit will go down soon(tm) since the 70's.
Thats the company dwarf. They exist in all finnish units.
U have no idea do you
Nuclear deterrence. You might not be able to kill the US or China, but you can damn sure guarantee them that they'll lose their superpower status if they fuck with you.
Ukraine should have stuck with nuclear deterrence, evidently.
Yeah, so never huh.
Doesnt really work when you dont have any working nukes. They had som lumps of uranium, and they could produce that themself of they wanted.
Thats the easy part of getting a nuke.
You know i heard israel has nukes lol
>Infrastructure
>Geographical isolation
>A decent population
>Professional and highly trained army
>Support from your people and other nations
>Knowledge of Attrition Warfare (whoever blinks first loses)
Be called Israel.
That's badass
You would need to think of it in terms of stages. The first being a traditional defense that would make an invasion very costly. Think in terms of force multipliers. A strategic, highly mobile air defense system defending long range anti-ship missile sites versus a traditional navy. A generalized airforce that would handle search and rescue, civilian flight operations, air cargo logistics and operate a handful of advanced fighters for air interdiction.
Maintain a full time special operations team to handle SWAT and direct action operations, occasionally lease a portion of them out as mercenaries to keep them experienced and to help offset their costs.
Make occupation deadly and impossible to maintain.
Train up your general population through conscription. Teach basic emergency medicine, martial arts and wilderness survival as part of school curriculum. Allow a strong right to bear arms.
>Counter artillery is much better in russia
Ehh... Take a short trip to learning about artillery tactics. Finnish and Russian. Finland has one if not the most advanced artillery systems in the world. Significantly more efficient than the Russian one.