Nrokreffefp: Sgt Otter: x333: Why is this stupid?

Seems like a sound business decision to me. There is no profit to be made by taking the risk of offending one of the largest markets in the world.

Before you say, "suspension of disbelief..."

In the 1980s, an invasion and occupation by the Soviets was not only plausible, but a very real threat. It connected with people's Cold War fears.
In the 2010s, an invasion and occupation by the Chinese is...kinda, sorta plausible. I guess. Whatever.
In the 2010s,an invasion and occupation by North Korea?

[img.webmd.com image 493x335]

Soviet Union...invade? That wasn't what the Cold War fear was about at all...I'd say we were more afraid of their ideology becoming the dominant global force, or that we would nuke each other. I never heard about any fears of invasion, or of Soviet Union plans to invade. I could just be badly misinformed though, I wasn't alive for it.

You sound young.

Saiga410: Private_Citizen: Even ignoring the US Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, National Guard, countless police forces (most armed to the teeth), and various Federal agencies that are loaded for Bear - the US Civilian population has more guns than people.

To think that N. Korea (population 24 million hungry people) is going to take on the most heavily armed nation the world has ever known (population 300 million trigger happy people) is beyond ridiculous.

This movie is going to get laughed out of the theater.

Actually I would love to see the movie based off of a Canuckistan invasion. Sure they seem all nice now but really they are laying the groundwork to come down here and push us around, make us play hockey and eat poutine. They already sacked washinton once, it should be possible for them to do it a second time.

Canadian Bacon.

fluffy2097: CSgt Otter: In the 1980s, an invasion and occupation by the Soviets was not only plausible, but a very real threat. It connected with people's Cold War fears.

It was never a real threat.

We THOUGHT it was a threat because of cold war propaganda.

Russia was playing catch up the entire time. Many of their rockets and fighters were inflatable or wooden mock ups.

American presidents talked about fighter and missile gaps, when really the Russians didn't have near as many as the US did.

This is true, but given the circumstances laid out at the beginning of the movie:
("Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years... Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade... Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall... Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil... Mexico plunged into revolution... NATO dissolves. United States stands alone. ")

I was certainly plausible. It wasn't plausible given the *ACTUAL* circumstances back then, but there was a plausible path to that result.

The DPRK invading the US? I can't think of any remotely possible set of conditions that might make it possible.

Hey, Subby! Go eat a bag of dicks!

discgolfguru: Arkanaut: It's been Homefronted!

That game could have been better. I had high hopes.

You had high hopes for a game centered around the idea that the NPRK could launch an attack on the US?

Really?

That just doesn't make sense on any level.

/NPRK couldn't launch an attack on an Applebees

Sorry, DPRK...

The invading force in Red Dawn (already filmed) is changing (post-production) from Chinese troops to North Korean troops because Hollywood doesn't want to offend China our owners.

FTFY

antidumbass: Ultra-right magazines like Soldier of Fortune did articles on how they were a simple and pious band of goatherders fighting the Reds with antique bolt-action Enfields.

At first, that's what they actually were.

There is an interesting paper by Frederick Kagan called "Ghosts Against Hinds". He argues that it wasn't Stingers or any other piece of equipment supplied by the West that turned the tide against the Soviets, all it did was hasten the inevitable, because the Red Army equipment and doctrine was geared towards fighting a major war in Europe against actual armies, instead of mostly independent bands of 10 to 30 men only loosely affiliated with what we would think of as a 'command structure'.

Perducci: 2. In the original Red Dawn, the attacking Soviets had support from Cuba (if I remember correctly, a couple of the main baddies were Cuban) and there was mention of the Chinese assisting as well. If the writers are smart for this new version, they'd set up a similar scenario.

I think I've discovered a flawed assumption in your argument.

Perducci: 2. In the original Red Dawn, the attacking Soviets had support from Cuba (if I remember correctly, a couple of the main baddies were Cuban) and there was mention of the Chinese assisting as well.

Actually, in the original, China was on our side, not for ideological reasons, but because the Russians and Chinese hate each other. It is implied though, that the Soviets used nuclear weapons on them, killing 400 million Chinese:

Jed Eckert: ...Well, who *is* on our side?
Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl Bates: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Andy Tanner: There *were*.
[he throws whiskey on the fire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]

Geotpf: Sgt Otter: In the 1980s, an invasion and occupation by the Soviets was not only plausible, but a very real threat. It connected with people's Cold War fears.

[Citation Needed]

I can't think of a realistic scenario where the Soviets could have successfully invade the United States in the 1980's.

In fact, the United States is nearly impossible to invade in general, merely due to geography if nothing else. Unless Mexico and/or Canada become unfriendly and acquire great military power, you simply can't do it.

That was one of the preliminary conditions shown in the beginning of Red Dawn:

"Soviet Union suffers worst wheat harvest in 55 years... Labor and food riots in Poland. Soviet troops invade... Cuba and Nicaragua reach troop strength goals of 500,000. El Salvador and Honduras fall... Greens Party gains control of West German Parliament. Demands withdrawal of nuclear weapons from European soil... Mexico plunged into revolution... NATO dissolves. United States stands alone. "

Later on, Col. Tanner explains that many troops came up from the Mexican border, infiltrating ahead of time to commit sabotage on the day of the invasion:

Infiltrators came up illegal from Mexico. Cubans mostly. They managed to infiltrate SAC bases in the Midwest, several down in Texas and wreaked a helluva lot of havoc, I'm here to tell you. They opened up the door down here, and the whole Cuban & Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains.

Which is pretty much how you'd have to do it.

There are two huge oceans seperating us from everybody else. There's a reason that it didn't happen in World War II, because it was farking impossible to do then, it was farking impossible to do in the 1980's, and it's farking impossible to do now. And all of that is ignoring the fact that the US spends almost 50% of the world's total defense spending by all 190ish countries on the planet.

Unless, of course, you control all of Central America, and can just roll your troops up through Mexico, which is the scenario in Red Dawn. Remember, the commies have control of Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and at least part of Mexico. Guatemala and Belize aren't mentioned by name, but I'm sure that for an army poised to invade the US, they wouldn't have been a significant problem.

It's an internally plausible scenario. It couldn't have happened in the real world, simply because the conditions set forth in Red Dawn hadn't happened.

Mock26: I thought I remember reading somewhere that the writers actually consulted with some pretty high ranking retired officers and got feedback on how it would be possible for the U.S. to be invaded.

That's possible. Milius put a *LOT* of thought into that movie, much more than most people think.

dittybopper: Mock26: I thought I remember reading somewhere that the writers actually consulted with some pretty high ranking retired officers and got feedback on how it would be possible for the U.S. to be invaded.

That's possible. Milius put a *LOT* of thought into that movie, much more than most people think.

If there is one thing Milius knows its military history. Even if I think he can be a bit ponderous and pretentious at
times, he is able to effectively write militaria like few people ever have. His facility with the subject is even more
impressive when you consider that he never actually served (though he did try to volunteer for the Marines in the
Viet Nam era but couldn't pass the physical due to asthma; thanks Wikipedia).

if_i_really_have_to: Oh please, America is so distant in time from any real adversity that most of your people, gun or no, wouldn't be up to much when they were needed. Most are incredibly self interested (because years of comfort does that) and are unlikely to want to risk their lives 'for the cause', and would probably be quite happy to be collaborators if it meant they got a few extra comforts and the chance to stand on someone's neck. Shoot a few dozen in the head and the majority will fall in line like the soft cowards they are.

I seem to recall a certain East Asian nation thinking much along the same lines back a few decades ago. Didn't work out too well for them.

if_i_really_have_to: Do I even need to touch on the fact that the majority of gun owners do not have a vast store of ammunition, and guns are pretty useless without bullets?

Last time I checked, Americans bought 6 *BILLION* rounds of ammunition every year.

Hell, I've got several hundred rounds myself, and I'm not all that unusual. When you can buy a 500 count brick of .22 LR for less than $20, it's pretty cheap to stock up. Even military caliber ammunition is relatively inexpensive: A 20 round box of FMJ .223 Remington is about $6-8. You can buy a 'combat load' of 200 rounds for $60.

Plus, tens of thousands of people reload. Hell, I don't bother to reload (I shoot mostly muzzleloaders anyway), but I still have the equipment and knowledge to do so. Did you know you can reload ammunition using matches? That includes primers: The tips of strike-anywhere matches can be used to reload primers.

So, the only real problem then becomes resupply, which is where the old adage of "Make the enemy your quartermaster" comes in.

peterthx: Private_Citizen: Even ignoring the US Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines, National Guard, countless police forces (most armed to the teeth), and various Federal agencies that are loaded for Bear - the US Civilian population has more guns than people.

To think that N. Korea (population 24 million hungry people) is going to take on the most heavily armed nation the world has ever known (population 300 million trigger happy people) is beyond ridiculous.

You're forgetting the thousands of Occupy idiots that would probably welcome and aid an invasion from Communist forces.

Just look at all the ignorant assholes protesting NATO right now and tell me it couldn't happen.

Nrokreffefp: Sgt Otter: x333: Why is this stupid?

Seems like a sound business decision to me. There is no profit to be made by taking the risk of offending one of the largest markets in the world.

Before you say, "suspension of disbelief..."

In the 1980s, an invasion and occupation by the Soviets was not only plausible, but a very real threat. It connected with people's Cold War fears.
In the 2010s, an invasion and occupation by the Chinese is...kinda, sorta plausible. I guess. Whatever.
In the 2010s,an invasion and occupation by North Korea?

[img.webmd.com image 493x335]

Soviet Union...invade? That wasn't what the Cold War fear was about at all...I'd say we were more afraid of their ideology becoming the dominant global force, or that we would nuke each other. I never heard about any fears of invasion, or of Soviet Union plans to invade. I could just be badly misinformed though, I wasn't alive for it.

Yeah, Cold War was about the fear that the Soviet would keep pushing into developing countries to install puppets (which we countered with our own puppets), all the while keeping military pressure on Western Europe. The big fear was that once they had enough little satellites around the world to ensure a steady flow of resources to Mother Russia, they'd roll vast columns of armor and infantry across the Fulda Gap into West Germany, etc. and if we fought back it'd be Nuke-Fest. Since we didn't have the bodies to go one-for-one in a conventional war, we countered with fancier, more expensive stuff, the whole Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine with the nukes, and made super-sexy weapons systems like the F15, F16, A10, and the M1A1 Abrams tank.

The prospect of them actually landing here in Homeland never really entered into it.

Kuroshin: discgolfguru: Arkanaut: It's been Homefronted!

That game could have been better. I had high hopes.

You had high hopes for a game centered around the idea that the NPRK could launch an attack on the US?

Really?

That just doesn't make sense on any level.

/NPRK couldn't launch an attack on an Applebees

I don't base my expectations of a video game on the believability of said video game. I base my expectations on what I think could be a good story, or fun mechanics, etc. I think that makes sense on most levels, actually.

gopher321: The fact that some moviegoers actually believe a handful of plucky kids can take on an entire invading force in the first place is insulting.

The movie was pure fantasy. It's not like the entire concept of Russian invasion made any sense, either. You've just got to watch it as a reflection of the culture and the times, much like the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was all about Red paranoia.

It came from the same era as the Rambo movies. It was a point in time where the country collectively decided that it was time to put Vietnam behind us, and part of that process was making movies where Americans kick seven kinds of ass.

Think of it as a gigantic act of self-affirmation.

peterthx: You're forgetting the thousands of Occupy idiots that would probably welcome and aid an invasion from Communist forces.

Just look at all the ignorant assholes protesting NATO right now and tell me it couldn't happen.

I'm guessing that you've been on the John Birch mailing list for some time now. If not, you should probably drop them a letter. You'd get along with them.

craxyd: Dammit. Wrong thread.

No, you were bulls-eye on.