Guerilla Warfare - Tactics

Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a large, immobile one. Guerilla focuses on organizing small units that is dependent on the support of the peasantry.Their tactics is to attack the enemy in small numbers but repetitive attacks forcing an over-eager response from the enemy which will anger their followers and thus creating sympathy for the guerilla forcing the withdrawal of the enemy.

Guerilla Tactics

The following are some tactics used by guerillas to fight the opposing force

Human wave

"Human wave" attacks have been used before by regular forces like the Chinese army. Reports suggest that the Indian army used the same tactics for recapturing Kargil. In Korea, the Chinese would overrun a small position with manpower and persevere in the same for larger objectives, despite suffering enormous casualties. For example, in an attack against Fox Company, 7th Marines, at Toktong Pass during the retreat from Yudam-ni, in South Korea, in 1953, the Chinese left 2,000 dead around the Marine position defended by 200!

Using the Human wave tactic can be an advantage when you have a lot followers, but it will also inflict a lot of casualties from your side as it lacks the firepower.

Củ Chi Tunnels

The tunnels of Củ Chi are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels located in the Củ Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, and are part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country.

The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The role of the tunnel systems should not be underestimated in its importance to the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and protracting the war, eventually persuading the weary Americans into withdrawal.

Using this kind of tunnels offers mobility and defensive positions for the vietcongs, as they can easily predict and control where a battle should take place and offer reinforcements.

Foco

The foco theory of revolution by way of guerrilla warfare, also known as focalism (Spanish: foquismo), was inspired by Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, based upon his experiences surrounding the rebel army's victory in the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and formalized as such by Régis Debray. Its central principle is that vanguardism by cadres of small, fast-moving paramilitary groups can provide a focus (in Spanish, foco) for popular discontent against a sitting regime, and thereby lead a general insurrection. Although the original approach was to mobilize and launch attacks from rural areas, many foco ideas were adapted into urban guerrilla warfare movements by the late 1960s.

Guerilla Warfare Literature - Writings that inspires Guerilla to fight

Guerilla Literature that Inspires

Here are some of the writings from different authors regarding Guerilla Warfare. Though they are dead or thought to be dead, their messages still continues to inspire masses in countries that have political chaos and no firm leadership. These messages echoes through the heart of these people because they can relate with the hardship brought upon by political chaos.

Theories of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung)

Mao Zedong, during the Chinese Civil War, summarized the People's liberation Army of the principles of revolutionary warfare in the following points for his troops: The enemy advances, we retreat. The enemy camps, we garble. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue. A common slogan of the time went "Draw back your fist before you strike." Referred to the tactic of baiting the enemy, "drawing a fist," before "striking" the critical moment where they are overstretched and vulnerable. Mao made a distinction between Mobile warfare (yundong zhan) and guerilla warfare (youji zhan), but they are part of an integrated continuum aiming towards a final goal. Mao's successful work, In guerrilla warfare, is widely distributed and applied, successfully in Vietnam, under military leader and theorist vo Nguyen Giap. Giap's "People War, Army men" closely follows the Maoist three-stage approach.

Writings of T. E. Lawrence

Te Lawrence, best known as "Lawrence of Arabia," introduced a theory of guerrilla warfare tactics in an article he wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica published 1938. In that article, he compares guerrilla fighters to a gas. The fighters disperse in the area of operations more or less randomly. They or their cells occupy a very small space in real places, such as gas molecules occupy a very very small space in a container. The fighters may coalesce in groups for tactical purposes, but their general state is dispersed. Such fighters can not be "rounded up." They will not be content. They are extremely difficult to "defeat" because they can not bring the war in significant numbers. The cost in soldiers and material to destroy a significant number of them becomes prohibitive, in all senses, that physically, economically and morally. Lawrence describes a non-native occupying force of enemies (like the Turks).

Abdul Haris Nasution

FULLEST the expression of the Indonesian army founding doctrines is found in Abdul Haris Nasution's 1953 Fundamentals of guerilla warfare.The work is a mix of reproduced strategic directives from 1947-8, Nasution of the theories of guerrilla warfare, his Reflections on the only previous time (post-Japanese occupation) and the likely crises to come, and outlines of his legal frameworks for military justice and "guerrilla government". The work contains similar principles to those espoused or practiced by other theorists and practitioners from Michael Collins in Ireland, Te Lawrence in the Middle East and Mao in China in the early twentieth Century, the contemporary Insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nasution willingly shows his influences, frequently referring to some guerrilla activities as "Wingate" actions, quoting Lawrence and drawing lessons from the recent and further past to develop and illustrate his well consider these arguments.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna

"The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves. The guerrilla band is not considered under army against which it fights simply because it is less fire power. guerilla war was used parts which are supported by most but containing many smaller number of weapons for use in defense against tyranny. "