>>4375215My favorite bit of American history is when the US Army was called in to eradicate the last of the Apache warriors for daring go "off the reservation", and they fucking got their asses handed to them.Every time they'd make a move, the Apache would slaughter them, & when they didn't make a move, the Apache would slaughter them.And not just like, oh our guys got shot, no, a full-on Apache raid slaughter, leaving no body parts in tact, blood and entrails splattered all over the canyon walls until it looked like a giant monster just shredded everyone. General that had to meet with the Chief picked a place with total visibility from all sides to avoid ambush, went out and waited, waited, radio'd back to his soldiers that it was a bust and he was returning, finally started to leave and the chief tapped him on the shoulder, & was like "ok, I just had to make sure it was you & me alone". They talked, didn't come to terms, the General turns to the side for a sec and the Chief is fucking gone without a trace, no footprints in the sand. The General explained to the unimpressed President, these people know how to use every feature of this land to their advantage. Our modern military was made for technological warfare, and though quite a few of these Apache were veterans of WWII (usgov welched & dumped them back on the rez to rot afterward, whoops), they were fighting in their ancient ways, with rapid, surgical, brutal strikes like a smaller predator killing a bigger one by a thousand cuts & said, "These are the tigers of the human species, the last of the Old World hunter warriors in the world, we will not win by fighting them directly." The only strategy that worked was Rome v. Hannibal. Hannibal keeps destroying your army, then, go where he isn't & deplete him by making him chase you around. The army pulled way back and would blindly fling bombs at their general location from a safe distance, then immediately retreat & relocate until the Apaches finally aged out.
