I've been wondering about how a battle between the gangs of LA and the police of LA would work out. I want to hear folks' opinions about this fictional setup, and what the outcome of the battle would be. Mind that this is a one week battle between exclusively the police in the city and the gangs, until the military would go in (and the conclusion is pretty clear there; the gangs would either scatter or go into a prolonged guerilla war).

My opinion: I have no doubt in my mind that the police would lose this confrontation.

There are 120,000 gang members in LA, and only 10,000 police.

Both groups have mild training, with some being militarily trained.

It is also likely that the two groups have enough weapons for the majority of their folk. The quality of the weapons on the gang's side, however, can be doubted, and they certainly lack any armor or air power. Explosives are more likely to be prevalent among the gangs but still in short supply.

I expect that major police assets and personnel would be deployed to neighborhoods where gangs are prevalent (to my knowledge, it's a pretty wide swath of the Greater LA area). These police, while meeting initial success , would be getting stiff resistance from the gangs, and police would start to drop like flies soon enough. Molotovs, pipe bombs and other explosives could be thrown at LAPD Armor, and if they train their armor operators with sense, they'll get out of the tank/APC as soon as it's on fire. As soon as heavy casualties would be sustained in any single area , the LAPD would, most likely, withdraw from gang prevalent areas. In the LA riots , they often would just leave areas when there were too many protesters there, let alone rioters. I have no doubt that the fool-hardy nature of American, and especially Californian police would evaporate after sustaining some casualties. The police would have to retreat from gang controlled areas, and eventually from the entirety of the city as attacks on stations become more prevalent. Pipe bombs, drive bys, molotovs, and simple shootings would be done against police stations, but would likely give way to disorderly charges against police stations. After this, I expect the remaining police to hide out in the city or try to get out. Finally, the Military would engage in a occupation of the city, depending on the president there would be drone strikes and air strikes, and most of the casualties would be civilian in nature from then on. Depending on the rationale and nature of the gangs, there will be reprisals against military personnel in the city, and some form of resistance.

I expect fully, that both sides would commit atrocities against the other, in the form of executing collaborators (or folk suspected of collaborating) and executing POWs.

Again I ask, your opinions?

(Maybe if this is a cool enough discussion we could make more)

In the hypothetical pretext of only gangs fighting only police, it would be a slaughterhouse for the police, assuming the gangs would be able to stick it out. Knowing the general loud opinion of police and knowing how antagonized they are in certain areas and states (including big cities of CA), the gangs could see a major increase in members.

I doubt any situation would escalate to that point. But in case something like that happens, 2 major factors have to be put in:

- Who has more ressources?
- Who's ready to do the most to win the war?

The first answer is simple, the government. Because it's not only LA, but the hole country that can jump in if it's needed. Plus, a lot of LA gangsters wouldn't join the war because it's not a single force, but a very heterogene one without a centralized organization.

The second one is harder to answer, probably in the first part the rebels (let's use this for the lack of a better name) will commit more atrocities bc they care less for public opinion and they want the gvt to answer the same way; as soon as the gvt does that, the public opinion shifts to them. A war of attrition and propaganda may then start and the shit will go up pretty fast.

At the end, the government is the key for the win, as they have more ressources, they can choose either to escalate it to a full-war or not. It depends on the moral/interest of it's leaders.


Examples of this scenario:
- Vietnam war, the US lost bc the government didn't want to escalate the conflict to a point needed to beat the north vietnamese.
- Syrian civil war, the government is winning now, mostly because it had no morals at all and bc propaganda worked well to keep the rest of the country supportive of the regime.

The government in Syria is winning because Russia intervened on their side.

I've given the police-gang battle a full week of fighting until any real military intervention happens. Yes the police have more resources; but the gangs have plenty of resources to keep themselves going for as long as they need to.

As soon as lesser ROEs are implemented(after the military occupation) , you will see a large spike in civilian casualties and anger towards the government. If you don't implement lesser ROEs, you have little chance of doing major damage to the gangs over a short period of time.

If its 1 week GG Police won

If around 1-4 Weeks stalemate

If around 1-2 months GG gangs win easily

The police only have two discernible advantages. Armor (which can be nullified rather easily) and helicopters. The helicopters are of nominal use in actual combat and are only really useful for transport and recon. Meanwhile the ratio is 120:1 , so the police are outnumbered , pretty outgunned and don't have any big advantages. If it's one week, GG gangs win. If it's one month of gang versus police warfare, GG you have a city run by gangs.

The police should go full waco on the gangs.

Full autism*

The government in Syria is winning because Russia intervened on their side.

That just enters in the ressources part, which can be argued on the other side too, the rebels just got this far because of the huge support they received from the golf monarchies.

Russia entering the syrian gvt side just boosts it's ressources, but the war will still be decided by the gvt's hand, for we know that if the gvt doesn't use his new assets without any morals/restraint it's possible the situation comes back to what it was before. We know that the US fighted in the Vietnam with the support of the southern vietnamese gvt; it's not like the south won the war huh?

The Syrian government is liked more because the alternative is:

Kommie Kurds

Al-Qaeda (the FSA)

What happens when you practice what Wahabbis preach

All of these options are pretty crappy compared to the government.

Also, using your assets with even lax moral restraint is what has gotten us ISIS, so I don't think nuking LA would produce a happy America. More likely, the military kills off Obama , or tries him, and forms a military government while being paraded as heroes.

Hmmmmm, idk if it's fair to portrait the kurds as anti-syrian gvt, they want to be independent, true, but they don't aspire for the control of syria as a hole and don't fight the central government.

The syrian gvt's tactics escalated the situation to this level and radicalised the opposition in the first place, ISIS is a son of the gvt repression, not because their tactics had any morals, which they didn't really. But I'd say that even with terrible alternatives I doubt it is the best solution for the country.


For america, I doubt Obama would do such a thing in the first place, but for the military, don't underestimate ppl's stupidity and subserviance, as well as good propaganda and the atrition made by a war. An example for this is the civil war, the northern and southern hated each other at the end so badly that one could find pleasure in knowing that the country won a battle and that evil rednecks/blue bellies got killed at it even if war crimes were commited for it to happen.

Mankind while being smart, are still animals at the end of the day. The most primitive instincts of men is shown up everytime one's perception of it's survival is threatened.

When I meant waco, I didn't mean the autistic clan, I meant the actual tragedy of waco.

The police lost all casualties it endured to friendly fire there. I agree, all police should shoot themselves.

Yes. A fictional battle.

Read the goddamn title