Home Guard: Difference between revisions

**A more effective idea was using them to serve the anti-aircraft grid during the [[Death From Above|Strategic Bombing Campaign.]] The calculations of course required advanced mathematics, but putting a shell into a gun just required a strong arms and back and pulling a lanyard did not even require that, and neither was beyond the capacity of [[Child Soldiers|teenagers]].

* The Kamikaze were this. Because Japan was out of trained pilots(most of these were dead, the replacement program was inferior to begin with and needed more flight time then they had fuel to spare), the rather brutal alternative they came up with was to turn half-trained pilots into missiles. However callous, tactically it wasn't one of their worst ideas although they would have been better off surrendering. In any case though at first glance it has the weird Japanese romanticism about [[Suicide Mission|Suicide Missions]] the effect was the same as how many nations thought of their home guard. They recruited them from civilians(usually educated young men)and sent them into a desperate battle they did not have much expectation of coming back from-like other nations. The difference was that unlike Poles, Russians, Germans, and later Haganah troopers they were expected to push the button on themselves rather then just [[Suicide by Cop| fighting until they died]] but that does not make it all that different in essence. Thus they were not really the most bizarre example of the Japanese military cult's romanticism. That "honor" would probably go to Saipan where civilians including women and children were pressured into killing themselves in full view of the American invaders with a rather hypnotic flourish of ritual.

*The Swiss are famous for this, and aside from those that were doing mercenary service that was their main force.

*Greek hoplites were for the most part this. Phalanx warfare was made to be for a home guard. All anyone had to do was ''push''.