The value of the stockpile comes from the fact that being armed is useful.
You may be saying that whoever is coming for you has enough firepower and training to make your arms irrelevant. In which case your stockpile is just trade goods?
It’s not about skills, let’s take two people of equal training. A is living his life in a fortified location with a huge stoke pile of guns and tons of ammunition. B has a rifle, time, and the element of surprise.
Who do you think has better odds? How about if B has friends who also want what A has? Don’t get me wrong defensive positions are useful, they are simply less useful than groups of people working together. The best prep is a few supplies and a community of people ready and able to support each other think walled town not fortified nuclear bunkers unless you’re actually willing to live underground and have a lifetime of supplies at which point hiding is more effective than guns.
A group or community that has some arms is definitely in a better position than a loner with an arsenal. A group with an arsenal and good social skills to make alliances with other groups, and the tactical abilities to acquire whatever they lack and defend themselves from others, will be in the best position.
There's probably an ideal minimum of ammo to go with the guns. But more ammo is better.
I would agree that a single person defending a fortification probably not benefit from more than, say, two or three guns. One gun that has a decent automatic magazine size, and fast reloading, plus lots and lots of ammo. You need backup equipment in the face of possible failure.
WW1 trench warfare was dominated by artillery, which caused the majority of casualties, more than machine guns, rifles and disease combined. That is why casualty rates favored the attacker - they were sweeping up the suppressed remains after an overwhelming artillery barrage.
The same applies in modern warzones, what works as a defensive position against a gun-armed mob doesn't necessarily work against infantry with military weapons including mortars and grenade launchers, and vice versa - if you know your opponents don't have proper equipment, you can effectively make deadly defensive positions which modern militaries wouldn't be able to use against their opponents.
Artillery and mortars where hardly limited to attacking or defending. Sweeping up after an overwhelming artillery barrage presupposes the attackers having artillery supremacy. In a true stalemate both sides just get hammered by artillery with neither receiving a net advantage while both rack up casualties.
As to a gun armed mob, it really depends on how capable they are. A defensive position is of limited value vs a well trained sniper using even a simple hunting rifle. The basic issue is it’s difficult to actually defend yourself without also exposing yourself. This is further degraded when talking about a single defender who can’t benefit from overlapping fields of fire etc.
Our hypothetical survivalist would benefit from training, but they don’t receive the primary benefit that keeps modern military casualties low, access to trained and well supplied medical personnel.
Analysts of actual WWI battles by experts. Don’t get me wrong early in the war attacking in daylight over no man’s land was ruinous, but tactics evolved and eventually favored the attack and counter attack.
Not that post apocalyptic battles will involve artillery and tanks, but it is still informative.
Vietnam ambushes, WWI trench warfare, etc. It seems very counterintuitive casualties where often lower for the attackers and counter offensive than the defenders.
First, an ambush is not a traditional attacker role. The ambusher has the pre-prepared position and is leveraging an intelligence advantage.
A counter attack similarly isn't assaulting a prepared position.
Otherwise this is an ignorant view. Attackers can have advantages because of initiative. They can pick their place, time, and methods, find the weakest point, etc.
They can also choose to not attack at all. Which they do all the time. The number a times attackers have been repelled and destroyed despite possessing the initiative is innumerable.
Assaulting a prepared defensive position in it's strength is widely acknowledged to be a really stupid idea and you don't do it unless your other options are worse.
And yet after the invention of the gun attacking a prepared defensive positions often results in fewer casualties.
Defensive structures offset but don’t eliminate the advantage of initiative, especially when you start talking about a lone defender who needs to sleep etc.
Manoeuver has always been useful. Modern mobility and arms haven't changed that. Gaining superior firepower or leverage at the decision point is the real take away, not who is attacking or defending. Fixed structures are always an asset, but you still have to recognize that it doesn't eliminate the need for intelligence and superior strategy.
Your conclusion about defense being essentially useless is still dead wrong.
Once the first few home invasions, rapings, and pillagings of sleeping residences have occurred. Word will spread. The would be invaders will encounter a round the clock watch setup by a neighborhood or family that invited all their cousins and can afford a 24/7 watch, with dogs, home made alarms, and man traps.
And those attackers will have the fight of their lives on their hands. Once their surprise element is gone, they lose the initiative to things they can't anticipate without serious new intelligence and all advantage is now reversed and you enter the counter attacking and ambush scenarios which you pointed out, are very effective.
> defense being essentially useless is still dead wrong
That’s not my conclusion, it’s that defense roughly counters the otherwise overwhelming advantage of attackers.
> round the clock watch watch setup by a neighborhood
That’s assuming a great deal of cohesion in your post apocalyptic scenario. I have no problem saying large communities provide a significant benefit, but that’s a product of a working society not something you would see after say a disease kills off 99.9% of the population.
how do you figure it's of little use? big difference between breaking in to loot a house you know is unarmed, versus one known to be armed and possibly keeping watch
