"The guerrilla will not fight the enemy in a long battle where reserves would overwhelm him: he strikes only when he can win. And he avoids superior forces. When the enemy advances, he withdraws. When the enemy rests, he hits him. He attacks when the enemy is exhausted. And when the enemy counterattacks, the guerrilla flees."

"The guerrilla must muster the tactics of deceiving the enemy. He moves secretly and quickly. He travels light, is highly mobile, knows the terrain intimately and uses it .to its best advantage. He uses ground, darkness and fog to aid his attacks. He may move by night and sleep by day."

"The organisation of a guerrilla force in the field must in no way duplicate that of a regular army. Its objective, tasks, need and outlook are completely different."

The above quotes are from the Irish Republican Army Manual of Guerilla Warfare. These guys have fought this fight and won. The troubles started with attacks on civil rights protests and marches. The provos knew what they were talking about when it comes to this type of conflict.

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about body armor. These posts have exclusively focused on hard plate armor that can't be concealed. Most of the posts I've seen deal with steel armor. This is a huge strategic and tactical blunder on the part of people who go through with it.

If we put aside for a moment the severe effectiveness problems with steel plate armor, we're still left with a lot of problems.

When you outfit yourself with a long gun, plate armor, a big IFAK, and other pseudomilitary gear, you lose the element of surprise both in minecraft and defense. In the case of a Kyle rittenhouse situation, the first and most obvious targets are the guys in hard armor with long guns. This gives the fash the edge in surprise, making it easy for them to take these "operator" types out of the fight.

Make no mistake, someone who has the jump on you will manage to disable you before you can respond, body armor or no. Infantry armor is meant to soften a hit enough that you can get medical attention. It is not meant to make bullets bounce off of you like superman so that you can respond and keep fighting.

On top of that, plate armor in particular absolutely kills your mobility. One "level three" steel plate weighs almost 14 pounds. One proper ceramic plate that actually carries that rating weighs a little less than half of that. Between the two plates it takes to balance your carrier, you've added up to about 30 pounds to your person. If you're considering plates, especially steel plates, you should try taking a jog around your neighborhood with a couple ten pound dumbbells in your hands. You'll be amazed how slow this makes you and how fast you get tired.

We need to seriously consider the trade-off you make when you wear armor. You become an identifiable target who appears as a militant. You slow yourself down and allow the fash to get the jump on you. You make aiming and maneuvering more difficult for yourself. If you've gone with steel, you turn non penetrating hits potentially fatal due to spallation coming off the back side of the plate.

In addition to all of this, there's optics. We've already seen people get ratted out by protestors for being "anarchists" or "outside actors" or "bad protestors" just for trying to actively resist the fascists in the streets. Being dressed up like a militia chud can quickly become a bad idea with how many liberals are out at these protests.

Concealable gear is good gear. Light gear is good gear. Hard armor is neither. You aren't the army and you're not gearing up for a conventional land war. For the vast majority of situations, a plate carrier is a terrible piece of kit.