Important American history question

[CupOfCoffee]

Last night my friend and I were shooting pool and started thinking up deep philosophical questions. The one that intrigued us the most was the following:

If the American Indians had had access to three (total) rocket launchers with 30 extra shells each, and three modern fighter jets with one non-nuclear bomb each, could they have defeated the pilgrims and driven them back to Europe?

Now, keep in mind that for the entire population of Indians whose land was stolen, there would only be three rocket launchers and three planes. They would could maybe refuel the planes one time each, we'll say, and of course would have the knowledge to properly operate both the rocket launchers and the planes. We started thinking that surely the pilgrims would have feared the awesome power of flight enough to be a little shaken, and with strategic use of the rocket launchers to destroy key camps and cities, the Indians could've done pretty well... but then we remembered that they had little-to-no communication amongst themselves. The many tribes of North America were not, to say the least, universally friendly with each other, and even if they were, how would they have learned the others had the rocket launchers and planes? We reached a stalemate and couldn't decide which side would've come out on top.

We would love to hear any ideas any of you guys might have on this obviously important subject.

(If this isn't serious enough for Off Topic, I wouldn't be offended by it being moved to FKL.)

[Allos]

Assuming they know how to operate such equipment and have a runway for the jets........yes. Doesn't really require much thought.

[CupOfCoffee]

But also think of why the Indians eventually lost--both the overpowering numbers of the pilgrims and their foreign, European diseases which devestated Indian forces. Also don't forget that they have only 99 total missiles to use, and without communication could not ration or budget their use. Additionally, if the pilgrims quickly overpowered a group of Indians using one of the launchers or planes, they themselves could steal the equipment and turn it against the Indians.

Haha, we were going nuts last night thinking up all the possible angles and things to this question. I'm still not convinced either side has a clear advantage.

[Allos]

Well obviously the Europeans would return with military power and the natives would run out of supplies. Considering that they're all allied my guess is that any survivors would be put into slavery or there'd be genocide.

[CupOfCoffee]

Yeah, we were kind of thinking they wouldn't have enough supplies to outlast all that the Europeans could bring to the table. But, I think if I were a pilgrim back then just discovering these new people with devestating explosives and flying metal ships, I'd probably be scared into thinking they were far too powerful to ever be defeated. I would turn and run back to Europe, no questions asked.

[Blitzkommando]

No, they would've fought amongst themselves making it even easier for the Europeans. They had been fighting for hundreds of years before the Europeans ever set foot in North America so why would they stop when they suddenly would have a way to easily wipe out one of their better known enemies. In any event the Pilgrims weren't the major threat anyway, that belonged to the Spanish at the time which were far from the northern Europeans in New England. At that point in time, early 1600s, the English were essentially a non-threat to the American Indians, hence why they showed the English how to properly farm and build protection against the harsh New England winters as they outnumbered the English quite significantly. However, should you have focused south and south-west, the Spanish were already conquering their large share of the New World.

All in all, I would see it as being a complete destruction in the American Indian tribes at the time. Like stated earlier, not only would the Europeans have had more and better military equipment at the time overall, they had resistance to disease. The collapse of the tribes is as much a traditional war as it was biological.

[CupOfCoffee]

Haha, ah. That's a lot more knowledge of the situation than we had last night. We probably should've given the idea of the Indians continuing to fight amongst themselves before taking down the Europeans more weight than we did originally.

Case closed!

[Dangerous55]

The Indians could only have won if they would have united.