This one is a little long:
When it comes to militia fighting a tyrannical government you need to understand how that war is fought. It is not a conventional force on force war, because the objectives are different. Conventional war is WWI and WWII, Russia v Ukraine. Instead, this would be an unconventional war, like a Vietnam, Afghanistan, and a handful of other middle eastern conflicts.
The goal is not necessarily to hold and occupy land, the goal is to get the government to give up, or give in. And in the cases of Vietnam and Afghanistan, those fighters were able to outlast the much superior fighting force that was America. The militias would need to outlast the will of the government and the population at large.
The US gov would hardly use its fighter jets and tanks because the collateral damage would be too high in most cases. The collateral damage would be US citizens, which would probably create more sympathy, if not more fighters for the militias. If the will of the people turn on the government, even if most don’t take up arms, it’s likely that the gov will give in.
The militias would blend in to the crowds and local populations. This is textbook guerrilla ware fare, and it is hard to fight with a conventional force. It’s a war of opinion, not battle damage assessments.
So if the gov became tyrannical enough to find itself with armed opponents (and world history, including American history has already shown that such tyranny has existed), then skirmishes would break out. It would depend on many factors but the plausibility is there. Heavy weapons are not very useful against a militia that blends in with the people. The cost is too great to fire on potential civilians - their own civilians.
One anecdote, CHAZ or CHOP, when the Seattle capitol was overtaken by a small band of armed people (effectively a militia) occupied the government for a considerable amount of time despite being drastically overpowered. The government barely used force against them. Why? Because it is not about firepower, it’s about ideas, and support from the population. The government thought that by using the overwhelming force, they would ultimately lose the battle. Now this wasn’t the overthrow of a government, but the government reacted according to some of the demands of the occupiers. They used the same tactics militias may use, and had some success. Heck, the black panthers did this to an extent for a while.
The point being, they
type of war fare of citizens against its government has different ends and goals, as well as methods. Most of which render massive amounts of conventional firepower useless. Idk if militias will prevail or not, because there are many more elements needed for consideration. But it is entirely plausible that they could and would prevail in combatting it’s own tyrannical government. History is filled with this type of thing occurring, and having success.
