Trying to compare a single police officer to a full platoon of soldiers, and then say that the soldiers have some huge advantage over a 'lone cop on the beat' doesn't work. It's a matter of scale. A lone cop on the beat getting jumped by 4 guys is in a world of hurt. An infantry platoon getting ambushed by a unit three times their size with heavy weapons and resupply is also in a world of hurt. They both may or may not be able to call in backup and have it show up right away.
To assume an Infantry platoon is invincible is fallacy. They are awesome
, but even they know their limits. They will call for backup, and all too often, medevac as well, which adds to the pain. Guess what? There are times when a platoon of soldiers is outgunned. That's usually not found out until AFTER some jacked up stuff happened, and now they are trying to get some wounded taken care of as well as deal with the fact there there is a larger element out there trying to overrun them and put them on liveleak or something. The military will retrograde and call in backup if they have to. Just like police will.
There are indeed places in the US where you won't even get the ticket you're going to get until there is at least one or two more cruisers backing up the officer that pulled you over. That's just for a traffic stop. If a police officer finds himself in over his head because of 5 or 6 unexpected gangbangers with illegal automatic AK's, he's gonna call for backup, if he can. Until then, more ammo would of course help, because until backup gets there, you need to survive, but if he thinks he gonna play Audie Murphy and take them out, then he's misguided. Well intentioned though. I'm sure many soldiers, current and former, can recall behavior like that from some individual in the military as well. Then that same criticizm is brought up, hopefully to that individual's face, if they are lucky. Or around the mess hall with the others if that person wasn't lucky.
There is such a thing at target fixation. You can get so focused on trying to engage the bad guy(s), that you don't realize that maybe you should not continue the way you are going. That happens. There is also freaking out. Even suppressive fire is controlled. If someone empties a 30 round magazine into the wrong vehicle because they freaked out, and didn't actually bother to ID what it was they were shooting, they need to be ready to answer for that. Soldiers certainly have to. I would think police would have to as well.
Using suppressive fire isn't always an option for the military either. It's not just shoot the heck out of everything and walk away before the smoke clears. Our soldiers and marines very often are just as hamstrung as police, depending upon their situation. It may not make sense, and seeing some kid in kevlar holding a S.A.W, it just doesn't seem possible, but it's true. They have to deal with some BS rules. Especially now :banghead:
Making assumptions about cops and soldiers doesn't work, especially if you've never done it. And there is no black and white when it comes to this stuff. People are different, their skills are different. Guess what? Some people are really good at that stuff, and can keep it together, and are really good shots and yada yada. And some are not quite so 'gifted' at that stuff. That's just the way it is. And guess what else, even the good ones can have bad days and mess up. We are talking about outliers here, where the planning, and backup and all that, goes right out the window, and you get caught with your pants down. It happens all the time. Will you be super accurate, will you mess up? We're human. The answers to those questions will always be yes and no. I do think that if you are cop or a soldier, and you don't at least 'wargame' those things, and try to train to deal with those 'outlier' situations, then you are kidding yourself. It reminds me of the soldier that 'only joined for the college money' and then are mad because they are getting deployed to a combat zone. Really? Maybe they should have read the enlistment contract a little more carefully.
Lessons can be learned from all. Many people have good tricks. Other people can learn those tricks, and add them to their own bag of tricks. Then you have a bigger bag of tricks that you can pull from. Ain't that cool?
Things like extra ammo and backup can certainly hedge your bets, but you have to know how to use both, or it does no good.