Try reading stuff not written for a gun audience. Lots of scenarios in American history exist where tribes were well equipped with repeating rifles while the Army was stuck with Civil War surplus or breechloaders. The 1870s army was a ramshackle affair underfunded and poorly maintained.

Ditto with the Boers and the British. The Brits weren’t faring well against mobile artillery and people not marching around with redcoats and brass. The Brits “won” when they put the families in concentration camps and half starved them.

Guns are powerful, but power doesn’t come from the barrel of a gun.