I don't think that argument holds up. The NEST team that responded to Chicago were a pretty small group, with little equipment, and yet they utterly destroyed the Decepticons.
Cemetery Wind. They'll simply have the insubordinate NEST staff discharged and replaced with loyal soldiers. If that fails, they'll make the NEST staff's family members disappear. There won't even be a fight.
NEST because they're actually part of Army and working with The Autobots. Plus they killed Decepticons.
And without the autobots had their asses handed to them on a plate, they only ever seemed to do well when optimus and the navy, army and airforce all showed up. I think in a straight up fight it would be close as both of them appear as smallish, light units with probably same backgrounds/training/equipment - just Cemetary Wind are more willing to be mean to little jimmy. But lets face it, its a bay film so anything could happen.....
Just gonna put this out there for the technology argument people are making for/against each side.... Cemetery Wind most likely had access to all of NEST's resources after it was disbanded too if they needed it. Without the bots and Lockdown, they'd probably be pretty evenly matched.
I dunno, they killed Barricade, several protoforms, and damaged Shockwave. One even sent Sentinel running, tho with a cheap shot. They only had trouble with the bigger things like the Driller, and the 'Con's air support. Things that Cemetery Wind never had to deal with. Optimus managed to destroy the Driller, and several fighter craft, but also manged to put up a good fight against CW. I think a small response team from NEST would be able to at least hold off Cemetery Wind long enough for the big guns to arrive. Then CW would be utterly destroyed.
A bit off topic, but can an outfit like Cemetry Wind even operate legally inside US borders? Thought CIA was for foriegn uh, stuff?
And so is Cemetary Wind. As a CIA SOG unit, Cemetary Wind has the same access to equipment and weaponry the military has, plus being CIA they have a stronger edge in the HUMINT area, giving them a huge edge over NEST. CIA SOG recruits directly from special operations units such as Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, etc, so the body of training would absolutely be the same between Cemetary Wind and NEST. Yup. CIA isn't legally allowed to operate on US soil. It's an intelligence outfit that does it's work in foreign soil. That being said it's heavily implied I think that Cemetary Wind isn't exactly a legal unit to begin with. I would imagine that even if they act pretty...uh...overtly, that the majority of the US population in the movie wouldn't really mind them anyways, nor would even know if they were CIA.
Cemetery Wind have Lockdown, who is pretty much stronger than every Autobot in the movies so far other than Prime.
NEST have Simmons. Case closed. But seriously, military =/= military. Both organisations are military outfits but NEST was shown as equipped more for an open combat while CW looks like their main focus are clandestine operations. If it can be done in an open slugfest, then NEST is at advantage.
NEST, the good guys just about always win in the big budget Hollywood films so the movie odds are stacked heavily in their favor. Plus NEST had more personalities and the side with personalities tend to win while Cemetery Wind is mostly just nameless thugs and goons.
Obviously Nest would win without Transformers included. I mean, the main driving force behind CM WAS Lockdown. If we were going to allow Transformers, then I'd actually give CM a chance. Lockdown has an entire, fully functional, knightship. I also think Lockdown would play the waiting game and pick N.E.S.T off and the 'bots one by one.
