Highs and Lows
"I canna change the laws of physics!" ~Scotty
<<June 6, 1998>>
You stare up. Straight up. A single sentence runs through
your mind:
"My, that's high!"
Prying your eyes back down to earth, you look at your forces. Four elite soldiers, each wielding a CPS 2500 identical to your own. Sent to attack and capture a one-man outpost.
You'd THINK this would be easy.
One defender. Alone. Trapped. With one measily XP 70. WAY UP.
A single wooden platform was raised high above you, suspended between two strong trees. A single rope, the near end knotted and suspended one foot above the ground, led up through a hole to the outpost. Unfortunately, even the most expert rope climbers--which your men fancied themselves--couldn't climb up that and fire at the same time. You brought the longest-range Super Soakers in existence, but still--no matter WHAT you did--the outpost always seemed JUST out of firing range!
And you had tried it ALL.
You stood on the roots of the trees, pointed the gun only one degree off from straight up, and the stream of water barely grazed the bottom of the platform--and that was starting with MAXIMUM pressure!
You had had one of your men stand on the knot of the rope, gripping with his legs, to fire--but he couldn't aim because of the water from that XP 70 was continually bombarding his eyes!
You had thought to try to get him to use up his water supply, but were saved the trouble by the observations of one of your men--a pipeline, obviously for water, led up to the base, giving an infinate water supply to the defender. You had considered breaking or otherwise disabling the line, but the agreement you had signed when you got the chance to use this battlefield forbade you to do any damage--plus, you hadn't the slightest idea where the pipeline could be turned off, even if doing that were passable, which it probably wasn't--most of the water lines could only be disabled from inside, and the house was locked, its occupants out to lunch.
You looked back up, the most annoying satisfied smirk on the face of the defender as he watched you from above, knowing full-well that you couldn't reach him. And with not a single water balloon available (and slingshots illegal), he was probably right.
You sigh, trying to think of some option you missed. The last report you wanted to bring back from your first command was failure . . .
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Have two men untie (cut) the knots holding up the playform and let the defender down slowly. Have the other two men go behind and in front of the platform and begin pumping until full. Have them drench him and when they're out of pressure, blast him away. Take him hostage until the end of the war. Grab his gun and keep it until the end.
~C-House
All right, let's review: the entire problem with taking this fort is because you can't even get up high enough for the longest-ranged Super Soaker to hit the defender, and you can't climb up while he's there because he'll drench you.
So HOW exactly do you plan to get up there to untie the ropes???
well first i would have almost all make a circle around the base thing and have one guy try and climb up and another guy try to hit the guy with the XP70 or at least make him lose his aim.
HELLO??? The problem is that you CANNOT SHOOT UP THAT HIGH!!!
and i would have two or three people go back to the base to gather supplies and water balloons and leave one guy there to guard the base.and if they could, I'd have a guy go inside a house and get a saw and saw off a nozzle to make RIOTBLAST.
The term "riotblast" kind of loses its effect when you're dealing with large CPS weapons.
and then try to hit the person in the tree.and then hide some where in the forest.when they get bored they will come down and try to find uswhile another person goes and gets the flag.
~Mr.E (nate harding)
Hrm, sounds like you got confused at the end there . . . . hehe, sounds like you put something of your POW #9 solution in this, and something of this solution in that for POW #9! Hehehehehehe . . . . . . .
Ahem. Well, you can't hit the guy up there, and there's almost absolutely no possibility that he'll get bored and come down to look for you if you go away.
After a long debate on what to do, i would either send for reiforcements and help, or i would try to storm the outpost with some very brave men. I would just tell my men to go up that rope, sling your gun on your shoulder and climb. I would maybe also try to get the person in front to grab a big leaf and branch to act as a sheild. The other men would follow behind him with their guns then.
~"0 Days of School Left Makes MIKE GO Happy!"
Oh, THERE's a real morale booster :P
Telling several men to climb up a rope with a heavy weight on their back and a stream of
water pummeling them in the face. Great.
Well, if your troops are loyal enough, you could probably take the outpost (although the efficiency/morale of the plan leaves something to be desired . . .).
Well, there are 4 soloutions:
Change the gravmetric constant of the universe by wrapping a low level warp field around
the tree. That would cause a subspace inversion and possibly let Tactician know what I am
talking about. Technically the water would float up and you would have a much better
range. (I probably watch alot more Star Trek that the rest of you guys. I get some of my
tactics from it.)
Unfortunately for you, I've been reading from The Physics of Star Trek, and to warp space time for the desired effect would probably require more power than is currently generated and used by the ENTIRE United States (not to mention that technology is not at that point . . .)
Form a human pyramid and shoot from it. That would give you the height you need. Then simply shoot him off the platform.
The scary thing is that that's the MOST sensible plan I've heard so far . . . .
Wait it out. He will have to come down sometime. Also even 1-1 you still have superior firepower so you could watch him in shifts. You could also get reinforcements which if you were lucky you might be able to shoot him down with a more focused weapon like an XP 105 or a XXP 275. If you have enough money for 5 CPS 2500's you probably have these weapons somewhere.
Hm, I doubt waiting is an option, because at some pre-designated time everyone probably calls a halt to the war and goes home for the night, or a meal, or something--in which case, he could stay up there as long as you could wait.
And as far as other weapons, I've heard from the most reliable source available to me that the CPS 2500 has the longest range of any Super Soaker currently in existence, so getting different weapons would do no good.
Either light the tree on fire or cut it down.
I realize the last one wouldent work because you cant cause damage. However the 2nd one is your best bet because if you had a warp drive you would have more important things to do that shoot a guy out of a tree.
~WF
A warp drive is different from a warp field. To warp spacetime on such a large scale as to move an object faster-than-light, you'd need . . . oh, I don't want to look it up, it's some large number times all the power currently produced and used in the entire world.
It's quite simple have two of your men climb up the trees to where they can shoot through the hole(I'd tell them to climb up the side that faces away from the base so they were not shot while climbing).After they got in position i would have a thrid man climb the rope.When the guy sticks his head over the hole to the guy climbing the rope the two men in the tree let him have it!!!!!!!!!. the men would spray him in the face blinding him until the guy climbing the rope can get close enough to grab his weapon, mission complete out post captured!!!
~randy sawn
Apparently, you live in a very different place than I do. I'm up in Oregon, and there are a great many trees here -- whole huge forests of them, in fact -- that have ABSOLUTELY no branches for the first 50+ feet up. Although it would be fun to see someone trying to climb that, especially with a fully-loaded 2500 strapped to their back, it would actually be very dangerous, and if your troops are sane they will assume you are joking when you propose this plan.
I realize that this is not specified in the problem, but climbing the trees seems like a rather obvious solution, and if that was all it took it wouldn't be worth posting the problem on my web page.