Shot in the Dark
"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." ~John Lubock
<<June 20, 1998>>
Your mean stay low, moving stealthily. Next time, you had to remember to scout the terrain during the day before the night battle. Your opponents probably choose this site intentionally because they knew his troops would be forced to move slowly or bump into things.
Well, at least right now you were moving across a wide lawn. That gave your troops a chance to spread out and move a little more quickly. Of course, it offered the save advantage to anyone else, and it also provided no cover.
Your troops were spread out both in front of and behind you, to allow you to command them with a lower voice and to guard against attacks from all sides. Some had brought small flashlights, but secrecy was imperative on this assignment for the battle, so you had told them all to leave them behind.
Suddenly there is a brief, blinding flash of white light in front of you. A second later, as you rub your eyes, you can hear the sound of a powerful weapon firing and a few drops of water hit your arm.
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There's two major problems here:
1. Even if you can command your soldiers with a low voice, pretty soon the opponent will
be in your face and hearing everything you say.
2. And you're not doing too well if you're fighting an opponent you can't see.
Unfortunately, I can't exactly see any way of solving the first problem unless you intend to do Morse Code with the flashlights (hey, it could happen! :-) or if you're carrying walkie-talkies (which I'm assuming you're not, but anyway ...). So, unless you have someway to solve number one, I suggest retreating. If you can somehow make it around number one or if your soldiers know enough to do the following on their own you can go on.
First, I would have all the soldiers get down. And I mean lie down on the ground. That way if the enemy fires again (without turning on the light again) he will fire over your head. Now I admit that laying on the ground is a great way to get yourself killed, but you're only down for a minute. When they do fire the light again, you get up, so they shoot down, while your up. If they don't fire the light again, you're fine, because they'll fire over top of you until their out of water and will retreat.
Assuming they've fired the light again, you will take a couple hits ... and that's fine (well, it's not preferable, but it happens, so live with it). Put your own flashlights on higher ground (ie: tree stubs, in tree branches, on benches, etc.) so that they'll assume that's where your holding your lights (this may or may not work, but it never hurts to try). If they do fire at these targets - continue on your mission, running away from the scene. If not - I suggest getting really close to their own forces and engaging in full-scale combat. At least that way they may shoot their own forces.
The problem is that unless you're willing to run (forward to the enemy camp or retreat to your own), you'll likely lose (or take high casualties).
~Bryce Kustra
Well, either your troops are disobedient or they left the flashlights behind like you told them to, so the target idea (though good) won't work.
It does sound like, once at this point, the best you could do would be to retreat or to find some nearby place to hide so that they'd pass you over. You'd better be ready to roll around in the dirt.
#1 is a good point, although there's still a good chance that you could get off at least a few instructions without them figuring it out.
You've also got to consider the possibility that this is a hoax by one of your own men or a teammate, or that the light and water were incidental as part of a larger battle and no one knows that you're there.
First thing you do in a situation like this: scatter. Your troops are already spread out... but I think you probably should move out even more.
You said you heard a "powerful weapon firing" and a "bright light". Not much to work with. You don't state how many men there are, but there are "men spread out in front and behind you", so you really should look and see where the light is coming from (if you can see it :)) and shoot at it. This "powerful weapon" guy or guys sound pretty dangerous.
As you're shooting, run. Very fast, at them (or him). Shoot like heck and scream at the top of your lungs. Hopefully you'll scare them (or him) and they might run. You don't really know... this POW doesn't provide much information.
~Iodine
The lack of information is one of the best tactics to use against your opponents in battle -- remember that; when they say knowing is half the battle, they are stating a literal fact.
The main problem with your plan of action is that the light is off now. It was a "brief, blinding flash of white light", and a flash, by definition, has a very short duration. In addition, because it blinded you while it was going off, you could (at best) only determine what general direction it came from, not the exact source.
Well first I'd be thankful that I wasnt killed. Then I would order a retreat. We hadn't scouted the terrain and odds are that we are hoplessley out matched and gunned. Try again later
~Normal Wallace
The point of this POW is that there are no ways to determine the odds. It could be incidental fire, it could be a lone and brave (stupid) scout, it could be a hoax by one of your own men, or maybe it is a full-scale assault force (or the equivalent in this battle).
since you didnt tell me how many people I have, I'll assume its between 5-10. You also only mentioned 1 gun for the bad guy. So i assume that the gun is a hose, CPS2500, CPS3000, or an AS model. I'll also assume that theres only 1 guy.
Those types of assumptions can be very dangerous. A "powerful weapon" could be a CPS, a stream machine, a hose, or any of a number of XP models (and probably other weapons I don't even know about myself). You could also have four men, or twenty-four. There could be no enemies (a hoax by a teammate or incidental fire), or an entire battalion.
I would first get on the ground and try to get a picture of the gun, and if theres anybody else. I would also scout the terrain and see if theres any cover.
I assume you mean "look around" for cover, because you can't "scout" while lying on the ground. Even just looking around is probably not going to do much good, since its so dark.
If theres a porch I would go for that. If theres some trees or brush, i would go for that too. If theres only one person, then I would have some people try to flank him from behind. If its a hose, then i would have a group of them go running for the knob to turn the hose off. If we are outnumbered, i would retreat. I would like to explain more, but there isnt information that i think is neccessary( ie: the guns we have, where we are, etc)
~Poncho Man
I'm not sure what you intend to do with information on your own force when you don't have information on the enemy force to compare it to. You could have 5 men with XP 110s and that could be a massive, virtually indestructable force in this battle; or you could have 20 men with CPS weapons and it could be a small force.
You know, the chances of a hose going off and only hitting you with a few drops of water are NOT good ;)
I would yell to all my men to attack in the direction of the light. An all out attack would certainly be better than just sitting and waiting for the light to come on again and getting shot when it does. If the light DID come on again, I'd tell my troops while in the dark to set their eyes looking about 1-2 feet on the sides of the light. This REALLY helps your eyes to adjust back to the dark. When attacking, we'd move closer and closer until we could see our opponents, which, by that time they'd be soaked.
~King Cobra
Well, your chances of successfully determining the origin of a "brief, blinding flash of white light" are minimal, and your troops are no better off than you; thus, yelling at all your troops to do an all-out attack will turn your organized army into chaos, friends will accidentally shoot friends, everyone will be running in different directions, and your assailants (if they didn't already know your position and number and it WAS a coincidence) will have a good idea of how many of you there are, where you are, and will probably not be hit at all while having a good opportunity to fire into the confusion with no return fire.
I would first determine who the person who shot me is. I would wait. If he shoots me again, he is probably an enemy. Otherwise, ask him what is going on.
If he is an enemy (or, despite being on the same side, believes you to be an enemy), which is the most likely case, standing still once he knows where you are at least doubles his advantage of surprise. And if you were not targeted, but rather were hit accidentally (for instance, if there is an enemy who accidentally shot in your direction without knowing of your presence), then asking what happened when you were not shot again would give away your position. It seems like an overly generous sacrifice for the possibility of it being someone making a prank, or who's trigger finger can't be controlled.
If there are not a sufficient number of large weapons (XP70 or larger in half my troops) in the unknown supply of weapons, I would just get away. We need decent weapons.
Well, it depends on the exact situation, but there's a good chance if it was worth crawling blindly and silently throught he dark thus far, you shouldn't arbitrarily pack up and leave because you think there's a good chance you could be beaten in a potential battle.
And if we figured out that their unknown supply of troops outnumbered our unknown supply of troops by far, I would do the same.
I'd be more likely to scatter, hide, or back up and choose a different route (if possible) before I gave up on the mission.
Otherwise, I would stay in the meadow and fight.
~Nathan M G Hannon
Well, I probably should have written quite a bit more for this POW, but staying on the meadow to fight probably gives several distinct advantages to your probable opponents (for instance, they're familiar with the terrain and apparently have lights). Also, if you were lurking through the dark staying low and colliding with objects for whatever reason (enough to leave all lights behind) then that's probably not the best way to handle a confrontation -- it sounds more like you want to shy away from every possible encounter until whatever plan you went out with could be put into effect.
Hmmm...
The light could have been anything from a flashlight to a floodlight, so the enemy force could be anything from a simple trap lead by a simple officer with several simple troops to a major set-up consisting of a LOT of people and a serious commander. the best idea with the formation at hand would depend a lot on the formation of the ambushed team.
Your minimum estimation sounds very high. The lowest possible enemy apparatus would be a stray soldier with a flashlight who happened to stumble upon you . . .
It is probably something like this:
(the formation)
o o
Y o
o
o o
Note:
Y is the view of the first person (as in perspective of writing)
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE NOT TO USE ASCII
PICTURES???
THEY DON'T APPEAR CORRECTLY IN HTML PAGES!!!!
So the pattern suffers from being loose, thats VERY bad in an ambush I'd think.
Then you'd be incorrect. A loose formation is favorable in many circumstances, including an ambush, because by operating as individual soldiers instead of a unit you make it far more difficult to be hit, as the target size for your opponents is reduced to 1/nth the size.
The lower portion of troops could break off and go for the sides of the ambush while the upper portion could do a barrage on the front allowing the lower forces to attack more sucessfully. Or the whole formation could tighten and do a frontal attack while the first person (Y in diagram) could fall back. The logic behind the second idea is that a leader is VERY important. The forces of the enemy might even split up to capture the leader while the main force would be able to use the weakness of the split to "kill off" the rest of the enemies.
I'd like to point out here that in your first maneuver you're suggesting that the friendly force split up, but in the second you're suggesting that they make the opponents split up and use that to their advantage. There are advantages and disadvantages to splitting up your forces, but I've never seen someone switch back and forth between the two views and taking both for granted so quickly . . . .
Think about that . . . .
The field is open though so there won't be much cover, I hope the leader is wearing armour (a paper bag at least hopefully).
I think that you, like many people, place far too high an importance on the leader. The only things the leader is likely to have that the others don't are detailed instructions and tactical competency, and since in a water fight instructions can be passed on after "death" and tactical competency should already have been nurtured in the rest of the force, the leader is (at best) slightly more valuable than any other single player. The "cut off the head to kill the whole snake" concept simply does not apply.
In addition, I'd like to point out that armor should be unnecessary. Plenty of dodging space, lots of targets to pick from, and darkness? An evader's paradise! Cover is the primary element of preventing a hit usually, but there are many applicable substitutes.
Thats all the function my brain can spit out on the matter as it is about 11 pm in my local time as I am typing this and my brain fatigues just as any muscle will eventually.
~CSB: Weasel to the world...~
Then you're not taking this as a serious exercise.