Siege
POW generously contributed by Thomas Warwick
"Information is ammunition." ~Credo of Major Adam Steiner
<<July 18, 1998>>
You walked into the camp gymnasium surrounded by the adoring eyes of dozens of fellow campers. They reconize you as the hero of several unnofficial games of capture the flag that recently took place. The Camp Director Mr. Nickers stands at the front holding a large megaphone and a clipboard.
The Camp director motioned for quiet and spoke,"I'm sure you are all aware of the waterfights that have occured recently. While we do not dissaprove of this activity we feel that it is important to remain structured during these activities. Therefore I have devised an interesting challenge. Each of you are assigned to a team. Each of you are to report to the mess hall to recive a small super soaker that the camp has purchased. These weapons are limited however and are on a first come first serve basis. Also I ask that if you have your own water guns you bring them along as well and use them for your team's personal armory. After each of you has taken a weapon you are to report to either Cabin 1 or Cabin 12 depending on what your weapon is tagged with. The leaders for each team are Artie Roth and..."
You shuddered after he listed you as the second commander.
The director continued,"I'm giving each team leader a set of guidelines and a map of the island. Report to the mess hall for your assignments. Also I've typed up a list of your teams weapons. I can't give any more help because I will be acting as a referee."
You ran to the mess hall picking up a bright and shiny new XP 40 and proceeded directly to Cabin 12. Because Cabin 12 was your own Cabin you were able to proceed quickly and find the cabin within minutes. A team of over 40 other campers slowly filed in and laid down their weapons. You looked at your list.
(On List)
Weapons:
CS 50 x10
XP 15 x10
XP 40 x15
XP 110 x5
CPS 1500 x3
CPS 2500 x2
Other Supplies:
10 2L bottles.
Any other weapons your teammates have with them.
Rules:
You may not leave the island. You may not intentionally break a weapon. You may not take an opponent's weapon. If hit you must sit down quietly and wait for a referee to find you. You must follow the instructions of your team leader. You may refill only at the beaches.
You glance up and adress your teammates,"I know most of you have never handled a water gun of this design before so I'm going to let Mr. Jacob teach you how to pump and shoot properly.
Your good friend Jacob stood up and led the novices outside where they filled up their weapons and learned the basics of their weapons.
You looked at the small pile your teammates had gathered from their own cabins and tents. There was:
(All Empty)
40 Squirt Pistols
12 XP 35's
20 XP 65's
3 XP 105's
3 XP 110's
7 XXP 175's
2 CPS 1000's
The 40 people filed back into the cabin. You remarked at how the room was large enough for 40 people as well as just over 60 cots. Most of the camp slept here as it was one of the better cabins. It must have been a gymnasium before being converted into a cabin. Just then there was a knock at the door.
Jacob stood up and opened the door. As he opened the door a blast of water from a CPS weapon shot in and soaked him. Jacob shut the door and sat down. However everybody had seen his being shot and held their weapons at the ready. Quickly you stood up and locked all 4 doors leading into the cabin.
You quickly ordered all the other campers to remain silent and prepare for a siege.
A smaller camper looked out the window and said,"Sir,there are at least 40 people out there and probably more. I couldent see it all"
You glanced down at the sheet which said Cabin 1 would be given more people because they had the cheaper weapons.
"Okay ,this is what we will do." you stated to the crowd of campers.
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Ya well anyways how many windows are in the cabin? How far away are the people? You could barely open the window and shoot them up enough of em' to teach them not to mess with cabin 12 and it's occupants. Come on Tact' very sketchy info on the cabin.
As I noted earlier, it wasn't MY description -- I can't simply go through someone else's POW and change everything, even just to make it more specific.
Is there access to the roof from the inside? Send some newbie out with a couple of squirt guns and let him get shot and then when he's sitting down tell to make faces and act like he's gonna shoot them really aggravate the cheapies ( I call the bad guys cheapies cuss they got cheap weapons and cheap minds) maybe one will shoot him after he's dead and get ejected!
It's a CABIN, the chances of internal roof access are minimal. Besides, didn't it say you had to sit quietly and wait for a ref to find you if you were shot? And where did it say that shooting someone after they've been eliminated eliminates you?
Hmmmm send a guy out with a 40 where the enemys aren't.
You have almost every reason to believe that they'd be guarding every entrance/exit which is accessible to them, opening one to try to get out could easily result in more casualties.
Hold out, shooting out every once in awhile to hit somebody that got to close to the window(s?) Look out the windows and try to figure out the weapons the cheapies have. If the cheapies have weapons that can be overpowered attack and wipe out alot then refill at the beach then come back for more. Then just keep on shooting em until they surrender every time they get up
~Sam Shaddox
Since this is a CABIN, its possible that the windows have no glass (WARNING!), and/or the door has no lock (did it ever occur to you that they just MIGHT be intelligent enough to try to force entry while simultaneously laying down fire at the windows, whether open or not?). Also, sending people down to the beach to refill puts them in a perfect position to be ambushed, since they're either carrying weapons with little/no water or they're carrying extra weapons and they'd have to drop some to aim effectively.
Okay... this is my first time doing one of these...
Alright. I think that the opposing team seems to have allocated all (or most all) of their forces in this single area. I would just wait inside the cabin until they forced open the entryways, and then be greeted by about 20 streams of water... the objective would be to hit them with the lightest weapons possible, because nowhere does it say that the power of the weapon has anything to do with the degree of the hit. So, either they do the last scenario, or you somehow find a barrier to place in front of the doors... then they might just end up shooting in through the windows, wasting water, and eventually some of their troops would withdraw to refill, unless they have brought refill containers with them (unlikely, since the time between the start of the game and the blockade of cabin 12 was very short), and you could take corners of the cabin, one by one, as you will again use longer range small stream weapons (cheaper weapons, conserving high-end XPs and CPSes for the remainder of the fight). You would then set up some of the 2L bottles under frequently shot areas to shield from water, as well as pick up water to refill some guns. Really, I think the best strategy is to just wait from them to bust through the doors or retreat, while you stockpile water and bring weapons to best capacity... the enemy strategist probably counted on a surrender, but we have to remember that we're dealing with trigger-happy kids and teens, who will have used all their water before they know it. This will weaken the blockading troops, your force, using commando or rebelling style tactics, can push back the enemy troops far enough to make their commander reconsider tactics... and you could take out a lot of their troops, as well as a lot of their equipment being taken out on the front-lines with the shot down soldiers. This would work until you could send people out for refills, because you have trigger-happy individuals, also. Weapons used should not matter too much, except at the beginning of your strike, because again, these are people who probably don't waterfight a lot, so using larger CPS and XXP weapons would be more intimidating to their soldiers... pushing them back again.
Alright... so my tactics are messed up... just take a look and critique as 'ya like...
~ Paul Turner
Actually, most of that is pretty good. The enemy commander has obviously decided on blitz tactics and is therefore likely to use up water extremely quickly.
However, in order for your teammates to have went outside with Jacob, learned the basics, and filled their weapons the cabin must be close to the beach, which is an unmoderated infinite refill spot (and, technically, the only legal place to refill at all), so their water supply isn't really limited enough for you to make use of it unless they all run low on water at about the same time and you somehow pick up on that fact and use that short instance, which would be very difficult while your entire team is hiding in the corners to prevent form being shot.
Your other plan, blasting them as they bust in the door(s), is also unlikely to be effective -- even someone as impatient as the person who came up with that blitz seige is still probably not stupid enough to try to barge into an enemy stronghold when everyone is obviously ready for him, and even if he was the troops would get out without a large number of "casualties" and someone from your team would have to get up to the door and close it for you even to get back enough cover from the building to keep your entire team safe -- besides, they still couldn't get in unless you let them, the cabin undoubtedly has a lock and even if they're physically capable of breaking the door down, the camp staff wouldn't allow it.
Okay now, Since the Demonic cabin number one'rs (the bad guys) are obviously guarding all four doors, they are SPREAD OUT. And because it is a large cabin, they are spread out quite a bit. Each door has an equal opportunity of letting you get out, so any idiot would have all four doors guarded evenly. Since I'm not aware of the number of nasties, i'm gonna guess it at about 50. Which leaves 13 guys at the first two doors and 12 guys at each of the other two. 50 peeps. Well anyway, have a guy unlock one door, and when the enemies open it up BAM!! the CPS 1500's and 1000's hit 'em with the 5x streams, usind sweeping motions to hit as many as possible. If they don't open the door, open it for them. Do this with each door, until there are only a few people per door. If there are still too many guys per door, do the whole thing over again. By this time there should be small forces at each door, if you remembered to use sweeping motions. Send out the XXP 175's and maybe 4 of the XP 110's out one of the doors. Make sure these are your fastest runners so they can get out the door fast enough. With the enemies thoroughly confused, the rest of your team can get out of the cabin through that same door. Now you have a fair fight. If the dwindling forces at each of the other doors haven't come to you yet, go to them. Either way you should outnumber them or equal them, and with better guns you'll outgun them anyway. Fighting in the open, with better guns, you'll have a good chance of winning the war on the first battle.
~Matt Lindsay
Well, we don't know how many door are in the cabin. There
may be one, ther may be 20, but someone looked out one window and saw at least 40
-- that means that if they're equally guarding every side of a four-sided cabin (we don't
know the number of sides, but that's a reasonable guess) that would put their total at
over 160, which they would not have against your 40, unless all their weapons were junky
water pistols with a range of only a few feet, in which case the tiny stream of water
woundn't have been visible to everyone when Jacob was shot. Therefore, we can assume that
either
(a) They are not guarding every side of the cabin equally, or
(b) There is only one way out
Kind of throttles the underlying assumptions in your solution, does it not?
Anyway, this idea of a hit-and-run type attack without moving by making the enemy come to you is a good one-shot technique, but no way are those guys going to be stupid enough to fall for that enough times for you to dwindle their numbers significantly, no matter how many weapons you fire out the door (especially because they'll probably either all stand clear when the door opens, or there'll be a small number of people blocking the door, limiting your targets substantially), which means you'd be lucky to get their numbers down to equal yours with it.
To sum up, its not going to work.
Have one person armed with a small weapon, preferably a Xp 15 at each door. Pile half the cots into a wall enclosing a corner (like a bunker) do the same in the opposite corner so it is diagonally opposite. put 3 people in each. arm the bunker guards with the CPS weapons. put everyone else lining the walls. the leader hides in a bunker and tells door # 1 guard to knock loudly on the door and yell as loud as she/ he can. then another person will open the door that is 90 degrees left from it. unless it is the one that the original ambush came from. if the doorway you opened is empty then send someone out if not, repel borders and close it. if he/she is okay then send 15-20 people out to hit the other side. then when the enemy is occupied open the door that you knocked on and fire out the door. silently count to three and yell "close!" (This will confuse the enemy. close open doors and open closed ones.) send out more people if the doors are empty. otherwise REPEL BORDERS!!!
Let me see if I can correctly sum that up: you plan is to try to call the enemies' attention to one side, then go out another side before going out the same their attention was previously called to, and then switching and going out all the other sides, with the exception of assuming a defensive intent on any door which turns out to already be guarded. There were some other helpful details I'm glad you included, but that's the basic outline.
Problems:
It is critical to notice these problems BEFORE they occur in a plan, because its much harder to correct them on the fly than beforehand.
As for the plan itself, you seem to be giving away the advantage of having a defensible position by scattering your forces outside -- and, of course, you are also allowing them to concentrate on one group at a time by your splitting method, greatly increasing the effect of their numerical advantage.
In your favor, the cots were well used (or would have been if you actually let your opponents to get close enough), there's no sense in wasting resources. However, other than that, I can see no significant advantages to your plan, other than it will hopefully slightly disorganize the enemy.
~Answer by Chris "Weasle" Biesele
"Weasel" is spelled "weasel".
W - E - A - S - E - L
I would first make a list of the weapons that will be
available when we get to the beach:
Squirt pistol x 40
CS 50 x 10
XP 15 x 10
XP 35 x 12
XP 40 x 15
XP 65 x 20
XP 105 x 3
XP 110 x 8
XXP 175 x 7
CPS 1000 x 2
CPS 1500 x 3
CPS 2500 x 2
I would distribute the weapons that are filled, one per person. Then I would try to escape by sending the people with XP 15s to distract everyone, then have them run around and try to join everyone else, who makes a break for it.
Somehow, I don't think 10 guys with 15s are going to distract over 40 attackers into letting the known rest of your force slip out. Sorry, the logistics of that without a better plan just lead me to believe that your chances are NOT good.
When I got to the beach, I would set the weapons up as
follows:
A. CPS 2500, XP 40, CS 50 x 1
B. CPS 2500, XP 40, XP 15 x1
C. CPS 1500, XP 65, CS 50 x 3
D. CPS 1000, XP 65, CS 50 x 3
E. XXP 175, XP 40 x 7
F. XP 110, XP 35 x 1
G. XP 110, CS 50 x3
H. XP 105, XP 35 x 3
I. XP 65, XP 40, XP 15 x 1
J. XP 65, XP 40 x5
K. XP 65, XP 35, XP 15 x8
plus 1 squirt pistol for everyone.
That means that the A, B, C's, D's, I, and K's will be trying to carry around 4 weapons at once. The E's, F, G's, H's, and J's only have 3 at once.
I don't know if you've realized this, but each person only has two arms, and most of the heavy weapons its hard to shoot with just one arm (and ALL of them its hard to pump with just one arm, barring the squirt pistols). That means that your heavy infantry is going to be less effective than if they ditched everything but their CPS and the squirt pistol for emergencies (with the possible exception that all of these newbies have explicitely trained long and hard to carry and use this many weapons at once), and your "light" infantry is going to be lugging around more material (in terms of volume) than I do when I consider myself to be "heavily armed" (but still slightly less than the most I've ever talked myself into thinking I could use, but that was an XXP 275 and XP 250 -- they had shoulder straps!).
To sum up, you'd be better off leaving most of that junk behind in the cabin.
Now I have 11 types of soldiers, with A being the most heavily armed and K the lightest. I would send out the A's, E's, F and G's to raid Cabin 1 and the B's, C's, D's, H's, I and J's to try to get Cabin 12 back. The K's would send 4 people to each operation.
~Nathan M G Hannon
That means you've got 16 people trying to take over and then defend what is probably now a nearly unoccupied base, and (estimating by subtraction) about 25 guys trying to take YOUR base back from more than 40 (which would now be DEFENDING). This does not seem to be an efficient use of resources -- especially given the enemies' tendency to make a full-scale assault, if they did try to take their own base back 16 people would probably be insufficient to defend it (they got you to run with your 40 people at YOUR base).
Are you TRYING to put the odds against you, or did you just not plan past the division of troops to specific tasks?
I would have people split into two groups, each having an equal amount of large weapons. forming arrowhead formations with the most powerful weapons on the front and sides. group one running out the front door the same time group two runs out the back door, both groups blasting away at anything that resembles a human. my people surround the other team in a pincer trap an drench 'em!
~jcool
The first and most glaringly obvious flaw I'd like to point out is that although an arrowhead formation might be a good idea, you NEVER put the heavier weapons on the outside of a formation without a much more specific plan explaining why you put them there. For example, you might use the heavier weapons as the head of the arrow to clear out the immediate area, then have them split off to the sides to let the lighter weapons to the front to attack. However, the standard attack plan is lighter weapons in front because they can dodge more effectively, and heavier weapons in back because they have a longer range.
Next, if you are surrounded, then sending out two forces from opposite doors does NOT get the enemy in a pincer attack. Each side would (if you were initially successful) control two opposite fourths of a circle surrounding the cabin - you'd still be in as much of a pincer attack as they would.
My prediction for this is that as your heavier weapons charged out the door, they'd be gunned down quickly by far superior numbers. After that, your advantage of superior firepower is all but gone and your opponents have superior number AND still have your surrounded -- does the name "General Custard" ring a bell?
Keep in mind that there are more than 40 of them and they know the only 4 conventional exits of the building -- that's at least 10 for each door, and even if some of them are aiming at the windows or other targets, that still leaves at least 3 people aimed at the door. Doors leading out of a building almost always swing outward, which means they'd definitely see that you were coming out before either side could fire, so even with the remaining surprise the one (or maybe two) people who could fit through the door at once couldn't hope to eliminate the enemies already to drench them.
And as if the door doesn't restrict your troop movements enough, once your guys are hit they have to sit quietly down and wait for the referee to find them, which makes it almost totally impossible to get out of the door while there are enemies guarding it.
You have no chance of breaking out. There's to many people. So pretend to surrender and have a few people walk out with 20's and 40's. Everyone else should try to slip around back real quick and ambush them.
~Anonymous
First of all, you don't have any 20s. Pay careful attention to the list of weapons.
If the person looking out the window was unable to see all the enemies, it stands to reason that you'd have a hard time sneaking out the back. Also, because the cabin should be fairly easy to defend, I don't think giving it up would be such a good idea - if you did succeed, the surviving enemy troops would probably fight their way through your lightly-armed decoys and fortify your cabin to avoid the destruction of their team - and, of course, if your plan didn't work, it wouldn't matter what they did.
Also, I am inclined to doubt both that you are allowed to surrender and that the enemy commander would accept your surrender if you gave it - and even if you're allowed to and your opponents accepted it, your soldiers would probably mutiny and fight. These people strike me as the sort of enthusiastic youths that fancy themselves war heroes and don't generally believe its possible to lose.
I would tell my men to just avoid any shots that somehow found there way into the cabin.because the people outside were going to get attacked by the other groups sometime
~Your Name Here
. . . . . what other groups would those be?
<<December 9, 2000>>
This is Xactly what happened to me once, DON'T DO ANYTHING they can't get in the doors the ref is going to VERY mad if they break a window, eventually Human instinct will make them leave, there people should be tired and our guys should me well rested giving us an edge, BUT we're down 1 man so the odds should be about even then we split into 4 groups:
Why, pray tell, will they be tired and your troops rested? It's not like they're DOING anything out there.
I should also point out that absolutely everyone playing the game, and probably the ref as well, is going to be extremely peeved with you for making everyone sit around and do nothing. The enemies will be taunting you, your troops will want to fight even if they're going to lose, and they may even go out and make a charge against your orders.
I also find it to be far from certain that they would leave. Where exactly would they go? They aren't going to disperse and go sit in corners with their heads between their knees because you don't want to play with them. If they go and do anything before some time limit expires, which seems far from certain, they would probably go back to their own base and fortify it.
let them chose the weapons, most likely they'll chose the 1 they handle best of course i get first pick i would take a CPS 1000.
Apparently, most of them have never handled any of the weapons before, so they'll most likely pick the one that looks biggest or coolest with total disregard for the optimal distribution of weapons.
#1,10 squirt pistols,3 XP 110's,7 XXP's 175; a.k.a. Sniper
#2,10 squirt pistols,1 xp 110, 3 XP 105's,6 XP 65's; a.k.a. Mobile
#3,10 squirt pistols,2 CPS 2500,3 CPS 1500,5 XP 110's a.k.a. Heavy
#4,10 squirt pistols,10 XP 65's, a.k.a. Ultra light
2.L bottles will be sent out as follows:
#1:2
#2:1
#3:6
#4:1
An interesting irony I just noticed is that the two-liter bottles are almost worthless, because there's a rule that states you can only refill at the beach. This means that, technically, you cannot refill a weapon from a two-liter bottle unless you are at the beach. But we'll just ignore Warwick's little mistake there . . .
we all walk to the base 4 file according to team:
1111
2222
3333
4444
You're going to make your men march in file to the enemy base? No scouting parties? No intelligent battle formations in case of ambush? No possible thought that they might not do exactly what you happen to want them to?
Sniper: should set up Sniping postions on whatever trees or
area you can find,
Mobile:Should have 2 of each group guard all for doors the other 2 will help escort heavy,
Heavy: the 2 mobiless and the XP 110's will help escort the CPS 2500's and the CPS 1500's
they will be posted at the doors the 65's will take pot shots;
I will make sure NO 1 leaves until they come out, eventually they will then we slowly eliminate them 1 by 1
-=Don't Stop Soakin=-
~Psyco
You seem to be awfully confident that, by waiting, you can always make your opponents do exactly what you wish they would do. You are going to wait, in a position of disadvantage, until they decide to switch roles with you. Then, you are going to wait until they slowly trickle out of the base in sufficiently small numbers and with sufficiently bad battle plans that your sleeping troops at the doors will blast them all "one by one" with no problems.
Now, while that could possibly happen, if your opponents are such idiots that you can do something like that, there such be a multitude of easier and quicker ways to win.
<<February 6, 2001>>
I would carefully look out the windows, see which position is the weakest. If they are out of range (And out of throwing distance of the water bottles) I would walk out the doors (With a CPS 2500 and a water bottle) very carefully (assuming they're still out of range) and charge briefly in and chuck the water bottles at clusters (I'm fairly strong, so I could easily out-range the squirt pistols, probably the XPs, and maybe the CPSs (If they have any). That would probably take out a few. I would repeat, then order an all-out charge leaving behind one CPS 2500, one CPS 1500, and a few medium rifles and almost all the squirt pistols; they're useless (the squirt pistols). If you're asking me why I would do this, it's according to my military philosophy: When on defense with superior weapons, strike their offense when they least expect it. This attack would probably eliminate almost all of them.
If they were in range to begin with, I would block up the windows with cots. I would then open the door and get my men out of the way. When they came charging in, I would soak them with a deadly crossfire. Otherwise, I would use the previous tactic with a lot more caution.
~Commander Max Von Bargen
First off, I don't think the camp supervisors would approve of throwing water bottles at people. That sounds like a liability risk, and it seems likely the referee would interfere.
Secondly, although I would believe you could outdistance pistols and probably CS weapons, it seems unlikely you could throw past the range of XP weapons, which are rated at approximately 35 feet. A full two-liter bottle of water would weigh about two kilograms (over four pounds), which isn't particularly heavy to carry, but is kind of a pain to throw. Furthermore, I don't think it would be very effective; not a lot of water would come out of the narrow neck of a two-liter bottle, and even if you could get it to go fairly far, I don't think you'd get enough airspeed to keep most of your targets from getting out of the way. And if you miscalculated and went a little too far before you threw it, and got hit, there goes your entire plan.
I'm also not clear on your reasons for leaving behind some of the water guns (besides the pistols). Finally, you seem very confident that your assault, against superior numbers, surrounded, will not only succeed, but succeed by a wide margin. This seems a bit overly optimistic.
I do like the idea of letting the enemy in through one doorway and setting up a crossfire. However, I'm still a bit skeptical about whether they'd make such an obvious mistake. Ev