Dangerous Prey
" . . . And if you prey were armed, instead of helpless? If you didn't have an army to support you? Would you still continue the hunt? . . . You are superior to no one! When the [enemy] army invades, remember my words." ~A Hirogun (Star Trek: Voyager)
<<July 25, 1998>>
You look down from your pearch atop the hill, grinning with anticipation. Finally--you had them trapped and outnumbered. There was no escape this time.
Your executive officer approaches you from behind. "Sir, how shall we finish them?"
You turn your head slightly. "We must determine the way which will have the lowest cost. We have other battles yet to fight this day."
"Of course, sir."
You think about the situation. In theory, the easiest technique would be to bombard them from the very hill you now stood on, but they had come up with the infuriatingly simply idea of setting up a beach umbrella. You liked to avoid a direct "frontal" assault whenever possible, especially when the enemy was fortified like this (make-shift barricade in all directions of some logs, piled about 3 feet high), but you weren't sure what other options you had.
You easily overpowered them, but they had gotten themeselves out of a lot of tough situations, and they were still far from helpless -- each of the five carried a CPS 3000, nearly fully-loaded; and on top of that they had apparently brought several gallon milk jugs in with them (filled with only water, of course).
You look over your own assets . . . including yourself and your XO, there are a total of 12 people. You had 4 CPS 2500s, 4 CPS 1500s, 4 XP 250s, 4 XP 110s, and four 2-liter bottles (plus a funnel, and a backpack to carry it all) -- although your water requirements were probably no problem; if this was prolonged there was a stream which could be used to refill about 5 minutes burdened run from here.
You gaze out across the terrain. Although the hill you stand on (which is some 55 feet away from the enemies' location and about 20 feet high) was utterly devoid of vegetation (rock with only a thin dusting of soil), the same could not be said for your surroundings. Your targets had chosen a small clearing to establish their temporary stronghold in (which extends about 5 yards from the outside of their barricade in each direction), but outside of that there was some sparse forest--about 1 tree in each square meter--which extends between 20 and 50 feet away from the clearing, depending on which direction you go. On the far side, a path meandered along the border of the trees, which represented the boundary (you can go on the path, just ont beyond it).
You had two teams of four soldiers each stationed about 100 degrees around from your position in either direction, each with a 2500, a 1500, a 250, and a 110. The rest of the equipment was with you on your peak. Two-way radios (crudely termed "walkie-talkies") allowed you communication with the other two groups; your superiors had provided you with intelligence which indicated that your opponents would have no such devices, preventing that communication channel from being tapped.
You turn your attention to the trees themselves . . . . . they were certainly strong enough to support a person's weight on all but the highest boughs, but getting up was easier said than done. Looking around, you can see that there are a few trees with branches lower down, but most of them don't have branches within 10 feet of the ground. Most of the "lower" (within about 15 feet of ground) branches could support the weight of a human as much as 2 feet away from the trunk, provided he was VERY careful.
Carefully considering your options and with no rush (which is nice for once), you begin planning your course of action . . . . .
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Thomas Warwick's Famous Solution to routing a group of foes:
First I would assess each weapon and ensure that they are all fully pumped and operational. Also I beg to differ about being outgunned. A well designed fort can add an advantage to a battle giving them 5 or 6 times the normal power and defensive abilities than if they use it correctly. After I had ensured that each weapon in my group was fully pressureized I would covertly contact the other 2 groups using my walkie talkie and arrange for them to send their 2 CPS weapons to my group sending the 4 XP 250's (2 to each group.) back with thier delivery person. That gives my group 6 CPS 2500's and 6 CPS 1500's and 4 XP 110's. Each other group would have 3 XP 250's and an XP 110. Because an XP 110 is alot more efficent at using water than a CPS weapon I would take a CPS 2500 and give the rest of the weapons to the other troops. (I have no plan to fire any water.) After that I would inform the other 2 teams to pressurise their weapons and charge the enemy base firing no more than 3 times each then retreating. (While my group remained on the hill.) (This should result in the enemy being surprised and attacking them.) Then while the enemy retaliated I could have my large group rush forward firing while ripping apart their fort (A battering ram would be a good idea here except that there isn't anything to use.) We would be able to easily take their fort when they were being rushed by 3 sides and were outnumbered. If nescarry the CPS armed troops could fire their weapons up to 2 times.
~Thomas Warwick
Somehow, I doubt that your first strikes from either side will have any effect -- a few blasts from either side and a retreat isn't going to affect five fortified CPS 3000 troops much.
As for your weapons movement, I don't think it'll have that much impact in a simultaneous attack, except of course for the fact that you'll be unable to use every CPS weapon. By the way, I'm not sure exactly where you messed up, but you made a mistake -- no matter how you move them around, you can't use 4 XP 250s to give 3 each to two groups; you also only have four 2500s and 4 1500s, not six of each (if you re-read the POW you'll see your total assets were four each of 2500s, 1500s, 250s, and 110s).
But getting to the point, the problem with a 3-prong simultaneous attack on the base is that they're ready for attacks from every side, and they're ready for them with CPS 3000s -- in other words, your troops will probably take quite a beating getting close enough to hit them accurately because they're fortified.
Concidering the enemies' position and the trees I would have done the following:
Send out 4 people with xp 110s and put them in a tree behind the enemy encampment (Behind from "my" viewpoint on the hill) one person per tree in a spread of at least 10 feet between persons.
Prepare a charge squad of 6 people (Leaving "Me" and XO to observe) carrying 2 xp 250s and 4 cps 2500s they will spread and attack in an attempt to make the enemy flee twords the tree snipers who would pick them off.
If the enemies did NOT flee then they would be distracted and the tree snipers would climb down, and charge from behind.
~CSB (Weasel of 1999 award winner)
Save your XP 110-armed "snipers" the trouble of climbing up and down and just have them charge to begin with -- once your five heavily-armed foes have that much equipment down there and are that fortified, its virtually guaranteed that they wouldn't flee if they saw 200 CPS-armed troops charging from one side but knew for some reason that they wouldn't make it there for another 20 minutes.
Second of all, you're overrating your own importance by far. Someone who comes up with a plan for this that can be fully explained in 3 sentences shouldn't have any problems suffering from delusions of grandeur, so I'm sure you know that at best you are slightly more important than any other single soldier on the attack team. In short, the commander of almost any army is better only for his experience and tactical skill, so its almost never tactically sound for him to stand on the sidelines during the battle -- there's plenty of guns, GET IN THERE AND HELP!!!
Next, if you're going to use "snipers," you should equip them with CPS weapons if possible -- they're much more appropriate to the task. The range and water velocity of an XP 110 makes it impractical here.
And finally, stop putting quotes around pronouns referring to yourself. Its very distracting, and because your opponents aren't going to read your plan there's no advantage to that.