Risk and Gain
"Better a live coward than a dead idiot." ~Anonymous
<<May 30, 1998>
You shake your head to get some of the loose water to drip off, muttering under your breath. Not exactly the morale-boosting operation your superior had hoped . . . not that you ever thought it would be . . .
"Hey, you cowards!" one of the defenders yells at your straggling forces as they take cover, "What's the matter? Is three of us two much for you ten? Maybe we should accidentally drop our heavy guns to give you a chance! . . ."
You turn away, disgusted. Just exaclty how could it be so hard to get up there and grab that flag? It wasn't exactly if there would be enough pursuers to stop you once you had it.
The battle runs through your head again, mocking you. There was a wooden platform suspended between two trees, with a rope to allow somone to climb up the branchless trunk at each end . . . of course, you couldn't hold a weapon while you were climbing, which meant you had to take down the enemies before you could have a chance of making it up to get the flag.
You had, of course, had your forces sprint under the platform to shoot up through the cracks between the boards . . . but they had laid a plastic covering on the floor to prevent just that, apparently weighted in the corners to prevent it from being pushed up by your higher-powered weapons. And just to make things worse, they had armed themselves with several large buckets of water balloons which they started throwing beneath their make-shift base to drench those below, eliminating that safe haven.
You still wouldn't have thought it would be hard to shoot three people down, but they had used large pieces of cardboard proped up against the railing (and apparently supported from behind) to form a shield around the perimeter, with only small windows to allow them to shoot down. Unfortunately, they could duck behind their shields so quickly that someone would not only need to be close, but also catch them off-guard to hit them.
Then you had most of your forces attack from one side, trying to have a single person sneak up behind and climb up, grab the flag, and drop it down before he could be stopped. They poured a bucket of water down on him as he was climbing.
To be honest, you had never seen such an impressive arsenal for such a small force. They had already dropped at least 20 water balloons, and had fired from at least a CPS 1000, CPS 3000, XXP 275, 300, XP 110, and an XP 70 . . . probably more, but you couldn't tell for sure; they had a bunch of weapons lying on the floor behind their shields.
You turn back to your forces. Your nine followers were armed with a CPS 2500, two CPS 1500s, two XXP 275s, three XP 250s, and an XP 110 identical to the one you yourself were carrying. You had brought a bucket of waterballoons, but as you looked at it now you could only see three bobbing on the surface of the water used to prevent thermal expansion from popping them . . . and, of course, to keep them cool enough to pick up. Four of your men had already sat down despite the less-than-inviting duff- and weed-covered ground. As a droplet of water falls from your hair into your eye, it was hard to believe that three people had already come up to you and commented on how dry you managed to stay.You turn and look back at the single defender visible through the gap in the shielding and the fort which he protects.
A sudden noise causes you to spin around just in time to see a flicker of red as it vanishes into the woods behind you. You note that all your comrades are looking the same direction as you hear a few muffled footsteps moving away through the woods. You looked around again. All your people and equipment accounted for.
You feel your stomach knot as you peer through the underbrush into the woods again, but not a trace remains of your alleged visitor. If you get back from this assignment, you're going to have a little talk with whoever's idea it was . . . . .
With a sudden sense of urgency, you make your battle plans . . .
This is an archive file, available for viewing only. No additions will be made to this page.
First of all what about your home base? Those 7 guys are probably stealin what you have at base! Considering it would be even number of people there are 7 guys out there prowlin around!
If you had a superior to send you on this assignment (see first paragraph), then your team probably has well over ten people, and it's not your job to worry about that.
I would send to people to figure out what those guys were doing with a XP110 and a XXP275 to report back in 25 minutes once they get back then attack from 3 sides there are only three people that can't defend 4 sides with draw them away from one side with a rope hopefully it will succeed if not its back to the drawing boards!
~Troy Shaddox
25 minutes is a REALLY LONG TIME!!!!!!
And, of course, three sides aren't necessarily accessible if there are trees in the way, and I think that if they dumped a bucket of water on the head of the FIRST guy who tried to sneak up the rope from behind . . .
Cool, I saw a movie about the Civil War (Glory) that was pretty much the same thing. Division after division of Union Soldiers were waisted trying to take a Southern Fort. The fort turned out to be so well defended that it was never taken, they didn't give up until the Confederates surrendered.
Really? I think my US History teacher just showed that movie in class . . .
NO, this was NOT based on the movie, so don't ask!
So, I don't think you would have much chance of winning this battle, either. But since I'm there I might as well try. Sounds like it's time for a blockade. I'd have everyone fall back and search for the guy we saw behind us. Or I saw. Or however many people saw him. He'd probably have more guys with him. We'd round all those guys up, take their guns, and by then we'd probably have enough guns to wait out the defenders. I'd have a few guys, one or two, attack every now and then until they had no water.
You make it sound simple to have a somewhat small, demoralized unit round up and unknown number of alleged opponents in a thick forest!
Also, I don't think that YOU'RE going to have enough water to outlast them, even with a small quantity of reinforcements--in addition, you (and they) would probably waste more water in the engagement than you could gain!
I know what you're thinking. What if we can't find the guys behind us, or what if we still don't have enough supplies to carry it out? In that case, something much more daring would be needed. I'm going to talk in third person now because it will be easier on me. Everyone takes a turn trying to climb the rope while everyone else tries to cover him. When one person goes down, another guy goes up. Kind of an itsy-bitsy spider thing. If everyone goes, the whole line starts over again.
Sounds like a REALLY good way to get everyone blinded, but they just MIGHT be willing to do it if its really hot out.
If that still doesn't work, everyone shoots straight up and tries to nail the base ballistic-style.
When all tactics fail, you use the brute-force, ballistic approach? Remind me to give you the "advantage" if I ever have to fight you . . .
If that doesn't work, the attackers head alllll the way back to base, get some reinforcements and some rope, head back, and climb up into the base from several different places.
So, your plan is to try to throw ropes up to the opponents and hope that they'll tie them on instead of tossing them back down and blasting you . . . ?
And of course there is the possibility that the attackers can't do that. In which case, they go allllll the way back to base and give up. No sense waisting time and energy on things that are impossible.
~Matt Lindsay
If this is impossible, then you just DID waste a LOT of time, energy, resources, and morale on the impossible by using that test.
DEVISE A BETTER TEST!
My men and I hide in the woods, and we hide and hide and hide. Then hide some more. Eventually those three guys will get bored and send someone out to investigate. BAM, holmey dies! Soaking him we run back to his base, which is now one man short. Climbing up the ropes on both sides while our men below lay down suppression fire, keeping those smegs' heads down. This should buy enough time for my men to get up there and finish off the weakened enemy. Did I mention we'd grab the flag somewhere in there? Somethin like that.
~Fat Mike
Hm, if they were assigned to protect the base, and they were waiting there before they got there . . . . . then why exactly would they send someone down to investigate?
First, I'd send 2 guys with xp250's and the one other guy with the xp110 after that alleged visitor, having the 6 others stay with me. Then I'd take 1 of the 3 water baloons and give it to the best marksman I had and have him lob that baloon at the side of one of the trees that was facing the inside of the makshift fort. I'd tell him to aim it about 2 feet above the height if the shields. We'd have 3 chances at this, and with the best marksman on my team, 3 should be enough. Just in case we did run out of water baloons, well I'd send 3 good catchers in under the fort. When my opponents started throwing water baloons at them, they'd catch at least 1 of them and and bring it back back to me and the marksman of the group. We'd keep trying that until our opponents got drenched, or until they ran out of water baloons (they gotta run out some time), or until my forces were down to 6 men (3 are off after that runaway guy). Then I'd leave a trusted team mate in charge of the opperation until I returned from looking for the 3 men I sent off before. When (if) I find the 3 men I sent off they should have drenched their target (having that much firepower). And when we return, (assuming that we haven't defeated the opponents in the fort) we'd make one of the cardboard shields so weak after hitting it with our heaviest weapons so many times. After that, I'd find a long enough stick to be able to reach and rip the cardboard shield to shreds, the men inside. At that point they'd start using everything they had left on us till they were out. I'd expect 2 or 3 of my men to be defeated after that, and I'd expect them to be drenched. Then I'd just climb up and get their flag and win the battle.
~King Cobra (Erik Bengtson)
Well, I don't think that breaking a water balloon above their fort is really going to soak them enough to be of any use, and I don't think that even the catches would be of much use, they might get a few balloons, but would wind up soaked in the process, and if the guys see that they're not trying to do anything but catch them, they'll probably stop throwing them.
Also, there could quite possibly be several opponents in the woods, three people (however heavily armed) could easily be defeated, and if they DON'T come back, you can assume they aren't the victors, or at least not by a wide margin.
The only idea I see as having any potential value is to
soak and rip their shields, but this would require a LOT of time, and it could be
difficult to get the stick up there without them interfering . . . like, pumping so much
water into your eyes that you can't even see the shield to rip anymore, or physically
putting their hand or a gun out to push it away, or even throwing and popping water
balloons on it to splatter down all over you . . .
or they could, of course, just move the shield out of harm's way until you put down the
stick ;)
Okay,
I can make the following reasonable assumptions:
-Some of the attackers are unarmed
WHAT!?
You've got ten weapons . . . and ten attackers . . . why would a single one of them be unarmed already?
-There is not a refill source at the tree base even though there will probably be refill bottles.
Assuming you all have about the same amount of income you hould have all about the same amount of guns.
That's never a safe assumption to make, nor is it safe to assume that all resources would be spent on guns; or even that everyone is using their own gun, since you seem to be part of a very large team with a command structure.
Now this means that with the enemy having alot of guns in their treetop defences they will have less on the ground.
BUT that does NOT mean that they will have UNarmed troops on the ground.
The best thing to do is to shift the odds in your favor. If you could charge the base all at once and fire from all your weapons they would either be forced to duck and hide in their mess which would give you a bit of extra firing time or they would get shot. If they are shot the trouble is over and you can get the flag. But if they dont get shot in your first attack I suggest the following:
1. Ignore the flag. This will confuse the enemy and make them wonder what you are doing.
They're up high in a tree fort with shields, weapons, and the flag . . . . how on earth could they tell the difference unless you were capable of taking the flag anyway?
2. Untie the rope from the tree and use it like a lasso to remove their sheilding and possibly the weapons supply.
HELLO!? In order to climb up the rope, it must be secured from the TOP, making it very hard for YOU to detach it--and impossible to reattach it and climb up afterward!
3. Fire your weapons and soak them.
Congratulations, you've discovered the basic mechanics of a water fight!
4. Then take the flag without a problem.
Good LUCK!
5. Take their weapons and toss them in a bush.
Somehow, I think that once you've got the flag, wresting their weapons from them and throwing them in the bushes would be the LAST thing you should be worrying about!
~Thomas Warwick
Okay, well for the time being, I'm going to assume that there's no time limit in this game. Because of this, you main objective should be to level the playing field psychologically. 10 men do no good if those men don't want to win. But it's more difficult to raise their self-esteem level in 5 minutes than it is to lower the opponents. That's what this plan is based around; making the opponent insecure and then throwing everything you have against them.
I can tell this is going to be a very wearying evaluation . . .
Because of this, your first priority should be to secure you makeshift camp.
Uh, camp? Who said anything about a camp? What's there to make a camp with? You've got ten soldiers (counting yourself), each of which is holding exactly one weapon, and you've got a bucket of water with three water balloons in it.
Move it about 5 feet into the woods, in a semi-cleared area from where neither of you can attack each other. Once this is accomplished, send out two soldiers, armed with a 250 and a 110 to search for a forest scout. The scout would probably be carrying a 105/110 as it is a good gun for such a scout (you can also determine he had a small gun from the fact that he/she wasn't slowed down by weight, which you know because they were moving to fast for you to visually track. Don't have the soldiers come back until the scout has been eliminated - he'd only get in your way and possibly wreck the plan. The soldiers you send should be medium size and relatively fast.
*Note: I'm assuming this scout wasn't part of a larger force. If so, you must abort this plan and start from scratch the minute you see the force.
I hate it when people make (unjustified) assumptions. You do not know this was a scout at all, and you do not know how fast he was moving unless your ear was good enough to gauge based on the footsteps you heard. If you only saw a flicker of red, he was either moving a good fraction of the speed of light, he's far away, or the woods are really dense (which would make quick movement impossible). I intended for it to be a combination of the later two (the woods are fairly dense and he isn't real close, but definitely close enough to report details about you).
This leaves you with 8 soldiers (including yourself) and 1 2500, 2 1500s, 2 275s, and 2 250s. This is some awesome artillery! Send 3 soldiers to the opposite side of the opponents base with a 2500, and both 275s. These should be your strongest forces as they'll have the biggest guns and therefore will take the biggest beating (it's been my experience that people like to get rid of things doing them the most damage). After a pep talk to your team, do hit and run attacks from side 1 (with 5 men - remember this) and an artillery attack from the woods of the other side (now referred to as side 2). The objective with this should be for them (the enemy) to waste some of their water, while you still have about half of yours left. Then send in your smallest, quickest, and most agile man to climb the rope and sabotage the plastic.
Even if you could get them to use more water than you (which would be difficult considering there's only three of them and eight of you), its still doubtful you could get a man up, and even if he did make it up it'd be more productive to have him throw the flag down rather than try and sabotage the plastic which undoubtedly has stuff on it (people, guns, buckets of water, etc.)
Suddenly, retreat everyone to their applicable sides. Ater 1 minute (so you can regain your composure),
Composure is the VERY LEAST of your concerns!
send in 2 soldiers underneath the support bridge with your remaining 250s. By now the enemy should have sort of repaired the plastic, as the solider you sent in only ripped it a little around the edges. This is how the battle field should looks
| Side One | The Enemies' Fort | Side Two | Off in the Distance |
| CPS 1500 | XP 250 | CPS 2500 | XP 250 |
| CPS 1500 | XP 250 | XXP 275 | XP 110 |
| XP 110 | XXP 275 |
I put that into a table for you.
Do you intend to get those troops under the base UNNOTICED? Getting them under there isn't hard, but they'll undoubtedly be pummeled on their way and once they're there.
Well, there's 2 things that are bugging the enemy right now. #1 - they're starting to doubt their own judgement because you've now used their need to repair their fort against them which is explained in #2 - there are 2 of your soldiers right under your base and there's nothing they can do about it!
No one likes to be in that position. They've repaired their base so that it's impossible for them to shoot the attackers. So now they have nothing to do but wait while their morale sinks and your's rises.
Um, as I recall, I noted in the POW that last time you moved soldiers under their base they threw a multitude of water balloons down over the edge and drenched them.
Now, one last piece of psychological warfare: you wait. That's it. I'd say for about 5 minutes. During this time, the opponent is going to get even more antsy and anxious.
Like I said, they're just going to splatter your troops with water balloons, which is going to have the exact opposite effect: their morale will rise and your troops will lose faith in your abilities to command because you're letting your troops be slaughtered.
Now that the enemy is low on confidence and morale, you must start to fight the physical battle. Because the opponent is in a tree base (well, not really, but you know what I mean) you can simply run them even lower on water. Do quick attacks without guns: simply run around their base for a while. With any luck, your men shouldn't get to damaged, and, unless they have a water cooler of something, they've (the opponant) got very little water left, but still enough to fight you off.
You might be surprised. Consider the following:
Next, chose the strongest soldiers to be loaded up as a commando using the 1500 and 275 (if you'd prefer to use only one gun, that will also work), with support from the other guns. He climbs the rope and does what damage he can - but is willingly captured. Why? Because they now have one of the enemy right in their base. Even though this soldier is without a gun, they still need to make sure he doesn't do anything so that he can't pick up a gun and start firing. If they won't let him up, tell the soldier to say that he hates his team and he surrenders, but refuses to defect.
Note: If you want, you can use the balloons as cover for the soldier here.
My best guess is that they STILL won't let him up, they're likely to blast his mouth full of water before he can get a single word out and dump another bucket of water on his head.
You've also got one major problem: a good commander would NOT have sent someone who hated his team on a commando mission, so for the second excuse to work he'd have had to ESCAPE. If he's escaping with two powerful weapons of yours, then you'd be firing at HIM, not COVERING him.
Okay, now, do this again. You heard me right. Make it so they have two enemies they need to cover. So it's now 1 opponent firing against 6 aggressors. If they don't realize this is hopeless now, as you can just send up more men, send up one more. This should work, and if it doesn't your soldiers can always start taking guns.
The chances of them letting up ONE soldier is marginal, the chances of two coming up like that in the same way should trigger a multitude of red flags in all three of them, and the chances of them letting him up without binding at least the hands of both soldiers is almost totally nonexistent.
Getting THREE soldiers up there like that, without them all being tied up to the point of having no chance whatsoever to cause trouble, is well nigh impossible.
I realize there's probably a couple of faults that need to be worked out, and I suggest modifying this plan to fit your own battle needs.
As well, I get the feeling I've used up a little too much water here, so you may want to either cut-down on water consumption, or send someone back to home base to fetch more. Also, those soldiers you sent back should return sometime during this and you can then factor them into to your forces.
And I just realized I forgot to factor in the opponents shields, so I'm going to just say that you'll have to find away around them (yeah, right). It's also possible that the enemy will simply kill soldiers as they surrender, so your going to have to make this look very convincing - have these soldiers get mad at you the commander and even blast you a bit.
~Bryce Kustra
No good if you're giving them cover fire, all my previous arguments stand, and I can't imagine how someone could escape from the rest of your forces after blasting you unless you obviously let him.
why can't they hit the platform?the xp110 can go 37feet!!
Yes, you seem to like that statistic. Are you getting this P.O.W. confused with #10 by any chance? I don't think I said anywhere that you couldn't hit the platform due to ranged difficulties, just because they've got shields . . . .
first i would give two guys a 275 and 250 and send them to search for the guy in the woods.
Why does everyone assume it was "a guy" and not "a force" or "a legion". For all you know there's 25 guys out there setting up an attack against you, and everyone assumes there's one lightly-armed scout!
and then have every one of my guys diiseper into the woods and come back circling the platform and have one guy (unarmed) try to climb up the tree while the other people try to hold off the people in the platform by throwing the waterballons and using the left over water in the bucket to refill any gun that needs refilling and if any of them don't need refilling throw the bucket of water onto the platform trying to get them wet and if none of that don't work head back to the base and make a new plan (and know what weapons you're up against!!!).
~nathan harding
Uh, that sounds almost EXACTLY the same as one of the techniques I stated you'd already tried in the text, except that you're planning on using your three water balloons instead of weapons' fire. THEY HAVE SHIELDS. The only way in which you could lay down cover fire is to shoot up from the direction you're covering, which would cause your own man to be hit as he climbed up.
<<August 30, 2000>>
go up to the rope have my men cover me grab the rope and without deataching it use it as a wip to take off the armour pull the rope down cimb up and claim victory
~mystic-gun
There is one critical point which you fail to address, and that is how you get up the rope in the first place. This, of course, is the entire problem. Once you have a man safely up into the tree fort, you can pretty much assume that you'll win. The goal is to figure out how you'll get him up there, which isn't addressed in your solution at all.
<<December 9, 2000>>
You say they have a Few Gaps (3)
You mean the arrow loops? Yes, of course there are holes for them to fire through, it would be difficult to defend the base with blind indirect fire. However, I did not say that the number of holes was three. Three would probably be a good minimum value, since there are 3 people, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were five or six, to allow them to fire at different angles.
Take the CPS 2500 and the 2 CPS 1500's and the 2 XXP 275 and the 3 XP 250 tell them to rotate Blasting thru the gaps EVEN if there not there which will prevent them from coming out take your fastest soldier give hhim the 110 tell him to run to the base climb up the rope and take the flag pick back up the 110 and RUN.
Well, constant firing at all the gaps seems like a good way to use up a lot of water, but you're not proposing that it be done for a very long time, so that may be OK.
The trick is this: one of said gaps is certainly where your fastest soldier is going to gain entry to the base. That is, he has to climb through one of the gaps to get in.
Now, I assume your troops will stop firing through the gap while he does so, but even if they don't, his body will be blocking the gap and no more water will be pouring into the base. This gives the defenders a window of opportunity during which time they must notice that there is no water being shot in through the window (and/or that there is an enemy trying to climb through), and then either block his entry or get the flag out of his reach before he can take it.
In doing this, he is unarmed (if he dropped his weapon before climbing, which seems to be the only option) and can get no fire support from his allies. This means that in the likely event that he is noticed, he is alone and unarmed against three heavily-armed defenders. It seems unlikely that he would succeed in such a scenario, and your plan hinges upon his success.
(by the way you said cardboard proped against the railings wouldn't be soggy and then easy to penatrate?)
~Psyco
Because the cardboard is more or less vertical (probably slanted inward towards the bottom), there will not be a significant amount of water remaining on the surface (that is, water would splatter off, not stay in a little puddle). If this is the case, and the cardboard is of decent thickness, it would take a very long time and quite a bit of water to punch through.
But if you disagree, you can test this by getting a good-sized piece of cardboard, setting it up against a wall, and shooting at it (make sure it doesn't fall over). See how quickly it disintegrates.