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fandomhigh2009-10-21 02:03 am
furious-maximus.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2009-10-21 02:03 am
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Infantry Tactics [Wednesday Second Period]
"Welcome back," Max grinned one of those grins that his students had probably learned to take as a bad sign. "Today we begin our unit on irregular infantry tactics. Today's just going to be an introduction to the concept, so the course today is a bit tougher than usual so that no one gets bored." Max was even nice enough to give everyone a couple of minutes to get used to the hard pace he was setting across the rocky uphill terrain.
"By now you all understand that the regular infantry is all about the system. You learn how to fight in a very specific way so that you can fight alongside anyone else who knows what you do. This makes unit construction flexible and tactics can be applied to any unit with the proper training. Irregular forces are basically the opposite paradigm. They're highly individual units which don't fit into any regular part of the military structure." The group reached a relatively flat area so Max turned around to trot backwards in order to keep an eye on his students.
"That means that irregulars make up a very small portion of any military force. For most tasks you want to know exactly what your forces can do, but every so often you need something... irregular done. Different militaries consider different groups to be irregular. For instance, in Aleran legions light cavalry are irregular forces. But there are some groups that are irregular pretty much all the time: scouts, saboteurs, assassination teams."
"Armies keep irregulars around because while most of the work an army does is predictable, sometimes you need something different done. You need people who can get in and out without being noticed, or a group that's specialized for speed or power or stealth. Whatever."
Max looked over his students critically. "For this reason, where a regular unit relies on knowledge of a specific set of rules, an irregular unit relies on knowledge of each other. Because your tasks will be unpredictable, so will the skills you need. You never know when the fact that some member of your squad is an excellent cook will be incredibly important, or that someone knows how to arrange flowers, or play the flute. The obviouis skills matter, of course, like sword skills or hand-to-hand abilities, but it's important to recognize that anything could turn out to be useful."
"And so, we'll be doing that thing that thing that most of you did in your other classes at the beginning of the semester. Everyone's going to talk a bit about the skills they have. You're encouraged to ask questions of one another, to get a better feel for what each of you can do. It's going to matter as the semester progresses." And no, they weren't going to take a nice breather before they had to start talking.
"By now you all understand that the regular infantry is all about the system. You learn how to fight in a very specific way so that you can fight alongside anyone else who knows what you do. This makes unit construction flexible and tactics can be applied to any unit with the proper training. Irregular forces are basically the opposite paradigm. They're highly individual units which don't fit into any regular part of the military structure." The group reached a relatively flat area so Max turned around to trot backwards in order to keep an eye on his students.
"That means that irregulars make up a very small portion of any military force. For most tasks you want to know exactly what your forces can do, but every so often you need something... irregular done. Different militaries consider different groups to be irregular. For instance, in Aleran legions light cavalry are irregular forces. But there are some groups that are irregular pretty much all the time: scouts, saboteurs, assassination teams."
"Armies keep irregulars around because while most of the work an army does is predictable, sometimes you need something different done. You need people who can get in and out without being noticed, or a group that's specialized for speed or power or stealth. Whatever."
Max looked over his students critically. "For this reason, where a regular unit relies on knowledge of a specific set of rules, an irregular unit relies on knowledge of each other. Because your tasks will be unpredictable, so will the skills you need. You never know when the fact that some member of your squad is an excellent cook will be incredibly important, or that someone knows how to arrange flowers, or play the flute. The obviouis skills matter, of course, like sword skills or hand-to-hand abilities, but it's important to recognize that anything could turn out to be useful."
"And so, we'll be doing that thing that thing that most of you did in your other classes at the beginning of the semester. Everyone's going to talk a bit about the skills they have. You're encouraged to ask questions of one another, to get a better feel for what each of you can do. It's going to matter as the semester progresses." And no, they weren't going to take a nice breather before they had to start talking.
Re: Talk about yourselves
"But most of the things around here are slow and sleepy; like babies that haven't woken up yet."
Anemone was best with things from her own world, machines that had the compac drive in them, and let her hear their dreams, but she could also convince the toaster not to burn her bagels when she was running late in the mornings. Sometimes. It had bad wiring, and it was cranky.
Re: Talk about yourselves