Mass Combat: Militray Tactics Old and New!
- Thread starter Leopold
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Thank you, optimizer. I only presented excerpts that seemed concrete enough to belong in a set of mass-combat rules. In many ways, those are the worst bits of advice, since they're more closely tied to ancient Chinese warfare, but they're appropriate for, say, a mass-combat D&D supplement.Thanks for the Sun Tzu excerpts. It is indeed interesting and adds to this discussion.
After all, how would you write rules reflecting general advice like "All warfare is based on deception"? Or metaphorical statements like "Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons"?
CRG
First Post
A good half of these are decent bits of strategic advice...but without specific rules that become clearly obvious. Again, Sun Tzu is known for not only being brilliant in some ways but also for collecting the wisdom / experience / lessons-learned of previous generals, etc.
On a side note, I have the audio book. I forget who reads it, but it makes for nifty long-trip listening.
On a side note, I have the audio book. I forget who reads it, but it makes for nifty long-trip listening.
This reminds me of one of Bruce Lee's famous interviews. Speaking with his surprisingly thick Chinese accent, he gives some Sun-Tzu-esque pearls of wisdom: "Bee laik watah." I can see some company putting out whole audio book like that, with a terrible Fu-Manchu-accented narrator. It might kill me.
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CRG
First Post
Heh. "Chicken soup for the 5-deadly venoms". Not a title you're bound to see this christmas, but one I'd buy.
What's funny is that Bruce Lee, given time, eventually recanted on all of his "be like water" and "way of the intercepting fist" ideas and eventually became jaded that most people thought he had some sort of super-secret and really, he thought he had hard-work, intense training, a broad study of many different martial styles, physics and common sense. Go figure.
What's funny is that Bruce Lee, given time, eventually recanted on all of his "be like water" and "way of the intercepting fist" ideas and eventually became jaded that most people thought he had some sort of super-secret and really, he thought he had hard-work, intense training, a broad study of many different martial styles, physics and common sense. Go figure.
Sun Tzu actually devotes an entire chapter to fire. It's that important!
From XII. THE ATTACK BY FIRE:
1. Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking
with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp;
the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn
baggage trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines;
the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.
5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared
to meet five possible developments:
6. (1) When fire breaks out inside to enemy's camp,
respond at once with an attack from without.
7. (2) If there is an outbreak of fire, but the enemy's
soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not attack.
8. (3) When the force of the flames has reached its height,
follow it up with an attack, if that is practicable;
if not, stay where you are.
9. (4) If it is possible to make an assault with fire
from without, do not wait for it to break out within,
but deliver your attack at a favorable moment.
10. (5) When you start a fire, be to windward of it.
Do not attack from the leeward.
This chapter on fire veers off in another direction though:
17. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not
your troops unless there is something to be gained;
fight not unless the position is critical.
18. No ruler should put troops into the field merely
to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight
a battle simply out of pique.
19. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move;
if not, stay where you are.
Oh, and a great example of magic contradicting sound real-world advice:
21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can
never come again into being; nor can the dead ever
be brought back to life.
Thus spake Sun Tzu.
From XII. THE ATTACK BY FIRE:
1. Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking
with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp;
the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn
baggage trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines;
the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.
5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared
to meet five possible developments:
6. (1) When fire breaks out inside to enemy's camp,
respond at once with an attack from without.
7. (2) If there is an outbreak of fire, but the enemy's
soldiers remain quiet, bide your time and do not attack.
8. (3) When the force of the flames has reached its height,
follow it up with an attack, if that is practicable;
if not, stay where you are.
9. (4) If it is possible to make an assault with fire
from without, do not wait for it to break out within,
but deliver your attack at a favorable moment.
10. (5) When you start a fire, be to windward of it.
Do not attack from the leeward.
This chapter on fire veers off in another direction though:
17. Move not unless you see an advantage; use not
your troops unless there is something to be gained;
fight not unless the position is critical.
18. No ruler should put troops into the field merely
to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight
a battle simply out of pique.
19. If it is to your advantage, make a forward move;
if not, stay where you are.
Oh, and a great example of magic contradicting sound real-world advice:
21. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can
never come again into being; nor can the dead ever
be brought back to life.
Thus spake Sun Tzu.
From XIII. THE USE OF SPIES:
1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand
men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss
on the people and a drain on the resources of the State.
The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces
of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad,
and men will drop down exhausted on the highways.
As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded
in their labor.
2. Hostile armies may face each other for years,
striving for the victory which is decided in a single day.
This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's
condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred
ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height
of inhumanity.
5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits;
it cannot be obtained inductively from experience,
nor by any deductive calculation.
6. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only
be obtained from other men.
A daily expenditure of a thousand ounces of silver! Wow. I enjoyed yet another conflict between reality and D&D: "Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits..."
1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand
men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss
on the people and a drain on the resources of the State.
The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces
of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad,
and men will drop down exhausted on the highways.
As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded
in their labor.
2. Hostile armies may face each other for years,
striving for the victory which is decided in a single day.
This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's
condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred
ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height
of inhumanity.
5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits;
it cannot be obtained inductively from experience,
nor by any deductive calculation.
6. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only
be obtained from other men.
A daily expenditure of a thousand ounces of silver! Wow. I enjoyed yet another conflict between reality and D&D: "Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits..."
I've started reading The Wars of America, recommended quite highly by SHARK, and it's excellent! As the review from the Saturday Review (quoted on the back cover) says, "As military history, Mr. Leckie's volume has four cardinal virtues: compression, accuracy, color, and boldness in the delivery of judgements upon movements of men."
In addition to being compressed, accurate, colorful, and bold, it's also surprisingly applicable to D&D -- or at least the early chapters on the Colonial Wars are.
