Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 439026" data-attributes="member: 4937">I wish I had more time to fully participate in this thread.  On the concept of total war.  No I don't agree that the laws of war just go completely out the window.  Most people will agree that WWII is the closest the great powers ever came to total war upon each other, but even then (although it is sometimes quite hard to see), you can see reluctance on both sides to engage in complete and total savagery.  Certainly neither side ever did anything like 'poison the wells'.  I'd hate to think that our Paladin had less moral compunction than the Nazi high command.Despite its availability, neither side used poison gas attacks on the population of its foe.  Imagine how more terrible the blizt would have been if the Nazi's had decided one day to start dropping clorine or worse, some skin absorable toxin.  Certainly the ability to develop nerve gas was there.   But both sides were understandably reluctant to cross over into that territory.  The Germans and British in particular had the experience of WWII to draw from.SHARK:  There are far more than two possible approaches for the scenario you propose.  I think you are trying to hard to generalize specific modern military tactical doctrine into a broad moral principal.Let me leave aside the problem of enherent racial evil for the momment, because that complicates issues in ways I'm not prepared to answer.  Let's assume that the combatants are some generic combatants having attributes similar to the only sentient beings we are familiar with - ourselves.The Paladin comes by night upon the encampment of an enemy army?  What does he do, you ask?  A or B?Well, possibly A or B, but being good he is not so restricted in his understanding.  Evil certainly does B, but then Evil always loses because Evil is stupid.'B' is not the optimal military solution, and is certainly not the optimal military solution in all cases.   What if the sleeping force is of unknown size?  What if the sleeping force has some enherent night time advantage?  More specifically to the problem at hand, night time is an enherently dangerous time to initiate combat for an army with only primitive technology.  The night belongs to the US military, but it doesn't belong to the Paladin.  As soon as combat begins he will lose complete control of the battle.  He won't be able to see what is happening, he won't be able to give orders, he won't be able to tell what the enemy is doing.  He will just be another soldier in the middle of chaos.  In that chaos, no matter how suprised his foe is, dangerous things can happen, and his soldiers will be exposed both by the chaos and by the unpredictable nature of the enemies actions.  Combat will resolve eventually down to soldiers rolling on the ground in the darkness.   What is to happen if the Paladin's clanking armored forces awaken the foes before they can sneak into camp?  What will happen if there are hidden sentry's (as is likely) who will alert the camp to the armies approach.  If it is well lit (a full moon), the cover of darkness does not protect his approach, and if it is not well lit it is pitch black (no street lights, go out in the country some time), and soldiers will either have to carry torches (thus reveal themselves) or else trip and stumble over themselves in the darkness.   In the darkness, it will be impossible to tell friend from foe until too late.  No, slitting throats and overrunning the camp is not an attractive option to me.  Too much can go wrong.  I'm leaving too much up to the chaos of war.   And there are other consideration of a strategic nature which I must adress latter.Nonetheless, the Paladin has a military advantage that is worthwhile to exploit.  One classic plan here is to exploit the enemies confusion.   Reveal yourselves to the enemy as loudly as possible.  Have every soldier carry a torch.  Blow as many trumpets as you can.  Stampede his horses.   Have everyone shout and beat their shields with thier swords.   The suprised foe doesn't know how big your army is either.   The assumption is that no one would act as you would act unless they were supremely confident.  Otherwise, they would be doing plan 'B' as you suggested.   Therefore, they must have overwhelming force.  Each soldier then says to himself,  "I'm naked.  I'm not quiet sure where my sword is, and anyway, having a sword in my hand is a sure way to get killed.  My best bet is to throw myself on the ground and beg for mercy, or else throw my shield away and run as fast as I can for home.  I didn't want to be here anyway.  Let the generals take it on the throat.  I'm out of here."  Confusion reigns and the rout is on before you have even laid a stroke.  As a result, none of your soldiery are actually exposed to danger.Another option has already been mentioned.  Take out the leadership.  Behead the average evil army, and the rest decide to save thier skins.Other options will occur to a creative commander.The point is, failure to see the worlds moral component results in failure on the battlefield.  Every war the US has been in since Veitnam (and arguably many before that) has been a fight not just over territory, but over the hearts and minds of the public.  We kicked can militarily in Veitnam, but because we paid little or no attention to the moral war, we ultimately didn't stand a chance.  We would have actually won that war with less force applied to the military problem.Finally, every time you win a battle in the way you describe, you are increasing the difficulty of every future battle you must fight.  If you are utterly ruthless, you gaurantee that your foe will fight to the last man giving and offering you no quarter as well.  (If you already have this problem, or you don't actually think it is a problemthat might effect your decision making.)  If you take no prisoners, no surrender will be offered and you automatically raise the morale of your foe when what you ought to be is destroying it.  You give them something to hate and fear, and they and thier commanders will use that hate and fear against you.  The Marines are the worlds most effective heavy infantry unit, not because they are the best trained or best equiped (though they are well trained and equiped), but because no other first world unit of such size is entirely composed of 'True Believers'.  The Marines win because they are fanatics.  And no, I don't care if you think otherwise.  You believe as you have been taught.  That is the sign of a 'True Believer'.  Studies have been shown that in a battalion level engagement, on average only 10% of the forces are actively attacking the other force.  The remaining forces on both sides are huddled down watching the 10% to see how it comes out.   If the 10% does well, then the remaining 90% is encouraged and begins to attack, resulting in the 90% on the other side believing that things have gone poorly.  Conversely, if the 10% does poorly, the 90% decides 'I don't want to die' and the unit disentigrates into individuals.  The Marines succeed because every man in the unit is in that 10% that attacks without question.  This so surprises and overwhelms the foe that even when the advantage is with the foe, the foes morale disentigrates.When you are ruthless and brutal, you make true believers ought of your foes, and that reputation can result in battles like the night battle you propose going against you, because THIER 100% decides they have no choice but to attack.</blockquote>

Verification