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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4582279" data-attributes="member: 54707">10. Communications – Have a way to establish and consistently maintain good communications with any and every necessary party member, or concerned party. This is especially true regarding the individual members of your own operating team. You need methods of creating and securing both immediate and long-term means of communications. Good lines of communication are vital to effective accomplishment of your mission, as well as being a superb method of avoiding and averting self created disasters through misunderstanding and ignorance of your true situation. Also it is imperative to establish methods of communication that are peculiar to your own set of circumstances and yet that will allow you to communicate in covert and useful ways with anyone with whom you need to communicate. For example, the main party in my D&D milieu uses a simple series of numbered and prepared message codes written on paper. These messages say things like, “Way ahead blocked, circling back, meet you at designated spot.” Then when it is necessary for the party to split, voluntarily or involuntarily, these notes are dropped so that those in other groups can later find them and know what they mean. However these messages are also coded – for instance the message, “Retreat – danger ahead!” will actually mean, “We have taken a concealed position ahead, will await your arrival and signal before we attack. Approach slowly and from another direction.” In this way notes that are discovered by enemies will be misinterpreted and the real intent of both the note writer and the note reader will remain concealed and the integrity of the message will be preserved. It is very important that the potentiality of good communication methods not be underestimated. For instance, imagine the advantage to the party, if surrounded, of having a good set of simple word codes that could be shouted to redirect combat formations, or simple hand signals (such as were used by the Indians and are still used today in many military forces) when messages need to be passed in absolute silence so as not to reveal position. Simple and effective communications are vital tools to achieving your mission successfully. In the same respect protect your own lines of communication and never let (if possible) your enemies disrupt your ability to communicate effectively and ably. If you are in a fantasy game setting then develop or exploit magics, and other means, specifically designed to maintain and enhance good communications. If in a modern or futuristic game setting then find redundant and backup methods of communications when your normal ones inevitably fail. Always secure, test, and retest your methods and make sure they work correctly. Do not rely upon chance as a carrier wave for what you need to say, and for what you need to hear. If your communications are disrupted or worse yet, corrupted, then your ability to operate properly is compromised and this may well lead to disaster, especially when you are unaware of the defects of your own communication weaknesses, but your enemy is not. Any thinking enemy will exploit your inability to properly communicate your objectives to each other - to summon aid and relief forces, to extract yourself from a dangerous situation, to mount proper defenses, to counterattack timely and effectively, to resupply, even to scout and reconnoiter properly. Communications are vital tactical tools, protect them, enhance them, enable and improve them. But do not forget this vital component of communications as well – if good communications are an asset of your tactical repertoire, then they can be a heavy liability for your enemy. Especially if you do more than just fundamentally exploit your own capabilities to communicate to their maximum effect. Imagine if you also fundamentally disrupt the communications capabilities of your enemies. What effect would this have? It could be potentially devastating to their ability to respond to your surprise attacks, guerilla tactics, traps, and ambushes. They would be ignorant of or unable to pinpoint your position. Their response time would lag, their resupply hampered, their intelligence and information stream weakened or dried. So to the end that you seek to improve your own abilities to communicate, to secure your own lines of contact and vital passage of important information, seek also to produce the exact opposite effect upon your enemies. Make their lines of communication insecure and unreliable. Break their codes and crypts. Eavesdrop upon their supposedly dependable exchanges. Harass and exploit liabilities. Hamper, both openly and secretly. Disrupt and scatter. Misdirect. In this way you will become a master of tactical advantage and clear communications, while making your enemy a disaster of failed opportunities and miscommunications.</blockquote>

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