Military, Authority & Decisions In MSLN series

[Mirificus]

Someone's lit the flame anew regarding episode 21 Oh, well. At least thinking through some of the opord helped clarify the situation for me

[arkhangelsk]

Mirificus, why not draw Keroko and that other guy inside here. That way, we can be less careful with the spoiler tags (they have their uses but it is annoying to discuss with them on).

Originally Posted by Keroko

Spoiler for Concerning Zest:

I never said forces had to be spread equally, but Zest is an S-rank enemy, which has been shown to be able to get past defenses before. Normal defenses don't work against him, and concidering the strongest of the Wolkenritter was assigned to guard that possition, I'd say the primairy plan of the defences was thought out well.

Yes, which is why you either send enough against him to stop him. You don't send a slightly inferior force and hope for it to work (they don't know everything; but they already know Zest is over-S and Signum is under-S, and both are melee types - so where's the symmetrical or assymetrical advantage that will allow Signum to win).

Thoughts like that are what can cost a battle. Threats need to be halted as soon as they are visible, why give them the chance to get close?

If there is one nuclear missile and 4 conventional missiles, you might seriously want to consider concentrating on knocking down the nuke missile.

If we categorize by threats, then forces are spread according to threat level. Not equally.

The deployment is what we call "static defense". If you assume that the forces cannot gain freedom of maneuver, then yes it is a good plan. But this is not true.

The Cradle is the most obvious threat, and has two out of three Aces assigned to it plus one if the Wolkenritter.

One was left on the outside. The other split off inside. The result is pain and creep advance rate.

Scagliethi's lab is an unknown factor, and one of the Aces was dispatched to aid the comrades that were in trouble there (both of which aren't exactly wusses themselves).

Actually, it is likely to be easier than the Cradle. Again, creep advance rates abound.

The enemies going for HQ are at the moment the lowest priority threat, but still need to be dealt with. Signum guarded the skies, while the forwards dealt with the sentoukijin.

Which turned into a bloody farce. Fortunately, they were the protagonists, so Teana and Mach Caliber outdid themselves.

See also, answer to similar question at:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...&postcount=112

Originally Posted by Keroko

You seem to be working with hindsight. Wonderfull thing, hindsight, but you can't work with hindsight when the crisis that needs it is now.

Actually, we only use hindsight to confirm that we've predicted the Correlation of Forces correctly.

That is the point, they didn't anticipate that Signum would lose, hence why they send her. They anticipated that Signum could hold off Zest, that plan failed but how could you possibly know a plan will fail from the start?

Given the fact that they already know Zest is an over-S with enough performance to utterly defeat Vita was a clue.

The numbers are not an urgent and definite threat? Hell yes they are! Remember what I just told you about the army of tanks that snuck into the base? At the moment they rolled out of the base, they would not be concidered an 'definite urgent' threat by your calculations, but they gave me victory.

In comparison. Remember, in C&C, you win if you get the base. This is not true of the situation.

Any enemy is a definite threat. Any enemy headed for your base is a definite urgent threat.

Not when you have Alternate Command Centers - or at least you are supposed to have them anyway. I'd grant that they can definitely reach HQ within 3 hours.

I dunno, maybe because A: victory was not guaranteed (I have no idea where you got that idea).

There's never certainty, but a high disparity in correlation of forces gives a high probability of success.

B: They don't have the time to play cat-and-mouse games. You can't simply say 'we'll send our powerfull force to play cat-and-mouse with the enemies heading for our base' why? because the enemy could just as easilly tie up the Aces for hours by simply playing that cat-and-mouse game. That is a glarring error staring right there.

Step 1: Use Gefangis Stel Magi, small area. This is feasible because they are in a close formation. That locks them in.
Step 2: Annihilate them with heavy anti-material bombardment. Turn the zone inside the barrier into an inferno before they can split up.

Elapsed time: <1 minute.

In my plans, I allocate no more than 5 minutes for wiping out the sentoukijin, with another few minutes for Zest. If my plans fail and they do get the cat-and-mouse situation, then I'd try to send my Forwards in as sacrificial pawns. But not before I try a low-casualty, low-time consumption solution.

Twenty-two, if you count the special assault squad that went in. And Nanoha is also working on the Cradle, Vivio is key to the Cradle as well.

The "Special Assault Squad" is useless. You know that. See also what Mirificius said.

Yes, lets just leave the enemy lab alone, it might just contain the key to stopping the Cradle, or perhaps even a weapon far worse then the Cradle. It's not as if they're going to evacuate all convenient material while we deal with the Cradle.

Did include it in my time-phased plans. An advantageous correlation will allow that possibility to be processed rapidly. Along with the successful management of Zest, all of RF6's officers can tackle the biggest puzzle - Cradle.

I fail to see how this is a tactical error. Even a perfect plan can fail if the dice rolls wrong.

The duty of a commander is to weigh the Combat Dice so it rolls 5s and 6s most of the time. Hayate left all her dies weighed to roll 1s and 2s.

Trying to secure everywhere is never a tactical error. And so far the forwards have been pretty effective in holding back the numbers/Lutecia. Hell, Tiana even defeated her batch.

By that standard, no plan hatched by Hayate can possibly be wrong, because RF6 is always pre-slated to win. The point is the thinking process. Relying on miracles does not make you a good commander or your tactics sound.

Signum lost, yes, but like I said, even the most perfect of plans can fail if the dice rolls wrong. The plan was that Signum stops Zest, had it been succesfull then that would have solved yet another problem.

Given the correlation of forces, she was sent to fight handed a Combat Dice that's most likely to Roll a 2 (as were most of the other guys). This is unfortunate because had they concentrated force in a time phased plan, that phase (as with all others) could have been rolled with a dice weighed for 5 or 6 (except for Cradle, it is the most unpredictable and no one could begin to mark the die, but trying to weigh it in the right direction would have been a start).

Unfortunately, there was still Due, but she was a factor the TSAB neother knew about nor could take into the equotation.

Shamal, Zafira and recently Vice were pretty timely reserves to me.

Hindsight, hindsight.

How? By playing cat-and-mouse with the numbers? That is only time consuming.

You are repeating yourself.

In fact, there were several tactical errors on your side of the planning. Most of all that you plan with hindsight. The TSAB didn't know Signum would lose to Zest,

If you assume they believe their ranking system is worth something, YES THEY DID.

they didn't know where the reactor and throne were located,

They started out with sending 2 guys when they could have send in 3.

Being from Earth, they should know that Central Command Posts and Engineering Rooms are not placed adjacent to each other. This being said, their reaction to this "news" sucks.

As I understand it, natural human instinct is to bunch up when in danger. Why are these guys almost instinctively splitting up?

Originally Posted by Keroko

Vita is not someone made for delicate close combat. Vita's aproach is to straightforward smash things. When that doesn't work, she gets defeated. It was more a tactical decicion to send Signum, as she is far more versatile in close combat. As Chrono said, 'there is more in Magic then simple rankings'. Signum held her own against Zest, and in fact was never defeated. Zest ran, Signum was fully capable of continuing the fight.

Who was the superior guy was quite clear. Despite being held down by his health problems, Zest and Agito cancelled Signum and Rein's hiryu issen and proceeded to break Laevanteinn.

Further, even if you assume Signum was capable of tactically winning, this shows the gap between the tactical and operational. Operationally, Signum didn't make it until Zest was already in Regius' room! That means a failure, since stopping Zest from entering Regius' room is kind of her whole purpose anyway.

In some ways, "keeping someone" from reaching somewhere in the Maneuver Rich environment of air combat requires a greater superiority than just beating him, especially when you don't have a lot of depth in your defense.

Neither where my tanks when they rolled out of my base, but they reached the enemies camp because he neglected his home defenses.

Perhaps not, but when you aproach the day limit, it becomes urgent. Remember, even if they were to send aditional forces to the Cradle, they would still have to travel back. The numbers would have long since reached their goal by then.[/quote]

See what I had to say about your base analogy in Ep21 thread.

Ah, but they didn't know that, now did they?

If they didn't know that, how did they know that sending the Forwards will not just lead to them being p3wned for nothing in 5 seconds?

The answer, of course, is that it is simple to estimate the approximate combat coefficient. We can do it from Ep17 and all we had were our eyes. We can tell that Wendi and Novu are equal or at most slightly superior to the Forwards. Ginga's coefficient we know as A. We might even know her IS from the records. Otto and Deed, Shamal and Zafira probably can make an estimate about them, but about AA-AAA at most. In fact, considering the last, they had actually the Numbers in at arguably an inferior correlation of force. They were almost sent as sacrificial pawns. Fortunately, 7Arcs decided to help them. If only 7Arcs stepped in during the combat planning phase...

Cat-and-mouse games are not limited to a single tactic. The main goal is to keep the enemy occupied. This can be done through various courses of actions.

I don't plan on giving them time to begin such a game.

And still this would be a tactical error for the TSAB, remember, the numbers do not have a time limit. They can play cat-and-mouse for as long as they like. If the Aces even make the effort to disperce them, it's already a partial victory on their part.

Wait, first you say they first must guard the capital, then you say that any attempt to quickly finish guarding it is a tactical error?

Disabling the engines does not render the ship useless. It still has many weapons, which is not a good thing to have hovering above a now highly populated area.

In a warship, disabling the power plant means depriving the weapons of power, as well as the electronics.

Oh, I'm not. I'm merely reffering to the actions they took in the planning, since that is what we are talking about. During the planning it was decided to deal with the situations, after that they were put into action. It is the moment of planning that we need to look at.

Yeah, the "planning" involved putting all the units into marginal or disfavorable situations.

Would you rather not roll at all and get certain failure?

If some failures are much less devastating than others...

Panzerfausts are also useless in close-combat areas.

That's because of backblast. Some similar weapons do not have backblast and can be used at minimal distances. Also, the Cradle is a lot more open than typical "closed situations". You need a good demolitions unit to speed up the rate of advance.

Which screams 'come attack me' frankly, I'd laugh at the idiot who would fall for such an obvious trap.

It is a trap, but for the moment, they were out in the open. By decisively seizing that moment to trap and destroy them with overwhelming firepower, any attempt on their part to spring their trap comes to nought.

Think of a tank ambush being destroyed before it could happen by a flight of B-52s.

They didn't even know if Zest would show up, but to simply ignore him would be suicidal. Thus they placed Signum on guard in the event he would show up. Waste of critical forces? Perhaps, but if she was needed (which she was) she would not be wasted. Nothing is certain in battles. Forces placed in positions that seemed mandatory may have been wasted just minutes after making contact. Signum fought well, she hardly lost the battle. Zest ran for it.

They could already see Zest. It is pretty obvious where he was going. For Signum, see top.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Since when did they abandon any of those? Hell, they never even had economy of force, much less surprise.

Mass: In splitting up their forces, they gave up mass. This greatly increases the amount of tiem they have to spend at any one battle zone. This deprives them off...
Maneuver: Because each force is pinned by equal to superior enemies due to failure to exploit mass, no one can reinforce anyone else, or exploit any gaps, or even cover any new gaps. That means no maneuver.
Economy of Force: Because they aren't massing anywhere, they don't have that.
Simplicity: A 3-pronged plan is inherently complex.
Security and Surprise: OK, they never had those.

[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Mass: In splitting up their forces, they gave up mass. This greatly increases the amount of tiem they have to spend at any one battle zone. This deprives them off...
Maneuver: Because each force is pinned by equal to superior enemies due to failure to exploit mass, no one can reinforce anyone else, or exploit any gaps, or even cover any new gaps. That means no maneuver.
Economy of Force: Because they aren't massing anywhere, they don't have that.
Simplicity: A 3-pronged plan is inherently complex.
Security and Surprise: OK, they never had those.

Yes, they don't have security but that's one of a myriad of problems.

I accidentally omitted a very important operational principle where RF6 is found wanting when I made that list: Unity of Command

Surprise: I would say that RF6's main chance to gain surprise and regain the initiative was to concentrate their forces at an unexpected point using their superior speed and mobility. Jail's superior intelligence gathering gives him more time to react but by no means does it allow him to automatically redeploy his forces. Jail's left his forces in relatively static positions and given them the orders to return to the Cradle when they've "finished having fun." A lot of his forces will be difficult to redeploy or can't be redeployed at all. Moreover, he has left himself with no credible reserves. He's no longer in a very good position to take advantage of the superior intelligence gathering.

Whether or not RF6 is aware of that or not is irrelevant as they should be concentrating their forces like that anyways. What it does mean is that when they do attack, if they've made provisions to concentrate their forces at a decisive point of their choosing as they should be, then they have a greater chance of achieving surprise and if they do achieve surprise, they have a correspondingly greater chance of success.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by grey_moon

@Mirificus - I believe the lack of resources should be blamed on the Ground Force general (can't remember his name), not on RF6.

Spoiler for Ep24:

Regius! He just died. At least remember his name for the obituary where TSAB will sing praises and we'd laugh our bellies off!

I read it as a part of the reason why RF6 was created by the TSA and the Church was to counter the political actions of the general.

Of course the General is responsible on the operational-strategic level. But Hayate has a duty to allocate whatever forces she has to maximize the probability of success for the most important objectives. In short, prioritization. Few generals ever have enough forces to be truly happy. The point is to do what you can with what you have.

@Keroko - That is one of my favourite tactics in C&C Generals, build a perceived threat (which is ofc really is a threat), then smack them from several sides as they start scampering to neutralise it. I'm a great believer in split force tactics, I love fighting from multiple sides and I normally attack with several battalions, that way when one takes damage, the reserves can take over whilst they recover or more importantly if I deem necessary I can send the whole lot in to finish them.

Typical Soviet tactics. Maskirovka, main and subsidiary efforts on a broad front, echelons.

At what point was the danger of the Cradle actually known and specifically that it needs to reach orbit?

They pretty much knew what kind of threat it was by the time the plan was drawn up.

At what point did they realise that inside all the strategic areas had AMF fields which hindered all their recently unlocked captains?

1) Some degree of AMF defense is hardly unpredictable.
2) If they knew there would be a strong AMF defense, they would know they would tire even more from violent uses of magic. Which further increases the need for force concentration so each person consumes less. In other words, she's even more guilty if she knew about the AMF stuff.

At what point did they know that the forwards instead of fighting 3 combat cyborgs would be fighting 5 and a summoner with her kick arse melee familiar?

Such uncertainty is why they should have brought more, not less, so that they can still blast through easily even with some surprises.

[Proto]

yay, the other guy is here ready to wreck rampage... not.

If that's the principle they are following then they're still doing a terrible job. Where they have sent forces they haven't sent enough, so they greatly increase the risk of losing at each of the places they're defending. Look at what happened with Zest and the Ground Force HQ and Fate and Jail's lab. If protecting each civilian is important then you should realize that the Cradle itself and the drones pose the greatest risk to civilians. Unlike the other objectives, they're both directly above a major population center. The longer the drones and Cradle are there, the more civilians they kill either directly or through collateral damage.

If each civilian life is important, then why aren't more forces deployed around the Cradle?

I'm not arguing that the decisions Hayate took were the best ones or anything like that. As i mentioned, I would have pusheed Fate and Shaha out of there and send them were they would make more of a diference (like say, helping with some actual support for Nanoha and Vita). I didn't argued either that the Craddle wasn't the main treat and that it shouldn't take the main focus. My position was against people addressing it something that required 95+% of the available forces. While not as big, the treat posed by the gadgets and the remaining numbers *are* something that should be addressed, for the reasons I explained in the other thread, and this last one

The difference is that that one single, central enemy base we are talking about is the TSAB capital. Political center of the TSAB, losing the Midchilda capital (as with any nation which loses its political centre) or even having it at jeopardy with the numbers taking the HQ and its inhabitants as hostages would lead to great political and economical turmoil should the situation not be solved quickly enough, which might even result into the disintegration of the TSAB into a pre-3-admirals like state in a worst case scenario. As you said, you have to look things into the greater scale, not just the immediate treat. We are not talking about any minor world. We are talking about th3 capital world after all.

My point? I agree with all your points regarding Haye having split their forces too much resulting in everything going havok, and only succeeding through sheer luck. However I think that the only expendable sub-mission was the "let's get scagglietti" one, and "let's leave our political/economical centre to its luck and hope that we don't have another mess to untangle once we bring down the craddle." isn't much of a logical option. As much as keeping your forces together will allow you to complete your sub-objectives cleanly and fast, there are some points you just can't afford to lose or even have under real attack,

[Tk3997]

I won't comment on allot of that as I'm clearly missing some context and I'm not in the mode to go diving through threads, but I will make some general comments about what I think are some of your main points.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Mass: In splitting up their forces, they gave up mass. This greatly increases the amount of tiem they have to spend at any one battle zone. This deprives them off...
Maneuver: Because each force is pinned by equal to superior enemies due to failure to exploit mass, no one can reinforce anyone else, or exploit any gaps, or even cover any new gaps. That means no maneuver.
Economy of Force: Because they aren't massing anywhere, they don't have that.

You simply assume mass is possible while still keeping to a rather pressing timetable, as far as I can tell you have no way to prove it is and if the enemy ends up completing his objectives while you waste time massing you’ve lost by default. You just keep saying how it possible to move between the zones fast enough, I’d like some actual detailed plans to prove that assertion. Saying “they can all just form one big group then go to each intern” sounds great but only if you can prove that they CAN arrive at each location in time. If you’ve done this somewhere and I missed it a link to the post is fine.

I’ve seen you mumble about using teleporters and such to allow you to mass in one place at a time and still reach every location in time. Me I’d tend to assume that this wasn’t done because it wasn’t possible, not because of raging incompetence. If you can PROVE that teleporter’s COULD have done what is needed of your plan that’s another story, but I seriously doubt you can. So assuming teleporters are out, can your plan still work? The distances involved here don’t seem totally trivial to me as mages despite their flight ability are probably not that much faster then a prop plane for the most part. (since they can talk while flying and aren’t throwing off shockwaves as they move)

In any case if we throw out the teleports the forwards couldn’t even get onto the Cradle so it’s not like you could use them their anyway. (Unless you intend to fly an unarmed helicopter through hordes of UCAVs and beam fire…) They also can’t really seem to fly long distances very fast so them reaching the lab in any kind of timely fashion also seems unlikely. So to me at least you’d probably be looking at just the aces and whatever was already deployed at the various sights in the battles.

I also have some doubts that Zest or the borgs are just going yell “RAGHHH” and charge at 4 near or above S rank mages if so confronted so I don’t think you’re going to take him out, more likely you simply end up either fighting him at the cradle or he retreats and you have to move on at which point he comes back through unopposed. Or you end up cashing him all over the place trying to pin him down and wasting precious time.

I’m not even go to grace that bullshit about a sub minute victory with a reply for someone preaching “military logic” to even propose a plan that calls for the total defeat of the enemy in under one minute is fairly comical.

Simplicity: A 3-pronged plan is inherently complex.

True, but they have the standard sci-fi “absurdly effective, always on, instantaneous communications” I mean shit they even have Telepathy! This reduces the complexity quite a bit and makes managing the independent groups much easier. Further the force is tiny to begin this isn’t like trying to wrangle three armored divisions in a multi-prong encirclement or something, it’s managing a team smaller then most rifle squads. In fact considering it like three highly dispersed but still very much interconnected fireteams is probably a fairly close analogy.

Security and Surprise: OK, they never had those.

Which brings me to another point, and one that rarely seems to be touched on. Given that they where on the defensive or at best HAD to attack known locations why do most of you seem to simply assume that such a radical change in RF6 deployment won't be meet by major modifications of the enemy forces plans to counter this maneuver?

At best to me it seems like your plan probably simply results in one HUGE fairly evenly matched battles instead of 3.

Originally Posted by ProtoMan

My point? I agree with all your points regarding Haye having split their forces too much resulting in everything going havok, and only succeeding through sheer luck. However I think that the only expendable sub-mission was the "let's get scagglietti" one, and "let's leave our political/economical centre to its luck and hope that we don't have another mess to untangle once we bring down the craddle." isn't much of a logical option. As much as keeping your forces together will allow you to complete your sub-objectives cleanly and fast, there are some points you just can't afford to lose or even have under real attack,

I wouldn’t consider that expendable at all, going through all this shit only to let the master mind behind it all slip away to fight another day would seem like a rather glaring defeat to me. (even worse if he comes back and cause major damage again,they'll be HELL to pay for letting him escape if that happens) Just look at all the shit flying over our failure to nab Osama.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by th3997

At best to me it seems like your plan probably simply results in one HUGE fairly evenly matched battles instead of 3.

A brilliant assessment, tk. Yet, when you consider how 7arcs likes to depict their battles, you'd still have what amounts to 8 individual battles anyway. Only now, they're closer together than canon. And Ark will be whining even more about why they aren't ganging up on their opponents, especially since they'd now actually be in a position to do so.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Tk3997

I won't comment on allot of that as I'm clearly missing some context and I'm not in the mode to go diving through threads, but I will make some general comments about what I think are some of your main points.

You seem to be making a non-post. You are basically saying the good old apologist "You can't be absolutely sure." In this logic, no commander can be indicted no matter how sucky he was. No we can't say anything is sure but we sure can analyze probabilities and look at results.

As I already agreed, if you insist that no maneuver is possible, then this is a good static defense. But I find this proposition absurd.

You simply assume mass is possible while still keeping to a rather pressing timetable, as far as I can tell you have no way to prove it is and if the enemy ends up completing his objectives while you waste time massing you’ve lost by default.

If I don't pack enough mass, he ends up blowing past my inadequate forces and accomplishes his objectives, so I lose too.

I’ve seen you mumble about using teleporters and such to allow you to mass in one place at a time and still reach every location in time. Me I’d tend to assume that this wasn’t done because it wasn’t possible, not because of raging incompetence.

After seeing how transportations can move entire PLATOONs and throw people across dimensions, I'd be shocked to hear about the new limitations. I can only say that it is reasonable to presume the capability is there, between Asura, Shamal and individual transport, based on historical evidence.

So assuming teleporters are out, can your plan still work? The distances involved here don’t seem totally trivial to me as mages despite their flight ability are probably not that much faster then a prop plane for the most part. (since they can talk while flying and aren’t throwing off shockwaves as they move)

I'd grant your assumption, but what helps me here is the geography of the battlefield. You'd notice that they started off all flying in the same direction and only break off at the last minute, which means that all of today's objectives are almost along a straight line and it won't be much of a detour to zigzag towards each of them in turn. The farthest to go still arrived on the scene well within half an hour. So I don't expect increased travel time to be a show stopper, even assuming the absurd unavailability of transporters. Any lost time is to be made up by increased SoA.

In any case if we throw out the teleports the forwards couldn’t even get onto the Cradle so it’s not like you could use them their anyway. (Unless you intend to fly an unarmed helicopter through hordes of UCAVs and beam fire…) They also can’t really seem to fly long distances very fast so them reaching the lab in any kind of timely fashion also seems unlikely. So to me at least you’d probably be looking at just the aces and whatever was already deployed at the various sights in the battles.

Fine, I'd grant that if transportation is not available, it may be difficult to employ the forwards.

I also have some doubts that Zest or the borgs are just going yell “RAGHHH” and charge at 4 near or above S rank mages if so confronted so I don’t think you’re going to take him out, more likely you simply end up either fighting him at the cradle or he retreats and you have to move on at which point he comes back through unopposed. Or you end up cashing him all over the place trying to pin him down and wasting precious time.

Who even says I'm going to "confront" them. Sneak up and annihilate (like Shamal and Zafira did to Otto Ep23) is more like it. The first thing the Numbers should see is Gefangis Stel Magi (or equivalent) surrounding them. The second thing they should see is Pink, Yellow and White engulfing them. Probably they won't be conscious to see the White or even the Yellow.

I’m not even go to grace that bullshit about a sub minute victory with a reply for someone preaching “military logic” to even propose a plan that calls for the total defeat of the enemy in under one minute is fairly comical.

How long was I supposed to allocate? My hope is to ambush and annihilate. Gefangis Stel Magi takes almost zero preparation time and will be deployed within seconds. Excelion Buster will take at most 10 seconds to charge, and Hayate's shot will be ready soon after. Really, a minute is almost excessive. Even so, in the planning I gave 5 whole minutes for the Numbers fight (and several more for Zest).

True, but they have the standard sci-fi “absurdly effective, always on, instantaneous communications” I mean shit they even have Telepathy!

It can be jammed too, like Ep17. Further, you'd notice that Hayate wasn't even commanding anything anymore except maybe the Air Units.

Further the force is tiny

Tiny forces reduce the effort of splitting. They do not eliminate the fact splitting is more complex.

Which brings me to another point, and one that rarely seems to be touched on. Given that they where on the defensive or at best HAD to attack known locations why do most of you seem to simply assume that such a radical change in RF6 deployment won't be meet by major modifications of the enemy forces plans to counter this maneuver?

The answer is Initiative. My Decision, as I've gone over it a hundred times, involves hitting the Ground Numbers first. Obviously, Scarlietti assumes I'd split up to deal with his prongs. He won't have a chance to even realize his plans might need changing before I flatten his Ground Numbers. That's half his guys gone.

I presume Scarlietti does prefer to keep his base for at least a while longer, or else we'd have seen him packing already. His remaining forces will thus have to cover the Cradle and here, and he'd have little choice but to keep them where they were. In other words, I have regrasped the Initiative.

If he does vacate from one location, the other becomes scot free and the lost time can be made up.

Further, if such mobility was available to Scarlietti, he could have proactively redeployed even given the current layout. For example, he could have moved Tre and Sette to help out against Nanoha now that he has Fate in a red cage.

Originally Posted by Tk3997

I wouldn’t consider that expendable at all, going through all this shit only to let the master mind behind it all slip away to fight another day would seem like a rather glaring defeat to me. (even worse if he comes back and cause major damage again,they'll be HELL to pay for letting him escape if that happens) Just look at all the shit flying over our failure to nab Osama.

Quite frankly, I only include him in my ops-plan because he might just be the key to stopping the Cradle the easy way - if (for example) I knew he could do nothing, he's out.

Again, all other things fade into insignificance in the face of the Cradle. At this point, I'm not thinking "zero civilian casualties" or any of that pretty crap. Frankly, we already lost since Ep17. As Hayate, I'm already awaiting my well-deserved court-martial. If the planet gets saved, and my battalion's alive, then that's OK...

[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by Tk3997

Which brings me to another point, and one that rarely seems to be touched on. Given that they where on the defensive or at best HAD to attack known locations why do most of you seem to simply assume that such a radical change in RF6 deployment won't be meet by major modifications of the enemy forces plans to counter this maneuver?

At best to me it seems like your plan probably simply results in one HUGE fairly evenly matched battles instead of 3.

I did take that into account. Let me break this down.

Cradle: Dieci has no way to redeploy on her own. If she leaves, then Quattro needs to leave as well which would leave the Cradle is undefended. Their mobility isn't terribly useful either as they have no real air combat capability and are very vulnerable in transit.

Jail's lab: Two flight-capable numbers. Both are capable of air combat.

Abandoned city: Three flight-capable numbers. However, only Deed and Otto are capable air combat. The ground numbers can't readily return to Jail's HQ. Lutecia has demonstrated no real air combat capability and is extremely vulnerable on a drone.

Ground HQ: Jail has no command over Zest. Due doesn't have the mobility to redeploy and she already has an important mission.

Uncommitted Reserves: None

Being generous, Jail has five numbers that he can readily bring in to counter RF6's mobile elements. Six if he leaves the Cradle undefended. None of them will be able to redeploy instantly either and the objectives are pretty far apart from each other. able to redeploy instantly either. As for RF6 it just so happens that its most powerful combat elements also happen to be its most mobile. Even if Jail manages to concentrate his flying numbers together, then he's very likely to compromise his mobile forces in a single engagement as based on past performance and capabilities, RF6's mobile forces are very likely to overmatch Jail's.

Lack of reserves aside, it also doesn't seem like Jail has the will to redeploy his forces either. You don't think that once Quattro noticed that only the forwards had taken the bait in the city, it wouldn't have been more effective for the flying numbers to disengage and return to Jail's lab and leave the ground numbers to conduct a fighting withdrawal? The forwards comprise only a small fraction of RF6's combat strength and would need to bring in air transport to reach Jail's lab or the Cradle and Jail's defense at the lab would be far more likely to succeed with the additional forces.

Don't forget that his last orders to the numbers were to return to the Cradle after they have finished having fun.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Mirificus

Abandoned city: Three flight-capable numbers. However, only Deed and Otto are capable air combat. The ground numbers can't readily return to Jail's HQ. Lutecia has demonstrated no real air combat capability and is extremely vulnerable on a drone.

Oh, you do remember Lutecia, who still seems to be at least somewhat under the Doc's orders and not far away, can teleport them - that's how they got home in Ep12.

By the way, the diversionary portion of this whole Ground Numbers attack must be quite high - if getting to the HQ was the real priority, Scarlietti will just have Lutecia teleport our Numbers (and a few drones to provide some AMF backup) in as close as feasible - just like the drones.

[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Oh, you do remember Lutecia, who still seems to be at least somewhat under the Doc's orders and not far away, can teleport them - that's how they got home in Ep12.

By the way, the diversionary portion of this whole Ground Numbers attack must be quite high - if getting to the HQ was the real priority, Scarlietti will just have Lutecia teleport our Numbers (and a few drones to provide some AMF backup) in as close as feasible - just like the drones.

Quattro has full control over Lutecia. Which just brings me back to my point about the doctor no longer having the flexibility to change his plans. If he could use Lutecia to teleport all of the numbers in the abandoned city to his lab, then he would have had an even better chance of defeating Fate. The forwards have been left there standing uselessly until they can call in air transport. By the time, they could get back in the fight, Fate would probably already have been defeated. He also could have transported the flight-numbers near the Cradle to deal with Vita or Nanoha.

Jail has had almost perfect intelligence throughout the battle thanks to Quattro but he has stopped using it to his advantage.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Mirificus

Quattro has full control over Lutecia. Which just brings me back to my point about the doctor no longer having the flexibility to change his plans. If he could use Lutecia to teleport all of the numbers in the abandoned city to his lab, then he would have had an even better chance of defeating Fate. The forwards have been left there standing uselessly until they can call in air transport. By the time, they could get back in the fight, Fate would probably already have been defeated.

Actually, I agree with Scarlietti's decision in this (assuming this was actually His Decision):
1) Historical data based on Ep17 clearly suggests that 3 and 7 have a favorable correlation of forces versus Fate. Relying on this historical data proves successful in Ep21 - even if Doc hadn't butted in, the Projected Victor in a Few Minutes is perfectly clear.
2) If he moved his Numbers back, mathematically he'd have a marginally superior CoF. But he obviously has plenty enough, so the main risk at this point is that one of his Ground Numbers get slashed trying to get an attack in on Fate.

Spoiler for Ep24:

Of course, I don't agree with his decision not to just Press his Advantage and finish off Fate, giving her a chance to fight back. But even in the fight back scenario, if 3 and 7 get instant p3wned by Fate what chance do the rest of them have.

He also could have transported the flight-numbers near the Cradle to deal with Vita or Nanoha.

Will have to agree with this one, though. At the very least, he could have finished off Vita w/ 8 and 12 given how badly she was hurt. But he did seem to want the HQ as well, if not very urgently (if he needs it fast, it'd be Lutecia Teleport).

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Spoiler for ep24:

Of course, I don't agree with his decision not to just Press his Advantage and finish off Fate,

That's because he's still acting on his instincts, Unlimited Desire, to gather those "special things" and bend them to his will.

[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Actually, I agree with Scarlietti's decision in this (assuming this was actually His Decision):
1) Historical data based on Ep17 clearly suggests that 3 and 7 have a favorable correlation of forces versus Fate. Relying on this historical data proves successful in Ep21 - even if Doc hadn't butted in, the Projected Victor in a Few Minutes is perfectly clear.
2) If he moved his Numbers back, mathematically he'd have a marginally superior CoF. But he obviously has plenty enough, so the main risk at this point is that one of his Ground Numbers get slashed trying to get an attack in on Fate.

Spoiler for Ep24:

Of course, I don't agree with his decision not to just Press his Advantage and finish off Fate, giving her a chance to fight back. But even in the fight back scenario, if 3 and 7 get instant p3wned by Fate what chance do the rest of them have.

Will have to agree with this one, though. At the very least, he could have finished off Vita w/ 8 and 12 given how badly she was hurt. But he did seem to want the HQ as well, if not very urgently (if he needs it fast, it'd be Lutecia Teleport).

I didn't mean to suggest that both options had equal merit.

The point though really is that Jail has effectively relinquished command of his forces and even if he wants to influence the fight, he has no reserves. His last orders to the numbers are rather telling.

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

That's because he's still acting on his instincts, Unlimited Desire, to gather those "special things" and bend them to his will.

That doesn't really demonstrate a whole lot of the flexibility.

[Nightengale]

The degree of stupid decision making on Jail's part (( choosing to tell stories rather than go for the kill, giving vague orders, balance of force )) can also be attributed to his attitude in the face of his own defeat. Besides, he's the type of person who values entertainment just as much, maybe even more than effectiveness and efficiency.

So long as he doesn't lose everything, he's already accepted the possibility of his defeat and death.

Spoiler for 24:

Despite being fully aware that Project F may not necessarily bring back the same person with the same soul yadayada, he's unfazed at the possibility of suffering defeat, since he's got insurances in the Numbers, and I suspect he has more than what he's telling since he purposely tells Fate so much, enough to ruin his revival plans.

He's not afraid of death. In fact, he mocks the futility of killing him in front of Fate.

Still, he seems pretty confident that the Cradle won't be stopped, so who knows.

[Mirificus]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

The degree of stupid decision making on Jail's part (( choosing to tell stories rather than go for the kill, giving vague orders, balance of force )) can also be attributed to his attitude in the face of his own defeat.

So long as he doesn't lose everything, he's already accepted the possibility of his defeat and death.

Spoiler for 24:

Despite being fully aware that Project F may not necessarily bring back the same person with the same soul yadayada, he's unfazed at the possibility of suffering defeat, since he's got insurances in the Numbers, and I suspect he has more than what he's telling since he purposely tells Fate so much, enough to ruin his revival plans.

He's not afraid of death. In fact, he mocks the futility of killing him in front of Fate.

Most of what I said about Jail was in response to this since I'm exactly sure to whom it was directed:

Originally Posted by Tk3997

...why do most of you seem to simply assume that such a radical change in RF6 deployment won't be meet by major modifications of the enemy forces plans to counter this maneuver?

[Tk3997]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

You seem to be making a non-post. You are basically saying the good old apologist "You can't be absolutely sure." In this logic, no commander can be indicted no matter how sucky he was. No we can't say anything is sure but we sure can analyze probabilities and look at results.

I'm saying we can't be sure, and because we can't your basing huge sections of your plan on shit you can't prove, but just assume will work perfectly so your plan has a chance.

Also sorry for trying to be and sound civil, would you prefer I start insulting you and flinging shit.

As I already agreed, if you insist that no maneuver is possible, then this is a good static defense. But I find this proposition absurd.

But up to now you provide no evidence to DISPROVE IT. Saying it's "absurd" is all well and good, but if you don't prove it, it dosen't mean shit.

If I don't pack enough mass, he ends up blowing past my inadequate forces and accomplishes his objectives, so I lose too.

Well then it seems you're fucked either way so it's just a bad situation to begin with without any "good" options.

After seeing how transportations can move entire PLATOONs and throw people across dimensions, I'd be shocked to hear about the new limitations. I can only say that it is reasonable to presume the capability is there, between Asura, Shamal and individual transport, based on historical evidence.

Under what circumstances? I somehow doubt a secret lab and a giant flying ancient super weapon have NO precautions for keeping people from beaming around them. I suppose beaming might have been more of an option to deal with the city numbers, who knows.

I personally find the idea that teleporting is an unstoppable uncounterable tactic absurd, I’d tend to think the process could be jammed and probably fairly easily since such things MUST be a very difficult and complex to do. You see no use of teleporting and assume incompetence, I see it and assume something prevented it as an option, perhaps something emitted by the GAINT ANCIENT SUPERWEAPON WITH THE POWER TO DESTROY A PLANET. IMO you’re just biased and so eager to show how smart you are and how stupid the chars are you’ll ignore any possibility besides rampant stupidity to explain why your totally awesome plan wasn’t used.

I've also noted a reduce emphasis on such things in general this season, and I think that was intentional by the writers. Large scale teleporting can easily totally ruin a military drama and kill suspense in general. “Wow they’re in some danger here, oh well I’m sure they’ll just beam out now. Yup, they’re they go, wow awesome. A sneak attack?! Oh well they can just teleport 500 guys around them in 2 minutes, yup there they are and… total curbstomp, wow epic.” Or you just end up coming up with something that can stop teleporting every other weak (see Star Trek transporters) and it gets just as stupid.

I'd grant your assumption, but what helps me here is the geography of the battlefield. You'd notice that they started off all flying in the same direction and only break off at the last minute, which means that all of today's objectives are almost along a straight line and it won't be much of a detour to zigzag towards each of them in turn. The farthest to go still arrived on the scene well within half an hour. So I don't expect increased travel time to be a show stopper, even assuming the absurd unavailability of transporters. Any lost time is to be made up by increased SoA.

Okay that I'll accept, but frankly I think the writers just wanted to avoid a teleporting cop outs, and I don't disagree; teleportation in general if not badly limited is just such a plot killer.

Maybe once this is over we can try and form some sort of timeline of the battle to try and get an idea how long it lasted and get a real good idea if the travel time would have mattered.

Fine, I'd grant that if transportation is not available, it may be difficult to employ the forwards.

Maybe? Beside they'd almost certainly be useless inside the Super AMF field anyway so they couldn't fight in the cradle regardless.

Who even says I'm going to "confront" them. Sneak up and annihilate (like Shamal and Zafira did to Otto Ep23) is more like it. The first thing the Numbers should see is Gefangis Stel Magi (or equivalent) surrounding them. The second thing they should see is Pink, Yellow and White engulfing them. Probably they won't be conscious to see the White or even the Yellow.

Again this assume that even though RF6 always seems to have good sensor coverage and we know that the borgs have at least one EW specialist aboard a huge ancient warship that apparently isn't a huge distance from any of the battle that you can somehow sneak your entire force into range undetected, or that the highly placed spy in your high command doesn’t compromise the plan from the GET go.

How long was I supposed to allocate? My hope is to ambush and annihilate. Gefangis Stel Magi takes almost zero preparation time and will be deployed within seconds. Excelion Buster will take at most 10 seconds to charge, and Hayate's shot will be ready soon after. Really, a minute is almost excessive. Even so, in the planning I gave 5 whole minutes for the Numbers fight (and several more for Zest).

I just find the ambush working highly unlikely to begin with. The main reason I find this unlikely is you seem to be constantly ignoring the fact that Jail as a spy within arms reach of the commanding officer of all the ground forces on the planet... I find her being unable to gain a copy of RF6 plan fairly unlikely, or at least getting out a timely order that they're all deploying together. Then you assuming you could do it THAT quickly just struck me as pompous. The borgs aren't super mages sure, but they aren't TOTAL chumps.

Really the need for a little drama alone would dicate the battle last at least a little while, curbstomps are great in a militray sense, but can you HONESTLY tell me you'd enjoy watching the entire main cast gang up on and destroy 5 totally inferior targets in less then 1 minute? This is my biggest issue with all these attempts at "military logic" all of them are geared to turning this fight into a total fucking curbstomp, which IS what a military would want, but boy is fucking boring to watch animated.

It can be jammed too, like Ep17. Further, you'd notice that Hayate wasn't even commanding anything anymore except maybe the Air Units.

Well what's she going to do yell “Fight harder!" To her subordinates that are nearly as experienced as her? The point was if something had needed to be communicated urgently or the plan adjusted she could have contacted them to do so. I'd hope that in the time from 17 to this they'd looked at what happened and devised from counter measures. Further even then as I recall telepathy was largely unaffected so even then communications were merely somewhat impeded not severed.

Tiny forces reduce the effort of splitting. They do not eliminate the fact splitting is more complex.

They reduce it to the point that it's barely an issue given the C3 tools at the disposal of a sci-fi group like this.

The answer is Initiative. My Decision, as I've gone over it a hundred times, involves hitting the Ground Numbers first. Obviously, Scarlietti assumes I'd split up to deal with his prongs. He won't have a chance to even realize his plans might need changing before I flatten his Ground Numbers. That's half his guys gone.

I presume Scarlietti does prefer to keep his base for at least a while longer, or else we'd have seen him packing already. His remaining forces will thus have to cover the Cradle and here, and he'd have little choice but to keep them where they were. In other words, I have regrasped the Initiative.

If he does vacate from one location, the other becomes scot free and the lost time can be made up.

Further, if such mobility was available to Scarlietti, he could have proactively redeployed even given the current layout. For example, he could have moved Tre and Sette to help out against Nanoha now that he has Fate in a red cage.

She broke out of said cage rather quickly perhaps to fast to even considered that option, she was inside it at most like half and hour from what I can tell (probably less). He may also indeed have blundered and let his ego convince him he was winning and didn't need too. Still shifting forces AFTER the battle began I didn't really expect, I was thinking more as the enemy was approaching or even sooner, recall he had a spy in the office of the commander of the entire planets ground forces right up until the battle began.

Quite frankly, I only include him in my ops-plan because he might just be the key to stopping the Cradle the easy way - if (for example) I knew he could do nothing, he's out.

Which they don't, so why even mention this?

Again, all other things fade into insignificance in the face of the Cradle.

Agreed, but the forwards can't fight on the cradle and sending Hayate inside seems like a BAD move (if she dies so do BOTH lieutenants, that's canon fact) so at best you have maybe 5 mages (one of whom needs to be protected to ab absurd degree) working under a heavy handicap and with their plan possibly compromised from the start by an enemy spy in any case and so possibly ending up facing twice their numbers of cyborgs PLUS drones, and Vivio, and Zest, and maybe Jail too. That could go FUBAR REAL fast.

RF6 needed to be bigger, at least twice the size IMO, that's what 99.9% of these fights boil down too, but poltics kept it from being as big as it needed to be and they paid for it. (Hardly unheard of see Iraq 2003).

At this point, I'm not thinking "zero civilian casualties" or any of that pretty crap.

I wouldn't be either but we need to consider who we're talking about here, this is still a magic girl show for god sake. A"fuck the civvies we got our own problems!" attitude is not exactly a genre staple...

Frankly, we already lost since Ep17. As Hayate, I'm already awaiting my well-deserved court-martial.

Bullshit, it was a defeat but it was hardly “losing.” Given that nearly the entire force was still intact and able to continue battle. Ep.17 had some bad calls but many of those where a product of ludicrous limitations placed on RF6 by their commanders. (which is hardly unheard of… Recalls stuff about not being able to fire back at SAM sites until they’re acutally launching missiles at you in Vietnam among other insane ROEs throughout modern warfare.)

And the only people that need court maritals are the morons in charge of the GFHQ that out of idiotic political posturing made any truly effective preparation nearly impossible. Sadly the head dumbass is already dead, though he richly deserved said death.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Tk3997

I'm saying we can't be sure, and because we can't your basing huge sections of your plan on shit you can't prove, but just assume will work perfectly so your plan has a chance.

Your biggest question seemed to be on the transporters, and you don't seem to have an answer to the historical evidence of their performance.

Under what circumstances? I somehow doubt a secret lab and a giant flying ancient super weapon have NO precautions for keeping people from beaming around them. I suppose beaming might have been more of an option to deal with the city numbers, who knows.

1) Precia also has a secret lab. Nope, no effective teleport jammers.
2) Ditto for Ground Force.
3) No mention of such jammers. You are just imagining them in your apologism.
4) If it does happen, then transport to the nearest possible location.

I personally find the idea that teleporting is an unstoppable uncounterable tactic absurd,

That was kind of the whole hope of teleportation in the first place.

I’d tend to think the process could be jammed and probably fairly easily since such things MUST be a very difficult and complex to do.

This concept breaks considering teleportation in this world can be done individually. Any computations are no more than what can be done with a man-portable device.

I've also noted a reduce emphasis on such things in general this season, and I think that was intentional by the writers. Large scale teleporting can easily totally ruin a military drama and kill suspense in general.

Strangely, I was impressed by Lutecia's use of teleport tactics. If you do it well, you can increase the suspense - our heroes in constant danger of ambush, then counterambush.

Or you just end up coming up with something that can stop teleporting every other weak (see Star Trek transporters) and it gets just as stupid.

Which is why involving a teleportation capability requires planning... but I think Star Trek took the better out of two evils. If you don't explicitly blame the machine, people blame the man for not teleporting.

Maybe once this is over we can try and form some sort of timeline of the battle to try and get an idea how long it lasted and get a real good idea if the travel time would have mattered.

IIRC, the timer started at ~3 hours when the mission started. By Ep21's end, everyone is at their locations and starting their work, and the timer was only down to 2h 16 mins.

Maybe? Beside they'd almost certainly be useless inside the Super AMF field anyway so they couldn't fight in the cradle regardless.

If you really want to, here's a way. Strap one onto each Ace and carry them in this way - it'd be a rocky ride but with the Aces' shielding and all, there's every chance of them making it.

Further, since I've placed the Cradle last, maybe I won't have to think about this problem, because frankly, by the time they are through with Scarlietti's lab, the Forwards might be spent. That's still OK if they helped reduce the Aces' load through Scarlietti's lab, leaving more for the Cradle battle.

As for AMF, they didn't even know about the AMF field until they went in. Therefore, even if we assume you are right in the effects of Super AMF, what should have happened is that they try to bring them in but wind up having to hastily extricate them when the real concentration of AMF became known. Effort does not equate Result, and we get Drama if this is well executed!

Again this assume that even though RF6 always seems to have good sensor coverage and we know that the borgs have at least one EW specialist aboard a huge ancient warship that apparently isn't a huge distance from any of the battle that you can somehow sneak your entire force into range undetected, or that the highly placed spy in your high command doesn’t compromise the plan from the GET go.

Our EW specialist is using Close Visual Reconaissance rather than Wide Area Surveillance. It provides for a good deal of detail but the FOV is low. Certainly the Forwards got nice and close before the Numbers started reacting, even though drones had already spotted their helo. When contact was lost with the helo, you'd notice Quattro did not start sending them vectors. Her sensor net is nice but it ain't God.

I just find the ambush working highly unlikely to begin with. The main reason I find this unlikely is you seem to be constantly ignoring the fact that Jail as a spy within arms reach of the commanding officer of all the ground forces on the planet... I find her being unable to gain a copy of RF6 plan fairly unlikely, or at least getting out a timely order that they're all deploying together.

Command of this operation seems to be an HQ matter. I think Auris explictly stated that Regius has been relieved (a natural consequence) of command. Your spy's gone. Further, Hayate was reporting to Chrono, not Regius. They are barely communicating with Ground Forces - Major Nakajima didn't even seem to know who was acting as their Security Outpost.

Then you assuming you could do it THAT quickly just struck me as pompous. The borgs aren't super mages sure, but they aren't TOTAL chumps.

The Sky Mages weren't total chumps either (at least supposedly). Tre and Sette went through them like... why do you think our aces can't duplicate their performance. Heck, Teana wound up getting them with two little energy balls, which is actually a predictable performance - as one trick ponies, they are weak on defense. Which means sudden bombardments will be effective.

It can't be any more pompous, in any case, than the current plan, which arrogantly assumes the Aces will be able to fight through the odds nearly on their own.

Really the need for a little drama alone would dicate the battle last at least a little while,

No. They can save the drama for the big confrontation. Everyone knows the Ground Numbers are just appetizers. They can be dealt with just like the Drones.

This is my biggest issue with all these attempts at "military logic" all of them are geared to turning this fight into a total fucking curbstomp, which IS what a military would want, but boy is fucking boring to watch animated.

There are many ways to both have Military Logic and Good Drama:
1) Improve the capability of the enemy force, so it'd still be challenging even with proper tactics. Quite frankly, the current capability gap (w/ 2 clearly superior Numbers) b/w the Numbers is really rather funny looking. Equalize that and the fight gets much better.
2) Increase the sheer numbers of the enemy. You'd get fewer points for that but you'd still at least pass.
3) Failed effort. Have one of your scenarios come to pass. Military logic is Effort, not Result. You don't need our Heroines to Suck, just our Villians to be Better.
4) Force the issue. Explicitly state as many limitations as is necessary to force them to use the tactics you want them to use. For example, explicitly have Cradle set up a 300km radius transport jamming field if you want to lock out teleportation. It is best if you had foresight and introduce such limitations over the course of a series, not just inform us right before Final Battle.
5) Blame the chosen tactics on a higher-up, who makes them execute them under threat of execution, since the entire show was h*llbent on smearing them. At least you'd win sympathy points for our heroines.

Well what's she going to do yell “Fight harder!" To her subordinates that are nearly as experienced as her? The point was if something had needed to be communicated urgently or the plan adjusted she could have contacted them to do so. I'd hope that in the time from 17 to this they'd looked at what happened and devised from counter measures. Further even then as I recall telepathy was largely unaffected so even then communications were merely somewhat impeded not severed.

Their telepathic communication was clearly jammed with noise in Ep17.

At the very least, she might have countermanded the ill-advised decision to split inside the Cradle... Vivio vs Nanoha 1on1 may make for drama but it is hardly tactical.

They reduce it to the point that it's barely an issue given the C3 tools at the disposal of a sci-fi group like this.

Actually, I don't see the superiority of their C3 equipment as being to the extent as to compensate for this. The human factor never changes, no matter how many monitors you have.

Agreed, but the forwards can't fight on the cradle and sending Hayate inside seems like a BAD move (if she dies so do BOTH lieutenants, that's canon fact) so at best you have maybe 5 mages (one of whom needs to be protected to ab absurd degree)

And don't you think this "absurdity" says a lot about the way StrikerS' plot and planning was going?

working under a heavy handicap and with their plan possibly compromised from the start by an enemy spy in any case and so possibly ending up facing twice their numbers of cyborgs PLUS drones, and Vivio, and Zest, and maybe Jail too. That could go FUBAR REAL fast.

[/quote]

Rather than debate fine points, I'd just say if they used tactics and it did wind up into a disfavorable Battle Royale, that is actually OK. You can have the swell fight AND be tactically sound. Process does not necessarily equal Results, but Process is required when the Results go Bad so our protagonists look good and so the scenes don't look contrived. This is why your argument that Bad tactics is required for swell fights is invalid; even with mediocre thinking and execution there are better possibilities.

RF6 needed to be bigger, at least twice the size IMO, that's what 99.9% of these fights boil down too, but poltics kept it from being as big as it needed to be and they paid for it. (Hardly unheard of see Iraq 2003).

Actually, I think doing Iraq was kinda the big mistake. Ah well.

By the way, if you are right, Hayate's still at fault because it was supposedly her who pushed for this whole Small Unit Rapid Response Unit Concept in the first place!

Bullshit, it was a defeat but it was hardly “losing.” Given that nearly the entire force was still intact and able to continue battle. Ep.17 had some bad calls but many of those where a product of ludicrous limitations placed on RF6 by their commanders.

And who said they had to accept those limitations. For example, if they don't let you bring devices inside, deploy outside and rush in when the trouble starts. I doubt Regius really even wanted them there, so don't be there. Be just outside.

And the only people that need court maritals are the morons in charge of the GFHQ that out of idiotic political posturing made any truly effective preparation nearly impossible. Sadly the head dumbass is already dead, though he richly deserved said death.

The General responsible paid the Ultimate Penalty. But the Lieutenant Colonel is hardly innocent for not making better preparations, a fact even she acknowledges. Her failure to decisively take control of the situation led to 50% losses and the loss of HQ. One might remember that the only reason losses did not turn permanent (deaths) was because of Scarlietti's good graces!

[Mirificus]

I was reading through Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888-1918 today. This section seemed all too familiar (directive command is another name for Aufstragtaktik).

Umpiring is a term coined to illustrate the practice in which an officer abdicates his command responsibilities. In both directive command and restrictive control, the commander imposes his will upon his subordinates through the assignment of clear objectives, which he then ensures that his subordinates work to achieve. The umpire, by contrast, having indicated a general mission withdraws rather than spur on their subordinates.
...
While superficially similar, the decentralizing inherent in umpiring is very different from that employed in directive command. The umpire avoid 'interfering' out of an excessive respect for the feelings and reputation of the subordinate. The relationship between the umpire and his subordinate may be considered more important than the attainment of the objective. Decentralization therefore becomes an end in itself.

[arkhangelsk]

That's why using friends for every one of the officer posts, especially in your first independent command, may not be such a swell idea.

If we assume that Hayate was a good commander, then the difference is that last time, she wasn't in command of friends that she may privately feel an inferiority complex (see Ep14 or thereabouts) towards.