[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Let's not sell the TSAB totally short here.

Keep in mind that they've pushed through a complete tactical and technological overhaul within the last ten years (and ten years of peacetime, at that.) In A's, the whole cartridge system was a historical curiosity used in a practically-mythological past; by Strikers everyone has a cartridge-fired device, to the point where they issue 'em to rookies.

I actually strongly disagree with that proposition. Granted, it wasn't the most common thing in the world ten years ago. But the cartridge system was only so uh, unknown to Midchildra that Bardiche and Raging Heart instantly named the cartridge system by standardized designation. It was a standardized part, which was instantaneously delivered and installed.

Then Teana and Subaru managed to have cartridge systems in homebuilts.

Ten years later, they are issued to rookies ... in some very select units. Even the regular neo-Belka spears issued as standard armament to neo-Belkan users don't seem to have it. The technology never seemed to be that uncommon, almost available to the asking, only their deployment in TSAB units is lacking.

But they've obviously not mastered the transition. Why not? Could just be tactics out of the old manual, where you can't go hog-wild on the magical gunplay without completely exhausting your unit, especially if you have a lot of conservative leadership types (and face it, that's what Genya is, no?) Could also be that there's a shortage of the ammunition in the first place - Nanoha may fire 'em as if they were free, but we have no idea how universally well-supplied those ground units are. And again, we don't know how seriously TSAB ground takes its job... think the difference between US Army training in the '30s and in 1942.

Considering that the GF seemed to be losing dozens of their own guys (and dozens of civvies too, just in case they don't care about their own butts) on a demi-regular basis (based on Ep24), one would think there is at least some pressure for improvement...

So what's the lesson that the TSAB ground forces could learn from this? Well, first off, the front-line units are not useful when deployed against small teams of elite forces - they're just handled too unskillfully to work that way. Their past history suggests that deploying a number of smaller teams as fast reaction units will be effective; Nanoha showed, not just that you can kick ass if you toss three S-rank mages in a squad, but that you can get results even from normal-power-level mages if you work their ass off in training. What man has done, man can aspire to...

This is not actually true. They are normal-powered mages, but they had sharply protruding specialties.

They'd also be even more effective had they imposed a harsher psychomoral conditioning training regime - don't just hold sandbags. Make the Midchildran types shoot human holograms instead of energy balls. Have the Belkan types stab same human holograms. And have those holograms emulate bleeding. Along with appropriate lectures that should toughen them up nicely in short order, without leading to a bunch of accidental massacres by overexcited troops.

Then again, maybe they'll just make a ton of combat cyborgs. Jail, for all his goofiness, has shown that you can develop working combat cyborgs without being hideously inhumane to them - or at least not so inhumane that it effects their loyalty. We don't actually know that relics were used in the production of the Numbers, do we? If not, then you can make a whole bunch of cyborgs if you want to. And if Subaru and Ginga turned out basically okay, well, then they're not all monsters... and if you're going to be an organization that sends little girls out to fight your wars anyway, you might as well be one that sends out SUPER little girls to do it. ;p

Definitely. Regius and the 3 brains really had the right idea all along. Unfortunately, due to TSAB "ethics", this will not be pursued.

Hayate's in a good position now, though. Commanding a successful action with inadequate forces will do that for you, and she was already ahead of the curve in rank and power, with her own "young Turks" to do the dirty work of training and occasionally boot a head or two. Sure, she isn't Rommel reborn, but take our own military history - very few American generals have been fantastic geniuses, and most of the winners got to be that way because they learned and demonstrated how to properly deploy superior forces to achieve victory.

True, bureaucratically the TSAB views it as a success.