Re: Re : Chits

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997, John Owen wrote:

Well, I don't want to argue military training. I've no first-hand 
experience in your system and you have none in ours, though I'd assume 
they're somewhat similar.

Good thing you made the distinction between unlawful orders and simply 
stupid ones.

I can't agree with a number of your points, but I'll leave it at that.

As for gaming: The primary basic instinct in anyone's head is survival.
I know the first thing I'd consider about any course of action is how
likely it will get my head blown off. I'll take the liberal assumption 
that most mankind is alike. Usually this means sitting still when you're

not quite sure what's going on -- and that's a fairly common occurrance.

Games generally have this "eye of god" problem. The player instantly
sees 
the entire battlefield and "communicates" this state to all troops. 
Forgetting to move your figures goes just a little way towards evening 
this omniscience. 

IMHO, it would be reasonable to let "idle" troops respond to immediate 
threats they can observe, but no more.

> As a grunt you are the expert on the ground... you are expected to use
you
> training and personal initiative to acheive the objectives set by your
> superiors who are coordinating the big picture... they don't need the
little
> picture... that is what you take care of... they train you to deal
with the
> details of the little picture so they can count on the big picture
coming
> out for your side.  

That's the ideal. In my experience the brass can't resist meddling with 
the details though... This is especially bad when the grunts have far 
superior skill with the matter learned *outside* the military (I assume 
you don't get much of that in a professional army).

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