satchel charges and scouting

KHR said:
40 Kg is a pretty hefty load, even if carried with good webbing.

Tomb:
Yep. I've carried over 55 kgs of gear from time to time, but that was...
encumbering. 

OTOH, as I mentioned, this was for a suicide bombing. You don't have to
carry it forever (or maybe you do....). 

--------------------

Scouting:

Alan, 

I agree good players will try to be deceptive. OTOH, good players are
unlikely to select an untenable position or one their troops can't
retreat from. Poorer players will do just that. I'm not saying that good
players are utterly predictable, just that the locus of all their
possible choices is constrained by more tactical factors. The
tactically-unaware are somewhat hard to fight. (Similar anecdote: I knew
a martial arts teacher who hated fighting untrained people because they
were unpredictable. Trained people's attack patterns tended to conform
to a certain kinesthetic and tactical logic - not so with the
untrained...)

Interesting Story:
REDCON 88 or 89 at RMC, I was in charge of a defense of a valley in
Challenger micorarmour game. Russkys were coming with everything.
Defenders were American and (ha ha) Canadians (who had leopard IIs ...
yah right!). One of the units I was assigned was 4 pltns of M113s. NO
INFANTRY (what a stupid scenario that was). I told the GM they shouldn't
even be attending the battle... but he wanted them there. 

So I picked a hill in the middle of the valley that was in a blocking
position for them. They dug tank emplacements about 100m behind the hill
and on the hill line. (I figured if they only had an MG, being turret
down wasn't a bad idea for them). I _knew_ that game-board features draw
arty. The safest place to emplace minis is in the middle of an open
field. Hills, forests, and urban areas are magnets for attention. 

So, my M113 martyrs hid behind the hill. When the Russkys attacked, as
predicted, they lambasted the hill. When they were done and their attack
was rolling forward, I moved the vehicles from the safe positions behind
the hill up to the hilltop positions. (zero losses from arty). I then
just sat there. Another thing about double blind: Any enemy vehicle
draws attention. These APCs drew heavy (mostly ineffective) fire from
Russian TANKS that slowed their advance and attacked the APC-laden hill
(don't know if they thought their were infantry, but the tanks had
better things to do and the APCs were no threat to them at all).
Meanwhile, my gunships, artillery, and my own tanks (deployed on the
flanks) broke the Russian assault.

The irony was at the time I was a reserve infantry private. I was
leading, criticising (GM for scenario setup), and defeating players who
were officer cadets at RMC and West Point and there might have been
someone from VMI there. 

Double blind is a whole other type of game and requires you to keep
focused on running _your_ battle plan, identifying _real_ enemy threats,
and not getting bogged down in trivia or wasting your artillery/etc on
strikes on non-existent forces.