Mission Foulups

1) You charge up the wrong valley (oops) 
(didn't understand your orders quite...)
2) You charge up the valley and the enemy 
turns out to have guns waiting
3) Your carefully laid out defense failed to note 
a small draw that the enemy could use to move 
troops up and breach
4) Your radios don't behave the same in the 
desert due to atmospheric conditions and the 
AWACS is retasked so your backup comms 
method goes away too
5) The piece of new weaponry you've been 
assigned turns out to have a critical flaw such 
as ripping casings in half and jamming unless 
the shells are lubed, but of course no one told 
your MG team that
6) Your assault is delayed thanks to the G*^ 
D%$# Barnacle-lubbers and so hits the beach 
AFTER daybreak
7) Offshore fire support arrives... short
8) An allied air unit doesn't have you as a 
friendly on his computer... and he is armed....
9) Your reinforcements get lost and are late or 
don't arrive
10) Your flank attack leader fails to push his 
troops to bring an off-board enemy to battle, 
thus said off-board enemy arrives to reinforce 
the on-board enemy thus turning an ugly fight 
even uglier
11) You run out of gas as your overstretched 
logistic chain can't keep up with your penetration
12) You run out of supplies because enemy air 
attacks savage your supply chain
13) You attack a village expecting to run into 
the remnants of a battered unit that wasn't very 
good beforehand... only over the last couple of 
nights, the enemy has infiltrated one of their 
best and most experienced elite units....
14) The pre-attack bombardment turns out to 
be less effective than promised
15) The rolling bombardment meant to 
precede your attack ends up chasing you 
forward....
16) You are crossing a field into a village the 
enemy has pulled out of. Your air units haven't 
got the message and see movement....
17) You launch an attack. One of your flanks is 
an Australian unit. The other is a French unit. 
The Aussies run into a tough fight. You run into 
weak defenses and push forward. The French, 
though not hitting opposition of any note, turn 
around and call it a day. The enemy rams a 
huge counterattack into your side. 
18) Your local allies have been infiltrated, and 
you might come under sniper fire, sabotage or 
meet mines the infiltrators planted as the game 
progresses.... 
19) A key message is lost, due to a jammed 
comms channel or dead messenger, so your 
unit, following orders, is steadily diverging from 
the rest of your forces which are pivoting 
away.... and you have no idea....
20) Your airborne attack force has problems 
navigating over target countryside and sets 
down reinforcements pel-mel all over the place -
 some behind enemy lines.
21) One of your allied unit, known for its symbol 
of a Big Red number One, gets the date of the 
attack wrong and is sitting encamped when all 
other allied forces launch the attack. This leaves 
a huge gap in the lines, and other allied forces 
promptly spend the next long while escaping 
enemy encirclement after the enemy penetrates 
the unprepared units HQ. 

These are just historical examples I can think up. 
One of them happened to my Grandad in the 
Great War. At least one happened to my old 
unit. 

As for the whole naval combat system thing, I 
have two comments: There are some lurkers in 
that kind of work (Canadians). At ECC, a table 
consisting of about seven of us were playing 
post-con-day games. One of the USAians 
mentioned having a high clearance at which 
point 4 out 5 Canadians mentioned they held or 
had held Secret or Top Secret clearances for 
work with defence/police. I think that was a bit 
of a shock :) 

Another interesting scenario possibility, this one 
for FT or DS on a large scale: Combat ship used 
for demonstrating technology and show-the-
flag and testing new systems has key defensive 
electronics package removed to test other new 
system (which does not provide replacement 
function). Said ship then (for some reason) 
ends up in an engagement.... now instead of 
being a cakewalk, said ship is far more 
vulnerable and a serious threat exists. Not that 
I'm admitting to knowing about any real life 
analogous situations.... ;) 

T. 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte