Combat-Writing Thread

That is entirely unintentional; I've really only heard the names of those two things. Then again, there isn't anything truly original left under the sun. I'll check out VOTOMS though, sure.

Ah, fair point. I don't think powered armour would be able to replace armoured fighting vehicles entirely, even if they can carry heavy weapons and (certain variants) a lot of armour.

I didn't even consider that! Thank you very much.

Hm... perhaps I'm underestimating just how powerful the powered armour I described is^note Did I make the powered armour too hardcore? =P, but wouldn't having to resort to ambushes in order to put a significant dent in them be a bit much?

I should also clarify it's a localised/directed EMP that can cause the shield to fail; with the rigours of a modern battlefield, they'd probably end up encountering EM fields quite frequently (not least from their railguns). Still, I find the grapple gun + electrified cable route kind of intriguing. Perhaps that's some sort of specialist weapon that's more common in teams or squads that expect to encounter a lot of powered armour? Or hell, maybe it could even be used to capture the enemy?

The diluted effect of explosive/fragmentation weapons is something I've read about somewhere else (would that mean that artillery units would find themselves relegated to more of a second fiddle role?). The thing about walls, however, is something that I never really considered too deeply (aside from the fact that the users can mousehole using their enhanced strength).

I figured that some sort of bazooka-esque system would become very popular, especially since powered armour is omnipresent among this race's military (troops without powered armour are extremely rare and tend to be restricted to "low risk" positions). Not necessarily a one use system, but something you could set-up and fire in a short period of time.

An under-barrel attachment would be something they'd be very interested in, I imagine. At the very least, it means that you wouldn't have to lug around a comparatively heavy launcher tube and/or guidance system with you until it was time to use it.

I think you misread my post slightly; I was wondering how IFVs/tanks in the powered armoured army would adapt and evolve. Still, this is very useful for me, since it gives me a good idea of how these other civilisations would react to having something like that on their proverbial doorstep.

I'd still like further responses on my initial question, though I'd also like to know if my suspicions are correct in that (assuming it's a purely infantry-on-infantry skirmish) thinking the tactical balance would be in the powered armour users' favour. If so, by how much^note Are we talking really slanted toward the powered armour or more of a mild edge?

Really slanted, I'd think. If you can safely expose yourself to fire, even for a couple seconds, and your opponent can't, then he's got a really big problem. You can lure or force him to shoot at you, revealing his position, and then fry him.

And a couple of seconds is a really long time when it comes to somebody who can literally jump across the street. The dangers of allowing PA into CQC with standard infantry should be painfully obvious.

Aye. I'm assuming the PA is enough to render most small arms ineffective, meaning that most of the infantrymen in a given squad wouldn't be able to contribute to the firefight. As a short-term solution, lightweight HEAT rifle-grenades might be popular again, as might slow-firing, large-caliber small arms. (Shotguns firing saboted slug ammo, possibly with a muzzle brake and recoil mitigation, might be field-tested, for instance.) As for vehicles, the emphasis will be on making weapons that are as small and lightweight as possible while still being effective versus powered armor.

Yeah, I see what you're driving at. So basically it's going to be Bad Times^TM all around for the standard infantry until an effective and commonplace counter can be developed.

You're probably right on that first one.

When you mention rifle-grenades, are you talking about the barrel launched variety or the under-barrel attachment sort? I like the idea - especially since it's not improbable such a round would have been developed to provide light AT capability to squads without an attached anti-tank weapon - but I would have thought a classical rifle grenade would be unwieldy to use in a hurry.

Might dedicated grenade launchers see a comeback in such conditions, I wonder? The high calibre, low ROF small arms are a great idea, as are the sabot slug shotguns.

Your last point makes me think we might see some unholy fusion of an autocannon and a gatling gun - high rate of fire and superb penetration, albeit lightweight (not to mention the fact we'd probably see ammo being chewed through at an almighty rate, straining logistics).

In short, this is rather handy; this alien race is outnumbered by both the other civilisations, so they need to grab as much territory as possible and consolidate their gains (probably securing a surrender or a sueing for peace to end the conflict) before their opponent^* I'm leaning toward them only fighting one of them, since there's no point in fighting a two front war can get into gear and bring the full weight of their industry/numbers to bear.

I was thinking barrel-launched at first as a stopgap, and then proliferation of underbarrel or rotary types. Against a threat like this, infantry will have to develop what are essentially antiarmor weapons and tactics in miniature, helped by the fact that shaped-charge technology is quite good—a 30mm HEAT round like that fired from an Apache's chain gun can penetrate about 5cm of rolled steel armor. We might see a shift to lighter, smaller-bore grenade launchers.

You know what, that's some thread worthy of following, the one minor issue being that it's so far been mostly focusing on getting your facts straight. There hasn't yet been a longpost on writing a single combat scene. (Well, if you squint a bit sniper duels and dogfights could count as "single".) I can imagine how a fight would fare, but that's not going to be enough to depict it well in writing. You know, show all that dynamism and whatnot. So, I'm hoping some advice on that will show up sooner or later.

edited 25th Dec '13 8:32:45 AM by lordGacek

I wrote a scene from the POV of a sniper, but he doesnt get to fire in it.

I'm not sure if this is the right place since my question is more about war than combat itself (though it's got combat in common, obviously).

Basically, in my setting, two medieval-esque kingdoms are at war. From this point, I have two questions:

1) What would the other countries know about the situation and the ongoing of the war? How much would the outsiders' knowledge be limited? That is assuming they have spies, which are quite common in this kind of setting.

2) War itself. I'm too simple minded for complex plots, so I can't imagine actions that are more than taking cities, forts and strategical positions in general, such as trade routes. What I mean is, I have very little knowledge about war (I know castles/forts aren't supposed to be stormed, I'm not sure about cities; I'm not sure how an army should hold strategical positions; I'm probably missing out a lot of other strategies that are included here).

Well, writing about war concerns more the experience of the soldiers- the marching, the camping, the talking about home, the loss of friends, the anxiety of waiting until the next battle, followed by an hour of terror and chaos, that sort of thing.

edited 25th Dec '13 11:24:36 AM by demarquis

Very little. Medieval means "communications are terrible beyond belief". Spying can't change this, because it's still terrible, and also because this is before there's much organization in the running of a kingdom or the use of an army. The society can't support it. Knowing the plans of your enemy is useful in direct proportion to how detailed those plans are, and people in this time period just aren't detailed, sophisticated planners.

In essence, armies will wander about, imposing their will on the locals, probably taking castles and cities and towns in passing and ignoring those they can't take quickly, reacting to imperfect reports of the enemy army's movement and size, constantly shrinking due to disease and desertion (more people died of disease than enemy action in every war prior to the Second World War, pretty much), until eventually the two armies come into contact, spend a few days staring at each other until one side feels a moral ascendancy or starts to run low on food, at which point they will either fight a battle...or one side will withdraw and the process will start over.

You could use this to describe pretty much any war up to the American Civil War, at the least.

edited 25th Dec '13 11:50:05 AM by Night

Let's say that they're optimally organized for a medieval setting, but sharing the same technology deficits. How would it change?

Also, a silly question: Can a fort be taken by a small army while the garrisoned soldiers' numbers are also low? Would infiltration and sabotage help the small army considerably so that this crazy move becomes... legit?

edited 25th Dec '13 11:57:35 AM by Rapier

Ah, very interesting - and informative, too!

@gacek:

I would help, but I don't feel 100% confident in describing how to write a combat scene. I know roughly what might happen, depending on my knowledge of the time period in question, but I think figuring out how you would actually write it is something I would not be very good at.

As for dogfights, well, they can be a case of single combat (since single combat is purely one guy vs another - no restrictions apply depending on whether they're in a vehicle or not, since said vehicle does not in itself constitue another combatant) or a contest between formations.

Ideally aircraft want to engage their opposite numbers with the support of wingmen. This allows them to utilise maneuvers that would otherwise be impossible to gain leverage against their foes. Examples would include out-of-plane maneuvering^note Think one aircraft maneuvering in the horizontal plane whilst his wingman maneuvers in the vertical. This forces the target to expose himself to at least one enemy, since if he turns with one he'll leave himself open to the vertically maneuvering plane, but if he climbs/dives to meet his vertical opponent the turning fighter can attack. and maneuvers such as the Champagne^note One flight of aircraft/plane splits off to bracket their targets from the left, another flight/plane brackets the enemy from the right, and a third flight/aircraft acts as the "stem" of the "champagne glass" and meets them head on. Done right, it makes it extremely tricky for a hostile flight to set up a shot without leaving themselves vulnerable. that are performed during the merge (the merge being the period of time at the beginning of a fight when opposing aircraft fly to intercept each other).

However, it isn't impossible for dogfights to decay into individual duels, each aeroplane trying to out-do their enemy and survive.

@Medieval warfare:

In terms of cities, I imagine they too would preferably be starved out rather than being actively besieged.

re: Lord Gacek: as it turns out, it's extremely, extremely difficult to draw up general outlines for how to write an action scene. Almost every scene can be, potentially, very different, depending on author's intent. Descriptions can be profuse and detailed, or abstract and minimal; perspective can be worm's-eye experience of the battle's press at an individual's level, or high and omniscient, or even retrospective (Patrick O'Brian in particular made masterful use of chronological scene cuts and dips into particular characters' recounting of events to preserve pacing in the Aubrey Maturin series). Battles might be glanced over in the course of a war, or, alternatively, the strategic view might only be alluded to when emphasizing personal combat. I've seen all types work very well, and I've seen all types fall flat on their faces.

The first piece of advice, therefore, is to decide what you're emphasizing on for a given scene: a single action scene, a battle piece, a whole campaign. Once you've decided on that, decide what other information is needed to make it work, and how to present that. If this sounds a lot like "general writing advice", yeah, there's a fair bit of overlap. The main difference is that you have a lot more moving parts to keep track of.

Once you've made your decision, set up the general course of the action, decided on characterization and POV and all of that, you can let the cameras roll, so to speak. But there are so many details that you may or may not wish to emphasize or de-emphasize that generalized advice for writing action/combat/war is difficult to apply properly; it's very much case-by-case.

edited 25th Dec '13 12:48:48 PM by SabresEdge

Thanks guys.

When it comes to medieval warfare, I've read one or two books so I'll try to act smartarse.

First thing to consider: the Middle Ages aren't really the time of Clausewitz, but there was quite enough progress, so while strategic thinking might have been a bit sub-par it doesn't mean it all boiled down to random pillaging. I'd say that a strategic plan in those days would have involved a march through the enemy territory, taking strongholds and cities along the way and presumably sitting there, either until the other side agreed to your conditions, or your men started getting vocal with their complaints. Knights might want to return to their lands to oversee the harvest (and if it's earlier period and your army is made of freeman levies, to do the harvest), and mercenaries would expect to be paid.

By the way, the life of a medieval mercenary was pretty lousy. Constant risk to your life, nobody respects you, employers perpetually late with cash. And you if you want to renegotiate the contract too soon, nobody hires you anymore. But at least you can see the world, meet interesting people, kill them, and loot their bodies. (Late medieval mercenaries were quite known for their dashing fashion sense.)

How a siege looks would depend on the when and where, and I'd say there was a decent element of chance to it. Early Middle Ages would see constructions of earth and wood, topped with wooden walls, where the earth would provide protection from fire and attempts at ramming. Siege at that time would use a smaller range of methods. Later, stone (or at least bricks) would become the dominant material.

The "classic", western European High Middle Ages would probably see a besieging army set up camp not far from the besieged property, encircle it, and start building siege machines. Catapults, trebuchets, these sorts of things. Then they'd pound on the walls until there appeared something that could lead to a breach. The other choice would be to build a portable shed that a group of men would carry right to the walls, and then proceed with engineering work like filling the moat or digging a tunnel to undermine the wall. One could, for example, start with the catapults then move on to finish off the breach by digging. If the ground was solid and the moat was no issue, one could try a siege tower. From antiquity we also know of large earthworks, like ramps to reach the walls, I wouldn't say it's too far-fetched for the Middle Ages either.

The defenders would have a number of options too. For one, they'd ride out once in a while — in an attempt to fend off the besiegers, kill as many as they could, or more conservatively, destroy the siege machines. If they had enough material for that, they could construct their own catapults and return fire. When the enemy was near the walls, they'd try fire, boiling oil, and all that stuff, as well as more standard shooting and throwing. In any case the priority was on getting rid of the besiegers' siege equipment. If the situation was bad they could try to negotiate. (I'd say that if getting rid of the siege equipment was not the priority, then they'd better try surrender.)

In fiction a siege is generally depicted as one long assault, but I'd rather see it as a series of attempts of assaults between periods of preparation, engineering works, waiting for hunger to set in or lucky epidemic outbreaks, and so on. If the besiegers opted for a prolonged siege, then there would develop a no man's zone filled with occasional clashes. The defenders try an excursion once in a while. Crossbow bolts fly whenever someone strays too far from their side, such as in a poorly thought out attempt to get some water from the moat. Spies and saboteurs sneak in or out. The besiegers, meanwhile, would sit and wait to see what happens, testing the defences, doing earthworks, watching for a lucky strike of fate like a fire within the walls or a sudden storm washing down some part of the fortifications, or perhaps devising some kind of ruse.

@Rapier: During [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac's_War#Small_forts_taken Pontiac's War]], which was fought between the native Americans of the Great Lakes area and the British in 1763, the Indians destroyed eight forts (after capturing them)- mostly by using various stratagems to get inside. The stratagems included pretending to ask for a council with the fort's officers, using the fort commanders Indian mistress to lure him outside the walls, and staging a lacrosse game in which the ball was thrown into the fort, and the players ran after it.

edited 29th Dec '13 7:07:58 AM by demarquis

Okay. I remember someone asking for details on practicability of fast-moving warfare in the 1700s, pre-Napoleon but post-Thirty Years. I've gotten through enough of my book on warfare in Marlborough's age to start formulating an answer.

Long story short, fast-moving campaigns were very, very rare. This was a time period when infantry, far from being the queen of the battlefield as they were seen later on, were supposed generally incapable of shock action. Instead, fast offensive action was to be left to the cavalry, who were seen as the arbiters of the battle. This was before the age of the well-drilled musketeers that would prove the bane and terror of the American revolutionaries; the flintlock was still being refined (a new innovation was the iron ramrod, as opposed to wood, which would shatter and break), and doctrine still yet to catch up. As a result, infantry tended to be slow and slogging, with well-disciplined fast marches being the exception rather than the norm.

Tactically, however, the main thing that slowed down armies were the artillery trains. This was a century before the galloping horse guns and the well-drilled national artillery organizations of Napoleon's day. Cannons tended to be much heavier than their later counterparts; worse, the drivers of the cannon trains tended to be civilian contractors rather than soldiers themselves. Artillery was still regarded as such a specialized art that they were often separate organizations from the rest of the Army. (The British were ahead of the game by consistent and regularly drafting their Fusilier regiments to help with artillery tasks.) Hence, they tended to be plodding and very, very slow. Yet they were also regarded as indispensable to any battle or siege operation.

So, doctrinally, the well-oiled, fast-moving, all-arms army that's needed to carry out a true lightning operation simply did not exist. Instead of Napoleon's multiple, mobile columns, each logistically sustainable and combining elements of all arms, you had single, clumsy supply and artillery trains.

Now, strategically, there was another constraint. This was still the dawn of national armies. This was the time period that saw newly massive armies raised by the new Westphalia-defined nation-states. These armies, however, were tied to the slow logistics system I mentioned above; while it had become possible to raise large numbers of men, sustaining them was much more difficult. They were too big to live entirely off the countryside for any period of time, and their supplies were handled by, again, private contractors, rather than national procurement networks, with all the potential for fraud and abuse that it entailed.

So, for a successful campaign, logistical preparations had to start far ahead of time. Bread for the men and fodder for the horses had to be gathered far ahead of time. Any given army could only march for a week or so at the maximum before it had to set up a new forward supply depot and forage to fill it; more likely, it had to stop to forage every four days, not counting rest days. Plus, armies were slow. Ten to twelve miles per day was considered the norm, a rate that a reasonably healthy Boy Scout troop could cover in half a day. Add to that the need to go over to winter quarters for half the year, and you end up with massive, slow armies.

Now, an army would still have half the year as a campaign season. But, unless it could force a decisive battle early on (Ramillies, May 1706, for instance), a victory or a defeat was rarely likely to be a truly decisive one, because pursuit of the defeated enemy and exploitation of the victory at a reasonable rate was nearly impossible. Normally, a campaign would cover several months of maneuvering, followed by a sharp clash or series of clashes, whereby the defeated side would withdraw behind its fortress line for winter quarters to rebuild its strength and its morale. This is practically the antithesis of the fast lightning war that my questioner was inquiring about: fast wars of maneuver depend upon the successful exploitation of a victory, and cavalry raids aside, armies of the early 1700s were unable to do it.

Said questioner would be me, thanks.

Hmm, this places unfortunate limits on the campaign that might not work. Would it help at all that the army's commanders have had about four years to drum up forces and train them, as well as do some logistics planning? (They're with a monarch in exile, so they spend most of the story skulking around two foreign courts being a nuisance.) Once they get going they're also sort of in a hurry to recapture their objectives before their foreign allies get there and decide that hey, maybe they'll just take this little region right here as compensation for all their help.

Sounds like such a swift campaign would require a novel approach. Perhaps they have opted for an all-cavalry force, preparing their men for a possibility of dismounting and fighting on foot (or the opposite — putting as many footmen on horseback as they could), to strike a dashing raid and take hold of an objective before the enemy could act. Or they have hired mercenaries fighting in some foreign combat tradition, that grants a greater speed of movement.

An all-cavalry force could work. After all, the commanders are really in a hurry, so what's the harm in "borrowing" some money from their allies to pay for horses? Yes, the monarch-in-exile they're supposed to be working for would object, but hey, what she doesn't know won't hurt her.

Following up on baggage trains/guns, then, they'd probably carry some food with them and rely on the arrangements set up during exile for the rest. Artillery could be solved by giving them a lot of light cannon of the kind attached to the cavalry by Gustavus Adolphus. They'd probably avoid pitched battles where they could, or catch larger forces by surprise where they couldn't.

edited 29th Dec '13 7:03:35 AM by Kesar

Avoiding pitched battles was part of the norm, too. Most operations were sieges. Daniel Defoe (yes, that one) sarcastically referred to warfare as two armies of 50000 men dodging (or "observing") each other for months at a time, and then everyone goes home to winter quarters.

All-cavalry hordes had lost much of their appeal by this time because cavalry can't carry out sieges effectively, and because they were disproportionately expensive compared to infantry. Gustavus Adolphus's "leather guns" would help boost their firepower, but then again Gustavus was a brilliant military innovator, and light horse artillery is of no use against massive forts. Cavalry can probably ravage the countryside in chevauchee, but most of historical Europe was fortified enough that no commander could carry out a Genghis Khan-type cavalry war.

Gah. You're right; I didn't think of that. Cavalry isn't much use in a siege, is it.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Doctrinal innovation, perhaps? My book only ended in 1745, Frederick the Great's day. That still leaves a gap between the massive slow armies of Marlborough's day and Napoleon's lightning offensives. Besides, skilled commanders could still induce their army to move pretty quickly if they were able to plan things out well. The makeup of the armies created a lot of obstacles for them to overcome, but IIRC Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy both built reputations as generals of maneuver.

Not a question I actually need answered so much as something an earlier discussion made me curious about: is there any reason besides technological concerns for conventional infantry to continue to exist in a setting with powered armor?

• Cost: Perhaps powered armour is expensive as hell to test, never mind manufacture, and you could get thirty blokes wearing ballistic vests and wielding standard assault rifles for every ten people you could give the powered armour + fancy shmancy weapons that usually go with 'em.

• Transport: Most powered armour tends toward the bulky end of the spectrum, and this isn't conducive to packing a lot of infantry into let's say an IFV. This might bleed into technology, though.

• Logistics: Let's face it: there's going to be a greater logistics burden associated with any powered armour. Aside from replacement plates/components, you'll need extra electronics, lubricants/oils (the latter depending on how the suit is powered), retrofit kits if necessary, consumables such as power packs, etc. It may not necessarily be a lot for each individual suit, but it will add up over time - and you may not be able to justify that extra drain on supplies.

• Doctrine/Mission requirements: Perhaps, for whatever reason, the higher ups emphasise a strategy that does not work to powered armour's advantages, or where they'd be vast overkill. Think peacekeeping missions, that sort of thing.

There's probably more (and better) points, but those are the ones that occur to me immediately.

edited 29th Dec '13 1:34:37 PM by Flanker66

Cost is really the only reason that remains valid over time, with a couple caveats.

The great appeal of even a powered exoskeleton (and the reason DARPA is after one right now) is that an infantryman carries a lot of gear into combat and then their weapon and bodyarmor as well. This has the obvious effects on mobility and endurance. Even a very basic low-form-factor exoskeleton could restore a lot of both.

As long as your gear and weapons have any kind of noticeable weight, anything conventional infantry can do could be done better by someone with a powered exoskeleton. As long as personal protective wear can be effective at all and has any kind of noticeable weight, anything that conventional infantry does can probably be done better by powered armor.

But in something like Star Trek were your tricorder-and-phaser can tell you what's on the other side of a four-inch bulkhead in great detail and then blow straight through it to kill that, the rules are rather different.

edited 29th Dec '13 3:26:58 PM by Night