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And the Black Army went against a much more professional army and was very professional in its nature. And I, and Black Flame, would hold that they didn't lose because of their structure.
And the militia did have something like that. In the heat of battle, the militia had a de facto commander, with most of the collective decision making occurring before, after, and generally between battles. That's what Black Flame is used to, so that's probably how she's going to do this.
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No. I'm speaking of a single element of the Republican side, not the Republican side as a whole. The Republican side as a whole was a mess because it was a bunch of groups that hated each other forced onto a single side by a unified enemy. Each of the groups within the Republican side were much less of a mess. The mess came not from the groups within it but from the relations they had with each other. So the tankies on the Republican side were pretty well organized and unified, but they hated the icepicks and anarchists enough that they'd fight against them. The social democrats were similar. The icepicks were themselves well organized and unified, but they hated the tankies and social democrats enough that they'd fight against them. The anarchists were quite similar.
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Nah, we need coordination, not orders. This can come equally in the form of one person making a plan and telling everyone they have to follow the plan as it can from everyone sitting down and creating a plan together and then doing the plan they created, then someone reacting to changes in the scenario and changing the plan and sharing the changes with the others. The second, you'll note, still has a commander for the battlefield, but is structured with collective decision making in the planning of how things will go down.
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So long as it doesn't happen during battles we have something of a chance. But the nature of battlefield commanding requires the commander to make tough calls that will leave someone on his side very unhappy. (Somebody's got to draw the fire of the machine gun, or take point on the patrol and be the first to take a sniper's bullet.) Without some semblence of professionalism, bad things will happen; plus, collective decision-making tends to result in more cautious, conservative plans—bad when you're commando force and essentially succeed by audacity and boldness backed up by thorough planning.
edited 1st Jul '14 2:47:37 PM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.![]()
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The GM, via RNG, has already decided that the overall mission commander is Black Flame. Meaning it's her job to delegate further tasks, including roles like squad commanders and the like.
edited 1st Jul '14 2:51:34 PM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.![]()
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And that is how the Spanish militia were structured, to my understanding, so that's how she's going to structure this team, since that's basically the only way she knows to structure military engagements.
Also, with this team, I don't think we need to worry about cautious, conservative plans from anyone or them collectively.
edited 1st Jul '14 2:52:09 PM by deathpigeon
From what I've seen, if this fight is allowed to play out, it will be much like Hulk vs Thor.
Hulk is stronger than Thor, like American Glory is stronger than Devastator, but Thor can fly and has magical powers, much like Devastator has.
Unfortunately, this fight will probably be broken up soon.
edited 1st Jul '14 2:53:09 PM by BaconManiac5000
what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone elseWell, thank heavens we're working with platoon-level formations at the highest.
Anyway, Commander Flame (and I'm not using that title sarcastically—she's mission commander and that's that) faces her first challenge now—how to reign in the possibly-insane member of the team.
You know, in most infantry units on the frontline, someone who'd endanger his comrades by his antics would quickly find himself reassigned to duties in the rear where he wouldn't get his squad killed by his incompetence.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.If Black Flame does that to a library, I'm going to lobby as hard as I can to get an orangutang character, purely so I could then have the orangutang repeatedly attempt bloody murder on her.
Because you do not do that to books.
You know, as much as "first we fight it out, then we become battle buddies" is a beloved trope in superhero movies, what those stories tend to gloss over is that it's a great way to scuttle morale and trust if you let it affect the mission—which in this case it obviously does. It raises serious doubts on whether or not your buddies can trust you at the point of fire, and those doubts are the last thing a small-unit force like ours can afford—especially a small-unit force where everyone has to pull their weight.
edited 1st Jul '14 3:17:49 PM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.But Fire-Forged Friends is one of my favorite tropes.
what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else

Yeah, a democratic commando force is not a good idea. You have to have someone telling everyone else what to do, otherwise we'll get squashed like bugs because we're off doing our own things.
Besides, it's likely that Black Flame wouldn't want to the same thing as they did in the Spanish Civil war.
I mean, despite the fact that it ended so well for the Communists.
edited 1st Jul '14 2:22:15 PM by BaconManiac5000
what do you mean I didn't win, I ate more wet t-shirts than anyone else