Questions tagged [tactics]
For questions about short term actions, often in a military context. Consider also [military].
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Defensive Middle Ages measures against magic-controlled "smart" arrows
Hear hear,
with the latest arcane technology, archers on the battlefield are able to shoot "smart arrows". Smart arrows are propelled by a little unit of magiteck, which allows the archer to ...
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Sustaining linear warfare in futuristic combat [closed]
In my sci-fi setting, I’m looking for a way to have linear infantry formations, or something similar, in a world where airplanes and machine-guns also exist. It is made possible by the existence of ...
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How to non-lethally capture a sapient gorilla using only what can be found in an average American kitchen? [closed]
I'm writing this story where a good friend of the main character gets kidnapped by a clan of sapient Gorilla-like creatures. In order to find where they are keeping him captive, the MC decides that ...
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What would make winged centaurs a reasonable fighting force? [closed]
Within my world of Astarious, I have a race known as the Pegtauri, winged centaurs, who for a time were feared raiders on villages near the mountains that separated their plains from the rest of ...
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How to defeat Mesoamerican military without gunpowder? [closed]
Question : What weapons, armors and tactics required to defeat mesoamerican armies without gunpowder?
Assume that your army is made of native Texans unified under one leader.
Clarification: Native ...
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Realistically, how much redundancy needs to be added to crucial industries?
One thing I love to play with in worldbuilding is the dialectic of centralisation-decentralisation.
Decentralisation has many advantages: when something (e.g. food) is produced decentrally, ...
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Could the source of nightly attacks from underground on a bronze age society stay undetected for an extended period of time [closed]
In a short story I am writing, a human kingdom on the technological level of late bronze age greece, has begun to be raided by a species of cruel catfolk called grimalkin.
The humans are neither aware ...
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How Nazi Germany should use it's new Nukes to quickly and efficiently conquer the entire world [closed]
The premise is thus;
A neo-nazi time traveler with a ton of money to throw around who's also done a ton of research into the manufacturing, mechanisms, and uses of nukes, brings a few construction ...
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What kind of tactical situation/s would be best approached with trained jetpack pilots?
I'm writing a story where there's a civil war fought by people with weapons and technology based on 50s experimentals, kind of like a subtle "What-if" aesthetic.
How can I manipulate what ...
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What good are undead cavalry as part of a modern army (fighting mostly orcs and goblins)? [closed]
Basically, the question is, what alterations would the necromancer/biomancer make to his horses to make them viable again?
The horses can be trained and are sentient. The necromancer can repair them ...
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How might Elves in this setting survive?
I'm working on a short story. In in this story there are elves. I'm hoping to realistically write how they would fight both one another and other races.
NOTE: The elves didn't naturally evolve, they ...
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Can brittle but harder swords be preferred in period context or against unarmored opponents?
So its already been repeatedly established that any harder material will inevitably be more brittle than steel and more likely to break on impact in comparison to steel. However, what if the primary ...
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How much of a tactical advantage does a single conspicuously dressed soldier give?
Why have one soldier dressed differently from the rest, ideally in a primary colour? Try looking at the picture bellow.
This is the famous "black dot on a white page". As you can see, it is ...
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How to make a weapon that never friendly fires?
On some computer games it is common to have a setting that disables friendly fire, it does not prevent shooting but it the bullets don't harm friend players.
In real life would it be possible to make ...
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How can these people fight these monsters? [closed]
On an alternate earth, lethal Pliosaurs size creatures infest the ocean, making sea travel impossible. Their cousin species tries to invade the surface every five years.
The advantages of this ...
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How could an ancient army go about defeating a giant army of monsters? [closed]
I've been trying to study military victories against the odds but a lot of the stuff doesn't apply it seems. The armies in those battles are usually not outnumbered as severely and when they are, they'...
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How would an infantry army deal with infantry with shields? [closed]
Scenario: In a future conflict, one of the BRICS nation's infantry have effectively fielded personal shields, with medium long-term mobility. The logistics of the shield is such a way that every ...
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What would be the most effective role to place 150-300 modern soldiers in during the Civil War? [closed]
So, let’s say 300-ish modern American Soldiers/Marines are sent back to the civil war. They lack any heavy weaponry, but overall this is what their armament consists of:
250 of them have basic M4 ...
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How effective would a scythe be in a one-on-one, sword-versus-scythe fight?
In one-on-one combat, with one combatant using a sword, the other the aforementioned false Death, how effective would a scythe be in combat? What tactics could be utilized with it, and what tactics ...
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Plausibility of tank-borne infantry in a world with very short sight ranges and rare, awful radios
This question takes place in the same setting as that of this post (tl;dr: the world is bathed in thick magic fog, the naked eye can't see past a hundred meters, an M4's effective range is 50 meters, ...
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World war-tier weaponry and lackluster electronics in a world with severely compressed effective ranges - how does tactical doctrine change? [closed]
The setting: Every relevant part of the world is bathed in a thick, soupy, magic juice fog (visibility hovers around a hundred meters on most days). Among other effects, it makes firearms extremely ...
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How Would the Square-Cube Law change Medieval/Ancient Warfare Between Tiny Humanoids
My story has a battle between two tiny races of humanoids. Assume that both of these races have developed in relative isolation from one another so they have not had a lot of time to develop ...
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Advanced Tech beats Combined Arms [closed]
TL;DR: If I am insistent on a nation having a single weapons system spread throughout all of its troops, how much of a technological advantage is necessary to conquer the benefits of the enemy having ...
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Battlefield Tactics for eleven pixies carrying a machine gun
So, imagine a traditional fantasy world that has progressed into the modern age. Assume technology similar to that we had in world war 2.
With the humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, and the like constantly ...
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What tactical advantages can be gained from frenzied, berserkir units on the battlefield?
Let's picture a medieval world, where a tribe of Viking-like mercenaries live for the thick of the fight, the blood nourishing the ground, and the honour of the gods of war. So they are equipped, ...
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How would a modern military deal with an organized uprising from a group of werewolves?
I remember hearing in a discussion about modern geopolitics and military strategy how modern terrorist groups for a Western liberal democracy. The technological advantage most modern militaries have ...
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How these characteristics effect war doctrines? [closed]
I like to put a few humanoid races in my world, each with some boons and/or banes. While it is easy enough to figure out the major implications of a single isolated characteristic, things get more ...
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19th Century Warfare With 18 Fantasy Races: Or, 19th Century Combat With Magic and No Guns [closed]
Alright, my races from this question (Rail Transportation with Races Described Below - Specifically, Seating) are going to war. However, combat works differently here. They lack gunpowder weapons ...
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Medieval style tactics vs high-positioned archers
I am working out a situation where an army is invading a heavily wooded land, two large units of regular footmen with sword and shield and supporting archers, against a force almost exclusively of ...
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Would dragons with automatic grenade launchers strapped to their backs be useful?
My Dragons: Smaller and cuddlier than their original version (well, most writers copy Smaug to varying degrees). They have long lifespans and human intelligence. They can mimic just about any sound ...
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How could dragons and gryphons reduce their hitbox?
So, the thing is that this world (let's call it World A) is shared between several sapient races, some smaller (kobolds), some bigger (dragons, gryphons, minotaurs, centaurs) than humans. Storywise, ...
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How would larger quadrupeds dodge gunfire and use cover?
Okay, it's not exactly "dodging", more like running for cover, but you should get the point. There are a handful of creatures in my setting that are quadruped and cover the same size range ...
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How would a higher delta in human performance effect medieval warfare?
In this universe the average human's physical ability is the same but the extremes are greater. There is a 5 percent chance that a human is born much stronger/weaker then baseline humanity. This isn't ...
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Rhino cavalry charge! How horrible would it be?
There have been questions asking if rhino, hippo and other similar kinds of cavalry are feasible.
Now let's for a moment skip that and assume we have some special means, on the end of which, we get ...
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Tactics people with electricity powers would develop against people with water powers during a death tournament, and vice versa? [closed]
For centuries, on the day the moon would turn a blood red, a portal would open across various worlds. Chosen warriors from these worlds would enter the portal, usually at most five people per world, ...
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Tactics people with wind powers would develop against people with fire powers during a death tournament, and vice versa?
For centuries, on the day the moon would turn a blood red, a portal would open across various worlds. Chosen warriors from these worlds would enter the portal, usually at most five people per world, ...
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Military strategy in a world of fixed opaque wormholes [closed]
(This is based on the old wargame Starfire... but don't bother providing answers based on newer versions of said game.)
Spacecraft travel by inertialess drive -- that is, beyond mere reactionless ...
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Would submarines be well defended from space based lasers? What about railguns?
When a planet is under seige, obviously its airports, missile silos, and launch sites are the first targets of bombardment, to prevent a counterattack. It thus seems that submarines, which can fire ...
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Are medieval flamethrower chariots viable?
Historically, the Byzantine Empire used ship-mounted Greek Fire throwers to defend Constantinople. These weapons were pretty advanced and horrifying for the enemy.
The existence of these historic ...
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What types of tactics would humans develop against creatures that are hurt by light in a literal dark post-apocalyptic world?
In a post-apocalyptic world, monster-like creatures have taken over most of the planet, and twenty years later, only a few clusters of humanity still remain with somewhat functioning governments, and ...
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What is the best way to defeat a enemy of superior numbers but inferior technology?
Our protagonist civilization is based on a large island in the middle of the pacific(think half the size of Australia), has a population of 100 million, has abundant resources and is totally self-...
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How would a military with 18th Century artillery and technology attack an enemy entrenched in a fantastical forest? [closed]
I'm writing a story in which there are large swathes of dense, magically-enhanced forests home to all manner of creatures. There's a town close the edge of one of these forests and it's being ...
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In battle, how many soldiers would an indestructible fighter be worth? [closed]
There is a magical set of armour that protects its wearer from all physical harm. The armour is absolutely indestructible; blades will break against it, battering rams would bounce off it, even ...
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So, how do you ground a dragon?
I was tempted to make this question about grounding the dragon in a different way, then the title would have been "How to make an acid-resistant home/prison for a dragon?".
Grounding the dragon is a ...
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How would gryphons go about defending themselves against humans?
So, let's start turning the tables. Previously, we talked about humans slaying gryphons, now let's talk about gryphons fighting back against humans.
Gryphons
Gryphons are hexapodal creatures, ...
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How to trap and kill a T-Rex-like creature?
The story: in a fantasy iron age world, a T-Rex-like animal (actually more like the size of allosaurus) has emerged from the forest and started killing people. The animal always retreats to the forest ...
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Best Military Use of Mercenary Giant Ape Men?
In my setting there is a race descended from Gigantopithecus blacki.
These creatures retain much of their ancestors physical features, such as:
•An impressive height of 2.75 meters (9 feet in freedom ...
user71781
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How to utilize dragons that are too small to ride in warfare?
Dragons in my setting are significantly smaller and less physically powerful than most depictions. The large males reach about 100 kilograms and just over two meters tall. This means that they ...
user71781
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Is The Use of Mounted Infantry a Viable Tactic for a Nomadic Empire?
By “Nomadic Empire” I am referring to an expansionist power that resembles the empires created by Eurasian Nomads throughout history ranging from the Scythians, Huns, and of course Mongols. Their ...
user71781
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Medieval military tactics, given the presence of a single invincible champion in every nation's army
The setting is low fantasy medieval. Magic (and other supernatural things) belong exclusively to the realms of the gods, and are not for mortal beings to wield. However, there is one major exception.
...
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