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Top-level
 @archangelzeriel @cstross Artillery _as an arm_ absolutely includes all that "what to shoot?" stuff. Reconnaissance _as a function_ is bigger, it's maintaining the awareness of the commanders so there's some possibility of a productive decision. There's a reason Sun Tzu goes on and on about knowing yourself and knowing the enemy and has unkind things to say about generals who won't pay for spies. (Definitely not a voice actor. Nothing to do with the Rust language, either.) 3 comments
@archangelzeriel @cstross The pros have that exact same problem of the head-meats. Also getting a bit fixated on the how of doing the thing as should be presently customary, which is why cavalry-in-a-can comes as a shock. (I maintain that the easiest and best way to think of drones is just that; they have all the functions and the same limitations as classic "horse guns and foot" cavalry. And the mental images of a bunch of grunts lugging around a can of compressed horse soldier are funny.) (RE: cavalry-in-a-can, there was at least one D&D game in which that actually happened, except it involved a glass jar, my paladin, and the "Gaseous Form" spell. I am assuredly not the only person to have thought of this, and I've seen similar tactics told elsewhere on ye olde internet) |
Gregory's Server
@graydon @cstross
Honestly, my actual problem is that I'm so ensconced in a particular mindset from being both an amateur military historian and an avid wargame player, but who doesn't talk about those things often in spaces not also 100% colonized by war nerds, that "recon" has moved from "one of the tentpoles of successful military operations" to "so self-evidently important that one forgets about it as a separate concept because not having it means you lose, full stop." in my brain meats.