The Biggest Challenge of the 21st century : The battle between POS & ????

[McIvan]

Ummm...no.

Unless you just showed up in an area 5 minutes ago you have a real good idea what your enemy has. You have a real good idea what's important to him. You know where most of his troops are. You have a good idea of how competent the troops and the commander are.

QB's are nothing like a real life situation.

Good Hunting.

MR

[/quote]

Actually I vehemently disagree with this. Maybe under ideal circumstances, in situations where troops had been in place for some time, and they had won the battle of the patrols or had enemy positions under reasonable observation.

But my reading of WWII is full of examples of mounting full scale attacks with no real idea, in the tactical sense, of what lay ahead of them. A situation when, for example, you crack the front line and keep advancing....practically anything you run into from then on will be completely unknown to you. Or where you've advanced to the enemy the day before, halting when the lead scouts get scythed down by an MG, and then mounting a hasty attack or a formal attack the next day. Fast moving columns....no way they know accurately what's in front of them other than maybe "enemy troops there".

I can't imagine battalion commanders routinely having the info you describe unless they'd been in static positions for quite some time.