Re: Combat (Rounds 106-111)
It was a good question and they all did deserve an answer. Dohr nodded to Fiarr and stood up from the chair he’d been sitting on. The doctor cleared his throat and thought about it a moment before speaking. ”It is fairly difficult for me to think of a real-life situation in which the setup would be the same as was in the game. A time limit of 15 minutes would be possible of course, even probable in some situations. Defending a base while trying to infiltrate an enemy one would be a normal scenario in any war. Combining those two… Now that would be a rare thing. And when one adds to that the need of distributing previously unknown amount and range of weapons to people whose skills are not fully known, it becomes a one in a million situation. And having two commanders without a predefined roles doubles the unlikeliness.”
Dohr kept a pause and lowered his gaze to do some more thinking before continuing: ”Therefore I cannot give you a definite answer. Had the exercise been for real, we all would already have had our weapons at the ready. We probably would have had some intel on the enemy and the target building. And we definitely would have known our base setup better.” The Kel Dor raised one hand to halt any arguments for a moment. ”Now that was not meant as an excuse. But fifteen minutes is a very short time to plan and execute any kind of a military mission. Had our lives been at stake, I would have preferred to stay and defend our base of operations… Well why did I not choose to do so now? It was the decision Idaya and I made as your commanding officers. For even thought the goal of the exercise was to evaluate our leading skills, we also wanted to give us all a chance at winning the game as well and the only way to do so was to eliminate the enemy team or to catch their ‘flag’. And in dividing the group into assault and defence, we had two separate groups for two leaders making it easier for both us and you to operate and your leaders to evaluate our performance.”
Dohr took a sip of his drink and carried on. ”So I would say: Yes, I would have done things differently with live weapons and real objective. But that I am sure must have been clear to your leaders before the event took place. And it should not really matter. Even if orders would have been different, then I am sure this exercise gave them a good chance to evaluate our way of operating in charge of a small troop. It is after all the way all officer students are assessed during military training as well. They do not, and fortunately so, usually have to face death during their education.”
Another sip and another pause. ”So. It comes down to our successes and failures in the exercise, I believe. While I do not dare to presume I know how Idaya and I will be evaluated, I would like to give you my opinion of my own performance even though Rian is not present… In my mind, all in all we did fairly well as a team. The enemy clearly had earlier experience of the game and knew the layout of the buildings very well. I would go far enough to guess they even knew exactly how a first-timer team would operate, how we would be forced to waste time in planning and considering our options. And that is what made this game very interesting and a good learning experience.”” At this point Dohr looks at Fiarr and spreads his arms in surrender. ”Although it must not have been too interesting for those of you who got removed from the game very early…"
"I would consider my… or our” The Doc smiled at Idaya. ”worst mistake having no eyes on the strip for four full minutes at the start of the game. That was totally unacceptable. It gave the enemy plenty of time to get their defences in place and worse yet, it allowed their assault team to reach our building without us knowing anything about it. So the error was in fact considering the enemy beginners in the game as well or in fact not taking them as veterans instead.”
Dohr had been speaking for a while, but decided to carry on a bit longer. ”Another mistake was the weapon distribution. Janine and Vyn should have been given a rifle as well. Though you valiantly tried to shoot at the enemy building as per my order, Janine, it was totally useless. With a rifle you would have been able to do much more. Apologies for that. And same goes for Vyn on rooftop. Although I fear you would have been taken as a target even earlier, had you fired shots at the enemies.”
”I would like to finish by expressing my thanks to the Defence Team. You did admirably despite the mistakes I made as your leader in this exercise. Kimy, your idea of hacking the console was brilliant and Vyn heading to the rooftop to observe the enemy, that was very well thought of as well. Janine, I fear your chances of shining were killed by the fact that we let the enemy slip into our building unnoticed. Well played nevertheless.”