I do it this way: a short primer on basic tactics
by Shaun Hullick

The battlefield, as we all see it, is a decidely hard
place to go work but time and time again, we assume that
our troops will ignore there own well being and follow
our well thought out Battle Plans.

Our problem, put generally, is one of control.
Maintaining control of any group at any time can provide
the best of us with more than enough problems.  As
armchair generals we have in our favour a number of
points: -

1.Our troops are trained, battle hardened heroes who have
  complete disregard for their safety and an instinctive
  grasp of the "big picture".

2.Every sub-unit commander has sufficient initiative and
  control to have his troops react to the failings in our
  "brilliant plan".

3.Correspondingly our enemies are slow-brained, yellow-
  bellied fools who would have more chance running
  spittle down their chin than a battle.

In addition we have to remember that sometimes our
soldiers' only concern is making it through his next
bound rather than taking part in a co-ordinated assault.
So how do we control our lack lustre troops in the face
of that vicious enemy fire, good dice rolls by the
opposition and unfeeling umpire's attentions?  Here comes
the part where I offer you the benefit of my stunning
intellect (yeah, yeah, yeah, so I did invest in Pyramid,
what of it?).

I have personally always applied the seven P's (Prior
Preparation and Planning Prevents a Piss-Poor
Performance) whenever possible.  Examples of this are: -

  When moving into contact cover all movement (i.e. one
  section forward, the other two in the platoon covering
  them).  In other words never leave an element
  unsupported.

  Use your commander's responsibly.  Having them
  subjected to combat will tend to distract them
  somewhat.  However also remember that sometimes the
  commander must personally rally and lead his troops if
  they are pinned down, so don't hide him because that
  means the troops will lose heart.

  Identify and seperate enemy positions and organise your
  troops to neutralise those positions.  Attacking on a
  wide front will cause your troops to basically shoot at
  the people in front of them who are shooting at them.
  Hence diluting their own fire against prepared
  defensive positions and we know who tends to win that
  sort of fire-fight, now don't we?

  Learn when to disperse and concentrate your forces.  If
  you cannot concentrate against the enemy's weak points
  then he will always be able to defeat you.  If you
  cannot disperse when under fire, you represent a much
  better, closely bunched target.

Finally, we must all accept that things do go wrong and
luck can play a major part in the outcome.  Also the fool
across the table, with the dribble down his chin may just
do his banking somewhere other than the Pyramid Building
Society.