This article was formerly known as Field Training but was mainly about offense, defense, and covert operations (Covert Ops.) Pretty much the same thing will be talked about here, but more up-to-date, and we will not spell defense the Canadian way or British way!

Defense

Sun Tzu said, Thus one who excels at warfare first establishes himself in a position where he cannot be defeated, but does not loose any opportunities to defeat the enemy. This means that you must first make sure you cannot be defeated, and then go out and seek the enemy.

There are three characteristics of defense: Early warning, prevention, and reaction. Out of those three, the reaction is most important, followed by the early warning, then the prevention.

Early Warning

I must be honest with you that I have never used traps or alarms. If an article about traps, alarms, etc. ever comes out, this page will be updated. But, for more information on traps & alarms, see the references section below. The other way to do an early warning system is to post scouts either stationary or on patrol. Basically, you put these guys out on the perimeter of your base and/or territory and they move around.

However, one thing I have tried is if you buy some of those cheap, $10-20 and tie a six millimeter (1/4) string around the Talk button and turn this particular radios volume down really low, and the other radio up really high. This should work enough to hear people and maybe what they are saying! Make sure you use black, gray, brown, green, or olive colored string. White or other bright colors should definitely be avoided. In fact, I suggest you don't even use them if that's all you got. These radios should be dark colored, and camouflaged. They should have a maximum range of about 45.5 meters (150 ft.) to 91.5 meters (300 ft.)

Of course, you could just buy an expensive alarm system and have it turn on lights, or make a loud noise when an intruder trips over it but frankly, that would be a waist of money.

Prevention

You & your assistant commander have been making the plans to assault the enemy base, while listening to the radio you place about 70 meters (230 ft.) down the only trail that leads to your base. Suddenly, you hear the sound of leaves crackling and, the voice of the enemy offense commander! There is nothing but a tranquil silence. You say to your troops, "Alright men, the enemies are about 70 meters that way. Prepare for to intercept them!"

While this scenario is not likely, something similar to this could happen. You have two main options at this point: Attack them, or be attacked. Intercepting is a good idea. You could set up a flank attack by getting into a position that provides adequate concealment & cover near the entrance(s). When they come along, allow them to go into the base. Then, attack their rear. They will be fairly surprised because after all, your base was empty. Or you could set up further down the trail. Or, you could just charge at them like a kamikaze.

There are almost an infinite amount of possibilities of what you could do with this scenario. But, whatever you do should follow these guidelines:

* Attack their weak point (or weakest weapon)
* Send a scout ahead

o If they have more than you, do hit & run, guerilla attacks
o If they are equal with you, try to do some guerilla assaults and gain an advantage
o If you are more than them, surrounding them may be a good possibility

Reaction

The reaction is mainly what you do after they have been detected or what you do if they have not been detected, but they still ambushed you. Your reaction should be calm, organized, and designed to sustain minimum casualties.

The enemy will be trying to gain an advantage, or may already have an advantage. You might be surprised by what he has done, you may not. If out of the blue, you are attacked, get behind the nearest cover and try to get as many balloons thrown at them as possible. Then, under the cover the grenadier provide, have some heavy troops run up close and nail the enemies behind cover of course.

If you are just bracing for the attack, then it should be fairly simple. Your troops will already be in position, and you will probably have a lot more balloons ready. This will save you ample time, and get the enemy ample wetness!

Offense

You can lose the war (or stalemate it) on defense, but you can only win the war by offense. After the enemy has assaulted your base, lost, and had half of its troops eliminated, you must spring up and take advantage of it.

Your scout comes back and reports that the enemy base is on top of a hill in the forest. To make matters worse, it is a tree house with windows, lockable doors, and is three meters (eleven feet) high. However, their manpower is equal to half yours. Hence, you can equal what they have at their base, and still have that same amount at yours.

Get them to waist their water. Try to do modified guerilla attacks such as running close to their lines and running back. Then try to offer them something the must take. You could put two or three guys a bit a way from the enemies range and give them toy binoculars and fake (or cheap) walky talkies and make them pretend like they are reporting stuff back to base. Hopefully, this will draw some of them out. Take some troops, and set them up so they can establish crossfire as soon as the enemy has walked into the ambush zone.

Then pretty much just blitz the fort, throwing balloons up and eliminating as many people as possible.

If you noticed, I did not just walk right up and fire at them. This would work maybe four out of ten times (because of my superior numbers). But, these tactics would probably work 9.999 out of ten times. Follow these rules:

* The troops you choose for offense missions must be disciplined, loyal, tough, and generally, elite.
* You should try to make them lose without actually fighting (i.e. making them fire and waist their water, then just eliminating them at will)
* Screw up the enemies plans, mess with his mind make him mad & frustrated so they won't be able to think clearly
* Do what is unexpected
* Focus on achieving maximum results with minimum effort
* Be reasonable and have self-control; let your second-in-command (or whoever isn't too mad) plan while you relax if you get mad
* Explore your options
* Use tactics that will convert your enemies strength into a weakness (i.e. ambush them when they are going down the ladder, or hide under the floor boards and attack them from there)
* Manipulate the enemy, create an opportunity to attack, and then apply maximum power
* Sun Tzu said, "go forth were they do not expect it, attack where they are not prepared."
* Be secretive, exert extreme discipline throughout your squad
* Be deceptive (i.e. have the trick spies appear incompetent water fighters and have small weapons)
* Entice the enemy with things he must take (i.e. the spy post)

That was a bit long, but it's all good. These are the 13 maxims every wise commander will employ in his offensive maneuvers.

Covert Ops.

There are a few types of Covert Ops: Sabotage, gathering advanced knowledge, and deceiving the enemy.

Sabotage

Sabotaging weaponry is simple, but there is much controversy which we shall avoid. Basically, you capture the weapon, unscrew the pump handle, and take the pump handle to your base and return at the end of your war. If you can actually take the weapon, then take it. Preservation is better than destruction. Of course, you could always empty the weapons (both pressure chamber and reservoir), and then scatter them.

To sabotage bases, take down stuff. In our tree fort example in the Defense section, if you had the chance to sabotage the tree fort, you would've took out the windows, and maybe locked the door so no one could've gotten into the inner chamber. If the enemy's base is made of boxes, string, and other light material, you could carry that away or destroy it if you don't have enough time.

You can sabotage water balloons by popping them. I suggest you take a few of them with you. According to Sun Tzu, one of their water balloons is worth twenty of yours. So, if you pop five of their balloons, it's like popping 100 of yours. Basically, sabotage only when you have a limited amount of time.

Advanced Knowledge

You cannot gain advanced knowledge from the stars, or from your palm, or any other crazy stuff. You must truly know the enemy's situation.

You must know what the enemy has, where his base is, and all of that stuff. These are the guys that should get no higher reward; no higher secrecy should exist ahead of the spies. If the enemy finds out of the spies before it happens, don't do it.

If you find spies spying on you, then eliminate them.

Deception