บท 16: Chapter 16: Combat's Plan and its weakness

Several hours past, in a blink of an eye, time for meeting had arrived. Sena gestured Alleria to follow her, who was excited at the same time nervous to participate for the first time. They entered the room and saw everyone was in place. As soon as the officers saw Sena, they saluted and greeted her. Sena waved them off to relax and cut to the topic. Her goal was to brief what the whole mission was and how to conduct it.

When she saw everyone sat around the roundtable which had a map drawn on the surface, she picked up a long stick to point out some positions on the map the current mission required.

She dictated every word slowly but firmly, "Our Lady command us to separate into three groups, each consisting of 300 guards. We'll attack in three separate directions. 100 guards remaining will function as a quick response unit, reinforcing if necessary. Another 500 will stay as reserves. Each group will only use 100 guards during the attack and rotate the deployment to continuously assault. That's the general plan and details need to be figured out by you officers. Anybody unclarified or just want to ask question. You can now."

All the officers stayed quiet for a moment to digest the information. It went on until one of them raised their hand and asked straightforward: "Captain, although our assault will be continuous, wouldn't the 100 guards be too weak to have any impact."

"Good question. The mission this time will be absolutely different from previous battles." Sena said. "Our Lady wants a skirmish, not an all-out war. Quel'Thalas didn't support us and will even stop us if the situation escalates. So, in order to complete the mission and have the trolls some fear at us, our warfare will be a restricted one. Your main objective is to kill as many trolls as you can without endangering yourself, which is also your secondary objective. Our Lady Lireesa wants us to return back one piece. As long as you felt the situation will likely cost even a single ranger, my advice and order is to withdraw."

All the officers quickly realized the deep meaning implied by the order given by Lady Lireesa. Implementing this plan in reality was complicated and harder than initially expected. Battle tactics without a single casualty if possible were almost non-existent. Wars were worn by the bodies of the warriors and spirit of the whole army. Since Lady Lireesa had directly stated, it was impossible for her to not know a simple understanding of war.

......

After sending her daughters back from the training ground, she was still energetic even after having a full meal, while Sylvannas and Vereesa went back feeling sleepy. She decided to visit the war theatre which was always established as soon as there would be combat. Nobody noticed her identity as she was wearing an ordinary green robe without decorations like other rangers and she covered her face with a translucent green veil only displaying her elegant eyebrows and her sapphire eyes. Even in an ordinary attire, she still received several eyes on her way because her figure was the most prominent amongs ranger, a perfect curve and bumps ratios. Ranger's clothing includes leather breast armor and skirt armor and leggings. Usually, the area of waist wasn't covered, showing vested beauty of a female warriors. Under all sorts of cover, she couldn't hide her obvious beauty. Fortunately for her, no rangers observed her carefully and were busy with their own tasks.

She sneaked into the meeting room and no one noticed her movement. She listened Sena's explanation and was satisfied she comprehend her. Watching them all deep in thoughts because of predicting some obstacles which might overrule the whole idea, Lireesa thought she should enter the discussion, but she decided to wait patiently. Naturally, Lireesa knew the cost of war but this time wasn't actually a war. It was an act of bullying and fleeing from dangers. Going back and forth several times she figured out, it would become a guerilla offensive, although guerilla only occurred on the defensive side, but Lireesa wanted to experiment. According to her plan, before the finances could be recovered, which usually took around six months to a year, this specific type of warfare could sustain Windrunner's logistic and her family's wealth was still enough to continue for two years.

......….

Sena now had a headache, she should have asked for Lireesa for further details, since she came up with an idea. She initially assumed the whole battle plan was similar to what's done in the past. Strategically, they were not much different albeit the mission didn't include occupying territory or look toward material gains. On the tactical side, it popped loads of problems requiring the intervention of officers of all level. For instance, how would the whole squadron react to the sudden close ambush, without suffering a casualty. Another scenario, if they made a tactical retreat but the trolls still pursued, how should they react.

Before even initiating the offensive, it appeared there were gaps, the Windrunner legion must address to. It wasn't the plan wasn't perfect; the plan, in fact, had brought up serious defects in the old army system, which now seemed requiring a transformation. Now this ingenious plan of Lireesa might actually revolutionized how rangers would be fighting in the future.

She glanced around the meeting table and discovered nearly all officers were either scratching the back of their head or stroking their forehead and eyebrows gently or even messing up their hair into a mess. She felt their anxiousness and helplessness, because they thought themselves guilty where their Lord or Lady had already given them the resourceful general plan, but they failed miserably in their responsible sector.

Strangely she found an odd person among her subordinates and scrutinized her meticulously because she didn't show her face wearing a veil looking very mysterious but also giving her off a familiar vibe. To be honest, her figure despite covered by robe exuded delicate wonder and charms, mesmerizing Sena toward inexplicable imagination. Perhaps noticing her poking gaze, the figure's eyes glanced at her and rolled her eyes, in what Sena conceived was a smile. She recognized Lireesa immediately.

Lireesa knowing her friend Sena had already identified her. It appeared she'd to go up the stage. Otherwise, her subordinates might quit their officer posts suddenly because of their so-called incompetence. Seeing them make a mess, at least satisfied her vanity. Frankly, she forgot although there was a vast difference between the two worlds in terms of everything, ancient tactics were still appliable in Azeroth. She initially speculated the military affairs would not face such problems until she realized the guerilla warfare in her times only matured in the modern era.

Guerilla did exist on Earth during ancient time period. Robbing supply lines, ambushing the convoy or the messenger, and attacking the weak point all existed throughout history of war. It was because the weapon system used during that particular time was in close ranged combat that casualties were unavoidable so large and the tactics couldn't continue after several times due to severe loss of troops. It wasn't until the invention of firearm, this tactic was used many times and became popular when fighting against a strong enemy, although most scoffed the method ungentlemanly and rascal way of warfare. However, no one denied the obvious results produced by these tactics. Only in the modern era, guerilla became so popular and well-known, reaching its peak, where even non-military personnel had knowledge of.

Lireesa's previous life nation, was the world hegemony superpower, acting as a police state, enforcing rules and maintaining peace. Even then it suffered disastrous defeats many times in the hands of small power such as in Vietnam, Iraq and later in Afghanistan. Her homeland was able to be victorious conventionally, swift and very decisive; there wasn't any explanation besides being too strong. Even with all its might, guerilla war in those countries had brought the world superpower down to its kneel. No matter how much were achieved in tactical battlefields, if no strategic objectives were accomplished, the war itself was lost.

Guerilla war worked perfectly, winning beautifully would become textbook for future generation; losing it could still bring the opponents into the quagmire of war, unable to extract themselves out, suffering from manpower and resources where the longer the war went on the more the opponent no longer wanted to invest any longer provided that the whole population supported the guerilla movement.

High elves were the most suitable for these particular tactics especially for the ranger units. In Azeroth, where many races hadn't experience guerilla, would bring a huge bonus point. Plus, high elves' rangers were the range unit capable of long-distance combat effectiveness. Beside the night elves, they dare to declare themselves as the best in terms of archery, which was the most lethal in Azeroth's warfare. In fact, even if human race used gunpowder and firearm, high elves had confidence in terms of range and accuracy.

Lireesa moved toward Sena, attracting many gazes in each of her step. She was amazed at the capabilities shown by these officers. Even if they were out of time, they could still pinpoint the requirements for her grand plan. In her head, Lireesa had several methods to solve these issues and decided to share them on this stage today. It seemed her plan had to be postponed for a week to get themselves familiarized. Fortunately, the time to train would not be too long, since all Windrunner guards were veterans and highly skilled too.

Sena instantly knew what Lireesa wanted to do after noticing her movement and couldn't help but to droop her shoulders and threw the burden off. Lireesa found her friend becoming immediately relax and complained inwardly. But she knew her friend had tried her best just not reaching ingenuity. Everyone became serious as soon as they saw Sena giving way to Lireesa, who then unveil herself and there was utter silence.