Submitted 1 year ago by Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Next Monday, at 6:30 5 lorries will leave the main base to bring supply to the outpost, these vehicle will take the highway 13, then the road 666, One hour prior to the operation, mine-sweepers will inspect the bridge, and special forces will secure the pass to prevent an ambush.
Now the enemy knows exactly when to attack.
Attackers get to choose where and when to attack. Defenders get to dig in and prepare defenses.
The attacker don’t want the defender to know where and when, because then they will just reinforce that area. Defenders don’t want the attackers to know where and when they are weak (eg troop rotation)
Because surprise is important, and if the enemy has precise intelligence on what’s going to happen they can act to make it not happen. Which means that any assumptions your plans make might be outdated or even actively countered.
To quote Sun Tzu, “All warfare is based on deception.” The lengths militaries have historically gone to in order to keep operational security or obfuscate the details of an attack is utterly absurd.
A real world example: In WW2, ahead of the allied invasion of Sicily the British launched Operation Mincemeat. They took the body of a homeless person that had recently died, gave him an entirely fictitious service record/life, and some fake letters heavily implying that the allied invasion of Sicily was a feint and the true invasion was going to be in Greece and Sardinia. Then they took the corpse onto a submarine and let it go where the tide would take it to Spain. The Spanish shared the letters with the Germans, and the Germans then reinforced… all the wrong places. Which made the Allied Invasion of Sicily easier than it potentially could have been.
To add a more recent example: The Serbians shot down a F-117 Nighthawk with a obsolete air defence system from the fifties. How? They knew the aircraft were coming, when (both due to spies), where (as they used the same routes) and that they had no anti radar escort.
A few things
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
They involve killing people and you gotta make sure you aren’t the one being killed which is easier to do if your enemy knows your plans