A good lie (story) always has a basis in fact.\u00a0 Why invent everything when someone else has done the work for you?\u00a0 You can pick and choose what you need to steal based on the needs of your particular work.<\/p>\n
For Fantasy<\/strong> —<\/p>\n Most of the stuff you will want here is located in pre-mechanized historical warfare.\u00a0 The internal combustion engine changed the art of war in fundamental ways, even when horses were still being used (as late as WWII, believe it or not).\u00a0 Here are some excellent sources…<\/p>\n Hans Delbruck – In addition to being an amazing military historian, Delbruck was also an officer in the Prussian cavalry (when that still meant horses and not tanks).\u00a0 If he looks at a hill and states cavalry could not get up it under fire, believe him.\u00a0 There’s a collection of his history books that have been translated to English that are amazing resources.\u00a0 Warfare in Antiquity<\/a> (scanned, not all chapters) is also available in print for pretty reasonable prices if you look around.<\/p>\n Charles Oman – Another amazing historian, who analyzed many less-famous battles (thus suitable for serial-number-removal and repurposing as your fantasy battle!)\u00a0 His magnum opus is available as a free ebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Science Fiction<\/strong>—<\/p>\n We don’t have a lot to work with here, unfortunately.\u00a0 Submarine warfare gives some of the working restrictions, but a space battle will have MUCH better detection capabilities (even by Mark I Eyeball).\u00a0 The next best option are long-range naval battles of WWII vintage.\u00a0 Also note drone warfare as practiced in the most recent Iraq war and ongoing operations in Afghanistan.\u00a0 As the recent intercept of a drone by Iran showed, anything that flies by radio control can be taken over by radio control, so perhaps the day of the dashing fighter pilot isn’t over yet.\u00a0 Bear in mind that while energy weapons are cool, they also (duh) take a lot of energy that the ship in question might not have in sufficient quantities.\u00a0 The current US Navy electric rail gun prototype still uses a solid projectile, and a metric buttload of electricity to launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A good lie (story) always has a basis in fact.\u00a0 Why invent everything when someone else has done the work for you?\u00a0 You can pick and choose what you need to steal based on the needs of your particular work. … Continue reading