Murphy’s Laws of Combat

You’ve spent weeks preparing for this mission. The perfect plan. The right personnel. The proper
equipment. Finally, the time arrives. You lay in the cold, wet grass for hours, waiting, silently waiting.
At last, your patience is rewarded. The enemy walks into your ambush. Adrenaline pulses through
your veins as you squeeze the detonator of the Claymore and—nothing. You smack the machine
gunner’s shoulder; he pulls the trigger and—silence. Dead silence. Wet circuits, dud round or frozen
firing pin, it doesn’t matter. Murphy is on your side.
No matter how high-tech the art of war becomes, no matter how many plans, map studies, drills and
inspections you make, things still go wrong. But realizing this ahead of time and preparing to work
through the inevitable SNAFU may help you avoid needless headaches and casualties. Murphy can
be beat — or at least frustrated —with a combination of good SOPs (see Challenge 51), mission-
specific secondary and tertiary plans, and the right attitude toward adversity.
To achieve a problem-solving frame of mind, you’ll need to be aware of the following axioms, but
remember two things: no axiom is always true and the enemy probably has a copy of this too.
1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Your weapon was made by the lowest bidder.
3. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you.
4. If your attack is going really well, it’s an ambush.
5. If it’s stupid but works, it isn’t stupid.
6. Make it tough for the enemy to get in, and you can’t get out.
7. It you’re short of everything except the enemy, you’re in combat.
8. Anything you do can get you shot, including doing nothing.
9. Incoming tire has the right of way.
10. The only thing more accurate than incoming fire is incoming friendly fire.
11. If your plan works, the enemy was probably low on ammo.
12. The enemy diversion you’re ignoring is the main attack.
13. The most dangerous weapon in the enemy’s arsenal is one of your own second lieutenants
carrying a map and compass.
14. All five-second grenade fuses bum down in three seconds.
15. No plan survives the first contact intact.
16. If you’re forward of your position, the artillery will fall short.
17. The important things are always simple.
18. The easy way is always mined.
19. Radios fail as soon as you need fire support.
20. When you have secured an area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.
21. No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection.
22. Beer math is simple: 37 men times two beers each equals 49 cases.
23. Body count math is simple: two hostile bodies plus one probable plus two pigs equals 37 enemy
KIA.
24. Things that must be together to work usually can’t be shipped together.
25. Tracers work both ways.
26. Recoilless rifles aren’t.
27. If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you’ll have more than your fair share of
objectives to take.
28. When both sides are convinced they’re about to lose, they’re both right.
29. Professional soldiers are predictable.
30. The world is full of amateurs.
This article is loosely adapted from an anonymous list circulated during the Vietnam War,
which was in turn taken from a list found inscribed on the walls of Jericho.
Standard Operating Procedures
You and your party can develop your own standard operating procedures (SOPs). The key to
success is to ensure that everybody knows the SOP and that you have sealed it with a KISS (keep it
simple, soldier!).
Following is an example from 1756 during the French and Indian War. Rogers’ Rangers were
American colonial backwoodsmen, as familiar with stalking game as their British professional
counterparts were with the slow-paced, deliberate maneuvers of the European style of fighting of their
day. In rough buckskin hunting smocks, the Rangers must have seemed a sad joke to the brilliantly
polished red-coated regulars. Then the bullets began to fly.
The truth of war is that weapons, uniforms and equipment will often change, but men will always
win with the fundamentals. Colonel Rogers gave America’s first Rangers these basic principles, which
are as valid in 2000 as they were then, even if your character doesn’t own a hatchet (SOP 1-19)!

Standing Orders Of Rogers’ Rangers: French And Indian War (1756)

1. Don’t forget nothing.
2. Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, 60 rounds, powder and ball, and be
ready to march on a minute’s warning.
3. When on the march, act like you would if you was sneaking up on a deer. See the enemy first.
4. Tell the truth about what you see and do. There is an army depending on us for correct
information. You can lie all you please when you tell other folks about the Rangers, but never
lie to a Ranger or officer.
5. Don’t never take a chance you don’t have to.
6. When on the march, we move single file, far enough apart so one shot can’t go through two
men.
7. If we strike swamps or soft ground, we spread out abreast so it is hard to track us.
8. When we march, we keep moving ‘til dark, so as to give the enemy the least possible chance at
us.
9. When we camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps.
10. If we take prisoners, we keep them separate ‘til we have time to examine them, so they can’t
cook up a story between them.
11. Don’t ever march home the same way. Take a different route so you won’t be ambushed.
12. No matter whether we travel in big parties or little ones, each party has to keep a scout out 20
yards ahead, 20 yards on each flank and 20 yards in the rear, so the main body can’t be
surprised and wiped out.
13. Every night you’ll be told where to meet if surrounded by a superior force.
14. Don’t sit down to eat without posting sentries.
15. Don’t sleep beyond the dawn. Dawn’s when the French and Indians attack.
16. Don’t cross a river by a regular ford.
17. If somebody is trailing you, make a circle and come back on your own tracks and ambush the
folks that aim to ambush you.
18. Don’t stand up when the enemy is coming against you. Kneel down, lie down, hide behind a
tree.
19. Let the enemy come ‘til he’s almost close enough to touch. Then let him have it, and jump out
and finish him with your hatchet.