Porcupine on Underground Warfare

Underground warfare

Analyzing the situation

Before you go into the different types of underground warfare, you must first analyze your military situation. Here are some criteria for determining your situation: the soil, the time, the armies, resources, and weather. First, the soil.

Soil can be classified as one of these: sand, sandy loam, loam, clay loam, sandy clay, clay, silty clay, silty clay loam, silt loam, and just silt. Here are some ways to evaluate which is best:

1.      From easiest to hardest to excavate, in order, sand, sandy loam, silt, silt loam, loam, sandy clay, silty clay loam, silty clay, clay loam, and clay.

2.      From the type that keeps its shape the best to the one that shifts the most, it is this order: clay, clay loam, silty clay, silty clay loam, loam, sandy clay, silt loam, sandy loam, silt, and sand.

3.      From the one that changes most because of water to the one that changes the least, it is this order: clay, silty clay, silty clay loam, clay loam, silt, sandy clay, silt loam, loam, sandy loam, and sand.

The harder it is to excavate the soil, the more time and energy you will need. If you have control of the battlefield for a week, it may be easier to dig a tunnel in clay than if you have thirty minutes. Conversely, though, hard-to-excavate soils keep their shape remarkably well, so if one wants to make a permanent or durable tunnel, where soldiers take refuge for some time, one may want to consider the more durable soils.

As for the reactivity with water, the more reactive the soil is with water, the worse it is for rainy weather. One may also consider using water offensively against tunnels, ruining their structure.

As well as all these soils, solid rock can be useful also. Its primary use is as a defense against underground warfare. After all, if your enemy has only twenty hours to attack, and your army is on solid rock, their chance of attacking you from under your feet is minuscule. On the other hand, if you have plenty of time, plenty of energy, and strong tools, feel free to attempt a quarrying endeavor. This is useful if you want a permanent fortress underground, or an underground city.

Now for the second way of analyzing the situation: time. As I said, harder soils require more time than softer ones. Also, this is tied to the size of the enemy army, as large armies need more time to move, but can afford to use more because of their strength. When analyzing the time, keep a sizeable buffer for inconvenient circumstances. The more precise your calculation, the better.

Analyzing the armies is crucial for underground warfare. Here are some criteria by which you analyze your opposing army, and your own:

1.      Size. Determine which army is larger. Also determine how much larger. Some armies are so much larger that they can split into a dozen smaller armies, each large enough to take on your own. Also analyze you own army. Is it large enough to be safely divided, or are your troops so little that every sortie and company sent out is a wager?

2.      Burrowing capabilities. Some armies have a team of burrowers, with pickaxes and sledgehammers, with their own captains, budget, and striking capabilities. In contrast, other armies have a few random burrowing animals, leaderless, and the general of the enemy army thinks that they can just do an operation of their own accord. He will just unleash them and say, “go do something underground,” and they will be as confused as he is. The army that has the best burrowing capabilities will control the underground, while the army that is generally stronger will control the upper floor.

3.      Perception of the general. Generally speaking, if the general is hated by his subordinates, the moment they are out of his sight, they will either rebel or do their work in a lazy way. The underground army of such a general will not fight to the utmost underground, since their general has no way of getting at them. Also note whether the general sends an officer with the burrowers: if he does not, he probably does not care about the underground army, making the underground army an easy target. If he does, then either he is on good terms with them, or he is not and is maintaining control by sending his subordinate. Analyze your own troop’s perception of you also. If they do not like you, you had better fix that, and do not bother to send them underground. Who knows what they will do down there.

Next, the resources. This is tied to the quality of the soil, and the size of the armies, and perhaps the time. The bigger the army, the harder the soil, the more time and resources must be used. The softer the soil, and the smaller the enemy army, the less time and resources are needed. Analyze therefore your enemy army, and the quality of the soil, and you can estimate how much time and resources you will need. Conversely, analyze your resources and time to decide whether you can dig through certain soils, or whether you can take on an enemy army. For example, if you have a small company of ten attacking a small army of a hundred in the desert, and everyone in your company is burrowers, you must strike fast and repeatedly from several underground locations, since you can dig fast. You cannot afford to stay long above ground, though, since you have few soldiers to spare, so strike from underground, attack, fly back underground, strike again, and so on.

The final thing one must analyze is the weather. Rainy weather affects soil that reacts to water, so one must keep that consideration in mind. Lightning is a perfect distraction. Burrowing through snow presents new challenges and opportunities.

Enacting warfare

When one must need go underground, he may do so for offensive or defensive reasons. If one does it offensively, he either must lure his enemy into the earth or get into position underground before launching an attack upstairs. Most use tunnels for, say, drilling under fortresses, places of defense, or refuge from enemy intelligence operations. But as we know, it is also possible to attack by luring the enemy down. An example of this highly effective form of warfare was the Watery Cavern War, when the badgers and the moles famously drained an underground reservoir, which made the ground above collapse, and the enemies fell into the earth. The moles and badgers then proceeded to pump the water back in, replenishing the reservoir, and drowning the soldiers.

We can deduce two ways of bringing enemies underground, so as to deal with them properly. The first is by pulling them forcibly down, like in the Watery Cavern war. Another way is to use psychological tactics to lure them in. One could attack, feign a retreat, and have the enemy follow you. One may trick them. A very nasty form of war, which should never be undertaken, is taking some of the enemy hostage underground, and waiting for the rescuers. I mention this for inspiration and example: not as a recommendation.

Here are some famous examples in history of successful tunnel luring behaviors. The Groundhog Insanity three hundred years ago was one. The groundhogs attacked, retreated underground, attacked, retreated underground, attacked, and retreated underground, always coming out of a different place, keeping their tunnels large enough for the enemies to fit. The enemies were driven out of their minds, and finally, they were tempted to go and chase them down. This is, of course, exactly what the groundhogs wanted, and not a single enemy escaped.

Another example of luring behaviors was when the enemies were lured to a place where there was relatively firm quicksand, firm enough for light-footed mice to walk across, but not firm enough for heavy-armored soldiers. The soldiers sank down into the ground, where they were promptly dispatched.

Another magnificent example was when burrowing animals secured a circle of mountains, where the only way in or out was through a stone arch. The enemy entered, but the arch collapsed, and they were stuck. Though it may not be an example of tunnel warfare, it is rather close.

Another great example is splitting the enemy ranks by digging a trench underground, and then collapsing the trench. Few things are scarier than seeing the ground open up and swallow your troops.

Now let us talk about the second sort of underground warfare, that is, having soldiers launch an attack on the upper regions by springing out of holes in the ground. If one does it right, one may give just the right appearance: one moment, a calm battlefield, the next moment, an army springs out of the ground and gives battle. This also yields another benefit: normally, an army must keep watch over the north, south, east, and west. With underground warfare, they must also look down. Yet a third benefit is that one can coordinate a massive movement all at once. It is exceedingly difficult to move an army unseen on the ground. Underground, one may bring as many troops as one likes.

If you decide to use this method, it is rather simple. Map out the battlefield as accurately as possible. This includes bushes, small hills, and trees. Analyze the elevation of each hill and valley and write it all down on a map. To signal people to attack from underground, you can use an underground horn, like moles use. It sounds only underground, and people underground can hear it for miles. Alternatively, one can use ropes from person to person. When the rope is pulled, it represents a signal. This does have many problems, such as numerous false alarms. Once everything is ready, and everyone is exactly in position, give whatever signal you choose, and everyone attacks at once.

Countering underground warfare

When, through intelligence and things like that, you realize that your enemy is using underground warfare, you cannot sit still and wait for them to attack. They will attack suddenly and devastatingly. Keep in mind that sabotaging underground warfare is relatively easy, provided that you have burrowing animals and sufficient resources on your side. Tunnels are easy to collapse, and easy to attack. Though it is terrifying to have the ground underneath you open, and a host of soldiers come out, it is far worse when you are underground, and the ceiling caves in.

The first widely used method is simply using axes and hammers to bang down the ceiling of the tunnel. This highly effective method works best when the tunnel is made of softer materials. In the case of sand, the tunnels can cave in when you just stamp on it, though they may prop it up from inside.

The second way, which works best with tunnels that contain clay, and sometimes silt. A good rule of thumb is that everything that includes clay is more reactive to water than silty things, which in turn is more reactive to water than sandy things. As such, silty clay is more reactive to water than sandy clay. All you need to do is pour a substantial amount of water on the place where you know the tunnel is, and it will make life miserable for the people below. If they are deep enough, you may have to dig a vertical shaft, and then divert a stream towards the shaft.

Another effective method is digging a tunnel downward and trying to intercept your enemy’s tunnel. Be warned that if you succeed, and fall through the roof of their tunnel, you will fall right into their arms.

A very tricky method is to go down, into the tunnels, and instigate a full war against them there. Do not do this unless you have sufficient resources and time. It is tricky to root out an underground battalion.

For all of these methods, the hardest thing is simply to determine where exactly your enemy’s tunnel is, and how deep underground. I do not have the time to explain the different methods. Suffice it to say that if you find it, you have practically won. If you are attacking your enemy from underground, make sure that they never know.

This is part of a series by Porcupine on warfare. Stay posted