From QM 3.0  U.N. Quantum Corps Field Manual (Operations)

I.               Tactical Tips 1: Deception and Concealment

 

1.     Nanoscale assemblers and robots with quantum processors have the ability to make relatively quick configuration changes.  Swarms can look like clouds of dust, rain storms and hordes of flies or bees, even structures like buildings, cars, etc.  These config changes provide a ready-made source of deceptive countermeasures for concealment, allowing a typical ANAD unit to infiltrate and spring a surprise on even the most suspicious adversary.  The Russians call this tactic maskirovka. 

2.     The whole point of deception and concealment is make an ANAD swarm look like something else.  Swarms of nanobots produce signatures that can be detected.  Atomgrabbing generates heat, leaving a thermal signature that can be quite distinct and revealing to properly tuned detectors.  Additionally, atomgrabbing requires atoms and molecules to be separated and that puts out detectable electromagnetic, even acoustic signals that can give away ANAD’s presence or purpose.

3.     Since nanobotic swarms can change their configurations, it’s not hard given the right template for a swarm to resemble any number of local environmental phenomenon.  Let’s set up an example:

4.     Suppose you want to assault a prepared fortification but the enemy base is located on an open plain, devoid of trees or brush.  Bare ground exposed on all sides might make the base vulnerable but it also makes an assault difficult to pull off without being detected.

5.     Suppose we configure our ANAD assault swarm to resemble dust motes, or flies or even rain drops.  We’d have to make this config change out of sight of the enemy.  We’d also have to make sure ANAD is optimized for fast config changes, so that after we’ve sent our swarm into the base disguised as something indigenous to the area, we can change configs back to a pattern more suitable for assault operations.  In this way, we can direct our swarm into close proximity, perhaps right inside the base, without triggering alarms.  Of course, this all depends on absolutely strict emissions control (emcon) so as not to tip off any sensors or detectors.

6.     An often-effective variant of deception and concealment tactics are tactics that fall under the heading of diversions and feints, covered in the next section.

 

II.             Tactical Tips II: Diversions and Feints

1.     The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu claimed that “all war is based on deception.”  Feints and diversions are part of the same toolkit.   Quantum Corps uses swarms to conceal a main axis of assault, or to confuse an adversary as to where the main assault will be.  This is a relatively straightforward task in nanoscale warfare.  Just replicate a few trillion bots, configure them into something the enemy expects and send them in the direction the enemy is anticipating.  If your intelligence is good, the enemy will react to these moves and weaken himself along another axis.  The ability to replicate quickly and form swarms to resemble any structure or form gives ANAD-style units unbeatable capabilities.

2.     Again, an example is worthwhile.  Let’s say we’re assaulting that same base stuck out on a bare, windswept plain with no trees or brush for cover.  From intelligence sources, we know the enemy expects an assault to be made from the air.  To give the enemy what he expects, we fabricate a small swarm in routine assault configuration and make plans to do exactly what the enemy expects…drop the swarm on them from the air.

3.     But we don’t stop there.  We’ve also fabricated another swarm, this one configured to resemble a nest of ants.  Ants are ubiquitous.  They’re everywhere.  Who would ever expect a convoy of ants to turn into something else?  Ants don’t move that fast, but as long as our befuddled enemy is defending against our aerial swarm, who cares? 

4.     While the enemy is engaged with aerial bots, the antbots creep inside the base and re-config into assault formation.  A modern twist on the tale of the Trojan Horse.

 

III.           Countermeasures

 

1.     One result of the ability of nanobotic swarms to resemble anything and change configs to a nearly infinite choice of forms, is that an enemy might (rightfully) come to expect that literally anything could be a threat.  When anything can be a threat, the enemy’s resources and readiness can be stretched to the breaking point.

2.     Suppose we decide to defeat the enemy through attrition rather than frontal or full-scale assault.  It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out a plan of attrition involving dust motes that re-configure themselves as nanobots, followed by a rain storm that does the same and an endless columns of ants or a swarm of flies with the same result.  You wouldn’t even have to use very big swarms, just big enough to make the enemy think they were being assaulted from all directions and cause him to expend his weapons, troops and other resources defending threats that aren’t really that threatening.  Think of it as a sort of latter- day siege warfare.

3.     As Sun Tzu, that great nanowarrior, likes to say: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

4.     All it takes is a few flies and ants.

 

These tactical tips are excerpted from the Quantum Corps Field Manual.  More excerpts will be coming in future posts to Quantum Corps Times.

 

The next post comes on February 1, 2017.  In this post, we’ll look at the history and traditions of some of the more illustrious units of Quantum Corps.  We’ll start with the original Atomgrabbers themselves, 1^st Nanospace Battalion.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.