The Defence of Duffer's Drift: Difference between revisions

''The Defence of Duffer's Drift''--written in 1904 by British Major-General [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Dunlop_Swinton Ernest Dunlop Swinton] under the pseudonym [[Meaningful Name|Lt. Backsight Forethought]]--is a short book on military tactics set during the [[Second Boer War]]. Over the [[Framing Device]] of [[All Just a Dream|a sequence of six dreams]], Lieutenant Backsight Forethought, or BF, must defend a river crossing, the eponymous "Duffer's Drift", against a numerically superior force of Boers. The scenario [[Groundhog Day Loop|starts out the same way over each dream]], and BF doesn't remember the terrain or the events each new time the scenario is replayed. What he does remember are a series of tactical lessons learned, which he applies to good effect in each new iteration. Eventually, his force does better and better until, on the sixth run-through, he manages to successfully defend the crossing.