Coming to the combat stage, let us assume I have attacked somebody's division with an armoured brigade. Here it has to be decided if there is an outright win, a partial win or a drawn battle. In all three cases, percentage casualties of personnel and of equipment has to be assessed and awarded.
Now comes the role of an Umpire.
An Umpire will look at this clash, and if it is a low-level, relatively raw game, he will rule that the division wins, it suffers 30% casualties, the brigade suffers 70% casualties, and the brigade is no longer fit for battle, without reinforcements and without restoration of its mechanical and gunnery assets.
That will be done if the game is being played between friends for fun as Sunday afternoon entertainment.
If it is being played, still between friends, as a needle match taking the whole Sunday, then the Umpire will ask the Observer who has been replenishing supplies. He may get the answer that the brigade is well supplied with 'beans, bullets and black oil', while the division has received no supplies for two weeks. In real life, the division will be on the point of surrender. The Umpire will then take a decision the reverse of what the size might seem to indicate, and declare that the division has suffered 70% casualties, the brigade has suffered 30% casualties and the battle is won by the brigade, the division has surrendered and 30% of its strength (usually 15,000, so 30% would be 4,500) are POWs.
THAT is the importance of an Umpire, and THAT is the importance of logistics.
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The Observer has a bigger role than may be suspected by the unwary.
Here I am, preparing an inland port on the Rann of Kutch, or, say, near Khambat. I take 2 years to build it, advertising it widely as a fisheries port, with adjunct facilities to repair trawlers and smaller mechanised boats. What is my opposing party going to make of it? Nothing. Only what I declare, through press statements and press notes, and only what their human intelligence can pick up by snooping around. Then I make a shield for two sides of the three landward sides, perhaps declaring part a fish-processing zone, with plots laid out and demarcated very properly, and municipal records available that say that these will be handed over after, say, XYZ, a minister in good political standing, inaugurates the scheme. Another part being an industrial estate, with engine making or repair, with motors (for winches, for example), with nets, stuff like that.
In two years time, I have the rudiments of a fully-fledged naval base for corvettes, missile boats, patrol boats and fast craft. All I have to do is to take over the spurious industrial estate overnight, clean it up, and start using it to the fullest.
The opposition may protest hotly when attacked by missile boats in the area, asking where did these boats come from, and where, with their limited range, were they based?
This is where the Observer comes into his own. It is he who has to be informed right from the outset that a naval base is being built with the utmost secrecy, the owners of the constructed sheds in the industrial area are naval repair and maintenance shops, manned by naval personnel in civil clothes and that the proper use will be shown at the time.
This is the biggest role of the Observer, and he has to certify that all this has been done months, quarters ago, and everything is as it should be.