The solution having been completed, the subject is opened up for discussion. The members of the class are encouraged to ask questions and express their views on the various elements under consideration.
The class is then conducted to the place where the next special situation is to be taken up for solution, and here the same procedure as outlined above is taken. The Terrain Exercise concludes with a short conference, in which the Director makes a résumé of the problems, discusses the several lessons of the day, and shows the application of tactical principles to them.
The following general rules should be observed as far as practicable:
_a._ Weather and climatic conditions should be accepted as they actually exist on the day of the Exercise.
_b._ Interest is best maintained by bringing up a succession of instructive situations, each designed to teach some tactical lesson, dealing with each one concisely but thoroughly, and promptly passing on to the next. Long discussion and personal arguments between members of the class are to be avoided. Unimportant phases are passed over quickly, thus allowing the requisite amount of time to be devoted to those that are really worth while.
_c._ Ordinarily four or five situations are about all that may be profitably included in one Terrain Exercise.
_d._ All members of the class should be equipped with blank paper of uniform size (to facilitate the handling of written solutions), message blanks, pencils, sketching equipment for making rough sketches on which tactical depositions may be shown.
_e._ Ordinarily large scale maps should not be used. One of the valuable features of the Terrain Exercise is that all tactical decisions and dispositions are based on a study of the ground itself. If the members of the class are allowed to have large scale maps, the exercise may resolve itself into the solution of a map problem whereby the advantage of the study of the ground itself is detracted from.
However, sheets of the United States Geological Survey maps should, if practicable, be obtained and issued, as it is desirable to accustom officers and non-commissioned officers to work with small scale maps and to familiarize them with this particular map.