With the number of books, articles, movies, videos, etc. available these days...quickly ruling out most of them can be pretty darn useful. :)

(LOTR-style world building seems orthogonal to plausible portrayals of military operations. If a kitchen scene in a TV sitcom showed a stuffed turkey getting cooked faster than some breakfast cereal got mushy in milk...would you need any backstory to say "a stupid mistake, or a running gag, or satire"?)