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Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 05:18 AM

I just wanted to get some people's opinions on this:

What are the comparative strength levels of a Regular Military squad vs. a Shadowrunner team? Should one necessarily be able to dominate the other the majority of the time in an even match? How would a typical infantry squad (not a SpecOps squad like Ghosts, Delta, or Wildcats) be outfitted, specifically as regards armor? What is the norm? Armor Jacket/Camo Suit? Security Armor? Light Military Grade Armor?

Understanding that the T/O doesn't allow for a mage to back-up every squad, what does the typical squad use to protect themselves against a single mage with an overcasted powerbolt from wiping them out, especially in a vehicle?

Any ideas, or things you've used in the past?

Personally, its my opinion that an army squad should be able to take on a typical team rather easily in a toe-to-toe match. Runners, on the other hand, can rely on a higher level use of magic at "street" level, and better hacker support to even the odds, and overcome a squad with the proper planning and use of their specialized skills.

Posted by: Hagga Jul 12 2010, 05:29 AM

Pretty comparable. Your average grunt has 3 in his firearms group, 4-5 in his physical attributes and the like. A basic armour vest, helmet and some armoured fabric, but some good drilling and tac software so they work together much better than your typical runner crew. Light grade military armour, due to the cost, would probably be restricted to the spec-ops guys.

Posted by: Critias Jul 12 2010, 05:50 AM

A group that's of similar numbers to a Shadowrunner team (which would, for the record, likely be called a "fire team")? Yeah, the Shadowrunners will probably take 'em out. Shadowrunners tend to be way over-magicked compared to everyone else, and given to levels of munchkinism and min/maxing you just don't see in your everyday, run of the mill, grunt. Individual gear will be better (or, at least, more specialized), more customized, and individual Shadowrunners will be slinging more dice with their (again, more specialized) actions, roll for roll, compared to your average grunt.

What makes a military dangerous isn't the individual soldier, though, US Army recruitment slogans notwithstanding. The regular military guys could/should have a transport, could/should have better communications and information, could/should have air/drone support, could/should have comprehensive tactical computer assistance, and -- most importantly -- are part of an army.

You don't really run into a fire team (4-5 guys) by itself, unless they are Tir Ghost, or Ares Firewatch, or Sioux Wildcats, or any flavor of real-life badasses. When you're dealing with everyday run of the mill grunts, if you're lucky you run into a platoon or two.

And a platoon or two of guys that train together, know how to lay down suppressive fire while the rest of them flank, all have grenades and are used to using them, have a clear chain of command for a solid "groupthink" response to a tactical situation, etc, etc, etc? That's a whole different ball of wax.

Posted by: Demonic357 Jul 12 2010, 06:05 AM

Based off of current regs a U.S. Army squad is nine guys, with a fire team being four. As previously noted their strength comes from long hours spent drilling together over common situations and responses (battle drills), and the various support elements they rely on, such as call for fire/reinforcements. The only elements you would be likely to run into in team size would be special operations, regular army doesn't prowl around in anything less than a squad, and even then usually only if at least one other squad is nearby.

Equipment of a regular army squad would probably be pretty basic for pricing reasons, and I would have to imagine that cyber/bio gear would be limited to what an individual soldier could buy for themselves (not very much). Depending on how the game is run (gritty gang style to high profile James Bond kind of stuff) the Shadowrunners are much more likely to have heavily invested in gear, cyber/bio, and personal training. The only real ace the regular squad would have is their small unit tactics training and any support nearby. I would vote on the Shadowrunners most of the time

Posted by: kzt Jul 12 2010, 06:33 AM

Powerbolts don't do shit against armored vehicles. Treat it as a barrier. They can't overcome the armor defense roll + the 15 points of structure in the single roll, which is what the rules require.

Outside the squad spreads out. Typical interval internal that a modern fire team should maintain is 10 meters between members, so explosions only get one guy. This also works against magic, if they can locate the magician.

A typical squad would be linked into a tactical network and carried much heavier weapons than the typical runner group. The squad missile launcher designed to kill main battle tanks will kill anything else, and anyone else in the near vicinity.

And squads don't appear by themselves. A platoon is the smallest actual tactical organization you'd deploy, and it would more typically be a company. So they have access to a LOT more firepower via radio. The runners could be pretty confident that they have the fight under control until the company 120 mm mortars start each dropping a 14kg round every round on the runners....

Posted by: Saint Sithney Jul 12 2010, 06:45 AM

Infiltration = surprise = "oh shi-"

I also expect runners to be using the kinds of weapons and tactics which would see a soldier court-marshaled.

Posted by: IKerensky Jul 12 2010, 06:46 AM

Reading the sourcebook it seems that even the regular army use cybernetics, and from a long time, so perhaps not all of them have top notch prothesis but second hand older models should be the norm.

Dont forget that SR armies are very often battle blooded, far more often then not in fact. And that a lot of the gear not easily avaliable to Shadowrunner is military grade and thus easily attainable to them.

Awakened magical support and hacking support is probably squad sized or pooled at the company size for better efficiency. Army use magic... a lot of combat magic that only make sense after all.

Also Army guys dont care for licence nor urban infiltration that much, I bet each squad is backed up by several drones wth centralised military grade defense (look in unwirred it is 6-7+ in firewall). Every soldier have a military grade full armor, access to the best ammo and weapons, a high level functionning tac-net, a lot of experiences, anti-tank weaponnary on hand and heavy artillery and missile support readily avaliable.

My bet is that Army are above Shadowrunnner in standard in the face battle, they should be. In infiltration/Ambush, the Shadowrunner can manage to disrupt, succede in their mission, but they are not supposed to be able to stand toes to toes with regulars military unit.

Disclaimer : I am only considering Armies from middle-upper Countries and Corporation, that is Professionnal Soldiers that goes through selection and training with integrated tactics and strategies, no Third-World mob that are +/- the first guy you can get put a hat and a AK on. I am also not considering conscript armies (Reserve, National Guard) that doesn't exist anymore in the 6th world.

Posted by: Minchandre Jul 12 2010, 06:53 AM

Also, considering the current modern trend, the average infantry are going to have a lot of drone support, especially considering how little drones cost in 2070. If I were the GM, I would assign at least a Steel Lynx for fire support and several little recon flyers to each squad of grunts.

Posted by: Mantis Jul 12 2010, 07:18 AM

KZT I think you need to check out how powerbolt works. You only need to defeat the object resistance test (5+) and the vehicle gets no damage resistance test. You can find the relevant passages on pg 204 of SR4a. The combat spells referenced by pg 187 of SR4a refer to indirect combat spells.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 11:20 AM

Aside from the obvious points that have been mentioned so far (minimum Platoon sized, heavy drone support, artillery, military grade equipment), there's also this:

1.) It depends heavily on what military you are running against. Aztlan, for excemple, isn't overly concerned about the cost of anchored spells for their units.

2.) Spirits on remote task and/or loaned services can easily provide field support against magical threats. It is important to understand that "Karma costs" don't factor into NPCs for various reasons. Resources being one of them.

3.) It also depends on the Enviroment they operate in. In "civilized" urban areas, they won't be able to call in artillery strikes, for excemple. (So no massive drone Bombardment in Downtown Seattle). In "uncivilized" urban areas, that restriction no longer applies (Read: carpet bombing Lagos is somewhat acceptable).

Posted by: IKerensky Jul 12 2010, 11:31 AM

Usually army dont fight in heavily civilian populated area. But if the menace is large enough to send in the army then it is implicated they could use any ressource in their arsenal. The civilian having to evacuate the area as fast as they can.

To be noticed than Drones could provided localised heavy fire to supply the lack of heavy ordonnance in populated area.

Remember than standard army units are usually above police SWAT team in terms of training and equipement. When you bring on the army then you want the opposition to be leveled. Also they tend to use far more heavily armored and armed vehicule than police. And you can bet than all and every MBT, Choppers and Strike Aircraft were given wards and protection (linked spirit ?) against magical agression.

We are in 2070, not 2020 anymore, in firepower armies are usually the leaders. I dont think a street wiz is supposed to be able to do anything to a military vehicules. Thoses are supposed to go against major countries and corporation magical ressources, they are obviously shielded against Direct Magic.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 12 2010, 11:35 AM

carpet bombing lagos is a hobby

But one other thing to consider is terms.

A first term grunt that hasn't turned career isn't going to be packing much in the way of ware (datajack, cyberyes, maybe a smartlink)

Where a third term career soldier might be packed with a bit more (1 or 2 levels of wired reflexes, maybe a cyberspur, and dermal plating)

Also consider the role, a rigger would have a datajack, headware commlink, and control module standard (and a longer term of service too)

I would say an average fire team would be 3 guys with assault rifles (with it being SR all with the grenade launchers, but only 1 magazine of HE minigrenades), 1 clip in the gun and 6 on the belts. Likely pack a few grenades (1 HE, 1 Frag, 2 utility [flare, smoke]), survial knife and for armor I would say fatigues (3/0) or armor vest (6/4) and then survial gear (gasmask, survial kit, medkit, etc) with a mid-range commlink (rating 4, with encrypt, eccm, and analyze)

The fourth guy would be packing a LMG with a couple drums of ammo (and likely the rest may hump a couple extras)

Drone support would be a couple I-balls (offensive) with maybe a couple fly spys as standard gear. With anything nastier being assigned per mission by the company/platoon leaders. Same with the disposable/reusable heavy weapons like missiles/rockets.

You got to remember your average grunt has to lug this crap around, so when you stop and consider gear for them think of that.

Posted by: IKerensky Jul 12 2010, 12:02 PM

I find your fireteam awfully inadequate for the 6th world especially for armor. They aren't even on par with standard Cops units, that laughable.

At least light military armor for everyone, this isn't 1980 anymore. Did you check next gen military armor we are supposed to have ?

And the commlink should be 6 grade, nothing less.

Your average grunt could very cheaply be upgraded so he can carry all this gear, if he isn't an ork or troll to begin with. Forget about not taking the career, thoses armies are 100% professionnal and very experienced, they are very often implicated in live action and not just rehersal. Eurowars, Desertwars, Radwars, Amazonwars heck even Urban Brawl...

Just look at current day military in Irak, they have at last double the armor you mentionned and top of the notch communication far better than civilians ones.

The things about armies is that they like what they do and they usually dont look too closely about how much money they pump into their first line fighters. It is evident all the military weapons are smartlinked by standard, and that everyone in the unit is in a very secure tacnet, monitored by dedicated electronical warfare units and able to call for help magical and mundane backup.

Look in Unwired p.78 to the rating of the exampled Aztlan Army Airbase...

Of course that is for 1st rate Western Armies, traditionnaly Eastern Armies are supposedly less well equipped and Third World even less.

Also your fireteam lack AT capability (at least several discardable rocket launcher) and a dedicated Sniper. About Drone support, the arsenal mention an Ammo/Gear carrier that is supposed to go with the soldiers on the field.

"You got to remember your average grunt has to lug this crap around, so when you stop and consider gear for them think of that."

And consider the supply chain that is behind him and keeping him feed and armed, your average grunt never have to lug more than what he need for the current operation.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 12:04 PM

I would give them Armored jackets instead of armored vests and rating 5 commlinks. They are kmilitary and to me an "Armored Vest" in shadowrun is something to wear under regular clothing (which the rules expressively permit), so I'd hardly consider it a Flak Vest. Also, I would have every Soldier carry a Sidearm (Colt Government L36 or an FN 5-7C) with two extra clips. Other than that, I would agree with your assessment.

Posted by: Mäx Jul 12 2010, 12:15 PM

I would like to challenge that idea, i would say that except for those few armies in open war at the moment a SWAT-team members see a lot more action then a standrart army units and as such are better trained and more experienced.

Posted by: EuroShadow Jul 12 2010, 12:16 PM

I would say (seeing how much resources shadowrunners get in chargen) that shadowrunner team would wipe out similar size military team every time.

But I should add that (as most people already mentioned before) militray has this feature of calling for support in such situations. There is one support that should be immediate (Army hackers in call of emergency should be able jump into grunts commlink immediately from Pentagon and do some hacking from there on shadowrunners team and their gear - and that hacker could definitely call for more backup/agents to overpower opposition) the other support should be quite fast (Astral travelling mage arrives at the place usually quite fast and then makes sure that the shadowrunners do not disappear. Maybe mage can even call some spirit for service if appropriate). Later drones and choppers arrive...

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 12:17 PM

I have to agree with this. Shadowrunners won't typically run into a single army fire team, they will be outnumbered four to one in the best situation. The only time they run into military grunts in equal numbers would be when running into milspec specops and that squad will have skills and firepower on par with or better that the runners (in most cases). Unless you're extremely ballsy, the default strategy when you run into military should be evade and escape. It doesn't matter if you could take on an entire platoon on your own. There will be other military elements in the area and they will respond to your aggression.

--



I would agree. I would place SWAT teams above basic military grunts. SWAT teams are more highly trained to operate as a team compared to infantry, but you have to consider that SWAT teams are trained to clear buildings, not operate in open environments. In a closed environment, I would say a SWAT team is more dangerous due to their tactical training. In an open environment I would call the infantry more dangerous due to their superior firepower.

Posted by: nezumi Jul 12 2010, 01:35 PM

Right now it costs somewhere between $200k-$400k to support a single active soldier out in the field. This includes the costs of training, salary, equipment, plus the nine guys behind him providing support services. Balking at a $10k piece of armor or a $2k smartlink 'because it costs too much' doesn't make sense.

Each deployed, front-line troop should have, at minimum, the best medkit available, a full set of hardened combat armor, heavily armored, warded transportation, heavy EW support, heavy tactical information support, a well-established network of observation drones, magical support, vehicle support, and at least half their number in combat drones (not necessarily rigged, but available for checking around corners). A large number of grunts are going to have at least some combat experience - in the Desert Wars, or in another context. Militaries have shrunk, but their need has grown, so expect these to be volunteer armies where the focus is on having good people rather than lots of people.

In 'deadliest warrior' fashion with equal numbers of runners and grunts, but everyone's toys, the runners would probably win - narrowly. Why? Partially because the runners use unconventional tools and tactics, partially because they're better trained, and partially because five grunts can't take advantage of the whole infrastructure they're trained to rely on. But that sort of thing won't happen. If the runners are fighting grunts, they're fighting a LOT of grunts, plus the 500 guys behind the grunts who provide all that infrastructure. The runners may escape, and may achieve a particular objective, but they won't 'win'.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 12 2010, 02:07 PM

Overly long post from a former grunt below:

Short version:
I expect the grunts unit would win except against very smart shadowrunners, who probably would be smart enough not to take on a platoon of regular infantry to begin with. The smarter shadowrunners would probably use tactics much like we are seeing Iraq: IEDs, use of the civilian population, and very, very rarely guerilla skirmishes and even then, mostly against their logistical support units.

EDIT: added bullets for readability

Posted by: Snow_Fox Jul 12 2010, 02:35 PM

Since we're talking regular soldiers and not spec forces I'd say one on one the average runner will beat the average soldier in shooting and hand to hand. runners are most likely better at improvising and working on the fly while soldiers will have better plans and fall back points in areas and objectives they know.

Basic soldiers have the advantage in orgnaization, numbers and the ease with which they can get stuff. All the soldiers should have uniform weapons which means trading out mags and knowing what the limitations are. Most runners use what works for them and don't co-ordinate weapons that tightly with their team. More than anything the soldiers organization and communication, like Police, will give them the upper hand in a prolonged fight with runners.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 03:05 PM

Ditto: soldiers will always have overwhelming numbers/materiel/intel/support.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 12 2010, 03:37 PM

Anyone want to take on the challenge of statting a battalion for 2070? You'll get Dumpshock NERPS™ points.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 03:43 PM

Don't tempt me =)

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 03:48 PM

So... for t3h lulz?

And by statted out do you mean individual stats/equipment for 16 officers, 16 staff NCO, 16 medics, 16 radio operators, 192 NCOs, and 432 enlisted men, plus the command staff for each level (Battalion, Company, and Platoon)? Or can we be lazy and assign the same stats/skills for each unique loadout?

Note, that if I have the command structure right for commissioned officers...

x1 Colonel/Lt. Colonel
x4 Major/Captain
x16 Lieutenants/2nd Lieutenants

That of course ignores any officers in the headquarters staff....

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 03:56 PM

You should also stat out all the noncombat and civilian workers supporting them, the military-industrial complex, and the nation housing it.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 12 2010, 03:57 PM

The post made mention of the grunts being trained and equipped the same, so I imagine officers are similar (I've no military experience, so I can't say for sure at all). I imagine everyone's attributes will be very similar, and they will all have a similar set of baseline skills, but anyone in the command structure and NCOs are going to have specialized skills ("I can type. Can you type?").

Designing a command station would actually be really quite interesting. You will have a poured plascrete structure that is heavily armored and so wired it looks like a creepy matrix octopus, dozens of really large display screens for running a centralized tacnet of at least a dozen fireteams and drones, etc. But I'm an engineer-in-training, so I think of all the cool things that could be done and often miss the financial/logistical limitations. Do we have anyone who works in some form of military that can tell us anything about what this would be like? At least what this would be like that you are allowed to admit to the public?

Posted by: Lanlaorn Jul 12 2010, 03:58 PM

It's worth pointing out that the army would have a lot of Orks and Trolls. I imagine all the usual incentives regarding education, etc. are in play in the 2070 recruitment drives and all the poor Orks and Trolls are not only the prime tragets of that kind of campaign, but their physical stats make them great soldiers.

I imagine physical adepts would be immediately recruited into special forces units, considering how scarce they are you wouldn't bother placing them in regular platoons.

Posted by: Platinum Jul 12 2010, 04:03 PM

I can't see shadowrunners do anything but guerilla warfare. If your enemy can't see you, you are less likely to get shot/die. Be mobile, use what your enemy can't. I would also think that most shadowrunner teams would have someone in them with military experience/tactics. I would actually surmise that most shadowrun teams would be at least equal to an elite seal squad or higher.

Posted by: Demonic357 Jul 12 2010, 04:39 PM

You pretty well nail it with the skills. Everyone gets the same basic first aid, weapons familiarization, call for fire, etc. training. Career NCOs and officers go to more military schools and get specialized.

Just for reference on that command station look at the wikipedia for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Force_Tracking or the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBCB2, they are the the central hubs of any TOC (Tactical Operations Center).

There's also the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Warrior system, which got fielded in Iraq a few years ago by a Stryker unit. It's basically a heads up display of battlefield info with live-update capability.

This is all public domain stuff from wikipedia, so try to imagine what is really out there and classified right now, then advance it 60 years

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi Jul 12 2010, 04:42 PM

Agreed. Every military would love to have the toughness and strength of people like Orks and Trolls. Besides, if a country considers that Orks and Trolls become adults faster, that means that you can have more soldiers faster.

Posted by: Kliko Jul 12 2010, 04:45 PM

Yeah, thats what we used to call BattleTac^tm back in sr3. Who needs chrome when you can equip your grunt with a BattleTac^tm-receiver, a helmet and a set of goggles?

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jul 12 2010, 04:59 PM

I've always run the maxim "If runners are ever going up against the military, some thing has gone horribly wrong." Runners are generally better on a 1 for one basis, but the problem here is that regular military can bring alot more to bear on the target. Take the mage example. In some countries it is incorporated at the platoon or even squad level. But for them if they need help, they can call their fellow mages in other units for help. A runner does not have that option. A rigger may also be at the platoon level, and they may provide the drone support and call in outher riggers should it be needed. Furthermore APDS is the standard ammo for them, laser and gauss weapons are possible weapons that may also be employed, meaning they are leathal in the extreme.

In short--Runners + Military Opposition = Runners.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 12 2010, 05:04 PM

Well, in a one on one situation, i expect most runners to simply wipe the floor with the army guys.
The Army-Grunts are supposed to be just that. Grunts and jack of all trades, while the shadowrunner usually is an extremely accomplished specialist in his field of choice . . And probably has some nice equipment too . . Just look at some of the threads around dumpshock, some of the builts in there are this close to being a complete army platoon all by their lone some self . .

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 05:12 PM

I don't think anyone is contesting that a group of runners could wipe a single fire team or squad of soldiers. The problem is when the other elements of the battalion begin deploying against the runners because the runners weren't able to wipe out the squad before they could call in for backup or that the runners are out there. You can quickly get turned into a fine red mist in cross fire, drone fire, artillery fire, or close air support.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 05:26 PM

I disagree. The difference is in training, drill, equipment and intelligence. While Runners may be able to field comparable equipment in certain cases, they are not playing in the same Ballpark when it comes to actual Firepower.

Ares MP Laser systems, Thunderstruck Gauss Rifles, Close air support, Drone support, anchored spells...

Even on the defensive side, many Runners will fall short of the military assault armor the opposition would bring.

And having one guy in the team with military experience is going to amount to jack squat if you're going up against a team, where ALL have military training.

Hell, you could take the standard Red Samurai Team straight out of SR4A and give them the military armor they are supposed to wear instead of the regular full body armor and they could ruin the day of most Runner teams. Especially if you factor in additionally available resources, Like drone support and astral overwatch.
And that's just a SECURITY team, not military special forces.

In short: I am fairly confident that SR special Forces could wipe the floor with most Runner teams.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 05:28 PM

Naturally.

Posted by: BobChuck Jul 12 2010, 05:35 PM

There's one problem I'm seeing with all of this.

Everyone is assuming that the Runners would be up against the U.S. Special Forces of 2072, or whatever. The future equivalent of "the best of the best of the best" of fighting forces out there. OF COURSE most Runner teams will get creamed, it's not even a question. It's like asking if a tricked-out armored car can take a tank - there's no contest. Escape and Evade, maybe, but defeat in anything approaching an even fight? no way.

Thing is, as far as I can tell, the "U.S. Special Forces" or "U.S. Marines" don't exist in 2072. No country has the resources to field forces of this caliper in any significant amount. The Corporations, which are the actual powers in the world, generally don't bother with standing armies - war is expensive.

So, what is actually being compared?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 05:37 PM

From a role playing perspective... a character with military experience will help, but not in a combat situation. I still hold that the SOP for runners when coming across military soldiers is the evade and escape. Someone with military experience could -aid- in that.



Oh god yes. For the simple reason that spec ops are skilled straight for combat. If you take your stereotypical team, you're going to have a face and a hacker, both of which will almost certainly lack the combat skills that spec ops have. Only the street sam and possibly the mage will have the combat prowess to go up against spec ops, but you're talking about two versus four at best. Now, if you have a "legendary" crew of runners, then yeah, maybe they can spoil the fun of spec ops but most runners will be outclassed meeting up with them, just for the simple fact that they're going to be in a numerically inferior position, and if they hole up....

Well, artillery and other heavy weaponry could be used.

Posted by: Falanin Jul 12 2010, 05:40 PM

A control rig is all of 10k, so I can easily see a rigger as a squad-level position, though due to the specialized training, probably not on each fireteam. They could also provide basic hacker defense (essential for 2070s combat). The true non-combat hacker types will probably stay with the platoon or company HQ element.

As to the armor debate, I usually envision the military wearing the 8/4 camo fatigues on base and in low-threat environments, but milspec armor when out on patrol.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 05:43 PM

Uh, Tir Ghosts and Sioux Wildcats, or even the Azzie Jaguar Guards / Shorned Ones fit the bill of 2072 SpecOps.

Posted by: Runner Smurf Jul 12 2010, 05:47 PM

One of the early SR novels actually talks about this at some point (one of Findley's, but I can't remember which one) - and says that the average SR team is going to get wiped out by regular military. Mainly because the military guys are going to have much better equipment. All the stuff that has high availability codes, they are all going to have. Their software is going to be way better, and their tactical networks are going to be orders of magnitude better.

When it comes to training, I think the average 2070 soldier (from a major power) is also going to be quite comparable to the average runner. They are going to have been through rigorous, formal training programs designed for maximum skill in minimum time. And considering what computer systems could do in 2070, they are going to have a lot of combat experience under their belts long before they ever get shot at in anger. While they may be less specialized than the average runner, they are going to be well trained to do whatever their function is within their unit: the heavy weapons guys are going to know how to use their weapon, etc. In game terms, I'd consider giving soldiers specializations in the use of their specific equipment. And they will have all sorts of the big stuff - missile and rocket launchers out the wazoo.

When it comes to implants, my take is that they are also going to augment the heck out of the soldiers. Reflex boosters of whatever type is most cost effective, and anything that makes the soldier more survivable (bone lacing, platelet factories, etc.). Simple cost/benefit: if you are spending a couple of hundred thousand on training (like the US does now), you are going to spend at least that much to make sure the guy stays alive.

I agree that their weakness is in magical support, with limited numbers of mages lying above the platoon level. However, binding material costs are trivial for a nation state, so I can very easily see that there would be large numbers of spirits tasked to support groups in the field. And in cases where the threat is known to be Awakened, I'd expect that a lot of magical assets would be tasked to support. And I'd suspect that all military mages are well versed in the arts of ritual magic, and metamagics like Quickening and Shielding.

Then again, I can see the military recruiting heavily for mages. The ratio of awakened to mundane in the military is probably a lot higher than in the general population, so they'd probably have more than you'd think. And I can see a lot of mages seeing the appeal - particularly hermetics. Automatic initiatory groups. Nearly unlimited resources for binding/summoning and the like. Lots of foci. Massive magical libraries. Lots of training...

That's my take. I put regular military at a distinct advantage over a standard runner. But it's not an apples to apples comparison: runners are special warfare types, and aren't meant to go up against regular troops - just like modern-day A and B-teams aren't meant to go toe-to-toe with regular forces.

In my game, I'd classify going up against regular military forces up there with great form dragons: if the runners have to fight one, it's because the GM is trying to kill you.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 05:49 PM

I've found in general, at least with SR4 the Combat rules do tend to favor larger numbers over the long run. Military regular Infantry is kind of an extreme example, 5 runners vs. a Batallion with regular equipment isn't even going to be close. Runners do best in a situaion where they are in equal or only a slight numeric disadvantage and they can use their superior skills and equipment to greatest advantage.

Let's substiute Regular Infantry with a large Orc Street Gang. If the runners come up against 6-8 Orc Boyz drinkin' 40's in the Park it's no contest runners win easy. Now suppose those same runner piss off the entire Orc Boyz Nation in the Redmond barrens in the course of doing some legwork to the point where they all turn out and are trying to hunt them down, now maybe 150 Orc Boyz. They lack the training, hardware, support, discipline, well pretty much everything the Army has but they still have numbers. 30 Gangers firing at one Street Sam will do some damage over the long haul, especially if they are juiced up on drugs and not behaving rationally (like not going Holy **** that guy just took down 4 dudes in less than a second I better bounce on outta here).

Posted by: augmentin Jul 12 2010, 05:54 PM

@ Infantry command post ("CP"): picture a dump. A 20-30 year old olive drab canvas tent held up with actual wood and tied down with actual twine rope. Now picture 5-10 year old computers and 10-15 year old radios and then fill in the scene with 18-40 year old guys wearing clothing ill-equiped for the heat and that haven't showered with anything but baby wipes or eaten anything but MREs since setting up the CP days or weeks ago.
Now imagine that the site was selected for concealment and defensibility and without consideration of water runoff or wind patterns.
Then liberally add the smell of sweat, CLP, and diesel and you've just about got it.
And that's POGies (Persons Other than Grunts) that get to chill in the CP. The line companies are set in a defensive perimeter around the CP (or on patrol) with their weapon protected in the sleeping bag while they sleep under a poncho.

In 2072 I'd imagine it's just about the same except instead of the radio farms, I'd imagine small commlinks with satellite uplinks and drone retrans units and several magical lodges.

Someone brought up a good point: the poor tend to be disproportionately represented in the infantry. With so many poor to chose from in 2072, I'd imagine the state could pay them less and provided fewer benefits and actually field a fairly large army even with limited tax revenues. By concentrating drone and magical support at the battalion CP it could be pretty cost effective to field a dystopian future infantry.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 05:59 PM

Don't forget the rattle of the generator that keeps going down because Signals keeps stealing the CP's jerry cans to keep their own tent running.

Posted by: TBRMInsanity Jul 12 2010, 06:00 PM

Screw the spec ops, regular grunts are better trained and equipped then the average SR team. Only the most elite teams have a chance in hell against standard grunts (especially if the SR team doesn't have the jump on them). You have to remember that most military training is drills that hammer into the soldier's head, what to do instinctually when certain situations occur. Most SR are petty thugs with little to no background training, and are highly specialized to move against security forces (as tough as they are). The average SR will have to think out what to do in a heavy fire fight, rather then the grunt that is just doing all the right things at the right times.

As D2F also pointed out the standard load out of an average military grunt is equivalent to one of the best load outs you will see in an advanced SR team, so the military will always have more (and bigger) guns then any SR team.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 06:03 PM

Isn't that when they send the E-1's to the Commisary for the Canned Steam to get the boiler going again?

Oh and while you're there get some headlight fluid for the Jeep and a stack of grid squares.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 06:06 PM

30 gangers shooting at a single sammy?

By the time the 15th to 20th guy starts shooting at the same sammy, his dodge pool has depleted to nothing. He'll be relying on his soak pool for 10 to 15 guys. At that point, the sammy would probably need at least 15-18 dice in his soak pool to avoid being badly injured or killed.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 06:07 PM

Never, ever tell an E-1 to go find that and a coil of glow wire and not to come back until he finds it.

He'll go AWOL for the week and it'll be your fault.

Posted by: Ryu Jul 12 2010, 06:10 PM

They have no business in not using "special" tactics. My money against "gun/armor/shooting-range" armies is on the runners.

Corp militaries will have mostly high-tech units. National militaries would have to shrink in size for that, as even today´s budgets are crippling for some of the nations who have them. Given the need of offering a perspective for the downtrodden, I´m not sure that will happen.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 06:26 PM

Are you familiar with the Tir Ghosts? Or the Sioux Wildcats?

Posted by: Demonic357 Jul 12 2010, 06:35 PM

Don't forget the chem light batteries

Posted by: kzt Jul 12 2010, 06:36 PM

This is contradicted by the barrier rules. I remember having a long discussion where I argued the ability of a magic 1 punk to destroy a city. I lost.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 06:44 PM

That was pretty much my point, in the end superior numbers win, the amount of training and hardware only helps define what the numeric advantage has to be. I figured in the 30 v. 1 scenario the Sammy would probably flatline somewhere between 2 and 4 before they ever got a shot off but that leave 28-26 to to return fire before the Sammy's next pass, if he makes it that far, and as your math points out he better be built to soak if he plans on getting there.

Posted by: kzt Jul 12 2010, 06:50 PM

The last time I looked up the data for the US military the overrepresented groups in combat arms were lower-middle and middle class whites. Blacks and the poor in general were over-represented in support branches and under-represented in CA units.

The typical explanation I've seen is that most of the guys who signed up for combat arms were not planning on making it a career, it was something they wanted to do for a while, then would go onto something non-military for a career. Poor people who join the military were often planning on a career and being a supply clerk in San Diego is both a lot less risky and lot more comfortable than being an infantryman in Kandahar.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 12 2010, 06:52 PM

Conversely, your GM could spare you the absurdity of 30 dodge rolls and instead point out that 30 grunts firing SA is the equivalent of highly skilled mini-gun supressive fire. The sammy makes a test vs. some sort of collective goon dice pool and you resolve the situation in a few rolls, and nobody has to die of absurd shenanigans.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 06:54 PM

What exactly is "absurd" about not being able to dodge all of 30 people shooting at you? You know how much lead that is?

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 12 2010, 06:57 PM

Assuming a twinked sammy, I would expect his dodge pool to be reduced to 0 by grunt #16 (cumulative -1 dice pool penalty for each previous dodge), so for grunts #16-30 he would just be soaking damage with armor, body, and augments. Assuming drug addled gangers though.... I'd expect most of the damage the sammy is taking to be reduced to stun rather than physical, but I would expect a soak pool of about 15-18 at minimum in order to avoid taking any damage (assuming 5P guns). Death by a thousand cuts.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 12 2010, 06:58 PM

My point was it's absurd to have to fight 30 goons who are all just lined up shooting at you. If I ever found a member of my group in that situation, I would try to find a humane way to spare them. As such, I'd just crib from your average action movie, and have some dude running haplessly through a cloud of bullets as they bust up the walls, windows, ground, etc. He'd probably have to soak one or two but he's not mercilessly whittled down to nothing.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 07:00 PM

Well, it's an abnormal situation, yes, but I think the point is made.

Posted by: Platinum Jul 12 2010, 07:29 PM

While I would agree that there are some units with MP Laser systems, gauss rifles etc, I think that 1 you are over stating how available they will be for a unit.

First of all, a shadowrun team better have better than standard issue gear. Not at least to mention cyberware. When we are talking about armies we are talking about reg forces not death squads and spy/assassin rings. They will have higher encryption, and better gear than all troops except the highest level of spies would be using.

The shadowrunners' firepower will be lacking tank mounted MP lasers, and gauss rifles, but with small unit tactics, they aren't going to be directly facing that kind of opposition. They are going to sneak in, sabotage with plans of opportunity. In a direct fire fight, yes, the military will throw a few missles, satellite laser bombardments, etc, which is why they would not fight that kind of fight. Think of an elite seal team behind enemy lines. Are they going to take on a battalion of tanks? no. They are going to sabotage, and destroy selective targets and remain hidden.

If shadowrunners don't have sufficient resources, (either from backing or from accruing them over time) they don't belong in the biz. The will exceed what regular forces have.

I would put a team of Canada's Elite commandos against a squad of 50 regular soldiers.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 07:30 PM

If you're Sammy with enough initiative boosters to be assured of going first and you find yourself on the business end of 30 drug addled Orc Gangers with pistols, the correct procedure is to run. Against more skilled the opposition the correct procedure is to run faster.

Now it is unlikely that the players would actually find themselves in this situation where I'm running a game, mostly for the afore mentioned 30+ rolls.
However if they are by some chance in this situation, if they run they will probably get the action movie treatment with only a handful of dodges for dramatic effect. If they decide to stand and fight then things will go less pleasantly.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 07:36 PM

Platinum: It goes without saying that this depends on the runner team, of course. For comparison, I guess we're assuming a *special-ops* runner team, which really isn't the typical squad.

I assumed we were basically discussing a very specific circumstance: runners in normal combat against military. Obviously, the runners never want to be in that situation in the first place, because it's stupid.

Posted by: Platinum Jul 12 2010, 07:44 PM

I guess I missed something somewhere. thanks for clearing things up.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 08:00 PM

Apart form Aztech and Ares and some more. At least 4 for the 10 have standing millitary/paramilliatary forces. Aztech is offering a get a Ork embro or two implanted for cash scheme for more than a few time their countries national average yearly wage. These Orks tend to enter the military. Ares has Knight Erant witch is more than a police force.

The CAS has an army as they are still at WAR with Aztech. UCAS has a milliatatry force thats is likely to still have sepc ops/black ops parts. UK has an army and the SAS as of the last source book also acts as secrate police. Though I'm of the opinion that the SRR would hold that role. I think that SR millitary willhave gone from large armys to samller well trained and equipped units. In a more for less sense.

Posted by: Ryu Jul 12 2010, 08:05 PM

Both. I wouldn´t call them regular military. An example for a well-equipped merc force is MET2000. High-tech armies exist.

The question is how nation-states will build their forces. The high-tech army will deploy less soldiers, as an augmented fireteam can easily replace two unaugmented ones. Employment is a political issue, and small warrior castes have their own agendas. The runners can cope with numbers if allowed to fight dirty, but can´t reliably cope with an equal opponent.

I would keep the common unaugmented grunt for style reasons. There is a sufficient number of high-tech corp armies for the high-end games, and the army is closer to the level of the street for low-end games.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 08:10 PM

If you paid attention to the post I quoted, you'd realize that both he and I were talking about special forces exclusively.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2010, 08:12 PM

Oops, Platinum, I meant "you're assuming", not "we're". Well, it amounts to the same thing.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 12 2010, 08:13 PM

Indeed, unless someone is at least a Sgt or higher the ware given to them in a standard army should be limited to street legal gear.

After all why drop all that nuyen on a grunt that isn't at least going to see the military as a career?

You want to consider the fact they have to reintegrate into society as well.

With the corporate armies, they can go from army right to security forces. And vice versa for cross training.

I cna see many grunts maybe starting out as gangers with second hand ware joining and getting integrated as career soldiers in time too.

But the problem with most ware is going to be "what happens when PFC Beetle leaves the army? What happens to that investment in cyberware?"

Hence it is still going to be mostly non-cybered grunts, with gear to handle what ware does (maybe a bit more reliance on combat drugs)

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 08:16 PM

The reason I asked you, is because I thought you were implying that 2072's military had no special forces.

And quality is not everything. You also need numbers. You can't just dump everything you have into the best equipped units on the planet. It's not a video game, after all. You need quality AND quantity.

Also, it seems that some people thin nations in SR are broke. They are not. Their economy is in tatters and their governments corrupt, but your average nation STILL rakes in more cash than the Big 10. Their armies are larger than the corp armies, mostly because they have to actually defend a country, not just economic interests.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 08:17 PM

Several countries also enforce service requirements for all their citizens, such as the Sioux. Most of them will be unaugmented, but the ones who are lifers are more liable to get the serious body mods.

Outfitting them with an assault rifle and a set of light/medium military armor isn't going to break any national bank.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 12 2010, 08:24 PM

Lets look at it like this:

What benefit is there to implanting every soldier with smartlinks and cyber eyes when it is more cost effective to just mount the links and vision enhancements into helmets/goggles?

What happens when a soldier leaves the military (hint: it's not always a lifetime contract) with combat implants? How do you reintegrate a combat enhanced soldier into the general population?

There are drawback to cyberware implantations other than money you know. Especially for governments

Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 08:27 PM

YOu could always just recycle the ware as second hand you leave say bye bye to the wires.

Posted by: Mäx Jul 12 2010, 08:28 PM

Got somethink to backup that claim.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 08:29 PM

I completely agree that your regular Grunt won't field much cyber, especially, when it can easily be replaced with cheaper solutions and equal performance, so what are we arguing about?

Posted by: Critias Jul 12 2010, 08:34 PM

Uhh, no. Most of us are assuming the Runners would be up against just plain dog-faced infantry grunts. We're using a vaguely United States method of organization for them when it comes to what constitutes a fire team, a squad, a platoon, etc, but I know I, at least, was doing so for simplicity of naming convention. I don't think there are any massive differences in the organization between the U.S. military and most other first-world nations with standing armies -- Lieutenant vs. Leftenant notwithstanding.

None of us have been comparing them to "U.S. Special Forces," by a long shot. There are stats already there for those sort of high speed, low drag, specops guys -- Tir Ghosts, Sioux Wildcats, that sort of thing -- and this would be an entirely different conversation.

For the record, though, there are still sizable standing armies in both the UCAS and CAS, built off existing military doctrine and bases, populated by, logic dictates, men and women that were trained by existing UCAS and CAS military, trained by, logic dictates, current "real world" soldier-types in those armies. Every time the CAS and UCAS have been presented to us in nation-describing books -- perhaps with the exception of T6W Almanac which I don't have yet -- their militaries have been described along predictable, real world, US military lines.

What gave you the impression that they don't exist?

If anyone in your group puts himself in a situation where he's fighting, solo, against a whole infantry platoon...uhh...isn't that more his fault than yours? Run your game how you want to, sure, but I can tell you right now that in my game, I'd be making thirty attack rolls and someone would be left bleeding out after doing the action movie machine-gun-dance (those fun slow-mo ten seconds where nothing but incoming fire is holding the guy up).

Depending on how on Earth the group sammie found himself in that position, it could even tell a fantastic story instead of seeming like the fist of an angry GM smacking him around. It seems like you'd have to work pretty hard to get thirty guys all shooting at you at once, maybe by offering yourself up to the enemy so the rest of your team could escape, or by serving as a distraction, or by finally deciding to end it all after your Essence dipped too low, and wanting to go out "clean" and to "warriors," or something...and isn't the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a powerful cinematic moment, even though it's not a happy ending?

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 08:42 PM

Mhm. The Bolivian Army Ending.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 08:50 PM

Sorry, I caught your reply too late. My apologies.
What is "absurd" in m opinion is for him to get into that position in the first place. If a player is stupid enough to let his character piss off the Spikes, or the 162s, or the Crimson Crush badly enough for them to want to make an excemple out of him, he did not do so by accident. He had to do it on purpose. And it seems said player opted not to run. Bad choice. And as wel all know, Bad choices spell D-E-A-D.

I would not let him see the light of the day, if he was one of my player's characters.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 08:51 PM

First off, Semper Fi, brother. I was in the Corps 10 years ago myself, though I was a spook rather than a grunt.

Second, lots of good info here. The reason I'm using a "squad" or even a "fire team" size, is that the runners are going into the ACHE, which is patrolled by the UCAS Army on some floors and the 'Plex Guard on others. Because its a small, enclosed space, a whole Platoon will be covering a sector of a floor, but a Squad (or even 2 Fireteams, Reinforced) would be the number of grunts walking around.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 08:52 PM

Oooh. Paranoid grunts.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jul 12 2010, 08:57 PM

Well it wouldn't even take 30. Five gangers pinned down the PC's in my most recent game (400 BP + lots of karma) in a private room atthe Big Rhino. It wasn't even close. The gangers had heavy pistols with smartlinks (total of 8 dice rolled with skills+attribute). It was not pretty.....

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 08:59 PM

Generally speaking, Grunts don't carry sidearms into the field. No need to carry 2 different types of ammo (or even if they are the same, 2 different types of clips/mags). No need to carry a second weapon either. If you are in an open field environment, the lack of range is a severely limiting factor. In an urban setting, most carbines or SMGs are small enough to allow good mobility and control, while still using more effective rifle rounds.

Posted by: Ryu Jul 12 2010, 09:01 PM

I´m much for making military armor common, and more available on the streets. There is something satisfying in power armor fights.

The camo suit is enough for units you don´t really expect to see battle anytime soon, like inland hometown garrisons.



And there is a Special Forces Trooper on pg. 88 of Cybertechnology.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:06 PM

Remember that a Fireteam is 4 or 5 people. AT support is handled by an entirely separate platoon altogether, who will attach themselves to a Grunt squad if they are expected to go up against armor.

As for Snipers, again, that's an entirely separate unit that handles those duties, and farms their people out as needed. Usually, thought, they operate in support of higher HQs mission, rather than the Squads or even the Platoon. There are troops known as "Designated Marksmen", who generally use scoped semi-auto rifles at medium ranges, where rapid firepower at range is more important than single shots from way far out.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 09:08 PM

Heh. A couple A1C's in a trailer in the middle of the desert, waiting for your radio chatter.



If you're doing this in the ACHE though, I'm thinking you're not going to need a DM since it's all enclosed combat. Unless you're in one of the atriums...

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 09:12 PM

Way Tangent but what's the bets that in 2070 Mages get O-1 or better pay just for being a mage?

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 09:18 PM

Hmmm. I'd agree with that, figuring that mages would have to go through OCS to get the proper astral training.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:18 PM

One of my Staff Sergeants sent a PFC on a chase for a BA-1000 November form that took him half a day.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 12 2010, 09:25 PM

Over here, the newbies are sent to get the key to the assembly area.

Posted by: D2F Jul 12 2010, 09:28 PM

That makes sense.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 12 2010, 09:30 PM

http://www.mcbh.usmc.mil/3mar/1dbn/1-3%20INDEX.htm myself.

I'm not familiar with how ACHE fits into the setting, but in RL I'd envision it being handled by MSF. That is federal police on the inside, Marine Security Forces platoons patrolling the perimeter. Thing is, except for embassies, Marines are real well suited for guarding building interiors. As a general rule, "Marines take ground. Soldiers hold ground."

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:33 PM

Remember that the "Military Grade Armor" must be fitted to the wearer. I don't think every grunt would get this stuff. More than likely, they'll get a Camo Suit, or Full Body Armor. There is also the downside to wearing such highly rated armor, so I think that the Military Grade stuff would only be for specialized units.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:41 PM

In my scenario, there are significant portions of the ACHE (Archology Community Housing Enclave) that are still under the jurisdiction of the UCAS Army, because despite the propaganda, they STILL haven't been completely pacified and/or some of the floors have things that the Federal Government doesn't want to let fall into anyone elses' hands. There's also a ton of other nasty stuff too, like bugs, shedim, and Tamanous that keeps the Army there.

Also, as much as it pained me to do so, I made the decision that with the split of the CAS, and the joining with Canada (not to mention the loss of both MCRDs), factions of the Army and Air Force finally were able to succeed in getting rid of the USMC for good. The tradition is being kept alive by the CAS (with many Marines informally calling themselves the "USMC" in things like cadence), who are looking forward to celebrating the Corps' 300th birthday soon.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 09:46 PM

-- Former Marine here. 0511 Enlisted MAGTF Planner though, not a grunt, so keep in mind my perception is heavily influenced by logistics considerations. I post ome musings on this subject a long time ago that I've collected on http://tzeentchnet.pingslave.com/Shadowrun/MilitaryShadowrun.zip. Note that most of those were written several years ago while I was active duty, and before I partipated in OEF/OIF and became very disillusioned with the current technofetish trend (e.g. Tom Clancy type bullshit).

-- First off, you need to start associating "Shadowrunners" with "special ops" because in all but the most gritty street level game they really are a special elite in stats, skills, equipment availability, and psychological prepation to commit violence. A shadowrunner group with mage and hacker support will RIP APART any plausible conventional military unit: jamming their comms, jacking their own drones, making headshots at a thousand paces, mind controlling their officers, etc.

-- Second, I can recommend that you skim through the http://smallwarsjournal.comsite and read their forums. They have some exceptional resources on there that can be adapted. For example, I got a lot of use from the thread "http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=6646"

Armor
-- There is not a "no casualities at any price" attitude that I can discern in Shadowrun, so right off the bat you need to be very careful about taking modern US military trends and applying it to Shadowrun. It is extremely unlikely that miltiary grade armor (Arsenal, p. 50) is common at all -- the requirement that it be custom tailored pretty much kills it except in special ops units (and even there it's a problem).

-- Something akin to SWAT Armor (Arsenal, p. 49) strikes me as far more likely an analog to the current protective systems.

Communications
-- The ECM/ECCM environment in Shadowrun is SERIOUS BAD NEWS for modern conceptions of C4I. Troops probably have high-rated comm systems that are reasonably SOTA (in fact, that's probably the only thing they use that is!) but Tom Clancy micromanagement is a recipe for disaster with wireless hackers around. I suspect a military commlink will be something like an Renraku Airware (Signal is more important than Response, good price point) with a custom OS that strongly emphasizes Firewall Rating). Probably has skinlink and subvocal mic. All together this is a pretty inexpensive bit of kit, and is largely off-the-shelf. A simrig is asking for trouble in most cases.

Electronics
-- Goggles with Flare Compensation, Image Link, Low-Light Vision, and Smartlnk. Drop the Smartlink for militia armies (that 500 nuyen adds up FAST in bulk purchases).
-- Earbuds with Select Sound Filter

Weapon System
-- Money to blow: XM30 type system.
-- More reasonable: AK-97 or FN-HAR (neither smartlinked). The M22A3 (Arsenal, p. 26) also isn't half bad.
-- Probable: As most operations are in urban areas I suspect that the carbine will continue to be popular, so more stuff like the Praetor (Arsenal, pp. 24-25).

Other Crap
-- Gas Mask is useful to have on you due to the effectiveness of various SR chemtech. But it's actually fairly expensive.
-- Slap Patches get much love.


-- Good communication to identify high-priority targets and hit them hard and fast before you get geeked. If they can, avoid direct contact and use supporting fires (drones, artillery, mortars, etc). Think of a mage like a small, fairly squishy tank. Something not encountered all the time, but extremely dangerous when it's around and requiring a lot of training and forethought to tackle.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 12 2010, 09:50 PM

Hasn't fluff had the M22A3 the main rifle of the UCAS since the Street Sam Catalog?

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:51 PM

I've actually always imagined it similar to the Army's Aviation program. Those with demonstrable magical ability have a warrant officer program that they can apply for right out of high school. There would be a "Magic Pay" bonus similar to the current foreign language bonus, which pays more for certain specializations and/or grades of initiation. Warrant Officers form the bulk of the Thaum Corps who are providing magical support on the field, running Astral Overwatch, or summoning support spirits. Mages who possess a BA or BS in Thaumaturgy can go the Officer route and be put into leadership positions, over both magical and non-magical personnel alike. Adepts with no college degree can enlist and go through basic training, then undergo a Warrant Officer program for Magical Support Staff in whatever field they choose (I once made a retired Warrant Officer who was an adept and had powers focused on Intelligence, Tactical, and Logistical analysis).

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 09:55 PM

-- It's not mentioned as such in Arsenal. Wouldn't really surprise me though, it's a good weapon and Shadowrun gun technology pretty much hasn't changed since First Edition anyways.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 12 2010, 09:57 PM

Thanks for the input. I think I've said it to you before here, but, Semper Fi brother. I was an 0231 who got out just prior to OIF.

I'm actually thinking of putting together a T/O from the ground up (starting with fire team and working upward) for equipment and roles, working with a friend of mine who's an 0351 and just got out... and a gamer.

You want in?

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 10:00 PM

Another thing to keep in mind when equipping your military units in game is that the purchase of specific gear is often a Political Consideration. Just because one piece of gear is better than another doesn't mean the regulars will have it.

Say your regular army happens to be the Tsimshan Nation (gone by 2072, but they make a good example) who is mortgaged up to their eyeballs to Mitsuhama, do you think they will be sporting Renraku Comms? Heck No, nor are they likely to be carrying Ares Alphas. They are going to have a lot of gear from their patron corp. Same goes for Aztechnology / Aztlan. UCAS gets trickier as the procurement is done by the Pentagon with a lot of micromanaging by Congressmen who want to get money back to their districts to get re-elected. (note to GM's Corps & Politicos working together to sabotage ecahother's earmakrs make great runs)

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 10:02 PM

-- Sure, but note that I'm more worried about stuff like "would this fit on a 463L pallet" (or the future Shadowrun equivalent) and "how many batteries per day would this require." (oh god the horror stories about the BA5590 batteries during OIF!)

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 10:05 PM

These sorts of requirements often go in to procurement contracts to assure certain winners, it's quite likely that Ares supplies the UCAS with Pallets, the Trucks they load to, and the crates of Rifle ammo that go on them. An you better believe that those pallets don't fit Steyr Ammo crates neatly

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 10:22 PM

-- That's possible, and actually somewhat advantageous from a logistics standpoint. Of course, being locked into vendor standards can also be a huge hassle -- especially if it's consumables.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 10:28 PM

-- That's pretty much in line with my thinking, but I consider full mags more akin to doctors and thus start as Lieutenants. Warrant officers for adepts sounds logical. They are FAR too valuable and rare to be treated otherwise.

-- I suspect that college being a requirement for officers isn't a huge importance for the CAS/UCAS and other military forces (especially the NAN).

Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 10:32 PM

Isn't Steyr a sub of Ares. I know HK is SK. Also lets not forget pratcial all the gear in Aresnal and the BBB has any corp equivalents. The bleeding edge less so but still I know Aztech has it's own Alpha clone I'm sure there more like it. The same goes with maybe it wont be a Renraku com but it will be more or less the same stats wise. Though Renraku is one of the comunications megas.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 10:40 PM

And that's how it's justified in a lot of cases, and as pointed out the result isn't always bad, it just limits competition and closes the market to a degree. It also explains why a lot of soldiers supplement gear with off the shelf stuff from REI and Cabellas.

In game it's a flavor issue but also something an astute runner can take advantage of, for example if your target has been on one side of a proxywar between two corps where the participants are Banana Republic militaries and you know one side is running drones from say Mitsuhama and the other side has been running countermeasures from Renraku you can have your fixe procure accordingly.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 10:43 PM

Even though in the end it al goes to the same parent company, each Ares Brand has it's own balance sheet and they do compete with each other (even to the point of running on each other for schematics and marketing strategies). It is also mentioned that most gear comes in a variety of brandnames that are functionally equivalent though in the RAW.

Posted by: Lanlaorn Jul 12 2010, 10:44 PM

I've been thinking on this too, and honestly IMO when an enemy hacker is detected the only sane response would be to turn off all commlinks right there. Unless we're assuming super high rating military hardware and software (that cannot possibly be issued to grunts or it would be all over the street markets) even if every soldier has his commlink slaved to the unit hacker, a shadowrunner specialist hacker will take that guy apart and then own their communications. And smartlinked weapons. And any cyberware, etc.

Needless to say a lot of the military unit's advantages are gone with reducing communications to each other or calling for support.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 10:50 PM

I'm goign to guess that the comlinks have an offline mode. Turning them in to simple radios when thats called for. Stop the wifi entierly switch to older tech.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 11:01 PM

That would make sense, redundant backup systems are a frequent feature of military gear.

Posted by: Rand Jul 12 2010, 11:06 PM

Sorry if this was addressed before, I haven't been able to read the entire thead yet. (Boy you guys can sure spit out a multi-paged thread in no time!!):

Wrong. A SWAT team gets much more specialized training and more money is spent on each individual member than in the army. (Heck, even more than in the Marine Corps.) SWAT teams are concidered ELITE units nowadays, didn't used to be, but they are now.

Perhaps, in 207X, the trend towards smaller, more capable militaries has continued and then you would get the average soldier being about a match for the average runner, but not as they are currently. Especially, when you take into consideration that governments aren't as powerful/wealthy as they used to be.

But, I agree that the smallest unit you would generally run across is a squad. (It is the sized unit I had in one of the adventures I put together.) In the USMC we had squads of 12 - 3 fireteams of 4 individuals - and 4 made up a platoon. Yes, you could be "short-handed" with fewer, and you could be augmented with extra, but generally that was the base size/make-up. (OF course, i have been out since '91 so things could have changed - though I doubt it the Marine Corps is nothing if not a creature of habit.)

As for a massive number of drones, I doubt it. Maybe 1 or 2 per squad, tops. You have to treat them like heavy weapons - not everyone had one for a reason. The drones themselves may be cheap, but to train and dedicate a soldier to fill that role, as well as up-keep of the drones, would get expensive. Only specialized units are likely to have more, but I am sure that more can be sent from regimental command if needed.

Tactically, a well seasoned squad should be able to take care of a group of undisciplined shadowrunners (and they all are, no matter how long they have worked together, it seems) except for 2 things: IP and magic. Having a few guys with 3 IP (the base for any combat types) makes a huge difference. So does having magic, while the other side doesn't. This is where I think the modern military would be recruiting like crazy! Imagine the sign-up bonuses if you are a mage! That would be a way to get some good money fast. (At first, then it would take a long time as you served out your contract - when they offer you a huge re-signing bonus!!!)

Posted by: Runner Smurf Jul 12 2010, 11:07 PM

One thing to consider with military equipment - I think army troops (be they corporate or government) are always going to have much better software than runners. Per unit costs on software, likely developed specially for the services, are going to be quite low - sure, they spent 20M developing it, but they probably don't have to pay license costs on each copy.

I also think a lot depends on how current trends in acquisition continue - do we invest more and more in fewer and fewer soldiers (the American trend), or do we go with lots of cheap, disposable troops. I think the answer will vary by country/corp, and by tier. Someone like CAS, with conscription, won't invest too much in regular, rear-echelon troops. But I suspect that front line troops in CAS, UCAS and other heavily industrialized nations will be pretty significantly augmented. And the enlistment period probably significantly extended in the case of those modifications. I think the distinction would be pretty profound, with forces being defined by the prevalence of augmentation.

As for prevalence of magic, I think the use of bound spirits would be a serious force multiplier, with combat mages having as many spirits bound as they could handle (Cha). With an obvious need for recruiting mages, their prevalence might be 1 in 100 in a country like the UCAS, putting individuals at the company level, with small groups (fireteam?) attached to higher units. At that point, you could reasonably consider that any given platoon may have a spirit tasked to support it. And considering the costs, I can't imagine many aviation assets would be operating without multiple spirits in support.

I can't really see the need for large dedicated magical units - once you get beyond a certain point, ritual circle have diminished returns. Physical adepts could be treated as regular (augmented) troops, or be tasked as part of specialist teams (particularly for counter-spirit operations).

A heavily Awakened nation might have much higher prevalence of mages, which would push down the tier at which they would be found - even as low as the squad level. Which matches with where Amazonion forces have been described in adventures and the like.

Just my thoughts. Once you start noodling the implications of magic on military operations, things get complicated.

But I still think the average shadowrun team is going to get their tails handed to them in an open fight with the average UCAS combat fireteam. Mind you, if they are in an open fight with an average UCAS combat fireteam, the runners have already lost. And the biggest problem is there isn't one fireteam, there's an entire brigade out there too, and they have the ultimate runner-killer: artillery. There ain't a whole lot they are going to be able to do with the GPS-guided 155's come down. Or, Ghost help them, a few MLRS rockets.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 12 2010, 11:27 PM

-- The military almost NEVER does its own software development. They still pay licensing fees for Windows for example. The US military in particular fobs almost of its R&D to private companies and universities.

-- That said, the Unwired software development rules are actually pretty optimistic in many cases, and it might make sense to have a programmer team devoted to say, military commlink Firewall programming.

-- Why? There's pretty much no "big ticket" advantage that can't be replicated by a few thousand nuyen in wearable electronics. That's been the case since Shadowrun, First Edition. The sole exception was wired reflexes, which are both monstrously expensive and monstrously overpowered

-- I can't see any military taking on the long-term issues with augmentation without good reason. Not only are their health issues (surgery, Essence costs, maintenance requirements) but if you give everyone wired reflexes (for example) then you have these guys out in the civilian population at some point.

-- I find that dubious. That spirit is doing nothing useful most of the time that platoon is doing its thing. You're better off using the limited magical assets available to dole out a spirit as a form of fire support.

-- The corps have a competitive advantage in recruiting mages, and they don't seem to do this. So why the rump national governments?

-- That could be a sign of serious manpower issues actually. 10 mages in a force of 100 might look more magically capable compared to 100 mages in a force of 10,000 if you don't look closely.

-- They probably can't or WON'T exploit a fire support advantage in every case. Rules of engagement are an issue, especially when they have to throw this stuff around in inhabited areas or in places where that sort of thing could really piss off Awakened critters best left alone.

Posted by: kzt Jul 12 2010, 11:27 PM

US Army has a AT section in the platoon weapon squad.

Posted by: Rand Jul 12 2010, 11:27 PM

As a former USMC Artilleryman, I can attest to the affectiveness of 155's. The guns I crewed were Mi98 155mm Medium* Towed Howitzers, and we were expected to hit a mansized target on the second shot.

Eventhough magic concentration would be higher in the military (due to reasons mentioned above), I still don't think that the average fireteam (4 guys) would have magical support, and thusly, they would likely loose on that alone. Add in the fact that generally 2 of the runners would have 3 IPs, with one or more having 2, and the soldiers definately loose. (Even if you want to stretch things, the best that the average soldier could hope for in reaction enhancers is Wired Reflexes-1, the rest would be way too expensive. (In the main book, it isn't until Professional Rating 5 that you see any IP past 1. I don't think the average soldier would be PR-5, not even PR-4; I would put them at PR-3, though, which means no reaction enhancers.)

But, I don't think you run into a fireteam, I think you would run into a squad: 12 guys (or gals, it is late in the 21st century, after all). A squad is much more likely to destroy a group of runners, magic and IP and all. (Unless they are Prime Runners, that is.)

* I always like that they called them: medium. I guess the 205s (I think that was their size) are the large howitzers.

Posted by: kzt Jul 12 2010, 11:39 PM

Many modern SWAT teams are part time. For example, there in ONE full time SWAT team in the state of New Mexico. Many smaller, part time SWAT teams have limited training, limited access to training ammo, etc. The more effective and motivated teams train on their own and buy their own ammo. Lots of teams don't have people that motivated on them.

IIRC, the few hundred members of Delta Force shoot a million rounds a month in training.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 12:22 AM

It's quite simple you implant second-hand wires and rip em back out. Do you keep your rifle? This is the 6th world we are talking about people starve to death in numbers 100-200m away from a stuffer shack as they are in a Z zone. You really think govement is going to be heavly worried about removing argumentations? I can see maybe for cybereyes and legal implants a scheme where you pay a bit each pay cheak to keep them after but for things like wires taking them out sloves a lot of problems and money.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 13 2010, 12:30 AM

-- You're reaching
-- It's been forever since I read Burning Bright, but doesn't it talk a bit about some of this?

Posted by: Lanlaorn Jul 13 2010, 12:36 AM

Regarding military software, the stuff guarding military nexi and strategic communications (and the hacking software intended to target enemy military nexi and strategic communications) will be amazing higher-than-6-rating stuff, "weapons grade" software if you will.

But the stuff in any given soldier's commlink? Hell no, shooting a grunt and taking his 'link would then instantly give whoever a copy of your state of the art military firewall. Those guys will be using something far more basic.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 12:40 AM

Semper Fidelis Augmentin...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: IceKatze Jul 13 2010, 12:46 AM

hi hi

I can see the military removing cyberware only if the cost of the cyberware is greater than the cost of the operation. Cybersurgery can be expensive, so unless they're chopping the body up, they probably wont bother with the small stuff. If they do let people keep their ware, they've probably got dibs on it when they die though.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 12:51 AM

But... But...

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/06/18/is-amphibious-warfare-obsolete/

Check out the link. It also argues for the relevance of the Marine Corp going into the future.

From a dystopian magical cyberpunk future, I'd argue that in the age of diminishing nation-states, and considered from a financial perspective, the marine corp becomes more vital than ever.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54372

So yeah, Semper Fi, Teufelshunde.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 12:51 AM

I was always partial to obtaining Skyline, and even a can or two of Backblast^TM for weapon cleaning... and don't forget the BFA for the .45...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Lanlaorn Jul 13 2010, 12:52 AM

A lot of cyberware is cheap as hell too. Cybereyes, Cyberears, Skillwires and a Datajack would probably be standard issue. It would definitely cost less to put 8,000 nuyen into Skillwires than training to skill level 4 in multiple topics, hell even his firearms skills could be artificial, who cares?

The activesofts cost a lot but again, the army probably just develops an in house marksmanship skillsoft from some of their own riflemen and makes as many copies as they want, dropping the price to damn near zero.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 01:02 AM

Don't forget, LivingOxymoron, that even us lowly Marine Corps grunts were issued LAAWs and AT4's in the First Gulf War in '91... I vividly remember carrying 3 LAAW's and 1 AT4 personally, while in the field... It is not just the weapons platoon that is getting the AT rounds... we all carried at least a couple of Rockets to supplement the Weapon's Platoon guys.

Oh yeah, My credentials: 0311 (Rifleman)/0331 (Machinegunner)/0341 (Mortarman)/0351 (Infantry Assault Gunner)/0352 (AT Missleman), and also trained as a STA Marksman... Crosstrained over multiple Tours... Served with E Co. 2/7... Served as Platoon Radioman for the Gulf War... I requested as much crosstraining as I could get, and was still requesting when I eventually left the Corps...

"Every Meal a Banquet, Every Formation a Parade... I Love The Corps"

Keep the Faith

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 01:24 AM

You're assuming the military hasn't adapted tactics to the realities of 2072. Granted, there's a definite tendency for US armed forces to both 1) prepare for the last war and 2) draw down military power after every major conflict.

However, in the dystopian canon, don't we see wars and rumors of wars? Nothing spurs innovation like conflict.

Frankly, the concerns about signal integrity and compromised networks have been around since the early 1980s. The SINCGARS (technology) and new SOPs (behavior) were the answer.

The SINGARS is heavy as hell and doesn't have any better range than what you can buy at Sports Chalet. What it does have is very sophisticated encryption. It also has a "shoot here" spot. If your unit is being overrun, there is a clearly marked "X" that you shoot with your last bullet. This renders the SINGARS inoperable and makes it unable to be used for future signal interception. (For the curious, yes, we take it off the RTO first.)

Even without breaking encryption, any radio transmission greater than 5 seconds can be triangulated. For that reason, no one ever broadcasts for more than 3-5 seconds at at time. Unless you really like push ups and field day and hate liberty (free time).

I would envision a future fighting force that has adapted to these weaknesses and played to their strengths. I'm not very smart and I can offer several solutions:

• centralize, centralize, centralize: slave every commlink to the team of hackers (ais?, tms?) at the battalion, or heck, even DoD level.
• specialized technology: virtually unhackable laser and microwave links could keep the squad slaved to EchoMirage 2072 sitting comfortably back in the Pentagon.
• force multiplying drone support: retrans units, microdrones, CAS, oh my. Since the inception of the Predator UAV program, nearly every Predator mission has been piloted from Nellis AFB outside of Vegas. Why would 2072 be any different? If anything the hacker threat makes this even more likely.
• force multiplying magical support: how long does it take an astral form to travel from D.C. to Beijing? Any reason why that wouldn't be the primary method of magical support? This would be 1) cost effective, 2) allow greater command and control, and 3) protect mages from fear and prejudices in the field. I'm sure there would be some mages at the battalion level, but most would probably be at MAGCOM in D.C. Astral overwatch mages could provide recon and counterspelling support and when needed access vast reserves of bound spirits.

As a shadowrunner, it's not very pleasant to think about, but all but the most prepared and disciplined teams of runners would have a very short life span in direct combat with an infantry unit. Those with the smarts to pull it off would have the wisdom not to try.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 13 2010, 01:25 AM

In a "regular" dystopian universe, I agree with you. In the unique politics and history of Shadowrun, however, I think that it is perfectly plausible to say that the UCAS got rid of the Marine Corps as a separate service.
[*] All Marine Corps bases of today are located outside of territory. Pendleton? Nuclear Slag. MCRD San Diego and Miramar? Aztlan. Hawai'i? It's own nation. Lejeune and Cherry Point? CAS. Okinawa? Imperial Japan. I can totally see the Army, Navy, and Air Force completely unwilling to give up space on "their" bases.
[*] No power projection anymore. It seems like the Marines' modern day role as rapid deployment and the MEUs just don't exist in UCAS foreign policy
[*] General Isolationist policies.

By Contrast, the CAS inherited Lejeune, Cherry Point, and PI. Since Aztlan and the Carrib League play heavily into CAS Defense Policy vis-a-vis the Gulf, I can see a dedicated Amphibious Warfare component being desired. Add to that the culture of the CAS as the legacy of the good 'ol USA, and you can see where I'm going with this.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 01:31 AM

Dang. Didn't think of that. Good points. Well, as long as there's still a corps, I guess I don't have a problem with them all being in the CAS.

Who guards the nukes in UCAS?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 01:31 AM

Hey... at least the Corps lives on...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Adarael Jul 13 2010, 01:36 AM

Loss is not necessarily dictated by vocal individuals refusing to accept what you identify as logcal. I would regard your position in that argument as winning because it makes coherent sense, rather than listening to a different section of the rules which would have unacceptable after-effects upon the rest of the world. Such as cheap, unstoppable magical SAM attacks. Or low-level mages being able to more effectively demolish old buildings than a demolitions team.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 13 2010, 01:43 AM

Why, Ares, of course

I think I remember reading somewhere that Ares had more WMD capability INTERNALLY than the UCAS. So I imagine that they probably market KE and Firewatch teams for such a purpose.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 01:47 AM

Of Course...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 13 2010, 01:52 AM

Creech, not Nellis. Nellis has the Raptors/Falcon/Eagle/Thunderbird/etc., Creech has all the drones.

And a sweet vantage point when the 52's decide to expend their countermeasures all at once.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 02:01 AM

Ares is freakign scary and along with Aztech looks to be one of the biggest millitary powers in the 6th world. Firewatch is insane in its top level opertives. Their anti-bug teams train in space and are heavy initiated. We can only guess at possible rotation in the role. We also know they have a large number of THOR sats and a large nuke stockpile. As well as the abillity to depoly any where due to exterteritoral bases and sub-orbital tech.

Aztech has an entire country under it's self and as such in involved in alot of wars as of now. They will have lower perunit cost troops but they also have the jaguar guard a unit on the same lines as firewatch.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 02:15 AM

Ah, my mistake. I knew it was near Vegas. Thanks!

::Bitter under breath grumble about Air Force nerds getting paid to play video games and taking libbo in Vegas::

Posted by: MortVent Jul 13 2010, 02:16 AM

I see the forces a bit more stratified than they are now:

Grunts - little to no cyberware, basic gear (amor jacket/vest; Assault rifles, etc like I mentioned earlier)
Lifetimers - cyberware, bioware with at least 8years in service and career soldiers (same kit, maybe military/security armor in home guard or specialist units [aka the special threats units like in the book set in DC])
Specials - special forces, firewatch, etc (sky is the bottom, go from there on gear and augmentation)

I don't see the military spending the time and resources to implant a grunt that isn't going to be in long term with even secondhand ware. The medical costs for implantation and possible removal are high in time and nuyen (in a 4 year new enlistment, you already spend 3-5 months in boot and mos training on average add in surgery recovery and that's going to be about 5-8 months of a 4 year term where the new guy isn't busting hoop. Add in removal on the 1 term ones and then you basically have 3 years of service from them)

Skillwires and the like are not really cost effective (fluff not withstanding) due to costs (sure you can buy them in bulk, but think about the cost per soldier in terms of : 2 skill softs @ 30,000 and the wires themselves @ 6000 + implant costs and recovery costs) vs just teaching them how to shoot a gun and their mos basic skills.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 13 2010, 02:23 AM

-- On the contrary, I assume it has. And that means dropping modern ideas about command and control and ubiqitous communications. Technomancers are also a big monkey-wrench that could concievably reduce many military units to semaphore and morse code.

-- Blowing up capital (in the economic sense of the term) is not necessarily profitable. Most of the Shadowrun "wars" have been small-scale affairs that aim to preserve infrastructure and keep down costs. Developing weapon systems without buyers around with no sense of scale or money sense like the modern DoD seems to have kept a serious damper on weapons development. Pretty much everything you see in Arsenal existed by 2053 (with the exception of the "see we're still relevant!" add-ons like the HEMP gun).


-- Good encryption simply doesn't exist in Shadowrun. They go out of their way to tell you this, hence the sidebar in Unwired (p. 67).

-- Keep in mind how Shadowrun arranges things. A military commlink may use a nonstandard wireless link (Unwired, p. 196) and stuff like that, but making up special rules just for "milspec" stuff strikes me as a waste of time. If the military of the rump national governments were using special stuff, the corps that actually run the show certainly would as well. If anything, national militaries in Shadowrun are left using cast-offs, old technology, scrounged gear 40 years old, and yesterdays off-the-shelf software.

-- I'm not sure what you mean by slaving commlinks. Sounds like a real bad idea in Shadowrun as it just gives lots of potential access nodes for a hacker. LOS comms are probably more doable but a GM fiat saying "can't touch this stuff" might not pass the player smell test if not explained logically.

-- The hacker threat and AIs are precisely the reason people would take a dim view of too-extensive drone deployment.

-- The "military' as a boogyman opponent has been a Shadowrun tradition, but it's NEVER been borne out by anything quantifiable. There's also a rather huge problem where if you replace "military" with "corporation" the entire raison d'etre of shadowrunners goes out the window.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 13 2010, 02:29 AM

-- Indeed, the way I've played it there is no difference between UCAS Special Forces Command and Firewatch -- they are the same people and just swap billets around to take advantage of extraterritoriality and national laws as necessary. You "retire" from special forces right into Ares, and get "recalled" back to the UCAS as necessary. Think of it as a even cozier relationship than currently exists with the special forces and private military contractors.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 02:31 AM

All well argued points, but by that logic, the only unit that could survive in 2072 would be a unit of Cyborgs with their commlinks turned off.

The military, like Firewatch, Jaguars, Wildcats, etc. should be boogeymen.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 13 2010, 02:33 AM

Of course, if you are in a conflict with a CORPORATE military force, you have screwed the pooch royally already... What holds for National Militaries also holds for Corporate Militaries...

Now, Shadowrunners are more likely to run/operate against the Special Operations Groups of Corporates/Nations far more often than they will ever face the actual Militaries of such entities.

Militaries = Bad for Shadowrunners...
SOG's no so much, as they will often be on the same or similar levels of competence when they encounter such groups (or might at least have numbers on their side)...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 13 2010, 02:33 AM

And the Jaguars aren't even the really scary Azzies.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 13 2010, 02:34 AM

A slaved node is out of Unwired. Its basically a node that maintains a single open connection to a master node, and will only accept commands from an admin user on the master node. You can only hack a slaved node directly if you have a hardwired connection to it, otherwise you have to either hack the master and create your own admin account, or spoof the master to send a spoofed command to the slave.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 02:40 AM

There's also http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/darpa-plots-death-from-above-on-demand/ (relatively) cost effective option.

Posted by: toturi Jul 13 2010, 02:46 AM

There are various factors at work when you consider national and corporate militaries. Often there is a point where certain options become less cost effective than their counterparts, thus you would have a spread of options presumably at the levels of cost effectiveness that is acceptable to the decision makers.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 13 2010, 02:57 AM

The biggest benefit Military troops have is instant access to backup, support, information. If a squad radios in that they're under attack, help -will- be on the way. And that help can manifest in several ways. Information, people monitoring tactical feeds and offering advice. Off-site hackers using the team as relays to mess with the opposition. The platoon mage showing up in astral with a gank-squad of spirits in tow. Even calling for an airstrike, or diverting drone units to help with the area. A runner team usually can't call for that kind of support, on the spot.

That kind of organization comes with its perks, too. A deployed security team looking for trouble may not have a mage - but you can bet there's a decent force bound spirit with Magical guard watching their backs. Its a -very- cheap investment, and a force 6 spirit goes a long way towards keeping your team alive. It also means they can customize loadouts to the task at hand. Armories exist for a reason - if a milspec team expects heavy resistance and lots of vehicles, they are going to take gear to compensate.

I kind of don't care about the Crimson Samurai entry in the core book. It was written without taking the expansion books into account. I'm looking at their skills now - nothing below a 3, stats or skills. 5-7's in their attributes and skills for kicking ass. Not bad at all. And that's before you account for Metatype adjustments(Contacts and Adventures has a small table to adjusting contacts and npc's on the fly)

So, let's talk Gear.. The first big advantage to military opposition is access to gear. Restricted, forbidden, and high-availability gear are their bread and butter. That means explosives, rockets, missiles. Heavy weapons, nonstandard ammunition. Grenades, airbursting links, smartguns, high-rating tacnets. The kind of toys that might be a pain to get.

The next is standardization. Each member of the team is going to have a bare minimum of equipment and training - and more to suit their role. So each dude has access to those things. Compared to a runner team, only a few runners may have alphas or LMGs. On a milspec team, each member likely has alphas, on gyromounts, with airbursting links. Likely one heavy weapon.
If they're seriously expecting trouble, each member of that team has the potential to take an LMG on an articulated weapon arm as part of their armor very easily. In game terms, imagine the havoc you can wreak by having each member of a four+ man team Suppressive Fire in addition to their regular actions. Pilot upgrade or an agent is very affordable, and... its a military team. They -are- going to be running a tacnet

In arsenal, the lightest military armor available is 12/10 ballistic/impact. Its helmet starts at rating device rating 4, and goes up to 6 for a real cheap price, and comes with free encryption, and the whole thing has a biomonitor on top of that. It also has capacity, and access to things other armor can't get stock - gyromounts, no-encumbrance mobility upgrades, strength enhancements that ignore augmented maximums. It flat out ignores DV 0 injection attacks That's in addition to the usual stuff - chemical protection, nonconductivity, chemseals. When your entire team is immune to chemical weapons, it opens up a lot of options for dealing with your opponents - like neurostun grenades, everywhere.

Vehicles and drones. Per the Device Ratings table, Milspec gear(and vehicles) are device rating 5, which makes a significant difference when drones come into play. Response is used for initiative, as well as shooting people, and also defense tests. This also means each drone can run up to rating 5 software stock, with no mods. And you can bet a milspec vehicle will have top-rating defensive tools. That means firewalls, Analyzers, ECCM, likely Stealth. Ditto for Pilots/Clearsight/Targeting/Defense/ Autosofts.

Ware is something to consider, too. Augmentation sheds some light on military-grade augmentation. The standard military Cyberlogician rocks out with a Commlink, 3 datajacks, a datalock, an encephalon 2, attention coprocessor 3, hotsim module, simsense booster, and an orientation system. Its alphaware, so rating 4 to start - a betaware version's(device rating 5!) also available. Which means a competent, offsite hacker using the team as a relay , is going to be running that all as a cluster.
Using the Lonestar suite as a guide - they have Flare/Thermographic/Smartlink, bone lacing, and wired reflexes 1. Not bad, but military gear's going to be better.
Red sammy rock out with Cybereye, muscle aug and toner 2, synthcardium 3's, and wired reflexes 2. Thats more like it.

So, you have a group of people with heavy weapons, the discretion not to use them if its not called for. 3 passes, access to good ammo types(like ex-ex, apds, and grenades). They put out about 12-14 dice each for important tests - shooting, dodging, perception. Matrix stats of 5+, and -everything- encrypted.

That being said, I can see a group of runners taking out a generic military team.
What I can't see, is them getting away with it. The moment their biomonitor twinges, offsite people are going to start looking into -why-.
Once the hammer starts coming down on the runners for it, -then- they're screwed.


Iunno. I see a lot of optimized characters on this board. Anyone care to take a shot at making an Optimized Military Grunt? You know, with all the toys the runners -wish- they could play with?

Posted by: Warlordtheft Jul 13 2010, 03:22 AM

IIRC: if they stay in the guard or reserves or individual ready reserves, then they keep it. And good luck getting to them an taking it out after that term expires if they don't want it ripped out.

Posted by: MindandPen Jul 13 2010, 03:28 AM

You have got to love Marines. My asthma and eyesight kept me out of the armed services - so I got to play with the toys in DARPA and NSA

-M&P

Posted by: MindandPen Jul 13 2010, 03:30 AM

This. In my game, the Military is the big green (or blue, or whatever color) machine that chews up whatever it runs into - usually

-M&P

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 03:35 AM

What I seem to be hearing is that military forces would split into three major types depending on investment. Primarily you would get grunts, likely Orks and Trolls trained to the level of, say, a National Guard, who would do most of the crap work of holding places and humping stuff everywhere. Then you have the professional soldiers who are mostly lifers, who are the primary force projectors, are a much smaller group, and are kitted out quite heavily. Spec Ops like SEALs and whatnot would come from this group. The third group are the piles and piles of specialists who run everywhere from logistics to command and control, to astral scouting (astral is likely the best recon type, given the speed they can be deployed from the comfort of home), to the crack-troop General's Own Coffee Makers.

Basically with this set up you could have your decently large group of badass soldiers (probably the size of the USMC), and a big pile of more squishy troopers (about the size of one of the other service units), and the bazillion voices on the other end of the commlink (probably a decent chunk privatized, too).

Does this seem realistic from a military point of view?

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 03:41 AM

They are deffently a rung below friewatch but as i can tell number more.

Posted by: Laodicea Jul 13 2010, 03:45 AM

I just wanted to stop by and say that I'm really enjoying this thread. A lot. It's something I've thought about, but most of you guys have already said was I was thinking.

I had just one thought to add:
Great Dragons have fought off whole armies. Yes, they had small armies of their own, but mostly, they were just clever and strong. Its not even THAT hard to damage a Great Dragon with military grade hardware, heavy autocannons and vehicle laser systems, etc. So it obviously wasn't just a matter of soaking the damage. It's Just something to keep in mind.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 03:52 AM

Psh, that's Plot Device power, so you can't go by that. Either their stats are wrongly low, or something wonky happened.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 03:54 AM

They gave stats to Great Dragons? Don't they know better? "If you stat it, they will kill it"? Is that what happened to Big D? Oh the humanity! Or more likely: Oh the draconity!

Posted by: kzt Jul 13 2010, 04:01 AM

Well, that was me with the force 1 demo team. I was convinced that not only was it insane (I didn't argue that point) but that it was not what the rules said.

Posted by: Laodicea Jul 13 2010, 04:04 AM

Not exactly. They said "great dragon = normal, non-great dragon, +10 to all stats." and also "They should always be major power brokers, and more powerful than any runner by far." Which, at 25 bod and 18 magic, they are.

Think about how a dragon would tactically fight a military. Lots of high power spirits, obviously. While those are being dealt with by the army, the dragon is taking out the threats to himself, personally, that is - the heavy artillery like vehicle mounted lasers, etc. You don't need wonky plot devices for it to make sense. Unless you're overpowering the military, or placing the dragon in situations the dragon would be far too smart to let happen, like having 5 heavy autocannons pointed at him.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 04:15 AM

Yea, but Body 25 is a number. People will find a way! I bet in the next ten or so posts, we see three ways to kill something with that Body.

I'll cheat and add the first one: Drop Bear. Fragger'd never see it coming. Probably what killed Dunkey.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 04:16 AM

I mean, how hard is it to get something that flies in range of a handful of long range vehicle weapons? You can't just invoke the Batman clause. I say, set all their stats equal to 'More'.

Posted by: Laodicea Jul 13 2010, 04:23 AM

Yeah, then think about its natural armor and all the the anchored deflection, armor, etc spells.

Yes, a great dragon is killable with those stats. Killable, until you think of its super-beyond-human intelligence. You literally cannot conceive of the ways in which it would act to outsmart anyone it went up against. It would have traps within traps within traps for 60 layers before you even saw it. And that's just its traps. It would have every contingency plan imaginable + more in place, all in its head at the same time. Unfortunately, a GM really can't think of all those things the way that a hyper-intelligent being can. So the GM is left with cheap tricks like "you just walked into an undetectable misted form of a drug that causes you to astrally project instantly and now all of your bodies are possessed by ally spirits of the Dragon."

The point is, just getting the Dragon in a position to be shot at by anything that can hurt it is hard.

Hint: use lasers.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 04:34 AM

::Ducks in a feeble attempt to avoid the unavoidably forthcoming Ghostwalker rant::

Hey, maybe we can squeeze in some Horizon hatred, too?

Or, I can desperately try to wrestle this thread back on track: What about Sader Krupp's corp-military forces? If they bought H&K they should have some pretty serious toys to play with.

http://www.hk-usa.com/military_products/hk417_general.asp is made by HK. Anyone that's had to maintain an M16A2 in field conditions can attest to the value of a weapon like this.

So, how about Sader Krupp? Shadorunner tail kickers? How come we never hear about their spec ops? What kind of military units would a dragon-owned corp deploy?

Posted by: toturi Jul 13 2010, 04:46 AM

Of course, they did. If they didn't want you to kill it, they would not have given you the stats.

Posted by: MortVent Jul 13 2010, 05:10 AM

they don't want the therapy bills being sent to them

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 05:31 AM

SK spec ops? They own H&K and BMW? I'm guessing they would have painfully expensive but fantastic weapons and gear. Betaware standard, to show the true German craftsmanship, and to make everyone else jealous.

Posted by: Minchandre Jul 13 2010, 05:34 AM

One thing that people - including likely the people who wrote that article - forget is that the Marine Corps is able to get away with that because they've outsourced almost all of their logistics support to the Navy. The Marines are transported by Navy ships, healed by Navy doctors, and often enough fed by Navy cooks. Now, that's not to say that the Marines aren't effective - just that they're more expensive than they look. What percent of the Navy's operating costs can be laid at the feet of the Marine Corps?

Posted by: kzt Jul 13 2010, 05:38 AM

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/hk-because-you-suck-and-we-hate-you/

Posted by: D2F Jul 13 2010, 09:34 AM

Actually, last I read the strongest compliment of ANY Corp was around the 2 batallion mark and that spot was held in tandem by Ares and S-K.
I haven't read Corp Guide, so my info might be outdated.

Posted by: Red_Cap Jul 13 2010, 09:57 AM

Because they never leave anyone alive to talk about them?


And I've certainly enjoyed reading this thread as well. I'm a serving Army NCO (deployed to Iraq, no less), so while I have to scoff at the Marine pride being tossed around as a matter of course, I will say that they're hitting the nail on the head at least. I was a 19K (Abrams crewman) and now I'm a 35F (Intelligence Analyst). I work in one of those Tactical Operations Centers mentioned earlier, and let me explain to you -- in generalities -- what it looks like.

Butting against the wall of the building (made of wood inside of an armored hangar) is a large U-shaped desk area called The Pit. On one side is the S-2 (my job), with three computers outputting data on a total of seven screens and a secure phone. The far side is where the RTOs (that's Radio/Telephone Operators for the uninitiated) sit, beside which are two more computers and a four foot-tall stack of SINCGARS radios, a TACSAT satellite radio, a secure phone, and not one but two Blue Force Tracker (BFT) kits (run a search for FBCB2 and you can learn all about it). The middle section of the U has a further three computers (six screens total) and two secure phones for the Battle Captain -- sometimes a lieutenant, the one who actually controls combat operations since battalion commanders can't be micromanaging 24/7) and the Battle NCO (aka the BCPT's bitch). At the "top" of the U, bolted to the aforementioned wall, are a total of six wide-screen flat-panel displays (I like they're all LCDs, but I'm not sure). At any given time, two are displaying the master BFT map feeds, one has a a rolling SIGACT (that's Significant Activities) summary for the past 24 hours, one has map data from the Battle Captain's computer, and my two are showing live feeds from various and sundry UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). And that's not counting the three workstations behind the U, the S2 OIC (Officer In Charge)'s side office, and the S3 (Operations Officer)'s side office.

We are quite literally inundated with information on the modern battlefield, and I cannot imagine that the Sixth World would be any different. My unit (an aviation cavalry squadron) can watch its UH-60s deliver ground troops via air assault while the OH-58s fly top cover on our choice of two different full motion video UAV feeds, track the aircraft's position on the BFT, talk to them on the radio, send text messages to them (and receive replies, of course) via BFT, all the while talking to our next higher and adjacent headquarters on our choice of secure phone, radio, or encrypted chat programs. Hell, we even use Ventrilo here in Iraq for conducting meetings that don't require face-to-face interactions. So while ECM may be able to shut some parts of the network, I doubt that it could shut down ALL parts of the network. The military maintains entirely too many redundancies especially when it comes to communications. We even have an acronym describing the tiers for comms: PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) so that each unit knows exactly which comms systems it has available and which ones to use first.

Posted by: IKerensky Jul 13 2010, 10:04 AM

That sound weird, because in SOX there are batallion sized groups fighting the Radwars...

I think Corpo strength should be at last one or two divisionnals units.

Posted by: D2F Jul 13 2010, 12:34 PM

If you have newer info, please share. My info is still from a 2nd Ed Sourcebook. I think one of the first Corp Guides. Maybe they increased their military force dramatically since then. I still don't see Corps, even the Megas with larger armies than Nations. It makes no sense from a Business perspective. Maybe with the sole exception of Aztechnology, as the line between Aztlan Military and Aztechnology Military is rather blurry.

Posted by: augmentin Jul 13 2010, 02:55 PM

I agree. National defense is provided in a state of market failure, something the corps would abhor.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 13 2010, 02:59 PM

That didn't actually work, canon points out. Absolutely fraggin' neat as it was.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 03:08 PM

only because they did not use enough and stopped shooting too soon . .

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi Jul 13 2010, 03:48 PM

This blog sure made me laugh. I wonder; if the Germans are so tough, how did they lose WW2?

Posted by: Rand Jul 13 2010, 03:56 PM

"Many" modern SWAT teams, but I believe that the ratio is still in favor of the average SWAT team member having more training time and probably more "action" time, as well, than the average soldier.


Except that we aren't talking about the average Delta Forces guy, we are talking about the average soldier - which the Delta Force most assuredly is not. The book has examples of specops (Red Samurai, Tir Ghosts...) and they are PR 5+ not what the average soldier would be at PR 3, with some at 4 (at best).

Of course, in the Dystopian future, who knows. (The writers know, thats who! )

As for all the "cool" gear: the military buys the stuff from the guys who came in with the lowest bid. That should tell you something about the gear.

Posted by: Kliko Jul 13 2010, 04:07 PM

Poor strategic decision making and suboptimal equipment logistics (many different panzer-versions etc., poor exchangeability of spare parts etc.). Their MG42 still rocks in various modern incarnations today.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 04:08 PM

The hard russian Winter and the high Gas-Price . .

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 05:07 PM

Trust me Azetech has much more but it is a national army not a corporate one however they are the same enity. Ares and S-K are likely in that area in the millitary units. Arse has a lot more combat assets that just that though. Knight Errarnt is a PMC in effect. So I think Knight Erranrnt isn't coun't as Arse's millitay arm though it is. Imagen it as wnageling words and fileings likely due to a corporate court ruling on max army size.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 13 2010, 05:09 PM

I thought Ares had more than 2 battallions stationed in Silicon Valley during the 60's alone.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 13 2010, 05:11 PM

Stupidity. They end up adding another front voluntarily. Where as they could have moped up one then the other.

Posted by: Runner Smurf Jul 13 2010, 05:38 PM

On prevalence of high-rating software in the military:

IRL, anything that the DoD pays to develop they have an unlimited license to the technology, generally speaking. Contracting Regulations 101. So, if they pay Microsoft ¥50M to develop a Firewall app at whatever obscene rating they want, then they can copy it willy-nilly. Sure, they buy individual copies of Windows, but they didn't pay for that R&D.

On augmentation.

Mostly agree - I don't think they'd do a lot of anything that could be taken care of other ways. But the sheer utility of things like wired reflexes are serious force multipliers. Mind you, they might rather spend the money on combat drugs, but they'd be very concerned about long-term medical complications. The other major category to consider are those things that increase survivability/combat effectiveness: trauma dampers, bone lacing, pain editors...well, maybe not pain editors.


Considering that we take on lifetime medical care for all of our soldiers currently, I don't think it's that unrealistic. And there is plenty of motivation for things like Move By Wire or Wired Reflexes. Yes, them coming back into society is a concern, but so is having people with combat training running around, which societies have dealt with (more or less successfully) for centuries. And with the prevalence of security forces out there that would love to hire wired soldiers, there would be serious market demand for augmented retired soldiers. Of course, you could also just disable the augmentation when someone leaves. I think the obvious solution is that augmentation would be limited to career types. As in "if you get wired, your signing up for a 20 year stint."

And as another point, consider some of the military/security focused cybersuites in Augmentation. The SK Cyberlogician Deluxe Military Version argues strongly for significant modification - particularly of officers.

On use of spirits:

Fair point. I think it would depend on the tactical situation. If you anticipated opposing mages, I think you'd be seriously interested in Magical Guard for counterspelling...which I just realized only Guardian spirits can do. Good point. My guess is you'd use them for counter-spirit ops, and as a high-speed response/support force.

On using spirits to guard vehicles:

I think this is where how people play the game comes into play. In games I run, I pretty much assume that anything worth more than about ¥300k that could be under threat is going to have a spirit escorting it. And anything over a million is going to always have a spirit with it on protection. If companies have mages on staff, paying the costs to bind spirits is pretty trivial, and provide serious insurance. Particularly Guardian spirits.

On magical asset ratios.

True. It all depends on how you employ them too. Crickey. Think of how many spirits 100 mages could put out there...no wonder the Yucatan went nuts!

On artillery:

To be sure. Depends entirely on the circumstances that put runners up against combat troops. Considering the advances in precision guided munitions, and the prevalence of ultra-precision strike systems like lasers, calling for fire missions might be easier in 2070 in a lot of cases than it is now.

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi Jul 13 2010, 05:39 PM

Really? I thought the germans lost the war because of Michael Jackson's death, or the iPad not supporting flash, or the vuvuzelas, or... you get the picture.

Posted by: Kliko Jul 13 2010, 05:45 PM

We get the picture alright

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 13 2010, 06:03 PM

Vuvuzelas: You can pretty much blame anything on them

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 13 2010, 06:07 PM

Ok a couple of things.

Considering the number of characters i've had over the years that want to justify their level of ware, skills, etc with "i'm former military" I have reasonably assumed in my head that the military is some very frightening stuff. I'm actua

Also just about to this point on magical assetts as well, because if PC's reflect the game world then a lot more magical support and in better quality needs to pop up.

/end rant


To the guy who presumes your average swat team is better trained then your average military and potentially sees a lot more action, your wrong on a number of points. First off one of the basic quick steps for law enforcement selection in many municipalities is prior military service. One of the basic selection criteria for swat officers (part time or full time) is prior infantry or "special" forces time. Now why would they do that if their guys are so amazingly trained? The answer is because their not. What swat does in the vast majority of situations can basically be summed up as RBS(Really boring shit) hostage negotiations, overwhelming firepower ops, etc etc. Their entire doctrine and tactics is based on them having more numbers and better gear and sniper support, not being elite superbadass. In other words they are paramilitary to be sure but acting like their training or ability is way above that of the military is false.

At any rate as others have said milspec forces have always been a bogeyman that has never been stated in the "stats will kill it" area but on the other hand a tiget that doesn't use it's teetth, and gets mauled by dragons to show how tough dragons are REPEATEDLY, isn't very scary. This is yet another reason to have the Azzie's roll through and kill Ghostwalker.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 06:10 PM

If you had heard that answer to that question in german, you could be really offended by my answer . .

Posted by: Arclight Jul 13 2010, 06:16 PM

Because our political leadership always sucks. That, and we never won a war again after fielding a navy ...

Posted by: Brazilian_Shinobi Jul 13 2010, 06:50 PM

I don't know any german besides kaput and danke. Send me a pm with your answer and I'll tell you if I would be offended or not.

Posted by: Nath Jul 13 2010, 07:28 PM

The Street Samurai Catalog says the M22A2 was a contender in the UCAS squad rifle trial in 2050. It has never been stated if it won, though Fields of Fire refers to the "highly successful M22A2".


I never seen any reference to HK owning S-K, and nobdy ever provided one (even in a German-only book). There is no reference I know of for Ares owning Steyr either.
There are HK and Steyr products on sales in the Ares Winter Catalog and Ares Security Catalog 2050 (the contents of the Street Samurai Catalog), but there are also Renraku-owned SCK and Monobe-owned FN Herstal.


For that 6 percent, you also get 0 percent of the U.S.'s nuclear capacity and 0 percent of the U.S.'s communications, positionning and spy satellites. Even if the USMC is really more cost-effective than the Army (and I'm willing to agree they are), those maths are pretty unfair.


Corporate Shadowfiles says Ares and Aztechnology have a regiment, S-K a battalion, Fuchi and MCT a company. Shiawase and Yamatetsu don't have any, and Renraku classifies Red Samurai, tanks and air fighters as security troops. Those are permanent military units. If you count security units, Corporate Download says the Aztechnology Corporate Security number 150'000 worldwide (including a single battalion of jaguar guards). Year of the Comet suggests the 25000 soldiers fielded by Ares in San Fransisco area (described as "pretty large" for a corporat presence) are mostly KE regular personnel equipped by Ares Arms. That sort of "reserve" may also be used to compete in the Desert Wars and Radwars.


I still don't get how Bin Laden escaped the US armed forces so long. I mean, he has a Body of 4 at best, and he's not even wearing an armored vest

Posted by: Mäx Jul 13 2010, 08:11 PM

So first you say many of the SWAT are former spec ops and then you claim they aren't any better trained then your avarage military grunt, that a pretty big contradiction you know.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 08:40 PM

as you wish . .

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 09:36 PM

You know how we could come up with a true, correct, and verifiable answer for how a military should be constructed? Build 'em and fight 'em on Dumpshock. Make a new thread called Desert Wars and have people duke it out with their military squads. We would have to decide on an amount of cash to build the squads with, and after squads are built and fought, we can move on to artillery support, then add in tanks, close air support, etc.

You know you want to make SR into a wargame. What's the worst that can happen? Heh.

Shout out some engagement rules ideas.

Posted by: D2F Jul 13 2010, 09:43 PM

Numbers and a complete idiot as military leader.

Posted by: Apathy Jul 13 2010, 10:12 PM

People have been talking about organizational layout and equipment levels, but what about stats? Here's my take:

Baseline assumptions:

• PVTs, PV2s, SPCs, and ROTC candidates will be in their early to mid- twenties. Bod3, Str3, Agi3, Rea3, Log2, Int2, Wil2, Cha2, Athletics3, Perception 2, Job-specific skills (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)3.
  
• SGTs, SSGs, LTs, and CPTs will be in their late twenties to early thirties. Bod3, Str3, Agi3, Rea3, Log3, Int3 Wil3, Cha3. Athletics3, Perception 3, Job-specific skill (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)2.5, Leadership2.5, Tactics2.5, Navigation2.5, Logistics2.
  
• SFCs, 1SGTs, MAJs, and LTCs will be in their mid-to late thirties or early forties. Bod3, Str2.5, Agi2, Rea2, Log3.5, Int3.5 Wil3.5, Cha3. Athletics2, Perception 3, Job-specific skill (Unarmed, Rifle, Driving, Gunnery, etc)2, Leadership3.5, Tactics3.5, Navigation3, Logistics3.

[Edit] For more elite units like Special Forces add 1-2 points on physical stats, 1 point on mental stats, and 1-2 points on skills.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 13 2010, 10:20 PM

I dunno if those skill ratings all match up with SR4, p119, but they're close. Mostly too low.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 13 2010, 10:21 PM

Next thing you know Catalyst will be on here announcing a Desert Wars Table Top Strategic Miniatures Game...

Would you buy it?

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 10:25 PM

Sounds kinda like battletech to me . .

Posted by: MortVent Jul 13 2010, 10:25 PM

Will it have cool minis or the cheap paper markers...

They did DMZ if you remember

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 13 2010, 10:28 PM

I thought FASA did DMZ

Yeah for the moment let's assume they do it right and partner with someone who makes quality miniatures (I think they used Ral Partha before, not sure they still exist though)

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 10:48 PM

Hmm...

I'm going to really enjoy war gaming if 3D plastic polymer printers ever get cheap enough to have at home. If I just had to pay a small license fee for a particular set of figures and then print it myself, I'd be all there.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 13 2010, 10:54 PM

As a Forum Housekeeping favor to the admins I'm going to kill my tangent line of discusssion here and start a new thread on it, there still seems to be plenty of momentum for the original topic so rather than Derail I'll start fresh

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 10:54 PM

And this is why it won't happen.
It opens the gates for piracy!

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 11:26 PM

Seriously. Corps have gotta find a better business model that lets them make money when people can make copies of information and goods. Fighting it and complaining about it are gigantic wastes of time and effort. Do you want to make money in a world where people can print off plastic figures? Stop trying to charge an arm and a leg for a model that someone whipped up in a CAD program in a couple of hours and start finding a way to make a community for people to use that model in, and a way to charge for that. Find a way to make money off of things that cannot be stolen.

I'm sure you were being funny (and it was), it just also smacked me square in the peeves.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 13 2010, 11:36 PM

In that vein, I really enjoyed the description of Desktop Manufacturing in Arsenal. It basically says 'the corps won...for a while.'

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 14 2010, 12:50 AM

Not always true... sometimes we were transported by the Airforce too...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 01:06 AM

Navy Guide To Land Warfare: Send the Marines. Have lunch.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 14 2010, 01:09 AM

'Tis True...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 14 2010, 01:10 AM

-- They don't pay for seats (usually), but they still pay for the support and maintenance of the software, training, and upgrades. And all of that will tend to be higher than commercial software because it's often custom and task-specific. Plus the DoD still has to pay licensing fees if they use certain technologies and code.
-- Shadowrun is a bit of an odd duck here as a fairly small programmer team can whip up and maintain software pretty easily (a side effect of trying not to totally gimp the solo hacker).

-- Taking current US military policy and applying it to Shadowrun is almost certainly wrong. And that lifetime medical care usually amounts to NOTHING for most veterans as it only covers service-connected issues. I sincerely doubt even the UCAS is going to saddle themselves with lifetime medical costs over this.

-- Good luck using that as a selling point for military service.

-- Corporations have lots of fancy stuff on the market that never actually reach service.

-- The thing to consider is "what could I have that mage doing other then wasting a spirit service guarding some armored car?"

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 01:13 AM

Watching the rift where Dunkie died, that's what.

Posted by: Tzeentch Jul 14 2010, 01:21 AM

-- All this talk of Marines has me wondering: are the UCAS/CAS Marines even mentioned recently? The last direct references I can recall were in Shadows of North America and only applied to the CAS:

** p. 55 talks about the CAS Marines 1st MRB "Ferrets"
** p. 67 says there are two CAS Marine expeditionary forces.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 14 2010, 03:36 AM

Nope. In fact, I've only ever heard mention of UCAS Marines twice, and both had to do with Ares. Ares Arms' Executive VP is Retired USMC General Guido Cantarelli, and Ares Seattle's Head is Karen King, also a retired Marine veteran.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 03:47 AM

Maybe the Marines of the UCAS and CAS are used in their traditional roles, that of Sea Soldiers, with the occasional Amphibious Assault (Which has probably been mostly replaced by T-Bird VTOL insertions.).

Would explain why they're not discussed much. After all, what Shadowteam is going to be insane enough to, oh, I don't know, sneak aboard the Supercarrier that's in Seattle's Harbour?

Oh, wait, we're talking about the PCs here, they might just be stupid enough to do that...

Posted by: Red_Cap Jul 14 2010, 10:14 AM

Nonono, CanRay. The proper statement is, "The GM just might dislike his runners enough set a run on board said supercarrier."

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 14 2010, 11:10 AM

Isn't that supercarrier home to a dragon?
Or am i getting something mixed up again?

Posted by: Sengir Jul 14 2010, 12:26 PM

Getting your MD via the Bundeswehr means signing up for 17 years, and it does sell.

Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 14 2010, 12:44 PM

Tonight, on Runners of the Deep.

Momo and his crew have been hired to take control of a Gerald R. Ford class supercarrier. Will they take her in port or at sea? Will YaYa be able to smooth talk he way onto the bridge? Will Guano go bat-shit crazy and kill everyone on board? What will Wrench do with the wing of aircraft on board? Watch tonight at ten, nine central to find out!

Posted by: Dumori Jul 14 2010, 01:29 PM

Tbh I think most of our Runs woudkl make awesome TV especaily the more mohawkly bits.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 02:29 PM

They make for GREAT Trid. Which is why 'Runs are recorded and shown in LA.

Incorporating a car chase with Disney Security netted my group a bonus!

Posted by: Runner Smurf Jul 14 2010, 02:48 PM

Fair point, but maintenance costs (thank Ghost we don't have SOTA to deal with anymore) are going to be trivial compared to the costs of unsecured comms. Considering the resources the NSA currently puts into such things, I can't imagine that a 2072 armed force wouldn't spend a fair amount of resources to securing them. And when we consider that cyberwarfare in 2072 is not only a potential threat, but a constant battlefield reality, I suspect that a lot of resources would go to that. While standard grunts may not be carrying uber-hardened stuff with rating 6 firewalls, certainly the officers and squad leaders would.

On augmentation and health care costs.

If using current policy and trends isn't a valid basis for projecting forward/sideways to Shadowrun...what is? And I believe you are wrong on the medical care issue - at least, according to the VA's website (http://www4.va.gov/healtheligibility/). While they do have to pay insurance premiums, they are quite well subsidized. Service-related injuries are taken care at no cost (in theory) to the soldier. And considering the politics of veteran's benefits, I don't really think that in 2070 you'd just be able to throw veterans to the wolves.

Minor point though. I think we're arguing around relative prevalence. I don't think everybody would be augmented, but I think more of them would be than you do.

On long term services commitments for augmented soldiers:

Worked for the Romans! 16 year standard stint (extended to 20 after Octavian), with significant number re-enlisting, twice even. Works pretty darn well today too. 20%+ of USMC officers have over 20 years service, even more when you include reservists. Enlisted look to be around 25% with over 10 years. (according to the USMC fact book...uh 2006 version is all I have on hand). US Army's minimum stint is 8 years.

On military suites in the sourcebooks...

True. Any evidence to support that conclusion here?

On use of spirits to guard valuable vehicles/assets:

Fair enough, but I'm not saying that every HMMWV would be guarded. But multi-million nuyen attack helicopter, fighter aircraft or personnel transports? Vehicles that can be easily destroyed with by a single mage with a "Wreck Vehicle" spell? Never mind that a The Guardian spirit service is cheap, and doesn't tie the mage down from doing their other tasks. (Which, by some other discussions here, means warding every piece of real-estate the corp owns.) Plus, powers like Concealment (or even Guard) could be very handy...that whole stealth thing.

Aside: Now that I think about it, just about every rocket launch would probably have a spirit with Guard escorting it up as far as the spirit could go. Being able to cut the accident rate by even a little bit would pay for itself in reduced insurance costs alone! Ditto with airports.

Anyway, I think this is a difference of degree, not absolutes. And we have very little in-game information to work with. Just a few off-handed comments in some of the novels (e.g. Findley saying that the average runner team would get smoked by the average group of soldiers), and the implications of some of the weapons described in the books. We'll see if War! addresses these things in any detail.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 02:53 PM

Those insurance deductions wouldn't pay for the Mage.

They require *HIGH* wages. And why not? They provide a very specialized service, and are in a massive minority.

Supply and demand strike again.

The only reason you can sometimes hire Birthday Party Magicians is that they're so low-powered that that's all they can do.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 14 2010, 03:07 PM

Here's a sick little question for armed forces in 2070: Do you suppose smaller and poorer military groups would supplement their combat drugs with HMHVV infections? I'm thinking Ghouls in particular, as they mostly just need cybereyes to clean up their disadvantages for combat. They end up with a huge body, strength, and reaction, and lose out on charisma and logic. While you generally don't want really powerful, idiotic, contagious monsters running around, they would make fantastic shock troops.

Even sicker would be the groups that currently just drug up children before sending them into combat doing the same with Infection qualities.

I feel like a bad person for even being able to think of this stuff.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 03:12 PM

Well, the child-soldier, drug-soldier countries *might* try that, but none of them really matter to begin with.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 14 2010, 03:18 PM

But those armed forces are far more likely to have Shadowrunner teams going toe-to-toe with them than a well-equipped first world countries military.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 03:26 PM

Probably not - You've just described Asamundo, which every country in Africa hates.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 14 2010, 03:29 PM

Asamundo? Please educate me.

Posted by: Mäx Jul 14 2010, 03:33 PM

Then land of ghouls in africa.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 03:45 PM

^

It has quite the blurb in 6WA. It's literally a nation of ghouls. Unrecognized by the UN or whatever the hell the current 'league of nations' body is in the 70's, it has an astoundingly high literacy rate, better than decent wireless Matrix coverage, and some kickin' astral nightclubs since most everyone in the country is dual-aspect.

The setback? Well, they eat people. They're the ultimate beneficiaries of Dunk's bequeathing of cash monies to anyone who can synthesize metahuman flesh for ghoul consumption, as well as techniques and technology to recover/maintain cognitive quality in fresh ghouls - since many go mindless with the change.

Posted by: Runner Smurf Jul 14 2010, 03:52 PM

Do you have any idea what the premiums are for a rocket launch? What the costs are for a crashed passenger airliner?

Yes, mages are freaking expensive. But they don't cost ¥100M. And once you have them on your staff, which pretty much every corp does, having them throw out spirit services is actually dirt cheap - ¥500 per force point to bind in ritual material costs, and one hour of labor per force point. So, let's say our wage-mage has a salary of ¥10M, just to be generous, and including insane benefits. Say he works 200 days a year, 8 hours a day (lots of vacation time, etc.)...works out to ¥6,250 an hour, fully burdened. So, the labor and binding costs for a force 5 spirit is...¥33,750. Say he gets on average of 1 service per binding. So...it costs the company something like ¥34k per service.

A little googling shows that insurance rates for satellites are something like 20% of the value of the satellite, which is generally at ¥100M-¥1B. Assuming that by 2070 things are lot safer and cheaper, so the rates have dropped to 5%, on a satellite worth, say ¥10M. So the insurance cost is ¥500k. Being able to use Guard to prevent accidents at launch (highest risk part of the operation) might cut the rate of accidents by only 10%, with a corresponding reduction in insurance costs. That means they could save ¥50k just in the insurance alone. That means that using the mage saves the company ¥16k per launch.

Therefore, company uses mages to guard launches. I've given really generous assumptions here to try and weight the numbers against using the mage (excessive salary, minimal insurance costs, single service per binding, no foci). And I haven't even considered failure costs beyond insurance (such as bad publicity, lost time, lost equipment, lost personnel). Oh, and that we only use bound spirits, which radically drives up the cost as well. And it still makes sense to use the spirit.

So, I'm thinking...yeah. Corps would use spirits to Guard their rockets. Protection of commercial aircraft possibly as well, though that gets a bit closer to the cost/benefit edge, and depends a lot on how the GM interprets services. I'm thinking Guardian, Guidance and Plant spirits with Magical Guard would be especially valuable to protect against hostile spellcasters.

Man, I do too many trade studies for a living...

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 03:56 PM

You could link this into the discussion with the space ladder thread.

Posted by: kzt Jul 14 2010, 05:40 PM

Wow, that's worse terms than the US military, and US med school is a lot more bucks.

"Upon receiving the doctor of medicine degree, officer graduates are required by law to serve on active duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force or United States Public Health Service for seven years. Time spent in graduate medical education (internship or residency) does not count toward the payback."

Posted by: D2F Jul 14 2010, 05:44 PM

That's about the same as 17 years. Medical education until you actually get your MD takes about 10 years over here.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 07:12 PM

I think by 2070 there will be no grunts in any modern army - grunts would be directly replaced by drones the same way that pilots are going to be replaced by pilotless drones in the near future.

Human army members would all be specialists - riggers/magical backup/tacticians/command/mechanics/logistics.

Shadowrunners would probably never meet anyone other than special ops on missions as drone/spirit perimeter defences would chase them off before they ever reached the core of human personnel.

You might still find some 3rd world countries using human troops but these would be ill equipped.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 07:13 PM

Eh, not so much. You're always going to need the (meta)human touch to react to combat situations on the fly. Having a huge crew of slaved drones is going to delay your response tactics. You're always going to have grunts.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 07:30 PM

Isnt the reverse more likely to be true? Drones controlled by a bunch of riggers in a hardened bunker with direct access to the latest situation data would exhibit an ability to co-ordinate and react to new situations thats just not possible in human troops in real combat situations.

You now have a grunt that can be easily fixed or replaced, knows no fear, is immune to biological/chemical weapons and cant be captured or killed for any morale gain by the other side.

You honestly think they would have human troops in Afghanistan if they had access to SR style drones? It would sure make battling in far flung places a lot easier to sell politically.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 07:44 PM

Yes, I do.

A drone isn't going to be able to communicate with the Afghan tribal leaders.

A drone isn't going to be able to control and interrogate prisoners.

A drone isn't going to be able to be much more than a paperweight if the radio frequency is discovered and jammed.

Most of all, a drone isn't going to be able to act on gut instinct that something about the situation is wrong. Just because we've been dropping ordinance in Pakistan via a group of A1C's in an air-conditioned trailer in Nevada doesn't mean they're the end-all of future combat. The advantage of combined arms was learned over ninety years ago, and it's a lesson not liable to be forgotten.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 07:46 PM

Whoa whoa WHOA. A drone can TOTALLY control and interrogate prisoners. And they're AI drones, what radio frequency?

Worst case, you'd have field-riggers instead of bunker-riggers.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 14 2010, 07:51 PM

FYI modern day drone pilots are officer rated pilots not A1C's. There was a big stink about that a while back.

Posted by: TommyTwoToes Jul 14 2010, 07:55 PM

If I understand the EW rules correctly, Jamming lowers the effective signal strength (hardware dependant) while ECCM lowers the jammer strength (software dependant). It seems like the security solution to keeping your drone network up is to install low signal strength communications in them with high rating ECCM programs. The enemy would need to be very close to the drone to spoof/hack and your troops (who are already close by) can issue command still.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 07:55 PM

Yes they would have to send real people, try talking to local village elders in hellmand with a Steel Lynx and see how much local support and cooperation you get. If I'm your GM the Steel Lynx Pilot program does not come with auto softs for either Pashtu or Local Social Customs

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 07:58 PM

Well strictly speaking you could - you arent just restricted to using combat drones - you could have some human form drones running a software form of that emoticon stuff that gives big social role bonuses?

The main thing drones cant do easily is stuff requiring fine motor control - if you were clever designing your drones in a modular fashion you could probably fix drones using other drones...

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 07:59 PM

How far back? I knew a SRA who got fast-tracked to SSGT for his Predator piloting, that would've been back in '02-'03.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 08:08 PM

The emotitoys you're thinking about augment social rolls - they do not replace them. Trying to get a human form drone to do your facework for you is going to end badly due to the Uncanny Valley - they're going to put people off and torpedo your mission before you truly get to start it.




As fun as the WALL-E universe was, you did notice that of the tens of thousands of units they left on-planet only one survived, yes? He also cannibalized a lot of units over that 800 years to keep running.

It boils down to this: You're advocating the wonders of technology to replace everything, as others have advocated the wonders of magic to do the same. It's putting all your eggs in one basket, and once an effective countermeasure is developed then your one-trick pony has lost the race.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 08:11 PM

Yeah, no one said 'drones' meant 'Steel Lynxes only'.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 14 2010, 08:13 PM

Drones lacking fine motor control my ass. Modern robotics is out performaning human dexterity now. They can move so much faster and so exactly I'd say its gross motor skills where robotics is lacking and not heavy.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 08:18 PM

That's actually another point in favor of real people, versatility. A well trained soldier can be one part local ambassador, one part but kicker, and one part builder.

You need a whole lot of drones, all different, to do all of those things.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 08:19 PM

Not really - as I said in the original post you would still use humans but in specialised roles like magical support and special ops.

I just dont see the need for fragile human grunts in such a scenario when you have access to drones/spirits as cannon fodder.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 14 2010, 08:21 PM

I see nimrods being used over lynxes. Easy to deploy where needed can carry a hugely versatile payload, two weapons or one HEAVY weapon before modification, and are faster. Plus they could quite often have surprise on their side. As lynxs are on the ground with the troops and nimrod could hit form another angle entirely.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 08:23 PM

Keep on truckin', then. It's clear you aren't going to listen to what I have to say.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 08:24 PM

Also, this is 2070. Screw 'negotiating with tribals', unless they have Great Ghost magic.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 08:24 PM

In modern frontless wars the whole concept of cannon fodder is almost elminated, every unit may need to be a combat unit at some point (often dictated by enemy behavior) and they all need to be credibly trained. The use of low skill conscripts to bolster numbers is becoming an increasingly uncommon practice, usually used by lower tech armies.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 08:29 PM

The problem is that they do.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 08:30 PM

Technology can be beaten by Anti-Technology. This was proven in Vietnam, and is the reason there's still issues in Afganistan and Iraq, despite primitive drones being available there. (UAVs anyone?).

Secondly, there's the emotional issue to deal with. How is a local populous going to feel about troops of "Robots" marching/rolling/flying through the streets as opposed to soldiers that they can relate to, throw chocolates at, bribe, and so on. A "Hearts-and-Minds" portion of warfare that can never be ignored.

Finally, the important thing is that, well, drones are expensive and complex, people are cheap and simple. People are also self-programming and don't need to be patched in the middle of combat. When your drone gets a BSoD in the middle of a firefight, it's not like you can just pull out a back-up, or pick up a dropped rifle that's in the cold, dead hands of a former ally/enemy like a person can. You just hit "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" and hope it reboots fast enough before it gets taken out. ("Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder." - from Murphy's Laws of Combat.).

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 08:33 PM

I am listening I just dont agree but your posts have been useful in developing the idea of a drone army.

I think your probably right that in the early stages drones would have very limited roles but that these would quickly expand displacing most of the normal troopers roles.

I think the key issue that would push this is not military but political - no politician wants to see casualties on the news every night.

Using drones the politicians can fight wherever they can afford the drones...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 08:34 PM

The thing is, drones get cheaper, and people get fewer. As with *all* things, the answer is certainly in the middle: a mixture. But, it's not because humans are terribly special, it's just economics.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 08:38 PM

In Shadowrun the reverse is true - drones are cheap - properly equipped humans are expensive plus drones dont have families and cant vote...

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 08:41 PM

Dupli-post.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 08:41 PM

Drones also don't have traditions of being in the military for generations. And those people vote as well. And typically make up the Brass, who make decisions like that.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 08:45 PM

Actually politicians don't like wars, they take money away from their various pet projects. Politicans love military bases that employ people in their districts though, drones certainly hurt that.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 08:46 PM

You're still going to have your people in the area to rig those drones. I don't like the idea of it because it concentrates all your eggs into one basket, to use the term again.

You've got a team of riggers in a hardened bunker. Okay, offhand the best distance signal you can get for rigging is what, 20km? That means your rigger's going to need to travel with the drones on patrol, which means you've got one heat signature surrounded by metal. If it's any distance, it means he's got to drive, or fly - which also means he's not controlling those drones and he's at the mercy of their dog brains.

If they're any good at information warfare, they're going to be battling that rigger for supremacy of the network, lock them out so they have to hack their own network again should things go badly, and then he's surrounded by hostile metal while he's working on it.

So, surround him with meat and let him have a few drones for support. Now you have a dozen heat signatures with no idea which one's controlling the metal. You've also got 11 other guys to scrap the drones should the network come under fire, and one of them might get lucky and be able to tag the insurgent hacker while he's busy trying to phreak the nodez.

Drones are an excellent force multiplier with infantry, vehicles and magic, but one can't replace the others.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 08:48 PM

Satellites. Besides, if you're down to a 10% human:drone ratio… that's basically what they saying.

Drones DO have traditions of being in the military for generations. Like…. all of them.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 08:51 PM

Hey, here's a good question...

Do MULES still have a place in military operations?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 08:55 PM

What, hybrid jackasses?

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 08:55 PM

Even with current tech we can operate drones from the other side of the world so I dont think distance would be an issue - military drone comms would be relayed via sattelite and extremely heavily encrypted so the riggers could be sitting in a military base in their home country.

I agree about the battle for electronic supremacy but with hundreds of riggers on seperate channels you'd need a hell of a lot of enemy riggers.

Posted by: DWC Jul 14 2010, 08:55 PM

Yes. Anyone who says otherwise has never talked to someone who's flown a helicopter in Afghanistan.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 08:59 PM

Mules have one prime advantage that drones don't have. Humans also have this advantage.

They're stubborn as hell!

A drone will fight until broken. A person will fight until... Well, they stop fighting. It varies from person to person.

It doesn't from drone to drone.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 09:01 PM

Well, again, not in Shadowrun. There is no 'gut factor', no special 'humanity', except Edge. Does everyone get Edge, or just players and Primes?

Posted by: CanRay Jul 14 2010, 09:03 PM

I'd say everyone has Edge. But unless they're PCs or Primes, they only have 1. (Even Humans.).

We'd have never progressed as a species without luck.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 09:06 PM

Only if you believe the Puppeteers.

I don't think Edge 1 is enough to justify that, then. It's nice to have, but robots are robots. Are we having an argument about Shadowrun rules, or about dramatic narrative set in the Shadowrun world?

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 09:08 PM

My current drone knowledge gets spotty after this point, but I'm not sure they can run a ton of drones from one satellite. Natural cover such as caves is also going to kill signal, so you're still going to need people on the ground to control them off a PAN.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 09:10 PM

I think you can basically run any number off a satellite (or multiple satellites, or blimps, etc.), but right, caves would be a problem. Still, I don't think it *is* a problem to say there's some field riggers. The point is that there'd be vastly more drones.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 09:15 PM

Actually I think the answer to spotty coverage is... More drones

You could have drones with signal boosters to relay the signals all over the place in theory.

Bunches of those zeppelin style drones forever maneuvering above the battlefields reinforcing the signal networks and relaying to ground based signal amplifier drones mixed in with the traditional combat drones?

Edit: Oh and pretty much everything we have said about the drone signal applies to communication with human troops.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 09:15 PM

By that point, we run into the problem that they enemy is going to know who the HVT is, and a team with a 121 is going to turn the field rigger into so much meat. You want ablative meat to protect your specialists.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 09:17 PM

It depends on the situation, yes, but I'm not saying the rigger would be on foot in his underwear. He'd just have to be in-country, instead of in-bunker.

Who better to protect that rigger than a cocoon, a vehicle, and bunch of drones? Maybe some spirits...

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 09:19 PM

What prevents the opposition from Jamming or otherwise disabling (being shot down is pretty disabling) one or more of the satellites in this scenario? It seems like a serious weak link. Sure Afghan Militias aren't going to be likely to do this, but that's a very major oversight for general planning when your future opposition could be another country (or Corp) with space assets.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 14 2010, 09:22 PM

Seriously? If that's a concern, your entire military is screwed, meat OR drone. It's not even worth thinking about. And it's not *one* link, it's thousands. Comm systems of all kinds, some mentioned above.

Posted by: Venom Jul 14 2010, 09:22 PM

Armed Satellites - basically this stuffs already up there but no-ones crazy enough to get into a shooting war in space because sats are too expensive and the resulting shrapnel is a hazard to everyones satellites.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 09:32 PM

In 2070 Ground Based weaponry can reach Satellites, (it's likey that it can today) yes it's potentially expensive and could cause a lot of collateral damage, but it's certainly an option. For some states it may be a good option if they are less reliant on satellite communications for both Military and commercial operations. Shrapnel is probably less of a concern, it would just be some more debris but low earth orbit is already quite polluted with debris just from what's already been sent up, in 60 years it will be quite a bit worse.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 14 2010, 09:32 PM

Well if he pissed off the CO and didn't get the chem light batteries...

Okay, put the meat in a metal cocoon. It's bigger than the rest of the metal, so now the insurgents know where to point that shoulder-mounted missile. He's going to have to get out of the cocoon to go into the cave, though.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 14 2010, 09:34 PM

I think you've just made the point of why Asamondo is the most stable nation in Africa.

Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 14 2010, 09:36 PM

The same reason why nobody messes with the other highly awakened nations . .
Because nobody wants to fuck with something that's faster, stronger, tougher and thinks of the people messing with it as a tasty snack at best . .

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 14 2010, 09:37 PM

Just to make sure we're talking apples to apples, are we assuming that they hypothetical person wanting the military to pay for their MD already has their applicable pre-med courses? Does your 17 years assume that you are starting from scratch, as a newly enrolled person at University?

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 14 2010, 09:39 PM

That only applies to armed drones, though, doesn't it? If I recall from my time in the Marine Corps, the people controlling the unarmed Predator drones were E-5s.

Posted by: LivingOxymoron Jul 14 2010, 09:46 PM

On the topic of Drones supplanting Flesh-and-Blood humans as grunts...

Remember the axiom that an "Army always plans around the last war." The last major engagement that the UCAS Army participated in was the Renraku Arcology Shutdown. Going up against an all-powerful AI is probably responsible for formulating drone doctrine.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 14 2010, 10:04 PM

I have been skimming this thread and just wanted to throw in a few comments.

As for edge for everyone: Players get edge, Prime Runners get edge (so do my groups favourite contacts), groups of grunts get edge (it's called Professional Rating); after this it's more house-rulesy - spirits get edge (if summoned by a mage, it shares mage's edge), AI/sprites have edge (if the sprite was summoned by a technomancer, it shares TM's edge), vehicles/items under direct PC control can use edge, even on actions that do not involve/require the PC (though I often argue it must be a beloved/well-used item, i.e. your ancient beat up Gaz pickup or your trusty Predator's smartlink sensor suite).

As for military units: I prefer to use a mixture of the sample groups in the back of SR4A and a heaping helping of local colour.

Basic military grunts are not very good at anything, but generally good enough not to fail every test. I would argue that this quality of grunt is the most likely to be encountered anywhere Shadowrunners meet the military in the wild (random roadblocks in wartorn Asian micronations, anti-cattle rustling patrols in African plains, etc). I tend to give them inexpensive armor (armor fatigues, helmets, AK-97s) but nothing worth more than a few thousand collectively.

But the thing shadowrunners are more likely to encounter and be challenged by, are purpose selected units of a higher caliber. Here I generally just use a basic group composition, and add a specialty (maybe two) to every member of the group, reflecting their additional training. Members might be trained in demolitions, medicine, electronic warfare, magical protection, advanced vehicle skills, etc. I also throw in a few non-metahuman toys to keep things interesting. Megacorp armies tend to have big guns, special 'ware and some drones to play with. Other, more magically inclined nations, might replace the drones with paracritters or magical compounds. Fighting another group of goons can be boring, but fighting a PCC anti-talislegging task force in the Mojave when the enemy soldiers are all juiced up on Animal Tongue and Little Smoke brings even some semi-trained goons into line with what your average, well-balanced runner team can handle. Generally I don't put this caliber of NPC in military armor, as it can be too difficult for many players to kill. Ideally, I'd keep each member of the teams imaginary gear costs at under 10k, except perhaps the mage or hacker.

And clearly at the far end of the spectrum, is the very powerful elite military unit. They will obviously out-gear/out-play your average shadowrunner team, but I would only ever use them as a deterrent or as a means of illustrating that something is too dangerous to openly assault. I'd wager they'll have their share of initiated mages/technomancers (or at least hackers with military grade hardware), goons with betaware, etc. This is also the kind of unit I tend to put in military grade armor, and generally they should be using player-killing weapons (lots of recoil reduction, lots of AP, etc). In the few occasions where groups do fight these beasts, I tend to equip them in advance with something to level the playing field.

On drones: I use them heavily for my militaries, but I would never imply any military unit I'm describing relies on them. Nobody trusts machines over flesh and blood. Arsenal even introduced a rigged missile, just because drones/sensors are too easily fooled.

Hope this isn't redundant or off-topic...

Posted by: Sengir Jul 14 2010, 11:02 PM

I don't know if it's in any of the newer books, but there used to be some references to an ultra-secret Corparate Court law, which among other things outlawed the development of core war virii (aka. a new crash worm) and using ASAT weapons - the price of transgression being an Omega Order on your ass. The big corps know how vital the communication grid is, they don't want anybody to start taking out chokepoints, which would invite the other party to respond in kind.




@Oxymoron: Those 17 years include the full university education (6 years), plus two years practical training at a hospital. For other study courses it's 12 years, by the way.

Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 14 2010, 11:15 PM

[EDIT] Removed my TL:DR rant. Sorry about that.

Posted by: stevebugge Jul 14 2010, 11:22 PM

That does sound familiar and certainly the threat of the combined military assets of the big 12 coming down on you would keep most corps and states in line. However at the same time it also invites all of those parties to try to do exactly those sorts of things in a way that cannot be traced back to them.

Note if you're a runner this is a job you either really don't want or failing that want a lot up front to do.

Corporate Court Justice: So you're saying we need to hit 319 Carlisle Street in Gary Indiana with a Thor Shot because that's the source of the Com-Sat outage? You are aware that has been officially listed as an abandoned property for the past 43 years right? Any idea whose really behind it?

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 14 2010, 11:46 PM

That is entirely possible and sounds well in keeping with the way the Air Force would run things and the Marines would emulate.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 15 2010, 12:00 AM

I love sending my runners into space. It's just another one of the settings that makes Shadowrun so damned cool, and satellite sabotage/hacking are pretty easy zero-g running plots.

Posted by: sabs Jul 15 2010, 12:00 AM

I suspect that Military is much more specialized in 2070.
You can use Drones for scanning, for point, etc. You'd have highly specialized fire teams.
You've got Riggers running combinations of AR/VR
You have Hacker teams doing overwatch/counter hacking. Going after the other side's drones.
You have Mages with spirits.
You have Snipers, Chromed out noncoms doing heavy fire support, and demolitions, etc.

Militaries don't need grunts, but they'll have some. Because you aren't going to waste too much Chrome on people who don't have the temperament for combat.

Posted by: kzt Jul 15 2010, 12:14 AM

They don't get as insanely cheap as SR shows. Plus they need things like power and maintenance.

Posted by: CanRay Jul 15 2010, 12:34 AM

And people need food.

Posted by: sabs Jul 15 2010, 12:37 AM

People need cyberware, food, training.
Drones need rating 4-7 pilots

Posted by: D2F Jul 15 2010, 02:17 AM

From scratch.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 15 2010, 02:20 AM

Um, they get *exactly* as cheap as SR shows. By definition, that's how cheap they are. And, as SR shows, they really *don't* need all that much in the way of power and maintenance; no more than people, certainly.

Posted by: Omenowl Jul 15 2010, 02:21 AM

Ok I am joining late into the discussion:

First world/economically powerful countries have:
Most grunts would have skills in the 1 to 2 range (basic military skills such as firearms, throwing, first aid, leadership, etc). No cyberware just light military armor with milspec helmet. Mobility upgrade of 3 and strength upgrade of 3 with ruthenium polymer coating. 0-1 essense in cyberware/bioware. Mostly eyes, ears, off the shelf nothing restricted or forbidden. Cyberlimbs reflect injuries sustained on the job.

Elite units such as the Army rangers, etc would have the medium milspec armor, primary skills in the 2-3 range with basic skills in the 1-2 range. Additional stats of +1 body and strength. Same upgrades with chemical seal and internal air tank to protect from Biological and chemical weapons. 0-2 essense points in bioware and cyberware. Restricted is allowed. Cyberlimbs reflect injuries sustained on the job.

Finally you have special forces Skills in the 4-5 range for their primary and 2-3 in their secondary skills. Cybernetics and bioware up to 5 essense. Eyes, ears and cyberlimbs common due to injuries sustained in the field. Forbidden and restricted is allowed. Betaware is common with deltaware exclusive to NCOs and officers. Heavy milspec armor. Treat as prime runners with comparable to superior equipment and weapons as shadowrunners.


Standard arms would be HK XM30.
Drone support is common including carrying gear.

I am not including artillery, heavy weapons, etc as this simply assumes squad to platoon level patrols and units. In most cases drone support, artillery, heavy vehicles are on call.

Posted by: D2F Jul 15 2010, 02:29 AM

I cannot agree. I consider Grunts "Professionals". Not Veterans, certainly not Elite, but most definitely Professionals.
According to the BBB, "Professional" means a Skill rating of 3. So Grunts should have skill rating of 3 in their primary skills.

Veterans would have primary skill around rating 4.

And Special forces would finally have skill rating 5-6 in their primary skills (See also the entries for Red Samurais and Tir Ghosts for comparison)

When it comes to Enhancements, things aren't as clear cut, unfotunately. Personaly, I would aim for something along the lines of:

Grunts: Few/No Cyber/Bioware. Instead use electronics and Accessoires.
Veterans: basic Combat Cyberware/Bioware, preferrably alpha grade.
Special Forces: Advanced and specialized combat Enhancements, mostly beta grade, some delta-grade, depending on Nation/Corp

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 15 2010, 02:35 AM

See, this is how I see it too...

You really need to review the Skill descriptors to get a true feel for what someone is capable of doing... anyone described as a Professional should/will have a Skill minimum of 3 (with possible specialties) in their primary skills... If they do not have a 3 in their primary skills, then they are not professionals, at least in my opinion, and the opinion of the Developers as well apparently...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 15 2010, 02:42 AM

There's no argument possible here. The book specifically says, Grunts: 3, Veterans: 4, etc.

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 15 2010, 02:47 AM

I'd also like to remind people that the military is not just a martial tool. Many countries still need welfare armies or have mandatory military service for a few years, I can't really see some countries putting cyberware into every member of their population. Many reserve units are used as multi-purpose manpower units, focusing less on their martial aspect and more on their discipline, physical fitness, etc. And finally, in many situations people are unbelievably cheap. I imagine that most developing nations will take men over drones/spirits any day of the week, men performing the role of any number of drones at adequate levels.

Also: the professional rating system is a great way to imagine enemy grunts. In the examples they include gear and very rarely does it include security/military armor. That stuff is quite expensive (almost as bad as combat bodyware) and time consuming to produce (custom tailored to each individual soldier).

Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 15 2010, 02:47 AM

Darn double post.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 15 2010, 02:49 AM

No Arguments Necessary...

Keep the Faith

Posted by: nemafow Jul 15 2010, 02:58 AM

I agree with the above stated professional levels, thats how I gave all my adversaries stats/dice pools on the fly.

Posted by: Omenowl Jul 15 2010, 03:26 AM

Only problem is the typical soldier/grunt is a poor shot. Most have 4 -6 months of combat training of which include heavy weapons, firearms, close combat, throwing, and other skills such as tactics. The majority of the training is learning how to obey orders. I have been to the range with many of them and the skills definitely fall into the 1-2 category. Just enough familiarity to handle and shoot the weapon. Marksmen are about 4, and snipers in the 5-6 range. You don't need super high dicepools to be effective and considering the actual combat range tends to be less than 100 meters it puts the high dice pools as unrealistic. I hardly consider most soldiers professionals in the firearm category. Most are 0-4 years with limited firearms experience to once a month on the range. Units are determined more by unit cohesion and tactics over high skills. This is what should be reflected is less the dice pools and more how the unit operates in the tactical sense (smoke, suppressive fire, outflanking).

We are not talking if you can hit a stationary target in a non threatening environment. Most of us can do ok in that situation. The dice pools are to reflect an adrenaline fear filled environment where your opponent is shooting back and mostly obscured. Accuracy drops tremendously in these situations and this is where the dice pools count.