Or a hatch that's open, but not secured properly, get loose. Freakiest such accident I ever saw was when we were doing daily maintenance, someone pushed open the big hatch in the back of the M-133 but did not secure it, and the wind blew it back, directly down on his head.

Just to correct something here: The US soldier/body armor bit was only true during the very first months of the Iraq deployment. It was more the fact of the military getting caught with its pants down/not having purchased enough of the sparkly new armor for a wide scale mobilization yet. In fact a great number of soldiers DID have their armor, it was mostly the 'rear eschelon' units, that once again, no one expected to be fighting, that were shorted armor....

I say this because the latest news I've heard is that soldiers and marines are actually being issued TOO MUCH armor and are leaving parts off for mobility (something that makes me think most games don't penalize heavy duty armor enough.... everyone just straps completley up as much as they can and then sleeps in it....)

Sixth World armor is way different though and doesn't particularly need nerfing. It's sprinkled with awesome and made of unobtainium. And no, that's not meant as a criticism of the setting. It's convenient and doesn't get in the way of doing my job as a GM. Anyway, Shadowrun's military fetishism was one of my longrunning least favorite facets of the setting, but that's no longer the case with SR4 mostly because you don't hear many tales of the military anyway. If the setting is going to make the military some big spooky operation that you don't even want to mess with, then they should just do us a favor and give us about as much rules and details on fighting the military as they currently give us about fighting dragons and immortal elves; ie, hardly any. And they've done that so far, thankfully. I feel much the same way about the perfectly locked down and well-scrubbed hardwired Matrix habits everyone believes they should use. Why have them in the setting at all or bother discussing them much if they're just going to be rolling around in vehicles that you A. Cannot have. B. Cannot be destroyed by things you can acquire and C. are piloted via hardwired systems you can't hope to circumvent? I don't really need the rules to help me come up with an invincible monstrosity to harrass my players with. I can just keep telling them "No, that's still not a high enough DV," and leave it at that. Honestly, if they're that much better than everyone, they really shouldn't be discussed much at all unless you're really interested in running a game that's vastly different in scope.

*shrugs*
I guess I stand corrected. But I have no idea what kind of vehicle is in that picture.

And let me be clear, when I say lock I mean something that has a key and exists primarily to keep people from getting into your vehicle. I've never been in a tank or an AAV but I assume they have some method for keeping the door closed once everyone is inside (especially the AAV, what with the whole amphibous thing). Of course that might just be a series of dogs or some variation on the water tight doors they use on ships.

Now... Vehicles that currently don't have "locks":
HMMWV, I haven't been in the uparmored ones but I've yet to see someone hunting for keys.
MTVR (7 Ton), including new uparmored version, although those come with a "firepole" so people can get out of them faster.
You can also add to the list every helo in the Marine Corps and Navy inventory.
They all have ways of keeping the door closed, some better than others (fun 2 hour drive while trying not to fall out onto the highway). But I still maintain they don't have "locks", like the kind you have on your car.

The too much armor thing is something I've been hearing about. One of the big issues on the Marine side of the house is the inclusion of SAPI plates that cover the sides (rather than the traditional front and back). It adds a bit of weight and it's pretty uncomfortable (makes you feel like a fat man). The new armor they've been issuing is currently under review as people have been making some very loud noises about how uncomfortable it is. I think the Army has started (or has the capability) to issue even more protective equipment. I've seen butt flaps, leg... flaps, and shoulder erm... pauldrons? Can only imagine how hard it is to move in all that, especially with the protectors that go around your legs.

@Whipstich= I agree, future armor=reasonably comfortable and easy to use. There's rules for wearing too much armor and they apply to those characters with such frail frames that it just doesn't make sense that they'd be able to wear it for long period of time (people with a body of 2). I can live with that.

I have balls of steel, when I was in Iraq, I never wore my groin protector. I couldn't imagine strapping on side plates or most of that other crap... despite feeling slightly vulnerable in the sides...

SHoulder armor? Maybe. I didn't mind the gorget at all, thought it looked badass... but then I'm Caaaarrraaaaaazzzzeeee!

or something...

Amen to that.

From the way SR feels to me, there's no need for the PCs to go up against the military as an organization. Bar brawls against off-duty soldiers, yes. Dealing with crooked supply officers, yes. Sneaking into a military base for a (stealthy) run, yes. But going up against a military unit? With armored vehicles, artillery and drone air support?

No, that's not what runners do in my little corner of the universe. When faced with that kind of resistance, clever runners should be trying hard to get away before getting caught, or killed. Although I'm more of the "quantitiy vs. quality" thought school: yes, you may hack that drone. Yes, the sammy may kill that squad. But there's three more drones and three more squads behind them, and more on the way, and you just wasted time killing their friends that you'd better spent running away...

Not every soldier is equipped with high-tech-one-man-army gear. But every soldier is part of a larger group. He has backup, training, tactics, Battle Tac, map softs of the area, aerial recon, and he knows that time is on his side, since time will bring more of his friends to box in that annoying runner team.

In the end, not that much different from any mega's private army.

Spike= The real question is, if you truly have balls of steel, would you use your aforementioned balls as a platform for firing your M4/M16?

I should perhaps clarify; I'm all for having a military sourcebook once Unwired, bestiary and settings books are out of the way. I just don't think that the way they've handled the military in SR4 so far has been inappropriate from what I've seen, since they way they've handled it is by acknowledging that the heaviest thing shadowrunners are likely to head up against is maybe a Red Samurai or Firewatch team in milspec body armor and tooled up urban assault vehicles like modified Citymasters (and that's if they really pissed somebody off). The warform biodrones, artillery and main battle tanks all busy being prepped for Desert Wars.

The basic issue I see is that the devs go "Gunz iz Funz", then decide that all the players should have neat-keno stuff they saw out of the corner of their eye on TV while getting drunk at a bar. But since players are not supposed to have 4 million (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) they can't make it cost that much, so they lower the helicopter to 250K. And since players won't ever want to spend 80,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) on a missile they make it cost 5k, because everyone needs an ATGM, right? Then they design the game based on their firm belief that there isn't any difference between a 120mm tank gun and a heavy rifle (aka assault cannon) and produce the various insanities that we see based on this chain....

God... I can hear the whining already. But the artillery doesn't penetrate enough armor! The tank doesn't go fast enough! The jets don't carry enough bombs! It's costs too much! It costs too little! But isn't REAL!!! etc etc.

I think I'd rather get almost any other source book before the designers released a military books and immediately got crucified for not providing "SR: Advanced Squad Leader". I'm content with the odd bits of milspec gear they toss our way, like the shipboard gauss gun. I consider the military something of fluff for my games, not something I really want to work on the fine details on. A detailed "accurate" military would result in a very different game than the one currently presented. Some might find that attractive, I do not.

My thoughts about a hypothetical military sourcebook:

1) When the shadowrun scene in my town started getting their grubby hands on Fields of Fire (not sure if that was exactly when it came out, but it seems like everyone got it at the same time), everyone wanted to make mercenary characters, and find an excuse for them to be running in Seattle so they could show the street sams up. I would hate if everyone in my group decided they wanted to make new characters that were soldiers mysteriously running the shadows. It would just alter the feel of the game, in my opinion.

2) On the other hand, it was kind of neat that Fields of Fire was deliberately supposed to be things that were supposed to be available to runners, but being in a different book kind of differentiated it, in a way. Our group generally said you needed to go to a fixer for stuff in the SSC, but an arms dealer for gear from FoF. Since not many people knew arms dealers (there's a shocker), when you saw a bunch of dudes equipped with stuff from FoF, you kind of knew that they weren't normal "street" types. That aspect of it actually helped the feel of the game, in my opinion.

But I guess the difference between FoF and a military sourcebook would be that FoF was stuff that player characters were supposed to be able to get, or at least encounter. The only military that ever rears its head in my games is the special forces, and they're basically the military's shadowrunners. Instead of going in with battalion strength and artillery support, they're usually 5-10 dudes with assault weapons and light enough armor to sneak around in, plus magic support and whatever drones can go in quietly. I can make all of that with what's in the main book, really. I usually just fudge the high-tech helicopters they come in on, or whatever.

Same here. I'm all for them making one... eventually. After the important stuff gets done. But I never said I'd buy it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Doc: I could, but it would make me very angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry......






Why yes, I DID see the new Hulk trailer last night, why do you ask?






More on topic: Cyberpunk 2020 provides an interesting illustration in that they did release a somewhat properly scaled supplement with all the military stuff in it. From my understanding (not being a forum rat back then... and forums being few and far between....) that most GMs wouldn't touch the stuff with a ten foot pole as it was 'game breakingly powerful' and most players alternated between drooling over the power armor/guns and running in terror from... well... just about anything that showed up in game.

Not because 'milspec automatically is better' but because true military hardware, and military mindsets, are anathema to small groups of people running around in urban environments being 'cool' for a living. The military can, and will, level city blocks if necessary to get you. Being sneaky doesn't help much when artillery is incoming.

Or some Azzie general order his Magical Service Corps to ritually summon a force 26 War Spirit to stomp all over you.

But yeah, exactly.

If your tanks hatches are anything like a Bradley's, the locks can be externally removed in a few seconds with nothing more than a socket wrench.

-NR

Given that the state of encryption is what it is in Shadowrun (I must assume that quantum computing or some other advance screwed encryption, as otherwise the rules just don't make sense), about the only way to really avoid being hacked is to go autistic, except then you can't coordinate. Running wired doesn't actually help as someone will splice into your network, and even autistic, your drones are vulnerable to a concealed micro drone slapping a wire into them.

The Megas are the ones with the equivalent of modern day mil spec gear, not the governments, and apparently they have a shrinkage problem, as it's turning up on the black market. As such, from a certain perspective, Shadowrunners are USING mil spec gear.

Maybe stuff really is that much cheaper 60+ years from now -- it's no longer cutting-edge, the market's flooded from all the huge wars and depopulation of the 2020-2050s or so, that sort of thing.

Well, there is also the economies of scale to consider. I read an excellent review of the cost of the v-2 rocket online last month that illustrates this nicely.

Things cost alot because they are made in piddling amounts. The more of them you make, the cheaper, per unit, the cost. there is no reason for the stealth bomber to cost a billion a plane. To develop? certainly. To actually make? Not if they made the fucker out of solid gold.

If we assume a standardized production line of Yellowjackets, sold to corporations and third world tin pot dictators, it becomes feasable that the cost per unit did, in fact, drop to a quarter mil per unit. Ditto missiles.

Maximum Metal fucking rocked. Having some way of demonstrating to players exactly why they didn't belong screwing around with an MBT ("Look, guys... your ETC Rifle just ain't gonna do it") was entertaining, and every once in a while something took a potshot at them and they all got to run like hell. Powered armor was also entertaining.

I didn't have a problem with the stuff being in the game. Nobody really went for getting any of their own (kind of hard to justify having an IFV when you're cruising for girls in Night City, and you get a ticket for double parking even when you're up against the curb) but when it showed up, it was entertaining. And every once in a while, someone got hold of an ATGM, a Vulcan gun on a mount, or something else huge, and had a great time.

Rational reasoning; arms races don't advance until one side realises the other side has defeated their arms/armour and so your decryption techniques are going to be very advanced because they were developed for militaries during massive wars and the military would consider these techniques a top level secret. Whilst in the real world encryption development is spurred onwards by open academic criticism, the situations in wars would stifle this kind of thing and centralise all the encryption specialists into well protected, almost totally closed off development groups with their agendas dictated by military necessity.

Encryption development would be put on the back burner whilst these development groups focussed on cracking the enemy ecryption schemes unless they learned that the enemy had cracked their encryptions, at which point they'd develop better defenses. A lot of bodges that have only statistical reliability will be developed to speed the process of cracking keys, which explains the larger than normal variation in the cracking time.

What game system is that? Sounds interesting.

Deep Night of Space, but Scott lost interest in that when he got the Honor Harrington space game deal. So not too much ever got done on it.

One time pad encryption is unbreakable unless someone Fraks up.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
The rigger in my game is a real life programmer he has a system for generating Pads using a radio and power line to pull down random snips of traffic, these are loaded into data chips inserted into his drones, commands or attempts to dive the drone are not accepted unless they use the pad.

Unhackable drones, period. Works both ways too. Heck, if you miss the old school data steal mission, there you go, steal the Pad.

The fact that this is missing in the core rules is simple, the nice people at Catalyst are game designers not computer programmers or cryptographers.

The one-time pad is quite silly in SR since computing power is way higher than today so this thing can be actually broken by trial and error.

There is no such thing as unhackable. Swallow your pride and accept it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)