Why keep sections closed after they'd been cleared or why wouldn't they open the place up for general use when active muderbots that the military can't seem to defeat are hanging out above them?

The latter, after all why would the powers that be care about the lives of a bunch of bums?

Maybe I got the wrong impression. I thought they were opening it up to a wealthier clientel.

Oh and just because it's semi relevant. The current force organization of US army Platoons.

http://orbat.com/site/toe/toe/usa/platoontoe.html

What surprised me was the number of LMGs. About 1 out of every 5 guys is carrying one.

On page 117 of New Hong Kong it describes the ACHE as a massive wellfare state whose "residents" are kept there by armed guards.

So ACHE = Cabrini Green a la Frank Miller's Martha Washington?

1. On the subject of gang tattoos and enlisting - depends on how you want to write the military. Right now, the US Army will waiver just about anything from a criminal record. Gang tats are not, inherently, illegal - seriously stupid sometimes, but not illegal.

If your PC hadn't been busted for anything serious prior to his enlisting, it probably wouldn't be a major issue. It could be a problem if his tats annoy some other gangers in the Service. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

2. Cyberware for grunts - this is a matter of some debate and entire threads have been devoted to it. Personally, I suspect a basic cyberware package would be made available to most Soldiers, particularly if current trends continue.

Example: Estimated hearing loss from explosions and repeated exposure to gunfire - hearing dampers.
Night Vision Goggles (NVG) - low light mod/ flare comp mod.
Smartlinks - greatly reduce the chance of civilian casualties.

The cost of implanting troops versus the logistical costs of purchasing, storing, issuing and maintaining "auxiliary" equipment like NVGs, binoculars and similar gear. Consider the costs of medical treatment for hearing loss and so on. The PR campaign for "innocent civilians" killed by stray gunfire.

I also think, much like the Army's use of Physician's Assistants, they would mainstream and facilitate the overall cost of implants. Naturally, this means Skilcraft^tm brand 'ware, proudly made by UCASians with disabilities. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Of course, your mileage will vary based on how you interpret the UCAS military.

3. Extensive weapons experience - what with simsense and virtual trainers, Soldiers are more likely than ever to have access to training resources between bouts of raking lines in sand and manicuring the same damned patch of grass for a week straight.

Also, an "open conflict" isn't exactly essential for a Soldier to acquire combat experience - sometimes you see a helluva lot more action in peace-keeping missions (or so I'm told). Factor in humanitarian missions to nasty, squalid 3rd-world countries and you have a lot of potential for things to go wrong in a big, big way.

Maybe humanitarian missions in the wake of natural disasters in North America? Gangs might be awfully motivated to acquire the supplies your poor PC is protecting.

-Siege

As far as cyberware in grunts, I think it is actually quite believable. From my experience, the government will get low bid contracts for all sorts of equipment. I am sure they get a nice discount on cyberware.

Additionally, right now, the government has spent at least several hundred thousand dollars on me between equipment, pay, training, support facilities, and so on. Each grunt (like me) needs support personal who get us food, fix our vehicles, issue us equipment, and handle administrative tasks. Those costs add up.

Give someone Wired Reflexes I and that person is now 2X as fast. That Grunt is now 2X more effective in his combat roll. That means they can get less grunts now as long as they all have Wired Reflexes I. I could even see Squad Leaders getting more ware.

Then in Unwired there was some sort of sensor-ware tactical stuff. That would definitely be on everyone, so that generals could look down on the troops and get a 'battle field picture.'

The second someone's little Johnny gets hurt and dies, congress will push through an initiative to put Dermal Plating on troops. When the CNN special airs about how dermal plating disfigured poor little Johnny Jr, Dermal Sheathing would be pushed through.

Ares has a new line of Smart Links that is SOTA, and gives UCAS Marines a big discount on it so they can say the Marines use it. (underarmour anyone?)

I can come up with a million reasons why the grunts would have cyberware. It boils down to effectiveness, politics, and even business strategies.

Gotta love the USA Military-Industrial Complex, and it fueling Ares!

Remember, for Ares, War Is Good!

...

GO BLACK DEVILS!

Actually, the "Future Warrior" concept almost screams Implant Me!

If you read "In Fury Born" by David Weber, the descriptions mirror a number of the concepts of the Future Warrior system.

Future Warrior dreams.

Another example of mass surgical augmentation - the Army (and other branches, I believe) offer laser eye correction surgery for free.

-Siege

That's interesting and I didn't know that, but that is really, REALLY not the same as putting 50k$ of combat cyberware into someone, knowing you're going to have to take it out when the soldier leaves the army.

my personal opinion is that the most likely solution at all is military PMVs (probably actually power armor/exoskeletons).

why, you ask? because the vehicle rules are amazing in terms of what they do.

consider, for example, the fact that if you give someone 'pilot anthroform 3(bipeds +2)'. that basically covers the entire athletics group right there... that's one skill instead of several. and then let's consider gunnery... that covers every single type of gun out there, as long as it's vehicle mounted, and you can specialise in something nice and generic, like 'ballistic'. oh, and did i mention you don't need recoil compensation? but hey, i'm not finished yet. the vehicle comes with an integrated sensor package. if you stick smartgun systems into the vehicles, that's one more piece of 'ware you don't have to worry about making it into the private sector. you don't have to worry about their armor slowing them down. you can give them 3 IPs, +2 bonus dice to all their actions, and -1 threshold to most tests for peanuts. you can buy a response chip for substantially cheaper than any sort of wired reflexes. a control rig is a perfectly legal piece of 'ware that makes your soldiers substantially more useful, without turning them into killing machines that you have to worry about going AWOL. it's cheaper to replace a vehicle than it is to replace a soldier. you can boost response for a VR user easily.

seriously, the benefits just keep adding up. it's just too powerful and inexpensive a method to be totally ignored, imo.

Hmmmm. The having to pull the cyberware out again is an interesting point. Though one that may have been discussed at length. I kinda wish summaries of the good points on issues like this were laid out in some locked sticky somewhere.

But something else with grunts is that they pay soldiers fairly poorly. Well, that's not entirely fair since I suppose a soldier may not have living expenses. But they only make a little more money than burger flippers at first. By which I mean they aren't flush with cash and spreading it around.

Also much of what they need infantry for is the boots on the ground angle. In that sense one wired reflexed soldier isn't remotely worth 2 regular ones.

Assuming they take it out - and what cyberware? Datajack, retinal display, subvocal mic, subdermal speakers, lowlight, sound damp, flare comps and a smartlink.

The only really questionable bit of 'ware is the smartlink and even that isn't outright illegal. Hell, most of that package could be found in most corp offices. The rest is cheap, easily accessible and, without digging out a sourcebook, under 10k.

In all seriousness, it's the little things that make Soldiers more effective - a hard on tac comp probably wouldn't be an implant for anything sort of a SEAL team, but a datajack link is a helluva lot more effective than almost any other form of connection. You can make the same argument for just about any electronic device, especially if the "Future Warrior" issue ever becomes reality.

I suppose the question becomes - what kind of cyberware implants are you picturing?

-Siege

PS - I'll comment more on the pay subject after formation.

Actually since soldiers tend to wear helmets anyway instead of giving soldiers cybereyes, datajacks and ears, it would seem reasonable to go with the much cheaper Trodes, subvocal mic, and non cyberware visual and audio ehancements. Also no down time from surgery and you can just take the helmet and give it to the next guy if the soldier quits or gets killed.

Actually if your GM forgets that people don't sleep in contacts, that they fall out, and that after a while you get nasty scratchy eyes its debatable if players would be picking cybereyes up anymore for the basic functions.

There used to be an old sr2 'most realistic' write-up of the military in the old dumpshock archive. As mentioned above focussing on gear over cyber. Is there anybody outthere that could mirror the link/site?

Anyhow, if the UCAS/CAS military isn't for you, there's the Corporate Militaries!

Ares has minor wars going on to control their African Holdings. S-K for their Middle-East. The Japana-Corps have lost a lot of holdings in the Pacific, but I'm sure they still have a good number here and there that need "Pacifying".

Horizon needs extras for the Trids they shoot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

NeoNet needs people to dig through the rubble to find Dankwater's corpse. After all, if there's no corpse, he's not dead... Even if you did drop a Thor Shot on him!

On the surface, lower-enlisted take-home pay doesn't seem like much. If you live in the barracks and eat at the dining facility (DFAC), you don't have to spend any of that paycheck. Healthcare, while arguably spotty, is free.

If you have a spouse or dependents, you can get your full Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), but you have to live off-post. Which, depending on the area and living arrangements, can be more or less expensive.

You can and often do get a ridiculous number of days off, but your employer is far more intrusive in your overall life and lifestyle.

The upshot is, Soldiers may not get as much pay upfront as civilians, but their general cost of living can be much cheaper, allowing the Soldier to pay for more luxury items. Some of us even invest in our own gear, which in 2070 could extend to cyberware.

Hell, I'd invest in some key pieces here and there - even without Army funding or encouragement. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

-Siege

Of course, you have to figure in maintenance, storage, issuing/returning - there is a massive supply chain that goes into supporting military personnel. And even now, we don't have enough supplies to go around.

In the field, your "gear up" time is cut in half, at least, instead of screwing around with adjusting trodes, testing connections and fitting your helmet. Those damn NVGs are bloody uncomfortable, awkward as hell and cut your overall field of vision to a narrow tunnel.

Encumbrance is another major factor - anything that cuts down on the practical carry load greatly reduces the chance of heat casualties, improves Soldier mobility and overall effectiveness and permits more mission-essential gear, if so desired. The helmet will never entirely go away, but a retinal mod is harder to lose, less likely to break down because of exposure to the elements, won't get snagged on branches (or so we hope - yowch) and is one less piece of gear you have to try and keep track of and account for. And you don't have to worry about Soldiers forgetting or neglecting to wear issued gear because it's hot, heavy or awkward.

Of course, your own experience may vary significantly.

-Siege

To be fair the NVGs of SR4 wouldn't be a problem at all. It wouldn't cut your field of vision at all. I guess there could be a little fiddling with trodes.

I could totally see some things being used.

Think cybereyes. When you check out, they replace your cyber eyes and refurbish the old pair for a new guy.

Radios. Internal commlink, and just replace the commlink with a cheaper one when the soldier checks out (and take out the milspec software).

Smartlink would totally be implanted. Commanders would want to make sure soldiers ALWAYS have it on. Why? Due to that safety thing in it where if you point it at a friendly, it won't hit them. Cutting down on friendly fire incidents is huge. Also a soldier won't be able to 'forget' or lose it. Thus if there is ever a need to review a military action that might be an illegal act of war, they'd just 'rewind' the smartgun camera and see if you indeed did something illegal.

As far as rehabilitative things go, we do have an excellent medical plan. I am sure cyberlimb replacement would be included (especially since we do provide a prosthetic for those who are injured). In fact once you have a cyberlimb, it is relatively cheap to upgrade it and add additional capabilities. A gyroscopic stabilizer for a machine gunner who has a cyberarm. Sure why not! Just take it out of him when he leaves the service.

Lots of possibility.

Well, to be completely honest, the technology curve will probably produce options not covered or even considered in the source books. For a tech level capable of producing cyberware, I suspect the next generation of combat gear will not resemble the old-tech goggles shown in SR1. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

As much a fan as I am of trodes, I recall something about bad connections, being uncomfortable to wear for long periods, issues with sweat and so forth, which is why I'm a fan of simple implant options. I don't remember if it was fluff in a source book or a discussion point on Dumpshock. The other question being, how secure are these things when attached? What's the "strap in" time to pull a set on?

Ultimately, you can make a case either way and it depends on how the GM wants to define his (or her) UCAS military.

-Siege

This is another classic example of a character concept that's developed beyond how I originally envisioned him. I'm still working on him, but I ultimately went with him enlisting with Ares instead of the UCAS or CAS. I figured with a mega like Ares, he would have greater access to better gear, cyberware, and training.

I'm probably going to avoid the Desert Wars angle, but I liked what CanRay mentioned about the megas having small-scale wars protecting their holdings out on other continents. I could definitely see my ork fighting in some hot skirmishes to protect a corporate facility from raiders or anti-corporate, back-to-nature activists.

As a curious side note, since I made him go with Ares, I figure one of the first things that the corp would do is drill the Ares brand into his head. I know the modern military does something similar to this, where they instill discipline and loyalty to the country in basic, trying to mold the soldier into the kind of dedicated combatant they want. However, I figure Ares, being a runaway capitalistic behemoth, would've taken it a step further, possibly even into the realm of psychotropic programming. Therefore, all the firearms I've purchased in chargen for him so far have been Ares weapons: Ares Predator IV, Ares Slivergun, Ares Alpha, and a few others. I figure a nice quirk for him would be to have him stick with Ares brand items due to that programming (and it might even be easier to get them, since I'll probably have him in some sort of military reserves after his four years, and at that point he'll have a legal Ares SIN.)

On a side note any item in the BBB and arsenal can and will have a version made by any mega corp even if its a shameless rip off.

That's an interesting idea - would a corp military go to extended lengths to program their soldiers?

Compulsion: Cannot act against parent company (Willpower test, TN 4/6/8)
Compulsion: Killing Machine (Willpower test, TN 4/6/8) to avoid attempting to kill something when surprised or threatened.
Compulsion: Obedience (Willpower test, TN 4/6/8) to disobey orders given by designated superior

Hmmm...

-Siege

It might seem hard to motivate someone to fight for a corp compared to a country. And it probably is.

But something studies have found is that the primary motivator when the chips are down is a desire to not let the rest of the team down, or to show cowerdace in front of them.

Especially since that's the American model I would expect Ares to run with that.

So if you're looking for flavor there are probably 3 other guys in your fireteam and another 5 or 6 in the squad that you've worked really closely with and would feel quite some loyalty too, assuming they survived. I suppose in game terms maybe take one very high loyalty but probably not so connected soldier contact.