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.

Don't forget the chem light batteries (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

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.

Well, it's an abnormal situation, yes, but I think the point is made. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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.

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.

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. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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

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.

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.

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

Oops, Platinum, I meant "you're assuming", not "we're". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Well, it amounts to the same thing. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

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)

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.

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.

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

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

Got somethink to backup that claim.

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?

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?