How do military units go after small bands of SRs?, HOW DO KILL PLAYERS!!????!!! Options

[Wounded Ronin]

I figure that this is probably an important discussion for GMs.

If the SWAT team or the military goes after the Shadowrunners, how would they realistically do it?

My understanding is that the SWAT team is more likely to try and arrest the characters rather than blowing them away and they're unlikely to let rip with suppression fire at any given time.

I also have the impression that if the PCs are holed up in a building the SWAT team will go in through proper doors (although they might use a battering ram or a shotgun to bypass the lock) but they will use flashbangs in every room. They'll try to make arrests but if it looks dangerous they'll attempt to drill any PCs present with submachineguns. I'm not sure what kind of magical procedures the SWAT team should have.

I have the impression that if the PCs are outside the SWAT team would try to surround the PCs using vehicles as barricades and that they'll also try to just snipe out the PCs if they try to resist arrest using distant snipers.



My understanding is that a military unit doesn't care about detaining the PCs but will rather just try to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible. Therefore, in contrast to the SWAT team, they'll use suppression fire a lot, and they'll specifically avoid entering buildings through proper doors because they know that the doors may be booby trapped and that futhermore the defenders are usually strategically arranged to fire on whomever opens the doors. Instead, they'll use explosives or a LAW of somekind to blow a hole through a wall and enter from a surprising direction.

Furthermore, although they carry flashbangs, soldiers are more likely going to just frag each room before entry since they just want to kill you anyway. Maybe they frag you and flash you at the same time, I don't know. I read in the Army urban combat manual that you need a lot of fragmentation grenades to raid a building and that the commander must ensure a steady supply, so my impression is really that the idea is to cover most of the area of the room with shrapnel before sending anyone in.

I've got the idea that after preparing a room for entry the first person in the room will rush in and immediately begin laying down suppressing fire. The people behind him will file in, rushing to the corners of the room, and from there they're going to try and pick off everyone with direct fire. Whereas the SWAT team is likely to use submachineguns a military unit is more likely to be using automatic carbines so you'd be dealing with rifle rounds going everywhere and not pistol rounds. Maybe I'm wrong but somebody told me this.

And, of course, I'm not sure what standard procedure for magic should be.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure that if the PCs are out in the open the military wouldn't even necessarily engage them with the infantry. Wouldn't they just vaporize them with artillery, air support, and tanks?


Is this correct? Do you think it would be appropriate to apply directly to Shadowrun? Is this the best way to pwn the players when they try to mess with the military or the SWAT team?

[Fix-it]

The techniques applied depend entirely on the location.

If it's a lower-end neighborhood. they'll probably try to gas them. gamma scope grenades maybe expensive, but they are damn effective.

[Kagetenshi]

[hyzmarca]

The lines between police and military have been blurring recently. With the whole "War on Terror" and this mess in Iraq, a military unit is just as likely to arrest people as kill them. In fact, capture is often preferable to killing since a living enemy can be a useful intelligence resource. The big difference would be the the military unit would prioritize the safety of their own members first, the safety of civilians second, and the capture of the enemy third while the SWAT team would place the safety of civilians before their own safety. It is a simple fact that a police force can afford far less collateral damage than a military force can. This accounts for the different tactics, particularly the reluctance of police units to use fragmentation grenades.

However, I don't see Lone Star and other Sixth World police groups like modern police agencies. I see them as more akin to the prohibition-era police. 'If we can catch them alive, that's nice but if we can kill them dead in the street that's even better' would be their silent motto. Although extra-judicial execution is certainly illegal, they can justify the use of lethal force far more easily than modern police can and modern police can justify lethal force very easily.

Take, for example, the shooting deaths of Bonnie and Clyde. They were ambushed with the intent to kill them. It had been planned in days in advance and the order to fire was given long before the duo arrived.
I imagine that Sixth World police would use similar tactics, allowing runners to escape if tax-paying civilians are in danger but gathering enough evidence t identify them and setting up lethal ambushes at their regular hangouts, including the homes of family and friends. The runner with a Dependant flaw may go to his ex's house to pick up his kid for the weekend only the find that the kid is down in the basement with a police-issue Thunderbolt to his head and their are 27 men with shotguns in the ex's living room. He has just enough time to say "I surrender" before the SWAT team starts shooting and they have just enough time to pretend not to hear him.


There is also the issue of logistics and equipment. Police departments can't usually afford stealth bombers. National militaries often can. While the military unit could go into the building after their prey, they could also confirm that it is clear of civilians and make a single radio call. The runners would be lucky to hear a cartoonish bomb-dropping sound effect before being forced to resist Naval-scale damage.

The basic equipment would be different, too. One might expect a military unit to use hardened armor, in particular Medium Security with gel packs or better. Full NBC sealed military armor would not be out of the question. SWAT, on the other hand, would be limited to Medium Security with Gel packs, at best, and are more likely to use Light Security or Armored Jackets with Security Helmets.
This disparity really influences their tactics. In most cases, a fully armored elite military unit won't have to use lethal force because the runners will be unable to harm them. It would be trivial for a team in Heavy Military Armor to capture an average runner team alive for this reason alone. They won't have to resort to lethal force until the runners start pulling out LAWs. The police SWAT Team, on the other hand, will have to respond in lethal force in kind because they won't be completely immune to all small arms fire.
Also, in those situations where a handful of shadowrunners are considered military objectives, they will be far more useful as intelligence assets than they would be as corpses. Ironically, the military unit has less incentive to kill the runners than the police unit does, overall.

[Fix-it]

[Kagetenshi]

Just look at the Strato-9. Even with the errata, it's cheaper than one cruiser (that doesn't come with an MMG).

That said, only the heaviest armor can really be proof against runners, and that only by depending on the absence of AP ammo. Shotguns with slugs will punch through a lot, and grenades can also pose a serious threat. Any properly paranoid runner team is probably prepared to drop the stairwell, and in a safehouse they may be prepared to drop multiple sections of the floor as well.

~J

[Grinder]

Wounded Ronin: do you know the Lone Star sourcebook or SOTA: 2063? Both have many informations about the methods of SWAT teams in the 6th world.

[Critias]

[hyzmarca]

[Kagetenshi]

Or damage that ignores armor, like (again) falling damage from dropping the stairwell and/or floor out from under them.

As for the Strato, I was talking about the Star and similar. 2000lb bunker-busters are bad for their contracts.

~J

[PBTHHHHT]

For densely populated urban environments you use the 250 lb bombs instead. :)

[FlakJacket]

If you're that worried about nearby civilian casualties then you just use concrete filled bombs. IIRC the Air Force used them in the past when Saddam started locating his air defence and C³ sites in the middle of the suburbs to try and stop them being attacked.

[Fix-it]

[FlakJacket]

Personally I see lots and lots of Neurostun, or whatever the local knockout gas of choice is, being used. Pump that through the walls and ceilings and then follow it up with some elementals and combat drones rushing the place.

[nezumi]

I'm of the opinion that if the runners are pinned down to a building, the first priority for any group will be keeping them in that building. Barricade off the perimeter, clear the airspace, and make sure you have enough men to hold a small army. Feel free to use loudspeakers to try and talk them into coming peacefully. A smart runner group should realize they don't have a lot of options at this point, and many will surrender without further fuss.

The second step will be to search the building, level by level. Start on the roof and go down. The search will rely heavily on drones and magic. Yes, the current methods are alright, but they're expensive, time consuming and put lives at risk. A $20,000 drone is cheaper than a $50,000 soldier. Send in multiple elementals to search for magical anomalies and, of course, armed people. Meanwhile the mage is sticking close to the actual intrusion group, using watchers liberally ("search this level for anything alive and report back to me"), drones (just peek in real quick), fiber optics to peek around corners, and gas grenades of all sorts (to obscure vision and knock out pesky runners).

Once you pin them down to a particular room or area, th equestion simply becomes what do you want to do with them? Of course, if the building is empty except for them, it could be cheaper just to seal off the area and level the whole thing, but rarely is life so easy.

[Kagetenshi]

[Marmot]

At the point that up-armored SWAT teams or the military are responding to your shennanigans, you're probably at the 'screw it, let's try to take some of them with us' level of commitment.

[hyzmarca]

Surrendering to the military is better than surrendering to the police. Crimina Record is far more crippling than Sellout is. The military might as well put you to work while the police will probably put you in jail. Its sort of like Rambo 2.

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

[mfb]

what about them? just because they know they're going to undergo invasive surgery if they surrender doesn't mean they won't do so when there are five or ten guns in their face. after all, you can always get more cyberware.

[hyzmarca]

Of course they'd leave it in. That way, that's be able to arrest her again as soon as she gets out of prison unless she has it removed herself.

Anyone ever hear about the dude who was arrested for having a truckload of illegal drugs but they had to throw out the case because of an illegal search? The police tried to return the drugs that they seized because if they did then their next search would be perfectly legal but he wouldn't accept them.

[Kagetenshi]

But are we working under the assumption that they're going to go through the extensive process of nursing a runner back to health afterwards? If so, why? I see the likely result being "one person, minus nervous system".

~J

[nezumi]

Yes, Joe Samurai is screwed, and might just decide "eh, let's just blow the whole damn place up. They're going to remove my spine either way." However, Bob the rigger, who "only" stands to lose a $300,000 piece of ware installed in his brain that he doesn't need to live might feel that his life is sounding like it's worth exactly $300,000 right now. And Tommy the mage, who has reason to fear they might do stuff to permanently remove his magical ability because it's a security threat only has to look at Bob and Joe to realize there's life after magic. Meanwhile Toby the physical adept is thinking that 40 years in a simsense world or spending the rest of his life working for the Star is probably a better deal than having his vitals spread across a twenty mile radius.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm playing a Rigger. Take a look at the Essence costs for a VCR and the bits of the nervous system it's hooked up to—I doubt the kind of removal this would result in would leave much of a heartbeat reflex, breathing reflex, or any of those kinds of useful things.

I also think you're underestimating the loss of losing magic.

~J