Military Organization, Equipment, etc., Equipment, Organization of SR Military's Options

[moosegod]

Unless they are shamans. Although military service won't appeal to many shamans, there are some that could work in a military setting- Dog and Wolf pop to mind immediately, and a Bear shaman died at the Watergate rift in YotC.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Yeah, but I don't think that informally trained shamans have a lobby like the Hermetics would. And I don't see a lot of exceptions being made if in exchange for a certain amount of required formal education mages would be made officers; officers who fall outside of the regular chain of command and get to get away with almost anything.

[Kanada Ten]

Shamans have universities and studies, and so on. Just because the teaching includes dancing and singing, learning to pray and such doesn't invalidate it.

[moosegod]

I still stand by mages being automatically officers. They're too rare and important to be anything else.

Now, just because their an officer doesn't mean they have to be able to give orders. Surely, some mages will become majors, colonels, etc., but most will remain as supernumeraries, assigned wherever their CO thinks they need to be.

[Siege]

Easy: And every grunt has to be reasonably intelligent, possessing a high school diploma. (obscure parallel to minimum physical requirements of all recruits)

But you wouldn't pick the biggest linebacker and promote him to officer status based solely on his ability to pick up large, blunt objects.

As for the butter bars, well -- yes but in theory they have proven they can learn, whether or not they know a bloody thing.

As for breathing artillery pieces -- maybe, maybe not. A dim-witted mage or one who just doesn't grasp higher magical theory would probably still be drilled in some form of useful magical practice if so desired especially since mage-capable critters are few and far between.

-Siege

[Digital Heroin]

[Seville]

Hey Siege... in the Air Force, what's the difference between a butter bar and an airman.

Airman's been promoted once :)

[Siege]

[moosegod]

Auuugghh!!!! They're supernumerary!

[Fortune]

[easytohate]

Directing troops in combat as very little to do with officers in the Air Force. We have a tradition of sending the officers out to die first while the Airmen get the next plane moving. Ground troops are often directed by a SNCO that get his orders from a company grade officer, who in turn gets his orders from the commander. When it comes to doing the job, it is the NCO's that are in charge.

Some officers are management, they tells us what they want done based on the mission. They administrate and allocate resources.

Some officers are professionals, highly trained for years to get to a particular job.

Some officers are commanders, company grade officers that plan engagement and command the troops and weapons of war, thier training is in professional leadership, tradition and thier weapons.

Just because someone is a Captain, that dosn't make them automatically capeable of leading troops. And chain of command means very little once you cross mission lines.

For example, a Communications commander (will assume he is a O-5) comes to me (a dirtboy Civil Engineer moving dirt) and tells me to do something that goes against my mission as a Dirtboy. I can effectively and respectively ignore him as far as the order goes, and refer him to my Commanders's support staff.
even though he outranks me, he has nothing to do with my chain of command. He's not my commander. He's job is Com. My job is moving dirt and repairing runways.

If a mage in the UCAS military is an officer, his only chain of command extends down to those beneath him (most likely other mages). Now he might be given a small number of mundane grunts to command. But those grunts will often have orders of thier own, i.e. keep the mages secure. Now the Mage in charge can give those grunt orders, sure. But he can't give an order the contridicts the mission.

Doctors, most of them being Lt. Col or Col. Are removed from the core of the command. .

Chaplains are also outside of the command. There are some things that no one, beneath the President can order a Chaplain to do. Chaplains often don't even report to the base commander. They report up thier own chain of command to the Chaplain general. Sure they are there to help the commander, but he dosn't give them thier mission.

Lawyers, Inspectors, Certain Intel jobs, Meterologists. This stuff gets complicated. Really complicted when it comes to who can and can't give orders to who. Sure, it's supposed to be, officers give the orders and enlisted do it. And thats the general rule, but the more you look at it the more complcated it gets.

--

Here is another idea, what if. The Thaum corps have nothing to do with the military? What if it is made a civilian band position. Like FBI, CIA and non-military DOD. There have been times where I have taken orders from a civilian. I have also worked side by side with GS positions doing the same mission, just answering to a different set of rules and getting paid with different funding. There are sometimes when having a civilian there is better, like with investigations because DOD's military jurisdiction ends fast once you leave DOD military property. Maybe mages would fall into this catagory instead. Considering the special legal rules regarding the Astral.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[moosegod]

Marines. Keep the Army to hold the Ground, the Air Force to fart around and the Navy to get the Marines there.

[Pistons]

[Austere Emancipa...]

...and the acting doctor responsible of the regiment-sized unit I was in most of my service was usually a conscript "officer-student", ranking lower than an enlisted corporal. But that was Finnish DF, and has nothing to do with this discussion.

Sorry about that.

[capt20]

I think were all underestimating how /highly/ an enlisted man or woman can be trained. Given, I don't think were gonna have a Private or even a Corporal as a Mage, but Think Warrant Officer here. Mabye some 'raw' talent did join up. Whats the say the Army doesn't put em through boot and then ship em off to that school for there MOS, and then attach them as an integral part of an infantry company. Remember that each of these Officer status things were talking about, Lawyers Doctors and so on, have enlisted working under them with the proper skills, Hospital Corpsman, Legal Clerks. Whats to say the Mages would be any different?

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Well, aside from training? Lawyers have 3 years of graduate level training after college, plus the accreditation from taking a state's bar exam (depending on the state, the passage rate could be between 92% (Utah) to 50%(California)). Doctors have 3-4 (Don't know for sure, and at this point don't care). Paralegals are about college-educated. Anyone else is doing little more than pushing paper and filing things--which isn't rocket science. As for corpsmen and the like--the same thing applies. You can have EMTS or nurse, or doctors. They deserve the $100,000+ salary because they spent several more years in school and in the grand scheme of things know more than a EMT or nurse. Paralegals may know all sorts of things, but the only person they'll ever be allowed to represent in court is themself.

And while years of experience mean a great deal with these groups (as it does when comparing a butter bar with a hardened First Sergeant) there is absolutely no point in not having mages trained to as high a level as possible from the start. A nurse is a nurse or a paralegal is a paralegal. They probably known all sorts of stuff that a green lawyer or doctor might not. However, the difference is that they will NEVER in that capacity be able to do things that a lawyer or a doctor can--even if they've just graduated/passed the bar. The same applies to mages. While there may be a different system in place to deal with Aspected and Adepts--the nurses of the magical world--there are things that a full blown mage was trained to do and will be able to do that they will never be able to do. And to cut corners in training the mages is not only a waste of resources--it's really f-ing stupid.

You also have to consider context. Anyone who is 18 and isn't owned by a corp is a potential asset, but they're also probably untrained and virtually useless. Meanwhile, they can go to college and learn all sorts of theory and skills that would cost the military a fortune--and all the military has to do is offer them a ROTC scholarship or priority in OCS in order to get them to join as officers with perks.

Anything else just doesn't make a damn bit of sense.

But I think the proper analogy is a pilot. Realistically, you don't have to be a college grad to learn to fly. But the military insists that its pilots are. I have yet to see a reason why the same thing shouldn't apply to mages.

[Siege]

Cause you could train almost anyone to fly with enough motivation and effort -- you can't teach someone to become magically active.

Other than that, I agree completely. Any street rat who becomes magically active would probably get some serious recruiting from interested parties, not unlike would-be sports celebrities today.

-Siege

[Diesel]

Only airplanes. Helos are a whole 'nother story.

[Siege]

Completely unrelated to the current drift of the thread, but it looks like the US Army is looking to start phasing out the M-16 as the standard issue assault rifle.

[I][/I]M-16 outdated?

-Siege

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

True. I did mean airplanes, lest any Warrant Officers fret.

The M-16 had trouble in Iraq? Who'd have thought? I mean, the troops loved them in Vietnam and the Gulf the last time.

[mfb]

i dunno. i mean, yeah, in a perfect world, all your full mages would learn military theory and whatnot, and go for their commission. on the other hand, what's more important--getting a properly-trained mage, or getting a mage, period? warrant mages, i think, would be pretty common.

[Nath]

[Siege]

Interesting, considering the Army's study claimed some 95% of engagements happened at close quarters, well within the M-4's effective range.

Granted, it is an Army study...

-Siege

[mfb]

...how is changing from the m-16 to the m-4 going to help with the reliability issue?