Under Siege, Down, Siege! Down, boy! Options

[Dim Sum]

About 6 months back, I was playing in a buddy's game and the players made it a very free-form push-the-game-as-far-as-your-personal-initiative-will-take-you kind of campaign - very kewl and I would have liked to continue it as my character was contemplating the hijacking of a naval vessel but the game was abortively shorted out so no dice.

I'm now back as the GM for the group and have been toying with a scenario which involves taking over a naval vessel, like a large missile cruiser or aircraft carrier. I'd like to hear some ideas, especially from anyone who's ever served aboard such vessels, on:

1. how possible it would be to take over such a vessel
2. when would be the best time
3. how would you do it
4. any other related issues

Then, to make things more interesting, how you would you go about hijacking a nuclear sub AT SEA?

[Dim Sum]

Oh, Siege, sorry, nothing to do with you and any form of kinky acts (can you say "Cockatrice" again? :D).

[Crusher Bob]

Well:

You are going to need to worry about the crew, and any embarked marines (if any). Then, you are going to have to worry about how to move the ship once you have dealt with the crew. (I assume you are talking about stealing such a vessel, and not holding the crew hostage, or whatever.)

So, you'll need some guys that know how to steer, etc the ship. A 'safe port' to put it in, and so on. Any nation with a ship worth stealing is not going to be too happy with out. Stealing a 'pirate' ship or similar is probably much simpler. Get a boat 'attractive' to pirates, fill it full of boarders, and wander into pirate infested waters. When they try to board you, kill 'em all, collect the reward (if any), and keep the ship as legimitate salvage.

[John Campbell]

[Kagetenshi]

[Dim Sum]

Yeah, I was thinking of stealing the vessel, IF POSSIBLE. As such, I would have no interest in holding the crew hostage. The problem is that with a fully crewed aircraft carrier, for example, I just don't see how you could possible hijack the ship with anything less than battalion of WELL-ARMED spec forces or a reinforced brigade of well-trained soldiers/marines.

Then, you'd need a small army of riggers to man the necessary systems to get the ship moving/functional. You'd also need some way to then hide the vessel after that from satellites (spirits?) and berth her some place away from prying eyes.

[SykoBear]

You know, funny you should mention that Dim Sum. I was wondering how you were going to pull THAT one off in the campaign myself. It sure warms the cockles of my cholestrol-ladden heart that you haven't worked anything out yet.

IIRC you need at least 3 riggers just to control the darn thing.

[Dim Sum]

So ... it would appear that you would need to hit the ship when it has a skeleton crew on board. Since that's very unlikely or very rare, that would mean having to get a lot of the crew off in some way. Ideas? Nuclear emergency (a la The Hunt for Red October)? You'd need to co-opt the engineers and even then, the ship would call in the emergency to fleet command.

Gawd ... the more I think about it, the more massive an undertaking it becomes to cover all the contingencies. :eek:

[Dim Sum]

@ SykoBear

Well, the alternative would be to hit the vessel while it's in port but although it sounds easier at first, it'd be next to impossible to get away, out to sea. :D

I didn't have anything planned at the time, just some rough ideas (hehehe), and I was thinking it through last night when it hit me just how much legwork would be involved and that's BEFORE even getting to the operational difficulties of actually performing the hijack.

[Kagetenshi]

Subverting the entire crew is probably the easiest method.

~J

[Traks]

Mind control captain at sea, so he just "decides" to change course?
Only problem - there could be wards at captain's bridge to prevent from that, but every ward can be broken/supressed.

[grendel]

[Dim Sum]

I thought about that, Kage, but it would be nigh on impossible to subvert the whole crew (anything between 2,400-3,000 men/women for an aircraft carrier?).

Best I could think of was to subvert as many of the key people possible. Even that would be a long shot .... Hmmmmm .....

[Dim Sum]

Thanks, Grendel. As you've pointed out, even taking a "small" ship like a Oliver Perry-class frigate is going to be a nightmare.

How about staging an elaborate or even a real ship in distress and mounting an assault while the navy ship conducts rescue operations? That would reduce the reaction time of the crew, neh?

[Kagetenshi]

It'd still be the easiest method. Kinda like it's easier to get to Mars with a big cannon than by flapping your arms really hard (and I'm talking a gunpowder cannon here, not something like a Mass Driver that could actually do the job).

~J

[Crusher Bob]

Notice that in future crew are likely to be slightly lover. Though this is SR, so there will be riggers and drones to worry about. This makes taking over the ship even harder, as you can now fit a 10+ combat drones into storage to prevent such things. Also notice that the ship is likely to be warded, have onboard mages, etc.

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Dim Sum]

Okay, hmm, so would everyone agree that taking an aricraft carrier is simply out of the question? I mean, how many times is an aircraft carrier going to be travelling alone in the first place. Most times, if it's on operational duty, it would be surrounded by a flotilla of other heavily armed ships whose duties are to protect it.

All right, so let's set our ambitions on something a little smaller like a missile cruiser (like, say, the Tico-class cruisers) which would still be a very valuable target in terms of its instrinsinc value and the nuclear/conventional missiles it carries.

Taking some of the points you guys have raised, I would subvert as many of the key crew personnel as possible:
- the captain and/or executive officer
- weps
- communications officer
- chief engineer
- Marine contingent commander
- the ship’s surgeon
- the cook? :)

Hijack a VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) or ULCC (Ultra-Large Crude Carrier). This raises issues of its own (about the how’s and how-not’s) but I think we’d all agree that it would be far easier than hijacking a naval warship straight out. Stage an accident (whether real of fake) on the VL/ULCC in the vicinity of the cruiser such that they are the closest ship able to render assistance.

Have divers tasked with the assault leave the VL/ULCC from the hidden side once the cruiser draws up parallel to the oil tanker to commence rescue operations. The divers will swim under the keels of both vessels and assault the cruiser on the side not facing the oil tanker. The assault has to be synchronized to commence at the same time shooters from the oil tanker launch heavy weapons on the side of the cruiser facing it.

While the divers are en route from the oil tanker to the cruiser, all crew who have been subverted have to move into position to facilitate the assault. The captain / XO have to neutralize any ship-to-ship weapons and riggers and the chief engineer may have to temporarily disable propulsion and/or power (no power, no riggers?). If the doctor was co-opted, he might have been able to introduce a very potent laxative timed to take effect during the assault or, with the chief engineer’s help, even introduce ether into the environmental systems. Meanwhile, the marine contingent commander (or even just the ship’s armourer) could disable the personal weapons of the marines on board.

The assault divers would have to come on board FAST and, as Grendel has pointed out, be absolutely ruthless. At the same time, the captain or XO can order the crew to cease and desist, and obey the assault team.

How many men would I need?

[Dim Sum]

Hmm, Kage, I'm still not convinced that trying to subvert the entire crew would be the easiest way of doing it, even if we're looking at a smaller crew of a Tico-class cruiser. I just don't see everyone being bought off because there's not going to be just one but many who will not be able to sever family connections and other ties to their nation no matter how much you pay them.

Buying off a few of them, though, like the key crew members ... that's something more feasible, I feel.

[mfb]

how long are you going to keep the ship? i mean, let's face it: with the massive amounts of satellite coverage in 2060, you're not going to be able to keep the damn thing forever.

[Rice Bowl]

Sorry, just the time to jot down pele-mele a few ideas, which should help you understand it should be doable:



ONBOARD EMBARKED INTELLIGENCE/AGENTS:
- you find how to get them in (Masking adepts, plastic surgery modified agents with retinal, digital, vocal etc. mods, etc, etc.)
- onboard agents can mess up with the energy plant of the aircraf carrier, local actions on the communications emettors, matrix access granted to inside/outside agents, control of the machines and engines: all can be neutralized quite easily with competent technicians and micro-runs/sabotage onboard.
- food/water/air poisoning (better get some viral stuff which spreads well and to which onboard agents get immunity, which disable the onboard regular personel, which mobilizes all resource, with plausible blame on food supply -to be arranged-, to avert people thinking of some other explanations of vast food poisoning): of course, some well staged poisoning will not be discovered as all controls will be fixed.
- decks/lifts/maglocks/doors/missile vaults sabotaging: just to keep the bad guys from moving where they would be useful, or giving them some red herrings (missile vaults diversion, pretty sure all security will have this one as a priority; when they are all in the right place, DMSO vector sleeping/incapacitating gases will take them out!!)

MAGIC:
shouldn't be the biggest issue in such a techie environment: elementals/spirits will get confused at who are the targets and whom to help...

BOARDING TEAM (if any): I love the en masse use of DMSO vectored gases/toxins (Gamma Scopolamine, tailor-made toxins would be even better!). It's always efficient, especially if you can fix some immunity for the runners.
Most of the regular personel is not fit or equipped to welcome any boarding party, so cutting down lightings and arriving with smoke/flash grenades and vision control (IR, night vision, etc.) equipment should turn all target # out of the league of the average Joe crewman.

PROPAGANDA DURING THE CONTROL TAKING OPERATION:
if everybody aboard develops quickly some visible symptoms of quick evolving disease (why am I thinking Red Mask?? or a non lethal version...), some broadcast message like: "you surrender, you get antidote, otherwise you die anyway in two hours" can go a long way to get the regular crew's minds out of the real issue.

DRONES: you can always with a super competent, super well equipped rigger/rigger crew turn them to your advantage, or at least make them take a big dive (on tactical stuff on the the deck of the ship, antennas, etc.)
When operation is on, also a lot of fake radioed messages on the ship security teams frequences will help.

MATRIX: quite obvious all that you can do with it. First of all control all outgoing communications.



MOST IMPORTANTLY: check well files of all personal embarked, even in the Captain's safe. If you don't find the cook's personal files, ABORT MISSION, I repeat ABORT MISSION.

[Dim Sum]

Haha! Thanks, Rice Bowl, for the comments. I hope my players who are reading this thread are getting increasingly paranoid about what I'm going to throw them into. I have a feeling they'll be checking through all the personnel files with a fine tooth comb.

Introducing an agent or two on board (PCs) would aid a lot, of course, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to do, which is why I went with the subvert-key-personnel route. You'd need a pretty whiz decker to hack into the DOD or base computer files to lay the appropriate trail that would pass a security check when "transferring" on to the vessel's crew.

[Rice Bowl]

Dim Sum,

I'm not talking about inserting two guys aboard!!
I'm talking 30-50 well trained!!
Whoever has a serious interest and a way to profit of the hijacking of an aircraft carrier WILL NOT hire a mere runner team, however hot the rep! however flashy the deeds!
It will be a well funded op, with well connected people and only highly skilled people with a perfect record sheet will be approached.

Then, after the ship makes some stay in a harbour, I beg to differ on the feasability of putting 30 moles aboard:
you kidnap the guys you want to substitute and put the look-alike agents instead.
Preferably the single ones, with no relatives. For the others, aboard the family reach is far lessened and thus less susceptible to be discovered.
Try to put moles together, so they aboard also are less susceptible to be discovered, having less to interact with "regular" crew members.

The getting aboard procedure should be known, and then all searched for parameters (ID and bio) should be arranged to pass the tests.
You can also mass Influence all the people making the check to let staff back onboard.

Don't forget that key personel has more exposure, and will be more checked for by the Magics etc.
Random technicians lost in the masse of a few thousands people will have a maneuver margin far superior, plus if you can get them pass for techies, they will have natural access to their objectives!!!

BTW, to implement this kind of ops, you need at least a year (get all ships blue prints, records of the staff, decide who to substitute, find the qualified agents, window of opportunity, etc).


To finish, for the nuclear sub at sea, you should think Magic: if you have a mole, a high level Masking initiate with many high Force Elementals at his beck and call + a few tech moles should make it.
Otherwise, you can try the Commandant Cousteau sub approaching target and announce he comes for pizza delivery: you sure stun them for a whole minute of complete stupor!

[Traks]

Well yeah, I agree about the cook.
And sadly I do agree that even best guys will not be able to capture ship AND keep it under control, if they are only few. There are too many places that you must keep under control, while suspectible to enemy fire.
And any "strange disease" will likely cause ship to inform their superiors about drastical situation, and ship will be quarantined while being guarded by few other ships.
Best they can take is some "romantic cruiser", where they have small crew and lots of hostages around. And yes, submarine is better this way with less crew, but still a very risky thing. And smallest suspicions will get you hauled overboard :)

[nezumi]

I can think of only two really effective ways of taking over a properly crewed naval combat vessel.

1) Biological or chemical weapons. Poison their water supply while out to sea with a custom made virus. Be sure to jam their communications until the virus has finished its work, then clean up whoever was smart enough to survive (or leave them there and drive off with them locked up). If you find a way to innoculate yourselves, you can keep pumping the virus out through the ventilation or water and insure that any intruders will die eventually.

2) Using seriously high powered magic, cast mass hysteria along with a series of illusions depicting the ship sinking, controls showing damage etc. This would be supplemented with a decker breaking into the system and activating the actual warning lights. Between all the obvious signs that the ship is sinking and the mass hysteria spell on at least half of the crew, you should be able to get the crew to evacuate the ship. Fly in in your official navy rescue helicopter and drive away.