Beans and bultets., Thinking about a company level mercernary idea. Options

[rob]

I'd like to get some feedback from the wise heads around here as to what yall think about the following idea. Specifically, I'm looking for input on whether this would be feasible, whether there might be interest in it, and what kind of things could be cool with it.

I've been kicking this idea around in my head for the past several months, as a potential long-term and larger capacity PBP game.

The basic idea would run something like this:
1. 10-20 Players are the leadership of a company-sized (100-200 man) mercernary unit.
2. This unit has prioirty bid on a textbook military mission - I was thinking 'mercenary company occupies and secures (for example) refinery complex in <remote, ungoverned or semi-governed location> no later than <6 months game time after mission received> until relieved by <sponsoring corporation security> no later than <9 months game time after mission received> in order to secure valuable, unowned resources for client.
3. Unit has something like 50 million nuyen in capital.
4. Players figure out bid for the contract.
5. Players structure their company accordingly (individual and team equipment for soldiers, skill set of soldiers, chain of command among soldiers and players).
6. Players move forces from <area where company assembled and equipment bought> to <target> and execute mission.

If possible, head GM would run the general situation, and there would be one or a group of opposing force players who play the group of people currently in the area (and would have a separate mission set). Head GM could also play the chairman of the mercenary company's board of directors, who could provide advice in sticky situations.

I would love to see how a group of players would figure this problem out, and create an organization with that capability.

[Cthulhudreams]

I'm not sure this would be as exciting as you think, unless you define some limits around the application of firepower.

and by firepower, I mean drones.

Onto practical issues

A) You'll need to define payscales

B) whole of life costs for drones etc.

C) Maint requirements for drones

D) What the cost of big vehicles is - there is nothing that can replace an APC or a MBT in the books, and if the force warrants 1-2 companies, it probably warrants mechanized units.

I'm prreetttyy sure you'd only actually need 20 guys to do the mission incidentally. You'd want 50/50 mages and riggers.

[Crusher Bob]

Amusingly enough, another FASA product line has put out some ideas about how to do this; see various mercenary related books for battletech, which attempt to cover things like capital and replacement costs, plus maintenance, etc.

The main problem in trying this in SR is the existence of drones. Having a bunch of drones will almost certainly mean that you actually need to have much fewer meaty troops on the ground. Of course, you run into problems like: how long will drones batteries run? How long will a drone last? What are it's maintenance requirements? etc.

You also have to consider how much support the company is going to carry around with itself? Will it have medics? doctors? construction engineers? Engineering equipment? De-mining equipment? Etc. The list of things a company sized force might need is much longer than the list of stuff a company sized force would be able to afford.

One of the things you really need to do is specify a conflict region, and what sort of stuff you are likely to run into.
For example, I could define the game as follows:
The company will work almost exclusively in failed or near failed African and Middle-eastern states (whatever they happen to be in 2070, or whatever you want to make up).
The missions of the company will generally require the whole company to deploy and will generally be defensive (protecting personnel or installations) or carde (training other forces, or acting as opfor).

They can expect to typically face:
endless hordes of idiots with AKs, RPGs
A high number of low quality troops with most of the trimmings (support weapons, drones, etc)
A very low number of high quality troops (other mercs, other regular forces, usually not in direct opposition)
High number of improvised barricades and explosives
Sporadic artillery attacks (mostly to make it hard to get a good nights sleep)
Almost no opposing armored vehicles
Almost no opposing air, including helicopters

-----

This tells us what kind of stuff our guys might need, or not need

So our organization might look like:

Recon Section
some number (3-6?) of airborne drone teams

3 Line Platoons
(around 30 guys each, or even 15-20 guys + drones)

Heavy weapons section (or can just do without)
(select no more than 6? from:
1-2 SAM teams, 1-4 light mortar teams, 1-3 ATGM teams , 2-4 heavy drone teams (steel lynx, wajinda, etc)

Motor pool
20-30 SUV type vehicles (the standard patrol car might be a good place to start)
5-10 military style trucks

Logistics and support section
probably at least another 40+ guys, who do everything from maintain the vehicles, procure new bullets and food, and deal with the taxman.

Magical support section
Keep on dreaming, dog boy.
A mage willing to get shot at for a living can probably get a job as a shadowrunner, that pays 10x as much.

[rob]

Some of these issues are actually why it's exciting to me. There's a bucnh of stuff that I don't think is quite practically thought through in the SR4 rulebook, but could be usefu/fun to think through. I like thinking about the behind the scenes stuff. Like, if the players think that drones are the way to go, they can play that way. It'll be interesting to see if they think they can accomplish that with 50M nuyen, though - that will go quick.

On the company itself: I consider the size and equipment load out of the force a control variable for the players, based on what they want to play. That would have to be something that you'd figure out, and plan for. Payscales is something that can be aribitrarily concocted from the rules. You want a GOOD company (350 BP joes)? 3K a week, per joe, given hostile fire pay. That's something I've come up with from my butt, but in between that and the day job quality something can be refined.

Size of the company is based on size of the area, expected opposing force capability. I'm thinking minimum 1 sq kilometer. Expected opposing force capability would be an unknown, but player planning could provide an estimate. Take a refinery, for example - them's is big. Peeps need sleep. Drones need maintenance. And if you've got a big attacking force, then you've got similarly big problems. The interesting part to me isn't securing the facility, the interesting part to me would be getting there and then holding it for 1 or 2 MONTHS, in the face of opposition.

Log tail and Drones Mechanically, Example - assuming about 1 hour of helicopter miantenance by a normal tech per hour of flight time, (lets say, LOG 3 and skill 3), that would be on average an extended test with a threshold of (2x number hours flown) interval 30 minutes, requiring a kit. Which means you've got to plan technician availability, forward refueiling points, and such.

Drones would likewise be constrained by log tail. This is the kind of thing to think up in the planning stage. Something like the helicopter analogy would work for aerial drones.

Additionally, drones are highly constrained by signal range. Existence of the matrix in the area you are can't be taken for granted. To maximize drone capability, you'll need lots of big f***g drones with big, extended antennae (SIGNAL). That will cost money. You'll need drone techs.


ALSO, the magic thing plays a lot in. Characters can recruit mages, but they'll have to pay an ass load for them if they want anything more than the population average (what, 1% of the population is awakened?). ON the other hand, say that the nearest village (possibly opposing) to the site has a population of 3000 - assuming average number of awakened, that means they have at LEAST 15 times as many mages as you do. And air spirits can kill drones.

[Muspellsheimr]

Sounds very much like a Tabletop War Game (such as Warhammer) using the Shadowrun system. If done properly, it could turn out fucking awesome.

It would, however, be very time-consuming; I suggest setting aside entire weekends for 2-4 weeks to complete this - it does not look suitable for a campaign. It would also be very easy to screw it up - on a scale that large, there are quite a few potential balance issues you will likely need to address.

[rob]

Also, the reason this is cool to me, is that it requires some thinking to actually figure out how much it would cost. If you want a drone based force, how big? Infantry based force, with tactical drones? How big? How much? I really have no idea, conceptualizing it.

[rob]

Muspelheimer - that's why I'm thinking PBP is actually a good way to do it. It would take years to run through, but that's fine if players are interested. Also, the tactical engagement itself is less interesting to me than the lead up. If you've got a good enough plan, the tactical engagement should be stupidly easy. I would want to allow the players to think that well.

In the case of big combats, some decisions would have to be made on things like number of rolls management, but that's an issue for future rob and company, not present.

[Kliko]

It's doable, but leave it up to the players to decide how they spend their (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

Environmental conditions-> required maintenance infrastructure is of course a big issue. In the end it's a matter of PQRST (Product Quantity Resources Supplies and Time) and rapidly turns into a logistics game. Whether the Shadowrun system is suited for such a game is of course an entirely different issue.

That being said, sure I'm game for participating in such an experiment as long as it's restricted to sr3 (but then again I'm the type that would cost-effectively eradicate the surrounding native villages in order to quell potential resistance ahead of time).

[Crusher Bob]

Well, I'd assume you don't want to play a logistics game, so the main focus would have to be on the various trade offs you get by choosing one sort of force structure over another.

So what sorts of force structures can we have and what might the trade offs be?

[Cthulhudreams]

I've actually thought a fair bit about the drone force so I can argue with it whenever people bring up the 'shadowrun military' zombie threads.

For starters, why would you use people to maintain the drones? There are drones in the book for that, and they cost less than getting some highly trained professional in there.

Incidently, I think 3k a week probably isn't bad, thats 12k a month which is a high lifestyle + 20% savings. Pretty realistic in terms of what actual soldiers get for actual deployments.

Force structure wise, it seems like there is a triangle with three points and you can put your force composition anywhere along the blend

The three points are

A) Highly trained, augmented and skilled soldiers

B) Chumps with or without skillwires and brainwashing or some reason to hate the other team

C) Drones.

I'm pretty convienced drones are seriously heaps cheaper than the other options.

The other thing is that a lot of the gear in the book is tailored towards the security market, so I doubt maintenance intervals would be as short - helis maybe, but a steel lynx isn't going to need MBT levels of maintence, it just wouldn't be fesible.

[Crusher Bob]

I think you can actually get away with much cheaper pay scales by hiring most of your guys out of the third world. If you just want grunt infantry with skill pools in the 6-8 range, then you should be able to get them from China, or India, or the Philippines, or wherever and pay out much less. It's only the guys who are better than drones (12+ die pools) that can really command international levels of pay.

So you'd have cheap guys, drones, expensive guys. Since you don't have to worry about training your guys from the cheap guys to the expensive guys, you'd don't have to worry about maintaining a bunch of middle cost guys and can instead fill out the middle with drones.

[rob]

Mmm.... I think yall are underestimating the combined cost versus tactical effectiveness trade-off of the drones, versus the effectivenss of meat soldiers.

However, as Cthuludreams points out, this has been debated hypothetically before. I don't want to renovate those hypotheical debates, I'd love to set up the experiment where one or more of these hypothetical force packages can be tested.

Also, a lot of these assumptions depend on a common level of understanding of the game world between the players and the GM, whcih can't be taken for granted. For example, the effectiveness of drones vs. people depends a lot on how effective 'the people' are. I like where your head's at on this one, Crusher Bob.

I would assume that the average person (regardless of background), has all attributes at 3 and Edge at 4 (if human). Assume about 70 points of skills (five to six skills at rating 3, which I would actually say is pretty low, but many of those skills may be worthless depending on where you come from), and your average dude prior to resources, qualities, etc. is 250 BP. Including your average 'idiot with an AK 47', who goes for virtually nothing in pay. Assuming a normal distribution in human capabilities, this would normally distribute to a population of 150+3d6x10 BP (tails at 180 and 330 BP), that means that an utter chump prior to training is not a joke. With 6 months of lead time for the mission, the company can run a training program for its people itself for marginal out of pocket cost. More pay will get more experienced people, and a higher uniform standard with the same averages. But these idiots who can go for damn near nothing, with training, equipment, and good leadership, can be awesome. This should dovetail with common experience of people.

The drones don't strike me as the game breaker. There are some weapon systems and combinations, like tank characters, that might provide for systematically viable but not-common-sensible combinations that could break the game. I'm not worried about those, because if it doesn't make sense I'll outlaw them.

There are also some 'economy of scale things' that I'd be inclined to put in. For instance, ammo in shadowrun is WAAAY too expensive. Buying in bulk would decrease that cost substantially. Cyberware packages, armor systems, that sort of thing, can all be cheaper if multiple copies of the same thing are built in. Even drones!

Kiko, I hear what you're saying about the 'burn it down' tactic. That's legit - I have no preconceptions of how the players should solve the tactical scenario. But burn it down has its own problems, too.... It would be interesting to see how that would play out.

I am hearing some interest for this, though. How many people would be interested if I put up an OOC planning thread in the Welcome to the shadows forum?

[kzt]

You are protecting an OIL REFINERY. "Sporadic artillery attacks" will do a lot more than make it hard to get a good night sleep. Oil refineries are fragile and tend to blow up real good when people lob explosives at them. For that matter, they have a distressing tendency to blow up when people just make seemingly minor mistakes.

Keeping all bad people out of mortar/rocket range (> 10km) is going to be hard. So you'd better plan on being able to shoot down the sporadic attack.

[Muspellsheimr]

For that matter, they have a distressing tendency to blow up when people just make seemingly minor mistakes.

The report identified numerous failings in equipment, risk management, staff management, working culture at the site, maintenance and inspection and general health and safety assessments.

So, care to explain how that is minor?

[kzt]

There is a risk management concept called "practical drift". "Each one of us makes locally rational decisions based on what we see at the moment. That is, knowing that we are the experts of our local system, we adapt organizational protocols and procedures to better match local conditions – practical drift. All well and good. Except when no one stops to check whether these local adaptations are beginning to collide or cancel each other out. This is particularly difficult to detect when ‘minor’ adaptations cause mis-matches across boundaries – across geographic areas, functions, organizational scales because by definition these are at the margins of our local expertise/business."

For example, people take minor shortcuts with complex safety procedures because it's quicker and their managers don't slap their hands, instead often rewarding them for "getting the job done under budget". And since it was ok that time, then we don't have to this either, right? And that works because someone else's "unnecessary safety procedure" kept you from doing something bad. Eventually you do something bad and the people who are supposed to catch that don't because "nobody could be that stupid" and they stopped looking and checking.

[Spike]

Logistics is a specialty of mine. So the first question is, on your budget, does that include the hiring, training (if any... mercenaries I know...) and outfitting or just operational expenses?

Moving on from there, you need to budget for things like food, housing and latrines, fuel expenses... particularly if you are running generators as a source of power for C&C.

For 100 men, a 50mil budget is pretty generous, so I'm suspecting you need to spend that to recruit and outfit too, in which case its pretty low.

So you start with the basics, an Org chart. You've established the PCs are your C&C and admin staff, and I'll assume then that your 100 man group is actually 100 grunts then, with the PC's being extra.

Say two platoons of 40 men, four squads of ten, each squad being two fire teams. For more flexibilty you could use, say, five squads of 8.

Each squad should have at least two support weapons, typically a light machine gun. You can add one (or, if you want expensive... all) undermount grenade launchers for the squaddies with assault rifles. Each Platoon should have one or two heavier weapons (HMGs or assault cannon available), which will be primarily emplaced weapons. Standard armor should be helmet and armor jacket probably, unless you are eliminating armor support, in which case splurge on heavy armor (milspec even...).

The remaining twenty men can be special teams, mortar squad (three, three man teams), for example, artillery support (call it two four man teams, using bigger weapons, 105mm probably for infantry), and vehicle support (ten drivers with vehicles (light skinned vehicles supporting the infantry, who provide the gunners; or 3-5 men per helicoptor... though you're lackign ground crews/mechanics in both cases...).

Being 2070, figure one squad member 'runs' the drones for that squad, with authorized backup from at least one other squad member. Number of drones, and type will depend on budget and mission.

Note that you'll have to work out rotation schedules on guard duty, rest times and quick response force (where they would ride with the vehicles, if any...)

That will help you set your budget. Note too that this is off the top of my head and using largely a US Army model as a starting point. You can eliminate, for example the squad support weapons and put more men into special weapon teams seperate from the squads, you can do an 'armored infantry company', where squads are smaller and have at least an IFV for each squad.

[Muspellsheimr]

Let me rephrase

The report identified numerous failings in equipment, risk management, staff management, working culture at the site, maintenance and inspection and general health and safety assessments.

It was not caused by "minor" mistakes.

[kzt]

They all are, in isolation, fairly minor mistakes. The positioning of trailers was the most obvious mistake, but was done because it was convenient and nothing bad had ever happened (in the memory of anyone in the project...). It's the total number of them and how they interacted that results in disaster. This is almost always the way large disasters happen.

Finding like "Outdated and ineffective procedures did not address recurring operational problems during startup, leading operators to believe that procedures could be altered or did not have to be followed during the startup process" are all signs of practical drift. It's a series of rational and seemingly minor and harmless changes and adjustments in procedure and culture that are not effectively overseen by management at a high enough level to realize what this is doing to the overall safety environment.

As the accident report said:

"Many accident investigations make the same mistake in defining causes. They identify the widget that broke or malfunctioned, then locate the person most closely connected with the technical failure: the engineer who miscalculated an analysis, the operator who missed signals or pulled the wrong switches, the supervisor who failed to listen, or the manager who made bad decisions. When causal chains are limited to technical flaws and individual failures, the ensuing responses aimed at preventing a similar event in the future are equally limited: they aim to fix the technical problem and replace or retrain the individual responsible. Such corrections lead to a misguided and potentially disastrous belief that the underlying problem has been solved (CAIB, 2003)."

One of the best analysis of this is:
Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq
Scott A. Snook

Though "The Challenger Launch Decision" is also interesting.


Given how this happens in the US, imagine how much fun it is to run a complex industrial site in the 3rd world.

[Cthulhudreams]

You also need to identify how big the mechanry group is - instead of paying licensed copies you're going to be making your own or cracking autosofts and skillchips and be handing them out like candy, and you need to know how much of the overhead you need to absord in your bid - its going to be different for Mercenaries Inc who has global orperations vs a small outfit where this is it.

[kzt]

Remember to buy your large-scale nano-forges. Darn, these are the ones they don't provide rules or prices for, as PCs "won't ever have access to them". But that is how you solve a lot of the spare parts issues. In theory you could use them to make ammo, but it really shouldn't be cost effective to make anything other than hugely expensive missiles, which they probably wouldn't have the pattern for.

[Diesel]

If anyone is interested in the standard distribution of manpower in an American company sized light infantry element, it is as follows:

3x Line Platoons (PLT)
-Each PLT contains 3 Line Squads (SQD)
--Each SQD Contains nine men, split into two teams and a squad leader (SL)
---Each Team is led by a Team Leader (TL), with an automatic rifleman (LMG Gunner), rifleman (either radioman or marksman), and grenadier (rifle and explosives)
-Each PLT also contains a Weapons Squad (WPNs)
--WPNs contains one squad leader (SL) and two gun teams.
---Each gun team has a gun team leader with an MMG, an ammo bearer with a rifle and a lot of rounds, and an assistant gunner, with a rifle, a lot of rounds, and a tripod. Optionally, a fourth man equipped with rockets and a rifle can be attached to a gun team. He is known as the anti-armor specialist. In an area with high threat of enemy air assets, he could be equipped with an anti-air missile system, such as the Stinger.
-There is also a headquarters (HQ) element of each PLT, consisting of a Platoon Leader (Officer in charge of planning and logistics), Platoon Sergeant (Enlisted-man in charge of operations and execution), medic, Forward Observer, and the Platoon RTO, who is generally the technology liason in addition to being radioman.

Heavy weapons are assigned to the PLTs, who then can mount them defensively or onto vehicles. These are treated as being organic. PLTs typically have two HMGs and two automatic grenade launchers. They also generally have eight to twelve trucks. These trucks are not necessarily working at any given time. Low level maintenance can be accomplished at the soldier level. Higher level maintenance, which is all too common, must be done by battalion level assets consisting of mechanics.

Headquarters PLT
-This is where command elements are based out of. A Captain (Commanding Officer), Lieutenant (Executive Officer), First Sergeant, and Fire Support Officer are all part of this group.
-A mortar section is organized into this group. A mortar section has about the same amount of men as a line squad, but their focus is two organic light mortar tubes, with the potential for them to have attached medium and heavy mortars as the situation warrants. I am not an expert in this area.
-Forward observers not attached to PLTs are organized here as well, either for static emplacement (ie Base Defense) or just rest between being attached to a line squad. FOs have the bad luck to go on nearly every mission, whereas line squads rotate through rest cycles within the platoon.
-A communications sergeant, armorer, and supply sergeant are organized here as well.
-Operations, generally a two man team that also fills in as the First Sergeant's and Commander's personal radiomen is organized here. They are responsible for the majority of paperwork an Infantry company encounters day to day, including logistics, personnel tracking, awards, pay and medical issues, etc.

That is it. That is in a perfect world, nearly 150 people, usually less with more work. There is no room in there for maintenance or heavy artillery support. A mercenary company would either have to go "heavy" which is difficult given organizational concerns, a wider structure is much harder to lead or cut line platoons which would reduce maneuver capability for drone maintainers and pilots, artillerymen, and so forth.

[rob]

I like where this is going... I've thought of many of these organizations, and eventualities, while I was kicking the plan around.

A few notable things:
1. Arguing about some industrial accident right now is extremely premature, because I haven't really identified a target.

2. The US Army infantry company example is a good starting point - and most infantry companies in the rest of the world are organized similarly. I would also suggest the Stryker company as an example, because that includes a bit more of the supporting elements at the company level. But, here's a couple things to think about that:
a. I don't have an org chart or anything in my head that's the right answer. I'm thinking company level, because it's finite enough to do at the beginning. Alternate org concepts are fine, and it's really whatever the players think they can manage and will accomplish the mission.
b. You might be able to timeshare, purchase, or limited-term contract some of the support capabilities. Helicopters, resupply, that sort of thing can be in company or subcontracted.
c. The 50M (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) is in capital to build the initial company with, NOT your entire operating budget. Players will have to estimate their operating budget and negotiate interim payments with the client. If you can do this for 50M out of pocket, that will be interesting.

3. Right now you don't know a thing about the opposition, so you'll have to design your force to maximize a number of capabilities, and hope that the contracts being offered fight to your capabilities. Hence, there will be tradeoffs between the flexibility to accomplish different missions and the organization to do certain missions well.

4. Economies of scale should factor into your planning. I'm thinking fairly significant tradeoffs for buying crap in bulk. Ammo? You won't need to make ammo. Common ammunition, like assault rifle ammunition, should come at pretty signifcant discounts - 20 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) should get you about 500-1000 rounds, if you buy in lots of 10K rounds or more. But you will have the opportunity to deal with bulk suppliers, since you don't buy orders this size of the shelf.

5. You can have mages. Don't throw away the notion that they will be unavailable. You'll just have to pay for them. And the enemy will have them.

6. Cracking autosofts and handing them out like candy may be a viable solution, but you need to figure out how you'll do that. You'll have hundreds of people, and not all of them might be disciplined enough to keep you from getting in trouble.

7. There may be some nonstandard options you haven't thought about. Mortars, for example, could be effective off of smart weapons mounts with just a meat loader. You could even have drone operated loaders, if the price is right. There's a lot of stuff that isn't priced out in the shadowrun rulebook but seems reasonable, and one of our overhead concerns planning concerns will be pricing these things (like generators) out.

Now, we've talked in gneral about 'coulda/shoulda/wouldas' - how many people would be interested in trying this?

[hyzmarca]

Remember to buy your large-scale nano-forges. Darn, these are the ones they don't provide rules or prices for, as PCs "won't ever have access to them". But that is how you solve a lot of the spare parts issues. In theory you could use them to make ammo, but it really shouldn't be cost effective to make anything other than hugely expensive missiles, which they probably wouldn't have the pattern for.

The rule I go by is that if it doesn't have a price tag then it's free.

[kzt]

2. The US Army infantry company example is a good starting point - and most infantry companies in the rest of the world are organized similarly. I would also suggest the Stryker company as an example, because that includes a bit more of the supporting elements at the company level. But, here's a couple things to think about that:

The problem is that in most all US units (since J series TOE anyhow) all the maintenance is at battalion level. You'd need a slice of the support company/troop and probably a slice of the brigade support battalion. Companies also don't include things like intelligence analysts. So, if you are supposed to be self-supporting for months you are going to have to reduce your teeth to tail ratio.

4. Economies of scale should factor into your planning. I'm thinking fairly significant tradeoffs for buying crap in bulk. Ammo? You won't need to make ammo. Common ammunition, like assault rifle ammunition, should come at pretty signifcant discounts - 20 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) should get you about 500-1000 rounds, if you buy in lots of 10K rounds or more. But you will have the opportunity to deal with bulk suppliers, since you don't buy orders this size of the shelf.

Not really. For example, the silly SR prices are (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 2 per round. That is absurd, but so is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 0.02 per round.

Current real world open market prices for assault rifle ammo in quantities of 1000 delivered in the US is $0.39 per round . That's a 10 kg box.

In quantities of 100,000 it is $0.35 per round delivered in the US. That's a pallet, and it's going to weigh around 1000 kg.

If you go to container sized orders (say 4 million rounds) you'll get another 10-20% off, but that's about it. Ammo will be big bucks. And SR really under prices everything but small caliber bullets.

[Kliko]

What version of sr are we looking for (I don't have acces to sr4)?

Ammo-prices (at least for ordinary rounds) could very well be based on the previously mentioned prices and then scale up linearly for special ammo-types (APDS, Ex-Ex).