Greets,

We often talk about the armed forces and its possible roles in 2072. What about the next generation? What is your image of corporate and government armed forces in 2072 and what would be the natural developments in responding to the realities of 2080?

-Chrysalis

"Okay squad, your objective is to infiltrate Hive City Chicago and liberate the codes to Lake Erie. Seal yourselfs in your radsuits, make contact with your biodrone riggers, and mount up them sabertooths!"

Armed forces in 2080 will be like a game of RISK. A lot of it would be about the balance of power. The moment one nation or corporation has an edge in technology or armed forces, the other power entities will either ally for a temporary truce (Later to backstab one another) or use all of their resources to sink the faction which is gaining the power.

I personally hope the armed forces in 6th world never get to the point of having cyberzombies, cyborgs, as foot soldiers and hoping for more of a stronger focus covert ops type forces develop over open warfare.

Chicago hive? I say we take off and nuke the city from orbit.

Its the only way to be sure.

All UCAS personnel who enlist under the "indefinite" option (meaning "until you retire") will receive a specific set of cyberware, including cybereyes with smartlink, flare comp, and image magnification. Special Forces personnel are given an option to receive cybernetic replacement arms and legs, bone plating, cyberears, control rigs, and other 'ware at extremely low rates.

Even the mages?

Oh, no. The Army Corps of Magicians is provided with free spell and weapon foci and given access to classified spell formulae

ESPECIALLY the mages!

ON topic tho; I don't think that there can be alot of advancement in 8 years. the current timeline is 2072 IIRC. You might begin to see more prevelence of Jarheads in specwar forces of smaller nations by then.

I'm sure that the tooth to tail ratio has been largely fixed by drones allready.

Agreed. Look at the modern military. Until the F-22 became active, the US had been using the F-15 since the 1970s. The Army has been using the M-16 since Vietnam. You don't get a complete revolution in military affairs overnight, especially when the country is 1/5 as large/powerful/economically potent as it is (relatively speaking) in the present day.

And the F-22 has still not performed a SINGLE combat mission during the War on Terror according to the evaluation on whether or not to purchase more of them for the Air Force.

And yeah, the Army used the M-16 since Vietnam, but it did go through several incarnations.

XM-15 has some recoil issues and some handgrip issues. Additionally, the rear sight adjustment post could get jammed. They fixed that later.

The M-16 often had problems with the bolt assembly (specifically the small extractor lever), that often required unit level adjustment (A file to widen the gap in the extractor part) to fix.

The M-16A1 had modified handgrips, the pistol grip slightly modified, the rear sight changed slightly (less tension on the spring in the adjustment psot) and the forward sight post sometimes stripped out. Once again, mostly unit level repairs.

The M-16A2 added 3 round burst to replace full auto. It also changed the handgrips, the rear sight switched from post adjustment to rotating dial, and modified bolt system, including a new recoil spring.

Then there were more modifications to the M-16A2, from different stocks to different handgrips to different barrels, until finally, we saw the M-4 come out in 2000.

Saying that the XM-15 underwent no changes between Vietnam and the War on Terror is seriously mistaken.

Sorry, bad tangent.

Personally, I wish I knew more about 4E, but we do the SRII thing, are are currently in 2052.

True; but conceptually there have been no changes. For instance you don't see the us army seriously looking at a bullpup configuration even tho we're doing, and will do, alot of house to house work.

However there have been major changes and advances in how intel is distributed, and tactical deployment, it's an electronic battlefield now.

My serious answer to this is as follows:
Cold War 1980's paranoia between different Corps.
Desert Wars
Mercenary Corporations


Why? Because its Shadowrun. Its a product of the late 1980's. Make it Farce, make it fun and for Rod's sake: Use the big toys people make by never use in real life.
Absurdity is a Strength.

BlueMax

Very true. Back in the day, battlefield intel consisted of doing a SALUTE, maybe over a radio, maybe when you got back.

Nowadays it's amazing. I mean, the Battletac system in Fields of Fire are basically a reality from what I understand (I'm only from an outsiders PoV nowadays).

Even though I have to admit that I don't know that much about the 2080 world of SR, I have to admit that even an infantryman would probably have some of the Shadowtech SPU equipment, military grade cryptography software and commlink software (From what I understand, the standard tactical radio system is pretty much force wide nowadays), along with the ability to send data from cybereyes through a commo link back to the rear.

Military Intelligence would be the #1 funded area of all the branches of every military. Where a 2 degree ambient temperature change could have massive possiblities on the battlefield (is it a stealthed/magicked vehicle? A group of invisible SF troops who sat in one place too long? Is it a heat vent for an underground facility that just "puffed"?).

I think that the 2080 military would have massive amounts of training involved in battlefield intelligence. You'd have oversight on a micromange level (Oh God, the thought of that incompetent screwball of a BCO I had being able to access and look through my eyes to watch what I'm doing makes me sick to my stomach with the though I'd then here him bitching at me through my com-link) to the point where if the situation was a big enough deal, the Secretary of Defense could see what SEAL Team Six is looking at in real time.

Talk about micromanagement.

I'd discount it based on cost and upkeep.
So you can make a dozen uber hard cyberzombies that are fairly functionally nasty and vicious bastards without question, but you need some super powerful mages, a crap-ton of technology and industrial applications ...and people don't much like having them around or admit to it.
Or
You could have 3 platoons of combat troops in mil-spec armour, trained, armed, probably with dedicated air, medical and armoured support for the same price that isn't entirely dependant on individual units that sometimes wake up and just want to play with the rabbits. If they wake up.

Which is why the SK Cyberlogician suit, (arsenal pp. 48) might be the most prescient piece of ware ever writen for shadowrun.

I thought he was in Cybertechnology? (My book seems to be missing)

When SR came out back in the late 80's, we actually sat down and figured out with the Street Sam catalogue what would be your basic stuff.

First thing first, training would be divided up into an additional third and fourth component.

Basic Training: Military life, weapons training, etc.

We added "Chrome Phase" to the end of Basic Training. Once you prove you can hack it, you get the basics and the training to use it. Basics would be, since every single soldier is an infantryman if all else fails (and the modern battlefield has no clearly defined lines, only vague "zones" that rapidly shift).

Cybereyes with thermo and flare comp.
Datajack
Datalink
Smartgun
Chipjack.

Some militaries might put in skillwires, but the military always looks at the "worse case" scenario, and no military will ever forget that a soldier is the more than the sum total of his equipment and training. He's a fusion of the two, and ultimately, the soldier needs to be able to fight even if his equipment fails. And skillwires require more invasive surgery, and who knows if the enemy will develop a weapon that victimizes skillwires or renders them null and void.

Then you have AIT (Advanced Individual Training) where you learn your Military Occupational Speciality. Now, this is where you would learn your job and could do it even if you had to make due with what you had on hand.

Then the last phase of AIT, where you get the implants you need, and training on how to do your job with that equipment.

Now, officers would have to have SPU systems to help them deal with the massive inflow of operational data.

Special Forces aren't what people think, so the REAL dangerous guys would be SEAL equivalents or Ranger equivalents. (Wildcats, guys like that)

Special Forces guys would be trained for different things, and their augs would reflect that.

Now, one thing you would want is the ability to allow a soldier to have a reasonably normal life once he got out. Yes, cybertech can fix a lot, but how much are we looking at? Think about what happens to badly wounded and crippled vets now (I could tell you stories) as far as the government cares, now lets look at the massively uncaring government of the 2050's.

You don't want to leave behind a cripple stripped of cyberware who could see a street doc and hit the streets full of operational skills and blood in his eye. So you have to make sure he can exit the service.

There's a lot of other factors, but the biggest one is the simplest one...

Bioware would be more prevalent that cyberwear for a simple reason: Bioware heals. Bioware is less subject to field damage and any stray EM emissions. Synaptic Accellerators and a superadrenal gland makes you pretty badass, and wouldn't be that tough to remove.

Guys tweaked up to the max, Cyberzombies, would be rare, and very specific. What are you going to do with him between missions? How are you going to return him to duty? Is this a "use until destruction" troop?

And yeah, that Cyberzombie might be bad to the bone, but a single shot from a 2050+ era sniper rifle packing an APDSFSDU round will smash open his head and splatter the gooey stuff all over the place, and that is exactly the type of target they'll be looking for.

Oh, and because he's convinced he's the top of the line, and Billy Badass, he's going to suffer from egotism that will make him stupid. He's the baddest thing in the world, he's high tech, he's badass...

He's just taken a center-mass hit from a .50 GPHMG packing API rounds because some $50,000 Private has an itchy trigger finger and has been screamed at repeatedly for shooting at puffs of dust, rabbits, birds, shadows, and had a 10 minute firefight with a cardboard box last night.

You have to think long term, combined arms, post-service life, etc.

On the streets, against runners, soldiers are going to be toast.

On the battlefield, against soldier, runners are going to be toast.

I would agree with this but for one thing. In SR most of the fighting done post 2036 is done by Mercs and extrateritorial forces vs insurgeant forces. MET2000, Tsunami, Crimson Dagger are the primary mercs.

The only major international conflicts have been NAN vs. Tsimshian in the early 60s, Aztlan (with Aztechnology) vs. Yucutan in the late 50's early 60's, Japanese imperial forces in the philipines, and Russian forces vs. Yakut. Everything else is corp mercs vs. the downtroden.

An Aztechnology infantry trooper is a corp citizen and will be if he manages to retire. He makes his wages on the ware that he can bring to the unit. Same with MET2k and the independent merc corps. A combat infantry tour for a national soldier is just the first step into the private sector. It's like an acountant going to college. You know that they'll pack themselves with all the ware they can afford and it will be licensed by the employer. Add to that the fact that cyber is sooo much cheaper than bio and you're ending up with some serious veterans issues.

(except they're not really veterans. And that's one of the things that worries me about private paramilitary today. Ya, the VA sucks and it's really inefficient but it's better than the jack shit that Contractors are going to have when black watter downsizes them.)

All very true. Except he was asking about standing armies. PMC's and Corp armies are going to be radically different. Just reading Fields of Fire show that much with the PMC's.

Now, yeah, bioware is more expensive, but honestly, let us take a look at it from a nations Department of Defense.

Cybertech takes tons of cost after the layout. You have constant checks, time in a cyber-diagnostic rig to make sure all the systems are interfacing correctly, and as all of us who have done time in a Green Machine know, you give a soldier a piece of equipment, he'll figure out how to break it. You give troops a cybernetic arm, he's going to do all kinds of crazy stuff with it. And think about boring garrison time. Think of all the dumb things soldiers do nowadays during garrison, now add cybertech to the mix...

"Hey, here's a fun game! Lets..." next thing you know you have a squad full of trashed cyberlimbs, and three destroyed vehicles because they decided to play "Kill the vehicle!" while drunk.

Wired reflexes are just that, reflexes.

My reflexes are a decade old. A decade. I'm unwired. There's been instances of my reflexes kicking in and causing things to happen.

Now imagine having a platoon of guys with wired reflexes. These reflexes are specifically designed, then honed and trained to the edge.

You're asking for an accident to happen.

Not to mention that each of those guys need time in a diagnostic and calibration unit at least every week or every other week. Think of the cost, the downtime, all of that.

Grade 2 synaptic accelerators are 200,000 and will have biological symptoms, and they would be easier to keep track of.

Honestly, if I was on the military procurement, doctrine, and such boards, I would quickly prefer my troops to be on the bioware bandwagon rather than the cyberware express.

Why the hell would you give people cyberlimbs when powered combat armour exists and is pretty cheap?

Anyway, yeah, not much would change in 8 years in the military. War fighting capability in 2001 is better - we have better everything - but it hasn't really changed.

Powered combat armour would be used by main line combat troops (ie the ones in warzones) because yes it is cheep and easy to deploy. For civil use though cyberware may give your National Guard that extra bit of strength needed to do their day to day jobs. Why would a grunt need combat armour to fill sand bags. That is like using a bazooka to kill a fly, its overkill and a waste of resources.

Also cyberware would be used to put injured soldiers back on the front lines. Where war amputees were useless and effectively a drain on the military and government (I apologizes to any war amputees out there, I mean no offence), with cyberware they become fully functional soldiers again.

I'd have killed anyone I had to in order to get my shoulder and arm replaced with cyberwear instead of just walking around with severely damaged meat for the rest of my life.

Well, the odd thing is, combat armor would be used to sling sandbags, carry heavy pallets of food, stuff like that. The problem with power armor is a simple one: Power. how long does the powerpack run? Under full combat conditions, how long can it run? How about non-combat standby?

We could do the pros and cons for everything: Cyber VS Bio, Augmentation VS Armor, and know what we'd be arguing like?

The military procurement boards and their lobbyists.

And relax-your equipment was provided by the lowest bidder or the guy who gave the biggest bribe to the procurement officer (lowest price or not).

Which is why the modern firearms you got (finally) are all missing the bolts and recoil springs. (True story. Our unit upgraded from XM-15's to M-16's, and half the weapons didn't have bolts, and all of them were missing recoil springs)

You know, that would be an interesting shadowrun.

The PC's are contacted by some Major out of the Fort Lewis, who has the simple request:

"There was a supply 'glitch' a few weeks ago. It appears that the new rifles that were shipped to us were damaged. Here's a list of the serial numbers off the weapons we did receive, and here's the serial numbers of the weapons we were supposed to receive. Here's the tracking numbers on the cargo containers. Find out what happened to our weapons, and see if you can get a hold of the weapons and return them to us, or make sure they are destroyed."

--What's in it for us?

"How about time in the Madigan cyber diagnostic rig? I can even lay some APDS on you."

Hmmm... having a UCAS Major as a limited use contact could be worth doing the job right there.

I'd rather take the 'Ware. Assuming the UCAS military can supply me with Beta/Deltaware, I can jam a LOT of goodies into that lost Essence point.

Military Hermetics with Cerebral Boosters 3. Cybereyes 4 and a Pain Editor are worth the lost Magic point.

That's an interesting point we don't seem to have covered much so far - what about mages? They rather change the way wars are fought and won.

Firstly, take all our current methodologies and add "astral" to them. Astral security, astral patrols, astral recon, astral espionage, astral sabotage.. This is an entirely new angle that commanders have to consider.

Secondly, mages help smooth over those pesky non-killing parts. Manabolt snipers are fun, but most soldiers and commanders would kill for uniforms that always fit (Fashion) water that never goes bad (Clean Water) and Manna in the mess hall (Nutrition), not to mention magical healing.

You and I need to sit down one of these days and have a chat. You hit most of the points I wanted to touch on very succinctly. Especially as it pertains to the pros and cons of cyberware vs bioware and the non-combat advantages of PCA (Powered Combat Armor). Power seems to be a lot less of a concern in 2070 than we have now: remember those laser power packs? Seriously: enough power to fire ten weapon-grade laser pulses would run powered armor for a decent amount of time, especially if the combat sensors and weapon systems were dismounted entirely. Then again, those same sensors could be of tremendous benefit in disaster releif and Search And Rescue.

You did leave out a couple pertinent points it's worth mentioning: culturing on bioware. I know you're 2nd ed. trapped, but ShadowTech went into a lot of detail about what the diferences between standard (even Betaware) bioware and the lowest level of cultured 'ware was. Essentially, cultured bioware is created from the host's own cell line, and then implanted. The "grades" of cultured bioware essentially indicate how much the "stock" modifications are tailored to the person's genome. What that means though for "mustering out" is that there is no POINT financially speaking in removing cultured bioware systems because they can not in any meaningful way be recycled. Outside the original host, they're useless. Wired reflexes CAN be re-used, but then we're dealing with 2nd hand cyberware rules, and I do NOT see the standing first world militaries putting up with THAT. And what's the LEGAL market for 2nd hand Level 3 'Wires anyhow?

The point I read about Skillwires is well stated, but perhaps not strongly enough. The rules say you can have an active skill up to rating 4 - long service veteran. The problem is that you don't get the experience and intuition that goes with that long service. You're still a raw recruit. And you can never integrate the skills off the chip into your own knowhow - you still pay full karma and have to train normally. So while it could be useful, it's not a war winner especially with the costs and recovery times of implantation.

Another advantage of PCA is that you can get the "helmet cam" view cybereyes would have offered without the trouble of implantation. Remember that by this time, if you wanted to, you could get every single cyber enhancement in a pair of very nice and extremely expensive aviator sunglasses, at a fraction of the cost of implanted cybereyes. It would all have to do with how much the TRAINING cost the military. A meat fighter jock these days (last I heard a number) cust upwards of $2.6 million US, so with that kind of investment, beta grade cybereyes with all the goodies (especially image magnification, flare compensation and image enhancement to the max) would make sense, along with bio initiative boosts. Synthecardium to help with high G resistance.

Now one thing that the military could afford to spring for that would be an instant Return On Investment would be an implanted comlink and datajack. Add a sim module and harden the thing against EMP to the max. Now, it's nice to have a soldier with a built-in radio, but you're leaving out the other benefits:
Linguasofts - high rating Linguasofts makes operations around the globe simple, especially combined with apropriate cultural Knowsofts. The sim module means that operational training can be handled in full VR even while en route to a target. That benefit alone would be worth it's weight in platinum. And the final benefit, if combined with either an image link or a SimRig (TRUE after action evaluation, including emotion, with "what did I know then?") means you can record things, but more important you can feed the input to KnowSofts for recognition of faces, buildings, vehicle and weapon types, insignia, uniforms... you get the idea. A couple KnowSofts could turn every trooper into a de-facto intelligence operative. The sim module also allows a seamless HUD interface to be laid over reality, providing all kinds of useful information. If you were to add a nano biomonitor and you have a health report. Is this starting to sound like a certain series of first-person-shooter games? Add in Smartguns, Smartpacks, and intelligent armor materials that can report their condition and you have everything you need to keep the soldier situationally aware. And all of it can be manipulated with just a thought.

Now, this is where the networking comes in. Take a squad of these guys with SimRigs and the other goodies, and network them together with high end battle tac software (in SR4 it's just another program on any comlink with enough horsepower) and you get a BlueForce display on "radar" in the HUD with projections of know targets. Throw in the Orientation system, and you can lay in objectives, way points, and points of reference and interest. Now it IS a video game, and you can make every man's Mark One Optical Sensor into a part of the network.

Gotta have a sleep regulator. For the price... this is the military folks. Sleep is a luxury, and if the Army wanted you to have sleep, they would have issued it to you. Gastric Neurostimulator makes you immune to nausea, useful in harrowing rides NoE at night, or attacked by nausea causing incapacitants... or surrounded by putrefying flesh. Audio dampers mean hearing loss from repeated exposure to high decibel sound sources (i.e.: gunfire) is a thing of the past. Marines tasked with amphibious operations might have bio OR cyber air supplies installed: a lot of boys drown under the weight of their gear.

A lot of these are low essence, minimally invasive, and relatively cheap for the ROI they provide.

Now your special forces guys would also probably pick up things like enhanced articulation (which in the old fluff took care of bad knees destroyed by too many jumps and falls and twists), muscle toner and enhancement, and synthecardium (again). Higher end additions might include trauma dampers and platelet factories, reducing the severity of combat injuries. Orthoskin with insulative properties would help with extreme climates.

So without turning into RoboCop with limbs and other stuff, you now have unbelievably flexible and capable troopers. Add in PCA for high intensity conflict with the advanced hard armors available in 2080, and better high end weapons...

I heard an argument for the glacial pace of military procurement. This was extremely true in the Cold War, and the F/A-22A Raptor is the final ecample of this process: a long awaited, extremely capable and frighteningly expensive piece of hardware. But that trend is changing, and has not always been the case in the past. During WWII, the P-51 Mustang was conceived of, designed, tested and built within a couple years and turned out to be a war-winning weapon that didn't break the bank. But the recent F/A-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is an example of how things are changing back in the other direction. They are nearly as stealthy as the Raptor, not quite as fast, but even more network-enabled, and reportedly something like a third the cost. It was also conveived of designed and test flown in less time than the Advanced Tactical Fighter (the original name of the Raptor) took to have the design specs finalized. In the Navy, the SSN-21 Seawolf class of submarines was stopped after just three boats were comissioned. The design was begun in the 1980s as a response to the growing quality and exploding quantity of the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet. Seawolf's contract was awarded in 1989, and launched in 1995. She commissioned in 1997. The follow-on Virginia class was designed and built in under three years to meet a Congressional mandate, and they include all the latest upgrades. The class is already at five boats, with a sixth building and more ordered.

Another important point regarding procurement was that the information-centric battlefield we now know from the nightly news was a product of the 1980s arms buildup and development programs. Nearly every system in service now has roots in that decade. But the reason for the very long delays was that they were having to develop the ideas that lead to the tools to make the technology as they went along. Now that threshold has been reached, and new systems are appearing rapidly. The advent of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing have revolutionized the development of every kind of weapon. That is the main reason the JSF and Virginia class boats were developed so quickly: CAD CAM had come of age as a fully mature and completely realized technology that was in it's very infancy for the development of the B-2A Spirit Stealth Bomber. The number of conflicts of the 6th world would also have pushed the envelope of technological and doctrinal change much faster than peacetime or even Cold War procurement could have even contemplated. The fact that the current consumer electronics industry has for the first time ever completely overtaken and sprinted ahead of the military procurement and development system has recently promted military planners to reach out to civilian industry, and many off-the-shelf civilian parts are being drafted into military front line service. A wonderful example would be that in Iraq, many soldiers were using civilian FRS radios because they were lighter and the batteries lasted longer with comparable signal performance to their military equivalents.

The bottom line is that between 2072 and 2080, there is no reason that if the missile went up the megacorporations and remaining national government standing armies could not launch a crash rearmament program bringing forth an entirely new military paradigm in the process. Here is what I forsee:

A large focus on cyber warfare and unmanned weapon systems for all roles.
High intensity conflict being handled by heavily armored powered combat armor vice tanks. Modern anti-armor weapons are just too far ahead of defensive technology, so going smaller and more maneuverable is the only answer for survivability, and most of those powerful weapons can be maneuvered and employed by a PCA.
"Special Forces" seeing an increasingly high level of usage and expansion for everything less than main line combat operations. I laid out what I thought would be a comprehensive and highly effective package of 'ware that would be least invasive for the capability and the least debilitating once the soldier returned to civilian life (software's easy to unload). Regular soldiers could use non-implanted gear and 'trodes to get the same benefits, but SF troopers need to have their gear ready at all times, not subject to the need fo so-called (and unachievable) soldierproofing. The high level of training and adaptability of these soldiers means their usefulness to their patrons is across a very broad spectrum providing the highest possible ROI.
An increased emphasis on small numbers of highly mobile, extremely flexible units, be they meat or machine, to cover large fluid areas of responsibility instead of the large semi-fixed formations of the late 20th century.
Increasing dominance of information warfare - not necessarily the same as cyber warfare - both for intelligence and counterintelligence, but also for psychological purposes on both sides. Information is going to be the ultimate force multiplier on the 2080 battlefield, and she who possesses the most, best organized, most timely and most accurate intelligence will most likely prevail even in the face of a significant force imbalance if she can deny the same to her enemy.
A surge in counter-satellite technology, as more and more of the world comes to be dependent on constellations of orbiting eyes, ears, production centers, navigation bouys and weapons systems.

Sorry that went so long, but there was an awful lot of good stuff in the above posts I wanted to address.

Don't forget tailored symbiotes to keep your guys from getting knocked down by the flu. Food problems? Bah, we're talking military food. You can pack down 5K calories a meal if you need to. The MRE would just be more enhanced as far as calories goes.

That's one thing that a lot of people forget, the UCAS/CAS/Whatever military would have the full support that the average shadowrunner can only dream of.

Specially designed food to enable the troopers to live with platelet factories, symbiotes, all that good stuff.
Medical support for cyberware and bioware.
Constantly updated and refined programs.
Up to date maps.
On the fly intelligence thanks to the 2080 version of the modern digital battlefield initiative.
Equipment specially tailored for mission flexibility.

One of the big differences is, with the Shadowrun Second Cold War going on, governments would have to quickly move through the testing and field trial phase. They can't afford to be too behind SOTA, and the old days of the military being behind the curve would be over, you'd be returning to the days of the military having the best gear.

But the built in support network of a military cannot be underestimated. Where a Corp military is also concerned about the bottom line, a military force would be more interested in "how can we apply our forces and our force modifiers to every conceivable situation."

Heh, there's a lot of potential for shadowruns with the UCAS/CAS military. Military reps coming up to long term shadowrunners and saying: "How would you like a full diagnostic and coordination done up, along with a full medical check? We just want to see how the long term effects of the cyberware/bioware you have implanted have resulted in secondary effects." Or high end shadowrunners being approached by Corp or government militaries and asked to play OP4 so that the graders can see how the newest "augmentation loadout" does against what could best be termed as "irregular forces."

Which would draw the characters even deeper in shadows, when UCAS or NAN or CAS SOCOM offers them a job as "civilian consultants" on high end jobs.

Dammit, I did, and you caught it. Thanks.

*Kerenshara comes to a form of attention in her chair, her eyes bright as she raises her hand*
"Here, Sir!"

You know, while I'm thinking about it, the runners could get some serious shocks when teaming up with SOCOM operators.

One thing that the military stresses, even more nowadays than back in the bad old days of the Cold War, is education and training. Training training training.

How high would the operators skills be? These guys would have train with their smartlink disabled or "mis-aligned" in order to train to compensate for field damage, they'd be pulling full gear training operations with strict RoE's and target selections. They'd be able to use a frightening assortment of equipment, analyze an immense amount of information that might seem bewildering or overwhelming to a typical shadowrunner,

Just the option for a Shadowrunner to train up to mission specs with a SOCOM team would be an invaluable experience for the team.

Why hire a runner team?

OK, let us use an example...

The UCAS military has recently done an inventory, and discovered a whole bunch of ATM's have gone missing. They've pinpointed who sold them to what fixer, but beyond that, nobody knows where these 2nd Generation ATM's are. Sure, they are last decade's model, but the idea of those things hitting the streets of Seattle and then hitting Lone Star vehicles is not something that the UCAS wants to happen. Since if Lone Star can prove that they were ATM's sold by a UCAS officer, they can make some pretty hefty demands, the UCAS wants those things back, and badly. However, the General in charge of the ASP (Ammunition Supply Point) doesn't want this to hit his record, so he has to do it quietly.

Fort Lewis is the home of First Special Forces, and if IIRC, there is a pretty sizable Ranger detachment there too.

Now, these guys are state of the art, cutting edge, trained beyond belief stem winding mother-fraggers, but they know one thing...

The Urban Jungle is different, and has different rules.

SOCOM training specifies that when possible, get local guides/advisers.

Which means Shadowrunners.

Suddenly, the team has a backer that can hide the runners in a massive amount of people. In a place where seeing someone in uniform obvious cybered to the gills with the correct transponder chip/badge/etc isn't going to be an automatic stand out like he would be in Seattle.

The PC's would be getting a brief from Mr. Johnson unlike any they've ever gotten. They'd be asked questions, listened too attentively, and be asked their opinion on any operational plans being made. They'd be given weapons that couldn't be traced, state of the art ammunition, everything they'd need, so that they fit in with the team they are working with, and so that operational planning can stick with the fact that everyone has the same gear.

The group's rigger might be able to pilot one of those drek-hot vehicles he only sees on TV now and then, get to do a hot-drop into the middle of the barrens, deploying drones like crazy, and on split second standby.

And who knows what kind of deal the General is going to make with them. Maybe not cash, but access to the Fort Lewis Delta Clinic?

By defining the militaries of the Shadowrun game world, you open more adventures than you close.

That would depend on the shadowrunner. Those with genuine para-military training might have the right mindset and attitude. OK, so it's a rare thing, but that's how I wrote up Kerenshara originally. On the other hand, Grandpa was from that community, and she could field strip an AK97 blindfolded by the time she was 8. But it's an excellent point about how "unprofessional" most runners would be by military (and especially SOCOM) standards. We have a couple ex-SF troops in my current party, and we run a lot more like a SF team than not, and the three of us have wanted to brain the "technical" specialist a couple times, and the mage... best that he not know how close he's come to dying a couple times.

I like this idea. A lot. I need to mention it to my GM...


Now wouldn't THAT be a nice change?


"Letting the military/government get that good a profile on me?" *shudders* "Not that it isn't tempting, but..." ::Kerenshara

There was a dark hint that there would be a military sourcebook in the 20th anniversary lineup, possibly as a surprise product. And there's been a lot of things building to a head in the 6th world... flashpoints abound. And then there's the need for suplemental "contractors"... would we call the company "ShadowHawk International, Inc."?

Being current active-duty military, I do have something more serious to add now that the discussion has crossed over into practicalities.


Drones! You will see the militaries add a Rigger MOS. A single Rigger with a dozen or two LMG-armed Dobermans individually wields the same approximate firepower as a full platoon of normal riflemen. The difference is that the destruction of those drones does not severely impact the morale or fighting strength of the unit in question; plus, since there were no human casualties, the home nation isn't going to suffer the same kind of internal political pressure from its citizens to "bring our boys home" instead of dying on some distant battlefield.

This sort of transition is already happening right now. UAVs (commonly called "drones" by the civilian media) are being used by almost all branches of the US military right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the big Predators controlled by State-side operators under a Corps commander all the down to the itty-bitty UAVs (I forget their name) that an infantryman carries around in an assault pack and simply tosses up into the air whenever he needs an eye in the sky. By 2080, I'd think that the UCAS Army would have a drone section (probably company or company+ size) attached to every combat brigade with at least ten to twelve actual trained Riggers to operate their hardware.

Because powered combat armour is much, much cheaper than cyberlimbs - not in the least because you can get it back and then give it someone else.

Why the hell would you pay more for a worse solution that was not reusable? Of course realistically the solution to the dilemma you actually pose is just 'not' or 'get a drone to do it' giving someone cyberlimbs so they can.. fill sandbags faster is a solution in search of a problem.

Also, you wouldn't give people cyberware to get them back on the lines - these guys can grow you a new arm and graft it back on, and the books note that is almost always cheaper than cyberlimbs. Armed forces medical in 2080 would just replace whatever had got shot off.

I hadn't wanted to cover that, because once we start getting into drones, it just gets nasty.

Element level drone control would be taught in basic training. You'd be able to use the "lawn dart" drones by just pulling one out of your ruck, thumbing the switch, and throwing it into the air. It would probably do commands/datafeed via one of the encrypted channels of the element's com-link, allowing a squad to toss up a few drones and get 360 degree terrain mapping and overhead lookdown. Additionally, with the introduction of flatware motors and high capacity batteries, that little "lawn dart" drone could probably stay airborne for up to 15 minutes as well as have some manueverability.

Even in basic training, people would learn the basics of commanding drones. Drones would be considered part of the battlefield kit, since the level of minaturization by 2080 would make it so that even a small drone the size of a big energy drink would be invaluable on the battlefield. They'd also have the ability to ride "sidecar" on a rigger operated drone to be able to coordinate with the drone controller, and each squad and/or team (section or platoon at least) would have at least one person trained in drone operation who the rigger some 100+ miles away could "hand off" control of the drone too.

And if the stuff coming out of DARPA is taken through the logical progression steps, the self-healing mine fields, the autonomous "learning" mine fields, the self-propelled "dog brain" mortar drone, and all that other stuff would be fielded ASAP.

Which means, that camoflauge and signature/emission lowering would be vital to a squad/team's life.



Maybe, maybe not.

Some people might not take to regeneration. THere's been examples of that in the books. And gunshot/shrapnel injuries are weird. Sometimes it can be perfectly fine, apparently nothing wrong with the limb medically, it just doesn't work right any more. Who knows, maybe if the limb was amputated and regrown, the limb would still have the problem. What is the procedure then?

I found that with the Canadian Forces that if the Liberals are in power the Military got less funding but better equipment. When the Conservatives are in power the Military got more funding but crappier equipment. The best situation is when a Liberal government starts a purchase of a good piece of kit and then the Conservatives come in and increase the order size.

My favorite pieces of American Military Technology are 20 years old before they hit mass production. Why?
Because the idea had to be good enough to last through many administrations. Though the reasons may be the same being that most American administrations have been 8 years lately...

BlueMax

This exact question came up at a pannel of experts recently at a convention, and there is one thing that was pointed out: if a drone of any kind is capable of in-flight (on mission) update, then it is hackable. You would never want to rely on fully autonomous unsupported drones for that reason. These days, the uplinks are pretty secure, but in 2070 that's not the case. So in addition to your rigger brigade attachment, remember to have dedicated cybercombat specialists (white hats) to keep their (and the whole unit's) communications secure. Imagine what an ill intentioned hacker could do if they got full admin access to a combat force's BlueForce trackers?

I think a lot of people are missing an awful lot here. What are the social dynamics. It's practically feudalism of sorts. I think especially karenshara gets it wrong on that score. Also, evo is probably going to look a lot different than aztechnology.

And the dynamics here strike me as being much more akin to the politics of the Napoleonic era. There are the powers that be... the lords (corp brass, gov brass, etc). Each one with their own little feudal domain.

There is a large pool of cheap undocumented people, who would kill (literally) for a shot at a SIN, training and a better life than eating out of the gutter and not looking the wrong way at the local gang. There very much is a sense of there is the 'quality' and the 'masses'.

A low life style is only 24k. Consider that a base figure for junior enlisted (and don't think that's their paycheck... a good bit of that could be considered paid in the form of a roof, bed, and chow). Your senior enlisted grades going up towards middle lifestyle. And again I'm considering those figures burdened rates (not final paycheck, but how much each one really costs the employer).

I agree, powered armor is a lot cheaper in the long run... it doesn't require cutting perfectly good body parts off your grunts. Doesn't require an army of cybertechs in their own right to maintain it. And on mustering out, it's easy to collect and reissue. Also, people are forgetting combat drugs and even nanites (they don't need a hive).

With that kind of cost figure... I can't see anything more than 2nd hand skillwires (bulk order cheap stuff) maybe making the cut. Especially, if one of the rewards for surviving service is a chance at corp citizenship and a low level job (in which case, the corp can continue to use economy of scale and skillwires in the workforce).


Mind you specialists are specialists... a dedicated drone rigger has it's roles. But it's akin to the role a trained fighter pilot plays today.

For those who have proved usefull and survived a bit... and are proven worthwhile... yeah I can see enhanced cybertech... no bioware unless it's cheap or the grunt is willing to pay the cost difference out of pocket though. (or as a reward for volunteering for something... why pay a shadowrunner all the time). A single cyberlimb is a pretty good deal if you think about it... especially secondhand. It has a lot of freebie 'capacity' where it's trivial to install more upgrades in the future as needed, or recover them later. (EG: a nanohive, or military internal commlink... just unplug it on mustering out and install into another limb). The problem w/ limbs for general issue is basic ones are barely as good as you can get w/ just a little bit of basic physical conditions (basic 3 stats), and customized w/ higher stats are too expensive.

Though I can see a role for jarhead purpose grown cyborgs as specialized pilots for heavy vehicles. I view that as simply an extension of replacing autopilot softwares w/ slightly more flexible meat/metal hybrids provided the costs can be contained (do you really want riggers and all the issues they bring such as commsec, the drone suddenly 'turning' against you and the like which come w/ cyberwarfare?).

Biodrones given some time to develop look promising. The biodrone swarms are kinda cute.

The Ma Duece.

How long has she been in service, virtually unchanged? A century?

Probably all that's been added to it in SR is a smartlink, and better recoil compensation.

The M2A5 GPHMG.

Reach out and touch a bunch of people and stuff today!

Yeah, except in shadowrun you can make unhackable links pretty easily. For example, you could make a 1 time pad and a hash table for orders, then transmit it in morse code. Or just have a billion agents crawling over your infrastructure.

No you can't Cthulhu...

That's 'plot encryption....
If it was that easy to do unbreakable links... everyone would have them.

Best you can do is have the link continually reencrypt itself w/ dynamic encryption eating up an active program slot. And even there there's always a shot that someone breaks the opposed check.

Rather than clutter this thread, I heavily suggest you scan back through the good dozen threads in the past on this subject. (especially the problems which crop up w/ one time pads... especially when comms aren't guaranteed such as in the presence of jamming).

You can't make that decision, you're only a grunt... No offense...

Sign me Up...

Social dynamics? Enlighten me. Because I read the rest of your post and I'm not sure what we're discussing. Not trying to be a bitch or argumenative, I just want to understand the comment.


If this is what you're meaning, I think you misunderstand something critical to modern warfare, and which will become more and more vital as time moves foward.

A modern army needs a certain number of warm bodies, sure, but modern weapons are becoming increasingly technical to operate. Previous weapons were made to be soldier proof - which is to say durable to a fault and so easy to use, a caveman could do it^®. But we are starting to see today in development the Future Warrior^TM system, which is the first crude attempts at Shadowrun style equipment. Advanced armor, sensors, computerized networking, targeting, tracking, communications and power. The army of the future doesn't just need warm boddies. They need WELL EDUCATED warm boddies, because they can't afford to take the time to make up for the lack of basic education. This is not a conscript army dressed up in colors and told to point the boom boom stick with the pointy end toward the guys in different colors. If all somebody is motivated by is a low lifestyle with a shot at medium some day and a legitimate SiN, I guarantee that person doesn't have the baseline skills needed for a late 21st century infantryman. And that's just light infantry. You plan to put a Seatle 'plex slum graduate in PCA?! The armies of the future have to compete for technically qualified aplicants with the corps' various divisions, and I guarantee that in a time where patriotism is not what it was, the job where you could get killed will come in a distant second place, especially when factoring in the pay.


The drugs are still experimental, and have some horrific side effects. Berzerker uneducated conscript troops with assault rifles are meat against properly trained and equipped un-enhanced troops. As for nanites without a hive, remember they decay, and they're expensive to replenish. You can't train with the things like you're going to fight with them because you can't afford to keep them up in peacetime.


Can you explain to me why the military, anybody's future military, would choose to use second hand 'ware for their troops? Or was this a reference to getting the stuff back and recycling it after retirement?


And do you think these specialists will come from the uneducated warm bodies flooding the underclass of the 'plexes? These people, including the support technicians who FIX the late 21st century gear, have to be better educated than anybody else. Period. Now, the better pay that would go with these jobs would help attract away from the corps, due either to being "behind the lines" in the case of remote rigging or repair, or more chance to actually see action when talking about a fighter jock.

Essentially, you're describing the US Military of the 1950s and the 1980s, where the Army was a way to get ahead, get an education, start a family, get a good line on your resume, and get off the streets (1980s). While it's still attractive in 2080, those people won't pass the tests for the good jobs. They will wind up as the menial hands where a drone can't do the job better, faster and cheaper. Cooking is automated. Cleaning is automated. Construction is mechanized and done by highly educated people with high tech gear. An army's single biggest recurring expense is personnel. Drones are so much cheaper for "mindless" jobs than people over time, especially when factoring in basic training costs and benefits.

Look how much the armies of the 20th century changed between the inter-war period just prior to WWII and today. How much do you think they will change in the NEXT seventy years? Education and training have become ever more important accross the board. Recruiting the right talent for the front lines will be one of the biggest challenges faced, and simply scraping up conscripts, even if they are volunteers, is neither cost nor combat effective.

OK, let's dispel a rumor that a lot of civilians still seem to have.

The days of the dumbass 75 IQ infantryman are OVER and have been since the late 1980's.

Today's infantry has a wide variety of skills, from computing and calling in indirect fire, to intelligence gathering, to working with the digital battlefield, to guiding and using drones (real honest to god drones), using highly advanced laser targeting and guidance systems, and many many other skills.

Your average infantryman, by the time they have 4 years in service, usually has an AA and is working on his BA or BS with the stress of education being hammered down on them from the moment of enlistment ("Anyone who doesn't sign up for the GI Bill go stand over there, and I'm going to come over there and show you how stupid you really are!" and "If you want your E-5 rank, you need to take XXXXX classes") till they get out, then even after.

Now, drugs are NOT an option. That would be only for conscript and "use until destruction" troops.

The average infantryman costs the US government, right now, over $100,000 to train, not counting facility upkeep for the training areas. THat's not counting if they need "remedial training" which EVERYONE will need, since your average Shadowrun citizen is actually little more than iconoliterate. (Source: Virtual Realities 2 and Corporate Shadowfiles)

Second hand wires aren't going to be used. How much damage have they taken? How much mod do they need? How old are they? How much refit do they need? Second hand gear has a higher chance of being blown out in just regular use. I used to put my body through amazing paces during the Urban Combat Course and the Teamwork Task Training. A set of second-hand gear would fail just during training, where new gear would not.

MOS specialization is going to be more intense, with Chrome and Bioware added after the currently existing phases, and a new phase afterwards to get the soldier used to those items.

You say it is more like feudalism, but even in the Napoleanic Era and Medieval Germany, the guy with the best and the most equipment is the one who won. Do you think for one hot second that some small NAN nation isn't going to make sure that the small pool of soldiers they have are going to be the best they can field.

Cloning has psychological effects beyond what a normal citizen would encounter. When you get hit, you EXPECT trauma. The scars remind you, every fragging day, how you jumped left when you should have jumped right, or how you stuck your elbow out a little too far that day with the sniper. Scars are actually good for you, as they remind you of how it happened, and pushes you to go further. Now, if you get cloned, then you start to have psychological issues. Was I really hit? Is that really my arm? How much of me has been replaced?

So either you clone, and leave the ragged scars, or you go with cybernetic enhancement with a synth-skin covering. But then you also get the cyber-denial psychosis with that. It's not my arm. It's plotting against me. It's alive...

Drugs? Burn out the soldier too quick, and make him useless on the battlefield. ALl the experiments have shown that to date. From the BZ tests of Vietnam, the Methamphetamine tests of WW-II and Korea, and the Force XXI tests, all them show that psychosis comes too quick.

And you know who the soldiers go after? Not the enemy. Not civilians. They go at each other.

Second hand ware? Not smart. You're asking for a bigger headache than you are solving the problem.

Better to buy in bulk, build the doctrine, and go forward with it.

Call it... Force XXII

Very Very Well Put...
Semper Fidelis...

Rusted Scrap Metal,
What about the world of Shadowrun? No tax base, fewer bases, lower patriotism, less citizens. Or should your post apply to corporations? In which case I would still question it as Corporations have oodles of people willing to do the worst work to get out of Z zones.
I don't think it would be wise from anyone here to question the IQ of an infantrymen. However, one can question his supply chain, leaders, and so on.

BlueMax
/or why he didnt have the chutzpa to be a 311
//me ducks
///and runs for cover

OK, tax base.

Don't be fooled. They aren't raking in the cash like they used to, but they still have the money to maintain their standing military. Even the smallest military is going to be well funded. That's one reason for the military being so small (Flavor text from the Ex-UCAS officer archetype from Sprawl Sites) is the expense of maintaining the small "rapid deployment force" that is the eventual way the world of Shadowrun had to head. Don't forget, there was still a MASSIVE amount of bases, since the 1991-1997 drawdown of bases never happened in the Shadowrun world.

When NAN and the CAS formed, those bases didn't just vanish. Sure, many of the bases were probably "eco-friendlied", but I doubt that any of those emerging nations discarded the bases during the years that everything was fresh, and they damn well didn't just close them once things settled down. To do so would be telling your neighbors that you've voluntarily weakened yourself.

That means each base would be even more critical. Probably each one being a specific training area, and carrying 2-12 Rapid Deployment Brigades. There wouldn't be seperated by service bases, they'd be combined. Which means there would be Army and Air Force on a Naval base, and vice versa.

Lower patriotism? I wouldn't go that far. You'll always have people who think of their country and get stars in their eyes, who are willing to go out and do the job. The fact that there are less citizens and less patriotism doesn't change the fact that many families think of it as a point of pride that they've been in the military at EVERY generation.

As far as funding it goes, the real life Soviet Union showed us just how far a nation will go to keep their military funded.

Absolutely. Hostile takeover in the SR universe has a whole different meaning.

Those are disposable troops. Cannon fodder whos purpose is little more than soak up the ordinance of the enemy before they die. Cannon fodder you can give an AK-97 to, take there with a truck, and say "Go thataway." But the people out of the Z-Zones would have to be educated, then worked on, meaning that they are even more valuable and represent an even larger investment.

Oh, God, think of supply...

Data processing units, chipjacks, be able to keep track of where everything is, when it is coming in, what condition it is in...

Man, the first thing someone would recover from a gutshot supply sergeant would be the chip in his jack.

First off I am so downloading this topic and storing it on my hard drive! You guys have an awesome idea of what the armies of SR 2080 would look like.

The one thing that was neglected though was the mage angle of things. I priced out what I think a "starter" package for a Military mage would be and here's what I got:

Synaptic Booster, Pain Editor, Cybereyes (rating 3 w/ Lowlight, Thermo, Flare Comp, Vision Enhance 3, Vision Mag, Eye light, and Protective Covers) for a total cost of 130,100 ... and that is with standard grade cybereyes. Change the cyber to alpha grade and you can add in a datajack, but costs 9,100 more. Now figure out what a load out with Delta grade 'ware might encompass, and shudder

As for spell selection... Stunball and Stunbolt would be, IMO, taught to every single mage because they are too damn useful*, low drain**, and can be used in situations where you need to capture someone or want to avoid collateral damage.


* = elementals and other paracritters with armor come to mind
** = discounting the stupid revised rules for direct combat spells

Don't forget that the final of AIT for a mage might be Grade Zero initiation.

After all, they are part of a group.

True.

Also, I forgot to add in that I also think that mages would be taught heal and cure disease. This turns every mage into a field medic.

Zero grade disapeared in SR4...