The following stats and gear are for in conflict grunts, weapons are left up to the GM to decide as each corp and nation have there preferred firearms. But I see most military units using some type of medium/heavy caliber pistol, while using a very standard .223(5.56x45mm NATO) rifle. The personnel listed below are more of the Army grunts. I don't have mages or shamans in there because I believe they would be put in there own corps and be assigned on a need to need bases, I'll be adding those later. As for the adepts they are easy enough, just give said person a magic of six with adjustments as needed, and assign powers. The format goes base attributes, karma, dice pool, skills, then specialist skills, gear and specialist gear.

If there's anything videogames have taught me, it's that the higher a soldier ranks, the tougher his stats are. President Bush probably wears a suit of power armor and has Body 9 and Rifles 8.

Not only that, but he's in a tank while in the power armor... a power armor sized tank...

Na, Pres Bush would just hide him self in some under ground bunker, nothing can get him there.

Ok, I didn't mean to hijack the thread from the first post (though, go me; that's a rare feat), but seriously, higher rank does not mean higher stats. Assuming a general level of competence, the guys in command will likely be smarter and more experienced, but they won't necessarily be the strongest, fittest, or best shots. That mentality is rather silly, and something you really only expect to see in equally silly games.

Thats what I did with these ones, some of my prior troops where kinda funky as they had huge ass physical stats, I changed that around a bit except with the Sergeant 1st Class. I decided to only go up to E-6 because if I went all the way to E-9 there would be a couple of repeats, and that take up a lot of space. And as for the progress of the other soldiers stats, the combat mages should be done in a day or so.

Military personnel are not usually trained in Pistol. Officers are the exception, of course, but even then the training is relatively minimal.

they often are at E-7 and above, as well. and officers have to qual on their pistols as often as we grunt types qual on our rifles (whether or not that actually happens, i don't know; i just know what's supposed to happen).

I would add that Assault Rifles would be more appropriate than Rifles. Unless the soldier in question is a sniper. And SMG seems unnecessary unless you are a pilot, or some other vocation that doesn't involve direct frontline combat. If so, I'll simply use SMG and no Rifle skill.

Yeah, switch out Rifles for Assualt Rifles. I don't know myself, but is the average grunt even trained on SMG's during basic or on active? They seem to just go for a carbine like the M4 if they want something that's a bit smaller/more compact.

Also, are soldiers today given any training on using bayonets? Fairly archaic, but a proven tried and tested method, so I'm not too sure. If they are then I might recommend putting a point into the Polearms skill for it. And I didn't see any Throwing Weapons up there, so you might want to consider that, possibly specialising in grenades, if you want them to be able to use anything other than rifle launched mini-grenades.

Hero probably uses a house rule that all Rifles, including ARs, use the Rifles skill, and that's why the Rifles skill is there. SMG is certainly unneccessary for most, especially since SMGs are being phased out in military use. The Pistols skill was already commented on -- and note that there are no grades above E-6 on the table, so it's very unlikely that they'd have the skill. MPs and some other units might be an exception, but these would still probably have the long-arm skill (ARs in canon, probably Rs in the above table) higher than the Pistols skill.

The Edged and Brawl skills seem unneccessarily high.

I have made some amendments to the soldiers above, like rifles to assualt rifles and pistol skill reduction. I have also added Sniper Specialist to the specialist skill and gear table.

It depends on the carbine -- the SEALs prefer the quality of the HK series, so any future carbine system will have a pretty impressive standard to meet.

-Siege

Concerning attributes, most troops of the same "quality level" (same unit, mostly) will have similar attributes; Medics/electronics officers/intelligence officers might have a slightly higher INT, though. Ofcourse, Specforce units would probably have much higher stats (especially Willpower and Body) than base-level grunts, due to intense selection processes.

Officers should have similar stats to privates, and better skills - especially social/tactical ones (like Leadership (military), Ettiquette (Military and Small Unit Tactics) that a good officer should have (but not all officers are good at what they do, especially in third-world armies and/or low-grade units and desk officers). NCOs in combat units could have better combat related skills than their less-experienced comrades, and higher etiquette(military).

Career soldiers (who sign long-term service contracts with the military) are far more likely to have cyber than short-term conscripts, especially smartlinks, eye/ear mods and comm headware.

I usually see Corp militaries as very different than Government forces: Corporates usually don't fight long, strategic-scale all-out wars (Aztlan being a very notable exception here), as it's VERY bad to their bottom line - if they'll need something at that scale, they'll bribe/blackmail/manipulate a government to do the dirst, expensive job for them. Corporate shouldn't have too many big-ass tanks and strategic assets (big strategic bombers, lots of ICBMs, large aircraft carriers, battlecruisers, any nuke abouve the small tactical level), but would have far better fast-response infantry and other tactical-scale forces than any government, especially since most of them manufacture their own cyberware and have their own clinics, not to mention virtually life-long service contracts and access to employee education from a very young age. I view them as the truely "future" military forces - small, flexible, easily deployed anywhere the Corp needs them, highly trained, with SOTA equipment and with combat drugs to fill any niche not already filled by cyber/bio.

Just my 2

Sorry Fortune, changed the name.

The Attributes of the Sergeants are still too high IMNSHO. I won't wade through into the gear, because I use so many house rules in that section.

Your sniper MOS should have the knowledge skill Physics (ballistics).

I am having some trouble on how to deal with the Mages and Shamans, I was thinking of initiating them after a certain point, but cant choose between corporal and sergeant. If I did it around the rank or corporal the said soldier would have enough Karma to do so, but the issue comes up wether a corporal has been in the armed forces long enough to be an initiate in the armed force initiatory group. Any input on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

There's no reason to progress abilities on rank. Currently, soldiers are not promoted only due to increased skill, but also due to time spent in, and overall good work.

Mages and shamans shouldn't initiate at a set rank, it's not like they go "Congrats on your promotion, we'll see you in the lodge at 0800."

Assigning stats to ranks just seems a little...off.

I don't see most military magicians as initiates; Initiation is difficult, time consuming and possible dangerours (especially with ordeals concerned), and should be mostly in the realm of either SpecForce mages or long-term career ones (and even then, with nothing to do with rank, but with magical "potential" and how much the mage is favored by the corp/higher ranked officers).

Generally, most military magicians would be hermetic; Some shamans would fit will as well, especially ones following totems such as Lion, Wolf or Dog (or, in some places, Ant, Roach or termite ), that are team workers rather than loners and fit well to combat.

My Awakened tend to be officers unless they Awakened after they enlisted.

My take is that they are kind of like doctors, very rare. I think they are rarer than a doctor or even an normal officer so they get officer rank. Even the adepts and sorcerers.

Even more problems:

Some SR nations still have conscript armies according to canon. There you have the classical "stupid drunken seargeant & highly intelligent private" combo.

Not all nations train soldiers in the same skills. I.e

Quite a few continental armies don't teach bayonet anymore but everybody gets an introduction to LAWS and GPMG

Quite a few nations got rid of machine pistols in favor of folding stock assault rifles and don't teach MPi any more

Skills should include more specialisations. Training with your nations assault rifle does not give you equal skill with all assault rifles

Some basic survival skills might come in handy


Michael

Also, shouldn't these guys have some basic Biotech skills? Basic training does teach first aid, at least it did for my Sis, my dad, and most of my buddies in the infantry

Okay, from the good ole days, my basics (German BW, first 6 weeks):

Rifle / Assault rifle (mostly single round, long range fire) 1-3
Biotech/First Aid (rather serious 3 days course) 1/2
Etiquette/Military (Marching, greeting etc) 2
Athletics/Hiking (10-30km marches w/equipment) 3
Stealth/Hiding (Elementary use of camo, camo nets etc) 1/2
Pistol (Elementary target shooting, 25m) 1-2
Tactics (Basic squad / platoon tactics) 1
Survival/Cont. Europe (Placing tents, field sanitation etc) 1

For the next six weeks infantry adds

Heavy Weapons: GPMG 1/2
Launch Weapons/Panzerfaust 1/2
Launch Weapons/Granatpistole (Think M79 Blopper) 1/2
Rifle / Assault Rifle 2-4
Unarmed Combat 1-2

From there on you go into specializations for the remaining 12 month, including 2 large scale (multi division sized) field exercises (2 weeks) and 2-4 small (Batallion/Brigade) ones (2-5 days) and a number of short company ones (12-36 hours)

The attributes make sense if you assume that the guy's in a well trained volunteer army, but I imagine a conscript army would take just about anyone who could see straight and could do the hiking. The buck sergeant stats seem a bit high(bod 5? int 4?).
I'm sure among military lifers there'd be a couple guys with cyber hands/feet/eyes. You know, "Sorry about your eye/hand/foot, re-enlist and we'll replace that for ya."
Though it would be a pain to be in some god-forsaken third world country at the bottom of a muddy foxhole and half to clean the dirt off your cybereyes so you can see...

Which bring is why I think that higher grade cyber is used for any lifers, not basic cyber, at least alpha or with surgery edges.

The maintanance problems and the reliability of cyberware in the kind of extreme environments that soldiers inevitably go through is not condusive for cyberware. In fact, I think reliability is the key issue that military planners will keep in mind, rather than how much faster or stronger a soldier can be. You can be damn fast but you are useless if your cyber's broke.

To make an analogy: Commando vs world class athlete. Yes, a Olympic athlete can sprint 100m under 10s or run a marathon in record time but a commando can clock timings nearly as good but under conditions far worse.

The point I'm trying to make is that cyber ware for soldiers must function under any condition.

Just like the M-16 rifle.

-Siege

>Spell Flingers and Summoners
I am thinking of treating mages and shamans like specialist soldiers, they go through all the same training as the normal enlisted man, but get additional training in the magical arts. So I would just add in some skills and leave it at that, but I do need to work on there spell list, figure a general one for the mages and a separate one for the shamans.

>Cyber/Bioware Issues
I can probably see some of the soldiers going to get some wares out of pocket like boosted one or a smartlink 1 or 2. Both are fairly inexpensive and are not effected harsh outside envronments like cyberhands, feet, limbs.

Questions/thought on cyber&soldier:


a)What is "Speedware" good for in a soldier?

It creates a massiv problem after the soldier is discharged
It does not help against the sniper
It does not help against the initial ambush
Speedware makes you "twitchy" and prone to overreaktion
=>It's either with a trigger or a lot of blue-on-blue happens out of combat
=> It takes some time to activate in a combat situation


So "Speedware" has IMHO little use in the first seconds of a fight. And next to none thereafter (Mil. Combat is not about "fastest reflexes win")

b)What cyber/bio might be useful?

Stuff that causes no / minimal problems after GI Joe/Schütze Arsch/Le Grognard... becomes a civilian

Resonably cheap stuff
Cheap is relative. A well-trained soldier is a huge investment even IRL.


Smartgun:

If you see only your "dot/target marker" I'd say yes(Are smartguns "company proof"?). Learn to shoot "clean" than get a smartgun. Not for the +1 game bonus but because you can't loose the smartgoogles and there's no cable that can (and will) be caught in trees, break etc

Retinal mods:

Given the savings in batteries/lost NightVision glasses/supply demands I could see the LowLight and AntiGlare mods. Again mostly because they can't be lost and should be very sturdy

Chipjack+ImageLink:

For access to map data. Specially if special "military" chips exists that can be erased by a mental command or improper removal from the slot. And a chip is easier to swallow/dispose than a paper map.

DataJack:

Ja! Everybody should have one (maybe an (re)enlistment bonus?) since it will allow control of external systems without buttons etc.


For SpecForce add:

Synthicardum(sp?) for the boni to Athletics (read: Better cardi-vascular condition)

Digestive Expansion (Less food to carry)

Orthoskin II for the basic protection bonus (against fragments etc)


Michael

Well I did not get the Mages and Shamans one like I wanted too, but here are some special forces soldiers. These are the equivalent of the Rangers in are current day armed forces. The special forces units below are just the normal soldier with stat of a higher ranking soldier, and some more skills added from the specialist table. I read up on the Army Rangers and at the lowest rank they have hella lot of skills like wilderness survival and navigation skills. Usually the lowest rankers usually man the light to heavy support weapons, so I add heavy weapons into the mix. There are not alot of skill differences between the ranks in the major skill, but minor increase in the not so often used skills. Remember I based these of the US Army Rangers, so they will have alot of skills some would not think a special forces soldier would have.