How large are the CAS/UCAS/NAN/Atzlan armies in 2070, and how are they armed/equiped/enhanced? Do you picture them as a relatively small, elite force, or are they huge hordes of mostly expendable nobodies?

My take is that they would have large numbers of expendable cannon fodder in the infantry. They would have very little in the way of personal enhancements, but would be very well equiped. (Why spend money implanting a smartlink in PVT Snuffy when it's cheaper to give him smart goggles, and when you can get the goggles back at the end of his service agreement? And if they're going back into the civilian sector, how deadly do you want them to be?)

Cyberware could then be offered to more senior soldiers as re-enlistment encentives. (Re-up for 5 years and we'll throw in your choice of Wired Reflexes or Bone Lacing!)

What do you think the equipment list would look like for a light infantry squad?

They actually use almost the opposite logic in Cyberpunk 2020..
..It's better to armour and upgrade a soldier, so you don't waste the training and skills.

Otherwise, you might as well grab some junkies, put them in a uniform, give them a gun and point them at the target !!


I like the enlist for 'x' years and get some goodies idea.


With the biodrone's from Augmentation, maybe you'd just have flesh puppets as shock troops to soak up the bullets and 'proper' troops to clean up ??


Just my thruppence..

I'd wager that there wouldn't be much in the way of infantry in 2070. Most of the battles would be fought with drones and long range weapons. I'd wager that germ warfare and biological weapons and the lack of control on them would make sending a swarm of soldiers at a target a bad idea. I'd guess that unless the army is heavy into magic that all the soldiers would be very heavily cybered. A army that is big into magic would have lots of summoners to bring in spirits that would act like drones and high level initiates that relied on ritual sorcery to nuke targets rather than be up close to cast spells.

regular drones are 10 times cheaper than biodrones and imo more effective. i wouldn't expect to see biodrones in military use as grunts anytime soon.

As far as training goes....that's what Infantry soilders do every week while not deployed. Soilders make X amount of money a month, depending on rank and time in service no matter if you have them sitting on thier ass or training, and in my experince the Army tends to do it's best to get it's money's worth out of it's troops by repeated drilling day in and day out while in between deployments.

So the idea of cybering up soilders to avoid the cost of training seems silly to me because then the goverment would be dropping cash on all this cyber in addition to dropping cash on paying thier troops. To me I would think they spend as much time as they can training troops while not actively using them on deployments and that they only equip soilders with cyber and gear that they can recycle through the ranks whenever a soilders decided to get out of the service or a soilder transfers units, or even dies.

Military units are not all funded equally and the ones that do have the cash to buy the cool kid toys make sure thoose toys stay within that unit. So when Pvt Joe Snuffy gets transffered from one military base to another he has to give up all of his equipment, pack all his personal belongings in his travel bags, and then get reassigned new gear by what ever unit he got transfered to.

As far as actual cyberware goes I would wager that regardless of the tech available militaries will still be ran by red tape and that even reenlistment cyber ware recievers will be added to a long back list of people waiting for thier cyberware.

hell I was in the service not to long ago and the waiting list for corrective laser eye surgery was about 5 years long......so I would wager that in 2070 the waiting list for free bone lacing and wired reflexes would be just as long for thoose that want it.

The other thing I learned while in the service though is that despite all the red tape, there is a wavier for every thing, so if the soilder in question has the right people signing off on the right paper work waiting lists can get side stepped and what not.

The quality of equipment and training of infantry would depended on the country, both how wealthy, and social values, like it is now. For example, Aztlan might have hordes of cannon fodder and a few elite troops, while the UCAS might have fewer but better trained regulars.
I'd expect a regular, reasonably well trained infantryman to be equipped with a smartlink, radio, assault rifle, body armor, and a few grenades. The trade of a longer stint in the military in exchange for cyber is also a good idea.

As for infantry becoming outdated, infantry never become outdated. Doubtless, Shadowrun infantry would be quite different from what we think of, but they'd still be there. Infantry are critical for urban warfare, which would probably be the dominant form of warfare in 2070.

edit: I agree with above post about the waiting list though.

For the CAS/UCAS, I see fewer and slightly better trained/better paid Infantry. Today, an American Solder in a combat MOS and 6 years in can triple his salary by going to work for Blackwater or another security contractor. The Army/Marines spend a bucket load of money training soldiers. They are quickly learning that it's a bad idea to have all of that initial investment last barely more than half a decade. Thus, I see enlistment contract terms getting longer (prob closer to 10 years), the pay being better, the benefits being even better than they are now, and the over-all numbers of combat arms soldiers decreasing.

Regular light infantry will be almost completely replaced with Mechanized units. You'll see Armor, Drone, Artillery, and Air support all the way down at the Company level. Your regular light-infantry roles will be taken over by "Ranger-esque" forces. Individual soldiers will be relatively well equipped and well trained...probably a spot better than they are today. The UCAS/CAS military won't be planning on fighting an extended war in eastern europe or conducting occupation operations in a middle eastern country, so the need for massive divisions of infantry and armor is no longer there. Border defense and small operations in allied countries will be the name of the game.

Oh, and I don't think you'd see implanted cyberware/bioware anywhere outside of the Special Forces community.

...in past editions I had Smartlinks and Datajacks being pretty much the only 'ware a "regular" soldier would ever get (maybe a chipjack). Specialised commandos may have a bit more such as sensory mods or maybe even Boosted Reflexes. The one piece of 'ware that would be a little more common is the VCR (Drone Riggers and pilots).

Bioware, because of the invasiveness and high cost, would be pretty much out of the question with maybe the exception of certain special covert ops agents.

In 2070 though a lot of the headware can now be done though external means such as visors, contacts, & earbuds. Helmets could include a Trode mesh in the lining which would to link a wireless command matrix for display of tactical data on the helmet's visor.

Kingmaker touches upon a great truth of the military: the infantry never get replaced. Cavalry was supposed to eliminate the Infantry, then the advent of cars and tanks, then air power...

Drones and magic and cyber-elites... they all have their place, but Pvt Snuffy with his rifle will still eat dirt.

As for what he looks like: That's a more complex problem, as has been touched on.

Extrapolating from the equipment lists in the book, Pvt Snuffy wears an Armored Uniform (an Armor Jacket, essentially) and a helmet. He carries an Assault Rifle (probably the M16 knock off or the AK knock off, militaries are very traditional that way) one guy in the squad carries the grenade launcher, one guy carries a LMG. (Nato Doctrine, assumed). Their platoon will possibly include an attached mortar or rocket launcher team, a HMG team (possibly at the FOB), and/or sniper or mage support teams.

I suspect, barring instituitionalized racism, that Orks will be very common in the ranks, particularly in infantry units.

Cyber is likely to be a reinlistment option, so your squad leaders and platoon sergeants are the ones likely to be enhanced. Pvt Snuffy on the other hand will use bulky, but durable external hardware.

The real question is Commlinks and PANs. I suspect the army in question will issue to all 'basic trainees' at this point their own 'MILSPEC' PAN, which would be the only one they could carrier 'in the field' normally. It would have a durable shock proof casing, a hard coded on/off switch (in case their encryption is broken)
and a unique 'propietary interface' for crypto. The Squad Leader's Commlink would have admin access to his team's PANs, and a preprogrammed line to his platoon sergeant. Wired to the PAN would be an A/V suite, laser rangefinding and GPS (for calling supporting fire), and basic medical sensors. The Squadleader could do a quick look for a by-individual ammo count so he could cross level the squad, his boss would be able to look at the squad as a whole. Presumably the entire thing would get routed up to the Tactical Operations Center, where the unit (and any enemy they encouter) are automatically posted to the tactical overlay.


A good deal of training, particularly in the wireless age, is going to be 'blackout conditions' training, training without access to the PAN in a field environment. We take it for granted now, but given the amount of immersion into the wireless world, it would be doubly important to ensure the troops are comfortable working outside of that. The least reliable thing on the battlefield is comms.


EDIT::: damn, completely missed the points I was going to make on organic units and transportataion/armor... oh well.

Simple sets of Wires seem like a very affordable way to increase the firepower of a unit. Wired Reflexes 1 costs 11 thousand - less than it takes to keep someone going at low lifestyle for a year. So I really don't see people getting into and out of the army without at least Wired Reflexes 1. Sleep Regulators at 10 thousand also seem like a no-brainer force multiplier.

Most military machines would probably have a non-standard data jack port as an extra form of security. So pretty much every single grunt is going to have datajacks that conform to the military standard.

So yeah... simple cybernetics seems like a cheap and awesome way to improve the effectiveness of your basic infantryman. I can't imagine a modern government deciding to not go that route.

-Frank

I think the better question is economics. If you use 10 guys to do the job that one could, you still have to FEED those 10. Means 20 more behind the lines. Who you also have to feed.
But I suppose it depends a lot on the overall strategy. One might have a single division of well equipped troops so you could expect them to have invested 20k in mods for each person. Another might have 3 or more full armys. Id expect that to be more of the smartlink and rifle and away you go. Gotta think how much less ammo someone with a smartlink would expend during training to archive the same marksmanship someone with out it would.

I think most of the gear of the 2070 infantryman with be recognizable to the 2007 grunt, just like the gear of a 1940 infantryman would be.

A big difference would be the electronics. Network-centric warfare and information warfare will be mature in 2070.

I think the biggest difference will be drones. Lots of drones. 10k nuyen will get you a very nice infantry-scale combat drone. That same amount will feed and train a man for a month or two, depending on training.

Yes, there will always be meat in the loop, not even counting for mages, but I wouldn't be surprised to see human fireteam leaders leading a few drones instead of a few men.

A lot of infantry work involves stuff like "hike that way, and tell me if you see anyone", or "don't let the enemy through this checkpoint", or "take that checkpoint away from the enemy". Supervised drones can do all that.

Oh, and the first time a drone takes a hit instead of a person, it just paid for several more of itself, because you don't have to heal it, or pay a widow.

SR4-era rank and file out of boot camp are probably light on cyber. Most of the needs of cyber in the grunts (the current future trooper concept) can be achieved with wearable tech. Milspec goggles, earbuds, throat mike, helmet-mounted trodes and a hardened comm provides a lot of advantage for the troops. Vision boosters, smart link, hearing protection & boosting, GPS/nav, communication, etc all without a single knife cut.

Career military types probably have implants appropriate for their MOS. I'd expect sensory gear would be the most common, followed by endurance-ware (digestive expansion, sleep regulators, etc) and finally combat boosters. Depending on the sociopolitical environment, infantry troops may be in combat 80% of the time or only 10%. The greater the combat time, the more combat boosters.

The Lone Star SWAT suite from Augmentation includes flare comp, thermo, smartlink, plastic lacing, and wired I, and runs less than 20k (less than 35k for Alpha). I might have included low-light and dampening, myself, but that's not a bad kit to start out with.

"Similar cyberwear packages have been developed for members of other law enforcement corporations or military units (such as ... the UCAS army, ...)."

Yes, but Lone Star SWAT are effectively the police equivalent of SpecOps. So it would make sense for the UCAS Navy SEALs to have a similar rig, but not for the UCAS 3rd Infantry Division.

Training and equipping a basic line soldier today has costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of that is training.

If your idea of putting a grunt on the ground is a conscript with a rifle and a flak jacket, that's one thing. If you want your soldiers to be competent with using your technical equipment (commlinks, radios, target designators), able to maintain their own weapons to a limited extent, able to handle weapons like grenade and rocket launchers, able to understand things like signals discipline and signature control, capable of surviving exposure to NBC weapons, and a bunch of those other things that go into making a modern soldier, your costs just to get them through basic training and their MOS is pretty significant.

At the same time, the kit that was outlined above provides a significant increase in the combat effectiveness of the individual infantryman, making him tougher (lacing), more dangerous in close quarters (lacing, wired), and more effective in a firefight (smartlink, flare comp, wired) even at night or indoors (thermo). The eye mods and bone lacing are minimally invasive, as they're almost certainly done with nanosurgery. The wired reflexes are noticeably more invasive, but the fact that they essentially double the firepower of an individual infantryman (twice as many passes) would make them worth it. Sure, it's cheaper to pass out combat drugs... but a unit full of depressed addicts is expensive in the long run.

Would this kit be standard for, say, a drone operator, a radio technician, or a cook? Probably not. Any combat MOS, however, would likely be given it. In exchange, I can certainly see the initial contract length being longer than a couple of years.

Depends, hugely, on the country.

The UCAS, for example, has a fairly small "Border patrol" of bulky body infantry and armor, mostly along the Sioux border but a few along the CAS as well. They rely more on small squads of elite troopers (Rangers, Seals, etc) that go in, do a job, then get out. Very strike-pointed.

Aztlan, meanwhile, has a HUGE conventional force, tied up along four borders, stretched thin and of average (At best) quality. They lack any real special forces, instead contracting that out to Aztechnology which has little conventional but gobs of SpecOps.

The CAS, meanwhile, has the largest conventional army in North America (Possibly in the world!) and has high-end training as well, but skimps a bit on technology. The CAS special forces are similar, guys with little gear but amazing skill.

Magic has been integrated into all militaries, but how *well* is a whole other story.

As for cyberware, never on the grunts ... that's what combat drugs are for. Why drop 11K per soldier for Wires when you can give very soldier five hundred bucks in Combat Drugs and expect to get almost all of that back? Everyone keeps two, maybe three hits of Jazz on their vest, never using it in 99.99% of what a soldier's life entails, but, if a firefight breaks out, they're ready to go. If they decide to blow off the service? Well, you can just hand those inhalers back in and pass 'em to the next body that signs up.

Gear can also vary widely, from the African "Villager with an AK-97 and a spare clip" to a CAS soldier in Medium Armor with Ares Assault Rifle, full sensor suite and commlink helmet HUD.

The *average* would probably be:

Armored Vest
Armored Helmet with lowlight, thermo, flare comp, and smartlink.
Ares Alpha/AK-97 (Either with two spare clips) extra ammo for long patrols
Survival Knife
Three Inhalers with combat drug (Usually Jazz)
Trauma Patch
Medi-Kit (1)
Survival Kit

Plus general gear (Entrenching tool, bedroll, canteen, MRE, etc)

Logistical concerns are probably first and foremost, as several users have noted. Augmentation makes mention of a SWAT kit and someone commented that this kit would likely find its way into Spec Ops units. This is true and may even extend into "Elite" units such as the Rangers or several Marine units. The idea that your average line infantryman has those upgrades is, however, rather strange.

The average line infantryman needs to be able to be pushed through training in ~12 to 20 weeks in an affordable fashion. If several weeks, and several thousand nuyen, are tacked onto that cycle, the military is unable to refresh its ranks. Further, 30,000 nuyen invested into a soldier as "standard" equipment that may or may not stick around is a bit absurd. More likely, they would have enhancives found in equipment. Consider the Land Warrior program extended into the 2070s.

A standard infantryman would have a plethora of equipment that we be gotten and returned to a quartermaster as per mission and deployment needs. These would include helmet mods (goggles), weapon mods (smartlink attatchments, surpressors etc), armor mods (heavier armor or interwoven electronics gear) and finally mission specific gear such as advanced electronics. Because all of this gear is mobile and can be moved from soldier to soldier, the investment does not leave with the discharged soldier.

The comment made about cyber being a reinlistment bonus was a very precient one. Squad leaders and sergeants would very likely be sporting cyber, either from issue or wound recovery. Only in a SpecOps unit (which requires a term be served and a re-enlistment to enter the unit) would have mainline, rank and file cyber.

Heavy weapons would probably function in a different fashion, however. Drones would be controlled by a Weapons Platoon or Company and loaned out to units as needed. A VCR enabled rigger would deploy HMGs, mortars, direct fire heavy weapons and other heavy pieces of equipment. This allows the rapid deployment of heavy assets in a safe fashion. A MG draws an incredible amount of fire and an armored drone has a much higher survivability and reliability than a crew of meat bodies that can be ripped up by bullets and shrapnel and will most likely be crapping themselves. Man-operated and crew-serviced weapons would still be in use, but heavily supplemented by combat drones.

These Drone Riggers, attatched at the squad or platoon level, would probably become so inextricable from the unit organization that they would simple by assimilated. It stands to reason that at the Platoon or Company level, at the very least, there would be a Drone Rigger that would operate scout, weapon and communications drones. Scout drones let you see whats around that corner without exposing men to fire. Weapon drones carry heavy equipment into dangerous areas and operate said equipment without fail once there. Communications drones provide movable and semi-secure networking for your unit to other units back to command. Probably the most important part of the future Drone setup. Never lose radio contact again. More over, never use radios again...

All infantrymen would, however, be issued and be responsible for a commlink. Probably something with a massive firewall and a hardware level Encrypt. These commlinks would expidite communications from the fireteam to battalion level, allow for tactical overlays to be displayed on goggle mods, enhanced coordination and precise gathering of real time intelligence. With a tiered network structure, a Forward Observer or other qualified user could be the only man authorized to call in an artillery or air strike. Imagine the possibilities.

Probably attatched at the company level would be a specialist unit of EW troops. These men would deploy forward with infantry units to maintain their network security and if possible destroy the networks of the enemy. Another user very astutely noted that a great deal of the training time would be spent in "Dead Zone" mode, training for fighting with a crashed or compromised network. This is dead on.

Combat enhancive drugs is a tricky question. Military grade drugs would not be out of the question. Being military grade, these would likely cut out the majority of the immediate side effects. It is unlikely that these would be deployed widely due to percentile issues such as weak systems, allergies etc.

This is a very broad topic... And I am some what of a military nut with a love for military history so this has gotten my thinker a' crankin'.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemmingway

Shrike:
Bone lacing doesn't make the soldier bulletproof, meaningfully. Dangerous in close quarters is a step in wrong direction.

As for wired reflexes 'doubling' the firepower of a squad, not really. Infantrymen do not, generally, live the life of an action hero. A comparatively tiny portion of their careers is actually going to be spent shooting, and jacking their reflexes for that tiny tiny portion is not, in the beaurocratic scheme of things, a cost effective measure.

Further, I suspect that the cost involved with 'equipping a soldier' quoted earlier is HUGELY inflated.

Consider: A platoon of 60 basic trainees has three Drill Sergeants, who's total pay for the two to three month (say three, since we are talking infantry) is going to be a whopping 20k ( rough estimate), the barracks and training facilities they use may cost a few million dollars to put together, but will last 30-50 years, with hundreds of thousands of trainee's passing by. The actual cost of a soldier's uniforms and equipment is less than 2k for the stuff they take with them, and the rifle they train with? 800 bucks, and that has to last for 10-20 thousand rounds, so it will probably pass through 30 trainee's hands during its lifecycle. As for that equipment that was the 'big ticket': At the end of his tour the troop will have to give 75% or more of it back in, so most of that has changed hands several times too by the time he gets it.


Its the same principle that was at work in WWII for tank battles. It took three american tanks to kill one german tank, but we could feild them in 5 to 1 odds and STILL save money.

Satan's Own Beancounters, I'm tellin' ya!

I would expect a small army designed to deal with low intensity threats on a moments notice in the northern hemisphere. Relatively small by modern standards, but highly mobile, highly trained, and well equiped. The army would be sort of like what the marines are like today (semi-elite). Within that army they would have special forces units, and only officers of those units would be allowed to use special weapons, cyberware and bioware. They would have combat-trained mages and hackers as part of these groups also. If the army ever encountered shadowrunners, it would be like a sledgehammer hitting them.

@monkey: Very astute post, there's only one thing I disagree with. I really can't see the drone rigger deployed along with the company's manuever elements. I could much easier see drone/EW/Magic all attached to the company HQ (provided that they have any magic, that is).

One thing I've learned in the last few months is that when the issued equipment isn't up to the task, sometimes you are allowed to use civilian "equivalent" gear. In other words, with your superior's permission, you can buy your own, better gear. In some cases this is encouraged.

Fast forward, and I think that while the typical grunt wouldn't be issued cyberware, he would be allowed to purchase it from private funds, maybe getting access to stuff he couldn't as a civilian.

Another thing, many countries may enlist all metatypes, but put them in hoogenous units. Hell, they could probably make decent arguments for it. "Orcs are better suited for front-line combat duty, and trolls make better mobile heavy weapon platforms. I mean operators. Why slow those units down by including dwarves, sho are too slow to keep up and make better technicians anyway?" Humans, of course, get the preferred treatment, unless this is the Tir, in which case it's elves. Does the military have a lot of humanis members in the high ranks? you betcha.

You should account for hardware being bought on personal basis, maybe with discount or loans given for getting an implant. And ware as a status symbol might play a role within that framework aswell. Damn, just look how much some people spend on cars and stuff... Sergeant Miller over there with that brand new cybereyes sure looks cool now.

The concept of "why spend money on the grunts" has always kinda stuck me as odd... The army loves it's toys and is perfectly willing to spend money on them. I mean a tomahawk cruise missile costs a cool million each and the Iraq war costs around 177,000,000 a day. Suddenly spending 20K on a grunt doesn't seem so bad, especially if the soldier has signed on for 10 years. That works out to 2000 a year, a pretty good investment all things considered.

edit: Even the land warrior is estimated to cost 30,000 per unit and we are just starting to hear grumbleings about price.

The biggest cost for the military is getting a dude to the place where the fighting is. The amount of logistics and support behind getting that one dude to the frontline is just phenomenal today, and not likely to get much easier in the future. In fact, once you factor in all the drones and stuff, it;s likely to get alot harder.

So once you've got a dude to the front line, you may as well not skimp on equipment and training, because you've just spent all that effort getting him there, so you really need to not have him get shot in the opening 30 seconds.

Because of this, a military grunt on the ground in 2070 is going to have absolutely amazing equipment and huge firepower on tap from long range fight support platforms. He's going to be highly trained in a variety of fields ranging from combat, to tactics, to rigging to cyber combat. He's probably going to have signed a loonnnggg service agreement so the HUGE training investment doesn't walk out the door, and to ensure that that the military is capable of recruiting and retaining the guys who are capable of running the super high intensity warfare that is going to be waged pay and benefits are going to be big.

Behind the guy at the pointy end is going to be a massive military behemoth that is going to provide hackers on tap so when the black ICE in every piece of equipment he touches detects a threat, military hackers are also on site in the next 30 seconds. Probably 10.

His squad is going to be small by todays standards, maybe half the size or even less, but have multiple UAVs overhead, a suite of drones providing recon, mine discovery, machine gun and AT fire, and can call back to instantly route artillery barrages and air strikes armed with any number of munitions to his location at very short notice. He's also going to operating out of the back of a heavily armored APC that is capable of bouncing fire from the majority of threats. The APC is going to be bristling with the very latest and greatest in electronic warfare gear, and the grunts will all have their stuff connected out of that. The APC will probably feature some sort of tight band sat uplink to minimize hacker efforts.

He's also likely to be cybered up. Nothing too hideous, but wired reflexes, sleep regulators and other gear that cannot be replicated with an external device is going to be extremely common. And data jacks will be universal, though all their gear will be skin linked up.

Actual conventional warfare is going to be super fast and super sharp, with wars measured in hours.

Air warfare is going to be all important, and once the air war is won, planes are going to be focused on destroying radar installations on the ground - to cripple air-ground defenses and allow a side to use it's artillery without the fear of counter battery fire - which will be swift and deadly.

However, the actual military itself will be smaller than today. Those 5 guys could probably fight off a modern company with half a squad - once you factor in the sheer amount of support.

That said, no-one is going to fight these guys conventionally. It's a recipe for massive destruction and total disaster for whoever comes off worse in the electronic warfare. That guy will lose all his planes and all his sensors and then everything else to the unstoppable firepower of the other team, who he won't even be able to see without his modern sensor suites.

In asymmetric warfare, things get pretty sticky, but these guys will still be doing well by todays standards. the sheer recon coverage will allow threats to be spotted and identified well in advance of the arrival of a trooper.

As far as drugs go, those that support a soldier would probably be preferred over those that directly increase combat effectiveness. For example, the Air Force issues amphetamines to fighter pilots who must fly long missions in order to stave off drowsiness and improve focus. This practice is very stupidly condemned by other branches of the military, however, because the people who set policy for those branches are complete and utter morons.

Now, one thing you must remember about equipping a military is that it is extremely common for the people who make policy decisions, including decisions that effect equipment choices, to be either complete and utter morons, corrupt bribe-takers, or both.

Would the military spend 30,000 per soldier and a few extra weeks of training for cyberware implants? That depends. How much of a kickback is the company that makes the implants giving the person who makes the decision.
Let's say it is 2%. It isn't so big as to make a huge dent in profits but it is large enough to give the policy-maker some incentive. That would be about 6000 per-soldier per implant suite. Assuming about 50,000 recruits per year, that 3 million annually. That's three million per year just for writing an order which requires that all soldiers get certain standard cyberware implants which will increase their combat effectiveness. The guy making this decision would be getting paid to do a good thing, a thing which he might have considered doing anyway. Who wouldn't say yes to that?


Hell, look at all of the politicking that goes on around the development and adoption of new equipment, politicking that often results in the military adopting or retaining inferior equipment or spending billions on pieces of equipment that aren't necessary or beneficial.

A good exmaple of this would be the controversy around Dragon Skin. Independant tests, including NiJ tests, prove that Dragon Skin body armor made by Pinnacle Armor is superior to the Interceptor armor (developed by DARPA, manufactured by DHB Industries' Point Blank Body Armor, Inc and used by the DOD) in every way, including comfort, coverage, and stopping ability.

Yet, the Army has officially banned the use of Dragon Skin by soldiers and Army officials have outright, blatantly, and obviously lied about the effectiveness of Dragon Skin to justify this decision? Why would they mandate the use of inferior equipment? The reason is twofold. Interceptor was designed by DARPA and its effectiveness is a matter of pride for the Department of Defense and everyone involved in its development. Dragon Skin was developed independently by a private company. To admit that it is better makes many people lose face and it bruises many more egos.

Second, DHB Industries' Point Blank Body Armor, Inc is paying out a shitpotload of money in kickbacks for the right to manufacture interceptor. I'm not accusing them of impropriety at all, of course not. Kickback are an honorable and traditionally accepted part of the hiring process. Everybody who wants to get a job offers a kickback. There's nothing wrong with it. But you must understand that there are people in power who stand to lose millions of dollars if Dragon Skin were adopted in place of interceptor.

Between the self-interested receivers of money and the prideful morons, pretty much everyone in charge of armor policy has incentive to make sure that Dragon Skin fails Army standards, so they tell the testers exactly what they want the results to be and the testers report the results that they were ordered regardless of what the actual results were because insubordination is bad for one's career.


In another example, just look at the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Originally, it was intended to be a troop transport. Then, some of the people on the design committee decided that they wanted it to double as a scout so its size, and consequently its passenger capacity, was greatly reduced. Then somebody decided that it would be better with a giant rocket launcher on top.
The result has been accurately described as a troop transport that is too small to transport troops, a scout that is too conspicuous for scouting, and a tank that is too lightly armored to serve as a tank, all rolled into one multi-billion-dollar vehicle. There was also a big scandal over corner-cutting that essentially turned the initial Bradley prototypes into rolling deathtraps. This was taken care of, despite attempts by interested parties to just cover it up and send out production models that tended to burst into flames when struck by small arms and trap the crew inside with no possible way to escape burning to death. Correcting these defects, of course, cost billions of dollars more. The versions of the Bradley that are out on the battlefield are safe are used with great effectiveness as a scout, a troop transport, and a tank killer. But it still can't carry many troops, is conspicuous for a scout, and wouldn't survive traditional tank combat (Bradleys use TOW missiles rockets to snipe tanks and these missiles can only be fired when the vehicle is parked, but they are highly effective due to their superior range).

So yes, military equipment development and adoption does tend to be a clusterfuck. In some ways, one could say that the US military is effective not because of all of these high-tech toys that are constantly being introduced, but in spite of them.

i would tend to think that with simsense, training your troops is going to cost less. a lot less. no need to outfit them with real equipment, no need to provide an actual training facility, you just hook them up to a simsense module and let the 'soft do it's work in training them.

i would also tend to think that, as has been mentioned, wherever actual humans are used, they tend to be elite forces.... drones are simply crazy cheap, and any milspec drone comes with rating 5 matrix attributes off the shelf (ie will be throwing 9 dice *before* equipment modifiers, just from pilot 5 + autosoft 4). not to mention the effectively hardened armor, and the effective wired reflexes 2.

seriously, drones are just too cheap to send in humans, unless those humans are augmented and largely responsible for making decisions, imo.

If the greatest cost per soldier is training, skillwires could quite possibly be the best investment. This depends on what amount of training gives (on average) what skill rating, and how much Edge the average grunt has.

However, think of the possible benefits: You can grab anyone off the streets, give them a standardised brain implant with a your standard skillwares and some brain washing, hand them a gun, body armor, drugs & a comlink, and drop them off at the front lines.

If you look at it from a logical (but not rules-based) perspective, implanting the skillwires sets up the foundations for implanting a lot of additional headware, from datajacks and comlinks to self-destruct systems and overrides which will allow a rigger to jack into (and control) the body of any infantry man if it is useful to do so.

Depending on the cost of surgery relative to the cyberware, it might even be possible to remove the 'ware and re-use it. You'd end up with a burnt out, brain damaged junkie with a bunch of shitty cyber limbs and none of the skills ex-soldiers use to get into security forces, which is exactly how you want it in a cyberpunk dystopia.

I think attaching a drone rigger to a squad still doesn't make sense. Which fireteam is he a part of? A logical extrapolation of the last 60 years of military doctrine would attach these soldiers to the company HQ. They might still be in communication with individual squads/platoons, etc., but the rigger's meat body is more effective when kept off of the front lines.

My view is thought is that in the infantry OOB he'd fill a role more like that of a spotter or forward air controller of some kind. I doubt the military would but their semi-autonomous killbots under the control of Pvt. Pyle from French Lyk, Indiana.

Dragon Skin did receive NIJ Level III certification on December 20, 2006 and heat testing conducted by Stanford University Medical Center showed that the Dragon Skin is able to withstand temperatures of up to 170 F and tests conducted by NBC show that Dragon Skin is more reliable against multiple impacts than Interceptor is.


The problem with using remotely controlled drones of the battlefield is that it is possible for an enemy to take control of those drones himself and tell them to kill you. He doesn't even have to be in the same country as the drones, due to the wireless matrix. It is more difficult to change the loyalties of meat soldiers.

I think that there should be different "business" models for different armies. If your labor is cheap or your army model is based on citizen militia, then the small professional army model goes out of the window. Even then, equipping an infantry militiaman with the necessary external gear isn't going to break the bank(of course, provided the guy knows how to use it).

If you going to get a small well-equipped and well-support combat force, then the question would be what would be the most effective and efficient combat force? You could have a cost effective force, but unless your army is effective, you are well and truly fucked. What is the level of combat effectiveness is necessary to defeat an enemy, hell, what is the level of combat effectiveness necessary to deter an attack in the first place? What is the maximum cost efficiency that can be achieved within this combat effectiveness?

An interesting question would be: What is the overall combat effectiveness of a (meta)human-wave type army equipped with the most cost effective non-implant gear vs a small "professional" army?

And lets not forget the cyberpunk part of the equation. Sure , it makes more sense to outlay the cash, but this is in part a dystopia. The problem with non-career soldiers getting combat cyber is that they go back into the civilian world with it. It may not make them as jittery as cram (though it comes close, according to the fluff), but the government would NOT want every disaffected veteran that combat capable. (I'm not saying this is actually a good argument, I'm saying that it's the argument someone would use.)

Cram, nitro and jazz are street drugs. The milspec drugs are probably better. Most of that training and equipment we give soldiers today is in place because we care about bringing them home (Either from altruism or because they've learned that bodybags break the moral back home, you judge). In a dystopian future where life is cheap compared to the bottom line, It's just more gritty to throw soldiers out on the front lines with nothing but an assault rifle and some combat drugs that ARES swears has no side effects. You want armor, buy it out of pocket, grunt. We sell it at the quartermasters for a months worth of your pay. All personal combat gear must be purchased from the army's official quartermaster/ARES representative. Then throw that soldier and his squad up against a cyber-zombie down in amazonia, then when the sole remaining survivor comes back missing all his limbs, let him know about the special program where the government will replace all his missing parts with better ones, and give him other upgrades besides, just by signing up for another 3 tours of duty and signing this waiver.....

I'm not saying it's a better way to run an army, I'm saying it's better STORY.

It would take pages to type out all of the shit that a squad of Infantry carries with them in 2007, but I'll attempt to give a brief guide line..

Squad Leader = Assualt Rifle, Scope, 210 rounds, 2 grenades + maps, radios and other leadership role based equipment
____________________________________________________________________
Team Leader A = the same shit as the Squad Leader

Automatic Rifleman A = light machine gun with about 600 rounds and 2 grenades

Grenidier A = assualt rifle, with 210 rounds and a grenade launcher undermount with 48 40mm grenades

rileman A = Assualt rifle with 210 rounds, 2 grenades, and also due to his lack of other equipment compared tot he rest of the team this rifleman becomes the team's pack mule and has to carry the breaching kit filled with wire cutters, sledge hammer, and any other extra gear the people above him think they may need but do not want to carry
____________________________________________________________________
Team Leader B = the same shit as the Squad Leader

Automatic Rifleman B = light machine gun with about 600 rounds and 2 grenades

Grenidier B = assualt rifle, with 210 rounds and a grenade launcher undermount with 48 40mm grenades

Rileman B = Assualt rifle with 210 rounds, 2 grenades, and also due to his lack of other equipment compared tot he rest of the team this rifleman becomes the team's pack mule and has to carry the breaching kit filled with wire cutters, sledge hammer, and any other extra gear the people above him think they may need but do not want to carry
____________________________________________________________________

in addition to all of the weapons, everyone also has to carry enough food and water(water is heavy) to support themselves for how ever long a mission is expected to take x2 or x3 because nothing ever goes to plan and there is no such thing as a timely resupply in the field so best to have everything you may need with you on incase a week long mission turns into a month long mission with no resupply.

soldiers also carry changes of clothes and hygiene kits so they can attempt to stay some what comfortable while spending unknown amounts of time living in the worst of the elements regardless of weather condtions.

In addition to the 210 rounds carried by people with assualt rifles and the 60 rounds the light machine gunner carries, everyone in an infantry squad does their damnest to beg barrow or steal before an assignment to make sure they have extra extra ammo...just in case

The short of it is that your average front line infantry squad carries a ridiculous amount of shit on their backs everywhere they go and they live in the worst possible conditions. Equipment is always made by the lowest bidder and there never seems to be enough of what is needed to go around. Training is the only thing soldiers really put their faith in besides eachother in the field because you never know when some piece of shoddy second hand gear that's been used and reused will crap out on you.

In 2070 I would Imagine soldiers are still trained instead of skill softed up because it is cheaper to train then it is to skill soft. soldiers are in the Army for X amount of years and if you skill soft them up it cost the price of skill softs and you still have to pay them for X amount of years.....if you skip out on the skill softs though you only have to pay the price of having a soldier for X amount of years and continually train him during that time.

Infantry soldiers of today are jacks of all trades because they need to be to function in the field. soldiers are trained, trained, and then cross trained in small arms, close quarters combat, survival skills and out door land navigation, demolitions, communication skills involving basic hand and arm signals to satellite linked telecommunications, the lowest rifleman is trained to pick up and weapon from his squad and use it effectively as well as fill the role of a Team Leader or Squad Leader if need be.

Today's Infantry tactics involve more the "GET THEM!" soldiers are trained in a variety of stealth skills, raids, flanking maneuvers, calling for fire from either air support, naval guns, or mortar crews.

I could only Imagine that in 2070 the Infantry would be out of neccssarite even better trained and cross trained then the soldiers today....but their equipment will still be made by the lowest bidder and recycled through the ranks untill it finally breaks beyond repair, they will still have to carry miserable amounts of weight on their backs....rember Equipment being lighter in 2070 just means they will be carrying more of it, and Infantry soldiers will still be living in the worst of conditions out on the front lines somewhere regardless of rain or shine because that is their job.

If you ever use Infantry in your game, use each squad as a poorly equipped but well trained group of runners....they will work excellently as a team covering eachother and doing their best to flank and out maneuver the enemy while surpressing them with fire and always calling fire support if it is available.

The US Army infantry does not win because it is the best equipped...the US Army Infantry does what it does because there are few things out there that can stand up against or get away from well trained young american men who group up in an action hero gun culture who have been well trained together an given full automatic weapons.


I can see everyone having Smart Goggles and Military Com Links and everything else they can possibly carry on their backs as long as the Army can take it from them and reuse it after that particular soldier is done with it. I can only imagine actual cyber ware being installed in a soldier as a replacement part for some piece of his body that got damaged beyond repair in either combat or in a training exercise.

For senior soldiers, the guys who have been around for one or two tours of duty and keep reenlisting I could see there being Cyberware incentives tossed at them but it will always be lower end cyber ware, never anything that is SOTA.

Special Forces though and other goverment Black Ops groups....well I could see those guys decked out in all the bells and whistles of SOTA drek.

"Developed by Lone Star’s R&D Division, Jazz was designed to better the odds for run-of-the mill law-enforcement officers who run up against augmented street samurai."

I didn't even mention Kamikaze, a "tailored combat drug" with a "destructive effect on the user's metabolism." In addition, it only lasts about half an hour, on average, so you start running into the problems of taking lots of Kamikaze, like hallucinations, uncontrolled movements, anxiety... always good.

From the cyberpunk angle of things, bunches of whacked-out conscripts on combat drugs are great. From the "would a high-budget professional armed unit use these?" point? Not so much.

It's quite possible that, say, the CAS army isn't really a good analogue to a modern, US-style army. Corporate armies might be more along those lines, with their interest in streamlining, public relations, and getting more out of less.

The only ware I see going anywhere near being universally implanted is skill wires. You say it costs less to train them rather than chip them. What's your justification? Assuming that a skill rating of 3 is acceptable to the generals, then we're talking 9000 per skill, plus a one time cost of 10000 (a rating 5 skillwire, allowign for more skills at once, or if necessity demands, a higher rated skillsoft. ) The skillsofts are copyable if presented that way, you can be damn sure the military will pay for a "free to copy and distribute within the unit for work purposes" license. So for whatever the subscription fee for that would be (probably several million), you have a copy for every soldier, How much does training cost , per the shadowrun rules?

Furthermore, soldiers can be issued skillsofts for the equipment they are issues for the mission. No need to train a special heavy support guy, or a special artillery crew, or a special mechanic crew, or whatever, since each soldier can slot whatever skill is needed for the mission.

Best of all, when discharged, they take none of that knowledge back into the civilian market. The skillwires will make them attractive hires to corps looking to cut down on training time, but the dangerous knowledge of how to kill people well stays where it belongs, with the government.

In my game, in all the developed nations, it is illegal to require the implantation of cybernetics as part of employment, even by the military, The reasoning is that several studies have shown that the implantation of cyberware (or any other implant) harms a person's aura, and it is widely assumes, their soul. This is unprovable, but a person's right to decline augmentation is guarenteed under religous freedom because of this common beleif. A public outcry assures this law got on the books most places (not that it applies to Megas, but in their general business practices they play along.) You can provide incentives to get certain ware installed, and you can preferentially hire, but you cannot require that an employee get an upgrade. So the military is bound by this same law, moreso because it's enforced, and so no soldier who doesn't want implants can be forced to take them.

The biggest thing that I get from my guys in the service (Which, sadly, I was never able to manage) is, of all things, batteries. All the high-tech gear is neat and all, but, the battery life is measured in hours, not days. And when teh batteries die, they have an extra 20 pounds of useless junk cluttering up thier weapon. Some of them took to keeping a set of batteries in their pockets, for use when needed, and just chucking teh rest off the nearest hillside when no one was looking.

Then again, another group was in Saudi during Gulf I, where they were going to pick up pallets that were being issued for use in tents, to provide a sleeping area. When lining up, they somehow got wind that three other groups weren't going to make it, so told the issuing sergeant that they were there to pick up the pallets for those three groups. His unit not only had double-wide sleeping areas thanks to this, but they started setting up porches (!) for a more relaxing stay.

...

Military life is different.

I assure you that training a Soilder is actually pretty cheap.

Pvt Joe Snuffy Joins the Army for 5 years.

Day One of those Five Years he does not know a damn thing about being a Soldier but he his assigned to a team leader and is part of a Squad filled with Soldiers who have been doing their jobs longer then Day One Joe Snuffy and they know more shit then he can ever imagine. There is no war that Joe Snuffy's Army is currently engaged in so he spends day in and day out surrounded by all of these people who know more then he does about the Army and they do their best to train Joe Snuffy so that way when they all eventually go to war together Joe Snuffy is useful and does not do something stupid to get them all killed.

When there is no war at hand and Soilders are not immediately being sent straight to the front lines of a war, they get assigned to units in garression somewhere. Infantry Soldiers have nothing to do in garresion except to spend their time training constantly.

In time though Joe Snuffy gets promoted and actually knows alot about his proffession and now he is one of the soldiers who trains the new guys on a daily basis while still constantly being drilled and tested by the people above him. With every passing year there are new soldiers who need training and soldiers who have the experince of previous years to train them.

As far as price goes...you have to feed and house and pay all of theese soldiers anyway, the actual training they recieve from eachother is free. There is money spent on all of the equipment they train with, but that is all equipment they would need regardless if they were training or trained by Skill Soft. The only real price of training as far as equipment goes is the price of the ammo they are expending at firing ranges and even if soldiers where skill softed up they would be routinely taken to ranges and what not to drill anyway.

The Army Infantry Trains it's self, the claims that it cost large amounts of money to train soldiers is a lie. Experinced Soldiers train Inexperinced Soldiers and the cycle repeats. The money that is "spent on training" is just the money it costs to feed and house and equip all thoose soilders being trained, and you have to house and feed them no matter if they have skill softs or not.

So why spend money on equipping each soldier with skill softs, when if they can just learn thoose skills from the people who they are going to be living and working with anyway who can train them?