I'm prepping to run one of the Dumpshock play-by-posts (GM name of Simon Kerimov, nach.) that involves traveling to the floor of the Caribbean Sea. The players will have a modified Krasnay Sormova Partisan, but I'm having some problems coming up with some technical details.

There are two submarines listed, one of which is the Krasnay, the other of which is a SSBN (Submersible Ship Ballistic-missile Nuclear-powered) designation, the Boston class. There are a number of excellent posters on Dumpshock that have a talent for statting out vehicles, so I was wondering if any of you could give me an idea of what something like a Typhoon-class [link] sub would look like. I'm also looking for smaller things like midget submarines [link], and the PowerSwim [link]. There is also only one drone for underwater work, but several could be easily modified. I imagine adding dermal sheathing with the shark-skin covering to increase drone swim speed would be a good start.

I'm using Google Earth to make a map for the run, which has the advantage of telling me where there are polluted dead zones (for toxics, of course), shipwrecks (tomfoolery), and other interesting bits for underwater fun.

Any suggestions on how to spice up a submarine-based Shadowrun are welcome.

lots of seamen. The the submarines should be filled to the brim with them.

Something like this? [link] Or for those who don't like tabbed browsing:



A stealthy ocean base to deploy special forces teams from. I can see how that might be something to add to a Shadowrun campaign.

not a fan of semen jokes?

To tell the truth, I just missed the reference. Which is sorta sad of me, considering how much I stepped into that joke.

-- Last I heard the SEAL delivery modifications were scrapped as unworkable (they were basically an attempt to shoehorn a specops role for the Navy's currently irrelevent ballistic missile submarine force).

-- A realistic view of underwater combat operations in Shadowrun would have lots of supercavitating vehicles/munitions (or, if that doesn't exist than high-speed aquajets/vortex combustion ramjet powered), autonomous drones, and not a human anywhere around. You might find Transhuman Space: Under Pressure a useful reference source as well.

I think subs like this one fit better into the SR setting than the nuclear ones. That's what a Megacorp like SK or Ares would use.

That's a really neat article, thanks for the link.

I agree that SK or Ares would not likely build a nuclear-powered submarine, but the UCAS or the CAS will still have the leftovers from the US Navy, which they would have to either scuttle, or repair. It's probably a good argument that they would scuttle them, but there are some very nice advantages to repairing or make new ones.

The first advantage is actually your argument. Full out military is something that Megacorps don't do, so is still the sole purview of Nation States. Nation States can't attack Megacorps for fear of economic retaliation, but they can still project military power around the globe. The Ohio-class submarines, for instance, were designed to be utterly invisible and impossible to find. They used to carry a payload of nuclear missiles and were used as a deterrent. Since you could never be sure you knew where all the nuke subs were, you had no way to avoid mutually assured destruction, so in theory you wouldn't throw your nuclear wang around. Whether this works or not is a moot point and not part of this thread. What matters is that Nation States can keep the Corporate Court from issuing Omega Orders on heads of state by keeping a few of these out in the waters and hidden (and warded. I don't remember how Astral projection and underwater work).

The article I linked to before is about the US navy making a base out of these things, now that they don't have them full of nukes. They can fit more than 100 Tomahawk missiles on board, so they can cut loose if they need to, buy they are primarily the home of 66 SEALs for an extended period of time. If you stick one of them off the coast of a troubled region, you have a mostly unfindable location to run missions out of, and if you must get some information or some job done, and you can't have one of your assets tied back to you if they die, get caught, or get recorded, it's a fantastic staging ground for Shadowrunners.

The SEAL delivery mini-subs that were shot out of a torpedo launcher were scrapped, as they were enormously expensive wastes of cash that didn't work, but the program to use the Ohio-class of subs as a staging ground went through.

I'll have to look at the book you are referencing. You didn't mention the use of sonic weaponry though. Is that something that wouldn't work? It seems like a sonic beam like the one mentioned in Arsenal for communications could be weaponized and be a sort of underwater laser analog. I also have a few concepts for dive suits that would make humans deployable underwater in ways that aren't just floating targets.

-- Huh, it was my reading that even the piggyback system was dead in the water (no pun intended). My college doesn't have Jane's subscriptions so I've fallen behind


-- I wrote the design system in Under Pressure and other stuff, so I'm heavily biased. But IMHO it's prety damn realistic -- only design system I'm aware of that separates form hulls from pressure hulls for example. It also covers supercavitation in a realistic manner (you can actually approximate the real-world mission profile of the Shkval) and has some sub designs that could easily be converted over to Shadowrun. Even has some subfighter designs. You can get a sample of the designs and the changes made to GURPS Vehicles in the Design Notes.


-- A saser? IIRC this came up and was poo-pooed due to the huge power requirements necessary to do any serious damage against armored targets (i.e. a hell of a lot easier to just use explosives). Good question though, I'll add it to my list of things to look at.


-- Nah they would be floating targets unless you get into superscience (force field pressure hulls). And then they would still be easy marks for a drone unless those are just banned (like in Traveller). It's even worse than in space because of the demands of the pressure hull and life support - can't even biomod a human to operate at extreme depths due to the lack of dissolved oxygen (might be able to get around this to some extent with extremely large gill wings or something). Liquid breathing is super nice ... except it's crazy bulky and obviously weighs a lot. There are other issues with it as well that we glossed over in Under Pressure just like Shadowrun does See Liquid Breathing Apparatus, Arsenal p. 56 and Fluorohalide Respiration, Under Pressure p. 116.

-- The problem for any manned underwater vehicle is that you have to have an extremely well armored area for the crew to survive in, especially if you want a "walk in" system that maintains 1 atm pressure so you can avoid decompression. That's a TON of mass and space that can be avoided with a drone.

-- The big "BUT" in all this is mages. Visibility is a big issue, but a water elemental is a nightmare opponent and some spells could have nasty specops potential

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!!

Wait, why not? As far as I am aware Ares, at the least, is nuclear capable. Hell, downtown Chicago proves that. They also have what is essentially a standing army and so have use for a few, in fact a few where used during Operation Reciprocity weren't they? Put on standby in the Gulf of Aztlan.

Plus, if Ares isn't making them for the UCAS then who would be? The entire UCAS army is basically supplied from top to bottom by Ares.

-- Note that when Shadowrun uses "nuclear" they often mean "nuclear fusion" unless it's referring to weapons.