it definitely depends on the type of military.
The LT having a souped up 6 signal.. I can buy. The Sat Link (if needed) is on a drone, or back at HQ depending how deep into territory you're going.

A small special ops team is going to have a sat uplink on 1 guy, and everyone else will be running signal 4 maybe 5. They just don't need to be 40Km apart from each other.

1 Km, and 10 Km is more than plenty.

But you have Agents, Tactical Hackers, Strategist "cyberlogicians" running intel, processing information, giving guidance. The Officer in the field has operational command, but he has overwatch support like you wouldn't believe. You have a Cyberlogician whose got him, and air support, and an heavy artillery all at the touch of thought, and even without having to wait for the LT to ask for it, a unit under heavy fire can have shells flying their direction to provide support.

I think people are missing what TacNet + Matrix full VR really brings to warfare.

Besides, that way, if command gets knocked out, it won't make the entire army all apart instantly. CO's commlink, of course, surely is connected to command.net, and protected by Virtual Warfare commandos. Or whatever we choose to call them.

I could see a tiered TacNet system.

Individual Squads run tacnet that involves all of the members of the squad. This is probably coordinated by the Squad leader's Commlink. (So the LT and probably his Senior Non-Comm has a backup/switch over commlink)
It also feeds data up the line to the Captain, who has a tacnet involving all of the squads under him, so on up the line. They also pass information down the line, on an as needed basis. (allowing multiple squads to coordinate, etc) A General is running a TacNet that has everyone under it, and is being analyzed like crazy.

Drones are part of a seperate tacnet infrastructure where individual riggers are running tacnets between all of the drones they personally control. That information is passed up the chain of command. Additionally, all riggers are attached to squads where they share tacnet info together.

It's a complicated web of interaction. There is on top of that constantly running Combat Hackers whose job it is to keep all this shit secure.

We know what a basic Squad TacNet looks like, it's the 1-4 tacnets we see in shadowrun.
What does the rest of this look like? How does it effect warfare, what benefits does it give. What are the requirements for running it. We don't want just creeping mondoism, but that being said we need to figure out what it looks like.

Fire Team -> Squad -> Section -> Platoon -> Company -> Battalion -> Regiment -> Brigade -> Division -> Corps -> Field Army -> Army Group -> Region -> Theater.
Obviously very few conflicts these days are going to be large enough to include some of the top end of that.

What does it look like, what are the benefits, the downsides, when your entire company is in the same TacNet web, during combat. How does that effect the common grunt soldier, what does that give the Company Commander and his entire Staff.

That would require drones to be able to become full members of a tacnet, right now they may only become sensor feeds. A logical step though. Same with Agents. Maybe that could be solved by a Tacnet Member software?

As for securing this net,. I would expect every node to have a guard IC/Agent running ans massice Analyse capabilities to pick up infiltration and inform about it. The IC/Agents could be part of a tacnet centering on each combat hacker, whon then moves in whenever there is an anomaly.

Sabs,

I think you have too many layers there. Either you make heavy use of tacnets, which IMHO means expensive, small and agile units with very few layers of command, or you deploy relatively huge numbers, where you just can't afford such a network for everyone. Then you need multiple layers of command to coordinate your troops.

Also, IMO tacnets would be designed into two subcomponents: the tactical net substructure to define and communicate objectives from the command section to the maneuver elements and an intel gathering and refining substructure. This intel system would deploy most of the sensors and would compose a realtime situation report for the relevant battlespace where command can base decisions on.

IMO, there is very few intel to be gathered at the squad level that isn't gathered through UAV, ELINT, and all those other nice strategic gathering systems.

By using this system, you could put your tactical units on receive only and simply broadcast new tactical objectives via satellite on the whole region. Simple, effective and your units won't be found by enemy radio recon units.

It's very possible that there are too many layers
hence why I was saying it was somethign to talk about.

I feel like Command Central having a Strategy Net that gives him bonuses to military tactics rolls, and other such things seems important.

A Captain should be able to tell where everyone in his Company is.
A Platoon Leader (usually an LT) should be able to tell what's going on with everyone in his platoon.

The Squad/Fire team leaders should be able to see themselves, and potentially the teams they are coordinating with. Also, for Amazonia/Azt we're talking about actually warfare so you have Battalion level combat going on.

Drone intelligence, coordinating drones and grunts. These all seem like things an Army would want to be able to do.

It's all fine and dandy, but when it comes to the actual battleground, things start going south. It is like the saying, there is no campaign that survives contact with the players.

Equipment breaks, ECM happens, ECCM counters ECM, drones are shot down or just can't see through the cover, etc.
If you consider the battleground that Aztlan and Amazonia are fighting (a rainforest with lots and lots of tree cover and rivers everywhere), tacnets will be useful only on squad level.

I know that SR commlinks abstract stuff like memory capacity and stuff, but having a nexus receiving information from every soldier and drone deployed shatters my suspension of disbelief in very small pieces.

-- Yup, reasonably good equipment and training, but not the resources to blow millions per soldier on stuff that can't be given to the next recruit (hence no military grade armor). The most expensive thing they have on them is the military helmet if I'm not mistaken - which is basically the keystone piece of gear since it has so much stuff incorporated (see p. 51, Arsenal).


-- If you could get enough subscription channels, sure. Seems a bit risky to be that centralized though. Would be a good option for cash-strapped forces though. Even a militia unit can probably afford a few TacSoft 1's for area commanders.


-- I assume the squad commander has all of his fireteam leaders subscribed to his tacnet, the company commander has all of them subscribed, and so on. I'm not sure if daisy-chaining subscribers is allowed though (relates also to Command Central idea).
-- Tacnets lose their relevance beyond the well... tactical level though. I suspect what's more likely is that the higher commands just use Agents to monitor things on that feed and alert them of anything interesting that hasn't already been kicked up the chain.


-- Sure, we have primitive versions of such a thing now. I doubt it would have any game rules without some sort of Shadowrun Mass Combat system. Most of its advantages are more on the organizational and logistics front and not "it helps me shoot things better."

-- Here's a query, what exactly does the military helmet upgrades cover? Does it boost all the ratings up? It says "The helmet’s military commlink
can be upgraded to hardware ratings of 5 (+2,500¥) or 6 (+8,500¥)."

I would assume it boosts Signal/Response.

I had some time, and made a first attempt on the 1er REC. Not sure what it's worth and how well it fits.

Nice, Nath.
I've made two files on google docs, one with my draft of Maracaibo and another one with a list of shadowtalkers so far, send me a PM and I'll add you to it (also, you can choose any appropriate shadowtalkers there).

Also, made a few grammar corrections on the Maracaibo draft and added suggested ideas. Few free to comment.

Here is the link to see the files anyway (no editing).

With annotations. Looks pretty good so far, Nath. My annotations are blue. Also fixed some minor spelling stuff, nothing serious.

Shinobi, your links seem not to be working. EDIT: found it. So the Verdaderos Venezolanos have a bit of an infiltraton problem with TerraFirst!? Or have they just sold themselves to the devil to make Aztlan bleed?

Well, that remains to be seen.

That might be the kind of thing we let GMs decide for themselves at their table?

That's what I thought too.
I think there is enough hint and innuendo for the GM's decide either way.

Did you see my comments the other day?

Do you think you can flesh out Maracaibos to say.. 4-5 pages?

Also, can we stop talking about the trees..
And with the plot twists we're going with.. Maracaibos is the Aztlan Army base as well.
Most of the major land fighting between ATZ and AMZ are going on in the area between Maracaibos and Caracas.

Yes sabs, I did see your comments.
And yes, I think I can flesh out Maracaibo more. Right now, I think it has some 1300-ish words. I think I can increase to 2000.

Shit, I didn't get much done the last days. Will look into your draft as soon as possible!

Okay, let's leave that open. We need to mention the Greenies working with/towards Sirrug's/The Na'vis' end, though, at least.

man we need those forums

We need to plot out the War, the Major players and 3-4 reasons why they're doing what they're doing

YES.

To answer quickly about the 1er REC:
- The regiment may remain in Orange (I omited it at first as I wanted to check some maps in French sourcebooks). French Guiana is certainly not an option for a tank regiment: there are only jungle and swamps over there.
- The 1er REC would have no airdrop capacity. In the French armed forces, airdrop capable units all have the "parachutiste" designation. I may add a sentence about Lansquenet weights being in a range that allow air transport.

I'll also make some changes to be closer to the future organization of the regiment (due in 2011), with only three combat squadrons, instead of the old one.

Regarding "fast mobilization", the question is, should France still have military bases in Africa ? The Shadowrun paradigm and the description of Africa in Cyberpirates rather suggest megacorporations like Ares or S-K took over the role of western countries, as there is no mention of any French presence. Nowadays, when a regiment like the 1er REC deploy a squadron in Africa, they do not bring their vehicles with them, and use those stationed in French permanent military bases. If the armed forces shut down those bases, deploying cavalry units will no longer be a option, except your troops to stay a year or two. The tank regiments will be back to a cold war, waiting at home that Russia tries again to conquer Europe. And you're likely to have similar situations in a lot of western armies actually: what would justify the UCAS to field MBT for instance ?

Nations pulled out of Africa.

VITAS I had a 75 to 95% kill rate in Africa.
VITAS II had a 30% kill rate.

I think that the REC and the MBT etc.. are in Caracas as part of a joint UN/CC peace keeping mission.

I think yes, probably in a joint effort with ESPRIT, GIAT and ZIC, possibly also AGC. There's lots of stuff France wants here (like, Uranium; France still relies on nuclear power a lot), those companies want here, and no reason why either should not go and grab it. After all, Africa's pretty much no man's land.

With the Great Jihad, it's plausible that France has some forward bases in Africa, just to be able to react fast should there ever be something threatening them again. I could also see France supporting, say, the Benin (a country I would like to do a writeup of anyway, amazons and all).


Makes sense. MAybe called in by the UN to pacify the situation or to have a big stick of their own? SK's forces could be coming in the same way (and maybe GIAT or Maersk, doing the transport and having a supply contract?).

Yes, I think that all the Major players are in Caracas as part of the UN/CC "Peace Keeping mission"

S&K is there officially as part of the UN force, but really they're there in case they can get a shot at Lofwyr's favorite Scaley friend. Wuxing btw, is there because they don't WANT S&K to get a shot at Hualpa but Sirrurg can totally bite it.

I could see GIAT or Maersk getting the transport/supply contracts.

Caracas has:
REC, S&K, Ares, UCAS, CAS, Wuxing, (maybe Renraku), Horizon, Japanese Imperial Army.. as part of the UN mission.
I'd love to add a Contigent of "Knights" from that German Troll Kingdom. Just cause it makes me giggle
And of course, more Mercs than you can shake a stick at.
And you have Shadowrunners there because lets face it. None of these people play well with others, and they have agendas, AND there's profit to be made in dealing with AZT special forces, AmZ special forces, all trying to create a mess that gets blamed on the other guys.

Start new threads for the topics. We can move them into the sub forums without problem.

I just didn't want to spam the crap out of your community projects forum

I am much less disatisfied with War! than a most of you. There is, however, one problem with the book that no one's mentioned--the Yeti and Nepal. The write up here doesn't jive with the other materials and I believe I should write a brief entry making it feel more like Shodowrun.

I like SR sasquatches but they always run the risk of becoming Wookieish, apish, or generally too silly and the Yeti entry is running the risk of all three.

It's not running risk, but my main beef with Nepal is the orichalcum. There is no natural orichalcum. All that is mined was hidden sometime in the past. Also, IF you have orichalcum ore, why the hell stimm mine for gold? It's worth easily 20 times as much.

Besides, why did the Yeti switch sides and stop guarding tibet? Why is no mention made of Tibet? Why has the idea of tunneling into Tibet suddenly been dropped? And why does nobody mention the Gurkha? Why does SK even attack nepal, as it'S made of Gurkha? That just makes little sense.

If you want to write a brief entry on Nepal, feel free, submissions are always welcome. It may not immediatly be used, but since we're planning an issue on corp wars, it could fit in there. Still, I sort of feel the Yeti, while certainly bad, are not the only thing that's reasonably wrong about Nepal.

Keep in mind, though, that we decided to not rewrite but work around the stuff that now is established canon, retconning as little as possible. So you may want to mention a reason for *some* Yeti tribes to switch sides and *rumors* of orichalcum mines or ore or whatever being found.

The problems with Nepal and Tibet.. we'd either put that in Corp Wars, or in an issue about China/tibet/Nepal/Mongolia/JIS/Korea/India/Pakistan/Afghanistan

I wasn't going to change anything. I just wanted to clean up the concept of the whole SK/Nepal/Yeti affair, but if no one else is bothered by it that's fine. I had also assumed the Lofwyr wanted something other than orichalcum and intended to leave his motivations alone.

Sounds good. That might not see publication in the first issue, but in the Asia land war issue it will, if you want to write it.

So, it seems I misunderstood something with the 1er REC writeup. All the units that appear in the table of contents in the "Faces of War" are to relate somehow to the ongoing South American war ?


I'm not sure there is a published book (the only source of True Canon) that valid the theory that the mined orichalcum was hidden in the first place. Year of the Comet actually describes the mined orichalcum as "natural" in Game Information, page 149. It also says some people speculate such deposit could reappear if the mana level rise again, prompting several factions to fight over the concerned areas just in case.
So War! is not completely wrong on that, as it nowhere states someone is currently mining orichalcum, as of 2073. It's just that it should read "there might be orichalcum in them hills" instead of "there's orichalcum in them hills", and provide some background (which the Global Hotspots chapter in general fail to do).


About 15% of the Nepalese population belongs to ethnic groups you can call Ghurkas. The Nepalese army currently has 2 battalions of Gurkhas, out of 18. The largest number of Ghurkas who fit for military service serve in the Indian Army actually. So unless the entire Nepalese nation rise to fight back against the invaders, and receive proper military training, S-K is not going to face an entire army of übergurkha. And since Nepal is not very nationalist, S-K itself may recruit some Gurkhas as well.
There's still in for some trouble, but as my history teacher used to say: "Poland had the best cavalrymen in the world as of 1939. Germany had the best tanks."

I have a much bigger problem with the fact that what is happening in Nepal according to War! is an open war between a megacorporation and a government : Saeder-Krupp has no proxy to claim they're only providing assistance. That's the first time in the entire SR history. So S-K is heading to break the three golden rules of the Corporate Court - "you break it, you pay it", "don't overthrow a national government" and "don't go at war" - at once.

I could've been clearer. Yeah, Nepal isn't known for it'S massive army in general, moreso in SR ... but it should have been mentioned and it definitly should be mentioned in the writeup that this is the country of the Gurkha.

Also, while tanks win the flat plains of Germany and Poland, infantry and mules win the mountains. Ask Russia.


London pretty explicitly does so (or rather, says the only possible way for orichalcum to be minable in Snowdonia is that someone hid it there). I'm certain this was mentioned in one of the early magic books too.



Aren't hey supposed to back the monarch or something? I can honestly not remember, but I thought I read something like this. Still, yes, that would be a big no-go.

Third draft complete.
PEACH.

London Sourcebook does suggest so (page 128), but that was in 2052 (and 1991 IRL). If not for that particular case, natural orichalcum was still considered (almost) impossible before the year of the comet in 2061 (2001 IRL). Year of the Comet actually says the orichalcum from Snowdonia is different from the other "natural" deposits of orichalcum.

They were in Shadows of Asia, and turned their back on him according to War!, as they couldn't get what they wanted through manipulation alone.

Yeah ... it's also the book of dragon godzilla, but yes, it said so. still, no comet. Where's it supposed to come from. This just does not fly. David Hill put some unobtanium into Nepal's mountains, not knowing what it was. I'd like to play this down a bit.


Meh, I managed to miss that particular turd.

I've finished the first text, topic is combat first aid.

GoogleDocs link

If you want to edit, please send me your mailadress via PM.

Next topic I'll finish will be personal equipment. I also started on an Ares infantry unit with a regiment-based structure, but would like some input from you on what size of unit is viable for a megacorp.

-- Looks good so far, especially as SR4A and Augmentation are shockingly lacking any detail on combat medicine.

-- Not clear what the tissue poisoning is referencing, is that something that will be explained later?

Thanks

The mentioned tissue poisening is a leftover from a pre-release version. I wanted to detail the contents of an IFAK and describe it's use during casualty treatment. When you apply a tourniquet to stop arterial bleeding on a limb, prolonged use can damage the limb tissue so far that an amputation is necessary.
The problem is, that the SR damage system is very abstract. As a result, any kind of damage can be treated with a relatively small and light "medkit", be it a small hole from a gunshot or large-area skin burns from a combat spell. So, detailing kit is pretty much useless as you cannot carry over the fluff into crunch.

Looking very good, and covers one of the things sorely missing from SR publications as of now.

You might drop a shadowtalk about biomonitors and auto-medkits (like the savior) in advanced armor, that can be triggered when falling unconscious. Maybe add to the end of phase one something like:



For shadowtalkers, we have an established list here, which contains Franks as well as ours as have been handed in so far.

Also, in the end, maybe have Simba or someone else (maybe the Tapir shifter?) say something about spiritual medicine and Africa, since the setting is mainly in a Na'vi versus MiningCo setting, and the Amazonians are likely to be more on the voodoo side of healing.

-- This seems analogous to Surgery Damage (p. 125, Augmentation).

-- Downscaling/adapting the surgery mechanics to some extent may work (e.g. First Aid glitches).

-- However, as you point out First Aid is pretty much surgery-lite in SR4A (especially as in a military setting you can have a full-fledged doctor remotely operating your kit (see Medkits and Autodocs, p. 253, SR4A) for almost risk-free healing of a big chunk of your condition monitor..

Well it could be as simple as your average medkit for a soldier is a Rank 3 medkit, where as Combat Medics get an R6 medkit with refills.

GoogleDocs PersonalEquipment file

Next one's done. I'll work in something about "milspec" armor in both files later. Also, I'll think about rules for the first aid items.

Some questions:

Should we do some generic field kit for the equipment section?
What about a list of military slang?

Good work there.

I like the format (Knight Industries, hehe). Shadowtalk might need stronger individual voices, but that's editing. The end is a bit abrupt, two or three final comments would be nice (maybe something on commlinks for the soldier and the viability of constant radio traffic in non-urban theaters, I dunno - don't like this ZOMG WIRELESS stuff much myself, but it needs addressing), but that's all minor stuff, really. I'd really like to see something like statted out standard packages, best for different operational profiles. Military slang definitly is useful (best, in sidebar format).

I think we may want stats for MSCU and MSCLS, too - armor rating and built-in extras (infrared insulation, for instance).

Maybe someone could do some archetypes with a complete kitlist?

Sigh
I'm working on my Aerial Combat essay.. and I'm having a hard time finding the right voice. Ah well.

I really like the Medics essay.

Do what you can and I'll take a look, make some suggestions.

You mean the kind of gear a grunt would be taking with him according to the geography of the battlefield?