Hell, Camera RFIDs would make "Carpet Bombing" an area with them an Intelligence Wetdream. Or Counter-Intelligence Nightmare. Or both.

Yes, both.

You could even do it with the traditional "Drop the Propaganda Pamphlets" deal if you want to be "subtle".

This is just one of a pile of examples how everything should have changed.

Shit, you mean other people haven't been running it that way?
(I know, I know, established books don't portray it that way, but... I sure as shit do.)

Also, where are there RFIDs with onboard cameras? I don't know if I've seen anything specific to that effect, though I guess you could extrapolate that out of RFIDs having a device rating. Is there someplace I should be looking specifically?

As a matter of fact, it's kinda hard to imagine what'd full-scale combat be like in 2070ies, as for me. Takes a lot of extrapolating and taking MANY changes into account in their interconnection. That's why I was waiting for War! so eagerly. And that's why I was so bitterly disappointed.


Yep. Sensor RFIDs, Core pp. 328-329 for description, p. 333 for sensor package size and signal rating.

Huh, cool. I guess my brain had rolled all RFIDs into normal, stealth, and hardened. Totally blanked on the sensor ones.

Measures and Countermeasures, however.

I doubt RFID-Sized Nano-Electronics will be resistant to EMP in any way. Even small enough waves can be used to render them useless.

Don't forget, it wasn't that long ago that a microwave oven could kill a pacemaker.

The problem with RFID sensors is that they have Signal 0. If you carpet bomb a place with RFID's, you have to send someone down there later and stay 3 meters close from each tag to record their data.

Well, they could mesh with each other into a network, and you just have a commlink-size central relay in the package that lands somewhere in the middle of the RFID cloud to communicate with HQ.




-k

Yeah, but with tanks that is not a problem.

But then they can be traced, and ECM and ECCM would come into place.

Traced, hacked, counter-hacked, DDoSed, have drunken soldiers urinate upon them...

Honestly, I see them as too fragile for a battlefield situation. Great for Corporate Security where they're in a nice, secure building and such, but in the dirt and dust of a battlefield...

All this talk about reliability makes me see why economists get their panties in a twist over planned obsolesence...

Just purchased this from Drive Thru RPG. First impressions: it's clear, concise, has nice illustrations and the stats make everything seem usable. I'm sure there's plenty of stuff to nitpick in gameplay but it's everything War! should have been. It's also the first PDF supplement since Digital Grimoire that actually has usable crunch.

Maybe 32 page products should be the core production focus rather than 200+ monsters. Spycraft 2.0 seemed to pull off the tactic fairly well. There's less to screw up, players can easily bolt together products they like, and they aren't required to waste money and wade through hundreds of pages of stuff they hate in order to pull a few pages of material that they like.

And why the rest of us are ready to strangle them with their own profit/loss sheets.

Truth be told, I wanted an excuse to say lazors. And I had one! Hooray!

Ballistic missile tech I see as an extension of MAD - nail an American city with one and the strategic stockpile may very well be unlocked.




I watched a B-2 come in for a landing at Nellis once, many years ago. The thing is so comparatively thin that it nearly vanished while it banked around to come in. Quiet, too. They're only based out of Guam and Whiteman now, since they can hit any target on the planet from those two bases. Fun times.

It is important to note that the B-2 is also more than 30 years old, based on designs dating back to 1977 (Project Tacit Blue). The Spirit first took flight in 1982. This makes this plane 28 years old. The basic design was pioneered by the Nazis in late 1944/45, with the Horten 229.

Military vehicles have service lifetimes measured in decades. You cannot simply dish out new generations of fighters every few years; nobody would want to buy them and nobody could afford to pay for them.

MRBMs aren't really designed to be used against cities. They're too small and don't have the range.

They're designed to be used in the battlefield. One of the possible scenarios is China using a barrage of them to take out the US Pacific Fleet before they can get close enough to engage, in the event China makes an attempt to take over Taiwan forcing the US to intervene.



-k

IIRC, they can also be based out of Diego Garcia.




Part of me wonders if just like the viking long ships, we have kind of reached the pinnicle of weapons development for the forseeable future. I think the next big break will be reliable and cost effective laser weapons---but from what I understand most present day systems still use to much power.

There's also the M1 Abrams tank, which looks to be the US military's Main Battle Tank for the next 20-30 years as they keep adding upgrades to the basic design, that's 40-50 years of use of the same basic platform. Also, the Navy' s new Gerald Ford class Carrier is expected to stay in service for the next 50 years, well into the 2060's. The point's been made, that when a government spends Billions of dollars on a new weapon system or vehicle class they tend to make it for the long haul. The more basic and sturdy the design the longer use it sees in frontline service. Why scrap a weapon system for something new when you can upgrade your exsisting systems for a quarter the cost. As a former mechanized infantryman, we used M113s and M577s from the Vietnam era as command vehicles in our Company, still worked so why change. Same for the Bradlys and the Abrams, throw on some smart armor, better optics/sites and rewire the thing for GPS and your still rolling in style. Heck the M2 browning .50 cal machine gun is still the primary crew served weapon on most vehicles, at least as of '04, that basic design has been around since what the 40's?
For any modern military there's one simple rule to rememeber, KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID, no offense to any of my infantry brothers, but they should back me up on this, JOE IS DUMB, meaning that your average frontline grunt has an average IQ of a box of nails, get us in grops of 1 or larger we can do some pretty dumb things. Think about fellas we did. That's why we have a chain of command a some darn fine NCO's, but my point is you have to make equipment and weapons that even the dumbest soldier can operate and maintain. that's why a lot of our modern equipment is Vietnam era/WW2 era, it worked then it works now, add some fancy dodas and dohickies and you just brought your classic piece of equipment into the 21st century.
Now i'm not saying all equipment in shadowrun is going to be old and outdated, but i just don't see basic military procurement changeing all that much in the 6th world. Grunts are still Grunts, I don't see governments of the 6th world spending to much money to train and equip them as some of the fluff/crunch would dictate. Elite forces yes, special forces, you bet, but not the frontline gunt, they can't. You'd bankrupt yourself to fast. The vehicles in Milspec are great examples of that, classic designs up graded with the newest dodas and shinies. Still reliable and they get the job done. Rememeber a soldiers job is not to die fro his country, it's to make the other guy die for his. Also, you go to war with what you have, not what you want. I really hate that quote, but it illistrates a point. You have the vehicles and weapons that are provided to you by your government. The same vehicles the last crew used and the last mechanic overhauled. The same vehicle that had its engine replaced after going to CMTC and breaking down in the Box and had to be towed back to base with the vaulty heater and no break light. Military Vehicles are services by their crew which in most cases is enlisted men, the maintence team is enlisted, you may get lucky and have a motorpool NCO take a look at your vehicle once and a while but mainly it's up to the driver and gunner to do the frontline PMCS on a vehicle. My point, not every vehicle is tip top shape. So you wanna make it easy to fix and hard to break, that way you cut down on system failure in the field and combat, theoretically anyway. Sometimes you just run out of trackpads

I see that you, too, have been reading the RAND Corporation report on that potential fight.

Yeah, that was interesting. I have to wonder about the supposed targeting capacities they assign to the weapon system, though.

I kind have a vested interest as I'm Chinese with relatives in Taiwan.

Not that China has any real impetus right now to engage in hostilities. The US is their cash cow, and the current political climate in Taiwan means they are unlikely to strongly push for independence anytime soon. And China honestly doesn't have the resources to engage in any sort of protracted conflict.




-k

This.

Modular products are a cool idea that should get more attention. While I don't think they need to replace the traditional format, I do wonder if CGL has the chops to pull a quality large format Shadowrun product.

As a tertiary, perhaps. The only time the B-2's arrive at Nellis is if they're doing something with Red Flag, IIRC. Any other time they take off from Whiteman or Andersen, fly their mission, head back. I personally find Diego Garcia to require far too much paperwork for anything at all to go into.

Agreed. China may rattle its sabre, but it has a lot more to lose in a conflict than it has to win, at this point.

And while I think the *overall* analysis, particularly the sections on how boned a lot of our air forces would be, is pretty good... I suspect very strongly that the current AEGIS systems equipped with RIM-161 missiles is quite capable of defeating Chinese theate-based missiles, especially in combination with the upgraded radar and targetting. Their tests have been hitting missile warheads in terminal phase *quite* well.

Unless the carrier is not mobile, hitting it with a ballistic weapon will be difficult, unless the impact vehicle can alter it's own course. Nothing indicates, to my knowledge, this missile can. It's like the stealth fighter they produced - more show than threat. At least for now.


And the US has just as much leverage on china as vice versa. Besides, the PLA isn't the most efficient army. The country that should be scared is Russia - China needs ressources, and Siberia is mostly empty.

That doesn't stop China from preparing for landing operations during any large maneuvers. And it's not like there are many places where a Chinese force may be willing to land.


Well, yeah, we have Chinese scare alright around here.
Still, Southern Siberia is the more settled part, and we still have nukes should a military conflict happen. Surely a country with its industry relatively closely grouped knows better than asking for a nuclear strike on it.

If anything, it'll be some 'disagreements' between Vietnam, Phillipines, Taiwan, and China (and whoever else is claiming that one group of very disputed islands, especially if they find oil/natural gas), or some 'borderline misunderstanding' issues between India and China that envision. More so with Vietnam since they don't have nukes and I think China is still embarrassed about the last conflict they had with Vietnam in the 1980's(?). That or the North Korea collapse, that'll be some very 'interesting' times for everyone in the region.

I agree. Core rule and 100+ page crunch-focus books should always be available in dead-tree format. And if CGL continuously wants to re-print them with revised errata, there will always be new players to buy them. But these upcoming location-concept-crunch mutations... they'd be better served as modular products.

Well, China has had a successful war with India already, there's nothing I'm aware of that they want from them.
And yeah, a Second Korean War would grant us some interesting times. Happened in 2005 in SR, too.

It dawns on me that we've not really had any new military fighters or bombers of late. Since WWII it was a pretty steady stream of innovation and upgrades. But in the last 2 (maybe 3?) decades, I can only count on one hand the number of new aircraft brought in, and it seems over double that number or more that we've phased out.

I'm guessing it's because of the lack of conventional and large scale wars, perhaps?

Wow, we are WAY off topic. What was the subject again? Oh yeah! The PDF. I want to get it, haven't yet though.

It'll depend upon anything they find on the plateau, such as some rich vein of minerals or something, then I can see some future disputes concerning the borders... again. Then again, national pride is always a cuse of concern, the current rise in nationalism in the population is really troubling.

Lets not forget that the retreat of the north pole ice cap opens up a whole lot of untapped underwater resources...

*Cough*Bachelor War*Cough*

Korea invading the USA might be a possibility. Which tells me that I need to get my Gun Nut tail down to Wisconsin, hide out in the bush, and ambush some commies while yelling out WOLVERINES!

PAK FA is new (well, it uses the Su-47 experimental results, but it's still an original development), as is a number of new IFVs and APCs Russian army has been getting throughout the last half a dozen years. Also, new armour development is ongoing.


Too bad we already know whose they are. :3


Beg your pardon? Bachelor War?


Oh yeah, it's around the same probability as Korea invading Mars. Accompanied by Batman, the Evil Dead and Predator.

Another asshole trick with tagging goes as following:

Mesh tags(unw 199, using the 'airburst from mortars' variant), running telematics infrastructure software and a good scan program...

in conjunction with said artillery. Shortly, anyone running a tactical network in the area(well, over wireless) is going to get some guided artillery on homing in on their signal.

(telematics reports direction and velocity of wifi devices in its coverage, remember?)

Well, that's basically an anti-radiation missile keyed to wifi rather than Radar, so... that's cool.

That game's resistance movement is called Wolverines? Fun little reference, considering the scenario (but come ON, North Korea? Have some spine and say China when you mean China, America ...).


"North Korea" is American for 'China', just as "Russian Nationalists" is American for 'We miss you, Soviet Union'.

On a side note, since apparently most newer Russian movies aren't translated at all, is Адмирал Колчак showing a trend, or is it more of a single movie towards rehabilitating the czarian order? At least, that's what I got from that movie.

Whoops, should have specified US warplanes. I'm definitely not up to date on the military development of other countries (such as Russia, based on the Su-47 designation if my memory serves)

Nah, North Korea doesn't have the ability to do such a thing and everyone knows it. They'll just continue to rattle sabers and thumb their nose at the US, confident in the knowledge that North Korea poses little military threat to anyone but South Korea. And the US will continue to take it, knowing full well that any attempt to dismantle North Korea will result in South Korea getting blasted back to the stone age.

Zombie Apocalypses aren't likely to happen either.

Doesn't stop me from having a Zombie Plan.

Lately i have encountered zombie as a euphemism for something else...

well, technically the first korean war has never ended. There is just a massive pause in fighting, but the war was never declared as being over.

Well, Russia is indeed seeing an upswing of nationalism - from moderate patriotism to extreme nazism, as a matter of fact. But the way I see it, the reason is pretty much the same as for czarist revisionism. See, Russian society is extremely stratified, with a handful of rich being very rich, and the rest of population being rather poor, with 25% below poverty level in 2000 and 12% in 2008. Minding that in Soviet Union, while there was, of course, stratification, it was not in any way obvious, and that the bureaucracy is so intertwined with major capital and crime that they are hard to distinguish, there's always demand for any product smearing USSR. Since, of course, there has to be some ideal of the past that Soviet Union destroyed, we have czarist revisionism - just as an ideological tool, "anything but the red".



Yeah, Su-47 is a Russian flying lab seeing all too much hype around it. PAK FA is currently where it's at.
Also, the troops are seeing Kamov's 52s after all, and Mi-28 and Ka-60 are ready to be adopted in the Army, too.

And officially there have been no war on earth since, as there have never been a proper declaration of war...

hey! I'm the only one who is allowed to know things about stuff and argue semantically about them, but you are right I did forget about that.

Yeah, Canada's one attempt at declaring war is a hilarious story!

No? I thought Bush had declared war against Afghanistan and Iraq, didn't he?

He didn't have the power to do so, only congress can declare war. Bush said we were at war, but it didn't actually count as he didn't have the ability to decide that.

So all we have is an unsightly brawl going on over there? Another "Police Action" like Vietnam?

Nope, and that was used to hold the prisoners at Guantanamo as "Unlawful combatants".

Makes one wonder what kind of word games the AAA's try to play in SR from time to time...