So, I'm going to be running a campaign this fall set in Vietnam/Laos, centered around the conflict there between the Vietnamese military and the hilltribes. There's a couple things I'm wondering about.

First, is the average Vietnamese conscript likely to have things like milspec armor? I'm not sure whether they'd try and be cheap about equipping them or give them the full gear, even if it's twenty grand. Secondly, would they go with skillwire implantations or actual training? One saves on training and time, the other saves on implantation and allows for skill to increase. What are your thoughts, Dumpshock?

I hope someone's got the links handy.

Look to the real world and realise that soldiers in 3rd world countries don't get access to the same stuff as soldiers in the 1st world.

That won't change in the future.

Soldiers in the 1st world aren't likely to get skillwires, boosted reflexes or milspec armour as a matter of course - because they're grunts, whose job is to die.

This may come as a surprise to you, but soldiers are trained in a lot more than point guns and pull trigger, so if they were going to implant all the required skills and experience that would cost more than the basic training.

Conscripts in a 3rd world country will probably get minimum training and probably minimum gear, because their armies won't have the budget for much of anything - like in real life warzones.

My thinking on the topic is this. You don't want to half-ass equip someone - you want to go for either cheap, or good, but you don't want to spend tens of thousands of nuyen getting someone fancy guns and skillwires but not armor. Second, training takes a lot of time. You probably do want some soldiers who have actual for real training and to give them good gear - but if you're going to be picking up conscripts, you might just want to slap in some 'ware and send them to the front lines. So I'm going to assume what you have is a schmuck with 3s in all stats and no relevant skills at all.

The "cheap" setup is going to pretty simple - Ingram White Knight (2000) with an extra Auto-Adjusting Weight (150Y), Smartlink (400), Shock Pad (50), and some IP-boosting drugs, probably Cram. Slap on goggles with Smartlink (450Y) and you have a functional albeit crappy soldier who costs you only about 3000Y to equip and whose gear can be easily given to someone else when he bites it. They'll roll 4 dice to shoot people, but with the ability to long burst/short burst with no recoil, most people won't have any dice to dodge, and if they manage to live long enough to learn Heavy Weapons 1, they'll roll 6 dice. You could pay a lot more to make them a bit better, but you start hitting diminishing returns very fast.

The "good" setup is less simple. Secondhand Wired Reflexes 1 (2.4 essence), a secondhand cyberarm customized for +3 agility and with another +3 agility enhancement and a +3 armor enhancement (1.2 essence), Skillwires 1 (.24 essence), Automatics 1 skillsoft. Red Samurai Armor with Strength Upgrade 2 and Mobility Upgrade 3, and give them an Ingram SuperMach 100 with a Gyrostabilizer, Smartlink, and mod on Gas Vent 2.

This is reasonably pricey, about 50,000 nuyen, but what you get out of it is someone who can roll 12 dice to shoot people twice per pass with narrow long bursts, which will take down almost anyone pretty fast. They get 2 IPs, and have heavy enough armor that they will nearly always be taking Stun rather than Physical (and thus are likely to live to fight another day even if they go down).

You don't need the shock pad. The White Knight comes with one. Also I'll armor the guys. I'll get an Armor Vest and a secure PPP helmet for 6/6 armor for 700Y.

Whoops, you're right about the shock pad. Yeah, the armor is probably worth it.

Bah! They get two sticks and a rock. And the platoon has to share the rock!!!

I think the armor point is important. Anything that allows a trooper to survive will save an army on equipment and training.

I honestly don't see low grade soldiers being common because of the proliferation of drones. It's very difficult to get a cheap soldier who can compete with drones, for the following reasons:
#1 It's very difficult to get a metahuman to 3 IP without either ware, magic, or crippling drug addictions.
#2 Training is very expensive, compared to uploading a few easily duplicated/pirated autosofts.
#3 Drones don't take stun damage, which is critical against bursts. If you fire an assault rifle with burst at an armor 9 drone, the drone has a good chance of simply ignoring it, while a human will be knocked out unless they dodge it.
#4 No recoil modifier means drones with bigger guns and longer bursts then metahumans, which is a big difference in terms of lethality.
#5 Public opinion. A thousand dead metahumans is a tragedy, a thousand destroyed drones is not.
#6. Versatility. Drones can fly, travel at high speeds, don't eat, don't sleep, and can instantly be uploaded with new autosofts to change their skills from combat to infiltration to medicine. Just equipping a metahuman with equivalent used skillwires costs more than many drones and autosofts have a clear costs advantage over skillsofts.

To put it another way, a Ford LEBD with an Ingram White Knight, and an armor upgrade is going to cost about 7-7.5 thousand. It flies, has 3 IP, can only be damaged by heavy weapons or APDS ammo, can have it's skills instantly upgraded, and can easily tie into tacents and communicate with the rest of the army. A Steel Lynx will cost about the same, is faster, won't be able to fly, will have heavier armor, and comes with it's own autosofts. It's very difficult to imagine any metahuman soldier who can compete with that at a comparable cost.

The communications point is also very important. I think the conscript Umaro outlined is fairly solid but he doesn't have a commlink, in fact, the only way for him to communicate with anybody else in his team, much less army, is shouting. If one army can communicate and coordinate instantly, and the other can't, then the non-Matrix army is going to be torn apart. However, building and distributing comms that can stand up to botnets, much less real hackers, increases their costs substantially.

Another point, APDS ammo will be king. Stick & Shock is still great but it will only disable drones and metahumans. If you want to kill, you need to get past armor and get it low enough to do physical damage. That means APDS.

Edited, because I didn't actually answer the OP.

A think the typical conscript will be carrying a HK MP-5 TX ( 550), 3 clips of regular ammo ( 60), Armor Vest with Secure PP Helm ( 700, like Hida suggested), a survival kit ( 100), a rating 2 Micro transceiver ( 400), and 2 doses of Jazz ( 150). Total Cost: 1,960 I would say most of them are in boot camp for 2-3 weeks and skills of 2 (skill level of a military trainee according to the book) in their firearm sounds about right.

Yes, I know I said APDS would be king. It still is. It's also Availability 16, so a conscript ain't getting it.

I think conscripts need to stay below the 3000 mark. At that point, you're outnumbering the drones 2-1, which probably gives the metahumans a slight advantage in combat at the cost of versatility. Above that, the metahumans get better but now they're going 1-1 with the drones, or at best 3-2 and I just don't see that as a valid strategy.

A couple notes:
I don't think conscripts should use Cram. It's great during the fight (long duration) but 6S will probably knock out a conscript who saw any action and if they got knocked out it will probably kill them.

Also, while communications are critical, I would not trust commlinks to conscripts. Officers, trained soldiers absolutely, but giving a conscript free internet access is like asking to lose the war.

Edit (one last note, I promise):
Laser sights are probably going to be better than Smartlinks. They're 100 and only one die worse than the 800-ish Smartlink set-up.

Training 3rd world soldiers is not expensive.

For one, wages are much lower than in developed areas, so cost effective for corporations in America is very different than cost effective for an army in Vietnam.

Second, corporations want their employees to work all the time. For soldiers, it is very different. Most of the time, you are NOT needed to work, as very few armies have their full forces deployed and in action constantly. Most of the time, your army acts as a deterrent and/or is ready to deploy if you're attacked (or waiting for an opportune moment to attack a neighbor if you're so inclined). So what, do you do with that time? You train. There is very little cost difference between having your army on standby and training.

I doubt you'd see skillwires in 3rd world armies tbh.

A 3rd world army with disciplined leadership and skilled instructors could be reasonably well trained. A lot of 3rd world armies are not disciplined though, and are little more than thugs with assault rifles, preying on civilians. Such armies would be a complete walkover. You could easily find a mix in the same country - a dedicated and well trained main army that protects the regime ("republican guard"), and the rest of the army undisciplined and mainly serving to keep the population in check and act as a buffer against invaders.

Finally, mercenaries can be hired in times of war, providing skills, equipment and capabilities that the country doesn't have. From the high end (stealth fighters to take out enemy AAA, electronic warfare, spec ops, an armored column to penetrate the front lines) to the low end (foreign grunts willing to commit atrocities against the local population), these could be anything.

Drones aren't just the cost of the drones. You need maintenance, fuel, control and communication networks, technical personel, workshops, hackers and IC to protect them, etc. There's A LOT of back end to service those things, and it is questionable how much of that expertise is even available locally.

A soldier on the other hand can live off the land or the local population, survive on his own, think for himself, maintain his own gear, heal minor injuries, can't get hacked, etc.

Drones are also easily shut off with jamming. I agree drones would see use but I don't think you can pull off a drone army.

The "default" drone would almost certainly be a Lone Star Strato-9. 1900 for a medium flying drone that comes with a heavy weapon mount? Yes please.

The problem with giving them the HK MP-5 is that without some serious modding, they can't really get any use out of the BF or FA options on it, and they're likely going to be relying on Wide Bursts to hit a lot of the time. I think springing for the Ingram White Knight is well worth it.

If you really, really want to keep the cost low and are willing to settle for single-shotting, then you should be giving them rifles or something, not SMGs.

I hope so too.

Personally, I think cheap shotguns or assault rifles with laser sights are a good option for low-end grunts. Even with R3 Gas vents, you'll end up cheaper than with a White Knight, and recoil isn't doubled. The AK-97 or the T-250 are prime candidates for this.

As a sidearm, I'd say Ruger Super Warhawk. Cheap, and packs a punch. If your army is smartlinked, then Ares Predator IV.

If you want to cheap on the weapons, T-250 is the way to go (500 for 7P/-1, after coughing up for an underbarrel weight). You really need to either cough up for the recoil compensation to USE BF/FA modes, or not bother. There's no point in having a fully automatic weapon with 1 RC, all that does is waste ammo. I can see the T-250 as being a sensible option if you don't want to pay for the ability to use an automatic.

For the OP:
If you have a copy of War! (no derailment, please) then take a look at the Guerilla and the Guerilla Lieutenant, they actually look pretty solid and they're already built.
If you don't, they key points are that grunts get no ware, have armor jackets, commlinks, and AK-97s. Lieutenants get used Dermal Plating and Wired Reflexes. Makes sense. (Dunno how much we can post, so keeping it vague). I wouldn't use the other grunts shown but the Guerilla looks pretty good for a conscript army. Just stick a laser designator and some cheap recoil compensators on the AK, fluffwise it's been mass-produced out of a nano-forge but still, it could use some basic add-ons.

On Drones:
Hmm, I haven't ever worried about Jamming much because, well, ECCM 6. Let's take a look.

They've gotta be using a directional jammer, otherwise the loss of strength over range is just too great. Against a standard drone, a basic jammer should work (say R5-6) but if the drone has a skinweb array and ECCM R3 (1,700) then you'd need R9-10 to regularly jam it. And at 5,500-6,000 a jammer with a availability of 18-20, I just don't buy that being widespread amongst conscripts.

Hmm, I do think jammers, or even the threat of jammers, increases the cost of drones substantially but unless there's tons of R9-10 jammers out there (and you can't somehow spring for a more powerful ECCM program) then I don't see jammers really stopping drones. I do think that extra 1,700 makes some of the drones unfeasible, LEBDs are probably out, but the heavier drones like Steel Lynxes are still very brutal.


What I like about the HK MP-5 is that it comes with 3 points of recoil and a Laser Sight. No, they can't do big bursts but they should be able to consistently to short bursts and that's enough to seriously hurt most metahumans with 6-8 points of armor. And it's about 1,500 cheaper than the Ingram. If that 1,500 lets you equip another soldier, I think the MP-5 is worth it. If not, well, the Ingram wins because it'll drop most metas in one burst. I guess this one would come down to how populous/poor a force is.


That's tasty. I can't find it in Arsenal or SR4. Is it from one of the new books?


Humans need housing and food, their gear needs maintenance, and they certainly need commlinks and IC to protect their communications. Yes, drones require support but so do metahumans and I don't see the minimal cost increase from drones outweighing their massive boost in combat effectiveness.

*sighs*

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=11137

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=22574

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=33203

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=33744

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=1793

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=14882

It's probably from "This old Drone".

Why are so many people mentioning SMGs and shotguns? There's no way you'd kit out soldiers with that as standard, range is way too poor. Assault Rifles and LMGs are the main weapons for soldiers.

Actually, most encounters occur at <100m, where carbines are the weapons of choice.

Mostly because this conflict is Vietnam (Jungle) and most SR conflicts seem to be Urban or jungle fighting (Bogota), where I don't think range would really be a factor. Also we're dealing with conscripts, who are going to have fairly poor equipment. Why pay extra for range you won't use.

Ehm no. Soldiers don't need housing. They have their own home, and when deployed they can make their own shelter. They need food, but it doesn't necessarily have to be supplied - most of the time you can just get it in the local food store or from civilians. Soldiers carry very little gear they can't maintain on their own. Soldiers don't need to be continually hacker-proof to operate, especially in the midst of combat soldiers can function if hacked while drones can go down or are subverted.

3rd world soldiers are basically unskilled labor that you've hired and trained in something they can't really use anywhere else, and with no alternative they remain cheap labor. To get an infantry force, you just need good officers, then hire lots of dirt farmers, buy guns, armor, and trucks for them, and give it at least 6 months for them to train. That's a lot cheaper than drones.

For a Third World grunt, I'd go with these:

Armour Vest
Helmet (0/2 B/I)
AK-147 if the country is wealthy enough to afford a nanoforge, else AK-97/98
CMT Clip Commlink for squad-to-squad comms and assorted electronics (embedded in helmet most likely)
Sidearms: plenty of old guns to choose from in Gun Heaven, M1991 for instance

Throw in a Ghillie Suit for the guerillas or snipers.

Keep in mind that equipment most likely will not be standard across the whole army. It will differ from unit to unit, region to region. The players may encounter conscripts with armor jackets guarding a village one day, and elite special forces with full mil-spec gear and drone support guarding a governor/politico the next.

Shadowrun consider carbines as SMGs (yeah, doesn't make much sense), which are very inferior at <100m also. At 50m, the assault is still at short range, while the SMG is at medium range at 40m with a -3 modifier. At >80m, the SMG is at extreme range with -6 modifier, while ARs are only at -1.

Bottom line is, the grunts with low dice pools can't fight effectively at beyond 40 meters with carbines/SMGs, while ARs lets them operate out to 150m. Long range shots are 80m vs 350m. Assault rifles are just at a huge advantage.

And then there's the damage code difference.

Soldiers in an urban or other close combat situations (jungle would definitely apply, especially for natives. Remember to give them some Survival (Jungle) and Infiltration (Jungle) skills where applicable) should benefit plenty from the 150 meter max range on a slug shotgun or SMG. Your opponent is going on the cheap with armor? Call in the flechettes. 60 meters should still be plenty. Equally advisable against all those critters that don't wear armor in the first place.
Also remember that those flechettes don't suffer recoil when single-shotting,while still being able to reduce a defense pool to (next to) nothing.

No, just...no

Now I'm not going to pretend to have any military experience, or even be familiar with any military systems beyond a few esoteric ones, but I do think I know a couple things.

Soldiers that spend need to spend time finding/making housing and finding food have a lot less time for soldiering. Also, local economies (especially poor ones in war zones) are unlikely to have a large surplus of living space or food for soldiers. It's harder for the locals to make goods and it's harder to import them, which will create shortages. If your soldiers are "finding" food and housing, they're probably seizing it from the locals. And given the amount of technology that's in the average SR firearm, much less a commlink or jammer, those things will need regular maintenance or they're going to stop working.

And generally unskilled troops that can't communicate with each other do not stand up well to modern forces. If you're playing defense, then guerilla tactics will help but even then it's a struggle. I've never even heard of an offensive guerilla war to invade another country. Soldiers absolutely need communications to be effective and in SR that means commlinks or some substitute.

And sure, an army of farmers with AK-97s, Armor Jackets, and 6 months of training will be cheaper than drones. They'll also be torn apart by the drones, or any other military, even if they outnumber them 10-1 and they'll all have Wired Reflexes, White Knights, and Military armor. Because the drones (or any other military) are faster and better coordinated, they'll consistently hit isolated units with overwhelming force, wipe them out, and then move onto the next target.

Goggles with low-light or thermographic are only 150 and add nightfighting capability, a must-have imo.

A bipod is also great value for money.

Soldiers are quite able to handle themselves and their gear. Sure the locals won't like getting thier food and resources commandeered, but what cab they do?

Of course, a platoon of conscripts can't handle a modern army with drones. That's not their job. They can't handle tanks or gunships either. There'll be a main army that can handle advanced threats, or maybe mercenaries are called in. But that's not really what is needed against hilltribes.

On Umaro’s cheap soldier build, I suggest a comlink, a simrig, and access to a centralized tacnet (probably back at base, a satellite uplink can be used per squad). They now have 3 sense channels from a simrig (4 for metahumans), and 1 from an areal drone running Tactical Satalite Mapping Software (From WAR!). This lets them run a rating 2 tacnet to gain 2 more dice in shooting people.

The better equipped soldiers should be using Tacnet rating 4.

Keeping this is universe, look at Aztlan vs the Yucatan rebels, or the Japanese in the Philippines, or current Bogota war where it's hurting both Aztlan and Amazonia. When you take a poor person's food and house, he's likely to pick up a gun and go join the rebels. And I don't doubt soldiers can perform routine maintenance on their equipment, I doubt they have enough knowledge to keep complicated electronics functioning in a jungle for months. And in SR4, everything is electronics.

I'm not sure I buy the conscript army as capable of wiping out the hill tribes. Yes, they could probably beat them in open combat but I couldn't see them digging out an insurgency, especially if they're poorly trained and keep pissing off the locals. There is a lot of good stuff behind it though, it's very cheap and you get tons of "soldiers" out there policing the locals.

I think the right way to go about it would be to say that the Vietnamese army instituted a massive draft and each unit of the "main army" has a mix of conscripts and professional soldiers with Ingram White Knights and used Wired Reflexes R1, say a 3-1 or 4-1 ration between conscripts and trained soldiers. The trained soldiers provide all the real firepower and run the show, the conscripts basically allow the professional to occupy and secure a much larger area than they would otherwise be able to. Many professional remain part of a separate strike force with proper drone and magical support for dealing with any real military threat.

The Hill Tribes have a disproportionate number of Adepts and Shamans. That's going to be a problem for a conscript army to deal with.

This is why you use AKs and laser sights, instead of White Knights and Smartlinks. Ease of use and maintenance. Or look at older guns, otherwise.

Oh, also, when dealing with rebels in dense terrain, look at flamethrowers. They're still cheaper than the Knights.

That's under "assorted electronics" and I figure would be standard gear for most soldiers of the sixth world.

A bipod accessory would also work, especially if you have 5 RC on the rifle itself. Throw in some grenades (figuratively), a rating 3 medkit perhaps, some survival gear with water purification tablets and rations, and you're set.

Depends on what kind of soldiers you want.

You have your 'Rebel fighters', who are little more than a guy with an AK-97 in his hands, an RPG, or firing a heavy machine gun from the back of a truck.

Thsoe guys are easy... Give 'em 2's in their stats, a 2 for their skill, weapon, call it a day. Randomly toss in some others with pistols, knives, or a captured weapon and call it a day.

For a more developed soldier, keep the AK-97, buct give 'em some armor (Vest and helmet, or Jacket and helmet if they're an Ork or Troll), some basic electronics (Nightvision is the biggie, but a commlink network is also norm), a grenade or two, bump their statline up to a 3 Agility and 3 skill, and you should be solid.

A first world type will be kitted out in a far more advanced style, likely shifting up to an Ares Alpha or similar, getting actual MilSpec armor, and having vastly more advanced electronics. Agility or skill can be pushed to a 4, but not both... the Smartgun Link is now standard as well.

You're not going to see cyber on the normal grunts, but specops teams will have them and be kitted out like monsters.

(Oh, and poor countries make up for the lack of tech with combat drugs.)

People in poor countries aren't physically degenerate. Give them 3s for their stats.

Potential "Standard" Assault Rifle:

AK-147 (Internal RC 1, Stock)
Modifications: Foregrip, Sling, Bayonet Mount, Extreme Environment Mod 1, Melee Hardening
Accessories: Gas Vent 3, Bipod, Red Dot Sight, Blade Bayonet
Cost: 1890

It has an RC of 9 when the Bipod's deployed. so it can throw down a full burst. It's rather tough and with a soldier trained in Blades and/or Clubs it can be useful even up close. Laser sight would be cheaper, but I figure you may not want to announce your presence until you start shooting.

Would that be acceptable do you think or would most militaries and small armed groups simply not care that much? Given that it's a nanoforge design, those modifications would have to be built-in.

Also, it's a lot more economical to issue Urban Explorer Jumpsuits than an Armor Vest + UE Helmet. Odd, that. I suppose you could buy the jumpsuits in camo patterns or at least an olive drab.

Really it boils down to whatever you want. How an army is set up is heavily dependent on its logistics, its history (especially its past victories and defeats), and its goals. In a fictional world like SR, there's also thematic considerations as well from its 1980s cyberpunk roots. Since SR has generally been quiet, mixed, or baffling on these subjects, you can really do whatever you want and have an explanation.

Do you want the UCAS to basically have a banana republic army of whoever they can give a AK-97 to and not shoot them back? Go right ahead, it's a commentary of the weakening of government power in the face of corporations and grimdark lack of stability inside the nation. Do you want the UCAS to be an small skilled force of volunteers who heavily use drones to make up for their numbers? Go right ahead, it's a possible evolutionary path of an economically rich nation having volunteer force and putting a premium on no fatalities. You could make the argument either way.

If you want to make it for your game, I'll figure out what you want the military's goals are. Is it to stay in power as an independent faction in its own nation? Prevent the overthrow and loss of power of the dictator? Defend against raids from the hill people and their magic? Project force aboard to maintain a stable environment for the hegemon? Prevent take over by said hegemon or other equally powerful nations?

What does the military have to do this goal? Does it have adequate funding for its mission? How much is wasted? How easy is it to get recruits and how good are they? How certain are your logistic trains? How do you compare to your likely targets in terms of skill, resources, moral, logistics, and goals?

Lastly the history matters. What are you afraid of? What caused your last defeats? What gave you your successes? What is and is not acceptable?

The laser sight also has range issues, and can't handle smoke or rain. RDS is far better.

After a while they begin to shoot back or they run to the next country over.




Problem here is are we talking about WWII level of combat intensity or are we talking a low intensity conflict where a firefight may happen once every couple of days or so. In a WWII full on war mode, yeah the conscripts would get torn to shreds but so would the T-Bird company.

Recall that 2 is the new 3 and, as such, represents baseline normal.

The average person has a stat of 2 and a skill of 2 when they enter a job. Going to 3-3 takes quite a while.

This is excellent advice, it allows you to have your NPC's reflect gameworld themes right down to their stats, per your interpretation of both the gameworld and... whatever the stats mean.

Speaking of history, the OP mentions this is Vietnam. I'm by no means reliable or a history buff, but as far as I've read, they were also invaded by Cambodia as proxies for China, and the Russia at least had regular flights to the airports during and after the war. In my opinion, SR Vietnam would be pretty sure foreign powers (shadowrunners?) and large scale industrial military action leave their country worse off. Large scale destruction, contaminated environment (with birth defects) Surely I don't have to tell you to include Infiltration and Disguise (Camouflage) in the savvy soldier's skillset? Maybe even your incumbent nasty power will know from history class (or the state of his country more than a hundred years later) that carpet bombing and chemical defoliant are not popular tactical options. Of course, perhaps he's not a "hearts and minds" kind.

Looking at Shadows of Asia, it looks like your fight is between the Khouang Combine and The Dega Alliance. Apparently Khouang, the nationalized gov-corp, is supported by the Azzies, Shiawase and Mitsuhama, and the government controlled company owns at least 51% of their shared ventures. I'd say this means the Army could be getting armaments and matrix support from the japanacorps, and Aztechnology could provide all of that along with some stuffers and PR tips. Apparently the police's deckers are corp-trained and good at tracing and burning anti-government opinions and their sources. Your guerrillas will be running hidden/off or not have commlinks at all, instead relying on stealth, old school covert communication, magical support, and local knowledge, they may also have naga, apparently.

Hey guys, sorry I haven't replied yet, real life is kicking me in the ass (thesis deadlines :/ )

A lot of really good responses! Thanks! I especially like the point made by Politeman about drones; I hadn't considered how that would affect the equation. Given the Awakened focus of the enemy and their general lack of hacking potential (some of them may not even have commlinks, let alone the ability to hack/jam military drones), I could see wide use being made of drones. I should watch that opening part of Terminator 2 again...I could easily see that scene transplanted into Laos with a bunch of Hmong and Khmu fighters in a quarter century old Chevy Suburban being chased by some Azzie-model monstrosity, while the shaman tries to conjure something that can get rid of it. Anyways, I think I agree that I should maybe not go with a swarm of underequipped noobs. The supply lines would be such a mess.

Synner, I see what you mean about 3rd world soldiers not having access like 1st world soldiers to good gear, but I'm just not sure which category 2072 Vietnam is closer to, given that it's an Azzie client state and all.

And I think I like Smokeskin and Wulfgar's idea of a tiered army. I could see Khouang Combine corporate soldiers, Esprit Industries mercs and maybe PAVN volunteers getting pretty decent gear, maybe light milspec armor and helmet with some decent guns, looking at about 25k each, not so bad considering modern soldiers are costing $17k to gear and my guesstimations from the price of basic goods and services in the books suggests 1YY is about $1.50 or $2. Not out of reach, in any case. And of course, specops guys will get even better stuff. On the other hand, maybe you've also got the guys the PAVN pulled out of prisons to go fight in Laos, getting a setup much more like the cheap setup. And in between, you've got PAVN conscripts who are really just there so your army isn't all drones with drone vulnerabilities. They get an armor jacket, flamethrower/smartlinked assault rifle, enough gear to keep them in the game but not enough to take serious punishment. Possibly mixed in together like PoliteMan is suggesting. Does this sound about right to you guys?

Of course, the average Hmong guerrilla isn't going to have shit for gear, but he'll probably be relatively good at shooting and keeping his head down, and they're likely to be trying to ambush, Spirits Go In First (if metahumans are going in at all), that sort of thing.

As far as Smokeskin's idea of living off the land goes, though, I think there may be enough of a counterinsurgency aspect to this war for that to be discouraged. If PAVN starts pushing lowland Lao farmers around for their rice and housing, they're likely to sign up with the Dega Alliance, whereas otherwise they might have been ok with the Vietnamese. Vietnam's been on both sides of guerrilla wars (the American War and their own counterinsurgency fight against the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) in our century, and I doubt the lessons will have entirely been lost, given that they share a border with the mess that Guangxi becomes.

Politeman's right about offensive guerrilla war not working so well, though. When the NVA tried to go into Laos during the Secret War era in the sixties, they had to operate more like a conventional army, which let the Hmong play merry hell with their supply lines. And about communications. I think Awakened methods are going to supplement or replace conventional technological ones in a lot of cases, as well as just sending runners and stuff. They're probably smart enough to realize they can't win the Electronic Warfare war against PAVN's fancy equipment, so why fight it at all?

Finally, Hida, SP, I think you're right to bring thematic considerations into this. On the one hand, I do think war seems to be going the direction of high tech and mobility, low numbers rather than WWII massed combat, for the most part, and I want to respect that. On the other hand, I'm trying to evoke cultural memories (or create them, given that I'm an American running this for Canadians) of the American experience in Vietnam and of the Hmong experience in the Secret War in Laos. So I'm trying to end up somewhere in between, but in any case it's not a Warhammer 40k meatgrinder.

And SP mentions chemical defoliant; that's not gonna fly again given the amount of birth defects seen in Vietnam even today, but I was wondering about a nanotechnological equivalent, some kind of mass produced, simple Demolisher of biomatter. Very futuristic, and it makes sense in that it gets rid of profitable opium crops, forest cover, potentially some of the forest's mana (by killing the biosphere), at least locally, and generally the hilltribes' ability to support themselves. Also brings up the memory of Agent Orange and could be used for various sorts of visual effect. But does that make sense? Is mass producing nanos on that scale feasible in SR?

Here's what I've got for a writeup so far, if people feel like reading it. I'm trying to stay mostly on canon except when something's just unworkably dumb, and I can't recall anything off the top of my head I've had to change on that account. This is an extremely skeletal writeup (don't even have commenters' names in the shadowchat yet) but what do you think?


Been watching a lot of old Vietnam War movies for inspiration. Strongly considering finishing the first half of the campaign with a second Battle of Hue, among other ideas I've got floating about in my head.

For an Azzie solider, I would try this build:

Ware:
(Cyberware Suite, Used)
Muscle Replacement III
Wired Reflexes I
5.4 Essence, 11,700

Armor:
Softweave Light Military Armor with Helmet, Vision Magnification, Vision Enhancement 3, and Thermographic.
23,700

Weapon:
Ares Alpha with Stock, Gas Vent 3, Shock Pad, and Airburst Link.
Recoil: 7
Ammo: 100 rounds of ADPS
Micro Grenades: 3 Flash Bangs, 3 High Explosive.
3,865
Total: 39,265
Nothing crazy but I think 40,000 nuyen in gear is fair, given his wages are probably 60,000 nuyen a year.
Nothing exceptional but the military armor is thematic and means the soldier will probably survive anything short of a heavy machine gun with APDS or an anti-tank missile. The ware improves his shooting, strength, and gives 1 IP. The weapon is decent with both non-lethal and light anti-vehicle capability. Probably toss in a culturally appropriate melee weapon and you're set.

I would see the average team being 5 metahumans with the above build, 4 Steel Lynxes with upgrades for fire support, and a lightly armed LEBD-1 with for utility stuff (scouting, autosofts, sensors). Assuming the drones are upgraded to cost about 12,000 a pop, the total unit would come to 260,000. Definitely not going to wipe out 900-1,300 Hmong guerillas in a stand up fight but it could probably beat 30-40 such fighters and the whole unit would make it back alive (even if some are knocked out).

One of the things that's been bugging me is that gangers are starting to get ware, but somehow military soldiers aren't. With used cyberware, you can get Wire Reflexes R1 for 5,500 and Dermal Armor or Muscle Replacements for 2,500. Things get even cheaper if you assume the military can get it all as a cyberware suite. That kind of boost, at that price, seems like a no-brainer for soldiers, especially the Wired Reflexes.

Do you have a page reference for that? As in, an official reference, not Knasser's PDF.

Hmm, going for a mixed unit.

Say two Azzie (or Azzie sponsored Vietnamese) soldiers, 2 Steel Lynxes, 1 LEBD, and 10 conscripts.

Using Udoshi's build for the conscripts, that's 132,500 for the squad. Mix in some medkits, frag grenades for the conscripts, an Azzie Striker with an Anti Tank missile, and a bound spirit. and say 140,000 for the whole unit. It's 10,000 cheaper if you use my build for the conscripts. That looks pretty solid.

A lot of combat effectiveness depends on the conscripts. If they stay and shoot it out, they'll drop even heavily armored metahumans through sheer weight of fire. If they break and run, the unit becomes very vulnerable.

I'd say the Hmong would use lots of High Explosive grenades and land mines to take out the drones and focus fire early on the professional troops. Drop them and the conscripts will probably run. If the professional troops get abandoned by the conscripts after they're knocked out, they're dead. I'd say early on you'll see a lot of dead conscripts, then a much smaller amount of dead professional troops, then the professional troops will get fed up and you'll have lots of leaderless conscripts on their own, essentially walking sensors that report the enemy position and then die, while the professional troops fly in and wipe out the attacking guerillas in force.

Sure! Take a gander at SR 4, Page 108 and 109... Firearms 2 is, for example, a boot camp graduate, or a police adcemy graduate, which is to say someone that went through a training course, which is what we'r elooking at for typical militia types (Your Mujaden and such).

A skill of 3 is for a regular (1-3 years in the field) type of guy, such as a normal soldier, a police officer with some years under his belt, Mr Johnson, and so on.

The move from 3rd to 4th basicly had you take 2/3rds of everything you had, so your stat of 6 became a 4, your skill of 9 became a 6, and so on.

And after you're done doing that, do the sensible thing and rip the page out and light it on fire.

I agree about the skill value. However, I'm taking about the attributes. A 2 is definitely not the human norm.