Snake Eaters-1st Cavalry
 

In my current MP campaign I started with Lonestar. The 1st Cavalry considers itself a unit of the United States Army. They take the official oath we take today. In my expanded version of Lonestar the savages have another enemy: A Snake Eater team has been active in Northern Mexico. This team has been freeing slaves and has set up a "clan" of their own and are hard at giving the savages a really bad time.

I just sent CT-13 to Carlsbad Caverns where there was a FEMA cache (Which I stole from Allegheny Uprising, a fine Twilight 2000 module). Issues come in from that module and other events in the campaign.

Would the Snake Eaters accept that the 1st cavalry is a United States Army unit and a legitimate part of the Government of the Unites States of America? Will they accept the authority of its commissioned and non-commissioned officers?

An additional issue becomes the massive amount of classified materials found in the cache. The players found a large amount of classified materials from the FBI, CIA, DIA and various other organization. I intend upon using this material for a number of plot hooks. It includes a large number of FBI files on Morrow, so it might have clues to the location of Prime Base.

The other files might have information on things like Damocles. The location of other strategic reserves and such.

How would the Special Forces guys feel about this HUGE amount of classified material. Yes, a lot of it is outdated, but a lot of the material is still relevant. Can they "read in" the Morrow Teams and the soldiers of the 1st?

What other plot hooks can this enormous cache of classified information lead to?

In the Campaign the players have been able to link the Special Forces, the Texans-both civilian and military and several local areas of organized and the materials would be of tremendous value, as they include seeds and medical equipment.

Would the Special Forces guys claim "dibs" on everything, which is a lot, in the cache?

Special Forces are trained to work with locals to a much greater extant than regular troops. There are numerous stories of SF fitting in so we with locals that they even marry and raise kids, depending on how their first contact goes, I can easily see them working the 1st Cavalry. As far as taking their orders, again the SF are trained to interact with local military, but this will be along the line mms we of separate but equal. The team leader would not surrender his authority, it would cooperate with the troopers on certain missions.

As far as the cache goes, the team leader may release some information that may benefit the troopers, I certainly don't expect him to turn everything over, at least not until he gets in touch with his chain of command and gets an okay. In the post-War world, if the SF can't get in touch with their B or C team leaders, then there would be a good chance that they would cooperate with Lonestar.

As far as plot hooks, sky is the limit! Possibility of more in depth info on the Project, including hints at various bases; government stockpile locations; the real locations of the continuity of government bunkers; hidden research facilities; the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body; perhaps copies of J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files possibilities are endless!

One of the questions is how strongly will the SF guys argue that they own the cache and the files? If possession is 9/10th of the law MP owns them, because they have the exact location and the keys and combinations. The Civilian government of Texas will demand them. They don't really have a legal leg to stand on. The Cav will have a much better basis for getting the files, and so will the the SF folks. Morrow has no legal standing, except for the ownership thing, and also the fact that Morrow activities are what has knitted these groups together might carry some water.

I don't know anything about SF chain of command and TO&E and OBs.

I'm open to specific ideas for classified document plot hooks!

Special Forces “Green Berets” or “Snake-eaters” are organized as follows:

An ODA or Operational Detachment-A or “A-Team” is the basic unit. It consists of twelve personnel (18A Detachment Commander-Captain, 180A Assistant Detachment Commander-CWO or CWO2, 18Z Operations Sergeant-Master Sergeant, 18F Assistant Operations Sergeant/Intelligence Sergeant-SFC, 2x 18B Weapons Sergeants, 2x 18C Engineer Sergeants, 2x 18D Medical Sergeant and 2x 18E Commo Sergeants. These eight men can hold ranks from SFC, SSG to SGT with one usually being of higher rank. This organization can be split into two 6-man teams for operational purposes.

An ODB or Operational Detachment-B or “B-Team” is the headquarters element of a Special Forces Company and is usually composed of 11-13 soldiers. The mission of the B-Team is to support the company’s A-Teams in field and garrison. A ODB is comprised of an 18A Detachment Commander-Major, 18A Detachment Executive Officer-Captain, 180A Company Technician-CWO3, 18Z Sergeant Major, 18Z MSG who assists the XO and technician in their duties, 18F Operations Sergeant-SFC, 18D Medical Sergeant-SFC, 2x 18E Commo Sergeants-SFC/SSG.

An ODC or Operational Detachment-C or “C-Team” is the headquarters element of a Special Forces Battalion. A ODC usually consists of three companies (A, B and C) and a Headquarters & Support Company. It is commanded by a LTC with a MAJ as XO and a CSM as senior NCO. There are an additional 20-30 SF personnel who fill the key positions in operations, logistics, intelligence, communications and medical.

A Special Forces Group is usually assigned to a Unified Combat Command or a theater of operations. Typically a SF Group consists of 3-4 battalions, supported by a HQ & HQ Company, a Group Support battalion and a Chemical Recon Detachment.

There have been 11 Special Forces Groups in the US Army, these are
1st Special Forces Group, stationed at Joint base Lewis-McChord, Washington, it is oriented towards Pacific region operations.

3rd Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, it is oriented towards operations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

5th Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, oriented towards operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

6th Special Forces Group. Currently Inactive. Was based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Assigned to Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia.

7th Special Forces Group, stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. This group is oriented towards the western hemisphere, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

8th Special Forces Group. Currently inactive, was responsible for training of Latin America in counter-insurgency tactics.

10th Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado with one battalion forward deployed to Panzer Kaserne, Boblingen, FRG. Oriented towards Europe, mainly Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon and Northern Africa.

11th Special Forces Group. Inactive.

12th Special Forces Group. Inactive.

19th Special Forces Group, a National Guard unit headquarted in Draper, Utah with companies in Washington, West Virginia, Ohio, Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Texas. Oriented towards Southwest Asia (with 5SGA), Europe (with 10 SGA) as well as Southeast Asia (with 1 SGA).

20th Special Forces Group, the second National Guard unit with headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, with 1st Battalion in Alabama, 2nd Battalion in Mississippi, 3rd Battalion in Florida and with companies and detachments in North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Maryland. Area of responsibility covers 32 countries, including South America, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.

Thanks!

There are ten FEMA Regions, but several are in the North East, so let's consolidate 1-3 and that gives us a total of 8 regions, so let's just say that Groups 21-28 are Snake Eater groups.

Group 21 Region I-III
Group 22 Region IV
Group 23 V
Group 24 VI
Group 25 VII
Group 26 VIII
Group 27 IX
Group 28 X

My "Clan Freedom" gents are all that part of the Group associated with FEMA Region VI, making it Group 24.

Perfect, Thanks again

In the words of President Reagan, "trust, but verify". I think it would be sometime before the Team would make themselves known to 1st Cavalry. First they would infiltrate the area posing as civilians like merchants, truck drivers, even labor to assess the opinions of the people within the 1sts territory. If they an pose as 20 somethings might even "enlist".

The SF even after making themselves known to the 1st would not be working for them. SF has a much shorter chain of command the regular "Big" Army. Often a Army or Theater (4 Star) asset and seldom going below Corps (3 Star). That is intentional so as to not waste the training and talents of specialists on local command recon taskers.

They will be happy in most situations to assist, train, and advise units of the 1st without making themselves subordinates. They're working for a much higher National Command Authority level HQ (NorthCom? 1st Army?, 3rd Army?) that would assign them tasks and from whom their expected support would be coming from. At the size of Snake Eater Teams (Operational Detachment Alpha) it would be reasonable to expect that throughout all of U.S. territory there is two, possibly a third, SF battalions. These are expected to be understrength too, given that SF never has all the personnel needed on any given day anyway. Where they will shine is in the quality of the volunteers.. Their four time volunteers already! Enlisted, Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces. A SF volunteer already has several years of enlisted time before volunteering for SF and selection making them older and more seasoned persons to begin with. Getting some to quit society (and they don't live in the "real world") facing life on the outside without job skills and adventurous souls staring 45 and 50 years in the mirror will be not so hard. Being frozen to be woken in a time of national crisis would be an easy choice for career soldiers that love their job and hate being forced out because of their age.


Doubt it. I doubt that any except the 18A and 180A would give it any look. You can't reveal what you don't know. The first choice would be to give it over to their own command with an intent that this would make it to National command. 1st has no business and Morrow Project has absolutely none with this classified material.

Yep, the twin requirements: Clearance and NEED TO KNOW! Also if one wants more personnel for the snake eaters, a few AF Special elements of 2 Combat Controllers and 2 Pararescue might be added. This would give the teams 2 more medics/ marksmen and 2 more comm, demo personnel. IRL there aren't that many that such wouldn't be missed, but this is a game.....

Clearance and Need to know, yes. However in the distant post war era a whole lot of things are going to go out the window.

The SF teams may want the classified material but to what extreme are they willing to go to get it? One of the issues will be that there are very few SF soldiers left. They have far fewer resources than either MP or their Texas allies and combined those two groups are far more powerful in all ways than the SF units. Not only that but Texas represents the most "American" set of survivors yet discovered. Can the SF troops go to war against Texas over this secure material.

Also the SF troops are good but are they better than the best of Morrow Project or the best of the soldiers in Texas? I always had a working class grunt's distrust of special operations troops, so I am biased.

I'm not sure how strong a hand the snake eaters have to play. They are pragmatic men, so what will they put on the table to control this cache?

Not to the SF troops or to the MP personnel.... individually and subjectively little time has past.

The Project personnel will wake up smothered in stun grenades with a side order of riot gas if the SF is feeling generous.

SF soldiers are the product of a peer, not leader, review process that removes less qualified.. Those are then processed through the best schools the DoD has and then the best schools that Allies have.

SF versus the Project? Would be like feeding poodles to pit bulls. TMP wouldn't stand a chance.

The SF will seize it and remove it from the area until National command Authority is established and aknowledged.

By Orders of Magnitude... I would argue that the SF of the 1960s is better than the SF of 2017 on a one to one in Guerilla warfare and living off the land.

A loyal indigenous strike force armed with modern small arms. Led, trained, and motivated by the best insurgent warfare specialists since the Apache.

Well, the Snake Eaters (like most of TMP) was never really considered in much detail in canon. We don't know much about them other than that (a) they are SF, (b) their mission was specified for a post-apocalyptic scenario, and that (c) they had some knowledge of the existence of the Project. They were presumably briefed for the possibility that they would awake to no "official" US government, and prepared for that possibility... but I don't want to guess what their official position would be. I suspect that, given the time elapsed and probable deviations of the 1st Cav from 20th century US policy and law, they would probably consider them to be like a very friendly but still unofficial/foreign group - they would ally themselves with them and try to steer them towards being more "American", but would probably not accept them as official or as superiors. Their orders presumably specified some criteria for whom they could consider as such, and even outside those orders they would probably refuse.

There are a few issues here.

First, under the normal TMP timeline, I don't think any of that would still be classified under law. To the best of my knowledge (and I have handled classified data routinely) the maximum time that material can be kept classified past the last order is 75 years, so even material classified as the bombs dropped would be unclassified 150 years later. These dates are marked on the material. I am not aware of any statute that allows for indefinite or longer classification, and indeed there are specific laws that prevent it.

Second, ignoring legality, what info is really going to be valuable 150 years later? Everyone named is dead, most if not all of the material resources are gone... other than pointing out other possible (equally irrelevant) caches, what is of value here?

Third, (wow, there are more than I thought when I started) why is all this in a FEMA cache to begin with? Why does FEMA have CIA classified documents? That seems a stretch.

Fourth, how do the Snake Eaters even know the Team has this data? If they knew about it and cared about it, presumably they would have already acted to secure it. Does the team send out announcements? Do the Snake Eaters have 150 year old alarms transmitting to their radios?

Fifth, and last, even if the Snake Eaters DO care about it, are they really going to go to the mattresses over all this? SF is trained to be pragmatic and to accept that there are rarely "good" options, going to war over this material seems unlikely.

Possibly, but again, they're pragmatic. Are they going to risk their overall mission (presumably restoration of the US) in a battle with minimal support, against an unknown but presumably large and technologically advanced foe, over seeds and first aid kits? I think they would start with negotiations to feel out the Team and their positions, evaluate the risks and rewards, and try to find a strategy that accomplishes their mission.

Attacking the Team would almost certainly wait until they had intelligence that indicated the ramifications of doing so, SF doesn't rush in. They don't know much about the Project, but they know it is big, and advanced, and (especially for the post-apocalypse) well equipped. They won't want to instigate war with an enemy that might be able to just drop bombs on them until they are paste.

All that having been said, if they DO attack, @ArmySGT is right, they'll tear through the Morrow Team like tissue paper.

If you WANT a confrontation, I think you need to create one. Or perhaps the Team will do so!

We'll just have to agree to disagree about the fighting potential and strategic value of special operations forces.

Why? One of the early arguments against the Special forces was the drain of the top tier NCOs from the regular forces? Their skills balance the lack of rebuilding material, and I got the impression from the game that the team would ally and provide that material if negotiations succeeded. It was an opportunity to role play, combat was to be avoided. The snake eaters had the advantage of establishing camps that could be self supporting in a guerilla campaign, this could work easily in post war America.

What?

The little upper 0.01 percent of the total Army in selection just for the opportunity to be considered.

1)Must be E4 (P) Specialist promotable, that is passed the promotion board at their regular Army unit prior to application. Additionally it is preferred that the Soldier has already passed Airborne school.

2) Pass the SF physial. This is more than just the Airborne physical.

3) Pass the swim test (100 meters in Uniform, boots, LBE, Kevlar, with rubber duck.

4) Have your application chosen by SF Branch.

5) Be invited to attend Special Forces Assessment / Selection course at the JFK Special Warfare school, Ft Bragg, NC.

6) Pass the SFAS by peer and instructor review. This is grueling on its own and spits out more than half of want to be applicants.

7)Pass selection, be released by your regular Army MOS for reclassification to SF branch.

8) Attend the multi week Speial Forces Qualification Course at Ft.Bragg and get a pass on the final FTX (Robin Sage).

9)Got to MOS school, Weapons, Medical, Commo, Intel. This is two years to four years depending on MOS.

10) fast track through Sniper, Jumpmaster, Pathfinder, Air Assault, Ranger, Sapper, and Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course. Attend Advanced Noncommisioned Officer is E6 or above. Attend Air Force and Marine corps schools like small boats or Loadmaster.

Officers to Captains course.

11) In between Regular Army schools attend civilian relatable schools like mountaineering, emergency medical technician, telephone lineman, electrician, veterinary technician.

More than $1,000, 000 in training is possible before being assigned to a ODA.

I don't know what your experience with SF is..... But, if my players tried to do battle with SF (such as Ruins of Chicago) this would be a total party kill and time to roll up some new characters.

A SF weapons Sergeant.. Probably the youngest and most junior is probably formerly Infantry or Engineer (Sapper) with six years in before SFQ.

The Army and SF branch will have invested more in this mere E5 (P) than the average Infantry Captain and will expect far, far more.

To act as a Leader, Trainer, and Mentor to local forces in their own language, their own culture, and to live among them. Then to take them into battle as their leader or to bolster the indigenous leadership. AT the bleeding edge of supply or to lack ordinary supply at all.

This isn't even Delta Force or Seal Team Six which only select the best of again volunteers from within their own teams. Another 0.01% of already 0.01%.

SF soldiers die just like anyone else. They have had some notable successes, but have also had some failures. A SEAL team got hammered during Just Cause in Panama https://www.navysealmuseum.org/about...eals-in-panama.

"The platoons continued with all possible speed to reach the PDF hangars on the northwestern side of the runway. At that point the SEALs had determined that General Noriega’s jet had been moved into one of the hangars. The two squads took up position the within 100 feet of the hangar, when they received several long bursts of fire.

In the initial volley, eight of the nine SEALs were wounded. House guards across the airfield also began to fire upon their position; putting them in a deadly cross-fire. Several SEALs were now dead, and those that weren’t were having a hard time dealing with wounds and getting out of their heavy man-packed equipment."

In the Post War the SE have probably figured out a couple of things

A) There will likely never be a National Command Authority ever again.

B) Each trooper is now an irreplaceable resource.

C) Tangling with the Morrow Project will likely result in SE casualties, even if they do wipe out the party the cost might well be very expensive.

D) The MP may offer the best chance of rebuilding the USA

Also I think MARS teams have a pretty high percentage of ex special operation soldiers. In addition the training you mention below would not be that different from what MARS teams get, at least in my project (ymmv). Every MP team member is a unique resource and MARS teams are not only that, but are designated to protect the rest of the resources of the project. This means, to me, that the Project would spare little expense at recruiting, training and equipping MARS teams to the highest possible standard.

Do I think an SF team could be some serious hurt onto non MARS MP? Absolutely. Do I think an SF team that just woke up and had all its ammo and equipment would have an edge on a similar Morrow Team? Yep, but not a walkover level of superiority. If the level of supply was tilted one way or another that would tilt the equation considerably. Yes I know the SoF soldiers are supposed to be able to destroy an armored division, naked and armed only with a pine cone, but if they cool toys didn't help things they wouldn't issue them.

Like I said, I was a working class grunt. As such I might be a little slanted in my opinion.

You're forgetting an important details of that scenario.

The SEALs were held up by Big Navy. Launched late and from further out than was supposed to happen. The SEALs had to go significantly further in a zodiac with an outboard motor...The SEALs arrived hours late...not at high tide and hours before dawn, but low tide and after sunrise....They attempted to complete their mission slogging across groin deep mud flats. Unfortunately, a Panamian soldier was more on the ball than usual and the team was spotted. The rest is history.

I'm not forgetting it. I know very well that Murphy was a grunt. It's not a perfect world and THINGS GO WRONG.

http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-war.html

So you knowing that the SEALs were launched hours late and miles further out by a Navy Captain more interested in himself and a ship than the lives of the SEALs. A situation making them arrive after sunrise and low tide to ross hundreds of yards of mud flats..... You fault the SEALs?

What military lets you choose to continue your mission or not? Was there a vote somewhere that the SEALs weren't told about?

Also when did SEALs merge with the U.S. Army Special Forces? A different branch with it's own selection, training, and missions.

I don't fault the SEALs, I am just stating what seems obvious to me, THINGS GO WRONG. SoF teams can catch bullets just like everyone else.

Also you brought up SEAL Team Six and Delta Force so you initially made the connection between SoF units of various services. I fully understand the two branches are different and do different things with different things but the basic point remains THINGS GO WRONG. On any given day an SoF team can get in a world of hurt just like normal human beings, although perhaps not as often and perhaps they will be able to extricate themselves more effectively.

True. However, your reply seems to blame the SEALs (or any SOF) for judgement, training, and knowledge. I don't get it, though I have had the opportunity to work with 1st SFG and 5th SFG when stationed at Ft Lewis and Ft Campbell.

I am not sure where this disagreement is coming from, nor why it has gone on so long.

SOF are selected from the best of the military and then given additional training, equipment, and other resources. The expectation is (and should be!) that they will outperform equivalently sized units and achieve parity against larger units (for some values of "larger"), often with improved performance for a particular mission profile. That they can and do fail should not be an issue - the best at ANYTHING still have failure rates, but it should be lower than conventional forces under similar circumstances. The traditional argument against SOF is that their improved performance does not justify the resources expended on them and the corresponding drain on conventional forces.

Your original question was how a special forces A-team would handle a Morrow team, and I think the there are several answers for the actions they might take. As for their odds of success, it depends on what you consider to be regular TMP training compared to SF.

In the case of Green Berets, they have gone through about a year of training above and beyond their prior military training (which definitely includes basic, usually includes infantry, and often includes Ranger training) just to qualify and receive extensive additional training both as individuals and as a unit. While a significant portion of this training addresses non-combat issues, a great deal of it does address combat. An A-Team may have a few new members but on average has significant experience, and it may be argued that a Snake Eater team would be selected to minimize or eliminate rookies.

For the Project, the implication has always been that members receive a relative minimum of combat training. Their primary mission is reconstruction, combat is at best secondary if not tertiary, and while canon lacks any real specifics it certainly looks as if their training is closer to Army Basic than any other military training. While any PD may decide to give the Teams more training, that assumption should be stated if you want others to consider it.

As to the idea of veterans in the Project Team coming from SOF, it would seem likely that any such veterans would be a substantial minority (just as they are in the military) and that their unusual capabilities would be reserved at some higher level for special purposes (just as in the military). A run-of-the-mill MARS team would be lucky to have a couple of guys who are Ranger-qualified, even a single SF vet would be truly remarkable. Even if we consider the absurd extreme where 75% of the team are not only veterans but actually SOF veterans, and where 50-75% of those were combat vets, then we still have maybe 4-6 Green Berets against an A-Team twice the size that has already had the chance to get acclimated.

And again, the idea that an A-Team would tear through a Morrow Team is not only sensible, but canon. The Ruins of Chicago already addressed this possibility, and made it clear that if the Team wanted to live they needed to tread lightly and use diplomacy, not bullets. While I disagree with many parts of canon, I see no reason to disagree with this.

But isn't the question not so much who would in a fight Morrow v SF (it's SF as has been said it's Cannon even Prime Base made clear that the Project had a special use for its most special forces).

But what would the reaction be from SF troops encountering a team? They weren't sent to kill these dangerous saboteurs. But rather, there's some funny sorts freezing themselves with guns and getting organised. Go see what they're up to.

An SF team attacking a Project team would be like a naturalist making an omelette out of rare Eagle eggs.

In terms of who'd follow the orders if the 1st Cav and SF met up. Here's an interesting question supposing someone like the Frozen Chosen had frozen a senior member of the government at designated survivor level of authority,

What happens when he gets on the radio and starts summoning up all the surviving US military to follow their commander in chief?
Loyalty to the chain of command gets pretty close to the bone.

I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon

"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)

3rd edition Introduction

"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"

"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"

3rd edition page 11

I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.

You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.

That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?

The SOF guys were diverted to the Phoenix Team. Mars is supposed to be SWAT in nature with a lot more options than LEOs. The minimum skill levels for snake eaters were the high end for project personnel. The team would get creamed whether it was a snake eater or a top tier regular grunt- top 1% is top 1%. And the 30 to 40 to 1 odds doesn't mean the SF guys go unscathed.

The Infantryman that finishes his three years in Germany....a veteran.

The Generals driver at the Pentagon is a, you guessed it, a veteran.

The cook, mail clerk, truck driver, JAG clerk....... yup.....with Honorable disharge.....veterans.

Veteran doesn't mean you attended and excelled at all combat related military schools.

Regular Army Tankers, Artillerists, Infantry, cavalry Scouts, and more are the
combat veterans. They for the most part have Basic, AIT, and maybe one or two military schools.


Many of the "Veterans" in MARS are police officers, EMTs, and Fire fighters..... the R in MARS is rescue after all.

To add to what others have already noted:

MARS describes the mission profile of an entire branch, it does not imply that every MARS team is capable of every single possible MARS mission.

The statements given in canon are broadly interpretable. "Assault" and "Strike" are roles regularly assigned to line infantry, "Rescue" is, as has been noted, a SWAT role. The fact that there are top-tier military units performing these roles as well does not mean that the Project is at that level. "Well trained" does not indicate for which parts of their mission this applies, nor does it give us any comparison to know how "well" they really ARE trained. I don't have the book with me this weekend, but if I recall correctly the base combat skill numbers for MARS are only about twice as good as the abysmal scores acceptable for Science teams - that doesn't seem that "well".

You focus on what the Project teams SHOULD be, but that is an unrealistic standard. Every US infantryman SHOULD be as proficient as a Delta commando, but realistically we can only get so many men of that caliber and can only spend so much time and money on their training... just like the Project. The Project has very strict recruiting standards (psych profile, willingness/ability to abandon all family and friends, the willingness to abandon the US to destruction and rebuild something presumably at least a little different in its place, etc) and even if they hit up every SOF operator they would probably only get a small number of takers, so I suspect that line MARS teams will probably not have anything more elite than line infantry.

You also note (correctly) that even in MARS units not everyone is a veteran - whatever the standard may be, the Project must be able to train civilians up from scratch to that standard or else send teams into the field with weak sisters. I don't think the latter generally works and the former requires that the Project have a military training organization that (a) hits a particular standard (SOF for you, perhaps AIT or so for me) and (b) can sustain it without tipping anyone off for the entire recruiting phase of the Project. The latter alone is daunting even for the AIT level, I am not sure how the Project could do it for SF.

FWIW, I always assumed a tiered system (as with everything in my Project-Region-District-Group scheme) where MARS units down at the Group level would be tasked with dealing with small scale disturbances - bandits, mostly. Larger or more difficult opponents would involve retreat or holding actions while waiting for the progressively better recruited/trained teams assigned at the higher levels to show up. So if Phoenix represents the top capability of SOF in the Project, then perhaps the Regional commands have a few teams with SEALS and Green Berets and the District teams have some Rangers, EOD techs, and Force Recon Marines. But you cannot maintain that skill level across the entirety of MARS.

And I (and I think others) have been assuming that the players in this scenario represented a low-level MARS team, not "the very best of the Project". The very best of the Project is Phoenix, and they (or some reasonable facsimile of them) should be able to outdo an SF team if they really wanted to - I suspect they too would prefer to work with them rather than against them.

One last thing to consider is that most of this discussion has focused on the classic war-game scenario - Red forces entering the board from the left while Blue forces are entering from the right, find the enemy and engage. The reality here is that the SF team is established, and if they are at all competent in their jobs it means that they know the lay of the land and have recruited and trained allied forces. The Project team would probably never see more than a couple of the Green Berets at a time, they would be facing larger numbers of "indigenous" troops with the soldiers in command/advisory roles. This just makes things worse for the team, despite their edge in equipment.

The field manuals help here, most show partisans using SF taught skills. Also the manuals are good for cache contents, as they give tool and weapons, equipment packages.

Field manuals?

These:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...olicy/army/fm/

OK...

How about a few recommendations out of the list of many? Thank you.

Probably these would be a place to start:

FM 7-0
FM 7-8
FM 7-10


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think the "31" series are green beret specific, "FM 31-21" is "Guerilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations"

I was going to let this go, but decided I really couldn't.

Your original position was that MARS teams weren't military, which when canon shows this is not the case you decided to move the goal posts. "Well trained" somehow doesn't mean they are trained for the mission they are designed for and equipped for. Your argument indicates that an organization that spends a non trivial amount selecting, equipping and freezing a large number of people would skimp on training them and on doing everything it could to preserve its assets in the post war era. This would include selecting and training their protective assets as well as they could.

Comparing the need of Morrow Project to train up its MARS teams to the need to for the US Army to train its line infantry is a false equivalency. Line Infantry has a very important job, Delta Force has another important job and MARS teams have their own set of jobs. They are all different. Also the training of any military unit is geared to the slowest soldier in the group. Both Delta Force and Morrow Project will have less slow learners than your typical 11 Bravo MOS or 13 B MOS course, so instead of spending a lot of time trying to get the slow pokes up to speed the cadre should be very much about polishing skills for "high speed/low drag" students. To say that MP MARS team members are the same as "average" Infantrymen seems absurd. The US Army knows that quantity has a quality all its own and that 11B soldiers are replaceable. MARS teams are NOT replaceable. Once they are needed, they like every Morrow asset, are unique, they are absolutely irreplaceable. No draft, or recruitment drive or shortening of the training cycle will put more MARS teams in the field or replace losses. Period. The Project has to front load as many resources-including training-as possible. This means to me that MARS teams, as well as every other team, is going to be as highly trained as possible.

I focus on what MY project is, not yours, as I have been careful to state many times.

Sorry this is so long, considering the ongoing failure to communicate, I wanted to be thorough.

If you are going to accuse me of moving the goalposts, please show where I made this statement. MARS serves as the military for the Project, but that is not their primary job:

3ed Rule Book, pg R1: "All work accomplished up to this point was incidental. Now the real work of the Project could commence. It was the process of rebuilding for which the members of the teams were most carefully trained. During the rebuilding process all teams would work together, not as Recon, MARS, or Science, but as conservators of civilization."

The "up to this point" explicitly includes MARS teams being "sent in order to deal with 'special' problems". This sums up my understanding of the Project pretty well: the Project, although trained and equipped for combat, was primarily a reconstruction organization that expected to delay operation until the need for military action was minimized.

No, it does not. My argument is that:

(1) Military action is the primary job for exactly ONE unit in the Project, and that is Phoenix. For everyone else, reconstruction is job 1 and military action is secondary or lower. Training should match the priority, so the focus during training should be on reconstruction, not manufacturing special operations forces.

(2) Training people for military action is indiscreet, especially at top skill levels, and high-level military training would therefore threaten to expose the Project.

(3) The Project does not have the ability to openly recruit, and cannot draft people. The Project must find people who are willing and psychologically able to enter the Project (i.e., abandon the world they know, trust an unsanctioned advanced technology, and walk willingly into a nuclear wasteland with a gun, a shovel, and a first aid kit). After that the emphasis should be on the ability to contribute to reconstruction (the primary job), and only then on the ability to contribute to military operations.

(4) Considering that SOF troops represent a tiny percentage of the US military, it seems unlikely that they would constitute a majority of MARS recruitment. While they would undoubtedly be desired and pursued, a more likely (to me, and it seems most of the other posters) result is that Morrow veteran recruiting reflects the diversity of military careers and that MARS would be happy to get line infantry or SWAT veterans for front-line MARS teams.

(5) While most MARS teamers are veterans, many are non-veterans. At a minimum, MARS would need to restrict the "typical" mission profile to whatever they could train civilians to do from scratch.

(6) Once people are recruited, there is only so much training you can give someone. Even, perhaps especially, on the reconstruction side, additional training will be required. There is also going to be additional training to handle Project equipment and vehicles, and survival training, And for all the non-veterans, a significant starter-level amount of military training is required. When all this is accomplished to a satisfactory level, how much more time can you really spend cranking up the knob on military training?

(7) This is not "skimping", it is acknowledging that training all MARS teamers to the ideal level endangers the Project and likely inhibits reconstruction - their primary mission, after all.

If you add "without exposing the Project or impairing their ability to serve in reconstruction" I would agree, with the additional caveat that "as well as they could" should also reflect that they are recruiting from an actual population who all have to volunteer. The Project isn't going to spend $10 million on an APC and $50 training the guys inside it, but it also isn't going to put itself into the position of openly training Green Berets or telling people who signed up to rebuild the world that they must spend 6 months training for combat and 2 weeks training to help people.


If MARS is the military of the Project, then its missions and training can be compared to those of other militaries, otherwise calling it military has no meaning. There is no reason to expect that MARS is a homogeneous organization with every team able to do every mission, but it certainly seems to me as if the line infantry mission and the Delta Force mission both have places in the MARS spectrum. And I am not trying to say that MARS team = infantry, I am trying to say that the quality of recruit and the amount and type of military training they receive is going to be far closer to infantry than it will be to Delta. Sure, they'll be smarter and better educated than the average 11B but they won't necessarily be any more athletic or anything, and their training isn't going to be a superhuman effort focusing on their secondary mission.

Many of those skills will need foundational skills, not just polish. Many come in as civilians, and (to most of us) it seems that even the veterans are likely to come from a diverse set of MOSs and may require some additional shaping prior to "polish". And remember that "intelligence" isn't one knob that turns up ability on all skills equally - the fact that someone has more book smarts, on average, does not mean that they are better at physical skills or social skills, and educations and careers generally have an impact on physical readiness for combat. The Project has to recruit for basic Project criteria (willingness to abandon, etc, etc,) first, ability to assist with reconstruction second, and ability to fight 3rd, and there just are not that many supermen around who are going to be great at all three.

Professional military training also comes with a lot of resources the Project lacks: the ability to operate openly, the ability to operate outside civilian safety requirements and regulations, the ability to force some level of participation on the trainees, etc. The Project is dealing in secret with volunteers for a reconstruction program, money and quality of recruit aside, there are limits on what they can do.

I agree with most of this, up to the point where you imply that the end result is a typical MARS team (6-8 people?) going head-to-head with an experienced, entrenched, 12-man SF A-Team and not being outmatched. The Project cannot train every member for an indefinite amount of time, and if there is X amount of time to be spent conditioning and training the candidates, even ignoring the time spent training for non-combat tasks, then there must be a point where you hit "as possible" and I think that point comes before a typical MARS team can expect to outdo the Snake Eaters.

Perhaps it is worthwhile at this point for you to lay out what you think the MARS training pipeline looks like and where you see the results falling. Please bear in mind that the key requirements for Phoenix (meant to be the deus ex machina of the game) were "combat veteran from a SOF, psych pass, a black belt, a language, and a year of extra training", which is I think the only real specified pipeline in canon and with which in decades of recruiting they got 46 guys.

The entire purpose of your thread was to solicit other people's opinions on how a Morrow team (later specified as MARS) would handle a potential confrontation with Special Forces, and that is exactly what you are getting. When you are getting "this is how I handle it" that is part of the answer to "how I think you should handle it". I did not come onto a random thread and start dissing your ideas, in post #8 you literally asked "Also the SF troops are good but are they better than the best of Morrow Project or the best of the soldiers in Texas?" and all of this has been myself and a few others trying to provide an answer to that question (to which my shortest answer is "SF will be far better than a typical MARS team but not as good as Phoenix").

If you want to make a Project where every MARS teamer is Chuck Norris with a PhD and Snake Eaters are just a little better than, I dunno, 11B's with a little CQB and language training, then go for it. But that is a very different game with a very different feel to it than how I think it was intended or how I or most other people play it. If you don't like what I'm saying, then don't use it, but don't expect me to just abandon my considered position either.

For those interested in SOF units and capabilities, I would also recommend the nonfiction work of Dick Couch, a former SEAL and CIA case officer who has written a number of books on the selection and training of US special ops. "Chosen Soldier" addresses Special Forces and would be particularly relevant to the Project. Plus, they are written for a civilian audience.

Just a quick note here, there is one possibility for openly training and recruiting for the Project. We have to remember that MP is behind an incredibly large, multinational organization with publicly facing business units. It is likely that there would be at least a few private security companies in the mix that operate on foreign soil, opening up the possibility for training and operations like you indicate. This does not completely solve the military training problem, as most of the people in these security units would likely not pass the pre-Project psychological analysis, certainly less than half.

There are two other problems: first, they generally only recruit from experienced soldiers and operators, second, they operate under tremendous scrutiny from government and media. If a few thousand went missing, people would notice.

I figure Morrow weapons and tactics training would happen in a few stages:

First, attendance at one of many schools intended to prepare civilian contractors to work in dangerous areas - basically, a shorter version of boot camp. My company sends people to these regularly.

Second, attendance at private weapons and tactics schools, the same ones that police and special operations use. All-Morrow classes, although not publicly acknowledged as such.

Third, a brief period working for or near a Morrow company that makes heavy weapons - in small groups getting familiar with the heavier weapons and vehicles.

Finally, a trip overseas to a survival course. Again, all-Morrow classes would use this as an extended capstone course, a chance to finalize team assignments, and narrow any mission profiles.

All of these would be run by a variety of companies, going in and out of business, all with legitimate versions as well.

Just a first cut, mind you. And, of course, merely what I am thinking of, YMMV.

Those are good points. Not only that but Morrow doesn't only recruit from American forces but any allied, or perhaps even unaligned nation's forces might well be available. I could see the Project finding and selecting a number of former South Vietnamese soldiers after 1975.