[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Rapparee

Just on the note of the "shake and bake" Ranger school you were discussing. Its a class idea about units forming their own recondo teams like the Lurps in Vietnam. Would a system like this still be in effect up till 2000? I'm just curious because I've had players ask me to play SF types but was wondering whether I could just wave it off as the PC had been at the new type of Ranger School.

Short anwer is yes. Here's what I wrote earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Here's an idea I think I presented on the old forum, and which may explain the relatively high proportion of "Ranger" characters that seem to populate the Twilight world.

Before '69 (IIRC), there were no separate Ranger regiments in the U.S. army. Instead, each division in the field (we're talking Vietnam here) was responsible for creating its own LRRP (long range reconaissance patrol) company. These LRRP companies were the precursors to modern Rangers and were designated as such in '69 (IIRC). Later, these companies were reorganized into the regiments still in existence today.

So, perhaps after '97 in the Twilight timeline, divisions in the field would create their own organic "Ranger" companies for LRRP'ing, prisoner snatches, ambushes, etc. This would make sense given the nature of warfare after the TDM. Perhaps each theatre would set up its own "Recondo" school to train these shake 'n' bake Rangers. In Twilight 2000 terms, "company" is a bit of a misnomer. Of course, by 2000, a company would probably be around pre-war TOE platoon strength.

Although this precedent/proposition applies to the U.S. (and Rangers, in particular), other countries could use a similar system.

With a war raging across the globe, I just don't see the quantity or quality of the remaining SOF being particularly high, c. 2000. Even at full Cold War strength, the SOFs of most nations would be stretched pretty thin once WWIII was in full swing.

For my Lions of Twilight write up, I had the 173rd Airborne BCT start a recondo school in Kenya so that all of its widely scattered battalions would have organic LRRP companies.