Quote:
Originally Posted by Webstral
Fort Huachuca builds its own LRS capability from the ground up using a handful of veterans from Europe, the Middle East, and Korea and USAF operators who make their way to southern Arizona after Albuquerque and Kirtland go south. The emphasis is on gathering information—hardly surprising for an MI command. Almost immediately, the trigger-pullers who run the training and operations program start agitating for an expanded role for LRS. MG Thomason refuses to authorize an expanded mission profile until 2000. Huachuca greatly benefits from having cadre and students from the USAF SO arrive on-post in the second half of 1998, courtesy of the collapse of civil order in Albuquerque and the Mexican invasion of New Mexico. Not everyone is going to have this luxury.
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Web, don't apologize. It's helpful to show how some of our thinking here has been applied directly to a campaign setting and yours is top-notch.
I think that pretty much every theatre command or major long-term military cantonment area is going to set up some sort of RECONDO "school" or course to train small units in long-range patrolling and intelligence gathering. Without satellite or aerial recon, and with diminished SIGINT capabilities, long-range patrolling/recon is going to be every field commander's primary intelligence source. These units will not only sneak and peek, they will tap field telephone lines, snatch prisoners, ambush couriers, etc. In Vietnam, the NVA didn't use radios a whole lot so LRRPs and SOG recon teams were essential for collecting intelligence on enemy capabilities and intentions.
To take this thinking one step further, I'll bet the Soviets are doing the same thing during the Twilight War. By the later years of WWII, the Soviets became masters of long-range scouting. I'm sure that the T2K Red Army would be creating it's own LRRP units. This could justify more frequent PC encounters with Soviet "commandos" without resorting to the somewhat cliche'd Spetznaz trope.