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Old 05-02-2021, 05:27 AM
3catcircus 3catcircus is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin View Post
Remember at the time it was released they didnt even have special forces yet, or at least ones that were detailed out - they were introduced with the RDF Sourcebook. People forget that because its been a long time since the game was originally introduced.

Now you can build special forces characters on day one. Given the original scenario especially as it builds into Krakow I could see a character being a Green Beret that either had got separated from the unit going after Reset or a survivor of the ambush - or was from a unit that was supposed to meet up with them and got steamrollered by the Soviet attack just like the 5th did.
At the time of V1's release, the real world was highly concerned with a nuclear NATO-PACT exchange involving heavy divisions slugging it out in the Fulda Gap. Lots of armor, mechanized infantry, and aviation. Those heavy divisions have a lot of overhead - doctors, lawyers, water technicians, mechanics, audio-visual techs.

A quick look at the ORBATs for the time show the 5th ID with 5 armor and 5 mechanized infantry battalions, a cavalry troop, an air cav regiment, an attack aviation battalion, two aviation regiments, divisional artillery, a combat engineer battalion, an air defence battalion, a divisional support unit, Military Intel battalion, and a company each of MPs and chemical troops.

There is plenty of opportunity there for someone to, say, play a local cop who is now in an MP company or Doc Smith who is in the DISCOM medical support battalion. Although doc smith might outrank Sgt Jones, Sgt Jones is the only combat troop left in the ragtag band, Sgt Jones calls the shots when dealing with tactics. Or Mrs. Kielbasa who was the former mayor's wife and a reservist in the former Polish army who defected calls the shots when interacting with the locals.

I just don't see a need to worry about rank, nor do I see a need to allow players to want to play green berets unless they're going to come up with a plausible reason. If you're playing a MERC campaign, or setting the campaign in Germany where you'd have 5th SFG, that's a different story.
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