So, what Team Organizations do YOU have?

[kalos72]

I am just starting this venture to organize an MP-like group but in a T2K setting, 1990-2000's after a limited nuclear exchange with 41Million people left in the US and some semblance of government and military forces to assist.

In my campaign, these new teams will be designed to organize, or develop, local government at the County levels and then start to address basic survival needs, food, water, shelter, sanitation in that County.

But it will endeavor to create a more sustainable society. Victory gardens, local populations limited to the amount of locally grown food, local power generation no nationwide power grids, local water supply and treatment options no large water treatment/sewer systems, limited federal government, etc.

I am just starting the process of determining the skills needed to get that County on its feet first, then to advance it to actual production and output of manufactured good and the like.

I have been reading through alot of this groups works and am amazed at the variety of teams people have come up with. I need your inspiration!!!

What kind of teams, and the associated skill sets included, does your game have?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by kalos72

In my campaign, these new teams will be designed to organize, or develop, local government at the County levels and then start to address basic survival needs, food, water, shelter, sanitation in that County.

Just to nitpick, if you don't address basic survival needs first then there will not be anyone to govern. Assert military law, ask the civilians to choose go-betweens (who will become or identify civilian leaders), transition power over time.

Originally Posted by kalos72

But it will endeavor to create a more sustainable society. Victory gardens, local populations limited to the amount of locally grown food, local power generation no nationwide power grids, local water supply and treatment options no large water treatment/sewer systems, limited federal government, etc.

A lot of this infrastructure is already local, if the area was not heavily damaged a lot of this should be readily available. Outside of actual cities it is not worthwhile to consolidate this stuff.

Originally Posted by kalos72

What kind of teams, and the associated skill sets included, does your game have?

I currently specify the following:

Teams:

Command (Group, Area, Regional, National)

Specialty Command (MARS, Recon, Science, Support) (Regional, National)

Field Support (Agriculture, Aviation Support, Civil Affairs, Civil Engineering, Combat Engineering, Communications, Construction, Decontamination, General Engineering, Logistics, Power Systems, Water Systems)

Frozen Watch

MARS (Aviation, EOD, General)

Phoenix

Recon (General, Intelligence)

Science (General, Medical)

Manned Bases:

District Facility (Command, Comms, Logistics, Machine Shop, Maintenance)

Regional Facility (Air Base, Command, Comms, Factory, Hospital, Logistics, Sea Base)

National Facility (Air Base, Archives, Command, Comms, Factory, Hospital, Logistics, Research Lab)

[dragoon500ly]

This is a list of the teams that IMHO are essential to the Project:

Recon: 13,500 personnel in 1,125 teams. Roughly 112 teams per region.

MARS 5,508 personnel in 306 teams. Roughly 30 teams per region.

MARS (Special Operations): 320 personnel in 10 teams. Roughly 1 team per region.

Science: 5,500 personnel in 550 teams. Roughly 55 teams per region.

Medical: 5,000 personnel in 250 teams. Roughly 25 teams per region.

Ambulance: 1,000 personnel in 125 teams. Roughly 12 teams per region.

Psyops: 500 personnel in 100 teams. Roughly 10 teams per region.

NBC Decon: 500 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 5 teams per region.

Engineering: 4,008 personnel in 334 teams. Roughly 33 teams per region.

Power (Mobile): 504 personnel in 63 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Power (Generation): 1,000 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 3 teams per
region.

Agriculture: 4,000 personnel in 500 teams. Roughly 50 teams per region.

Command: 1,024 personnel in 64 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Supply (Base): 500 personnel in 10 teams. Roughly 1 team per region.

Transportation: 3,500 personnel in 175 teams. Roughly 17 teams per region.

Communications: 1,000 personnel in 64 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Frozen Watch: 1,000 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 5 teams per region.

Combined: 1,020 personnel in 30 teams. Roughly 3 teams per region.

Now, for my campaigns, I do play with the number of teams and personnel assigned. I have run projects as large as 100,000 personnel and as few as 20,000, but I have found that 50-55,000 seems to work best.

[kalos72]

So one question I had was, why so many type of teams?

You know you are going to need AG, Engineer, Medical and Science Teams working together to bring a community back online, why are they seperate teams?

Wouldn't them working as a single force, together at the same time/place be more efficient?

I am leaning towards a "Civil Affairs" type combined team or maybe a "State Reconstruction Team" or something .

Would it also mean less facilities overall if they were working out of one larger one?

Obviously there are some teams that would be limited in numbers that ake sense to be separate, like Decon maybe.

Thoughts?

[kato13]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Would it also mean less facilities overall if they were working out of one larger one?

Obviously there are some teams that would be limited in numbers that ake sense to be separate, like Decon maybe.

Thoughts?

I have many small teams. The reason being any loss has less of an effect on a region.

Initially in a project that works, I don't have teams work by themselves, I have them make a beeline to a rally point. With teams building out secured areas out of that point. The rally points are from a list of 4 predetermined points which are reviewed by aerial recon assets. In my project it is done by balloon, uav and finally the first regional field teams to wake: 8 x 2 man recon teams and 2x OH-6 teams to move them around.

However to keep with the canon of the game I also have a plan for a team that wakes up early. Such a team would need to survive until the remaining teams in their area wake and set up the rally point. This is why they are provided with 7 to 11 local caches that will allow them to survive on their own. These caches (in a project that works) would be used to resupply teams that eventually move into the area from the rally points.

[kalos72]

I get that, I am thinking of using a "Scout Team" to come out, check out the area before calling in the "Reconstruction Team".

Something like:

State Reconstruction Team
Team Leader
Asst Team Leader
Team Contact Specialist
Team Comms Specialist
Team Security Specialist
5x Security Aides
Team Engineering Specialist
5x Engineering Aides
Team Sciences Specialist
5x Sciences Aides
Team Medical Specialist
5x Medical Aides

[tsofian]

I have pretty much come to the same size for my Projects. Good list

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

This is a list of the teams that IMHO are essential to the Project:

Recon: 13,500 personnel in 1,125 teams. Roughly 112 teams per region.

MARS 5,508 personnel in 306 teams. Roughly 30 teams per region.

MARS (Special Operations): 320 personnel in 10 teams. Roughly 1 team per region.

Science: 5,500 personnel in 550 teams. Roughly 55 teams per region.

Medical: 5,000 personnel in 250 teams. Roughly 25 teams per region.

Ambulance: 1,000 personnel in 125 teams. Roughly 12 teams per region.

Psyops: 500 personnel in 100 teams. Roughly 10 teams per region.

NBC Decon: 500 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 5 teams per region.

Engineering: 4,008 personnel in 334 teams. Roughly 33 teams per region.

Power (Mobile): 504 personnel in 63 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Power (Generation): 1,000 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 3 teams per
region.

Agriculture: 4,000 personnel in 500 teams. Roughly 50 teams per region.

Command: 1,024 personnel in 64 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Supply (Base): 500 personnel in 10 teams. Roughly 1 team per region.

Transportation: 3,500 personnel in 175 teams. Roughly 17 teams per region.

Communications: 1,000 personnel in 64 teams. Roughly 6 teams per region.

Frozen Watch: 1,000 personnel in 50 teams. Roughly 5 teams per region.

Combined: 1,020 personnel in 30 teams. Roughly 3 teams per region.

Now, for my campaigns, I do play with the number of teams and personnel assigned. I have run projects as large as 100,000 personnel and as few as 20,000, but I have found that 50-55,000 seems to work best.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by kalos72

So one question I had was, why so many type of teams?

You know you are going to need AG, Engineer, Medical and Science Teams working together to bring a community back online, why are they seperate teams?

Wouldn't them working as a single force, together at the same time/place be more efficient?

I am leaning towards a "Civil Affairs" type combined team or maybe a "State Reconstruction Team" or something .

Would it also mean less facilities overall if they were working out of one larger one?

Obviously there are some teams that would be limited in numbers that ake sense to be separate, like Decon maybe.

Thoughts?

Initially, these teams are going to have different skill sets, when training it sit makes it easier for the instructors if they teaching 3-4 engineering teams rather than one of each.

Operationally, I believe in groups, a command team, a MARS Team, a medical team, a commo team, a engineering team, 2-4 recon teams, etc. But the individual teams are frozen separately for security reasons. Not every group will have every team, but the team's are all mobile and the specialist teams can cross attach as necessary.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by kalos72

So one question I had was, why so many type of teams?

You know you are going to need AG, Engineer, Medical and Science Teams working together to bring a community back online, why are they seperate teams?

Wouldn't them working as a single force, together at the same time/place be more efficient?

I am leaning towards a "Civil Affairs" type combined team or maybe a "State Reconstruction Team" or something .

Would it also mean less facilities overall if they were working out of one larger one?

Obviously there are some teams that would be limited in numbers that ake sense to be separate, like Decon maybe.

Thoughts?

There have already been notes about putting all your eggs in one basket, but I am going to add a few other reasons why I think this is a bad idea.

First, all of these areas (agriculture, engineering, medical, science) involve daily operations that require a team's worth of people to do. How much practical medicine can a pair of medics actually do, and how does that compare to what a whole medical team (with a couple of doctors, nurses, perhaps a dentist and a psychiatrist) can do for an area several times as large? If your engineering team wants to build a bridge, do two people have to do that job all by themselves, and can two people reasonably have all the skills needed to do so? Separate teams mean that each team can have the breadth of skills necessary to handle the typical kinds of tasks in their specialty.

Second, all of these areas have different objectives and address different needs. What if your area doesn't have any agricultural needs? Do your ag guys take a vacation while everyone else works and while refugees elsewhere are desperately in need of some farming assistance? What if an area has a mild medical emergency - does the rest of the team just hang out and change bedpans? Splitting teams by specialty means you can allocate specific resources to specific problems with minimal waste.

There are other reasons as well, but I think this covers a few big issues that all but demand separate specialty teams. Remember, in real life "all purpose troubleshooting/problem solving teams" exist only in tiny quantities, and only for specific reasons. Specialized groups are more efficient, that's why you don't go to the hospital to get your oil changed, resole your shoes, or buy groceries.

[kalos72]

Thats logical.

But dont you waste alot of duplication, both in personnel and facilities? How many Team Leaders, comms guys or drives do you really need?

Also, in my structure it doesnt mean you can't assign a portion of the group to another area. Let me think about this some more...

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Thats logical.

But dont you waste alot of duplication, both in personnel and facilities? How many Team Leaders, comms guys or drives do you really need?

First, let me apologize for missing your breakdown on your proposed team - I started typing that last post and then had to step away for a couple of days, and I missed some important detail. Your team is more akin to a Morrow Group, combining what are essentially several different teams under one command.

As to duplication, yes, you could be more efficient by organizing differently, but efficiency is not the only driving measure of performance, and security says that putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. Security says we should maximize the distribution of assets, efficiency says we should largely minimize that distribution, balancing them out means making trades. Combining multiple functions in one facility adds a lot of cost-savings but relatively few improvements in actual efficiency at significant costs in security.

Originally Posted by kalos72

Also, in my structure it doesnt mean you can't assign a portion of the group to another area. Let me think about this some more...

Very true, see my earlier note about missing when you poste your structure. I think the big difference is that you are making the presumption that your subteams will generally work together, I (and others on this thread) am making the assumption that they will generally work separately. I think a lot depends on the assumptions you are making in your world, and if you are putting this together for a T2k-base game then the assumptions are inherently different.

[kalos72]

Of course, my T2k game will be different bu its VERY similar to what Morrow was expecting his project to encounter I would think, just shit went sideways.

So with Dragoon's number, you expect to have roughly 60 facilities, not including supply or regional bases and the like, again roughly?

Thats like one per county or something. Or are some of them housing multiple teams anyway? I am having a very hard time seeing the structure in MP honestly.

I am organizing it by County, every populated County will need some basic things. A doctor, an engineer, leaders of the various types, someone that knows health and safety issues, security and possibly some science.

If your science guys are all in one, two, five bases across the state now he has to cross half the state, with areas in various degrees of reconstruction hopefully, to get to the area he is most needed?

Again, please dont take my questions as arguments or doubts, just trying to figure out the way most people organize or structure their games, focusing on the state/county level.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Of course, my T2k game will be different bu its VERY similar to what Morrow was expecting his project to encounter I would think, just shit went sideways.

So with Dragoon's number, you expect to have roughly 60 facilities, not including supply or regional bases and the like, again roughly?

Thats like one per county or something. Or are some of them housing multiple teams anyway? I am having a very hard time seeing the structure in MP honestly.

I am organizing it by County, every populated County will need some basic things. A doctor, an engineer, leaders of the various types, someone that knows health and safety issues, security and possibly some science.

If your science guys are all in one, two, five bases across the state now he has to cross half the state, with areas in various degrees of reconstruction hopefully, to get to the area he is most needed?

Again, please dont take my questions as arguments or doubts, just trying to figure out the way most people organize or structure their games, focusing on the state/county level.

It's more like 2 command bases at the national level, 10 regional command bases, a national science base, a national rocket base, 4 national supply depots, 10 manned regional supply bases, roughly 18 automated supply bases, 26 commo bases and numerous boltholes and caches.

Trying to a Project on a county basis, there are some 3,144 counties in the U.S., so providing say, 30 team members, you are looking at 94,320 members at the local level alone. Adding in support, you are easily looking at a Project over over 120,000. From a recruitment/security stand point alone...lot of people to have disappear.

[kalos72]

I am thinking something like:

2800 Scout/Recon Teams of 5 people each - roughly one per populated County = 19000

300 of those "State Reconstruction Teams" at each District Center, of roughly 50 people each - 15000


Add a National Center, 11 Regional, 58 State and roughly 300 District Centers but I dont have the organization worked out on those.

The focus initially is just getting basic government, food / water and safety addressed. Then the State Centers will have target specific teams to address the specific targets within the state.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by kalos72

So with Dragoon's number, you expect to have roughly 60 facilities, not including supply or regional bases and the like, again roughly?

Thats like one per county or something. Or are some of them housing multiple teams anyway? I am having a very hard time seeing the structure in MP honestly.

I have the following facilities:

27 under the national command: Prime Base, Second Base, 7 research labs*, and 3 each of air bases, archives, comms bases, factories, hospitals, and logistics facilities.

There are also 7 Regions, each with the following facilities (7x7 = 49 total): Air base, command base, comms base, factory, hospital, logistics base, and sea base**.

Each region has 6 Districts, each with the following facilities (7x6x5 = 210 total): Command base, comms base, logistics base, machine shop, and project maintenance facility.

That gives me 27+49+210 = 286 total permanent facilities (not counting bolt holes and other facilities meant to be abandoned). That is 5.6 per state, but far less than one per county. Please note that I have not included Canada in any way in laying out my version of the Project.

Originally Posted by kalos72

If your science guys are all in one, two, five bases across the state now he has to cross half the state, with areas in various degrees of reconstruction hopefully, to get to the area he is most needed?

Taking science as an example, and bearing in mind that I use a National-Regional-District-Group-Team organizational structure, I have Science Teams attached at the District level. The purpose of these teams is to perform on-site research and collect data and samples for further study. The bulk of the investigation is then escalated to the aforementioned research labs. So yes, a Science Team may well expect to travel halfway across an average-size state to get to the area where they are most needed, but I consider that acceptable because I do not expect there to be "science emergencies" on any kind of regular basis. I see more value in recon or reconstruction than I do in having Science Teams available on hand on the off chance that every District is requiring of advanced scientific knowledge and tools just to meet their basic survival needs.

But if you take Recon as an example, my structure has almost 900*** Recon Teams spread over 3.5 million square miles, which means roughly 1 Team per 3600 square miles or a Recon Team within 34 miles (on average) of any emergency. And since "emergency" is in the primary domain of the Recon Teams, this works pretty well.

As for reconstruction teams, they are not generally expected to be dealing with emergencies under the Project plan - even 5 years after war, emergencies will be relatively rare compared to simple "bad situations". So again, there is relatively little value in having them so tightly spaced that they could be on constant hand for emergencies that rarely occur. And when they do occur, the Recon Teams and other Morrow units are expected to hold the line until the specialists arrive and to perform under their remote instruction.

*: In my version, the research labs were an inherent part of the background of the Project, the number is tied to that backstory.
**: All 7 regions have water access.
***: EDITED, I originally showed 8000 teams but that was really the number of team members, not teams.

[kalos72]

So have roughly the same permanent larger bases, 300ish.

The difference is in Recon Teams, by county I will run around 3000 in bolt hole type facilities. Bolt holes will be a bit larger, have some more storage and possibly be long term bases for the teams as well.

Can you give me some details on your air and sea bases by chance?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Can you give me some details on your air and sea bases by chance?

I don't have any detail on the sea bases yet, but the last update I made to my air bases had:

Per regional base (7):
2 MV-22B Osprey teams with 2 aircraft per team (28 total)

1 MH-6 Little Bird team with 4 aircraft (28 total)

1 UAV Team with 4 MQ-9 Reapers and 8 MQ-8B Fire Scouts (28/56 total)

Per national base (3):
1 CH-53K team with 2 aircraft (6 total)

1 MH-6 Little Bird team with 4 aircraft (12 total)

1 AH-64D Apache Longbow team with 4 aircraft (12 total)

1 C-130J Super Hercules team with 3 aircraft (9 total)

1 UAV Team with 8 MQ-9 Reapers (24 total)

That gives a total of 95 manned aircraft (9 planes, 58 helicopters, 28 ospreys) and 108 unmanned aircraft (52 planes, 56 helicopters). They nominally need 375 flight crew and probably as many maintainers (making generous assumptions). I assign the aircrew to Aviation Teams (all in MARS) but the maintainers are all assigned to the air bases.

I don't use any fixed wing combat aircraft because the only place they would be uniquely useful would be in air superiority, and that's a non starter - if there are any other aircraft, they will be flying at the start of Project operations before runways can be reliably restored, so air superiority really needs to be worked out with VERTOL, rotary wing, or ground-based assets. They would probably also need to be jets, and that means chemical fuels instead of fusion reactors and that means a bunch of complications just to handle one relatively brief period of operations. I assume that superior Project sensing, missile, and cannon systems can handle unfriendly aircraft.

When I left this I was stuck between "that is way too many aircraft" and "i think that's what I need", so I would probably trim it down from there.

[nuke11]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I don't have any detail on the sea bases yet, but the last update I made to my air bases had:

Per regional base (7):
2 MV-22B Osprey teams with 2 aircraft per team (28 total)

1 MH-6 Little Bird team with 4 aircraft (28 total)

1 UAV Team with 4 MQ-9 Reapers and 8 MQ-8B Fire Scouts (28/56 total)

Per national base (3):
1 CH-53K team with 2 aircraft (6 total)

1 MH-6 Little Bird team with 4 aircraft (12 total)

1 AH-64D Apache Longbow team with 4 aircraft (12 total)

1 C-130J Super Hercules team with 3 aircraft (9 total)

1 UAV Team with 8 MQ-9 Reapers (24 total)

That gives a total of 95 manned aircraft (9 planes, 58 helicopters, 28 ospreys) and 108 unmanned aircraft (52 planes, 56 helicopters). They nominally need 375 flight crew and probably as many maintainers (making generous assumptions). I assign the aircrew to Aviation Teams (all in MARS) but the maintainers are all assigned to the air bases.

I don't use any fixed wing combat aircraft because the only place they would be uniquely useful would be in air superiority, and that's a non starter - if there are any other aircraft, they will be flying at the start of Project operations before runways can be reliably restored, so air superiority really needs to be worked out with VERTOL, rotary wing, or ground-based assets. They would probably also need to be jets, and that means chemical fuels instead of fusion reactors and that means a bunch of complications just to handle one relatively brief period of operations. I assume that superior Project sensing, missile, and cannon systems can handle unfriendly aircraft.

When I left this I was stuck between "that is way too many aircraft" and "i think that's what I need", so I would probably trim it down from there.

What powers these air assets?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by nuke11

What powers these air assets?

Fusion, same as other MPVs.