SOF in T2K

[Matt Wiser]

I'd go along with Raellus and Webstral on that one. The professional SOF would be held at Corps and Army level for really high-value operations, while divisions would be setting up these Recondo schools for their own "Rangers." Of course, anyone who was already Ranger qualified would be in high demand as instructors.

Our group at CSU Fresno had six SEALs as PCs, but as the unit grew, to include some Soviet defectors, cut off Army personnel (with armor) and so on, it became more of a conventional unit. But those SEALs got to use their skills on numerous occasions-like when we did a Kelly's Heroes style adventure, and hitting the POW camp described in the Challenge article Black Siberia. (we gave the Commandant to the prisoners...his fate was, shall we say, richly deserved-the surviving guards were executed, and the trusties were lynched)

[simonmark6]

From my reading and research, there may be way more soldiers in the US Army with Ranger Tabs than there are Rangers in Ranger units. Ranger School seems to be a major way of developing leadership potential in soldiers of all combat arms.

In several of Harold Coyle's novels, I got the impression that completing Ranger School was, if not required, definately advantageous to getting promoted if you were an officer.

As the war went on, it is possible that troops with Ranger Tabs formed the core of LRRPs etc.

For other armies, simlar institutions may exist (I'm not sure), I do know that in British Regiments there are individual platoons or companies that train for specific missions, there are for instance, platoon traine as paratroopers (often called Pegasus Companies), jungle fighters (Chindit Companies) and other specific missions. This is supposed to garuntee that any given regiment has a cadre of trained troops should the unit be tasked with that type of mission.

It's not inconcievable that other armies do the same.

As for playing SF types, when I began playing FtoF Twilight, the role of SF was just coming into the popular conciousness and nearly everyone wanted to play SF types. Later we explored other roles and enjoyed playing line troopers.

Sometimes there is the temptation to kick back and play an action hero style SF member, but Twilight isn't really the system for that because, quite frankly the difference between SF careers and normal ones isn't that great.

Still, one day I'd love to run my munchkin character, but it probably wouldn't be as much fun as I think it would be.

[Rainbow Six]

When I was actively playing (which is now well over ten years ago), we didn't have any PC's that were current SF in our regular campaign, although we did have one US Army Sergeant First Class who was Ranger qualified (he broke both his legs in a parachute jump that went wrong in 1996 and the docs said he couldn't jump again, so he was transferred out of the 75th Ranger Regt and into the 5th Dvn just in time for the War in Europe) and one NPC who was a West German Fernspahtruppe.

There was no specific ban on Green Berets, SAS, and such like, it just never happened...(players were expected to come up with a plausible back story as to how their character ended up in Kalisz in August 2000 so that might have had something to do with it...personally I'd struggle to justify a realistic reason why a Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel (for example) would end up with a squad of 5th Dvn riflemen).

The group very occasionally encountered NPC SF types (such as a US Army Green Beret Captain who was working with one of the Polish Free Legions - the one that was in the north, I think the 2nd?), but I always tried to make such encounters rare, so that meeting a SF soldier was something that would stand out as something a bit diifferent...

Our Persian Gulf campaign was a little different (which was the intention to be fair)...SF types were much more common, both PC and NPC. Mind you, the Persian Gulf games always seem to run out of steam relatively quickly and we'd abandon our munchkins to come back to Europe and the more fleshed out, rounded characters we had there).

For the bigger picture, I go along with the view that in the year 2000 any remaining SF characters who have gone through all the required pre War qualifications, etc would be kept in reserve to be used as a strategic asset by Corps / Army HQ (or higher - I don't think it's too much of a stretch that any existing SF in CONUS might report directly to the Chiefs of Staff?).

[pmulcahy11b]

A possible consequence is that special ops training is going to get more diluted, and will be more and more OJT. Today, it takes a long time and a lot of money to produce a newbie special ops troop -- for an SF medic, for example, its about 14 months of training and close to $3 million. As the war goes on, that kind of time won't be available any more, but paradoxically, the need for special operators will increase.

I think that this will lead to "poaching" -- the best troops from regular units being drawn off and put into an accelerated special ops training in the new unit coupled with lots of OJT in their new unit.

Another effect will be that airborne-qualified special operators will decrease -- the qualification will be needed less and less as the war goes on and fuel and aircraft stocks decrease. By 2000, you'll have a bunch of guys with silver wings that may not even remember how to do a proper PLF anymore...