Encounter Group #24 Snake Eaters

[stormlion1]

What I wonder is what kind of equipment were the Snake Eaters buried with, Bolt Holes like the Morrow team, permanent bases they can operate out of. Basements of buildings? That is the big question for me.

[Gelrir]

For all we know, 90% of the Snake Eater teams were destroyed in the War, or in the decades before 2139. The ones active in 2139 may just have been lucky enough to get a good, hardened, remote bunker.

• If the government expected a nuclear war, the Snake Eaters would be far from expected targets.
• If investigating or thwarting the Morrow Project is the core, critical purpose of the Snake Eater Project (or whatever actual name it had), then their placement might reflect whatever information the government had about the Project.
• If the government only had one fusion reactor (Damocles), the Snake Eaters might be using plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The half-life of plutonium is about 87 years; after two half-lives, the Snake Eaters' cryogenic system may be waking them up due to low remaining power levels.
• If the Morrow Project, backed by Morrow Industries, is seen as threat, part of that threat is a lot of armored cars, filled with people wearing armored coveralls. Anti-vehicle non-metallic land mines, simple anti-tank weapons (to deal with V150s), and armor-piercing small-arms ammunition might be a priority.
• If all the government knows about is the radio system used by the Project: a relatively sophisticated radio setup might be useful for the Snake Eaters. To investigate, and if necessary neutralize the Morrow Project, you first have to find them, after all. While the Snake Eaters can't expect to drive around with a radio truck, they may be equipped with stuff that can be hauled on one or two pack mules. Frozen pack mules? Seems a little odd ...

Again, the main reason I commented on this thread was to think of various versions of "what does the government know about the Project?" The more you answer that question, the easier the "how many Snake Eaters, where, and with how much stuff?" questions get.

Thought derived from the above: if Snake Eaters wake up when their RTGs are down to 20% power reserves, they look outside. No Morrow Project in sight; _but_ the Snake Eaters have (canonically) the radio signals needed to wake up Morrow Project teams (that's how the Snake Eaters expected to wake up at the same time, after all). Maybe the Snake Eaters activate the original few teams in the 2139-era?

"Broadcast code one seven alpha seven for a week, it can't hurt to see what turns up."

--
Michael B.

[stormlion1]

Remember the Snake Eaters are expecting to wake up only a few years after they went to sleep so there probably expecting to be able to fall back on surviving US Military support or surviving infrastructure. Things like transport would still be abundant enough that hauling equipment wouldn't be a problem. It might be that all they would have to plan for is to get to a vehicle, replace certain burned out parts and load up and go. Now after 150 years that option is gone so they will have to do things the hard way. Pack up and hump the gear out of the wilderness. They might have more stuff than they can reasonably carry out, or they might have a vehicle stored away to carry gear. I could see stuffing a Jeep or two into a oversized Bolt Hole.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

Remember the Snake Eaters are expecting to wake up only a few years after they went to sleep so there probably expecting to be able to fall back on surviving US Military support or surviving infrastructure. Things like transport would still be abundant enough that hauling equipment wouldn't be a problem. It might be that all they would have to plan for is to get to a vehicle, replace certain burned out parts and load up and go. Now after 150 years that option is gone so they will have to do things the hard way. Pack up and hump the gear out of the wilderness. They might have more stuff than they can reasonably carry out, or they might have a vehicle stored away to carry gear. I could see stuffing a Jeep or two into a oversized Bolt Hole.

I was planning on surplus from WW2 and Korea with M151 jeeps and M3 half tracks. Abundant M1 Garands and M1 Carbines to re-arm and for partisan groups to fight the Soviets. Then rebuilding gear at the village level from SF experiences in South east Asia. Plus abundant medical staff and engineers.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I was planning on surplus from WW2 and Korea with M151 jeeps and M3 half tracks. Abundant M1 Garands and M1 Carbines to re-arm and for partisan groups to fight the Soviets. Then rebuilding gear at the village level from SF experiences in South east Asia. Plus abundant medical staff and engineers.

This is a
Civilian Kit, Developmental Militia I pilfered from somewhere on the web. My plan was for Morrow to use it but the snake eaters could as well. The equipment trends a little later but the weapon are similar (low power so as not to present a danger to the project).

http://games.juhlin.com/generate/kit...parent_id=1077

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by kato13

This is a
Civilian Kit, Developmental Militia I pilfered from somewhere on the web. My plan was for Morrow to use it but the snake eaters could as well. The equipment trends a little later but the weapon are similar (low power so as not to present a danger to the project).

http://games.juhlin.com/generate/kit...parent_id=1077

That is a pretty nice kit. I would separate the uniform stuff from the load bearing and life support kit. I will probably add more WW2 and Korea surplus along with some civvie back packing gear. Likely, a soldiers kit, and then a Squad support kit.

Squad kit would have a stove such as the Optimus back packing stove, folding or rollup solar panel, hand pump water filter. One large tarp that can make a cooking or meeting area.

I am going with the M1 carbine, M3 grease gun, M1918 BAR, and M1919A4, with the M1911A1 for sidearm.

The M1 and M3 are for troops, the BAR is issued at one per ten, and the M1919 at one per 40.

[ArmySGT.]

I am trying to line up some Q&A time with Sadler and Tucholka. I have spoken to Tucholka in reference to one of his other games (Fringeworthy). Neither would like to have anything to do with Kevin D. Mr. Sadler is the originator of the story so I hope to have something after 1 january.

[stormlion1]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I was planning on surplus from WW2 and Korea with M151 jeeps and M3 half tracks. Abundant M1 Garands and M1 Carbines to re-arm and for partisan groups to fight the Soviets. Then rebuilding gear at the village level from SF experiences in South east Asia. Plus abundant medical staff and engineers.

M-1 Garand's and Carbines are good, and a plentiful stock of M-14's were still sitting in packing crates during the 80's so they could be stockpiled as well. There would even be plentiful ammunition stockpiled away in armory's that could be gathered up and stored away, much of that has probably sat for decades though. Vehicle wise, Korea and WW-2 vintage is a tad out of date, not with plentiful stocks of Vietnam era equipment floating about. There are even Humvee's in service that could be stored for a later date though they might be missed. I used Jeeps as a option as the 80's was when Jeeps were being phased out of service I think, not sure about that. But there would be plenty of old jeeps that could be stockpiled away for later use, and even spare parts that no one would miss. It really counts where Snake Eaters where being stored in cryo and how much room in comparison they were given in comparison to the Morrow Teams Bolt Holes.
An option is old Salt Mines or even old Government owned Mining Tunnels for storing vehicles and excess equipment with the Snake Eaters in cryo near by. I could even see Huey's being stored with Snake Eaters being qualified to fly them, of course the other issue of fuel then comes up. All good if they wake up five years after the nukes, but after a 150 years fuel will be very hard to get.

[Gelrir]

If you're gonna insist on "out of date" stuff for the Snake Eaters, the M151 "Mutt" was gradually being replaced by the HMMWV the mid-Eighties.

http://www.them151mutt.com/

If the US Government really, really believes there is going to be an atomic war with the Soviet Union within 5 years, 10 years at most ... are they going to make presumably-expensive cryoberths, staffed with some of the nation's best-trained soldiers ... and then allot them some left-over WW2 equipment? Especially if "possibly fighting the Morrow Project" is the Snake Eaters' purpose? The government has to have noticed the Project has modern armored cars and modern small arms.

--
Michael B

[stormlion1]

Its not that they were being given out of date equipment, its what's reasonable that can be made to disappear in the late 80's into a Snake Eater equipment cache. Jeeps are a dime a dozen, very easy to maintain, rugged, and usable by a specops team in a nuclear environment. The Gov't can make dozens of them disappear without raising suspicions while making a few Hummers go missing will raise eyebrows. The Snake Eaters are going to be armed with the best equipment they have, M-16's, CAR-15's, Colt Pistols, etc, etc but that's minor league stuff that can be written off as destroyed in a exercise. Old and still crated M-1's and M-14's can be written off as sold as surplus or destroyed, Writing off a new Hummer is a bigger issue as would writing off a newer helicopter.
In fact, too much new stuff goes missing could in fact lead to someone noticing and trying to find out where all that gear is going. Its better to use older outdated gear at that point.

Now if your using the new Morrow Project book/PDF, I could see Hummers and Strykers going into caches as well as more modern firepower without raising suspicions. Just write it all off as lost or sold in Afghanistan or Iraq.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

What I wonder is what kind of equipment were the Snake Eaters buried with, Bolt Holes like the Morrow team, permanent bases they can operate out of. Basements of buildings? That is the big question for me.

In the real world A detachments are supported by B detachments, and then C detachments.

A is the operational Team.

B is a support element made of SF graduates who are extremely skilled (Veteran SF) who assist.

C is a largish element back in a controlled are that has non-SF personnel to assist as needed like additional medical personnel, veterinarians, mechanics, electronics repair, etc.

So I would expect A dets to have a bolt hole and a few caches, B dets to have a bolt hole that operates as a base with a secondary as back up. C dets should be near a military installation and might possibly be minimally staffed with an expectation to draw personnel from active duty non program troops.

[stormlion1]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

In the real world A detachments are supported by B detachments, and then C detachments.

A is the operational Team.

B is a support element made of SF graduates who are extremely skilled (Veteran SF) who assist.

C is a largish element back in a controlled are that has non-SF personnel to assist as needed like additional medical personnel, veterinarians, mechanics, electronics repair, etc.

So I would expect A dets to have a bolt hole and a few caches, B dets to have a bolt hole that operates as a base with a secondary as back up. C dets should be near a military installation and might possibly be minimally staffed with an expectation to draw personnel from active duty non program troops.

While this is how it should work, the disappearance of so many personnel would cause notice so I'm betting just a A-Team (heh, heh) were put in cryo and were expected to survive on there own. But on that note I'm also betting the bases that the Snake Eaters were given weren't expected to be abandoned like Project Bolt Holes but to act as a temporary base of operations. Operating like a very small fire base as it were in a nuclear environment. It really counts just how much time they were given to prepare but I could see the Gov't adapting Cold War era facilities for this, ones that had been built during the 50's and the 60's then abandoned and forgotten about soon after. In my area there are still remains of Nike Missile Bases scattered about, one of these could be adapted very easily for a Snake Eater base of operation.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

While this is how it should work, the disappearance of so many personnel would cause notice so I'm betting just a A-Team (heh, heh) were put in cryo and were expected to survive on there own. But on that note I'm also betting the bases that the Snake Eaters were given weren't expected to be abandoned like Project Bolt Holes but to act as a temporary base of operations. Operating like a very small fire base as it were in a nuclear environment. It really counts just how much time they were given to prepare but I could see the Gov't adapting Cold War era facilities for this, ones that had been built during the 50's and the 60's then abandoned and forgotten about soon after. In my area there are still remains of Nike Missile Bases scattered about, one of these could be adapted very easily for a Snake Eater base of operation.

I am expecting A and B teams to be filled and the C Team expected to be formed from surviving active duty, reserves, re-activated retirees, and local force.

I don't think the A teams would have a permanent base or should. Those guys are going where the trouble is, i.e. fighting a guerilla war on U.S. soil against Soviet forces. The B Team likely will or be mobile on trucks to establish themselves near an A team or local force that needs their support.

As for C Team, that would have been formed on a DoD base or post with a core of SF personnel on the operations team and the rest made of non-SF support personnel. After the war started.

[stormlion1]

I'm going to go with there only being A-Teams put into cryo with the expectation of B & C-Teams being drawn from surviving military personel after the nuclear strikes. This is partly to minimize the number of Green Specops types going missing, hence causing people to ask where they are but also to minimize the number of hidden Snake Eater Bolt Holes being placed. As for the Snake Eater installations I do kind of expect there to have a semi-permanent installation set aside for themselves. One is the sheer amount of gear they will be expected to maintain and be issued. And two if they wake up and the location above them is a radioactive hellhole! There going to need a place to operate out from!
I am going to use a Nike Missile Base as a example for a hidden Snake Eater location, mostly because I once crawled through one and have a idea of how big the underground section is. I figure a garage using a ramp to get at least two lightweight jeeps out of it, or maybe using one of the missile silo doors and a crane to get them out to reduce the footprint. A large amount of ammunition for the Snake Eaters weapons and any extra weapons set aside fo any resistance or law enforcement force they feel they might need to arm, six to twelve cryopods, six to twelve bunks, a section set aside for medical needs, and a latrine off to the side. Now it wouldn't be permanent but would be good to operate out of in the case of high radiation, a place to rest and recuperate and handle medical needs, a place to maintain vehicles and weapons and could easily be hidden after a few years of the terrain above it being grown over. Entry is by one of the silo doors or a hatch with a ladder.
Separate caches, not unlike Morrow supply caches would also be hidden but behind or within public works, things that the Snake Eaters could easily find and could be set up in plain sight. Who would believe the roadwork laying in a new pipeline by the side of the road is in reality a pipeline containing a cache of firearms and ammunition?

Wow, I essentially just reiterated myself, didn't I?

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by stormlion1

I'm going to go with there only being A-Teams put into cryo with the expectation of B & C-Teams being drawn from surviving military personel after the nuclear strikes. This is partly to minimize the number of Green Specops types going missing, hence causing people to ask where they are but also to minimize the number of hidden Snake Eater Bolt Holes being placed. As for the Snake Eater installations I do kind of expect there to have a semi-permanent installation set aside for themselves. One is the sheer amount of gear they will be expected to maintain and be issued. And two if they wake up and the location above them is a radioactive hellhole! There going to need a place to operate out from!
I am going to use a Nike Missile Base as a example for a hidden Snake Eater location, mostly because I once crawled through one and have a idea of how big the underground section is. I figure a garage using a ramp to get at least two lightweight jeeps out of it, or maybe using one of the missile silo doors and a crane to get them out to reduce the footprint. A large amount of ammunition for the Snake Eaters weapons and any extra weapons set aside fo any resistance or law enforcement force they feel they might need to arm, six to twelve cryopods, six to twelve bunks, a section set aside for medical needs, and a latrine off to the side. Now it wouldn't be permanent but would be good to operate out of in the case of high radiation, a place to rest and recuperate and handle medical needs, a place to maintain vehicles and weapons and could easily be hidden after a few years of the terrain above it being grown over. Entry is by one of the silo doors or a hatch with a ladder.
Separate caches, not unlike Morrow supply caches would also be hidden but behind or within public works, things that the Snake Eaters could easily find and could be set up in plain sight. Who would believe the roadwork laying in a new pipeline by the side of the road is in reality a pipeline containing a cache of firearms and ammunition?

Wow, I essentially just reiterated myself, didn't I?

I think B teams are a necessity. Lets look at an A team for a second. It is 12 men and can be broken into two teams of six with the Captain leading one, and the Master Sergeant leading the other. This can happen because the other jobs that are E7, E6, and E5 are doubled with a primary and secondary. One is senior to the other, thus there would be an E7 (SFC) weapons sergeant and and E5 weapons sergeant, same for intel, medic, engineer, commo.

B teams don't hold to the 12 man rule, and can be up to 40+ personnel. The B Teams are generally staffed with more senior personnel mostly E7s waiting for an E8 slot to open for example. The B team assists the A Teams in other ways such as highly trained in a specialty. Let us use the weapons sergeant as an example. An SF weapons sergeant is expected to be expert in all U.S. and Allied individual weapons and company level crew served weapons. They can fire them, zero them for qualification, train others to use them, and maintain them at the armorers level. Maintenance at the armorers level is pretty basic, mostly remove and replace, with a little bit on drifting sights or honing a trigger. The weapons sergeant in the B team has spent time on one or more A teams gaining vast operational knowledge, then was selected for a civilian gunsmithing school and various schools put out by weapons manufacturer. Thus the E7 or E8 weapons sergeant can do more than the A team weapons sergeant because he is trained to manufacture parts.

This applies to commo where the B team radio operator is also capable of diagnosing problems on a circuit board then repairing same. A B team medic has been through the teams then, gone on to complete a Masters degree and become Physicians Assist.

The B teams back fill A teams until a replace can be trained up from SF qualifications and also assists A teams in their civil liaison, intel missions, or training locals to be the militias or CIDGs by providing more experienced and trained personnel to assist.

As for SF people disappearing......... SF doesn't advertise their missions, so outside the community, nobody is going to know. As for the Army complaining all its SF assets are dwindling; in the 90s the big Army mafias (Airborne, Infantry, and Armor) were against SF because the SF was stealing their best top 5%. The 4 Stars don't really like SF and how it operates because the rest of big Army doesn't work that way.

The SF community more than any other has a tendency for personnel to retire outside the U.S. Easy to recruit persons who are "retired" from active service because they are past 20 years or medically retired.

I wouldn't be using any facilities like a Nike missile silo simply because with the sheer numbers of missiles available in 1989 there is bound to be some targeting that location.

A teams jobs are out there with the people so I am not including a live in facility but rather several caches in large and small sizes to both assist survivors and arm the populace against soviet invasion. B teams will have a live in facility with room to house several A teams at once (bay style) and facilities to repair and maintain equipment. This isn't going to be on a federal installation or downwind of one either. Probably going to be located beneath a facility inside a national park, national forest, or a wildlife preserve with an expectation that any base, fort, depot, warehouse, facility, or other designated federal property is going to be hit atleast once at a minimum.

In the supplemental Morrow Project story found on the Rogue 417 CD the nuclear exchange is know to take place over a period of months with Denver taking the last, and for the third time, nuclear impact.

[stormlion1]

The problem also is we never see any evidence of a B-Team. Lets look at Ruins of Chicago, the A-Team was outright on its own and essentially had no back up. This says to me one of two things, Snake Eaters are thin on the ground and the number of volunteers was also pretty small. Which it should be when the terms for recruiting are veteran lonely SF's that won't be missed. So this says to me that the plan was for those Cryo'd A-Teams to be serviced by surviving B-Teams, and not ones that were into Cryo. In fact in every instance we see of Snake Eaters showing up there either alone with minimal supplies or operating as a team but with no visible support but what they gather themselves. I think they had plenty of volunteers myself, but to cover the whole US and Canada required spreading those troops out to such a degree that they could only field A-Teams and just give them plenty of spares to draw upon rather than have a B or C-Team to draw upon.

I use Nike missile bases as a example as most were in fact abandoned by the late 70's and most were in fact not on military bases but placed in farm fields or small compounds that were well away from everything. This in fact works in there favor as those small compounds were well away from a nuclear strike zone and probably wouldn't be targeted as they were known to be abandoned facility's. The added advantage of the missile silo's themselves being buried also helps with only the radar stations being above ground and usually well away from the Nike launch silo's themselves, in fact one or two radar stations usually serviced several Nike Silo's. Today most of the bases were in fact in my area given over to developers or schools and had parking lots or housing built on top of them by the mid 90's. And quite often they didn't even dig them up but just built on top of them. The one I explored was abandoned smack dab in the middle of a patch of tree's in a huge farm field and the only reason I found it was google maps! Sure they could fire a nuke at them, but a airburst wouldn't affect them much and would be essentially targeting civilian farmlands or empty forestlands.

Cache wise I see plenty of small and a few large ones being set up as well, but were primarily filled with ammo and weapons and next to nothing else in the smaller ones and larger ones containing the same but with the occasional addition of a vehicle or two.

[bobcat]

the way i usually run things is that the government has a rough idea what the Morrow Project is doing and freezes the A-teams to provide insurance. the government doesn't trust the morrow project to perform as advertised and wants their own people on hand to keep the project honest. this would also allow the teams enough flexibility to assist with reconstruction efforts since A-teams would have the majority of the needed skills to carry out such a mission.

this provides the government with a plausible reason to freeze a small number of snake eaters while not taking direct actions against the project. as for equipment i would likely issue them surplus WW2 equipment from Civil Defense caches because those weapons are known for their durability and because such caches would be quite heavily stocked.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by bobcat

the way i usually run things is that the government has a rough idea what the Morrow Project is doing and freezes the A-teams to provide insurance. the government doesn't trust the morrow project to perform as advertised and wants their own people on hand to keep the project honest. this would also allow the teams enough flexibility to assist with reconstruction efforts since A-teams would have the majority of the needed skills to carry out such a mission.

this provides the government with a plausible reason to freeze a small number of snake eaters while not taking direct actions against the project. as for equipment i would likely issue them surplus WW2 equipment from Civil Defense caches because those weapons are known for their durability and because such caches would be quite heavily stocked.

Any time I have played or run a game, any Snake Eaters are used exactly as Bobcat portrays. They are an ACE in the hole (pardon the pun) to ride heard on TMP IF NEEDED. IF your team is acting as it should, helping others, staying OUT of the local politics, then any SE who looks this over will be glad to help. And any Morrow team that gets a SE on their side should get down on their knees and thank GOD for the insight a SE will add. IMHO a SE should ONLY be played by the GM or, if you are lucky, a person who is/was a SE.

As far as equipment, I think the M14's as portrayed in Chicago are an EXCELLENT weapon. Can be Auto/semi auto/single shot. 7.62 or 30-06 if you prefer is a MAN KILLER. I would have thought the SE's would have had some kind of vehicle. If for nothing else, to help bring in a harvest for the locals. I can see the SE's leaning towards 2 1/2 ton trucks, or M113's at BEST. These men are EXPERTS at unconventional war. The only use of a vehicle is to help locals. A SE will be much better at stealth and surprise.

Time to get off of the soap box.

My $0.02

Mike

[stormlion1]

Actually I see them being armed with the weapons of the day, in the 80's or 90's or the 00's there going to have M-16 derivatives due to how abundant the ammunition type would be and they could easily plug into any military units supply chain they run across. The happen upon a National Guard unit 3-5 years after a nuclear war those M-14's will have a limited supply of parts and ammunition. I do see them being allowed to take the sidearms of choice though so I would expect to see a whole variety of different pistols. Vehicle wise I would expect to see quads. Fuel efficient and good for off road work. There not there to help rebuild, they are there to keep an eye on the Morrow Project and possibly fight Russian troops if encountered. In many ways I expect the Snake Eaters to make do with less and do more with it and with there training they would be several times more effective than a average Morrow Team.

[bobcat]

given that until the late nineties the blanket heads primary mission was to train guerrilla forces it would be less than ideal to have them armed with M16s when civil defense is passing out millions of Thompsons, Garands and BAR's to everyone that can hold one. granted they might even have both in their boltholes since uncle sam loves redundancy. similarly with vehicles why issue them the latest most high tech(and high maintenance) vehicles when you can issue them older gear thats already in inventory and use the fancy stuff for fighting the war.