Captured Vehicles & Battlefield Recognition Symbols

[Raellus]

I wish there was an option for painting the vehicle in an ambiguous camo scheme that neither side routinely uses. The idea here being to create uncertainty on both sides- just long enough to either confirm the operators' true identity (if the challenger is friendly) or shoot/scoot (if the challenger is hostile).

I'd pick that one.

Yeah, there's no guarantee this would work, and both sides might assume that the vehicle belongs to a third party (i.e. partisans/marauders) but I like having more options.

[Legbreaker]

Unfortunately for that plan, shape usually trumps colour when identifying enemy/friendly vehicles.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Unfortunately for that plan, shape usually trumps colour when identifying enemy/friendly vehicles.

I think that pretty much everyone on this board is aware of this, but thanks for pointing it out anyway, I guess.

I was treating it as a given and it doesn't alter the central point of my post. Anything to create hesitation or doubt on the part of a potential enemy would, to my mind, be worth the effort.

As for the danger of mistaken identity/blue-on-blue, both U.S. and Soviet vehicle guides each contain examples of captured enemy weaponry done up in friendly colors. IMHO, due to the dearth of operational AFVs, the practice would be fairly common c.2000. So, one couldn't really exclusively on shape to identify hostile targets.

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Unfortunately for that plan, shape usually trumps colour when identifying enemy/friendly vehicles.

For combat troops I would 100% agree with you, for support troops I am not so sure about that. Years ago back when I was still in tanks, I was loaned out to the local recruiting office, there was a couple of others who were there from maintenance, transportation and units like that. I was studying my vehicle ID cards, and had one of them quiz me on it. After I was done several of them did it. They all sucked and would have failed hard, the worst got every single one wrong, it has been a long time but I think the best only got like 10% right. So I could see this working with support troops, and even some combat troops if this is something that others were also doing. This would be a case of sucks to be the first.

[Legbreaker]

Depends the the training received though doesn't it. By 2000 though I'd think almost everyone would be able to tell the difference between a LAV-25 and BTR-80 - their lives have probably depended on it at least once.
One factor in favour of characters in T2K is they're probably carrying several tonnes of supplies, much of it strapped on the outside of their vehicles with the (perhaps unintended) consequence of obscuring the vehicle silhouette.
Also as we've seen in the notes for many of the vehicle colour plates in the books, paint is no longer particularly fresh and usually quite faded. Some vehicles haven't even received more than the base factory coat before issue.

All these factors combined may justify a GM requiring a character to make an Observation/Recon roll to identify the vehicle type, all be it at easy or perhaps very easy difficulty.

[Slappy]

Side point here. I used to impose penalties to using captured vehicles, particularly for recently captured and for PCs that didn't have the appropriate language skills. Don't expect that you can just jump in a foreign vehicle and operate it at normal effectiveness immediately. We had several "oops! so that's what that lever does!" moments.

[Legbreaker]

Sounds a little like the aircraft (specifically helicopters) piloting rules from 1st ed (in Free City of Krakow). Your skill level dictated how many aircraft you were familiar with and you had penalties for trying to fly unfamiliar ones. Machines labelled in foreign languages the character was not familiar with attracted greater penalties.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Sounds a little like the aircraft (specifically helicopters) piloting rules from 1st ed (in Free City of Krakow). Your skill level dictated how many aircraft you were familiar with and you had penalties for trying to fly unfamiliar ones. Machines labelled in foreign languages the character was not familiar with attracted greater penalties.

Yes indeed. Just last night I was watching an episode of Air Crash Investigations in which a crash that killed everyone on board was 100% due to the senior pilot having been trained in Soviet aircraft where the appearance of the artificial horizon instrument is very different to the western configuration.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Slappy

Side point here. I used to impose penalties to using captured vehicles, particularly for recently captured and for PCs that didn't have the appropriate language skills. Don't expect that you can just jump in a foreign vehicle and operate it at normal effectiveness immediately. We had several "oops! so that's what that lever does!" moments.

I can see that for tanks and fighting vehicles, but not so much for wheeled vehicles like trucks and Jeeps

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by rcaf_777

I can see that for tanks and fighting vehicles, but not so much for wheeled vehicles like trucks and Jeeps

I would have a problem with Pact jeeps and suchlike: I never learned how to drive a standard. Some PCs may have this problem as well.