Snake Eaters-1st Cavalry

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

So you knowing that the SEALs were launched hours late and miles further out by a Navy Captain more interested in himself and a ship than the lives of the SEALs. A situation making them arrive after sunrise and low tide to ross hundreds of yards of mud flats..... You fault the SEALs?

What military lets you choose to continue your mission or not? Was there a vote somewhere that the SEALs weren't told about?

Also when did SEALs merge with the U.S. Army Speial Fores? A different branch with it's own selection, training, and missions.

I don't fault the SEALs, I am just stating what seems obvious to me, THINGS GO WRONG. SoF teams can catch bullets just like everyone else.

Also you brought up SEAL Team Six and Delta Force so you initially made the connection between SoF units of various services. I fully understand the two branches are different and do different things with different things but the basic point remains THINGS GO WRONG. On any given day an SoF team can get in a world of hurt just like normal human beings, although perhaps not as often and perhaps they will be able to extricate themselves more effectively.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I don't fault the SEALs, I am just stating what seems obvious to me, THINGS GO WRONG. SoF teams can catch bullets just like everyone else.

Also you brought up SEAL Team Six and Delta Force so you initially made the connection between SoF units of various services. I fully understand the two branches are different and do different things with different things but the basic point remains THINGS GO WRONG. On any given day an SoF team can get in a world of hurt just like normal human beings, although perhaps not as often and perhaps they will be able to extricate themselves more effectively.

True. However, your reply seems to blame the SEALs (or any SOF) for judgement, training, and knowledge. I don't get it, though I have had the opportunity to work with 1st SFG and 5th SFG when stationed at Ft Lewis and Ft Campbell.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I don't fault the SEALs, I am just stating what seems obvious to me, THINGS GO WRONG. SoF teams can catch bullets just like everyone else.

I am not sure where this disagreement is coming from, nor why it has gone on so long.

SOF are selected from the best of the military and then given additional training, equipment, and other resources. The expectation is (and should be!) that they will outperform equivalently sized units and achieve parity against larger units (for some values of "larger"), often with improved performance for a particular mission profile. That they can and do fail should not be an issue - the best at ANYTHING still have failure rates, but it should be lower than conventional forces under similar circumstances. The traditional argument against SOF is that their improved performance does not justify the resources expended on them and the corresponding drain on conventional forces.

Your original question was how a special forces A-team would handle a Morrow team, and I think the there are several answers for the actions they might take. As for their odds of success, it depends on what you consider to be regular TMP training compared to SF.

In the case of Green Berets, they have gone through about a year of training above and beyond their prior military training (which definitely includes basic, usually includes infantry, and often includes Ranger training) just to qualify and receive extensive additional training both as individuals and as a unit. While a significant portion of this training addresses non-combat issues, a great deal of it does address combat. An A-Team may have a few new members but on average has significant experience, and it may be argued that a Snake Eater team would be selected to minimize or eliminate rookies.

For the Project, the implication has always been that members receive a relative minimum of combat training. Their primary mission is reconstruction, combat is at best secondary if not tertiary, and while canon lacks any real specifics it certainly looks as if their training is closer to Army Basic than any other military training. While any PD may decide to give the Teams more training, that assumption should be stated if you want others to consider it.

As to the idea of veterans in the Project Team coming from SOF, it would seem likely that any such veterans would be a substantial minority (just as they are in the military) and that their unusual capabilities would be reserved at some higher level for special purposes (just as in the military). A run-of-the-mill MARS team would be lucky to have a couple of guys who are Ranger-qualified, even a single SF vet would be truly remarkable. Even if we consider the absurd extreme where 75% of the team are not only veterans but actually SOF veterans, and where 50-75% of those were combat vets, then we still have maybe 4-6 Green Berets against an A-Team twice the size that has already had the chance to get acclimated.

And again, the idea that an A-Team would tear through a Morrow Team is not only sensible, but canon. The Ruins of Chicago already addressed this possibility, and made it clear that if the Team wanted to live they needed to tread lightly and use diplomacy, not bullets. While I disagree with many parts of canon, I see no reason to disagree with this.

[Project_Sardonicus]

But isn't the question not so much who would in a fight Morrow v SF (it's SF as has been said it's Cannon even Prime Base made clear that the Project had a special use for its most special forces).

But what would the reaction be from SF troops encountering a team? They weren't sent to kill these dangerous saboteurs. But rather, there's some funny sorts freezing themselves with guns and getting organised. Go see what they're up to.

An SF team attacking a Project team would be like a naturalist making an omelette out of rare Eagle eggs.

In terms of who'd follow the orders if the 1st Cav and SF met up. Here's an interesting question supposing someone like the Frozen Chosen had frozen a senior member of the government at designated survivor level of authority,

What happens when he gets on the radio and starts summoning up all the surviving US military to follow their commander in chief?
Loyalty to the chain of command gets pretty close to the bone.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

For the Project, the implication has always been that members receive a relative minimum of combat training. Their primary mission is reconstruction, combat is at best secondary if not tertiary, and while canon lacks any real specifics it certainly looks as if their training is closer to Army Basic than any other military training. While any PD may decide to give the Teams more training, that assumption should be stated if you want others to consider it.

As to the idea of veterans in the Project Team coming from SOF, it would seem likely that any such veterans would be a substantial minority (just as they are in the military) and that their unusual capabilities would be reserved at some higher level for special purposes (just as in the military). A run-of-the-mill MARS team would be lucky to have a couple of guys who are Ranger-qualified, even a single SF vet would be truly remarkable. Even if we consider the absurd extreme where 75% of the team are not only veterans but actually SOF veterans, and where 50-75% of those were combat vets, then we still have maybe 4-6 Green Berets against an A-Team twice the size that has already had the chance to get acclimated.

And again, the idea that an A-Team would tear through a Morrow Team is not only sensible, but canon. The Ruins of Chicago already addressed this possibility, and made it clear that if the Team wanted to live they needed to tread lightly and use diplomacy, not bullets. While I disagree with many parts of canon, I see no reason to disagree with this.

I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon

"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)

3rd edition Introduction

"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"

"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"

3rd edition page 11

I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.

You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.

That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon

"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)

3rd edition Introduction

"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"

"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"

3rd edition page 11

I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.

You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.

That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?

The SOF guys were diverted to the Phoenix Team. Mars is supposed to be SWAT in nature with a lot more options than LEOs. The minimum skill levels for snake eaters were the high end for project personnel. The team would get creamed whether it was a snake eater or a top tier regular grunt- top 1% is top 1%. And the 30 to 40 to 1 odds doesn't mean the SF guys go unscathed.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon

"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)

3rd edition Introduction

"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"

"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"

3rd edition page 11

I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.

You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.

That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?

The Infantryman that finishes his three years in Germany....a veteran.

The Generals driver at the Pentagon is a, you guessed it, a veteran.

The cook, mail clerk, truck driver, JAG clerk....... yup.....with Honorable disharge.....veterans.

Veteran doesn't mean you attended and excelled at all combat related military schools.

Regular Army Tankers, Artillerists, Infantry, cavalry Scouts, and more are the
combat veterans. They for the most part have Basic, AIT, and maybe one or two military schools.


Many of the "Veterans" in MARS are police officers, EMTs, and Fire fighters..... the R in MARS is rescue after all.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I disagree with a lot of this. First to say that MARS teams receive a relative minimum of combat training seems to be contraindicated by the canon description, their equipment load outs and their Acronym. They are a combat asset. They should be recruited from the best available resources and given as much additional training as possible. Otherwise all the fancy tools they get up to and including the MARS 1 are just a waste of valuable resources. I don't think I need to specifically state this because it is stated in canon

"The personnel of the Project are well trained, but they are not all combat verterans..." (This indicates that a portion of them were)

3rd edition Introduction

"The warriors of the Morrow Project. MARS stands for Mobile Assault, Rescue and Strike forces. The members of these teams are equipped with heavy weapons and the knowledge of how to use them"

"Many of the members of Mars Teams are veterans"

3rd edition page 11

I'm not certain how much more clearly this canon statement can be. It doesn't specifically say that the "veterans" were SF or other Sof troops but since the Project sought out the most capable individuals they could find it stands to reason that they would have looked for the best "warriors" they could find.

You state that canon says SF vs MP will lead to MP being handed their ass. Canon is only so good. It gave us things like the MARS 1 and the even more loathed Science Rover. It also has blue undead. The original designers saddled the project with almost a dozen calibers of ammunition and gave Recon teams vehicles that aren't amphibious, the design team was not infallible. Yes I quote canon above and like everyone else will pick and choose what parts of it I use and what parts I don't.

That being said is it, the players need to be extremely careful about getting into any combat. Getting shot in the original rules was likely to kill a character. Depending upon how a PD runs the game (and again YMMV) civilization can't really be rebuilt by the gun alone. I haven't looked at Ruins of Chicago in a long time, but even if the MP should, through some huge fluke, beat the SF guys can they succeed in their mission?

To add to what others have already noted:

MARS describes the mission profile of an entire branch, it does not imply that every MARS team is capable of every single possible MARS mission.

The statements given in canon are broadly interpretable. "Assault" and "Strike" are roles regularly assigned to line infantry, "Rescue" is, as has been noted, a SWAT role. The fact that there are top-tier military units performing these roles as well does not mean that the Project is at that level. "Well trained" does not indicate for which parts of their mission this applies, nor does it give us any comparison to know how "well" they really ARE trained. I don't have the book with me this weekend, but if I recall correctly the base combat skill numbers for MARS are only about twice as good as the abysmal scores acceptable for Science teams - that doesn't seem that "well".

You focus on what the Project teams SHOULD be, but that is an unrealistic standard. Every US infantryman SHOULD be as proficient as a Delta commando, but realistically we can only get so many men of that caliber and can only spend so much time and money on their training... just like the Project. The Project has very strict recruiting standards (psych profile, willingness/ability to abandon all family and friends, the willingness to abandon the US to destruction and rebuild something presumably at least a little different in its place, etc) and even if they hit up every SOF operator they would probably only get a small number of takers, so I suspect that line MARS teams will probably not have anything more elite than line infantry.

You also note (correctly) that even in MARS units not everyone is a veteran - whatever the standard may be, the Project must be able to train civilians up from scratch to that standard or else send teams into the field with weak sisters. I don't think the latter generally works and the former requires that the Project have a military training organization that (a) hits a particular standard (SOF for you, perhaps AIT or so for me) and (b) can sustain it without tipping anyone off for the entire recruiting phase of the Project. The latter alone is daunting even for the AIT level, I am not sure how the Project could do it for SF.

FWIW, I always assumed a tiered system (as with everything in my Project-Region-District-Group scheme) where MARS units down at the Group level would be tasked with dealing with small scale disturbances - bandits, mostly. Larger or more difficult opponents would involve retreat or holding actions while waiting for the progressively better recruited/trained teams assigned at the higher levels to show up. So if Phoenix represents the top capability of SOF in the Project, then perhaps the Regional commands have a few teams with SEALS and Green Berets and the District teams have some Rangers, EOD techs, and Force Recon Marines. But you cannot maintain that skill level across the entirety of MARS.

And I (and I think others) have been assuming that the players in this scenario represented a low-level MARS team, not "the very best of the Project". The very best of the Project is Phoenix, and they (or some reasonable facsimile of them) should be able to outdo an SF team if they really wanted to - I suspect they too would prefer to work with them rather than against them.

One last thing to consider is that most of this discussion has focused on the classic war-game scenario - Red forces entering the board from the left while Blue forces are entering from the right, find the enemy and engage. The reality here is that the SF team is established, and if they are at all competent in their jobs it means that they know the lay of the land and have recruited and trained allied forces. The Project team would probably never see more than a couple of the Green Berets at a time, they would be facing larger numbers of "indigenous" troops with the soldiers in command/advisory roles. This just makes things worse for the team, despite their edge in equipment.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

To add to what others have already noted:

MARS describes the mission profile of an entire branch, it does not imply that every MARS team is capable of every single possible MARS mission.

The statements given in canon are broadly interpretable. "Assault" and "Strike" are roles regularly assigned to line infantry, "Rescue" is, as has been noted, a SWAT role. The fact that there are top-tier military units performing these roles as well does not mean that the Project is at that level. "Well trained" does not indicate for which parts of their mission this applies, nor does it give us any comparison to know how "well" they really ARE trained. I don't have the book with me this weekend, but if I recall correctly the base combat skill numbers for MARS are only about twice as good as the abysmal scores acceptable for Science teams - that doesn't seem that "well".

You focus on what the Project teams SHOULD be, but that is an unrealistic standard. Every US infantryman SHOULD be as proficient as a Delta commando, but realistically we can only get so many men of that caliber and can only spend so much time and money on their training... just like the Project. The Project has very strict recruiting standards (psych profile, willingness/ability to abandon all family and friends, the willingness to abandon the US to destruction and rebuild something presumably at least a little different in its place, etc) and even if they hit up every SOF operator they would probably only get a small number of takers, so I suspect that line MARS teams will probably not have anything more elite than line infantry.

You also note (correctly) that even in MARS units not everyone is a veteran - whatever the standard may be, the Project must be able to train civilians up from scratch to that standard or else send teams into the field with weak sisters. I don't think the latter generally works and the former requires that the Project have a military training organization that (a) hits a particular standard (SOF for you, perhaps AIT or so for me) and (b) can sustain it without tipping anyone off for the entire recruiting phase of the Project. The latter alone is daunting even for the AIT level, I am not sure how the Project could do it for SF.

FWIW, I always assumed a tiered system (as with everything in my Project-Region-District-Group scheme) where MARS units down at the Group level would be tasked with dealing with small scale disturbances - bandits, mostly. Larger or more difficult opponents would involve retreat or holding actions while waiting for the progressively better recruited/trained teams assigned at the higher levels to show up. So if Phoenix represents the top capability of SOF in the Project, then perhaps the Regional commands have a few teams with SEALS and Green Berets and the District teams have some Rangers, EOD techs, and Force Recon Marines. But you cannot maintain that skill level across the entirety of MARS.

And I (and I think others) have been assuming that the players in this scenario represented a low-level MARS team, not "the very best of the Project". The very best of the Project is Phoenix, and they (or some reasonable facsimile of them) should be able to outdo an SF team if they really wanted to - I suspect they too would prefer to work with them rather than against them.

One last thing to consider is that most of this discussion has focused on the classic war-game scenario - Red forces entering the board from the left while Blue forces are entering from the right, find the enemy and engage. The reality here is that the SF team is established, and if they are at all competent in their jobs it means that they know the lay of the land and have recruited and trained allied forces. The Project team would probably never see more than a couple of the Green Berets at a time, they would be facing larger numbers of "indigenous" troops with the soldiers in command/advisory roles. This just makes things worse for the team, despite their edge in equipment.

The field manuals help here, most show partisans using SF taught skills. Also the manuals are good for cache contents, as they give tool and weapons, equipment packages.

[gamerguy]

Field manuals?

[mmartin798]

These:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...olicy/army/fm/

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

The field manuals help here, most show partisans using SF taught skills. Also the manuals are good for cache contents, as they give tool and weapons, equipment packages.

For those interested in SOF units and capabilities, I would also recommend the nonfiction work of Dick Couch, a former SEAL and CIA case officer who has written a number of books on the selection and training of US special ops. "Chosen Soldier" addresses Special Forces and would be particularly relevant to the Project. Plus, they are written for a civilian audience.

[tsofian]

I was going to let this go, but decided I really couldn't.

Your original position was that MARS teams weren't military, which when canon shows this is not the case you decided to move the goal posts. "Well trained" somehow doesn't mean they are trained for the mission they are designed for and equipped for. Your argument indicates that an organization that spends a non trivial amount selecting, equipping and freezing a large number of people would skimp on training them and on doing everything it could to preserve its assets in the post war era. This would include selecting and training their protective assets as well as they could.

Comparing the need of Morrow Project to train up its MARS teams to the need to for the US Army to train its line infantry is a false equivalency. Line Infantry has a very important job, Delta Force has another important job and MARS teams have their own set of jobs. They are all different. Also the training of any military unit is geared to the slowest soldier in the group. Both Delta Force and Morrow Project will have less slow learners than your typical 11 Bravo MOS or 13 B MOS course, so instead of spending a lot of time trying to get the slow pokes up to speed the cadre should be very much about polishing skills for "high speed/low drag" students. To say that MP MARS team members are the same as "average" Infantrymen seems absurd. The US Army knows that quantity has a quality all its own and that 11B soldiers are replaceable. MARS teams are NOT replaceable. Once they are needed, they like every Morrow asset, are unique, they are absolutely irreplaceable. No draft, or recruitment drive or shortening of the training cycle will put more MARS teams in the field or replace losses. Period. The Project has to front load as many resources-including training-as possible. This means to me that MARS teams, as well as every other team, is going to be as highly trained as possible.

I focus on what MY project is, not yours, as I have been careful to state many times.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

To add to what others have already noted:

MARS describes the mission profile of an entire branch, it does not imply that every MARS team is capable of every single possible MARS mission.

The statements given in canon are broadly interpretable. "Assault" and "Strike" are roles regularly assigned to line infantry, "Rescue" is, as has been noted, a SWAT role. The fact that there are top-tier military units performing these roles as well does not mean that the Project is at that level. "Well trained" does not indicate for which parts of their mission this applies, nor does it give us any comparison to know how "well" they really ARE trained. I don't have the book with me this weekend, but if I recall correctly the base combat skill numbers for MARS are only about twice as good as the abysmal scores acceptable for Science teams - that doesn't seem that "well".

You focus on what the Project teams SHOULD be, but that is an unrealistic standard. Every US infantryman SHOULD be as proficient as a Delta commando, but realistically we can only get so many men of that caliber and can only spend so much time and money on their training... just like the Project. The Project has very strict recruiting standards (psych profile, willingness/ability to abandon all family and friends, the willingness to abandon the US to destruction and rebuild something presumably at least a little different in its place, etc) and even if they hit up every SOF operator they would probably only get a small number of takers, so I suspect that line MARS teams will probably not have anything more elite than line infantry.

You also note (correctly) that even in MARS units not everyone is a veteran - whatever the standard may be, the Project must be able to train civilians up from scratch to that standard or else send teams into the field with weak sisters. I don't think the latter generally works and the former requires that the Project have a military training organization that (a) hits a particular standard (SOF for you, perhaps AIT or so for me) and (b) can sustain it without tipping anyone off for the entire recruiting phase of the Project. The latter alone is daunting even for the AIT level, I am not sure how the Project could do it for SF.

FWIW, I always assumed a tiered system (as with everything in my Project-Region-District-Group scheme) where MARS units down at the Group level would be tasked with dealing with small scale disturbances - bandits, mostly. Larger or more difficult opponents would involve retreat or holding actions while waiting for the progressively better recruited/trained teams assigned at the higher levels to show up. So if Phoenix represents the top capability of SOF in the Project, then perhaps the Regional commands have a few teams with SEALS and Green Berets and the District teams have some Rangers, EOD techs, and Force Recon Marines. But you cannot maintain that skill level across the entirety of MARS.

And I (and I think others) have been assuming that the players in this scenario represented a low-level MARS team, not "the very best of the Project". The very best of the Project is Phoenix, and they (or some reasonable facsimile of them) should be able to outdo an SF team if they really wanted to - I suspect they too would prefer to work with them rather than against them.

One last thing to consider is that most of this discussion has focused on the classic war-game scenario - Red forces entering the board from the left while Blue forces are entering from the right, find the enemy and engage. The reality here is that the SF team is established, and if they are at all competent in their jobs it means that they know the lay of the land and have recruited and trained allied forces. The Project team would probably never see more than a couple of the Green Berets at a time, they would be facing larger numbers of "indigenous" troops with the soldiers in command/advisory roles. This just makes things worse for the team, despite their edge in equipment.

[cosmicfish]

Sorry this is so long, considering the ongoing failure to communicate, I wanted to be thorough.

Originally Posted by tsofian

Your original position was that MARS teams weren't military, which when canon shows this is not the case you decided to move the goal posts.

If you are going to accuse me of moving the goalposts, please show where I made this statement. MARS serves as the military for the Project, but that is not their primary job:

3ed Rule Book, pg R1: "All work accomplished up to this point was incidental. Now the real work of the Project could commence. It was the process of rebuilding for which the members of the teams were most carefully trained. During the rebuilding process all teams would work together, not as Recon, MARS, or Science, but as conservators of civilization."

The "up to this point" explicitly includes MARS teams being "sent in order to deal with 'special' problems". This sums up my understanding of the Project pretty well: the Project, although trained and equipped for combat, was primarily a reconstruction organization that expected to delay operation until the need for military action was minimized.

Originally Posted by tsofian

"Well trained" somehow doesn't mean they are trained for the mission they are designed for and equipped for. Your argument indicates that an organization that spends a non trivial amount selecting, equipping and freezing a large number of people would skimp on training them and on doing everything it could to preserve its assets in the post war era.

No, it does not. My argument is that:

(1) Military action is the primary job for exactly ONE unit in the Project, and that is Phoenix. For everyone else, reconstruction is job 1 and military action is secondary or lower. Training should match the priority, so the focus during training should be on reconstruction, not manufacturing special operations forces.

(2) Training people for military action is indiscreet, especially at top skill levels, and high-level military training would therefore threaten to expose the Project.

(3) The Project does not have the ability to openly recruit, and cannot draft people. The Project must find people who are willing and psychologically able to enter the Project (i.e., abandon the world they know, trust an unsanctioned advanced technology, and walk willingly into a nuclear wasteland with a gun, a shovel, and a first aid kit). After that the emphasis should be on the ability to contribute to reconstruction (the primary job), and only then on the ability to contribute to military operations.

(4) Considering that SOF troops represent a tiny percentage of the US military, it seems unlikely that they would constitute a majority of MARS recruitment. While they would undoubtedly be desired and pursued, a more likely (to me, and it seems most of the other posters) result is that Morrow veteran recruiting reflects the diversity of military careers and that MARS would be happy to get line infantry or SWAT veterans for front-line MARS teams.

(5) While most MARS teamers are veterans, many are non-veterans. At a minimum, MARS would need to restrict the "typical" mission profile to whatever they could train civilians to do from scratch.

(6) Once people are recruited, there is only so much training you can give someone. Even, perhaps especially, on the reconstruction side, additional training will be required. There is also going to be additional training to handle Project equipment and vehicles, and survival training, And for all the non-veterans, a significant starter-level amount of military training is required. When all this is accomplished to a satisfactory level, how much more time can you really spend cranking up the knob on military training?

(7) This is not "skimping", it is acknowledging that training all MARS teamers to the ideal level endangers the Project and likely inhibits reconstruction - their primary mission, after all.

Originally Posted by tsofian

This would include selecting and training their protective assets as well as they could.

If you add "without exposing the Project or impairing their ability to serve in reconstruction" I would agree, with the additional caveat that "as well as they could" should also reflect that they are recruiting from an actual population who all have to volunteer. The Project isn't going to spend $10 million on an APC and $50 training the guys inside it, but it also isn't going to put itself into the position of openly training Green Berets or telling people who signed up to rebuild the world that they must spend 6 months training for combat and 2 weeks training to help people.

Originally Posted by tsofian

Comparing the need of Morrow Project to train up its MARS teams to the need to for the US Army to train its line infantry is a false equivalency. Line Infantry has a very important job, Delta Force has another important job and MARS teams have their own set of jobs. They are all different.

If MARS is the military of the Project, then its missions and training can be compared to those of other militaries, otherwise calling it military has no meaning. There is no reason to expect that MARS is a homogeneous organization with every team able to do every mission, but it certainly seems to me as if the line infantry mission and the Delta Force mission both have places in the MARS spectrum. And I am not trying to say that MARS team = infantry, I am trying to say that the quality of recruit and the amount and type of military training they receive is going to be far closer to infantry than it will be to Delta. Sure, they'll be smarter and better educated than the average 11B but they won't necessarily be any more athletic or anything, and their training isn't going to be a superhuman effort focusing on their secondary mission.

Originally Posted by tsofian

Also the training of any military unit is geared to the slowest soldier in the group. Both Delta Force and Morrow Project will have less slow learners than your typical 11 Bravo MOS or 13 B MOS course, so instead of spending a lot of time trying to get the slow pokes up to speed the cadre should be very much about polishing skills for "high speed/low drag" students.

Many of those skills will need foundational skills, not just polish. Many come in as civilians, and (to most of us) it seems that even the veterans are likely to come from a diverse set of MOSs and may require some additional shaping prior to "polish". And remember that "intelligence" isn't one knob that turns up ability on all skills equally - the fact that someone has more book smarts, on average, does not mean that they are better at physical skills or social skills, and educations and careers generally have an impact on physical readiness for combat. The Project has to recruit for basic Project criteria (willingness to abandon, etc, etc,) first, ability to assist with reconstruction second, and ability to fight 3rd, and there just are not that many supermen around who are going to be great at all three.

Professional military training also comes with a lot of resources the Project lacks: the ability to operate openly, the ability to operate outside civilian safety requirements and regulations, the ability to force some level of participation on the trainees, etc. The Project is dealing in secret with volunteers for a reconstruction program, money and quality of recruit aside, there are limits on what they can do.

Originally Posted by tsofian

To say that MP MARS team members are the same as "average" Infantrymen seems absurd. The US Army knows that quantity has a quality all its own and that 11B soldiers are replaceable. MARS teams are NOT replaceable. Once they are needed, they like every Morrow asset, are unique, they are absolutely irreplaceable. No draft, or recruitment drive or shortening of the training cycle will put more MARS teams in the field or replace losses. Period. The Project has to front load as many resources-including training-as possible. This means to me that MARS teams, as well as every other team, is going to be as highly trained as possible.

I agree with most of this, up to the point where you imply that the end result is a typical MARS team (6-8 people?) going head-to-head with an experienced, entrenched, 12-man SF A-Team and not being outmatched. The Project cannot train every member for an indefinite amount of time, and if there is X amount of time to be spent conditioning and training the candidates, even ignoring the time spent training for non-combat tasks, then there must be a point where you hit "as possible" and I think that point comes before a typical MARS team can expect to outdo the Snake Eaters.

Perhaps it is worthwhile at this point for you to lay out what you think the MARS training pipeline looks like and where you see the results falling. Please bear in mind that the key requirements for Phoenix (meant to be the deus ex machina of the game) were "combat veteran from a SOF, psych pass, a black belt, a language, and a year of extra training", which is I think the only real specified pipeline in canon and with which in decades of recruiting they got 46 guys.

Originally Posted by tsofian

I focus on what MY project is, not yours, as I have been careful to state many times.

The entire purpose of your thread was to solicit other people's opinions on how a Morrow team (later specified as MARS) would handle a potential confrontation with Special Forces, and that is exactly what you are getting. When you are getting "this is how I handle it" that is part of the answer to "how I think you should handle it". I did not come onto a random thread and start dissing your ideas, in post #8 you literally asked "Also the SF troops are good but are they better than the best of Morrow Project or the best of the soldiers in Texas?" and all of this has been myself and a few others trying to provide an answer to that question (to which my shortest answer is "SF will be far better than a typical MARS team but not as good as Phoenix").

If you want to make a Project where every MARS teamer is Chuck Norris with a PhD and Snake Eaters are just a little better than, I dunno, 11B's with a little CQB and language training, then go for it. But that is a very different game with a very different feel to it than how I think it was intended or how I or most other people play it. If you don't like what I'm saying, then don't use it, but don't expect me to just abandon my considered position either.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Professional military training also comes with a lot of resources the Project lacks: the ability to operate openly, the ability to operate outside civilian safety requirements and regulations, the ability to force some level of participation on the trainees, etc. The Project is dealing in secret with volunteers for a reconstruction program, money and quality of recruit aside, there are limits on what they can do.

Just a quick note here, there is one possibility for openly training and recruiting for the Project. We have to remember that MP is behind an incredibly large, multinational organization with publicly facing business units. It is likely that there would be at least a few private security companies in the mix that operate on foreign soil, opening up the possibility for training and operations like you indicate. This does not completely solve the military training problem, as most of the people in these security units would likely not pass the pre-Project psychological analysis, certainly less than half.