Early Phase Cache Upgrades

[.45cultist]

Also, I think the early teams would have been using AR-10's instead of M14's, or at least along side them. SMG's might be M1 Thompsons, M3A1's and M1911A1 sidearms prior to adoption of the 9X19 systems. The 9MM sidearms in 4E are marked "1979", so that means the very first 1960's teams COULD have .45ACP firearms.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Also, I think the early teams would have been using AR-10's instead of M14's, or at least along side them. SMG's might be M1 Thompsons, M3A1's and M1911A1 sidearms prior to adoption of the 9X19 systems. The 9MM sidearms in 4E are marked "1979", so that means the very first 1960's teams COULD have .45ACP firearms.

It would be interesting if they started issuing HK UMP SMGs in the 2000s to utilise all that .45 ammo

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

It would be interesting if they started issuing HK UMP SMGs in the 2000s to utilise all that .45 ammo

Hope no one wakes up to an emergency when their weapons are unfamiliar, require cleaning and assembly. I've watched people struggle to assemble weapons they owned and knew, I wouldn't want to do it to an unfamiliar gun in a life and death situation.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Hope no one wakes up to an emergency when their weapons are unfamiliar, require cleaning and assembly. I've watched people struggle to assemble weapons they owned and knew, I wouldn't want to do it to an unfamiliar gun in a life and death situation.

That is very true, but allowing weapons such as the HK 417 and the HK UMP go in with 2013 sleepers means they don't have to go through all the old ammo caches and upgrade them.

Now I think of it, the 'Cartridge, Caliber 5.56 mm, Ball, M193' adopted in the early sixties may not play well with M4s designed in the late nineties so the 5.56mm ammo may need to be changed out as well

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Now I think of it, the 'Cartridge, Caliber 5.56 mm, Ball, M193' adopted in the early sixties may not play well with M4s designed in the late nineties so the 5.56mm ammo may need to be changed out as well

There are considerations, as this delightful document will tell:

https://www.dau.mil/cop/ammo/DAU%20S...ith%20Ammo.pdf

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Overall, I think it's a really bad idea to switch gear on teams if they haven't been trained on the new equipment. Unless you are specifically making it part of the gameplay to mess around with PCs or even as a storyline plot for some NPCs, I feel that the Project would not be so enamoured of new gear that they would upgrade a team's gear without the team having the training to use it. I like to believe the Project wasn't that dumb - but that's just me!

It's very different if you upgrade a team from say M16A1s and CAR-15s to M16A2/3/4 and M4 Carbines because it's plainly obvious that the "upgrades" are still part of the family and familiarity with the earlier models will translate to the newer models. But it's a far greater problem (and potentially fatal) to upgrade a team from say M14s to M16A2s if the team has no training what-so-ever in the new rifles.

In regards to the differences between the older M193 5.56mm and the new SS109 5.56mm, the newer version requires a faster barrel twist compared to the older round. SS109 fired from a .223 or M193 barrel will not perform as well as advertised. It's a major fail in Twilight: 2000 that 5.56mm is treated as just one cartridge without regard to the specific differences between the M193 and the SS109.
For a quick & dirty fix, I made the the M193 5.56mm have less recoil but less penetration and slightly less range than the SS109 5.56mm. Some of this is admittedly subjective, as I based my ideas on my own impressions of firing both rounds in semi- and auto- through M16A1 (M193) and M16A2 & F88 (SS109).

If you don't want to worry about the difference and the changes that would be needed to weapon stats, then all well and good. But if you do and want to take account of the difference and you want to upgrade teams from earlier 5.56mm weapions to M16A2/3/4 and M4/M4A1 weapons then you need to upgrade their 5.56mm ammo as well. The M193 will not perform as well with the faster rifling. Going from memory here, the SS109 was designed to penetrate light body armour but the M193 was not and so the ballistics are very different between the two (hence the faster rifling twist required for the SS109 round).

[Desert Mariner]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Overall, I think it's a really bad idea to switch gear on teams if they haven't been trained on the new equipment. Unless you are specifically making it part of the gameplay to mess around with PCs or even as a storyline plot for some NPCs, I feel that the Project would not be so enamoured of new gear that they would upgrade a team's gear without the team having the training to use it. I like to believe the Project wasn't that dumb - but that's just me!

I just reread the 3e Introduction, the end of the 2nd paragraph address this directly...

"In 1987, the Project carried out a complete updating of all previously "stored" equipment, opening the buried and sealed chambers of the sleepers without waking them and leaving behind new equipment, vehicles, and the instruction manuals on how to operate them."

In the 4e About the Morrow Project section (page 190), the 2nd paragraph takes this a bit further…

“In 1987 and on two additional occasions, the Project carried out a complete updating of all the previously “stored” equipment. The first time by opening the buried and sealed chambers of the sleepers without waking them and leaving behind new equipment, vehicles, and the instruction manuals on how to operate them. The second and third time things were done differently because of operational and security concerns. On these subsequent updates new caches were buried and the location was transmitted to the bolt-hole computer using references to existing cache locations.”

Note that the subsequent changes mentioned above took place in 1999 and 2013, per The War of 2017 on page 278.

So, it does appear the authors intended to throw some initial confusion into the mix regarding equipment operation.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

That is very true, but allowing weapons such as the HK 417 and the HK UMP go in with 2013 sleepers means they don't have to go through all the old ammo caches and upgrade them.

Now I think of it, the 'Cartridge, Caliber 5.56 mm, Ball, M193' adopted in the early sixties may not play well with M4s designed in the late nineties so the 5.56mm ammo may need to be changed out as well

Unless retrofitted with 1-9 barrels, also the links must be switched out if going from Stoner SAWs to M249's.
IRL, the govt dropped M16's and ammo off to A-Teams without manuals or cleaning kits in Vietnam.

[ChalkLine]

Not ever having fired an automatic weapon, how hard would it be to convert skill over?

Could a manual be placed with the weapons and have the Team upgrade their knowledge?

(Project Teams are supposed to be self-starters by definition)

[Desert Mariner]

I think I’d go with something akin to the method used for the 2nd and 3rd retrofits (as described in 4e) and drop the original premise of replacing everything in the boltholt.

Leave the boltholes as they are and “… new caches were buried and the location was transmitted to the bolt-hole computer using references to existing cache locations.”

This retains the familiar equipment with the team as they wake and provides access to upgrades when/if they are needed. This also means a number of additional caches must be sited for each of the three upgrade cycles. Some of which could be very large if the team vehicles were part of the upgrade package. An alternative to adding cache sites could be storing the upgraded equipment and vehicles at a regional base. Then the teams could be trained on the new items when/if they find said base.