SOF in T2K

[jester]

Leg;

Your idea of an elite group of reservists seems more like a pretty well rounded T2K group.


As for the reserve units in this neck of the woods, and I am glomming National Guard and Reserve forces. Most will usualy come from the same geographic area in these parts. Granted they will have a good section of skills, the same one would find in any cross section of society, ranging from high school drop outs to lawyers. However, the majority of the troops will be from the same geographic area thus the vast majority will have the general skills or adapatations, talents whatever for that geographic area.

However, I would consider a good chunk of them FARRRRRRRRRR from elite.

As for another portion, well the cool thing here is that that type of world/life/culture will attract alot of people of the same type. As well as alot of them will have been prior military with one or two or even three or four tours as a regular before going Reserve/Guard who are now just finishing their 20 or 30 or are tired of the BS so the whole one weekend a month is enough before they can escape the BS and games. Those would be the ones who would be your combat monsters, whereas Johny civilian would have other skills to bring to the show they would most likely be subpar when it comes to their routine military duties.

So, cool having a broad range of skills, but not at the cost of having a degraded level of their primary/assigned skills.

[Legbreaker]

Ah, I think I see your confusion. Is it true that in the US a reservist must have served full time first?
Here in Australia, that is not the case, in fact I started as a reservist and ended my military career as a regular soldier. Reserve units are drawn from particular geographic areas, however the range of civilian skills each unit has is absolutely astounding! An understrength infantry battalion of say 350 men has 350 sets of well rounded and professional level skills (it's what they do 5 days a week after all).

Now compare that to a regular unit in which 99% of it's members have been military from 17-18 years of age. How many of these are going to have all that useful non-combat skillsets?

Granted the vast majority of reservists aren't up to scratch in a military sense (several individuals immediately spring to mind from my personal experience), but there are definate exeptions. In my own original company I'd say there were at least ten who would stand a decent chance at passing SAS selection given a few weeks of preparation. Bear in mind that at the time the company was at a strength of only 58 men (roughly 53%), so 1 in 6 is a fairly decent proportion.

On the other hand out of that same number there were at least 3 who should NEVER have been trusted with a rifle...

[Abbott Shaull]

That is one of the things, National Guard and Reserve units would have a lot of troops with various skill set that would be useful in the T2K world. I know there has been debate that these units would still have their local flavor still by 2000.

One of the things one has to remember, as far as, the Soviets were still sending conscripts to units and many of the Pact forces would still be recruiting conscripts on much smaller scale than before the war. Even though many of the US Reserve and National Guard or even the Regular US Force wouldn't be quite the Elite troops that we think when we speak of Special Forces units. With maybe the exception of those troops in the Southwest and Northwest US and Balkan, many of these troop would be better off than their overall Pact counterparts.

Even with some Soviet Division still fielding 3000 or more, one has to wonder how many of these troops are conscripts, that would be of little use in combat. Many of them would be cannon fodder, for the local Divisional Commander.

Another thing one has to remember is before the outbreak of the war, in the Pact Forces many of the task that NATO NCO Corps did in their respective organization were done by the Junior Officers in the Pact Forces. Many of the NCOs in Pact Force were conscripts who deemed smart enough to take some limited leadership. In most cases the NCOs in the Soviet couldn't read maps or land navigate. In some cases, they had very little control of their squads, the squad already had natural leader who the NCO had to work with in many cases to keep discipline within the squad. By 2000 for a large part the NCOs of the Pact Forces would be taking on some of the responsibilities due to OTJ. The fact that many Officers who were working in position of greater responsibility, and they needed to rely on their NCOs to perform jobs, that they previously were responsible for. Even though many of these NCOs weren't trained to do such before the war.

[weswood]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Ah, I think I see your confusion. Is it true that in the US a reservist must have served full time first?
.

Negative. Prior service is not required. The reserve unit I was in, 1st Bn, 23rd Regiment, USMCR, from what I remember, most of the enlisted personel did not have prior service. A lot of the Staff NCO's (E-6 & up) had some prior service, and I know of at least one Captain who did, but most of the troops did not.

My Gunny at the time, the S-4, was a Vietnam veteran, and the S-4, a Capt. was in Beruit when it got bombed. I think the Capt got into some trouble over that, but I don't know the whole story, just rumors.

To keep on subject, there was a STA (Surveilance & Target Aquisition)platoon. I don't know how well trained they were, but thier primary MOS was infantry.

[jester]

Wes said it, no the US does not require prior service for Reserve or National Guard. In some cases they don't accept prior service period! Like in the 90s durring the draw down, and now. It all depends on the demand for troops.

As for STA that Wes mentioned, these are also the snipers at the Battallion level, a Platoon of Sniper/Scouts in each Marine infantry Bn. I trained alot of my people to prep for the indoc. 1 weenie wantded me to hand hold him through the indoc, obviously he didn't make it, fucker was back in the barracks before morning chow because it was to much for him. Alot of other dudes did make it though.

But, the whole reserve vs. regular thing is pretty accurate.

Reservists will have mostly people who SUCK at the whole military thing but will be very diverse in other fields. But for military skills and training, there will be a couple elites, a good number of veterans, some experienced and about 50% novice when it comes to military skills and tasks. As for cop stuff, construction workers and similiar its a different storey, they would probably have several of them in a company as well as a good number of students. A good force for forming a catonment and imprioving a small town or village in almost everyway imagineable due to their varied skills, but only a limited number would be experienced enough to bring the fight to the enemy.

And that is the issue, a combat force of say mech infantry, well if only 1 in 5 were any good at it, then the ability of that force is degraded and it won't matter how good or how many diverse skills they have, they are a plus of course, but in the end they can't do the job they are supposed to.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I tend to think that the portrayal of Reservist units here is somewhat inaccurate.
By the year 2000 there wouldn't be many Reservists in Europe who hadn't had at least one year fulltime in the war.
The idea of all Reserve units being mostly staffed by people with crap military skills discounts those Reserve units that are actually very good at what they do and I don't mean just the Reserve/Territorial units of the SASR in the UK or the Commando units here in Australia.
There are a number of Reserve engineer, signals and reconnaissance units that, granted they are specialized, are every bit as good as their Regular counterparts and the harsh reality is that for many Infantry units, it only takes approximately a quarter of a year to make someone competent to be an Infantryman.
Again, given the fact that the majority of Reserve units would have been committed to the war, there would be very few Reservists who hadn't had at least some fulltime experience at the front. By the time the war was in full swing it would be hardly worth raising Reserve units, you would simply send the personnel to Regular units (or Reserve units already at the front who by that time would be fulltime just like a Regular unit).

Well, that's my take on the war anyway...

[Legbreaker]

This is very true. By 2000 almost everyone, no matter from which background, will have been brought up to speed for their assigned role - it's either that or die for the front line types. It is very unlikely though that regular soliders will have picked up much in the way of civilian skills.

While the reservist has been at war, they will probably not improve their civilian skills, however they aren't likely to forget all that much. Using myself as an example, I've had around 15 jobs in the past 20 years or so and I'm fairly confident I can still fulfill the requirements for virtually every one of them.

It's this civilian background which is likely to be more attractive in an SF situation, particularly those from medical, electronic (comms), mining (explosives), and rural (hunting) backgrounds. Many other civilian jobs will transfer directly into military roles such as mechanics, doctors, electricians, cooks, truck drivers - the list goes on.

"Hobby" typoe skills are also useful, such as skydiving, scuba, sailing, hiking, etc.

[Targan]

At the moment I'm reading the book Warrior Brothers - My Life in the Australian SAS by Keith Fennell and in it he describes a time when his SAS squadron was deployed to East Timor to deal with rampaging pro-Indonesian militias and the Indonesian special forces troops who were supporting them. The 2IC of Fennell's patrol during the deployment was a British SBS sergeant on a two year exchange posting.

I know that probably everyone here knows that such exchange postings occur but I thought I'd mention it just as a reminder of one of the ways a special forces type unit contain all kinds of wierd and wonderful characters. In the third of the Last Submarine modules it describes a mixed bag special forces unit working for the King of Norway that contains British SAS, SBS, USN SEALs and other NATO special forces soldiers. What an incredibly hard core bunch. Scary.

[Raellus]

Good point Targan.

But you got me thinking and I think the SOF angle could really be extended even further. You could have SOF soldiers from the Philippines, Brazil, South Korea, Chile, or almost any allied country serving alongside NATO SOF in Europe (or wherever your campaign happens to be). Once the bomb drops, getting home would become extremely difficult, to say the least. Once bonds of comradeship developed, I'm sure many such soldiers would elect to stay on and fight alongside their new "family".

Along the same lines, in my POC PbP campaign we have an Israeli doctor PC who was on an exchange posting when the balloon went up.

[Legbreaker]

Technically she's only a senior nurse, but probably got skills to match most doctors. Certainly outranks most of them.

Something else to keep in mind is that not only SF types can be on exchange. In my first unit we had a Canadian, in another was one of the most hardcore British Captains I've ever met. Even with three broken ribs they were still doing as much, if not more than everyone else, and since it was Canungra (arguably Australia's toughest place rivalled only by Tullly)....

Canungra is the jungle warfare centre and conducts courses at Plattoon level and above (Tully focuses on the smaller units and individual skills). It's so tough that almost nobody makes it through without an injury of some type - one in my Battalion had an epileptic fit on day two brought on by the physical stress, first one in his 28 years of life (he was medically discharged shortly after). I was lucky, I only suffered heat exhaustion and had to be stretchered out to hospital.

[boogiedowndonovan]

Originally Posted by Targan

In the third of the Last Submarine modules it describes a mixed bag special forces unit working for the King of Norway that contains British SAS, SBS, USN SEALs and other NATO special forces soldiers. What an incredibly hard core bunch. Scary.

I can't remember, is that SOF group considered the Kings Guard in T2k?

What I do remember is that the senior SEAL suffers from some kind of mental disorder (PTSD?) and the GM has the option of rendering him catatonic at critical parts of the scenario.

or something like that...

oh yeah, and if any of you have the Boxed 2.2 set, there are some scenario cards. If I recall one of the scenario cards details a Spetznaz group a la T2k. Most of the members of the Spetznaz group aren't actually Spetz, but regular soldiers recruited by the surviving Spetznaz? Or maybe it was in the Merc handbook?

[pmulcahy11b]

In US units, another thing to consider is that you will find a decent number of troops who are US troops, but are not actually Americans. This is because while anyone willing to take the oath can enlist in the US military, you cannot reenlist unless you are an American citizen. The military will then move heaven and earth to make the soldier and his immediate family US citizens. (As it should be, IMHO.)

In T2K, reenlistment will become irrelevant for this purpose, and you may find folks from various countries that are now higher ranks or even field-commissioned that are technically not American. Who knows what skills they might have?

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

In US units, another thing to consider is that you will find a decent number of troops who are US troops, but are not actually Americans. This is because while anyone willing to take the oath can enlist in the US military, you cannot reenlist unless you are an American citizen. The military will then move heaven and earth to make the soldier and his immediate family US citizens. (As it should be, IMHO.)

I wasn't an Australian citizen when I joined the Australian Army Reserve but once I'd signed up they fast tracked my citizenship. Very cool.

[Legbreaker]

Who'd be an American when they could be Australian?



As far as I'm aware, there are tens of thousands of troops classified as "Spetznaz" while only a handful of those could truely be called elite in the same sense as the SAS, Commandos, SEALs, etc. I believe the term is more a reference to the unit's role than anything else.

[Webstral]

Regarding reserves, I think it's useful to distinguish between pre-war and post-nuke reserves. I agree with all my comrades who have opined that virtually all Reserves of every stripe (National Guard, Reserves, Territorials, etc.) in the combatant nations would have been called up by 1998. Given the disruption to international trade, probably every nation with reserves will need to call them up to deal with civil disorder in the wake of shortages, economic disintegration, and so forth.

After the nukes, though, reserves are quite likely to reappear. The need for fighting men, or simply for warm bodies to do work for the government, will exceed the local economy's ability to support full-time troops. Reserves will reappear in the form of militias that train for a given number of days a month but otherwise engage in some sort of productive activity until marauders make their appearance. The quality of training these people have in their assigned roles will range from tolerable to deplorable.

By way of example, I created the Granite Brigade as the centerpiece of the armed forces of the State of New Hampshire, which by early 2001 is really only the City of Manchester and its hinterland. The Graniteers dispose four infantry battalions, but only one of them (1st Battalion, 1st New Hampshire Regiment, Infantry) is a regular, standing force. The other three battalions (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions, 2nd New Hampshire Regiment, Infantry) are reservists who serve one week in every four. Even this level of service is quite disruptive to local industry and is tolerable only because there is little better option. The troops of the 2nd New Hampshire spend most of their drill time manning static defenses and reinforcing their basic training. By the v1 system, virtually all of the privates and specialists in the 2nd New Hampshire are Novice NPCs, while most of the remaining troops are Experienced NPCs. A few Veteran NPCs are found here and there, but the need for seasoned (and skilled) troops in 1-1 IN is so great that 1-2 IN, 2-2 IN, and 3-2 IN that the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment has to make do with what it can get.

Much the same situation exists along the Maine coast in First District, USCG. The need for experienced troops in the main force units, 701st and 702nd Maritime Rifle Regiments (each with two line battalions and a support battalion), has left the supporting militias with a kernel of seasoned veterans in senior leadership roles and training cadres and a lot of modestly-trained part-time riflemen. Here, too, the militiamen are used to man static defenses, conduct interior patrols, and generally slow the bad guys up until the real fighters can arrive.

The United Communities of Southern Vermont (UCSV) is an even more extreme case. The Black Watch, with its 300 fighting men and women, has no effective back-up. The economy of the UCSV is insufficient to support much in the way of reserves. On paper, a number of citizens are armed and can be deputized. In reality, the potential combatants who do not actively serve in the Watch have almost no training. The Watch leadership made the decision to use their very limited resources to keep the active personnel in constant training and readiness at the expense of having a significant reserve. It's a policy fraught with hazard for the long-term prospects of the UCSV, but it has enabled the Watch to field a small but surprisingly high-quality force. Were the so-called reserves of the UCSV to be called into service, they would put in a very poor performance.

By the same token, the Shogun in Nevada has no real reserves for his army, the Gunryo. Volunteers and draftees are trained on an as-needed basis, which means the warlord cannot quickly made good on any substantial losses. Reserves would be totally impractical for his motorized marauders, since any reservists would live and work in the communities the Shogun has under his thumb. Training and arming the people he is repressing is not, in the mind of the Shogun, the way to long-term power. Better to keep casualties low and train only volunteers and captured marauders whose loyalty can be acquired through re-training.

At the other end of the spectrum, Colorado must have a comparatively massive reserve system. The 6000 or so troops listed in Howling Wilderness as belonging to Colorado Springs couldn't possibly be enough to maintain internal order and protect the cantonment from outside threats. There must be a separate police system and a reserve system of some sort. certainly, MilGov would have access to excellent training facilities and a good cadre of veterans for training.


Webstral

[fightingflamingo]

I think that by 2000-01 most of the surviving population would be relatively fit, albiet malnourished in some instances. I think the combination of the strikes, disease, and the collapse of infrastructure would have killed off most of those who were not fit. Diabetics and other sufferers of chronic illness would be dead. Because of the lack of antibiotics, many traumatic injuries would result in death, even with otherwise good medical care. Cancer is a long-term problem, but not immediately debilitating depending on the type.

Another think to consider is the baby boom you'd get when people run out of contraceptives and TV goes off the air... I think that although there may be a very high rate of birth defects, you'd still see a radical spike in the number of births per 1000 also as a result of the strikes, among the survivors. This won't play into the immediately available manpower, but does immediately address the need to find teachers (trained or otherwise), and the available manpower situation might be very different by 2010-15.

[jester]

Originally Posted by fightingflamingo

I think that by 2000-01 most of the surviving population would be relatively fit, albiet malnourished in some instances. I think the combination of the strikes, disease, and the collapse of infrastructure would have killed off most of those who were not fit. Diabetics and other sufferers of chronic illness would be dead. Because of the lack of antibiotics, many traumatic injuries would result in death, even with otherwise good medical care. Cancer is a long-term problem, but not immediately debilitating depending on the type.

Another think to consider is the baby boom you'd get when people run out of contraceptives and TV goes off the air... I think that although there may be a very high rate of birth defects, you'd still see a radical spike in the number of births per 1000 also as a result of the strikes, among the survivors. This won't play into the immediately available manpower, but does immediately address the need to find teachers (trained or otherwise), and the available manpower situation might be very different by 2010-15.

However, the infanty mortality rate would also spike, as there would be less neonatal facilities, poorer died and exposure to all manner of nasties for the unborn. Also, a spike in women dying in childbirth as well again because of a lack in prewar treatments.

And the simple childhood maladies that we consider an incovienance now would return and be the killers they were 100+ years ago when a large number of children would not make it to 10 years of age due to disease and injury.

Also, the spike in childbirth, would there be? The reproduction capacity of people under stress shuts down. Due to physical and emotional stress. So, people working hard labor, worried from say a nuclear strike and war all over, and with malnutrition. A little known fact, durring the great depression the birthrate for many nations dropped due to people afraid to start families because of fear of the unknown and economy. For the US it was the lowest birthrate ratio ever. So, it could actualy be in areas with few children. Also, couple it with the wouldbe parents exposuure to radiation, chemicals and other stuff that could make them sterile further reducing the populations ability to return to normal.

I think having a PSYOP guy or two would be a pretty interesting addition to a team, even if it was just an NPC.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

In US units, another thing to consider is that you will find a decent number of troops who are US troops, but are not actually Americans. This is because while anyone willing to take the oath can enlist in the US military, you cannot reenlist unless you are an American citizen. The military will then move heaven and earth to make the soldier and his immediate family US citizens. (As it should be, IMHO.)

In T2K, reenlistment will become irrelevant for this purpose, and you may find folks from various countries that are now higher ranks or even field-commissioned that are technically not American. Who knows what skills they might have?

In the Going home it is how the get the Polish American Father able to come back to the US even though he was a Polish Citizen. It was something to do with his service he had give then unit to get them back to catch the boat.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by bigehauser

I think having a PSYOP guy or two would be a pretty interesting addition to a team, even if it was just an NPC.

Hah! Shameless self promotion!

Shameless...lol

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Who'd be an American when they could be Australian?



As far as I'm aware, there are tens of thousands of troops classified as "Spetznaz" while only a handful of those could truely be called elite in the same sense as the SAS, Commandos, SEALs, etc. I believe the term is more a reference to the unit's role than anything else.

Yeah that is true then again most Front Commander had Spetznaz Brigades, several independent Battalions, Companies, and the Platoon size units on par of the SAS Troops or Special Forces A-Teams. The quality of troops would be reflected on if it was Brigade, Battalion, or smaller. The Companies and smaller size units would be on par with what many Western nation would call Special Forces quality troops. While the Battalions and Brigades would be the next step down, and the Brigades would probably be on mix of Airborne/high speed Light Infantry/Ranger types. They have received more training than the average Soviet Paratrooper who themselves during the Cold War were conscripts for the most part.

The thing with the independent Battalions, Companies and smaller units they would be based with Cat B and Cat C units to help misled the unit true strength and to hide these units. Same thing was probably done Cat A units in Eastern Europe to hide some of the first special ops units that would of been inserted into West Germany. One of the thing in each Tank Army in the late 1980s the Soviets were trying to assign an Air Assault or Airmobile Brigade and in many of the MRD there was MRR, usually the wheeled based unit would also supplemented as Airmobile asset too.

[dragoon500ly]

As far as reservists being not as good as their Regular Army counterparts in their military capacity....

The finest Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment in the world happens to be the OPFOR at Fort Irwin, California (National Training Center). This unit does nothing but Soviet tactics for most of the year and has the well-earned reputation for regularing kicking the bejesus out of every visiting unit. The OPFOR is so seldom defeated that when it does happen, the rest of the Army litterly sets up and take notice...like when a National Guard pulled it off. I can still remember the utter shock of my unit's officers/NCOs that a Guard unit managed to pull off something that we hadn't been able to do....

Of course, my faith was restored when the next NG unit in rotation was gutted in proper fashion!

Still, whenever someone makes the claim that the Reserves just aren't as good as....

[bobcat]

during vietnam eery major deployable unit had their own organisational long rang recon units. this has been carried on into present though the name for such unit types has changed(its currently RSTA).

having been in a reconnaissance surveillance and target acquisition squadron myself it would not be unlikely that such units would continue to exist in the later stages of the twilight war. though im certain they would still be ignored as is characteristic of most brass.

[Eddie]

Originally Posted by bobcat

during vietnam eery major deployable unit had their own organisational long rang recon units. this has been carried on into present though the name for such unit types has changed(its currently RSTA).

RSTAs are Cavalry Squadrons, though, not Infantry. While things are similar, the modern evolution of LRRPs are the LRSCs. The most major difference from the Vietnam-era LRRPs is that these units are no longer under the direct control of the Infantry and Armor units they support, they now fall under the command of the Battlefield Surveillance Brigades. That's not to say there isn't overlap between a RSTA's role and what LRS does, but they have two completely different mindsets and MOS backgrounds as well as role. The RSTA supports the Brigade that it falls under, the LRSC/D supports higher level, deeper reconnaissance. In a Twilight setting, they'd still be a part of each major Division though existing as a separate entity.

Additionally, the OPFOR at the National Training Center have lost a lot of their conventional role and now play Militant Islamic insurgents almost exclusively. I went to the Captain's Career Course with a guy who was a platoon leader there and he said he had never done any of the Soviet-style stuff in his three years there. I'm sure it's still in the organizational memory somewhere, but the current Joes there haven't done much with it. Although that might change with all of the saber-rattling coming from Kimmy and Seoul...

[Rapparee]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Having served in both reserve and regular units, I'd have to say the best suited to a T2K situation would be the reservists.

I can see this type of unit almost being tailor made for some SF missions. Giving them a month or so of intensive military and fitness training might actually be quicker than training a military unit in all the technical skills they might need.

Of course in a purely combat sense I'd rather have the professionals who'd been training in nothing else for the past few years...

Just to back up that point, definetely!

My medical company, includes nurses, healthcare specialists, first-aid instructors and a couple of paramedics amongst its ranks. We also have a few mechanics, carpenters, the usual scattered amongst us! Myself, I'm a mere novice on the medical side, but I do alot of rock climbing and mountaineering in my spare time. Reading Boomer and Bears Den was quite cool to see abit of cold-weather info thrown in there! Winter mountaineering ftw! Its easy to see how a reserve unit have a wide smattering of skills and disciplines amongst their ranks.


Just on the note of the "shake and bake" Ranger school you were discussing. Its a class idea about units forming their own recondo teams like the Lurps in Vietnam. Would a system like this still be in effect up till 2000? I'm just curious because I've had players ask me to play SF types but was wondering whether I could just wave it off as the PC had been at the new type of Ranger School.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Rapparee

Just on the note of the "shake and bake" Ranger school you were discussing. Its a class idea about units forming their own recondo teams like the Lurps in Vietnam. Would a system like this still be in effect up till 2000? I'm just curious because I've had players ask me to play SF types but was wondering whether I could just wave it off as the PC had been at the new type of Ranger School.

Short anwer is yes. Here's what I wrote earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Here's an idea I think I presented on the old forum, and which may explain the relatively high proportion of "Ranger" characters that seem to populate the Twilight world.

Before '69 (IIRC), there were no separate Ranger regiments in the U.S. army. Instead, each division in the field (we're talking Vietnam here) was responsible for creating its own LRRP (long range reconaissance patrol) company. These LRRP companies were the precursors to modern Rangers and were designated as such in '69 (IIRC). Later, these companies were reorganized into the regiments still in existence today.

So, perhaps after '97 in the Twilight timeline, divisions in the field would create their own organic "Ranger" companies for LRRP'ing, prisoner snatches, ambushes, etc. This would make sense given the nature of warfare after the TDM. Perhaps each theatre would set up its own "Recondo" school to train these shake 'n' bake Rangers. In Twilight 2000 terms, "company" is a bit of a misnomer. Of course, by 2000, a company would probably be around pre-war TOE platoon strength.

Although this precedent/proposition applies to the U.S. (and Rangers, in particular), other countries could use a similar system.

With a war raging across the globe, I just don't see the quantity or quality of the remaining SOF being particularly high, c. 2000. Even at full Cold War strength, the SOFs of most nations would be stretched pretty thin once WWIII was in full swing.

For my Lions of Twilight write up, I had the 173rd Airborne BCT start a recondo school in Kenya so that all of its widely scattered battalions would have organic LRRP companies.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by bigehauser

I think having a PSYOP guy or two would be a pretty interesting addition to a team, even if it was just an NPC.

Eric,

For the most part, I agree. PSYOPS is useful for more than just stereotypical propaganda. For one thing, PSYOPS requires a deep understanding of the population and the enemy, allowing you to get inside their minds and influence their decisions in different ways. On the downside, most T2K games tend to be on the "run and gun" side, where it's hard to run the longer-term operations that are the most benefit. For another, most T2K groups tend to run roughshod over the locals due to many factors, despite their best intentions.

Getting back to reservists vs. reg force, I recall a few years back a reality show took soldiers from the US and Canada and attempted to recreate the training for the 1st SSF, the Devil's Brigade.

Training was as authentic in as many ways possible from equipment to the actual camp location in Montana. Both nationalities did relatively well, and it was eventually revealed that the American participants were all US Army regulars, while the Canadians were all militia (Reserve Force). One joked "they had to keep it even, somehow!". Purely anecdotal, of course! I don't recall how many militia vs. reg force actually made it all the way through the simulated training.

Tony

[bobcat]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Training was as authentic in as many ways possible from equipment to the actual camp location in Montana. Both nationalities did relatively well, and it was eventually revealed that the American participants were all US Army regulars, while the Canadians were all militia (Reserve Force). One joked "they had to keep it even, somehow!". Purely anecdotal, of course! I don't recall how many militia vs. reg force actually made it all the way through the simulated training.

Tony

sounds about right. after all yankee reservists are far crazier than anything i've ever seen. and they got the nontraditional skills to back it up.

recon out.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by bobcat

sounds about right. after all yankee reservists are far crazier than anything i've ever seen. and they got the nontraditional skills to back it up.

recon out.

Bob,

In this case it was Canadian reservists and American regulars. In theory they weren't competing but cooperating to make it through training and then in mock commando operations after. The joke was that this was to keep things "even" between the two countries.

Tony