Snake Eaters-1st Cavalry

[tsofian]

In my current MP campaign I started with Lonestar. The 1st Cavalry considers itself a unit of the United States Army. They take the official oath we take today. In my expanded version of Lonestar the savages have another enemy: A Snake Eater team has been active in Northern Mexico. This team has been freeing slaves and has set up a "clan" of their own and are hard at giving the savages a really bad time.

I just sent CT-13 to Carlsbad Caverns where there was a FEMA cache (Which I stole from Allegheny Uprising, a fine Twilight 2000 module). Issues come in from that module and other events in the campaign.

Would the Snake Eaters accept that the 1st cavalry is a United States Army unit and a legitimate part of the Government of the Unites States of America? Will they accept the authority of its commissioned and non-commissioned officers?

An additional issue becomes the massive amount of classified materials found in the cache. The players found a large amount of classified materials from the FBI, CIA, DIA and various other organization. I intend upon using this material for a number of plot hooks. It includes a large number of FBI files on Morrow, so it might have clues to the location of Prime Base.

The other files might have information on things like Damocles. The location of other strategic reserves and such.

How would the Special Forces guys feel about this HUGE amount of classified material. Yes, a lot of it is outdated, but a lot of the material is still relevant. Can they "read in" the Morrow Teams and the soldiers of the 1st?

What other plot hooks can this enormous cache of classified information lead to?

In the Campaign the players have been able to link the Special Forces, the Texans-both civilian and military and several local areas of organized and the materials would be of tremendous value, as they include seeds and medical equipment.

Would the Special Forces guys claim "dibs" on everything, which is a lot, in the cache?

[dragoon500ly]

Special Forces are trained to work with locals to a much greater extant than regular troops. There are numerous stories of SF fitting in so we with locals that they even marry and raise kids, depending on how their first contact goes, I can easily see them working the 1st Cavalry. As far as taking their orders, again the SF are trained to interact with local military, but this will be along the line mms we of separate but equal. The team leader would not surrender his authority, it would cooperate with the troopers on certain missions.

As far as the cache goes, the team leader may release some information that may benefit the troopers, I certainly don't expect him to turn everything over, at least not until he gets in touch with his chain of command and gets an okay. In the post-War world, if the SF can't get in touch with their B or C team leaders, then there would be a good chance that they would cooperate with Lonestar.

As far as plot hooks, sky is the limit! Possibility of more in depth info on the Project, including hints at various bases; government stockpile locations; the real locations of the continuity of government bunkers; hidden research facilities; the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body; perhaps copies of J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files possibilities are endless!

[tsofian]

One of the questions is how strongly will the SF guys argue that they own the cache and the files? If possession is 9/10th of the law MP owns them, because they have the exact location and the keys and combinations. The Civilian government of Texas will demand them. They don't really have a legal leg to stand on. The Cav will have a much better basis for getting the files, and so will the the SF folks. Morrow has no legal standing, except for the ownership thing, and also the fact that Morrow activities are what has knitted these groups together might carry some water.

I don't know anything about SF chain of command and TO&E and OBs.

I'm open to specific ideas for classified document plot hooks!

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

As far as the cache goes, the team leader may release some information that may benefit the troopers, I certainly don't expect him to turn everything over, at least not until he gets in touch with his chain of command and gets an okay. In the post-War world, if the SF can't get in touch with their B or C team leaders, then there would be a good chance that they would cooperate with Lonestar.

As far as plot hooks, sky is the limit! Possibility of more in depth info on the Project, including hints at various bases; government stockpile locations; the real locations of the continuity of government bunkers; hidden research facilities; the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body; perhaps copies of J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files possibilities are endless!

[dragoon500ly]

Special Forces “Green Berets” or “Snake-eaters” are organized as follows:

An ODA or Operational Detachment-A or “A-Team” is the basic unit. It consists of twelve personnel (18A Detachment Commander-Captain, 180A Assistant Detachment Commander-CWO or CWO2, 18Z Operations Sergeant-Master Sergeant, 18F Assistant Operations Sergeant/Intelligence Sergeant-SFC, 2x 18B Weapons Sergeants, 2x 18C Engineer Sergeants, 2x 18D Medical Sergeant and 2x 18E Commo Sergeants. These eight men can hold ranks from SFC, SSG to SGT with one usually being of higher rank. This organization can be split into two 6-man teams for operational purposes.

An ODB or Operational Detachment-B or “B-Team” is the headquarters element of a Special Forces Company and is usually composed of 11-13 soldiers. The mission of the B-Team is to support the company’s A-Teams in field and garrison. A ODB is comprised of an 18A Detachment Commander-Major, 18A Detachment Executive Officer-Captain, 180A Company Technician-CWO3, 18Z Sergeant Major, 18Z MSG who assists the XO and technician in their duties, 18F Operations Sergeant-SFC, 18D Medical Sergeant-SFC, 2x 18E Commo Sergeants-SFC/SSG.

An ODC or Operational Detachment-C or “C-Team” is the headquarters element of a Special Forces Battalion. A ODC usually consists of three companies (A, B and C) and a Headquarters & Support Company. It is commanded by a LTC with a MAJ as XO and a CSM as senior NCO. There are an additional 20-30 SF personnel who fill the key positions in operations, logistics, intelligence, communications and medical.

A Special Forces Group is usually assigned to a Unified Combat Command or a theater of operations. Typically a SF Group consists of 3-4 battalions, supported by a HQ & HQ Company, a Group Support battalion and a Chemical Recon Detachment.

There have been 11 Special Forces Groups in the US Army, these are
1st Special Forces Group, stationed at Joint base Lewis-McChord, Washington, it is oriented towards Pacific region operations.

3rd Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, it is oriented towards operations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

5th Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, oriented towards operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa.

6th Special Forces Group. Currently Inactive. Was based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Assigned to Southwest Asia and Southeast Asia.

7th Special Forces Group, stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. This group is oriented towards the western hemisphere, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

8th Special Forces Group. Currently inactive, was responsible for training of Latin America in counter-insurgency tactics.

10th Special Forces Group, stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado with one battalion forward deployed to Panzer Kaserne, Boblingen, FRG. Oriented towards Europe, mainly Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon and Northern Africa.

11th Special Forces Group. Inactive.

12th Special Forces Group. Inactive.

19th Special Forces Group, a National Guard unit headquarted in Draper, Utah with companies in Washington, West Virginia, Ohio, Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Texas. Oriented towards Southwest Asia (with 5SGA), Europe (with 10 SGA) as well as Southeast Asia (with 1 SGA).

20th Special Forces Group, the second National Guard unit with headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama, with 1st Battalion in Alabama, 2nd Battalion in Mississippi, 3rd Battalion in Florida and with companies and detachments in North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Maryland. Area of responsibility covers 32 countries, including South America, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and the southwestern Atlantic Ocean.

[tsofian]

Thanks!

There are ten FEMA Regions, but several are in the North East, so let's consolidate 1-3 and that gives us a total of 8 regions, so let's just say that Groups 21-28 are Snake Eater groups.

Group 21 Region I-III
Group 22 Region IV
Group 23 V
Group 24 VI
Group 25 VII
Group 26 VIII
Group 27 IX
Group 28 X

My "Clan Freedom" gents are all that part of the Group associated with FEMA Region VI, making it Group 24.

Perfect, Thanks again

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Would the Snake Eaters accept that the 1st cavalry is a United States Army unit and a legitimate part of the Government of the Unites States of America? Will they accept the authority of its commissioned and non-commissioned officers?

In the words of President Reagan, "trust, but verify". I think it would be sometime before the Team would make themselves known to 1st Cavalry. First they would infiltrate the area posing as civilians like merchants, truck drivers, even labor to assess the opinions of the people within the 1sts territory. If they an pose as 20 somethings might even "enlist".

The SF even after making themselves known to the 1st would not be working for them. SF has a much shorter chain of command the regular "Big" Army. Often a Army or Theater (4 Star) asset and seldom going below Corps (3 Star). That is intentional so as to not waste the training and talents of specialists on local command recon taskers.

They will be happy in most situations to assist, train, and advise units of the 1st without making themselves subordinates. They're working for a much higher National Command Authority level HQ (NorthCom? 1st Army?, 3rd Army?) that would assign them tasks and from whom their expected support would be coming from. At the size of Snake Eater Teams (Operational Detachment Alpha) it would be reasonable to expect that throughout all of U.S. territory there is two, possibly a third, SF battalions. These are expected to be understrength too, given that SF never has all the personnel needed on any given day anyway. Where they will shine is in the quality of the volunteers.. Their four time volunteers already! Enlisted, Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces. A SF volunteer already has several years of enlisted time before volunteering for SF and selection making them older and more seasoned persons to begin with. Getting some to quit society (and they don't live in the "real world") facing life on the outside without job skills and adventurous souls staring 45 and 50 years in the mirror will be not so hard. Being frozen to be woken in a time of national crisis would be an easy choice for career soldiers that love their job and hate being forced out because of their age.

Originally Posted by tsofian

An additional issue becomes the massive amount of classified materials found in the cache. The players found a large amount of classified materials from the FBI, CIA, DIA and various other organization. I intend upon using this material for a number of plot hooks. It includes a large number of FBI files on Morrow, so it might have clues to the location of Prime Base.

The other files might have information on things like Damocles. The location of other strategic reserves and such.

How would the Special Forces guys feel about this HUGE amount of classified material. Yes, a lot of it is outdated, but a lot of the material is still relevant. Can they "read in" the Morrow Teams and the soldiers of the 1st?

Doubt it. I doubt that any except the 18A and 180A would give it any look. You can't reveal what you don't know. The first choice would be to give it over to their own command with an intent that this would make it to National command. 1st has no business and Morrow Project has absolutely none with this classified material.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Would the Snake Eaters accept that the 1st cavalry is a United States Army unit and a legitimate part of the Government of the Unites States of America? Will they accept the authority of its commissioned and non-commissioned officers?

Well, the Snake Eaters (like most of TMP) was never really considered in much detail in canon. We don't know much about them other than that (a) they are SF, (b) their mission was specified for a post-apocalyptic scenario, and that (c) they had some knowledge of the existence of the Project. They were presumably briefed for the possibility that they would awake to no "official" US government, and prepared for that possibility... but I don't want to guess what their official position would be. I suspect that, given the time elapsed and probable deviations of the 1st Cav from 20th century US policy and law, they would probably consider them to be like a very friendly but still unofficial/foreign group - they would ally themselves with them and try to steer them towards being more "American", but would probably not accept them as official or as superiors. Their orders presumably specified some criteria for whom they could consider as such, and even outside those orders they would probably refuse.

Originally Posted by tsofian

An additional issue becomes the massive amount of classified materials found in the cache. The players found a large amount of classified materials from the FBI, CIA, DIA and various other organization. I intend upon using this material for a number of plot hooks. It includes a large number of FBI files on Morrow, so it might have clues to the location of Prime Base.

The other files might have information on things like Damocles. The location of other strategic reserves and such.

How would the Special Forces guys feel about this HUGE amount of classified material. Yes, a lot of it is outdated, but a lot of the material is still relevant. Can they "read in" the Morrow Teams and the soldiers of the 1st?

What other plot hooks can this enormous cache of classified information lead to?

There are a few issues here.

First, under the normal TMP timeline, I don't think any of that would still be classified under law. To the best of my knowledge (and I have handled classified data routinely) the maximum time that material can be kept classified past the last order is 75 years, so even material classified as the bombs dropped would be unclassified 150 years later. These dates are marked on the material. I am not aware of any statute that allows for indefinite or longer classification, and indeed there are specific laws that prevent it.

Second, ignoring legality, what info is really going to be valuable 150 years later? Everyone named is dead, most if not all of the material resources are gone... other than pointing out other possible (equally irrelevant) caches, what is of value here?

Third, (wow, there are more than I thought when I started) why is all this in a FEMA cache to begin with? Why does FEMA have CIA classified documents? That seems a stretch.

Fourth, how do the Snake Eaters even know the Team has this data? If they knew about it and cared about it, presumably they would have already acted to secure it. Does the team send out announcements? Do the Snake Eaters have 150 year old alarms transmitting to their radios?

Fifth, and last, even if the Snake Eaters DO care about it, are they really going to go to the mattresses over all this? SF is trained to be pragmatic and to accept that there are rarely "good" options, going to war over this material seems unlikely.

Originally Posted by tsofian

In the Campaign the players have been able to link the Special Forces, the Texans-both civilian and military and several local areas of organized and the materials would be of tremendous value, as they include seeds and medical equipment.

Would the Special Forces guys claim "dibs" on everything, which is a lot, in the cache?

Possibly, but again, they're pragmatic. Are they going to risk their overall mission (presumably restoration of the US) in a battle with minimal support, against an unknown but presumably large and technologically advanced foe, over seeds and first aid kits? I think they would start with negotiations to feel out the Team and their positions, evaluate the risks and rewards, and try to find a strategy that accomplishes their mission.

Attacking the Team would almost certainly wait until they had intelligence that indicated the ramifications of doing so, SF doesn't rush in. They don't know much about the Project, but they know it is big, and advanced, and (especially for the post-apocalypse) well equipped. They won't want to instigate war with an enemy that might be able to just drop bombs on them until they are paste.

All that having been said, if they DO attack, @ArmySGT is right, they'll tear through the Morrow Team like tissue paper.

If you WANT a confrontation, I think you need to create one. Or perhaps the Team will do so!