Need help with a tactical problem

[Schone23666]

So I am busy, or trying to be busy (LOL) writing fiction....and I have a segment where my designated "heroes" have to board and search a damaged vessel in a harbor, that's supposedly deserted (it's not) and is listing after suffering damage from an explosion in the boiler room area. The mission is to search the captain's quarters for any clues or manifest in regards to a high-value cargo that may still be down within the cargo interior hold of the ship.

The time is roughly late morning. It's the middle of winter though, and a heavy blizzard is blowing in, making visibility a problem. A fire had broken out earlier last night from the boiler room explosion, but has been put out by the local coast guard

Two sniper overwatch teams have been assigned and are monitoring the exterior of the ship from different, but not opposing angles. Helicopter gunship support is also standing by in case anything should go wrong and matters get EXTREMELY hairy. However, as stated visibility is a problem due to the snow. Let's just say this mission is in a more supernatural horror kind of vein.

But anyway....thoughts and opinions on how entering and searching the, or any sort of cargo ship should go about? My first impression is, well, mostly metal interior as opposed to a typical residential/office building, so ricochets from bullets and shrapnel might be a bigger problem, plus sound reverberation from any automatic weapons fire will probably be a bit more deafening on the ears. Having any sort of explosive or concussive device that creates overpressure in a ship's steel interior is gonna be real nasty too. And then there's the environment itself. All those narrow corridors and corners with sealed hatches that have to be accessed. Doors are always a problem in MOUT, but I'm thinking steel pressure hatches are a bit more challenge.

Oh, and just to add to it....the interior is barely lit as the power has gone out and only the ship's emergency lighting is on. And there are possible friendlies inside the ship as well....in the form of two police detectives who decided to board the ship first since it's under their jurisdiction, and there MAY be at least one if not several containers full of Russian mail-order "brides" that are meant to be sold off to slavers, but it's unknown if any of these women are still alive or if they've possibly frozen to death (or worse. This is a supernatural horror setting). There also happens to be several containers that are stacked full of WarPac weapons, that were also meant to be sold to an undisclosed buyer, but that's not quite the high-value cargo the heroes are looking for....

How does one deal with all this? Though I'm sure any naval special operations forces or boarding teams (SBS, SEALS, FAST, etc.) practice for situations involving the boarding and searching of ships fairly often. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[ArmySGT.]

Nuke it from orbit. It is the only way to be sure - Ripley.

[simonmark6]

The amount of damage you have described is pretty catastrophic.

If the ship is listing the boiler explosion has caused either a breech in the hull or popped enough welds to cause a major leak. It also means that the cargo hold has the potential to be partially flooded in order to cause the ship to list. An explosion that has caused that much damage is likely to have killed anyone in the hold and damaged or flooded any valuable cargo.

The fire is also an issue. Fires in ships are nasty and will have caused major toxic issues, also, I would be very surprised if the Coast Guard haven't formed a cordon and be crawling all over the ship to contain the fuel oil that is likely to be leaking from it. That means the harbour is full of HAZMAT boats and oil-spill cleaners are on the way.

Inside the ship, not only are the walls metal but the ship is listing so everything is canted at an angle. Below decks the corridors are coated with toxic soot and anyone not in BA is likely to suffer horrible effects. A boiler explosion that has caused a breech is also likely to have twisted ladders and steps up and down and caused some doors to be distorted and impossible to open.

I find it unlikely to think of any detectives being in the ship unless they're following a lead. Fire Investigators and HAZMAT personnel, yes, but local plods, no. The scene is a major environmental incident first and a crime scene second.

The heroes would be better off posing as a HAZMAT clean-up crew than a traditional SWAT breeching unit. I also don't see the point of a helicopter gunship back up, or the snipers: any incident will be inside rather than out.

My father was a fireman and worked in one of the largest docks in the UK (Port Talbot deep ore port: not much in transit but massive ships). If there had been an incident like that, crews would have been coming in from across the country and by the next day, international teams would be on the way.

This, of course may depend on the country it is set in, but a listing ship which has had a catastrophic explosion and fire is highly unlikely to be deserted the next morning.

I'd go for a high-tension infiltration with the heroes sneaking in wearing high vis and BA rather than tooled up for bear. In many ways this makes for a much scarier environment: the situation is dangerous and when the SHTF you don't even have the big guns to bail you out. This could be a really dramatic situation with lots of horror moments depending on the nature of your terror.

[Schone23666]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

The amount of damage you have described is pretty catastrophic.

If the ship is listing the boiler explosion has caused either a breech in the hull or popped enough welds to cause a major leak. It also means that the cargo hold has the potential to be partially flooded in order to cause the ship to list. An explosion that has caused that much damage is likely to have killed anyone in the hold and damaged or flooded any valuable cargo.

The fire is also an issue. Fires in ships are nasty and will have caused major toxic issues, also, I would be very surprised if the Coast Guard haven't formed a cordon and be crawling all over the ship to contain the fuel oil that is likely to be leaking from it. That means the harbour is full of HAZMAT boats and oil-spill cleaners are on the way.

Inside the ship, not only are the walls metal but the ship is listing so everything is canted at an angle. Below decks the corridors are coated with toxic soot and anyone not in BA is likely to suffer horrible effects. A boiler explosion that has caused a breech is also likely to have twisted ladders and steps up and down and caused some doors to be distorted and impossible to open.

I find it unlikely to think of any detectives being in the ship unless they're following a lead. Fire Investigators and HAZMAT personnel, yes, but local plods, no. The scene is a major environmental incident first and a crime scene second.

The heroes would be better off posing as a HAZMAT clean-up crew than a traditional SWAT breeching unit. I also don't see the point of a helicopter gunship back up, or the snipers: any incident will be inside rather than out.

My father was a fireman and worked in one of the largest docks in the UK (Port Talbot deep ore port: not much in transit but massive ships). If there had been an incident like that, crews would have been coming in from across the country and by the next day, international teams would be on the way.

This, of course may depend on the country it is set in, but a listing ship which has had a catastrophic explosion and fire is highly unlikely to be deserted the next morning.

I'd go for a high-tension infiltration with the heroes sneaking in wearing high vis and BA rather than tooled up for bear. In many ways this makes for a much scarier environment: the situation is dangerous and when the SHTF you don't even have the big guns to bail you out. This could be a really dramatic situation with lots of horror moments depending on the nature of your terror.

Thanks SimonMark6. A lot of really good points here. As you can probably guess I'm not very well-versed in naval/maritime knowledge. I thought later with a boiler explosion that would very well indeed create a LOT of problems.

So instead I might write that the cargo vessel is more like a ghost ship (not literally of course) that ended up sailing into the harbor without responding to any hails from the port authority or coast guard. The ship scraped alongside a pier and sustained some damage but is still afloat. What's eerie is that there doesn't appear to be anyone aboard....other than signs of chaos. Blood spatter, bullet holes, discarded Kalashnikov rifles and shell casings with other ominous signs are everywhere but no corpses....except for the captain, who if found is inside his locked cabin, dead from a self-inflicted pistol shot to the head with his eyes frozen in sheer horror. And the power system to the ship appears to have failed, so again it's dark with only the emergency lighting now on.

Instead of daytime, it's nighttime....within hours of the incident the heroes are flown to the site to investigate what exactly happened, and it's snowing and freezing cold. As for where this is taking place, New York harbor. So most likely NYPD, Port Authority and Coast Guard will be on the scene.

So, now back to how one should approach a search of the ship when they believe a high value target or cargo is in the interior. Are there anything to consider in particular or should it go somewhat similar as one would consider doing MOUT in a room-to-room, corridor by corridor tactical situation?

As for the supernatural horror in question, let's just say I'm going for a bit of a Lovecraft vibe.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The search is going to be similar to multi-storey building search except that most work ships (i.e. anything that isn't intended to carry paying passengers) don't need wide open corridors.
While main passageways typically allow space for two people to pass each other, secondary passageways and stairwells are often only wide enough for one person at a time and you won't get a lot of capacity for overwatch as the person you'd be covering will effectively be blocking your view down the passageway/stairwell.

Any combat in these areas is going to require the second man to be shooting over the shoulder of the lead man (or around his torso, hips etc. etc.) unless the lead kneels or ducks down to allow unobstructed view for the second guy. Naturally enough, conducting a search like that takes much longer

I would recommend taking a look at many of the pages found here
http://www.workboatsinternational.com/
but specifically this sub-heading
http://www.workboatsinternational.co...-for-sale.html
While not all the schematics are big enough to use for mapping purposes, a lot of the images can give you ideas as to the limited space you have inside a work ship.

Although the following link is for an icebreaker, there's a lot of photos of various areas on the ship that may also prove helpful for getting a feel for the space constraints any searchers would have to deal with.
http://yachtconversions.homestead.co...s_ISBJOERN.pdf
Same with this one although this is a research ship
http://offshorepool.homestead.com/81mResearch.html

[Apache6]

For military and Coast Guard units the mission is called Visit, Board, Search and Seizure.

Coast Guard law enforcement personnel and Navy Masters of Arms will do 'permissive' mission," where they do not expect "significant active resistance." Marines will execute non-permissive missions in-extremis, but the Navy Seals are THE world experts on the mission. Often Navy surface combatants will order ships to strike colors/surrender and fire across their bow, or if required disable them by cannon fire rather then risking personnel.

Will not talk much about tactics beyond saying they are done either TOP down via Helo insert, or bottom up via boarding from small craft.

Potential for losses are very high. It's a very challenging mission to do right.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Originally Posted by Apache6

Potential for losses are very high. It's a very challenging mission to do right.

The same problem you get with any such insertion into a building - it's why it's only done when hostages are already being shot and things have gone down the metaphorical pan very quickly.

[unkated]

Hmmm.

Weird unmanned ship drifts into a big city harbor straight to the dock.

I'll bypass the issue of how, especially as mention that this game has supernatural elements. But then that makes the investigating personnel frustrated and jumpy if none of this makes sense...

However, regardless of the weather, it seems to me, that this will probably generate a plethora of city and state agencies at work:

1. City police cordon until the dock can be surveyed (a large object crashed into it you said). Second cordon/checkpoint at a gangway ramp once established to catch anyone coming off or anyone attempting to get on while the police investigation is in progress.
   
2. City engineering team to survey the dock itself.
   
3. Fire personnel and ambulances (maybe) will show up at least until it is shown that there are no fires nor anyone trapped (in wreckage) that needs to be rescued on land or shipboard. Large port may have specialized fire units trained for ship/water issues.
   
4. A large ship with no authority to land has appeared in a US port. Until it is investigated, again, city police will keep people off of it.
   
5. Customs officials will want to check what is aboard - probably after the ship is cleared as not dangerous.
   
6. City SWAT and/or FBI/Homeland Security (depending on the when of your timeline setting) will check and occupy the ship to see what the ship is, where it came from, where is the crew.
   
7. Once determined to not be an immediate danger, police detectives will board to being to investigate (unless overruled by or teamed with FBI/Homeland security). Probably at least one team will look for the ship's office/captain's cabin for paperwork trying to figure out what the heck happened.
   
8. Blood stains you say? CSI/CSU teams will work on those.
   
9. Harbor police will examine the water around the ship looking for crew; someone may be stuck in a launch to ward off the curious, but if the weather is oh, so poor, a deck watch will probably be used instead). Harbor police/port safety inspectors will probably examine the ship (just crashed into a dock).
   
10. If there is a snowstorm blowing, your snipers will not offer much protection or support due to poor visibility.
    
11. Helicopter hanging out would be rather noticeable to the various agencies aboard and ashore. And they would know how to contact a local official pilot - local agency or news organization - so a loitering chopper would in rather short order become suspicious, especially on a day with a crashed mystery ship.
    
12. Depending on how they get aboard, if you want them to go after ship's papers/manifests, they can ignore most of the ship. These will be in the ship's office or the captain's cabin (where the police and/or FBI detectives will be working). Unless, of course, getting the manifest data is only part 1 of the problem...

Tactical problems

• How to disguise/bluff past multiple cordons to access the ship.
• How to maneuver past other teams to find the manifest/navigation data.
• How to leave the vessel past multiple cordons with as few questions as possible. (I'd use the 'hurt team member' approach, and crowd into the ambulance.

It seems to me more an exercise in stealth and acting than combat, but your mileage may vary.

Personally, I'd go for fire/survey/safety inspectors, with hidden small arms (pistols, SMGs), preferably from an agency unlikely to actually be there "City Health Inspector's office sent us. Yeah, I know the port guys and the Fire Marshall has teams aboard already..."

Have fun.

Uncle Ted

[Jason Weiser]

Unkated,
I like that..though I might try the CDC/PHSUS route.

"Um, yeah, we heard there was a meningitis/hepatitis outbreak aboard. Crew abandoned ship before harbor entry, god knows where they are. We're here to do epidemiology intel work and find the ship's log, so we can figure out where the hell they got the bug? You don't want us aboard, ok, fine..let us know when you begin to get flu-like symptoms, ok?"

Or, pretend you're Coast Guard/NTSB doing an accident investigation....like how in the hell the an unmanned ship was allowed clearance into the harbor, not to mention plow into a dock in NY Harbor.

[Schone23666]

Thanks for all the help with suggestions guys.

As for the ship....welllllll....there is one little toy surprise once our intrepid investigators enter the cargo hold....

It's in the form of all the ship's former crew and those several containers that were full of Russian mail-order "brides"....they've all been turned into undead zombie slaves who shuffle toward the investigators ready to tear them apart....along with a multi-tentacled monstrosity that seems to just get bigger and bigger in size, that's studded with gaping, fanged maws that wants to wrap it's slimy tentacles around the investigators and....well, you get the picture.

Oops, did I mention I was going for a supernatural Lovecraftian horror vibe? Roll for sanity check, please!

[swaghauler]

The Helo is a major issue as most ports are a "no fly" zone. They could access the ship from the bow by snagging the anchor with ropes and climbing up. An alternative would be meeting the ship in open water, disabled and adrift. This is a very common occurance.
The passage ways in most modern freighters are about 1 meter wide with main passages being about 2 meters; So pistols, sawed off shotguns, and SMGs are in their element here (which is why SEAL's board civilian "small craft," power & sailboats, with pistols). The standard gangway on a civilian sailboat is just 30" wide. A 45 degree list will make it equally easy (difficult?) to walk on walls as floors. At 90 degrees, walls BECOME floors and stairs become "jungle gyms" to climb. If the power is completely out, flooding will be an issue because the bilge pumps are not functioning. You may need to think about putting a time limit on the mission (at which point the ship sinks). The water could "chase" the players from deck to deck.
The fire would be a MAJOR hazard. Respirators would be needed in engineering (if it's not already under water) due to fumes/smoke. Firing any weapon below decks would deafen everyone if not suppressed. 7.62mmN caliber weapons could penetrate the hull (another reason for SMGs). Cargo could be shifting, causing further damage to stairs, doors, and gangways. It would be a regular fun house.

[Targan]

In my last T2K campaign, Major Po and his unit were aboard a RO-RO ferry during the Operation Omega crossing of the Atlantic when a storm hit them north of Scotland. The ship was pushed off course and hit a submerged rock, damaging the watertight doors at the front of the ship.

Eventually the ship's pumps couldn't keep up with the water coming on board and it became obvious that the vessel was doomed. Po's unit became split up when various members were given individual tasks. Some of them went with Po to try and maintain order as panic broke out and mutinies started among the other passengers. There were multiple firefights and melee combats. Others were sent to help with damage control.

When the ship eventually capsized one of the unit's favorite NPCs, USMC Gy Sgt Lincoln Lamont, was trapped inside. When the storm had subsided the next day, Po's 2IC, SEAL Lt Cdr Tadeusz Jones used SCUBA gear to get back into the ship and rescue the hypothermic Lamont.

It was a bloody brilliant couple of gaming sessions from my point of view as GM. Very memorable.

[Tnchi2a]

My advice if you have flash-bangs use them as you moving deck to deck.
this will stun any waiting ambushers and allow you to get in to better support positions.
Also with the damage as described above the ship would sink within minutes.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Schone23666

Thanks for all the help with suggestions guys.

As for the ship....welllllll....there is one little toy surprise once our intrepid investigators enter the cargo hold....

It's in the form of all the ship's former crew and those several containers that were full of Russian mail-order "brides"....they've all been turned into undead zombie slaves who shuffle toward the investigators ready to tear them apart....along with a multi-tentacled monstrosity that seems to just get bigger and bigger in size, that's studded with gaping, fanged maws that wants to wrap it's slimy tentacles around the investigators and....well, you get the picture.

Oops, did I mention I was going for a supernatural Lovecraftian horror vibe? Roll for sanity check, please!

Have the players discover the ship adrift on open water. A distress signal is heard. On approach, nothing seems wrong or out of order (sometimes the ordinary appearance of a situation can be nerve wracking). They board the ship to investigate and the fun begins. Maybe the zombies are infectious. This would require the party to sink the ship themselves to avoid the spread of this horrible disease. They fight through the zombies to plant explosives in the bilge, only to encounter the monster. They must set the bomb and flee the ship before it sinks. To add insult to injury; you could say the characters were on a pleasure cruise when they encountered the vessel. This would limit the equipment they have to personally carried pistols and a couple of long arms (plus whatever they can get from ship's lockers). Alternately, they could be in transit to another adventure when this one "drifts in." Nothing sucks worse than having to save the world with a limited round count.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

Alternately, they could be in transit to another adventure...

... or from another adventure, low on ammo and already carrying some damage (which will alert the zombies if they smell open wounds). Possibly with noncombatants in tow who need to be kept safe.

- C.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

... or from another adventure, low on ammo and already carrying some damage (which will alert the zombies if they smell open wounds). Possibly with noncombatants in tow who need to be kept safe.

- C.

I like this. Your cruelty matches my own....