Need help with Military stuff

[mudbunny]

Depending on how you define the skill, Armor and Artillery are not remotely the same. Armor (tanks & cavalry) is a direct fire maneuver capability; Artillery is indirect fire that in some forms uses a tracked vehicle to move from firing position to firing position. I'd make Artillery its own MOS, with skills like Heavy Weapons, Communications, Navigation, Calculation, Rockets, and Precision Fires. You could roll in mortars, too, though both my Infantry and Field Artillery brethren would kill me for suggesting it (Mortars are an Infantry system but have a lot of skills common with Field Artillery, and the Artillery tends to feel a bit threatened; the Infantry is always afraid the Artillery wants to take their mortars away).

With 6 years in the Artillery Reserves (Ubique!!) I would agree. Split out armor and artillery, as they are very, very different. Mortars definitely go in the infantry side of things. I would also add under artillery training Air Defence. It, in Canada at least, is also considered an artillery trade.

 

[garrowolf]

I already did separate them, check under field artillery.

 

[El Mahdi]

Okay what does Chemical defense do? What is Chemical Reconnaissance?

Should they also have Science: Chemistry or is it mostly just procedure?

Would the MOS be called CBRNE? Should they have Demolitions training if they are dealing with High Explosives?

Here's some information from Wikipedia that I found about the actual military career fields involved with CBRN. These MOS's or AFSC would mean you are a specialist in this field, can train people how to do everything listed below, probably know off the top of your head all of the different possible chemical threats by name and what they can do, etc.


I'm not sure what Chemical Reconnaissance is, but I'm assuming that Chemical Defense is what we would call Chem Warfare Training in the Air Force. It's the basic level of training that every military member in every branch of the military recieves. It teaches the following:

• How to properly wear the NBC suit (wearing it improperly can nullify any protection it's meant to provide)
• How to don in case of an attack (hold breath without inhaling and close eyes, remove mask from carrier and don)
• How to decon yourself and equipment
• How to identify signs and symptoms of exposure, and differences between different types of chemical threats (blood, choking, blister, nerve)
• How to use your chemical anitidote kit in case of exposure to a nerve agent (atropine and 2-pam chloride - and contrary to what you may have seen in The Rock, you do not inject yourself in the heart...)
• Identification of alarm signals and different MOPP levels (the longest I was ever in MOPP-4 was 12 hours...and it sucked!)
• Proficiency training to perform tasks, combat, and shooting while wearing mask and/or suit
• How to maintain hydration while wearing the suit (you will literally sweat buckets wearing the suit, even in relatively cool weather)
• Shelter procedures and contamination zone egress procedures (how to go through a decon station and remove your suit to either leave an area or don a new suit)
• How to effectively use chemical detection paper, tape, and sniffers.

Chemistry training really isn't a part of the above. Detection of chemical agents is done with tape, paper, or an electronic sniffer. The tape and paper are very similar, except the tape can be attached to equipment and vehicles, and the paper can be dipped into free standing liquid, etc. Though basically the same, they can detect a slightly different array of chemicals, may indicate with different colored reactions, and both are actually toxic to handle for extended periods. Tape and paper will change colors based on the chemical encountered - much like litmus paper. Different colors can mean different agents, but both can provide false positives (for example, hydraulic fluid on the paper can cause the same indication as some nerve agents). The book of Chemical detection apaper (looks like a small notepad), will usually have a chart in the front listing what the colors may indicate. The sniffers will sound an alarm when they detect a chemical agent, and may be able to tell you what type, and maybe even what specific agent - but sniffers can generate false alarms also.

An NBC suit can protect you from just about any type of chemical or biological agent, but has varying lengths of protection based upon the type of chemical encountered. For example, in a gaseous environment the suit could provide protection for over a month (though you may need to change the mask filter more frequently). If exposed to a liquid agent (it actually gets on the suit and soaks in), the suits length of protection is shortened. The suit can also protect you to a certain extent from nuclear fallout. It will prevent inhalation and ingestion of radioactive material, and protect from alpha particles, but it isn't up to protecting you from proximity exposure to a highly radioactive source (beta, gamma - in other words the suit provides no protection from a nuclear reactor, etc.).

 

[mudbunny]

I already did separate them, check under field artillery.

Ahh, I see that. But you still have artillery under Armor, which is why I commented on it.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I would suggest changing artillery to gunnery for Armor - not only will it cut down on confusion, its correct.

 

[Nork]

If you want further player options, consider military personality archetypes. Someone could choose to be a "Blue Falcon", someone else could be a "Four and Fly", another could be a "Hoorah-Hoorah", a "Dirt Bag", or a "Field Soldier".

Honestly, MOS based differentiation between player characters really wouldn't work too well for a military setting. Mechanics shouldn't go on patrol with infantry.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Yeah, that's gruesome, but it reminds me of an old prank.

<SNIP>

Juvenile for certain, but fun none the less.

Not much different than sending them to another shop for a gallon of K9P (...sound it out...), or sending them to the SP's for 100 yards of flight line, or sending them to the avionics backshop for a 9v AC battery...

Amateurs - MI Soldiers live in a high stress atmosphere in 24 hour operations. (our job is the same in peacetime or wartime and if it's not done correctly in the first case it might lead to the second...) So how do we cope - by pranking each other - constantly. It has been said that Special Forces should train with MI for a few weeks to learn how to properly create improvised booby traps.

Examples:
All SCIFs have a raised floor so that the air conditioning can be pumped into the equipment racks. We used to pull up the floor tiles in front of a piece of equipment, pull out the supports and then replace the floor tiles. Then we'd call the equipment down for maintenance. That was known as a Mech Trap.

Many years before chad was known by the public at large, we had chad in the SCIFs. In various feats of mechanical engineering we would use rubber bands, paperclips, paper, tape and pencils to create chad traps. A friend of mine used some dental floss as a tripline punched a hole in the back of a supply cabinet ran it through to the door and mounted it on the top. When the door was opened, fwoosh, your uniform changed from camo to white speckled and you would be picking chad out of your hair, ears and clothing for days.

Of course Zulu time is known by all military units as operational time. As a 24 hour ops center we were always on Zulu time, so we had Zulu clocks hanging from every ceiling and usually in multiple places in each section. So when the time change would happen, we would tell the nug's to go to the watch office and asked for the Zulu key to change the clocks. (For those that don't know Zulu time never changes...) We pulled that one so many times they actually found on old key, tagged it Zulu Key and hung it in the key box...

And you would have them get K9P - we would have nug's copy 1D10T's

Come to think of it, maybe all MI ops should have Improvised Weapons as a skill....

 

[PoorHobo]

There are 100's if not 1000's of jobs in the armed forces. Coming up with skill sets in a d20 game for a small percentage is a monumental task as some of the post examples have indicated. While the actual act may be a fun thought excercise for simplicity sakes you might consider a simple profession skill for each NPC's MOS. Then just roughly guesstimate if a peticular task falls under that. Profession (Infantry) would indicate that a an NPC knows a little bit about land nav, how to break down a rifle and squad formations etc...

 

[Scott DeWar]

tear gas train .. .. .. .., er, i mean chem warfare training was ridiculous in the AF. I am not affected by tear gas it has been found out. i laughed at the instructor when i was in the room with no mask. He took his off to get belligerent at me and started chocking.

as for pranks, i remember the less wary and wise at tech training would be sent to the roof of the triangle squadrons for hurricane watch duty and the flight line was where the fresh meat were sent to the tool crib for left handed screwdrivers and 200 yards of flight line.

 

[Thunderfoot]

tear gas train .. .. .. .., er, i mean chem warfare training was ridiculous in the AF. I am not affected by tear gas it has been found out. i laughed at the instructor when i was in the room with no mask. He took his off to get belligerent at me and started chocking.

as for pranks, i remember the less wary and wise at tech training would be sent to the roof of the triangle squadrons for hurricane watch duty and the flight line was where the fresh meat were sent to the tool crib for left handed screwdrivers and 200 yards of flight line.

Yeah, those are classics - we had Helicopter watch in stead of Hurricane watch and a box of LOBs (Line of Bearing - those are used for Direction Finding)