alt.War: Turning Anger into productiveness

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hermit
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alt.War: Turning Anger into productiveness

Post by hermit »

Hi. This is the provisional thread for the project on this Forum, until I figure out where to house it (I think more than one thread would really help to keep things orderly).

I have read your porposal for an alt.War, Frank, and commented on it in brief on dumpshock already. The scope is larger than what I had in mind, but I like it so far.

Here's a link to the project thread on Dumpshock.
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Post by Fuchs »

Life in the Army
Could focus on the differences between soldiers and shadowrunners (and to some degree to rent-a-cops):

Reasons for becoming a soldier:
Regular Paycheck, education options, SIN option, love of adventure, patriotism.

Soldier's life:
Being part of a team, not an individual working with other individuals, stricter discipline, basic training, drill, deployments/tour of duties, leave, and so on. And the soldier's view of the civilians.

Combat:
Larger scope (platoons, companies, batallions, regiments etc.),
Fire Support, Combined Arms
Rules of engagements (Different rules for security duties, police support, "peace keeping" and all-out war).
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Post by hermit »

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like stuff I was looking for.

Re Reasons: What about serving out sentences that way? Somewhat like the French Foreign Legion: Serve here and leave your old life behind (yes, I know the legion isn't what it used to be, but let's not split hairs, please). Granted, it kind of goes with the SIN option, but it's not an option to gain a SIN, it'S an option to escape your CrimSIN past.

Also, what about joining for metahumans, especially orcs (and to a degree trolls)? Apart from being tougher, you can advance in the military faster than in business or politics, and your draws in civil life could be boons there.

As for combat: What about statted/listed units from a couple nations as examples of how to do things differently? An Israeli mechanised drone combat unit, a Japanese Imperial Marines unit, a band of polish rebels, a brigade of the Aztlaner army (integrating magic and massive firepower), and maybe a unit of shapeshifters and grunts from Yakut? All using equipment presented in the writeup, naturally, so players get a look at how to use it.
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Post by Username17 »

What I did for AWOD was to have a couple of discussion threads on IMHO and then have a final piece that was just for the work in the stage of completion it was in. Some of those discussion threads got Pretty Long. Then some other people compiled it into a pdf document. That worked OK. For the original Tome material, K and I were physically in the same area at the time, and we wrote up sections after having discussions then traded them to the other one for editing. That worked OK too, although public spaces are better for finding errors in need of editing than a mere second set of eyes.

For this project, you'll want to come to a reasonably firm idea of how large a scope you intend to have. On the one hand, you could do worse than just making a documentary chapter on the Amazonia-Aztlan War where you talk about why it is happening, how it is progressing, and what tools are in use - all the stuff that was painfully missing from War!. That could seriously be twenty thousand words and some maps. And of course, it would still be more helpful than the entire book that Jason actually published.

However, you could also expand in a number of directions. SR4's lack of LMSD damage really leaves it up a creek as regards hitting big things with weapons big enough to hurt them. Even if the math worked out (which it doesn't, tanks only have two states: undamaged and smoking crater), it would still be a pain in the ass to roll 70 dice on soak tests. Vehicle rules are, to be honest, rather bad. They are woefully incomplete, fairly incoherent, and involve ramming with pickup trucks being an honest-to-ghost anti-great dragon tactic. You could seriously make an "advanced combat rules" chapter that was predicated on the idea that you wanted things to scale, which the current rules basically don't. Alternately or in addition, you could make write ups of several other wars, producing the kind of History Channel walk-through (complete with maps) that war aficionados actually want and demand.

If you got multiple people to sign off on different parts of it, you could probably get it done. Remember that primary writing takes like no time at all, but storyboarding and editing take time and cause butthurt. There is nothing special about someone who can write five thousand words in a day if they know the direction they are going and are allowed to pad it with dialog or asides. Fuck, I can do that. The key is actually paring things down to the plotline and mechanical direction you actually intend to go in.

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Post by Fuchs »

Augmentations:

One can argue whether or not grunts have augmentations, and what kind, or if they rely on gear and powered armor, also considering the difference between professional soldiers and conscripts.

But one cannot argue without sounding stupid that any army will even consider having their multi-million-nuyen vehicles piloted by someone who hasn't been augmented as much as possible to make sure he is unlikley to lose said multi-million-nuyen vehicle.

You simply won't let a pilot in the cockpit of a strike fighter costing dozens of millions without stuffing a few millions worth of augmentations into his body. The hacker defending your communication network will be augmented as well - you do not want your own expensive drones shooting up your even more expensive gear, even if you do not care about your soldiers' lives (which is also debatable). And given the price tags of MBTs, you'll not let them get piloted by unaugmented tankers either.
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Post by hermit »

Frank wrote:However, you could also expand in a number of directions. SR4's lack of LMSD damage really leaves it up a creek as regards hitting big things with weapons big enough to hurt them. Even if the math worked out (which it doesn't, tanks only have two states: undamaged and smoking crater), it would still be a pain in the ass to roll 70 dice on soak tests. Vehicle rules are, to be honest, rather bad. They are woefully incomplete, fairly incoherent, and involve ramming with pickup trucks being an honest-to-ghost anti-great dragon tactic. You could seriously make an "advanced combat rules" chapter that was predicated on the idea that you wanted things to scale, which the current rules basically don't. Alternately or in addition, you could make write ups of several other wars, producing the kind of History Channel walk-through (complete with maps) that war aficionados actually want and demand.
Yeah. Much as they were a nuisance to many, the old SR3 vehicle rules made more sense, since they took things back into dicepool size areas where the system works. We could just set up "large vehicle rules" and apply them to anything big. Of course, there's still interaction between big vessels and small vessels to tackle, but it might be an idea worth following.

A hotspots chapter seems like a good thing to add. I found a guy who knows SE Asia (megu from Dumpshock) who'll give a writeup of that area a shot. The focus should still be Aztlan/Amazonia, but there's nothing saying we cannot add other stuff. Desert Wars and the RadWar (which was covered only in brief and German/French; basically Desert Wars in the SOX containment zone) are something else worth pondering.

And I'd actually like to see a chapter on Corp Armies and how to make them somewhat economically plausible - basically, my idea was that corps rent them out to needy nations, and thus have their armies generate profit rather than sit around and cost them dearly. That might even make funbad things like the Saeder-Krupp huge-ass aircraft carrier for Rigger3R somewhat less of a facepalm-worthy idea. Might. It'S still a very rough thought.
Frank wrote:If you got multiple people to sign off on different parts of it, you could probably get it done. Remember that primary writing takes like no time at all, but storyboarding and editing take time and cause butthurt. There is nothing special about someone who can write five thousand words in a day if they know the direction they are going and are allowed to pad it with dialog or asides. Fuck, I can do that. The key is actually paring things down to the plotline and mechanical direction you actually intend to go in.
Yes. I've thought about this and remembered a mod project that I once worked with. It was about creating more land and such for Morrowind (name's Tamriel Rebuilt), basically. It's still around and has some 20 contributing members. For Morrowind.

TR started out as a usual game mod and was about to end like a usual game mod (in flaming and in shambles because the project grew too big). We did, however, then set up a structure that seems to have endured 10 years now.

Basically, it's a layered concept. TR has a huge map of stuff they want done. The map is split up into sections, and everyone can go and submit an example of their work (Morrowind comes with a modding editor, so modding it is fairly easy), and if accepted, claim parts of these. They get a deadline and set out to work.

Above these modders, there's the review board. It's proven modders who are assigned younger modders' work to review them, give them advice and make sure their work is up to quuality standard before submitted up. Some reviewers also are modders, some are pure reviewers. Modding reviewers face the same regulations that modders do, but need to split their time, obviously.

Then there's the core team, a coordination board who has the big picture. They put things together, organise things, set up guidelines for each claim cell (forest, mushroom forest, town with X, Y and Z). Some of these modded too, but many didn't for time reasons.

I'd like to copy that structure to an extent because I've seen it work. Core team with the big picture, a TOC where sections are detailed, and a reviewer system. Of course, I need more manpower fior this, but that's what I have in mind for this project.

Obviously, it is a large structure, and may require an own forum,. and I'm unsure whether this would work for a writing project as well as for a modding community. I'll see if I get there. If I end up with some 10 contributors, maybe a smaller scale approach like yours is more appropriate.

@Fuchs: Augmentation is, I think, something the armies of the 6th world have vastly different takes on, from the MET 2K, who have previously been written up as robotic semi-SpesssMehrreeens, to the Amazonians who wouldn't touch a commlink with a 10 foot pole voluntarily donated by a tree spirt. I Agree with you on the guideline that the more heavy ghear is fielded, teh less human the pilots (and hackers and other support personnel) become; possibly also the soldiers.
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Post by Kot »

If you need someone from Poland, i'm interested. I could try talking to people from SR-Pl, but most of them are still deep in the 2nd or 3rd edition.
To be honest, my group stood me up on SR, and i'm still inspired enough to do something in the Sixth World, even if they've proven not interested. It would be better to write something, than to try any substitute for an actual game.
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Post by hermit »

I know it's a very long shot, but what about Russia? Would you want to write about Russia? Yes, I am perfectly aware that you're almost as close to Russia as I am (and I am actually more likely to know Russians than you).

I dunno, maybe we can also do a more developed Poland, though it's actually not supposed to be a Warzone anymore. I would certainly like to see a writeup of any polish city (what about TriCity, for instance?). But that wouldn't be part of this project then.

Thanks for the offer though. :)
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Post by Kot »

As for TriCity, i'm pretty much doing that. I have a few drafts, and some other material(gangs, places, organizations, people and events), but in polish off course. I could try and translate that, but i'm not really good at that*, and i'd need some help with turning it into worthwhile text...
I have a few ideas that would fit into Alt.War!, like the silent shadow war between factions in TriCiy, and guerrillas from the pagan Pomerian Liberation Front, who managed to 'liberate' a few towns in northern Poland, and TriCity area. Plus a more civil 'h&s' idea for mercenary campaign against the toxic warlords of Mazury, sponsored by the TriCity and Kaliningrad zones.

The rest of Poland? Well, you have a few places that can easily turn into warzones. Especially the ones where there's not much development, and a lot of awakened forests, and such. Poland was always a good spot for guerrilla warfare.


As for Russia, i could do a few things where it involves Poland, but besides that, i'm not really qualifies - i'm a little biased, i think, and i was never really interested in the current state of affairs.


* I do some work as a translator, but for things like help files, instructions, and such. So i'm used to crude text, and that's probably obvious.
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Post by Username17 »

hermit wrote:And I'd actually like to see a chapter on Corp Armies and how to make them somewhat economically plausible - basically, my idea was that corps rent them out to needy nations, and thus have their armies generate profit rather than sit around and cost them dearly. That might even make funbad things like the Saeder-Krupp huge-ass aircraft carrier for Rigger3R somewhat less of a facepalm-worthy idea. Might. It'S still a very rough thought.
Corp armies are actually very easy for me to imagine. The word "Banana Republic" actually originally meant "A country which has been conquered by United Fruit's private army." The British East India Trading Company ended up fielding an army so big that it conquered the subcontinent of India. The period between 1757 and 1857 is seriously called the "Company Rule Period" because the place had been conquered and occupied by the private army of a corporation.

On a more general note, corporations aren't really about collecting money. Especially not in the Shadowrun future where they print all the money. The point is to accumulate and preserve power and wealth, in whatever form that takes. In our modern society, NATO is pretty much going to protect you from an invading horde of bandits from the Steppe or pirate attacks from Somalia. But in the Shadowrun future, NATO has been disbanded. Many countries have privatized or severely cut back their defense budgets. As a major corporation, the stark reality is that there are people who would come and take your stuff and you can't rely on the nations of the world to defend your wealth for you. Heck, some of the people coming to take your stuff are actual governments, and there is no G8 political consensus of countries to punish nations that try. If you want to not have your stuff nationalized, you have to stare down the would-be Che Guevaras of the world with whatever military you can own or rent yourself.

So even if corporations were not in the habit of rolling up to countries that have shit they want and beating on them until natural resources and cheap labor came out (which, of course, they are), corporations would still need the ability to project a considerable amount of force just to hold on to whatever it is that they nominally "own". Because the whole "social contract" thing where the combined armies of the world are pledged to defend peoples' private property is a thing of the past in Shadowrun's 207X future.

But then that only covers why mega corps have to have armies that can fight other entities of the world (be they other corporations, national governments, crime syndicates, religious movements, or memes). It goes way beyond that. They want giant armies. That's the actual goal. That's the reason for amassing all that wealth in the first place. The purpose is and always has been power, and the sad reality is that eventually you get to a point where you literally cannot get any more power by accumulating another million bills with Edward Deming's face on it. In order to get more power you need to start gaining other sources of coercion than simple bribery. You need to have a stick in addition to a carrot. You need to have the ability to project force if you want to be more powerful. And you do, because that is what a Megacorp is.

So yes, I have no problem whatever believing that S-K would commission and launch a carrier and use it to conduct aggressive invasions of African regions that were recalcitrant about giving up their palm oil or simply persisted in having barter economy.

As for Poland... it's one of the Hotspots in War!, doesn't that recommend it? :razz:

More seriously, no one agrees where the borders of any country in this region should actually be. Every territorial claim that anyone takes particularly seriously is based on one of the great empires that fell some time ago. In the absence of a strong imperial hand (be it Holy Roman, Soviet, or NATO), fighting will basically never stop until someone makes a new empire that can crush everyone else's dreams of expansion.

Poland did not exist until 1918. There was no Poland on the map. The empire of Poland-Lithuania had fallen on tough times and by 1795 there was no Polish state at all. The fact remains though that the only times these people have ever mattered on a global scale was during their inclusion in empires, and Poland-Lithuania was one of the bigger ones. So a lot of people try to reform that. It's not just the people who are currently called "Poles" (who include Kashubians, Silesians, Mazovians, and Vistulans), it's a lot of other people in the region. Did you know that the ultranationalist dictator of Belarus claims that Belorussians are the true descendants of Lithuania and deserve the name Lithuania (and not those filthy Lithuanians, who did nothing to deserve it)? That's not just crazy talk (although don't get me wrong: it is crazy talk), the point is that if they got the name Lithuania, they could annex Lithuania, and every other country that is part of the old Poland-Lithuania crown union. Like Ukraine, and Poland.

If Poland ever got a free hand and wasn't already constrained by being part of an empire, it would immediately invade all of its neighbors to attempt to form the empire that is its "by right of history". This isn't just hyperbole, the very moment the 2nd republic was formed it went to war by invading Czechoslovakia and the fucking Soviet Union in 1919. If Shadowrun's "occupied Poland" plotline ends, the only logical progression is for the next plotline to be a Polish invasion of Ukraine. Or a Lithuanian invasion of Poland. Or a Polish invasion of Lithuania. Or a Belorussian invasion of Poland. Or some combination.

Lesser Poland was created in 1918 in order to take provinces out of the Austrian, German, and Russian empires. To create a "buffer zone". But keep this always in mind: absolutely no one liked that country's borders. Not the empires who had lands taken away to create it, not the people who were given a new country. They wanted everything from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and they had real historical maps to make their case.

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Post by hermit »

Kot wrote:As for TriCity, i'm pretty much doing that. I have a few drafts, and some other material(gangs, places, organizations, people and events), but in polish off course. I could try and translate that, but i'm not really good at that*, and i'd need some help with turning it into worthwhile text...
I have a few ideas that would fit into Alt.War!, like the silent shadow war between factions in TriCiy, and guerrillas from the pagan Pomerian Liberation Front, who managed to 'liberate' a few towns in northern Poland, and TriCity area. Plus a more civil 'h&s' idea for mercenary campaign against the toxic warlords of Mazury, sponsored by the TriCity and Kaliningrad zones.

The rest of Poland? Well, you have a few places that can easily turn into warzones. Especially the ones where there's not much development, and a lot of awakened forests, and such. Poland was always a good spot for guerrilla warfare.


As for Russia, i could do a few things where it involves Poland, but besides that, i'm not really qualifies - i'm a little biased, i think, and i was never really interested in the current state of affairs.


* I do some work as a translator, but for things like help files, instructions, and such. So i'm used to crude text, and that's probably obvious.
Well, google translate is probably helpful, and it would get a review anyway (it's not like we'Re CGL ;) ), so it would see some polishing, I think. Same as my Paris and Venice writeups will be posted for critique, so they all see polishing.

As for Russia, yes, I thought as much. I'd probably be biased too if I was polish (as is, I'm formerly East German and hence only slightly biased). Just wanted to ask anyway.

@Frank:

I see your point about corp Armies. However, this touches on a point where the setting alwways was creaking: Corps as governments. Still, corp Armies need at least a discussion - I know about the East India Company, but both they and United Fruits mercenaries were effectively corp forces. However, both corporations wer very intertwined with their governments - especially the EETC. Aztech perfectly fits this description, but corps like Evo or Horizon? SK owns the russian government, whose Interests are they representing? Setting up mines and such in Africa and securing them militarily makes sense, but nation building? Not so much.

As for Poland ... I don't know. Yes, it would be a stab at CGL, but I don't want to do everything they did just because a Mormon said it.
Frank wrote:There can be only one peace in Slavia: an Emperor's Peace. It has always been that way, and it always will be that way.
Jan Herkel? ;)
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Post by Kot »

Well, i'm biased not because of being polish. More like because of knowing history and political sciences. Russia will be a BBG for a long time, if they continue to do what they're doing, and they raped the hell of each country they had their claws in - Poland and Germany were lucky having no 'tanks in the capital city' episodes.
And it doesn't help, that my grandfather 'dissapeared' while being tracked by NKWD, or whatever it was called in the '50-s.
So, yes. I could be vilifying Russia, and that's too cliche, even if true.

As for Google Translate, i think i'll just try to do it on my own, we'll see what i can do and how long it takes. I'll start with a summary of the TriCity situation and neighboring warzones.
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Post by hermit »

Well, i'm biased not because of being polish. More like because of knowing history
That's what I assumed. Your people's history of being fucked over by Russia is ... long. It's not like they stopped now, even.
And it doesn't help, that my grandfather 'dissapeared' while being tracked by NKWD, or whatever it was called in the '50-s.
So, yes. I could be vilifying Russia, and that's too cliche, even if true.
The fun part about Russia (if you're in a cynical mind) is how they really strive to live up to the clichés - be it killing anyone whom they dislike with poison, be it selling any kind of weapon to anyone, or be it the Russian Nationalists™ that are the current staple videogame villain.

I'll crossread your stuff and make suggestions on polishing. Even if it won't be included in alt.War, it still can be published.
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Post by Kot »

hermit wrote: That's what I assumed. Your people's history of being fucked over by Russia is ... long. It's not like they stopped now, even.
Nah, we have our own leaders to do that now. :P

And as for the TriCity, i'll do my best.
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Post by Username17 »

Getting someone at all familiar with Indochina would be great. Progress the timeline a bit and show some of the Balkanization that it was headed towards. Republic of Cambodia vs. Nag Kampuchea, Trollish Myanmar vs. Nagaland vs. Assam. That kind of thing. A big question is where in Southeast Asia you want to do things? The Nag Kampuchea / Siam border isn't that close to the Trollish Myanmar / Assam border. You could do something broad about the wars between Garuda People and Naga People. But there's still a long way between these countries and you'll probably want to narrow the focus to a single war or maybe two for contrast.

But the big thing you're looking at is the mechanics change. Until you go back to an LMSD style damage system, you can't have damage scale properly out to tank levels. Hardened Armor really can't work like that either.

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Post by hermit »

Yes. We need a scaling system. Also, I am pondering a nautical Hot Spot, like the PPG/Japanocorp conflict escalating into a trade war. That way, those warships would actually be useful somewhere and we'd give the GM something out of the box to use them with.
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Post by Username17 »

One thing I would like is a discussion about naval superiority, air superiority, and getting cities to surrender. Back in the day, a ship of the line had as many cannons as a fort, and a couple of ships could seriously shell a city into submission. Monterrey was seized simply by a warship showing up with its cannons out.

In World War II times, a battleship could shell the crap out of any land based anything if it was anywhere near the coast. But they could only do that if their side had local air superiority, because a couple torpedo bombers could sink the damn thing.

Today the idea of ship guns is pretty much obsolete. People from the shore can fire rockets back and damage the ship enough to make it not worth doing.

But with Shadowrun Tech, you could have gauss rifles hurl metal rods into a city from over the horizon. If you wanted to shred a city from the sea with naval guns, you could do that. Battleship mounted lasers really change the equation of planes vs. capital ships as well - and severely in the favor of the capital ships.

Honestly, SR tech really seems to make cruisers and battleships a lot more useful than they are right now. I'd like someone to really do some deep thinking about SR naval realities, and possibly even come up with a couple of different doctrines used by different countries and corps.

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Post by hermit »

Actually, DARPA is concepting a type of battleship exactly like that. Now if I only could find the link. Ah, here.

Problem is: up to now, SR military has basically been modern military IN THE FUTURE, especially the navies. Few thoughts have been given to the application of SR's technology - be it Riggers, magic, functional weaponised lasers, or railguns. Far too few actually.

I could see a renaissance of battleship warfare to some degree. At least as a long-range support artillery platform defended by anti-air and anti-missile lasers (what was the name of that SR3 plasma weapon system again? ANDREWS?). It's also conceivable that corporations would favor the Sea Control Ship approach to project air power as opposed to the Supercarrier, simply because it is more flexible and corps don't have that much of a need for show-off weapon systems that nations do.

I could further see submarine carriers. What about a submarine drone carrier that launches several small fighter drones, and a staff of Riggers who control them? Sure, that's not the most kickass concept there is, but given decent matrix security, it can easily help the corp to local air superiority against a medium-well armed foe. What about submarine landing ships? Since SR has submarine freighters, I see no reasion why there should not be submarine troop carriers that land troos on shores.

What about the use of spirits in naval warfare? What about stealth and cloaking ships? Shadowrun is where DARPA's dreams might come true. Some of these are ... wild.
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Post by fectin »

Before you get excited about DARPA's new railgun, take a look at what the New Jersey's guns can already do. We dont do that anymore because it's expensive and imprecise compared to other tech, not because our battleships stopped holding their own.

Modern Naval warfare is much more about projecting power than about big guns. I figure extrapolate forward from that for SR and you get a combination of analog electronic warfare (pump out enough EM and interference to seriously knock out networks in a huge radius) and establishing a new layer on top of that, all linked togetherand backed with with serious ICE, so that they end up with the only working network. I know that's generally not possible. Think about this though: there is already today a ship sailing around with EIGHT nuclear power plants. Power is seriously not a constraint, and enough power will kill electronics, no matter how spiffy they are. They probably also support a UAV swarm, but that's just gravy.
Voilà! Ships near your coast are really scary.
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Post by hermit »

Before you get excited about DARPA's new railgun, take a look at what the New Jersey's guns can already do. We dont do that anymore because it's expensive and imprecise compared to other tech, not because our battleships stopped holding their own.
Not to piss on your battleships - they still were a good missiles platform and decent sea-based artillery - but the Mk7 gun has a range that is comparable to modern self-propelled artillery, nothing more. the DARPA railgun is aiming at 200 km range, which is nearly seven times that range. That's a big difference. Combined with functional laser systems for defense, that would make a very dominating power projection platform. With precision guided ammunition (that at least doubles the range of conventional artillery; I am unsure if it'd work here as well) you'd be reaching into medium range missile territory.
Modern Naval warfare is much more about projecting power than about big guns. I figure extrapolate forward from that for SR and you get a combination of analog electronic warfare (pump out enough EM and interference to seriously knock out networks in a huge radius) and establishing a new layer on top of that, all linked togetherand backed with with serious ICE, so that they end up with the only working network.
You could just go for sattelite uplinks and jam the hell out of most WiFi frequencies. Still, you'd want to secure yourself with heavy, heavy ICE and probably paint your ships with WiFi prohibition paint.
Think about this though: there is already today a ship sailing around with EIGHT nuclear power plants. Power is seriously not a constraint, and enough power will kill electronics, no matter how spiffy they are. They probably also support a UAV swarm, but that's just gravy.
That's one of these russian ice breakers, right? American supercarriers, to my knowledge, only have some three reactors (the french medium carrier has one). Sure, if you have the money and the steel, you can build ships damn big, though not too big, as then you'll get your ship distorted by waves (this is prohibiting container carriers from growing much further until they figure out how to make a ship endure this).

Anyaway, we agree, power is not a problem. The ship probably also has an ANDREWS system for good measure and because plasma weapons are awesome. The UAV are useful for scouting and further power projection, since it really helps artillery to direct it's fire.

Jamming will certainly occur. Of course, coastal states will counter with counter-jamming devices and it'll be an arms race again. Makes the corps happy too.
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu »

Railguns need to be compared to a harpoon missle.
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Antumbra
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Post by Antumbra »

I was thinking about a shadowrun progression for the Land Warrior concept and the new airburst grenade rifle and arrived at this:

Military Armour (obviously) with the strength, running, jumping and gyromount enhancements (to some degree Capacity makes little sense as a pool, having leg jacks shouldn't mean you cannot into strength) and then weapons along these lines:

Ballista Missile Launcher: 4+1 semiautonomous backpack rocket platform (Arsenal)
Microgrenade Backpack Launcher: Microgrenades are about the size of shotgun shells, so you either have a Microgrenade Rifle that isn't the MGL-12 (with big mags, canisters or a belt) or a backpack system that doubles as a light mortar. Or it works as both, and looks Jin Roh style, because Smartguns. Could easily be the main armament of an infantry force if you had good range on it.
Articulated Weapon Arm: Having a third arm is useful, having an arm that can shoot at the Blender Adept behind you is priceless.

Machine Guns/Assault Cannons as standard conventional arms for the gyromounted power armoured soldier. Given that they exist at all, there has to be a market and there must be capable users. That is obviously whatever Military has the funding, if Shadowrunners and CorpSec aren't supposed to carry them as standard.

Every soldier has some form of artillery designator, lethal artillery has always existed - but in SR, ACCURATE artillery exists. There's no way that you aren't going to have pinpoint artillery/railgun strikes at the drop of a hat, because it's not nearly as expensive as losing ground. Railgun ammo is practically free compared to to conventional, though I could imagine being given a budget per mission to use on support.

Every ground combat is also an air combat, drones can fly all day and are invaluable to support infantry, so the air will be full of overwatch drones fighting amongst themselves. The winning side suddenly gains an immense groundside advantage and probably wins the fight - realtime aerial recon instead of satellite coverage, drone sniping, artillery backtrack (maybe even interception) and wireless.

I'm thinking that as everything is hackable, that forces may reintroduce the old "drag wires behind you everywhere" or advanced laser comms - like in Battle Angel Alita, where she has Laser Bugs that create a communication path behind her.

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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

My immediate questions about future naval warfare:

1. How are submarines invisible to satellite recon in the Shadowrun tech paradigm ? This is really really important due to the rock-paper-scissors nature of capital ship, submarine with torpedo and aerial recon, and everything else has to follow from the answer here. If subs are, as predicted totally visible to satellite recon, then either
  • capital ships come back into fashion,
  • naval warfare is actually all about hacking/jamming satellite signals
  • spirits/magic/strike teams of PCs take on the traditional role of subs
If subs are still subhow invisible to satellite recon
  • Megacorps will not commit capital ships unless they are sure of the safety of a sea zone or are desperate enough to risk losing an asset that represents multiple years of profit.
  • Whatever means of recon is effective becomes the big deal in naval warfare. Traditionally this has been a mix of naval aviation and sonar, but in a shadowrun world, it really could be water spirits, assensing, trained paranormal animals, or other weirdness
2. The next big question is how would the floating artillery piece that a battleship represents be meaningful in a context of orbital weapons platforms, personal ownership if ICBMs, stealth drones with automated aerial refueling, smart bombs, and multi-mile sniper shots ? What do big ships with big guns do that other vehicles and munitions don't ?

3. Would megacorps even field actual dedicated navies or would they just use a mixture of repurposeable cargo ships (merchant marine), fast coastal patrol craft and deniable pirates?
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cthulhu
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Post by cthulhu »

Ultimately I'm not sure if naval warfare needs anything other than an overview because it's not relevant to players.

Yes, in an era where kinetic kill weapons can fire from orbit, surface warship is impossible. However, the 'big three' decisions for warfare in the SR-verse are

A) How mechanised with drones is warfare? If the answer is 'not very' you better have a good answer for that

The SR progression of Land Warrior is an almost fully mechanised force with very few humans.

B) Do corporations have full blown militaries, or mostly irregular/light forces with a small core of conventional units.

A makes no sense, within the context of the game but you need to explain why it doesn't happen

C) Why is warfare so much more low intensity than today?

I'm not sure, but a good answer colours much of the rest of your direction.
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Post by fectin »

Hermit,
You're right on battleship guns; I swapped a zero in the relative ranges. Still, 38 kilometers (before using smart rounds) ain't bad, and tomahawks are hardcore enough that you can basically reach out and touch anyone.

But overall, you're right. I'm not sure what lasers give you that the Phalanx doesn't though. (YouTube "CIWS")

The USS Enterprise (cvn-65) has 8 reactors (one for each boiler they replaced, 2 per driveshaft). Turns out that's overkill, but there's clearly no barrier to it if you needed the power.

Josh,
Do you need a "how" for satellites can't detect subs? If it's important, declare it so and move on. Subs can already stay submerged for almost arbitrarily long times, it's not a stretch to say that sats are lucky to find them, and tracking is right out.
The RPS balance you describe was true once, and got a lot more true when torpedoes got more reliable. Then it got weirded up, and now includes Spock, lizard, lava, dynamite, etc. (sub hunter helos, better overwatch, different taskforce makeup, defense systems, etc.
Basically, pick the result you want (I.e., makes the most sense for the setting), then work backwards. I like the idea of huge and deadly ships providing intense and persistant broad-area Electronic Attack/Superiority and C4I functions. You could just as easily justify nautical drone swarms though, so it really is whatever is thematically best.
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