Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

[starblaze]

Hi,

 

I just started an Alien Wars game and I have some characters from different services. One is a UENavy offcier, and two are Army and one is Marine. One of my potential players had some problems with that because normally different services don't work together.

 

So could someone give me an idea about how soldiers from different armed services could get together on a mission?

[David Johnston]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

He's right. It isn't a very plausible mix. It could happen, mind your, if the military command in a given area was devastated by a massive defeat so that people from disparate units end up thrown together temporarily in the retreat. However it wouldn't last long. I'd suggest that you convince the army guys to be marines instead. There can't be that much difference.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

The only way this could possibly work (at least, that I can think of) is if the UE Military decided to form a "special task force" of specialists from different branches to solve a particular type of problem in the war, kind of like the GI Joe group (from the cartoon series) stood against Cobra and similar terrorist groups. Depending on what part of the century the game is taking place in, they could be assigned to investigate forward movements by the Xenovores, discover and capture various Xenovore genotypes, gather intel on existing Xenovore colonies, or several other things.

 

It would take a leap of faith since this sort of thing doesn't happen IRL (AFAIK), but it could at least make the idea plausible. You'd probably want to give the PCs some extra points for their "elite specialties" if you go this route.

[Old Man]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Read John Ringo's A Hymn Before Battle. Similar make -up of different specialists from various branches of service.

 

I believe SOCOM uses personnel from various military units as well.

[Yansuf]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Special operations is the most likely to have multi-service, except for higher HQ which are often "joint" but probably wouldn't be much fun to play.

If all but one are in the same sevice, the other could be either a liason officer or on an "exchange" program. For example, the Navy player could be a naval gunfire control officer attached to either an army or marine unit. I don't know how well that will play in the game however.

It largely depends on what kind of "missions" you plan on running. If they are a special ops team to be inserted "behind enemy lines" they could easily be multi-service. While in recent generations the US has tended to go with single service teams, in WWII this was not always the case.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Before I was stationed at the USDB, soldiers, airmen and marines all contributed to the guardforce. It isn't exactly common, but I have heard of joint service training ops and such like. Depending on the flavor of the campaign, they could all be attached to some training project or a "special" project and the campaign goes on from there for a while.

[Old Man]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Special ops is the best example of multiservice missions. SOCOM doesn't care what service you're from, only what your relative rank is, and even that doesn't count nearly as much as expertise. It's pretty common for solders of a certain rank to have superiors placed under them for purposes of an op.

 

Large-scale operations are coordinated at a theater HQ with representatives from each service. It is unusual for people in the field to have to fight alongside members of other services, though.

[BlackSword]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Just to say 'me too' Special Operations is likely the only place this would occur (unless its a Twilight 2000 Campaign and there are only a few survivors on the planet). Ensure that each character has a specialty so that command 'chose' the team to blend together the different specialities for particular assignements. This will require the most work the first mission, after that command can use the excuse that, 'you guys have worked together before...' As an option, off-screen during down time as GM you can have the PCs going back to their normal units.

 

Another option may be the Navy/Marine force set-up. They would normally be together on ships anyways. What are the specialities of each PC?

[starblaze]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Ok.

Denebian Pilot, in the UE Navy.

UE Marine Sniper

UE Army Machine Gunner

UE Army Special Forces Demolitions expert.

 

I can see a need for a combat medic, and maybe a close quarters kind of person.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Ok.

Denebian Pilot, in the UE Navy.

UE Marine Sniper

UE Army Machine Gunner

UE Army Special Forces Demolitions expert.

 

I can see a need for a combat medic, and maybe a close quarters kind of person.

For a "special ops" kind of team, the Navy guy seems like a natural (or at least logical) choice. They'd have the best pilots.

 

The Marine sniper could be a "watching your six" specialist, assigned for similar reasons.

 

One of the other two would have to be the team commander -- probably the demolitions guy.

 

They could be charged with the mission of sabotaging Xenovore outposts, boarding and destroying key vessels, assassinating their commanders in sticky trouble spots, and that sort of thing.

 

You could use an NPC for a medic; let him be the kind of guy who just stays on the ship until someone's hurt. The close-quarters combat specialist is a little less vital, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Old Man]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

I'd actually use an NPC for team commander. Make him totally incompetent and then kill him off early, so that the rest of the team must continue the mission without 'leadership'.

[freakboy6117]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

to borrow a world war two concept the original SAS where small desert raiding parties. they operated deep behind enemy lines with no contact with base there job was to harass the enemy where ever possible.

a similar small unit could be possible in a interstellar war. petrating enemy space in FTL capable shuttle craft or modified merchantmen.

 

a party of specialists could operate deep behind enemy lines where larger task forces would be unable to go . they could then target strategic objectives using infiltration.

a crew of one top navy pilot, an army ordinance/demolitions expert, an army signals Intel specialist and marine boarding/ship combat expert.

would make up a pretty good team for this sort of op, especially if they have some unusual experiences before joining up (say forced intop service for piracy, smuggling or bank robbery).

[Old Man]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Maybe they're criminals who have had their prison transport shot out from under them?

[pinecone]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Annother way to have a "scratch team" is to form as several "sole survivors" the teams bonds in adversity, then is kept together because of their "unique experiance and abilitys"

[Hopscotch]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Espionage agencies will often recruit millitary personel from various services. These people can, and often are, placed into operating groups with other agents of similar background.

In World War II, the OSS used people from all branches, but they were most often transferred to the Army. This is also an option.

 

You could also play with the idea of a combined service. It is possible that the millitary of the future could be run without branches. Perhaps If you mess about with military names for services, you could alter pre-soncieved notions of what those soldiers should be doing.

 

Remember that you have the power to alter the world any way that works for you and keeps your players happy.

 

Hopscotch

[The Monster]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

But- but- there's a whole mother lode of subplot material about inter-service rivalry! The team is put together for a mission that has caught the attetnion of the top brass, who are all going to be danged if they'll let the other services get the glory on this one! Plausible enough (remember the chopper raid on Iran to rescue the hostages?), and opportunity for some PC rivalry as well. On top of that, the inefficiencies that such a situation is begging for could lead to additional difficulties for the PCs when on mission.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

Hi,

 

I just started an Alien Wars game and I have some characters from different services. One is a UENavy offcier, and two are Army and one is Marine. One of my potential players had some problems with that because normally different services don't work together.

 

In addition to adding a "me too" to the basic idea of special ops teams remind your player of this: "Yes, normally different services don't work together - they also don't normally fight xenovores."

 

I'm all for preserving the bubble "suspension of disbelief", but really, if this he's having problems with this, how is he going to suspend his disbelief long enough to enjoy killing slimy green things from outer space? Unrealistic situations will sometimes call for unrealisting solutions.

 

----

 

Alternative solution. Declare that, in reaction to the special needs of space warfare, the joint chiefs are forming a new miltary branch and are poaching from the existing branches to provide the initial population of troops. This allows all of the characters to have as a background whatever flavor of military service the players want - but now they all hold equivalent rank in whatever this new branch is.

[Yansuf]

Re: Different Militaries working together; Alien Wars

 

But- but- there's a whole mother lode of subplot material about inter-service rivalry! The team is put together for a mission that has caught the attetnion of the top brass' date=' who are all going to be danged if they'll let the other services get the glory on this one! Plausible enough (remember the chopper raid on Iran to rescue the hostages?), and opportunity for some PC rivalry as well. [/quote']

 

I have to admit that I like that one!

 

Although I will mention, my experience was that the further from higher HQ you got, the less friction there was generally. (Not allways.)