Yansuf

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Don't touch the red button!

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots In some respects they did have "a sufficiently advanced technology"!

Re: Justice League - Versus - Al Qaeda What's wrong with that?

Re: On the Willful Killing and Maiming of NPCs The luck of the dice??! You are the GM, make it come out however you want, but don't blame the dice!

Re: Squad Level Ranking Structure For A Military SF Adventure ? Yes, Spec4, spec5, spec6 and spec7. Respectively, they were E4 to E7. Now only the spec4 remains, and since it is the only one, it is just called specialist.

Re: Squad Level Ranking Structure For A Military SF Adventure ? Well, for the MI I think Kristopher's idea is good. She can be a 1LT (O2) or a CPT (O3).

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots Didn't know there was a novel version. But that scene is GR8! Still, I have real problems with the series.

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots

Re: 7 Sci-Fi Series Ripe for Movie Reboots I can see a desire to remake some of these, but my god, some of these? An explosion in a nuclear waste dump causes the moon to leave orbit and go on a galactic tour; traveling FTL between new solar systems and then slowing down for a while in them, before going off FTL again? That isn't science fiction, that's fantasy! And frankly I find Mordor, Oz, and Xanth more believable. UFO (and SHADO)? The world's major powers agree to form an organization to fight Alien marauders, and keeps it secret by putting its HQ in an old movie studio? May as well make it an animated movie. Not to mention that the aliens' problem is hereditary sterility! Both of those should stay dead.

Re: 6th Edition Villains

Re: My Name Is Morty Just out of curiosity, is Morty from New Orleans?

Re: Sky Scorcher 1 megaton air-to-air missile (1956) If this was good planning, why didn't it get built? Answer, it was an idiot idea, and quickly recognized as such. No competent military planner would have taken this seriously. For all practical purposes, the "kill radius" goes up with the cube root of WH power, meaning increasing WH power is NOT the way to go. The US built a number of anti-aircraft weapons (missiles and rockets) in the cold war that had nuclear warheads, none of them were thermonuclear. The weapon yields were all in the low (or very low) kiloton range. As an aside, the navy did have a torpedo (Mk-45 as I recall) with a thermonuclear WH, but it was really for attacking navy bases. There are a VAST number of stories about weapons supposedly designed (and even built) in the 50's and 60's that clearly make no sense; the "atomic hand grenade" is probably the most quoted one. Very few of these stories have any real basis, at most someone did a paper study before the idea was scrapped. One that I believe (not sure) did make it into actual engineering design was the "atomic bullet" for light weapons. We are not talking the "nuclear mortar" here (which was made, and worked quite well) but shells for light cannon or smaller. As I heard it (when I was in military R&D) it was concluded that it was possible to make an "atomic bullet" with a yield of several hundred pound of TNT that could be fired from a 0.45 pistol. The idea was deemed worthless because the design required the use of material with a half life of less than a week. (The problems with that should be obvious.) For the record, true nuclear airbursts (fireball does not touch ground) leave effectively NO fallout. The only radioactive material that can "fall out" of the cloud is the bomb's own material, which was about 10 tons for the earliest bombs, and quickly dropped to much less. A surface burst vaporizes millions of tons of material, which is made radioactive in the process. Concerning "city killers", one megaton does qualify. The most powerful weapons the US had in the cold war were approximately 20 megatons, and were bombs (for B-52s and such to drop), not missile warheads.

Re: Squad Level Ranking Structure For A Military SF Adventure ? Well, as you have described it, it is not a standard unit, so all normal bets are off. The leader can be an officer, even a fairly senior one. Personally I would make the leader a major or captain. It can have a medical officer (MD) if you want, although I wouldn't expect that unless the problem involves a specific medical issue, such as looking for a new bio-war item. Otherwise, the medic is probably a special forces type, cross-trained in medical and some other military speciality; probably with an NCO rank. The others can include another officer, or be all enlisted. With this set-up they can easily include both army/marine and navy types.

Re: Squad Level Ranking Structure For A Military SF Adventure ? Several Points to consider: Current (Earth) militaries do things differently. For example, in the US Army the squad leader (9 to 11 man squad) is a SSG (Staff Sgt), while the squad's 2 fire teams each have a Sgt to lead them. That is at full strength of course, in the field units are often under strength, and can have leaders with less than the authorized rank. The USMC uses Cpl for fire team leader, and Sgt for squad leader. They used to have 3 fire teams per squad, I don't know if they still do. The UK (and most of the Commonwealth) use Cpl as squad leader, with LCpl as assistant leader, in an 8 man squad. Soviet squads were 8 men with a Sgt leader, they did not split into fire teams. I believe the Russian army uses the same organization. So you first have to choose what you are patterning your organization on. Second, special forces generally use organizations that differ from the usual. For the US, Green Berets are organized in 12 man "A Teams" with a CPT leading and a WO second in command. Per TO&E there is a MSG and 9 other NCOs with ranks from Sgt to SFC. Of course in the field some of the men are less than the authorized rank. USN Seals use units of 8 men, with a Naval LT (O-3) in command, a LT(jg) and a CPO. Soviet Spaznetz teams used to have 8 to 12 men with a LT leading, I think the Russians still use the same. So again, what are you basing your unit on? And is your 6 troop unit the full strength TO&E, or is 6 just what they have out of what is supposed to be a larger unit? In the movie "Aliens" the Colonial Marine platoon has 11 troops, with a 2LT leader. It was clear that they were at least under strength by one, probably 2 or 3. On the specialist issue, the US Army used to have a fair number of enlisted personnel with college degrees, I believe it still does. Someone with a college degree can enlist with an offer to attend OCS, or they can just enlist. For some very technical specialties like medical doctors, dentists, etc. direct commissions are available, but most college degrees will not get you one. A medic (or medical corpsman in the USN serving with the USMC) is not a doctor or even a "physicians assistant"; an actual doctor would be a commissioned officer. A PA (physicians assistant) could be a warrant officer or could be commissioned. But neither would be with a non special operations unit that small. Even in special forces, the A team of 12 does not have a Dr. or PA. (I do not recall if the "B Team" has one, I think they do. I am sure the "C Team" does. B Teams control a company of several A Teams and have a Major in command; C Teams control a bn of several companies and have a LTC in command.) However, the special forces medic course (which is much longer than the regular medic course, 26 weeks I believe) does train them to perform surgery; they are probably better trained for emergency surgery than a surgical intern with an MD. The special forces medics are still NCOs however. I hope this helps. If you give more information about what you are trying to do, and what model your "army" is based on, you can get more specific info.

Re: Freedom from the Reich Maybe today, but in WWII?

Re: Giant Ant Lair Not only that, the movie is as good as the story.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The first two sound interesting. I am pretty sure someone has done the last. (If they haven't, they should.)

Re: Morgaine the Mystic of Crimelords I agree completely.

Re: Greatest Western Movies of all Time If we want to define the genre, we need to concentrate on older movies than most of the ones selected in this thread. The genre was defined before the first spaghetti western movie was filmed. Stagecoach Ox-Bow Incident My Darling Clementine Red River High Noon Hondo Shane Gunfight at OK Corral 3:10 from Yuma (original) Rio Bravo The above pretty much defined the western. There are many GR8 westerns that were made later, but the definitions were made by the end of the 1950's. Of the later films, I admit to a fondness for Silverado, and Quigley Down Under.

Re: Does the CU have a Franklin Richards? Not as scary as his adult version. But I still stay away from that corn field.

Dr. Jerry Pournelle (website: http://www.jerrypournelle.com) speculated today that: "the interesting theory just now is "Dark Matter is Ether" ". I found it very interesting

Re: Martial Arts Resources I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but the old comic "Magnus Robot Fighter" had lots of human vs. robot martial arts scenes.

Re: Love for Non-Casters? Good question. It seems to have disappeared.

Re: Ultraviolet vision- What the heck would it do? So did I-Beam shoot standard or wide flange I beams? Both count as physical attacks of course. (Hey, I'm a structural engineer. I know what I beams are.)

Re: Love for Non-Casters? Any reason for the double post?