| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
YodaWI
Lieutenant
Joined: 12 Jul 2008
Posts: 97
Location: Watertown, WI
|
 Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject: Military Adventure ideas/suggestions |
 |
|
I am currently reading The Mission, The Men, and Me by Pete Blaber, a former Delta Force Commander and was inspired with what I think is a good roleplaying crossover.
Throughout the book, he points out how the U.S. Militiary's strict adherence to the chain of command has negatively affected the man/men on the ground.
In Star Wars terms, I thought of several applications that would work with any group receiving orders from a superior.
1. The character(s) receive orders from a superior several star systems away that are clearly the wrong decision. What do the characters do? Follow orders or risk court martial or worse because they feel it is the right thing to do.
2. The characters receive orders and a battle plan that they can clearly see is full of holes, but are ordered to carry them out, despite their objections. How far are the characters willing to deviate from the plan?
3. Characters serving as scouts or conducting recon mission may snuff out a trap, and have to convince superior to abort or change attack plan. If unable, must prevent trap from being sprung or save main force under attack. After the battle, may have to swallow pride when superior takes credit for great victory.
4. Characters may get into heated discussion with commander about tactics/plan. May lead to future friction between them.
5. Characters may uncover info on enemy movements/plans/etc. but superior refuses to act on it. Do the characters act on their own?
Ex. A fighter squadron locked in a bitter dogfight are ordered to retreat, yet the squadron commander knows that they are in no position to turn and run without losing a large portion of his squadron.
Ex. Characters are ordered directly into the teeth of the enemy (ie. Pickett's Charge)
In the aftermath, depending on results and decisions made, the characters also have to decide how much they need to report/cover-up.
Real-life example - At the end of the war, Easy Company of 101st Airborne was ordered to carry out prisoner snatch. Dick Winters, company commander, filed a phony report and never carried out the order, choosing to save the lives of his men, rather than carry out a foolish mission when the war was clearly coming to an end.
On the flip side, the characters may have the opportunity to exploit bone-headed command decisions by the opposition.
(I also wanted to take the chance to promote the book and TV show The Unit  It is my favorite show and may be cancelled due to viewership.)
_________________
"May the Force Be With You." |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
Very good ideas. U.S. military doctrine made WWII hard to win, especially since German doctrine was very different.
There is lots of room for some serious good roleplay in your examples.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rerun941
Commander
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Actually, German military doctrine was MUCH stricter than US Doctrine during WWII. The Germans wouldn't do anything without specific orders from superiors. It cost them a lot of speed, flexibility and initiative.
This would be an interesting RP scenario for Star Wars. You get dropped onto a planet with little or no intel about Imperial activities. How much do you improvise? What do you do if the objective has changed significantly?
Follow orders to the letter or improvise?
One of the great strengths of the US military has been it's ability to quickly adapt to changing situations.
One of our favorite sayings while I was in the Air Force was "Flexibility, it's the key to airpower... and Gumby."
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Perhaps at the lowest level. But the German infantry was set up to allow the field commanders to make decisions instead of people in a headquarters hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The US doctrine today is not the same as it was in WWII. Matter of fact, I'm sure it's a far cry.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
YodaWI
Lieutenant
Joined: 12 Jul 2008
Posts: 97
Location: Watertown, WI
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I certainly didn't mean to cause a big debate or cause any offense to current and former military personnel.
I was just mentioning what inspired the ideas.
_________________
"May the Force Be With You." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rerun941
Commander
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| YodaWI wrote: | I certainly didn't mean to cause a big debate or cause any offense to current and former military personnel.
I was just mentioning what inspired the ideas. |
No worries, YodaWI. It makes a great subject for games and an interesting topic for discussion.
Don't forget that US military doctrine has had to adapt to over 60 years of technological advances in communication, speed of forces, changes to logistics, etc. So yes, the doctrine has changed tremendously since WWII. It's HAD to. And since that time, US doctrine has been specifically written to give commanders in the field flexibility. We had to learn that lesson the hard way after examining the way in which Vietnam was commanded from Washington DC.
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rerun941
Commander
Joined: 27 Jul 2004
Posts: 459
Location: San Antonio, TX
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ok, back on topic...
I would envision a New Republic military campaign to be similar to the Pacific Campaign during WWII.
Coruscant = The Japanese main islands and the NR military is conducting a "planet hopping" campaign to take back the core worlds. Start from the Outer Rim and head down the trade routes into the Core Worlds.
I could see some interesting parallels... and some excellent adventure opportunities.
The PCs as the crew of PT109, anyone?
_________________
Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lostboy
Commander
Joined: 22 Aug 2008
Posts: 384
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Dark trooper project had it right, tread softly and carry a big gun. The invasion force was ostencibly controlled from the orbiting Arc Hammer which would give real time updates and mission objectives to the dark troopers on the ground. Once issued orders the Dark troopers would carry out the mission objectives in what ever way they deemed appropriate.
That would be a good way to field the characters, have them as a team of power armour soldiers that perform orbital drops just like the mandalorians with there basilisk war droids with real time updates from field command. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| jmanski wrote: | Perhaps at the lowest level. But the German infantry was set up to allow the field commanders to make decisions instead of people in a headquarters hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The US doctrine today is not the same as it was in WWII. Matter of fact, I'm sure it's a far cry. |
Being a bit of a WWII buff and the son of a WWII vet, I can't help but comment on this.
While I have never read either doctrine, I can tell you that Hilter frequently interfered with the operations of his generals, usually from hundreds of miles away. A few instances include the battle of Lenningrad, the battle of Stalingrad and the defense of Normandy on D-Day. Neither Lenningrad nor Stalingrad were originally part of Operation Barbarosa (the invasion of Russia) both were ordered taken by Hitler for what is believed to be morale and propiganda use.
Lenningrad arguably delayed Army Group North long enough that they failed to take Moscow, northern Russia's major communication and transportation hub, and were instead caught by the Russian winter, without sufficient winter gear. Barbarosa was intended to be a Summer Campaign.
General Paulus in command of the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad repeatedly asked for permission to withdraw from the city and regroup, because he could see the trap closing, but Hitler refused to allow it. Hitler even went so far as to promote Paulus to Field Marshall the night before the surrender of the city, to try to get Paulus to fight to the last man.
On D-Day, Rommel was the commander of the invasion defense, though he was in Austria that day, but von Rundstedt was Supreme Commander West. Rommel and von Rundstedt, disagreed over the method of invasion defense, Rommel wanted to defend every last grain of sand, von Rundstedt wanted to let the allies land and then counter attack them off of the continent, so they argued over the placement of the Panzer reserves. Hitler got involved and essentially placed them under his direct command, von Rundstedt had to ask for permission to deploy them, and as a result they sat inactive for most of D-Day, well past the point of being able to push the allies back into the sea. People are always saying that we should have assassinated Hitler, but I tell them he was arguably our greatest ally, his constant interference with the German war machine all but Hamstrung them.
I do agree that the war was more difficult to win than it should have been, but that was largely due to politics, Ike was a political general, one of the things I don't like about him. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the man, but his political approach to things just irks me.
On Topic:
I think those are some great ideas for a military adventure/campaign.
Rerun941's idea of applying the Pacific Theater is an interesting one, that could work very well. Although if you put the PC's on the PT109, lets hope they don't put the ship in neutral while they are in a combat zone |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
YodaWI
Lieutenant
Joined: 12 Jul 2008
Posts: 97
Location: Watertown, WI
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
Another example of Hitler's interference would have been in North Africa. Hitler relied to heavily on the Italians and never gave Rommel the men and supplies he needed, or he would defeated the British before the U.S. ever got there.
(I am a WWII buff as well!)
_________________
"May the Force Be With You." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 2065
Location: Kansas
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
And don't forget, GL was heavily influenced by WWII.
| Quote: |
Throughout the book, he points out how the U.S. Military's strict adherence to the chain of command has negatively affected the man/men on the ground.
|
Now let me spin that comment this way. While there can be negative affects, there can be unrealized (by the man on the ground) benefits. Perhaps a GM can sneak in information about how previous missions are benefiting the present missions and/or war.
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| YodaWI wrote: | Another example of Hitler's interference would have been in North Africa. Hitler relied to heavily on the Italians and never gave Rommel the men and supplies he needed, or he would defeated the British before the U.S. ever got there.
(I am a WWII buff as well!) |
Agreed, though a good portion of Rommel's supply problems came from ULTRA(the allies breaking of the German Enigma code), which allowed the allies to know when, where, how, and even what supplies were being shipped to Rommel. They sank a good portion of them but always made sure to let enough get through to hide the secret of ULTRA. Any prolonged campaign by Rommel was doomed by this alone. His only hope was swift victory. An interesting note about ULTRA is that Monte was one of the few allied field generals that were privy to it, which means that when the battle of El Alamein was fought Monte was reading Rommel's mail and still had problems with Rommel's defense, a testament to Rommel's leadership and the ability of the Afrika Corps.
Of course, after El Alamein north Africa was lost and Rommel knew it, Hitler again tried interfering by ordering Rommel to counter attack and take it back, but Rommel refused. He only got away with this because he was such a huge war hero to the German people.
| jmanski wrote: |
And don't forget, GL was heavily influenced by WWII.
Quote:
| Quote: | | Throughout the book, he points out how the U.S. Military's strict adherence to the chain of command has negatively affected the man/men on the ground. |
Now let me spin that comment this way. While there can be negative affects, there can be unrealized (by the man on the ground) benefits. Perhaps a GM can sneak in information about how previous missions are benefiting the present missions and/or war. |
Absolutely, I would even go as far as to suggest that you 'bait' the PC's into making the wrong choice by providing them with insufficient information, so that their orders seem to be ridiculous and after they have chosen to disobey them, in an after action type report you give them the crucial information that made the orders relevant. The consequences they pay should be relatively minor in this case, as it's an education tool, so that they understand what the choices actual military commanders face on the ground are. "Do I obey these orders which seem to be utter nonsense, realizing that I don't have a complete picture of what's going on here or do I disobey them and follow what I see is the best course of action before me." Commanding troops is never easy and no commander ever has enough information at the time.
If they won't take the bait then you reverse it, by truly giving them bad orders and afterwords let them find out that hard fought piece of ground was absolutely worthless and had no effect on the campaign, so any loses or sacrifices that were made there were in vain. Even better if there was another objective nearby that would have had a significant effect on the Campaign. If you go this route then the alternate objective should be mentioned in the mission brief, with enough info that the PC's might be able to see it's worth, but with a lot of emphasis on dismissing it and talking up of their ordered target.
Something along the lines of: "We'll be inserting your team here along with an additional squad (or more) that were placing under your command for this mission. You'll have to overland it to the objective, but you can't take a direct route as that will run you straight into a military weapons research facility, so you'll have to go around it at a safe distance. Your actual objective is a forward HQ where we're hoping that you can capture some high ranking officers of the System Command...We have not hard got any intel on who is at the HQ, but we believe that if any of the System Command is in the area, they will most likely be at this HQ. Uh, what's that?...No we have no hard intel on the locations of the System Command either, uhem...but as I said if any of them are in the area then we're sure that this is where they will be." |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Yak Face
Lieutenant
Joined: 02 Jul 2008
Posts: 82
Location: Michigan
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I think it's a great concept. I recently wrapped up a pirate campaign where the PC's were the commanders, but also went on the field missions (sorta Trek-ish in a way). Few plans ever survived first contact with the enemy. The PC in overall charge often caught a lot of flak for that reason. So did some of the support NPC's I used as plot devices. There was more real role playing generated by goof ups than I could have expected.
I bet your group will have fun with it, and there will be plenty of discussions about those adventures in times to come.
_________________
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -Sir Winston Churchill |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Yak Face wrote: | I think it's a great concept. I recently wrapped up a pirate campaign where the PC's were the commanders, but also went on the field missions (sorta Trek-ish in a way). Few plans ever survived first contact with the enemy. The PC in overall charge often caught a lot of flak for that reason. So did some of the support NPC's I used as plot devices. There was more real role playing generated by goof ups than I could have expected.
I bet your group will have fun with it, and there will be plenty of discussions about those adventures in times to come. |
Sounds like it was a very fun Campaign.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Yak Face
Lieutenant
Joined: 02 Jul 2008
Posts: 82
Location: Michigan
|
| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
It was pretty good, really. One of the best we've done, and I've been RPG-ing with this group for, gosh, 15+ years off and on.
The nice thing with a military campaign - even if your PC's are more special ops or support types - is that it opens up options to do things that are simply outside the scope of a standard rebel or smuggler campaign. The great possibilities for conflicting loyalties, joy and disappointment, etc. are one side. The potential for sheer scale is another.
For example, my pirate PC's were in charge of a capital ship (I had to cobble together a cap ship combat system from the various rules out there - it led to some great fights). They started on the standard Far Orbit, but then went on the Graveyard of Alderaan mission. Rather than hand over the Another Chance to the Rebs, they handed over the escort frigate instead and thus upgraded. Military-scale objectives made it possible to give the PC's fun toys without disrupting balance. What can one guy with a really fantastic gun/bomb/computer/etc do when engaged in a massive engagement or facing a big Imperial/pirate/crime lord target? They dealt with budgets in the millions of credits, and still felt poor because their expenses and aspirations scaled-up. They had entire squadrons of fighters, and would lose hand fulls of them per battle sometimes. They were always scrambling to maintain and develop their force. Sometimes the PCs started to have turf wars, sometimes they didn't like the idea of following orders, sometimes they would sneak off to do crazy stuff, and before the end they all nearly bought the farm due to the treason of one (rightly) disgruntled PC.
Anyway, I'm droning on so I'll stop. But I think that if you have time as GM to work on it you'll find it quite rewarding.
_________________
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -Sir Winston Churchill |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
