MGT Only: To SMG or Not - Comments Needed

[Vladika]

On the civilian/military thing, please, NO! A civilian can train to shoot in a combat situation as well as the military can, please don't make a physical skill out of a cultural/social issue.

Mike, how do you implement coolness under fire in MgT? I don't recall their being a specific rule for it. Personally (yes, I know this isn't in the rules) I use gun combat to include basic small unit tactics, squad or fire team level, not platoon, that'd be a Tactics proper skill. It's handy when your players want to run out of cover with no covering fire to remind them that their basic grasp of tactics says that's a bad idea!

Even the military CAN'T teach coolness under fire. They do some good psychiatric skills training and simulation to a degree. NOBODY knows how they, or anyone else, will react until they are under fire.

I've seen macho jocks cringe and cry like babies and nerds excel. You simply can't predict ahead of time. You train, train, train and see what happens when the time comes. (BTW, some of the bravest men I've ever seen piss their pants in combat.)

I like the idea of troop quality used as a combat modifier. Rightly, or wrongly, I assume veterans have come under fire and are better equipped for it than green troops. (No certainty of that though, but, what can you do in a game?)

 

[pendragonman]

When we have used it, we had coolness as a 7th stat.

Remember, coolness in crisis is not really teachable. You have it or you don't. You can get better at it (a +1 stat bonus off of the PD table), but you can't go from a completely useless person in a crisis to a completely in control person.


Coolness is not just an "under fire" issue, it really has to do with any crisis situation.

 

[McPerth]

Even the military CAN'T teach coolness under fire. They do some good psychiatric skills training and simulation to a degree. NOBODY knows how they, or anyone else, will react until they are under fire.

I've seen macho jocks cringe and cry like babies and nerds excel. You simply can't predict ahead of time. You train, train, train and see what happens when the time comes. (BTW, some of the bravest men I've ever seen piss their pants in combat.)

I like the idea of troop quality used as a combat modifier. Rightly, or wrongly, I assume veterans have come under fire and are better equipped for it than green troops. (No certainty of that though, but, what can you do in a game?)

That is (at lesat as I understand it) what de die in CT:MT represented in experience (used as morale). The modifiers for decorations, etc... could represent both the fact that he is already valrous if he earned them and the true experience of already having been in such difficult situations.

Also other games of GDW (T2K, IIRC 2300AD...) had the coolnes under fire as anorhter stat, modified by armed careers experience...

 

[aramis]

Even the military CAN'T teach coolness under fire. They do some good psychiatric skills training and simulation to a degree. NOBODY knows how they, or anyone else, will react until they are under fire.

They have, via the training changes, massively increased the ratio of men firing for effect, and firing in any given engagement. I'd say that's increased CUF somewhat. They pretty much have eliminated the issue of half the guys not firing in any given fire fight. They're still working on getting more fire for effect, but it's no longer the same 2-4 guys in a platoon getting all the hits. (Yeah, there are those 2-4 guys who almost always fire for effect -but now, they get a couple more guys firing for effect inconsistently.) TRADOC had a good report to DA on the why behind the changes of the 90's.

 

[JimMarn]

Coolness under fire, small unit tactics etc are not covered by weapon skills.

The skill is used to resolve the to hit task.

In the USA civilians can buy and train on military weapons, police forces can buy and train on military weapons.

So do you make a rule that says in a warlike culture civilians have access to military skills?

I have never heard of a US citizen being able to buy machine guns like the 30 cal and 50 cal. Nor mortars, artillery, tanks, etc.

 

[Vladika]

I have never heard of a US citizen being able to buy machine guns like the 30 cal and 50 cal. Nor mortars, artillery, tanks, etc.

Only if you have Class 3 firearms license. That's for starters. There are enormous other restrictions. Rich mans toy.

 

[hiro]

A little bit of thread drift, apologies...

Even the military CAN'T teach coolness under fire. They do some good psychiatric skills training and simulation to a degree. NOBODY knows how they, or anyone else, will react until they are under fire.

<snip>

I like the idea of troop quality used as a combat modifier. Rightly, or wrongly, I assume veterans have come under fire and are better equipped for it than green troops. (No certainty of that though, but, what can you do in a game?)

And for PCs?

Would you enforce something or leave it to the players to stay IC and be true to their characters unwritten CUF?

2300 has the advantage over Traveller of offering traits for PCs and Cool under fire is one of them granting higher initiative and better recon.

Sorry for repeating but how are people allowing for CUF in Traveller?

 

[CosmicGamer]

Sorry for repeating but how are people allowing for CUF in Traveller?

Tabletop strategy games are a whole different thing from tabletop role playing games for me. In a RPG, I let the player decide how they want to role play their character.

How would you simulate the following with a CUF mechanic?

I've seen the role play of a skilled military character as having PTSD and not willing to even pick up a gun again or initiate combat - but if someone were to try to lay their hands on them (even a friend trying to wake them from a nightmare) they would snap into reflexive full commando kill or be killed mode.

I've seen a player role play a character as having no desire to initiate or participate in combat and was quite cowardly unless it was to protect their sister; then they would do everything possible. (A Firefly Simon and River like situation).

To me, CUF is more of a what you do and not necessary as a separate game mechanic. Based on the choices a player/character makes I use the mechanics that are already in place.

Does the player/character decide to scramble for cover shooting wildly or stand their ground, aim and shoot? Do they dive for full cover instead of returning fire? Do they turn and run, ok, what are the mechanics for how far they can go in a round? Do they use diplomacy skill to try and defuse the situation? and so on

Would you enforce something or leave it to the players to stay IC and be true to their characters unwritten CUF?

Leave it to the players but just like any other situation, point out if they seam to be acting in a way that does not fit the character.

 

[Garyius2003]

On the civilian/military thing, please, NO! A civilian can train to shoot in a combat situation as well as the military can, please don't make a physical skill out of a cultural/social issue.

Mike, how do you implement coolness under fire in MgT? I don't recall their being a specific rule for it. Personally (yes, I know this isn't in the rules) I use gun combat to include basic small unit tactics, squad or fire team level, not platoon, that'd be a Tactics proper skill. It's handy when your players want to run out of cover with no covering fire to remind them that their basic grasp of tactics says that's a bad idea!

Having been both Army and Marine, and an MP, yes and no. The Marines use an initial course of fire very close to US civil competition courses, and also teach field firing building on those skills once they are trained to a reasonable degree. The Army goes pretty quickly to a reaction course of firing automatically on targets that are vaguely darker skinned and in vaguely eastern uniforms. The Marine initial course is easily done by civilians, and the pop-up ranges are harder to find but not impossible.

Both services use an urban course of realistic buildings and streets/sewers, and field courses, of MILES (blank fired laser tag) that are very useful. They also use tire houses for live fire building practice. These are very rare for civilian shooters, but they really put the polish on skills, and in particular in working as part of a unit.

Civvies can shoot IPSC/IDPA, and three gun, games that are good at run and gun semi realistic training, but not as good as the military courses, and do not teach teamwork.

So civilians can train up, close to but not as well as combat troops/MPs, and it costs a lot of time and money. They are much rarer than military with those skills.

 

[CosmicGamer]

They have, via the training changes, massively increased the ratio of men firing for effect, and firing in any given engagement. I'd say that's increased CUF somewhat. They pretty much have eliminated the issue of half the guys not firing in any given fire fight. They're still working on getting more fire for effect, but it's no longer the same 2-4 guys in a platoon getting all the hits. (Yeah, there are those 2-4 guys who almost always fire for effect -but now, they get a couple more guys firing for effect inconsistently.) TRADOC had a good report to DA on the why behind the changes of the 90's.

Not sure what periods of time and war front this is analyzing. A not so popular war with 1/3 of the forces drafted vs a fight against terrorism? Might be some factor other than training to consider?

 

[JimMarn]

Only if you have Class 3 firearms license. That's for starters. There are enormous other restrictions. Rich mans toy.

I know there are people who rebuild tanks, armored combat cars, etc. But the guns have to be non-functional.

I have seen on 'storage wars' tv show, when they go to Las Vegas, there is a gun range you can go to and fire auto weapons of various types. I had forgotten about this.

 

[mike wightman]

I hate to use TV shows to back up an internet discussion, but on both Sons of Guns and American Guns there were episodes where privately owned machine guns were the build of the week.

I remember one in particular where a fireman wanted his .3 cal machine gun converted so he could shoulder fire it.

Then there is this from Aramis on the other MgT weapons thread:

The guy I met with the most experience on a .50cal MG isn't military, and NEVER HAS BEEN. He's a guy who shoots for fun, and takes his .50cal to the range, last I ran into him, weekly. And yes, he's got a fully functional .50 BMG. He also owns a Vicars. He can casually shoot soda cans at half a mile.

Emphasis mine.

 

[aramis]

Not sure what periods of time and war front this is analyzing. A not so popular war with 1/3 of the forces drafted vs a fight against terrorism? Might be some factor other than training to consider?

The last published data I've seen was from GW I - before the nasty attrition. TRADOC, however, analysed the rates of fire from both all volunteer and from draftee units in the early 70's, and found no significant differences in 1st enlistment troops. While the report I read didn't say anything about reenlistees, anecdotal evidence from both Marines and Army Troops (both of who have improved the rates of fire and fire for effect by parallel changes in training, tho' Navy Training Command is less publish-happy than USAR-TRADOC) indicates that reenlistees tended to shoot more than 1st termers, but one bloke I know claims to have had a sergeant who never fired a shot on patrol, but was excellent outside of combat, and the troops made up for his near-panic in combat.

Really, there seem to be several responses to coming under fire:
1) Total panic - catatonia
2) Limited Panic - cover seeking
3) Limited panic - fire ineffectually
4) non-panic - fire for limited effect (suppression only)
5) non-panic - fire for effect (aimed)

The main gain seems to have been in moving men from #3 to #4, and from #2 to #3; they also seem to have weeded out most of the guys in group #1. (I know that one of the guys in my BT platoon washed out because, during the MILES gear exercises, he was unable to return fire. He was great on the range - 97% on the pop target course, 99% on the 50m static target shooting - but when it came to being shot at, he panicked, even knowing all that would happen would be a buzzer.

I know a guy who goes completely catatonic during Paintball. He panics during snowball fights as soon as a snowball comes within 10' of him. He was never in military service.

 

[Condottiere]

A rational army would run away.
~Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

 

[Tobias]

So, I am willing to be convinced. A few things to consider first though...

Somewhat late to the party, but here's my Cr 0.02...

I would not include a separate "SMG" skill, or a separate "Shotgun" skill, or even a separate "Beam Weapons" skill. In my games, I use the categories of "Handguns", "Long Arms"*, and "Heavy Weapons".

Why? Because not matter what the realism-based arguments are (I do have some firearms training myself, but I'm certainly not an expert), from a gaming viewpoint an "SMG" skill is superfluous. Even if SMGs do have some applications, these are too narrow to make investing in this skill worthwhile. So if efficiency-minded players can choose whether to take this skill or another, more broadly applicable firearms skill, they will do the latter. If they cannot choose, they will be miffed at being settled with a suboptimal skill. And if they are not efficiency-minded and would like their character to use an SMG for roleplaying reasons, a less narrow "Long Arms" skill won't prevent them from doing that.

The three categories I use have distinct patterns of usefulness in typical gaming situations, which is why I boiled them down as such:

Handguns - Can be hidden, offer the least amount of firepower**.
Long Arms - Cannot be hidden, offer generally better firepower.
Heavy Weapons - Cannot be hidden, offer even more firepower, nigh-universally illegal.

This gives players a good amount of choice of which kind of situation they'd like their characters to be good at, while at the same time preserving flexibility as to specific weapon technologies.

Finally, I should mention that in CT, some of the separate skills did have usefulness simply based on the idiosyncracies of the Law Level table. For example, the shotgun was useful because it was the most "legal" firearm. But I don't think this has a lot of merit, and I use a more flexible approach to law level anyway.

* I call the skill "Rifles", which is technically not correct since it also includes non-rifled weapons, but what the hell.
** "Firepower" being a general term also including effective range and the like.

 

[JimMarn]

I read somewhere, probably 10-20 years ago, that studies the military did mention the problems that aramis talks about. The study went back to the early 1800s, with more certain data for WW 1, WW 2, Korea, and Viet Nam.

The new training, I've seen bits of it on Military channel ( now called American Heroes Channel AHCH) and History channel, claims it works and has improved the unit response to surprise combat situations.

 

[hiro]

Jim

If you're interested in reading up on the subject start here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Killing

The book traces the changes in training and explains the whys and wherefores.

 

[rancke]

Handguns - Can be hidden, offer the least amount of firepower**.
Long Arms - Cannot be hidden, offer generally better firepower.
Heavy Weapons - Cannot be hidden, offer even more firepower, nigh-universally illegal.

Black powder weapons - available in lowish-tech settings.
Slug weapons - ubiquitous, easy to repair.
Laser weapons - no recoil, require ultra-tech suppliers, require ultra-tech specialist to repair.
Plasma and fusion weapons - as laser but even more so, require BD to handle, pack one humdinger of a punch.


Hans

 

[Tobias]

Black powder weapons - available in lowish-tech settings.
Slug weapons - ubiquitous, easy to repair.
Laser weapons - no recoil, require ultra-tech suppliers, require ultra-tech specialist to repair.
Plasma and fusion weapons - as laser but even more so, require BD to handle, pack one humdinger of a punch.

Are these categories actually all that relevant according to your refereeing experience? Availability sure isn't in my games. Players buy weapons at whatever tech they can during their travels, then keep them. In any case, player characters usually have other high-tech equipment (among other things, a starship) so even in theory I don't see where low-tech availability suddenly becomes an important factor for guns. Given a choice, I cannot see any player choosing "black powder weapons" above something more useful.

Repair seldom comes up (there are mostly no rules for this anyway), assuming that basic maintenance is carried out regularly. Has never been a factor in my games.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Given a choice, I cannot see any player choosing "black powder weapons" above something more useful.

Players may not choose it (unless they are Barbarians), but we have these things called NPCs, who may live on low-tech worlds, who also need skills to describe what they know how to do.