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Old 02-10-2014, 03:23 PM   #11
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Default Re: Mission for Spec Ops - Opinions?

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It's gonna be really hard to maintain plausible deniability if you level a facility in sovereign nation nation with a cruise missile from an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. What I get from the OP is that this op is supposed to be covert, hence them trying to bring weapons and gear that don't immediately ID them as US/NATO.
You could, however, roll a B2 out of some airbase on a "routine training flight" and drop a low residue thermobaric device on the facility...
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Old 02-10-2014, 03:26 PM   #12
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It could be that the chemical weapon is easily dispersed by explosion, but also easily neutralized if you have access to it.

Infiltrate
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Destroy Manufacturing Facility
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:12 PM   #13
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[QUOTE=johndallman;17

Less militarised, but still significantly. Lebanon will be a better bet, but is not terribly safe territory.

<fnord>[/QUOTE]

Not safe for tourists. It might actually be more safe then most places for a band of special forces with a bad attitude. Of course I might not be keeping up on Lebanese politics. At least if they are already big enough to handle the garrison of the WMD complex.
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:21 PM   #14
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It might actually be more safe then most places for a band of special forces with a bad attitude.
If it's known they're US special forces, that will (a) be linked with the attack in Syria and (b) there'll be plenty of people who want to capture or kill them. Anyone can get lucky with a gun. And once shooting starts, the Lebanese police and army will be wanting to catch them too, to find out what's going on.
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:27 PM   #15
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Default Re: Mission for Spec Ops - Opinions?

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Originally Posted by TheOneRonin View Post
It's gonna be really hard to maintain plausible deniability if you level a facility in sovereign nation nation with a cruise missile from an Arleigh Burke class destroyer. What I get from the OP is that this op is supposed to be covert, hence them trying to bring weapons and gear that don't immediately ID them as US/NATO.
It's still going to be hard to maintain deniability. "What's that, several dozen corpses lying around; nah we had nothing to do with THAT."

Maybe it would be best to brazen it out once the op is done. Cover-ups are blamed more for the covering then what they cover. It would probably go over reasonably well in domestic politics and as far as diplomacy goes, there will be no more then nominal protests and no one will really mind that an unpredictable player has lost access to WMDs.
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:35 PM   #16
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If it's known they're US special forces, that will (a) be linked with the attack in Syria and (b) there'll be plenty of people who want to capture or kill them. Anyone can get lucky with a gun. And once shooting starts, the Lebanese police and army will be wanting to catch them too, to find out what's going on.
Or maybe they will simply surround them and tail them until they are out of their hair like the Great King did with Xenophon's ten-thousand. They have no personal grudge for anything other then a temporary violation of their neutrality which is indeed a problem but one that might be best brought up at New York. Whereas a state that has been stable for a long time would find it fairly easy to intern them and just might if it hadn't been read in beforehand.
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:38 PM   #17
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It's still going to be hard to maintain deniability. ....no one will really mind that an unpredictable player has lost access to WMDs.
That's my issue with the WMD factory attack. No one really cares if we strike them. Especially in Syria. Better to make the SAD op about either a) confirming it exists at that site, b) preventing them from making more by capturing those capable of manufacturing it.
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Old 02-10-2014, 05:42 PM   #18
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Or maybe they will simply surround them and tail them until they are out of their hair like the Great King did with Xenophon's ten-thousand. They have no personal grudge for anything other then a temporary violation of their neutrality which is indeed a problem but one that might be best brought up at New York. Whereas a state that has been stable for a long time would find it fairly easy to intern them and just might if it hadn't been read in beforehand.
Of course Turkey, Israel, and Iraq are allies to a greater or lesser degree. Jordan is neutral. I don't know what Lebanon is I'm not sure anyone does. Certainly retreating through Jordan would be more dangerous then retreating through Lebanon unless they had been read in. Iraq would probably give us hospitality as a favor trade for propping their present regime up.

However the point remains; any other government you have to get permission to cross. Lebanon, just recovering from a warring states period, might conceivably be transitable. Also there are plenty of nooks and cranies in the mountains, and plenty of local tribal leaders to bribe and so on. More realistically, they couldn't prevent an air extraction from their territory and wouldn't have any reason to try once they were sure that was all that was intended. Protests can be made later.
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Old 02-10-2014, 06:02 PM   #19
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That's my issue with the WMD factory attack. No one really cares if we strike them. Especially in Syria. Better to make the SAD op about either a) confirming it exists at that site, b) preventing them from making more by capturing those capable of manufacturing it.
The op could be to neutralize the agent, then destroy the site. Though, the most likely scenario would be if the facility was in a civilian population center, which has a different set of hazards. That gives a good reason, politically, not to bomb the place sufficiently to destroy a factory, and to avoid releasing the agent (and being blamed for using chem weapons on civilians).

By "civilian population", I mean the neighborhood is largely populated with armed members of (if Lebanon) Hezbollah. Not everyone, sure, but a disproportionate number of the locals would be armed. Nearly everyone else would be actively friendly to Hezbollah, as everyone else would have been encouraged to go away. Given Israeli support, and the urgency implied by a risky op, a katyusha launch site or two would probably be in the area (Zelzals or something bigger from Syria might be better).

From the Israeli POV, and it's important given the scenario, if they think the threat of the weapon's use is real, they'd rather just crush the place with artillery, as it's in range. However, there might be pressure from the US to keep things cool in the name of peace talks or some such. So, the Israeli's invite the US, and it's (to be frank) superior operational capabilities, to handle the problem in a PC way. Of course, if the PC's fail to neutralize the chemical agent in time, and let HQ know it's done...back to plan A.

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Old 02-10-2014, 06:17 PM   #20
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I thought about this a bit more and it occurs to me that Hezbollah might not be your bad guy of choice for Lebanon in 2014.

Frankly, the place is a mess. Hezbollah is currently under pressure from what the West would call "jihadi" forces. This is because of Hezbollah's relationship with Syria. There's a lot of regional politicking with Saudi Arabia/Turkey/Iran stirring it up. A more interesting scenario might be an "enemy of my enemy" situation.

Hezbollah, using Mossad or Shin-bet intermediaries, wants a jihadi site taken out. Obviously, they'd rather not have the Israelis do it. However, they do need it done. America is almost as bad, but moving a step away might help keep Hezbollah fingerprints distant from the op. For Hezbollah, the ideal is that the site just die with no one knowing what happened. For Israel, chem weapons on border go away. For America, blowing up jihadis with chem weapons.

For the jihadis, dropping chem weapons on TelAviv from Lebanon provokes a cataclysmic response from Israel, depriving Syria of allies and helping to define their struggle as Islam vs. Israel.

To be honest, that part of the world is so weird right now, a Bond villain with a Bond plan to do Bond things wouldn't be beyond suspension of disbelief (except Moonraker...don't do that).
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