Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-09-2017, 05:24 PM   #11
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: US-born master of Kachin Bando in the 70s to 90s? [Dell'Orto]

I made the mentor NPC one SGM Than Yamaguchi of the 2 Bn/7th SFG(A), born in 1946. Grew up in Huntington Beach, CA, joined the US Army right after high school.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 05:29 PM   #12
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Does anyone know what Style Familiarity should apply for elite American soldiers or covert operators trained in the late 1970s and the 1980s?

If anyone knows, were Delta operators trained in something close enough to Fairbairn Close Combat Fighting to use that Style Familiarity?

What should I use, say, for someone who joined the US Army around 1973 and the Special Forces around 1977 and was among the first Delta operators?

Or someone who was with the CIA Phoenix Program and Special Activities Division through the 70s and 80s, after a brief career as a helicopter gunner in the US Army in Vietnam?
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 02-09-2017 at 05:32 PM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 05:47 PM   #13
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
Does anyone know what Style Familiarity should apply for elite American soldiers or covert operators trained in the late 1970s and the 1980s?
Assaulter primarily, snipers have Sharpshooter.

Quote:
If anyone knows, were Delta operators trained in something close enough to Fairbairn Close Combat Fighting to use that Style Familiarity?
Probably not, Fairbairn was basically completely abandoned after Rex Applegate retired at the end of the War and 1st SFOD-D didn't exist until '77.

Quote:
What should I use, say, for someone who joined the US Army around 1973 and the Special Forces around 1977 and was among the first Delta operators?
Rifleman, Assaulter, and maybe Sharpshooter.

The Army had basically abandoned combatives, and won't take them seriously again until 1998 when they adopted LINE (and replaced it with MAC a few years later).

Anecdotally, some operators maybe trained in the popular styles in America during the period on their own though, things like Boxing, Collegiate Wrestling, and Judo. An acquaintance of mine learned Judo from a former Army SF guy.

Quote:
Or someone who was with the CIA Special Activities Division through the 70s and 80s, after a brief career as a helicopter gunner in the US Army in Vietnam?
I can't really find any specifics on SAD combatives during that period (for probably the obvious reason). Current SAD operatives apparently learn Krav Maga and likely crosstrain as well. I suspect they probably didn't have a big focus on it after the OSS was absorbed into the Agency, though they probably retained some Fairbairn sentry removal and self-defense training.

They did switch from Point-Shooting to Modern Pistol at some point prior to that, and presumably were an early adopter of Assaulter.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 02-09-2017 at 05:50 PM.
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 06:12 PM   #14
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Assaulter primarily, snipers have Sharpshooter.
Granted.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Probably not, Fairbairn was basically completely abandoned after Rex Applegate retired at the end of the War and 1st SFOD-D didn't exist until '77.

Rifleman, Assaulter, and maybe Sharpshooter.

The Army had basically abandoned combatives, and won't take them seriously again until 1998 when they adopted LINE (and replaced it with MAC a few years later).

Anecdotally, some operators maybe trained in the popular styles in America during the period on their own though, things like Boxing, Collegiate Wrestling, and Judo. An acquaintance of mine learned Judo from a former Army SF guy.
Background-wise, there was an Incident some 17 years back in the campaign. Three people died and several more were wounded or otherwise suffered. Two people escaped from confinement and several were arrested, with none of them charged with anything (most were determined to be victims, not criminals). One girl was arrested, but never made it to trial.

I want my character to have a theory of what happened and who killed whom. It doesn't necessarily have to be the truth, that's up to the GM, but the Incident is something he'll have thought about a lot over the years. He will have heard a lot of rumours from first responders, base security and maybe even the MPs/CID, but won't have access to crime scene data (not that he'd have the skills to interpret it).

I thought he might have a theory on who killed a friend of his who died based on what he believes to be a 'signature' sentry removal technique of his preferred killer. He sparred against both of the soldiers who escaped during their time at this base, one of them a couple of time in training and the other, prior to his arrest, a lot during their free time.

There are three suspects, the two escapees and the arrested girl. The arrested girl wasn't a trained soldier or martial artist. One escapee was an operator of the 7th SFG(A) who had been accused of a crime, but the trial was delayed so that the last weeks of the experimental data could be gathered. And the third escapee was a Chief Warrant Officer (CW3) of a 7th SFG(A) ODA who was one of the original Delta operators back in his enlisted days, but had been arrested for smuggling drugs into the base.

My character suspects former CW3 Raul Vargas killed his friend SPC Luis Chavez. What would be a good 'signature' killing method that my PC believes Vargas killed him with?

I thought maybe he broke his neck by Throwing from the Lock. What would be a suitable martial art for that, one that a Delta operator who may be a Bully, Callous, a Sadist or at least have some sort of compulsion related to violence*, might learn in the 1980s?

*He clearly had a high Self-Control number, because while he did get into a lot of fights, they were fights where he had been able to get the other party to throw the first punch and/or they happened while off duty and off base; and he was good at leaving before cops arrived.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
I can't really find any specifics on SAD combatives during that period (for probably the obvious reason). Current SAD operatives apparently learn Krav Maga and likely crosstrain as well. I suspect they probably didn't have a big focus on it after the OSS was absorbed into the Agency, though they probably retained some Fairbairn sentry removal and self-defense training.

They did switch from Point-Shooting to Modern Pistol at some point prior to that, and presumably were an early adopter of Assaulter.
My character probably suspects that Holden, the former CIA puke, can't fight unless the other party has been tied up for him by El Salvadoran death squads, anyway. He's got Car-Battery-Do and Waterboard-Fu.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 02-09-2017 at 06:16 PM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 06:59 PM   #15
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
. And the third escapee was a Chief Warrant Officer (CW3) of a 7th SFG(A) ODA who was one of the original Delta operators back in his enlisted days, but had been arrested for smuggling drugs into the base.

My character suspects former CW3 Raul Vargas killed his friend SPC Luis Chavez. What would be a good 'signature' killing method that my PC believes Vargas killed him with?

I thought maybe he broke his neck by Throwing from the Lock. What would be a suitable martial art for that, one that a Delta operator who may be a Bully, Callous, a Sadist or at least have some sort of compulsion related to violence*, might learn in the 1980s?
Taking Sir Pudding as correct about official Army HtH and the lack thereof you've got a GI picking up some Style from somewhere else on his own.

Unfortunately the possible choices are extremely broad. You've got soldiers bringing back Styles from Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, the Phillipines and maybe even Thailand. Then you have immigrants bringing something from almost everywhere else.

When you already have a (I think) fairly rare Burmese immigrant learning a family style of Kachin Bando there's very little that's even rarer. No Sambo maybe. Indonesian Silat and Kuntao styles might be as rare as the Kachin Bando but not really rarer. Spending a year at a kibbutz in Israel and learning Krav Maga would be less rare if anything.

The only things I'm sure you can exclude are the styles that didn't exist in the time period.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 07:22 PM   #16
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Taking Sir Pudding as correct about official Army HtH and the lack thereof you've got a GI picking up some Style from somewhere else on his own.

Unfortunately the possible choices are extremely broad. You've got soldiers bringing back Styles from Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, the Phillipines and maybe even Thailand. Then you have immigrants bringing something from almost everywhere else.

When you already have a (I think) fairly rare Burmese immigrant learning a family style of Kachin Bando there's very little that's even rarer. No Sambo maybe. Indonesian Silat and Kuntao styles might be as rare as the Kachin Bando but not really rarer. Spending a year at a kibbutz in Israel and learning Krav Maga would be less rare if anything.

The only things I'm sure you can exclude are the styles that didn't exist in the time period.
It can be a common style, as long as I can exclude the other two suspects as unable/unwilling/unlikely to perform the alleged signature lethal technique.

At the time, CW3 Vargas outweighs Pvt. Sherilyn Bell by more than 100 lbs. and he's got at least 50 lbs. on SSG Santiago Garcia. It's theoretically possible that (former) SGT Julio Sosa Killed SPC Chavez before being killed himself, but even then, SGT Sosa was an unscientific brawler without any interest in martial arts, sparring or combatives and while he was in decent shape, he was a full weight class below Vargas and nowhere near as serious about weight lifting.

That's why I thought about breaking the neck of SPC Chavez. Throwing from a Lock is a high skill move, but it also requires ST to execute effectively, especially against an alert soldier who would have been rushing for a phone and/or something to defend himself with.

It looks like some of the most common martial arts to be trained on one's own time in the US military of the 70s and 80s are boxing, collegiate wrestling, Judo, (Korean) karate and other forms of Korean martial arts, learned from allied ROK personnel while stationed in Korea and/or while fighting alongside them in Vietnam. None sound very promising as far as neck-snapping throws go.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 02-09-2017 at 07:27 PM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 07:36 PM   #17
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Military Hand-to-Hand for 1970s and 1980s?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
It can be a common style, as long as I can exclude the other two suspects as unable/unwilling/unlikely to perform the alleged signature lethal technique.
As it occurs to me that you have the time period and plotline of a Chuck Norris movie I hereby recommend some school of Okinawan Karate in his honor.

Pure Te and 3 of the listed descendant Karate schools have TA(Exotic Hand Strike Vitals) and/or Lethal Strike listed among their Cinematic Skills. MA does comment that Techniques like Lethal strike Aren't realistically impossible as very difficult and seldom taught. So some school of Okinawan Karate could have some of all of the above, possibly as Secret techniques.

Throw from Lock feels rather contemporary to me and while it is potentially a lethal move I wouldn't rate it as being a "sentry removal" Technique. A Secret Sword Hand that ruptured Vital Organs sounds more 80-ish to me.
__________________
Fred Brackin
Fred Brackin is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 08:44 PM   #18
Warlockco
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Colorado
Default Re: US-born master of Kachin Bando in the 70s to 90s? [Dell'Orto]

Some people do learn martial arts as a "hobby" especially a soldier that wants to "broaden" their knowledge base.

So the PC could show an interest in hand-to-hand especially after the NCO took down someone hard (i.e. a trainee was a bit better than expected and had to resort to non-standard moves), which got the PC to start asking the NCO about his moves.
Warlockco is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2017, 10:26 PM   #19
sir_pudding
Wielder of Smart Pants
 
sir_pudding's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: US-born master of Kachin Bando in the 70s to 90s? [Dell'Orto]

My dad served during that period and he tells a story about a buddy of his, who when a junior officer was bragging about his sensei asked, "You say he's fast, is he faster than a bullet?"
"No."
"Good, I can still kill him."
sir_pudding is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-10-2017, 12:54 AM   #20
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: US-born master of Kachin Bando in the 70s to 90s? [Dell'Orto]

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
My dad served during that period and he tells a story about a buddy of his, who when a junior officer was bragging about his sensei asked, "You say he's fast, is he faster than a bullet?"
"No."
"Good, I can still kill him."
So far, in the game, my PC has not been allowed near a gun. Aside from the whole convicted criminal thing, the adventure is set within a maximum security wing of an asylum for the criminally insane. The guards don't even have guns, only the ones pulling tower duty outside on the island do.

The guards do have a nightstick and some Mace-spray, though. I doubt they'll be able to deploy either fast enough when the time comes that they need it. I'm got a feeling that our characters walked into a situation where violence is coming, but my PC is (probably wrongly) expecting it from the guards, because he's not entirely objective when it comes to sweet, innocent little Sherilyn Bell.

Even when we encounter people with guns, the point is not so much whether anyone is faster than a bullet. The point is that when someone with Basic Speed 9+, DX 15+, Extra Attack and unarmed (and/or melee) combat skills at 18+ is less than ten feet away, how fast can you draw and fire accurately?

If the goal of the adventure were just to kill the people with mysterious powers from a secret round of military drug tests, there would be no need for PCs. It would all be Predator drones and indignant denials at later tense international summits. It's because they are still trying to study them/us, alive and preferably cooperative, that our PCs are adventuring. And we expect to speak with more dangerous, unstable people that we are not supposed to kill in the future.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Last edited by Icelander; 02-10-2017 at 01:41 AM.
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
bando, jade serenity, kachin bando, martial arts, peter v. dell'orto, thaing

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:28 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.