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Old 09-25-2012, 05:18 AM   #11
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Are the Zemplari troops normally assigned to police or military duties at any one time or do they handle both at the same time?
Well, there was never military action within Justicariate City itself, so they're either out there serving in more military roles, or down under performing in a police-like role. Things are complicated by a rather alien culture/mentality/society of the city, however.
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Old 09-25-2012, 06:14 AM   #12
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

It's less likely there will be a separate code of law and justice system. The service might have to obey the civil law code, both personally for the troops and collectively abiding by stuff like workplace safety, and civil rights.

Orders are probably at least a little more open to discussion - civil law isn't likely to allow anything more serious than firing you for disobeying one, or publically questioning your superiors stupidity, executing you isn't an option.

The pay scale may not be as flat as it is now. Flag officers might draw the kinds of multi-million dollar salaries corporate executives do.
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Old 09-25-2012, 06:24 AM   #13
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
It's less likely there will be a separate code of law and justice system. The service might have to obey the civil law code, both personally for the troops and collectively abiding by stuff like workplace safety, and civil rights.

Orders are probably at least a little more open to discussion - civil law isn't likely to allow anything more serious than firing you for disobeying one, or publically questioning your superiors stupidity, executing you isn't an option.

The pay scale may not be as flat as it is now. Flag officers might draw the kinds of multi-million dollar salaries corporate executives do.
Huh. Interesting comment on the pay scale. That hadn't occurred to me but it seems like a reasonable possibility.
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Old 09-25-2012, 07:24 AM   #14
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

(Warning: pet peeve ahead, proceed with caution...)

We don't make doctors by promoting the best nurses, we don't make engineers by promoting the best mechanics, we don't make judges by promoting the best paralegals.

The reason there is a split between the career paths of NCOs and commissioned officers isn't just mindless tradition.
NCOs and officers have different roles and need different skill sets and training. An NCO isn't just "an officer, but less so" and an officer isn't just "an NCO, but better."

Yes, you can close e.g. the pay and "respect" gap that exists in many militaries between NCOs and officers, and you can make officer candidates spend time "in the ranks" (and some militaries actually do those things), but there will be some split between NCO-types and officer-types.
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Old 09-25-2012, 07:51 AM   #15
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

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Originally Posted by nondescript handle View Post
(Warning: pet peeve ahead, proceed with caution...)

We don't make doctors by promoting the best nurses, we don't make engineers by promoting the best mechanics, we don't make judges by promoting the best paralegals.

The reason there is a split between the career paths of NCOs and commissioned officers isn't just mindless tradition.
NCOs and officers have different roles and need different skill sets and training. An NCO isn't just "an officer, but less so" and an officer isn't just "an NCO, but better."

Yes, you can close e.g. the pay and "respect" gap that exists in many militaries between NCOs and officers, and you can make officer candidates spend time "in the ranks" (and some militaries actually do those things), but there will be some split between NCO-types and officer-types.
As a possibility, it might seem that there are places where more divisions, rather than fewer, could make sense. Physicians, chaplains, etc, have officer ranks, but their role really isn't the same.
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Old 09-25-2012, 08:22 AM   #16
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

Another source of differences will be caused by how this new military fights.

Having a few well-educated officers boss around a bunch of well trained enlisted works great where you need lots of human (or equivalent) bodies to get things done. Spacecraft board troops who deploy in power armor and who have the bulk of the fighting occur via closely coordinated drones/robots are not going to have a similar makeup. Spacecraft crew commanded by an AI "Captain" that fights the ship who receives its orders from a human Commodore or Admiral will have a very different makeup than a current Naval ship or submarine.

And that has follow on effects. How does one arrest and court martial a captain who IS a ship? Its possible, but it will create changes in the culture of the military who has to consider it. If every human is in effect a pilot (power armor, mobile suits, giant robots), you are unlikely to be making every pilot an officer, even if the suits cost as much and fight as well as a modern fighting vehicle. Warrent Officers is one of those differences real world militaries go back and forth on, and how WOs are slotted into the chain of command is a subtle but significant way to change the culture of a new military.

If I recall correctly, GURPS Ogre had some thoughts on how one integrates an AI inside of a "can kill a battalion on its own" tank into a command structure. Might be good for inspiration.
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Old 09-25-2012, 08:52 AM   #17
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

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Originally Posted by Gardensnake View Post
One change I would institute is a truly self sufficient military in that they manufacture their own equipment to their needs not a civilian government doing it for them.
Wasn't the Egyptian military pretty much running a parallel society? With their own hotel resorts, factories, hospitals, educational facilities and so forth?
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Old 09-25-2012, 09:25 AM   #18
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

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Originally Posted by gjc8 View Post
As a possibility, it might seem that there are places where more divisions, rather than fewer, could make sense. Physicians, chaplains, etc, have officer ranks, but their role really isn't the same.
Is there any current military in which physicians and chaplains are true officers?
In most militaries I'm familiar with they get some special titles and are treated as officers in terms of pay grade and "perks" (e.g. officer mess). Or in GURPS terms Courtesy Rank.

I already wrote that I can easily envision that NCO-types and officer-types have similar pay (in the current German armed forces for example the pay grades for NCOs and officers overlap, very senior NCOs make more than lieutenants) and no differential in "perks" (like dining facilities, housing, and so on). That's not my point.

My point was that "company commander" is a very different job from "company sergeant," and there are few people who can do both jobs well. Which means that just promoting good sergeants as your main source for officers probably wouldn't work so well.
See for example how the IDF (the usual example for that kind of thinking) has further split their officers career path from the career NCO path in their latest reforms.

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
Wasn't the Egyptian military pretty much running a parallel society? With their own hotel resorts, factories, hospitals, educational facilities and so forth?
Yes, and they're not the only ones. There is a good chance that something in your (and my) house was made in a factory at least partially owned by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army...

Last edited by nondescript handle; 09-25-2012 at 09:31 AM.
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Old 09-25-2012, 09:32 AM   #19
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
It's less likely there will be a separate code of law and justice system. The service might have to obey the civil law code, both personally for the troops and collectively abiding by stuff like workplace safety, and civil rights.

Orders are probably at least a little more open to discussion - civil law isn't likely to allow anything more serious than firing you for disobeying one, or publically questioning your superiors stupidity, executing you isn't an option.

The pay scale may not be as flat as it is now. Flag officers might draw the kinds of multi-million dollar salaries corporate executives do.
Except that could easily turn into the trade-off of
  • Hire 1 single exorbitantly expensive general
  • Hire 1 quite good general for a high price, and also hire 9,000 extra trained soldiers
  • Hire 10 competent but reasonably priced budding generals, and also hire 90,000 extra trained soldiers

Unless the army regularly fields 10+ million soldiers on each front, they're probably going to go with "more soldiers" and also spread the risk around (one brilliant general risks being killed, losing all the investment).
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Old 09-25-2012, 09:57 AM   #20
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Creating Military Culture From Scratch

Quote:
Originally Posted by nondescript handle View Post
(Warning: pet peeve ahead, proceed with caution...)

We don't make doctors by promoting the best nurses, we don't make engineers by promoting the best mechanics, we don't make judges by promoting the best paralegals.

The reason there is a split between the career paths of NCOs and commissioned officers isn't just mindless tradition.
NCOs and officers have different roles and need different skill sets and training. An NCO isn't just "an officer, but less so" and an officer isn't just "an NCO, but better."

Yes, you can close e.g. the pay and "respect" gap that exists in many militaries between NCOs and officers, and you can make officer candidates spend time "in the ranks" (and some militaries actually do those things), but there will be some split between NCO-types and officer-types.
Yes NCOs and officers do different kinds of jobs and the advantages that come from forcing both to be fully along the same career path are outweighed by the disadvantages. You can have a split while not really retaining much of the specific modern implementation of the commissioned-non commissioned split.

Quote:
Originally Posted by chandley View Post
Another source of differences will be caused by how this new military fights.

Having a few well-educated officers boss around a bunch of well trained enlisted works great where you need lots of human (or equivalent) bodies to get things done. Spacecraft board troops who deploy in power armor and who have the bulk of the fighting occur via closely coordinated drones/robots are not going to have a similar makeup. Spacecraft crew commanded by an AI "Captain" that fights the ship who receives its orders from a human Commodore or Admiral will have a very different makeup than a current Naval ship or submarine.

And that has follow on effects. How does one arrest and court martial a captain who IS a ship? Its possible, but it will create changes in the culture of the military who has to consider it. If every human is in effect a pilot (power armor, mobile suits, giant robots), you are unlikely to be making every pilot an officer, even if the suits cost as much and fight as well as a modern fighting vehicle. Warrent Officers is one of those differences real world militaries go back and forth on, and how WOs are slotted into the chain of command is a subtle but significant way to change the culture of a new military.

If I recall correctly, GURPS Ogre had some thoughts on how one integrates an AI inside of a "can kill a battalion on its own" tank into a command structure. Might be good for inspiration.
Yeah how the military interacts with technology has a lot of significance for it's culture. It's difficult to discuss that since there are so many possible technological paradigms but if posters want to look at consequences to the military culture from a specific technological paradigm they are encouraged to. For the arresting a ship thing you might steal that method of enforcing demands on a surrendering crew from Mote in God's Eye.


Quote:
Originally Posted by DemiBenson View Post
Except that could easily turn into the trade-off of
  • Hire 1 single exorbitantly expensive general
  • Hire 1 quite good general for a high price, and also hire 9,000 extra trained soldiers
  • Hire 10 competent but reasonably priced budding generals, and also hire 90,000 extra trained soldiers

Unless the army regularly fields 10+ million soldiers on each front, they're probably going to go with "more soldiers" and also spread the risk around (one brilliant general risks being killed, losing all the investment).
Isn't that pretty much the same trade off one finds with corporate executives?

Last edited by Sindri; 09-25-2012 at 10:03 AM.
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