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Old 02-20-2011, 10:39 PM   #21
tshiggins
 
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron View Post
Serving at least one enlisted term before commission, and one promotion every four years... this sounds rather familiar to some of us old scifi gamers :)
Hey, yeah!

What are the odds a character will die during initial generation?

Y'know, just askin'... :)
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Old 02-21-2011, 02:21 AM   #22
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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Serving at least one enlisted term before commission, and one promotion every four years... this sounds rather familiar to some of us old scifi gamers :)
Shh! Do ye want ta get us sued?!
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Old 02-21-2011, 03:23 AM   #23
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

Instead of the current up or out I assume it is possible to spend your career at a given rank if you are not qualified for a higher rank?
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Old 02-21-2011, 04:12 AM   #24
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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Instead of the current up or out I assume it is possible to spend your career at a given rank if you are not qualified for a higher rank?
Yep. If you aren't leadership material you get rotations through varied work, training in a new military trade ever tour, and steady increments of pay, all instead of promotion prospects. A trained and experienced commando is a valuable asset that represents a large investment in training and transportation. The Empire is not likely to junk a good commando or a good sapper or a good artificer or a good medic just because he wouldn't make a good section leader or a good quartermaster-sergeant.

Slow promotion is pervasive through the Imperial Service: careers as aid workers, intelligence analysts, or criminal investigators are even longer than careers as marines, but the hierarchies are no taller. In fact a detective with the Commission for Justice might start in the field at 21, a Probationary Investigator, and get promoted seven times (Investigator, Lieutenant, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Superintendent, Chief Superintendent, Assistant Commissioner) in 89 years. In fact I expect that a lot of people burn out in each career after fifteen to twenty years and get re-treaded as something else. Other employments don't offer the programmed variety of work that being a marine (other ranks) does. For that matter, things can't be all that different in most occupations in the colonies, either. Anti-agathic treatments aren't exclusively Imperial.

It isn't really all that weird, or shouldn't be. My father got one promotion during WWII, but in his actual career he had none from when he hung up his shingle to when he retired fifty years later. Steve Jackson has been stuck in his dead-end job as president of his own company for thirty years.
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Old 02-21-2011, 01:25 PM   #25
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron View Post
Serving at least one enlisted term before commission, and one promotion every four years... this sounds rather familiar to some of us old scifi gamers :)
I was going to write that, but you beat me to it.


As for the officer training academies, having one in each sector, instead of one academy in the entire empir, why not have intake only every 3 years? Then instead of 26 students per one year, you have 78 students per 3 years.

Another possibility is to have intake once every year, but with no set progression of curriculum. You stil have to take (and pass) all of the curriculum to graduate, but it' okay if you do year 3 first, then year 1 then year 2. Obviously that would be very different from how Western world contemporary institutons do things, but there's no reason I know of for why it couldn't be made to work.
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Old 02-21-2011, 05:48 PM   #26
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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As for the officer training academies, having one in each sector, instead of one academy in the entire empir, why not have intake only every 3 years? Then instead of 26 students per one year, you have 78 students per 3 years.
Well, you'd certainly have people taking a ship to an adjacent sector rather than wait two or three years for a recruitment window. And no reason to prevent them. At that point, why not just have academies at only six or seven of the SHQs?
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Old 02-21-2011, 06:37 PM   #27
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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The Imperial Marines have fewer than half a million all ranks (the Empire isn't a very large or powerful interstellar state) and anti-agathic medicine which results in people being still fit for combat at the age of eighty. The result is that promotion is working out as rather slow. If you start as a Private (qualified) at twenty and take the slow route through Private (proficient) and Private (accomplished) before heading up through Lance-corporal to Chief Warrant Officer that is still only eight promotions in sixty years. If we went full mustang, with every officer serving as platoon sergeant before OCS, there would be effective ranks of private, lance-corporal, corporal, sergeant, sublieutenant, lieutenant, lieutenant-major, major, colonel, brigadier, major-general, vice general, general, and general-commandant: thirteen promotions in 60 years, one every four years or so.
Ok, that makes it reasonable.
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Old 03-08-2011, 07:48 PM   #28
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Default Re: Mustangs and General Burgoyne's revenge

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Originally Posted by Brett View Post
Yep. If you aren't leadership material you get rotations through varied work, training in a new military trade ever tour, and steady increments of pay, all instead of promotion prospects. A trained and experienced commando is a valuable asset that represents a large investment in training and transportation. The Empire is not likely to junk a good commando or a good sapper or a good artificer or a good medic just because he wouldn't make a good section leader or a good quartermaster-sergeant.
I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at,
A-layin' on to the sergeant I don't know a gun from a bat;
My shirt's doin' duty for jacket, my sock's stickin' out o' my boots,
An' I'm learnin' the damned old goose-step along o' the new recruits!

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again.
Don't look so 'ard, for I 'aven't no card,
I'm back to the Army again!

I done my six years' service. 'Er Majesty sez: "Good-day --
You'll please to come when you're rung for, an' 'ere's your 'ole back-pay;
An' fourpence a day for baccy -- an' bloomin' gen'rous, too;
An' now you can make your fortune -- the same as your orf'cers do."

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again;
'Ow did I learn to do right-about turn?
I'm back to the Army again!

A man o' four-an'-twenty that 'asn't learned of a trade --
Beside "Reserve" agin' him -- 'e'd better be never made.
I tried my luck for a quarter, an' that was enough for me,
An' I thought of 'Er Majesty's barricks, an' I thought I'd go an' see.

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again;
'Tisn't my fault if I dress when I 'alt --
I'm back to the Army again!

The sergeant arst no questions, but 'e winked the other eye,
'E sez to me, "'Shun!" an' I shunted, the same as in days gone by;
For 'e saw the set o' my shoulders, an' I couldn't 'elp 'oldin' straight
When me an' the other rookies come under the barrick-gate.

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again;
'Oo would ha' thought I could carry an' port?
I'm back to the Army again!

I took my bath, an' I wallered -- for, Gawd, I needed it so!
I smelt the smell o' the barricks, I 'eard the bugles go.
I 'eard the feet on the gravel -- the feet o' the men what drill --
An' I sez to my flutterin' 'eart-strings, I sez to 'em, "Peace, be still!"

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again;
'Oo said I knew when the ~Jumner~ was due?
I'm back to the Army again!

I carried my slops to the tailor; I sez to 'im, "None o' your lip!
You tight 'em over the shoulders, an' loose 'em over the 'ip,
For the set o' the tunic's 'orrid." An' 'e sez to me, "Strike me dead,
But I thought you was used to the business!" an' so 'e done what I said.

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again.
Rather too free with my fancies? Wot -- me?
I'm back to the Army again!

Next week I'll 'ave 'em fitted; I'll buy me a swagger-cane;
They'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the Hoe again
In the name o' William Parsons, that used to be Edward Clay,
An' -- any pore beggar that wants it can draw my fourpence a day!

Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again:
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,
Out o' the cold an' the rain.

'Oo's there?
A man that's too good to be lost you,
A man that is 'andled an' made --
A man that will pay what 'e cost you
In learnin' the others their trade -- parade!
You're droppin' the pick o' the Army
Because you don't 'elp 'em remain,
But drives 'em to cheat to get out o' the street
An' back to the Army again!
— Rudyard Kipling, Back to the Army Again
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