Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

I agree with you, but I think the idea is a Soldier roll might help to pick up on such clues of someone trying to pass as Army when their background is really Marine. The kind of details that I'd overlook as a civilian, but would stand out to people with military service backgrounds.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

Marines also have Soldier (it is even part of the Assaulter Style...); I wasn't advocating a different skill, but rather pointing out that Curmudgeon was being Army-centric.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

And at least some of these things could also/instead be covered by Savoir-Faire (Military):

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

You're getting more into the Savoir-fair (Military) territory there.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

To some extent that should be expected as that was my service and therefore it’s what I’m most familiar with. It’s not entirely a blind spot with me, still “face” instead of “turn” and cupping the hand rather than holding it rigid are national differences, not service differences and the older two-movement broad-hand salute would be an even more telling difference.

To some extent, you’re being U.S.-centric, and it's more of a blind spot with me. Canada doesn’t have Marines but if it ever does form them, they would be closer to Royal Marines than U.S. Marines in tradition, i.e., to some extent they’re “just” another unit in the army, rather than a separate service, or in other words, somewhat more like an Airborne Regiment or the U.S. Special Forces.

My point exactly.

Not entirely. For one thing, drill and terminology generally don’t fall under customs, traditions and regulations. Exactly what does fall under those categories is a bit nebulous because what is or isn’t covered varies from nation to nation. While there are some things that are common to all nations, such as saluting (commissioned) officers, at least when not in the field [saluting an officer in the field is extremely rude as it amounts to hanging a target on him just for the enemy], other things are not and may vary within one nation’s own military. For example, British and Canadian army units which have distinguished themselves may be awarded a battle honor, such as “Amiens 1917” which would be displayed on the Regimental (as opposed to Royal) colour. Unless the unit is a Rifles Regiment, in which case the battle honor is displayed on the drum or the unit is The Royal (Canadian) Corps of Engineers which has been granted the battle honor “Ubique” meaning “everywhere” “in place of all past, present and future battle honors”, or the Royal Regiment of (Canadian) Artillery which share the distinction of the battle honor “Ubique” but wear the honor on the upper scroll of their cap badge as the “guns are their colours”.

I’m not only army-centric, I’m artillery-centric, so here are a couple of specific traditions that do come up as part of Savoir-Faire (Military): the Royal (Canadian) Horse Artillery, when mounted, is entitled to the position of Right of the Line unless the Gentlemen-Cadets of the Royal Military College are paraded as a formed unit, in which case they have precedence; and artillery units are handed over “at ease” whereas all other units are handed over at “attention”.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

The Royal Marines are not part of the British Army. They have some heritage tracing back to British Army units, but have belonged to the Admiralty since 1755.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

They were originally a combination of SPs and commandos. So were the US Marines. They expanded into a full-fledged second army during the Bananna Wars or perhaps a bit before and kept that design when it was realized that this would fit them for a place in War Plan Orange.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

One use of Soldier skill is hefting gear on the march. During the Franco-Prussian war one reason the Prussians blindsided the French is that the French didn't realized that railroads would allow them to put reserves into the field because they assumed they would have to march them all the way up to the frontier before starting the campaign. And it required regulars to know how to carry gear without ending up to exhausted to be of any use.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

There is definitely room for more examples of pre-TL 5 Soldier skill in use.

In GURPS I think that is Hiking skill, maybe one other for carrying heavy loads (or just Lifting ST). After all, you can have a tough old sergeant whose fitness is not what it once was and whose knees don't work very well any more (high Soldier skill, low Move for hiking purposes).

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier
 

I put a lot of my thoughts on Soldier skill in this thread a while ago. (My commentary is on the bottom of the linked page, as well as following pages.) As a professional soldier, I hope that I have something productive to say on the matter...

I like Soldier skill. A lot. Admittedly, it can be difficult for a GM who has never been a soldier to implement it well. But it solves the problem of massive point and skill bloat for anyone in the military. It keeps you from having to give every IQ8 conscript a dozen skills like Electronics Operation (Commo), NBC Warfare, Hiking, Armory, Engineering (Combat), Camouflage, Tactics, etc., etc. Also, if you put even one point into each of those then your average soldier will be far too competent. Most know only very narrow applications of these skills. For instance, they can use their own service's squad-level radios including changing batteries, setting frequencies, fills, net protocol, keywords, etc., but if they had full-on Electronics Operation (Commo) then every private would have a decent shot at managing a cellular network or satellite uplink, which is patently ridiculous.

It's sort of Dabbler (A Bunch of Militaria), though you have to be careful to bear in mind that it is very limited to covering routine (+4 or better) uses of other martial skills. Then, just use massive amounts of time spent as required (see page B346). FWIW Kromm officially opposes thinking of it as a limited form of a bang! skill, even though it clearly works at least somewhat similarly.

Absolutely, it needs to be specialized by nationality, service, and era. Then you can allow familiarity penalties for, for example, A US Marine trying to use a US Army codebook.

I continue to maintain that most privates do not have Savoir Faire (Military), but are rather using Soldier skill to cover what would otherwise be +4 rolls against Savoir-Faire. That should cover recognizing patches, rank insignia, and saluting rules for your own service. (I still can't make sense of US Navy enlisted ratings.) As described in Curmudgeon's post above, IMHO Savoir-Faire (Military) is more often used for covering ceremonies and hobnobbing, which wouldn't get the +4. That's not really RAW from anywhere, though- it just makes more sense to me as a military guy.