British Military Combatives in the Queen's Service

[sgtcallistan]

Originally Posted by Icelander

snip In many fictional works where the normal order had broken down or was in the process of doing so, the Royal Family of the United Kingdom managed to retain authority over the armed forces.snip

The Knights of God was a book and TV series (in Briain) where a fall of civilisation to about 'Mad Max 1' levels left the Army 'remaining in barracks' for decades, until the heir presented him/herself.

On the other hand, I'm tempted to cast Harry as an inquisitive, open-minded, active, persistent and idealistic young man, enough so that he has learned about the conspiracy and wants to be a part of it. Given the informal nature of the Rangers and lack of legal command structure, what would the loyal senior people do if the Queen's grandson demanded to be allowed to go on dangerous missions? They can't claim that he doesn't have a relevant skill set and when a mission finally blows up in their faces (a constant fear), with police arriving on the scene, he might be able to talk them into silence when normal ex-police or ex-army recruits would just be arrested.

You could take current reality for 'heirs and successors' as a cue; serves as an infantry commander in Afghanistan, trains and serves as a helicopter pilot, marries, all that, while holding down a serious role in the 'magical defence of the relm'.

While the term is not used any more, I get the feeling that the FCCT in GURPS Martial Arts is generic enough to be a useful basis for a lot of the commando-style sentry removal and hand-to-hand training that modern special operations personnel in the British armed forces might receive.

Would it be reasonable to use a few points spent on that style for recruits who come from the SAS, SBS, Royal Marines and Parachute Regiments?

Perhaps only those who focus the most on sentry removal would, with others having what amounts to 'hard' Judo or Jujutsu with the Military Lens. In any case, these are very similar in game terms.

Fairbairn's book, 'dirty fighting' as it was known to my father (Rifle Brigade, light infantry specialising in agressive night patrolling, sentry removal and return for questioning) is subtitled 'all-in fighting' which emphasises commitment and determination to defeat and / or kill the enemy with fists, feet, knives, garottes, and assorted other nasty mehods to hand.
I doubt that things have changed much since then. My father described much of it as 'knowing where to land the blow', including relatively exotic things like the edge of the palm chopped under the nose, or across the throat.
How useful this would be against demonic creatures, I don't know.

The little I have seen of Gurkha knifework (demonstrated on a dummy at the Royal Military Tattoo in the 1980's) was a beheading from behind as a sentry removal.
Kukri cuts one way, other arm twists head the other way. Nasty.

Hope this is useful.