[Loadout] Delta Operator on an intelligence op

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Motorcycles are uncommon in Iraq. Scooters are much more prevalent.

Ah.

I meant the bicycle kind of bike. Are those uncommon?

The PC in question is slight and can pass for late teens / early twenties despite actually being 28. I imagined he'd try to pass as a teen without the means for any sort of mechanised transport.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ah.

I meant the bicycle kind of bike. Are those uncommon?

I don't recall a single bicycle. Traffic is crazy (like people driving on the wrong side of the freeway crazy) it always was at least 90 degrees out (even at night it was over 70) in the summer and there is a lot of crime and violence.

On the other hand I did see the occasional donkey.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't recall a single bicycle. Traffic is crazy (like people driving on the wrong side of the freeway crazy) it always was at least 90 degrees out (even at night it was over 70) in the summer and there is a lot of crime and violence.

On the other hand I did see the occasional donkey.

Up until the last part it sounded like DC. :)

So he's better off with a scooter. That uses Driving (Motorcycle) skill in GURPS, right?

[sir_pudding]

Actually, now that I think about it, I remember one bicycle. Some old dude got ran over on a dirt road in a neighborhood while riding his bike. The body was left there for days...

[Icelander]

What small and concealable bits of surveillance gear would be worthwhile enough to burden yourself with and risk ruining your local disguise?

NVGs? What kind would Delta use?

Binoculars?

How small and high-tech are cell phone interceptors that are available to Delta these days?

Can something that fits in a fairly unremarkable tablet exterior actually be a sophisticated surveillance tool worth carrying around?

[Peter Knutsen]

If he's driving a scooter, it might be possible to make a small hidden compartment in it, for some of his bug-out-kit.

Could he have some kind of machine pistol or PDW-like thingie in his satchel? Even if he could, would he want to?

A smoke grenade or two might be useful in the right kind of situation.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

If he's driving a scooter, it might be possible to make a small hidden compartment in it, for some of his bug-out-kit.

Theoretically, but I imagine that a back-pack or satchel might be common enough not to be noticed all that much.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Could he have some kind of machine pistol or PDW-like thingie in his satchel? Even if he could, would he want to?

The suggestion of an MP7 PDW has been advanced. A rifle is probably too bulky for him to have had one during surveillance ops, but it's not like obtaining a PDW, carbine or rifle is the problem for the PCs anyway. Even a shiny new HK416 is like a $1,400, which is easily affordable.

Mainly, the player asked if he could steal some of the super-expensive Delta 'spy stuff' that he'd been using, because his $20,000 budget didn't cover even a fraction of what he'd want.

Besides, the gear in High-Tech is at least five years out of date at the time the game is set. :)

Smartphones and tablets have advanced enormously in the meantime and it only makes sense that at least some sort of surveillance equipment might have applications that weren't possible in 2006-2007.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

A smoke grenade or two might be useful in the right kind of situation.

Could be.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Theoretically, but I imagine that a back-pack or satchel might be common enough not to be noticed all that much.

I meant a hidden compartment in the scooter, in addition to a satchel or backpack.

As for gear in general, it's Delta. I'm pretty sure they're the top tier in terms of being able to get permission to procure and use non-standard gear. The only reason they might not use the best night vision gear there is would probably be because "the best" isn't the best according to their standards, due to lacking Ruggedized or for some other reason isn't fit for field use during "adventuring conditions". With firearms (and grenade launchers?) there might be some pressure for each Delta trooper not to go his own unique way in terms of caliber, just so they can easily swap rounds on an as-needed basis, but beyond that I imagine it's very relaxed.

As Sir Pudding points to, there are two radically different philosophies:
The US Marine Corps (and as far as I know, the US Army is similar - I'd expect it to be) is about lots of guys individually weak but strong in numbers. Delta and similar special ops groups (each with their own areas of expertize, as defined in GURPS Special Ops) is about a small number of guys each very powerful. Some of that difference comes from more thorough training (training time, ratio of instructors to students, quality of instructors, budgeting for expendables such as ammo, and of course selection of recruits who have the potential for such training) and some of it comes from loadout budget.

Both philosophies work. That's obvious to see. But they're different, and in theory that difference is interesting, although in gaming practice the only real potential is probably in a small group of well-equipped highly trained player characters facing up against a large group of poorly equipped and poorly tained NPCs.

[sir_pudding]

You do realize that I was USMC Infantry and about as far from Delta force budgets as you can get and still be in NATO, right?

Even if I saw SOCOM guys in Iraq, I couldn't tell you anything about them, legally anyway.

[sir_pudding]

The AN/PVS-14 was pretty ubiquitous in US service at that time, but I think SO guys had better stuff, at least according to what I have read in public sources.