[Basic] Skill of the week: Soldier

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Soldier is the IQ/A TL skill for basic military activities that aren't weapons skills or Savoir-Faire (Military). It's learned in military basic training, and from actual combat experience in an organised force, so it's quite unusual to have it without having served, at least in a militia or reserve force. The only default is IQ-5, and no skills default to it. The skill first appeared in GURPS Special Operations for 3e, to the best of my knowledge.

There are several ways to use the skill: to follow correct battlefield discipline, for practical survival, as a daily roll in active service to avoid problems (on a failure) or disasters (critical failure), and for basic tasks that would be covered by other skills. Tasks which would be routine (and thus +4 to skill) for skills like Armoury, Electronics Operation (Communications), Housekeeping, or NBC Suit, at appropriate TLs, would be rolled against Soldier, without any bonus for routine, but with any situational penalties. This doesn't cover significant repairs, research, or new or secret technologies. It's the assorted things, using standard equipment and methods, that any trained soldier should be able to try. Recognising vehicles and aircraft seems to come under Soldier, unless you have a more applicable skill.

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What have you accomplished with this skill?

A GM with a military background might allow a few additional usages for Soldier skill:

Soldier is obviously the go to skill for performing drill and ceremonial, whether normally or as part of a demonstration team.

A graduate of a wartime “two-week wonder” officer course would arguably have had a ½ point (100 hours) of Leadership in GURPS, 3rd Ed. but that’s below the resolution of GURPS, 4th Ed. A “two-week wonder” could be represented by giving a default from Soldier to Leadership to give a default that’s better than the normal default [no training] but doesn’t amount to having a full point in Leadership. This would also apply to skills like Orienteering [Navigation (Land)] and First Aid.

Soldier can replace some full-blown military skills for limited purposes. Most soldiers don’t have Tactics skill, in that they don’t necessarily know when a tactic or tactical formation should be used but, for the limited purpose of adopting a given formation or executing a given tactic, Soldier, without a penalty, should work just fine. Substituting for Law (Military), for the limited purpose of knowing what the offences are, and possibly what is needed to constitute a particular offence, is another example.

Depending on the era, tactical movement and use of personal camouflage may be represented by Stealth, but it might also allow the substitution of Soldier (possibly at a penalty.)

Heraldry (Military Insignia) allows more than simply recognizing the various rank insignias in use by your nation. Depending on your nation’s insignia you might also be able to “read”: length of service, unit and formation, trade (and level of proficiency in that trade), hazardous duty assignments, wounds (and severity), proficiency with personal weapon, as well as being able to “read” decorations and honors (ribbons and medals) for whether the wearer is a volunteer; what theatres (and possibly particular battles) the person has served in; and, for some people, whether this is a suitable person to share a foxhole with [referencing the maxim "Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself."] Obviously, not all soldiers have this skill, but all soldiers, by default, can recognize the various rank insignia in use by their nation, at least for their service, just by having Soldier. If the time and place are correct, you can also, by default, tell at a glance whether you are looking at an enlisted man (excluding the RSM) [soft headdress and black boots] or, an officer or the RSM [forage cap and brown boots] without necessarily needing to invoke Heraldry (Military Insignia) to do so.

Soldier can justify having a default that might otherwise not be applicable. You might never have seen or thrown a baseball but you can throw a grenade at default. You can climb a cargo net or a Jacob’s ladder even if you never climbed a tree as a kid. In the U.S., you can probably swim 25 or 50 yards in your uniform, even if you grew up in the desert.

Finally, Soldier may allow you to recognize that someone is “a furriner/not one of us” by the choices his Soldier skill imposes. For example, Canada and the U.S. are close allies these days but even if you were to put them in the same uniform, the differences would soon out them, e.g. saying “face” for “turn”, “foxhole” for “trench”, “dogtags” for “ID disc”, saluting without a headdress, cupping the hand when saluting, etc.