[Modern Firepower] Technothriller gear for secret DHS team in 2017

[Icelander]

I know that US soldiers do not carry weapons on military bases in the Continental United States unless they are on duty as base security or similar.

What I'm wondering is how often would a mental health specialist (68x) who spent a year in the army have held a weapon and which weapons would she be familiar with?

Everyone gets basic training and that presumbably includes some days of learning how to use an M16A2. Is the operation of an M9 pistol taught in basic? How about the M11/SIG P226? What about rarer military weapons? Are machine guns and grenade launchers fired in Basic Combat Training or is that only in AIT for the appropriate MOS?

Are Army personnel in a non-combat MOS like mental health specialist ever issued a gun if they are not deployed overseas?

[Warlockco]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I know that US soldiers do not carry weapons on military bases in the Continental United States unless they are on duty as base security or similar.

What I'm wondering is how often would a mental health specialist (68x) who spent a year in the army have held a weapon and which weapons would she be familiar with?

Everyone gets basic training and that presumbably includes some days of learning how to use an M16A2. Is the operation of an M9 pistol taught in basic? How about the M11/SIG P226? What about rarer military weapons? Are machine guns and grenade launchers fired in Basic Combat Training or is that only in AIT for the appropriate MOS?

Are Army personnel in a non-combat MOS like mental health specialist ever issued a gun if they are not deployed overseas?

From what a friend of mine had said back in the early 90s about his basic, his training group did get to use a M-60, everyone got to shoot off half a belt, except for him, he was the odd man, so he got a full belt to himself.
As to the truth of this or not, I cannot verify, since years later I found out this guy was full of crap, and the military was right to not allow him to re-enlist.
As to his MOS, it was probably infantry/admin, he was an admin weenie at a hospital duty station before they shut it down.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I know that US soldiers do not carry weapons on military bases in the Continental United States unless they are on duty as base security or similar.

What I'm wondering is how often would a mental health specialist (68x) who spent a year in the army have held a weapon and which weapons would she be familiar with?

Everyone gets basic training and that presumbably includes some days of learning how to use an M16A2. Is the operation of an M9 pistol taught in basic? How about the M11/SIG P226? What about rarer military weapons? Are machine guns and grenade launchers fired in Basic Combat Training or is that only in AIT for the appropriate MOS?

Are Army personnel in a non-combat MOS like mental health specialist ever issued a gun if they are not deployed overseas?

I have heard someone's USAF basic training story which involved a short session with a .50 BMG and some kind of grenade or rocket launcher. In GURPS terms, I would be even less likely to apply a Familiarity penalty to their default Gunner skill for those weapons than I would for a character without a military background. But some people will forget what they learned as soon as they pass the test, and some will have served in units which had a lot of ordnance to play with and gave everyone a turn to meet some bureaucratic rule.

Basic training is an excellent excuse for a character's default skill in a variety of interesting things, just like "took a few courses in college" or "used to bond with my sister over it" or "worked as an X for a couple of years." But from what I have heard, however much military bureaucracies try to standardize things, the reality tends to be complicated (and how much people get out of training varies!)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Warlockco

From what a friend of mine had said back in the early 90s about his basic, his training group did get to use a M-60, everyone got to shoot off half a belt, except for him, he was the odd man, so he got a full belt to himself.
As to the truth of this or not, I cannot verify, since years later I found out this guy was full of crap, and the military was right to not allow him to re-enlist.
As to his MOS, it was probably infantry/admin, he was an admin weenie at a hospital duty station before they shut it down.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I have heard someone's USAF basic training story which involved a short session with a .50 BMG and some kind of grenade or rocket launcher. In GURPS terms, I would be even less likely to apply a Familiarity penalty to their default Gunner skill for those weapons than I would for a character without a military background. But some people will forget what they learned as soon as they pass the test, and some will have served in units which had a lot of ordnance to play with and gave everyone a turn to meet some bureaucratic rule.

Basic training is an excellent excuse for a character's default skill in a variety of interesting things, just like "took a few courses in college" or "used to bond with my sister over it" or "worked as an X for a couple of years." But from what I have heard, however much military bureaucracies try to standardize things, the reality tends to be complicated (and how much people get out of training varies!)

We're guessing that the armoury at Manhanock Asylum for the Criminally Insane contains military ordnance from the time the island housed a secret DoD research facility and the guard force was a mixed Coast Guard and Army post. As they still have the M2 .50 BMG and the Mk. 19 grenade launcher in the towers, we're betting they still have the military longarms in there.

And we were kind of wondering if the profoundly disturbed mental patient with us, the very scary little Sherilyn Bell, will have familiarity or even an improved default from Dabbler with any of the heavy weapons. She still has one Dabbler Perk to spend on what remains of her early basic training. With DX 18, just a slightly improved default makes her pretty deadly.

It's been established that she knows how to use an M9, as she went shooting with Taylor (my PC) back when he was a young Ranger in the language training phase of SFQC and she was a mental health specialist on the base, but I didn't know if she had ever been issued a pistol of her own or if they had borrowed one from the Project Jade Serenity stores.

[sir_pudding]

Nobody in the US military qualifies on pistols if they don't rate one.

Non-infantry Marines have a brief combat school called MCT between the MCRD and their MOS training battalion where they are familiarized on a spectrum of infantry weapons and tactics; this is a particular point of institutional pride that the other branches don't do anything like this.

I have heard the Army has several different boot camps which are roughly similar but are divided between those intended for combat arms and those who are not, so I would expect a psych tech to have even less weapons training.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Nobody in the US military qualifies on pistols if they don't rate one.

I guess this is where I'm really unclear. Who exactly rates an issue sidearm and who doesn't?

Commissioned officers in combat branches do and maybe just all commissioned officers, period. I'm not 100% certain that this is how it works in reality, but decades of movies have convinced me that even if an officer is not combat arms, he still gets a sidearm to wear with his shiny dress uniform.

I have no idea whether warrant officers or senior NCOs are generally issued sidearms or if that is only for MOSes like CID. Nor do I know if MPs or Counterintelligence specialists carry a pistol for self-defence on deployements and/or whether they may perhaps even be issued them at home, because they are effectively acting as cops.

I've got some sort of hazy idea that enlisted personnel in roles that might call for their deployment to a base in a country that technically counts as combat, but not ones that will ever get them humping a pack or rifle out on patrol, might be issued a pistol for self-defence rather than a rifle.

If that's true, that might be a reason to teach mental health specialists, Remington Rangers and a PR specialist the operation of an M9 pistol in basic training, so they'll know what to do if they are ever posted somewhere they are issued one.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Non-infantry Marines have a brief combat school called MCT between the MCRD and their MOS training battalion where they are familiarized on a spectrum of infantry weapons and tactics; this is a particular point of institutional pride that the other branches don't do anything like this.

I have heard the Army has several different boot camps which are roughly similar but are divided between those intended for combat arms and those who are not, so I would expect a psych tech to have even less weapons training.

That sounds reasonable.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What I'm wondering is how often would a mental health specialist (68x) who spent a year in the army have held a weapon and which weapons would she be familiar with?

At that age and limited military experience it's entirely possible that her civilian opportunities to become familiar with guns and practice with them easily outnumber her military ones.

Certainly if she has a gun now it'll be whichever one she wants.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

At that age and limited military experience it's entirely possible that her civilian opportunities to become familiar with guns and practice with them easily outnumber her military ones.

Certainly if she has a gun now it'll be whichever one she wants.

Her 17 years in an asylum for the criminally insane since the Incident have honed her solitaire playing skills to perfection, but haven't really added much in the way of civilian life skills.

The year she spent on a military base in North Carolina has had a pretty defining influence on her life. She took experimental nootropic drugs in connection to it and seems to remember every second of it pretty vividly. Of course, she is also still mental-institution level obsessed with the psycho ******* who got her involved in the Incident which led her to being put in Manhanock Asylum.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I guess this is where I'm really unclear. Who exactly rates an issue sidearm and who doesn't?.

Officers, MPs and people with high security workstations (the kind where they are expected to shoot unauthorized personnel, like with nuclear weapon security).

Commissioned officers in combat branches do and maybe just all commissioned officers, period. I'm not 100% certain that this is how it works in reality, but decades of movies have convinced me that even if an officer is not combat arms, he still gets a sidearm to wear with his shiny dress uniform.

Yeah it is some weird status thing now. Grant would probably hate it.

I have no idea whether warrant officers or senior NCOs are generally issued sidearms or if that is only for MOSes like CID.

The only warrants I am familiar with are Marine Gunners who absolutely are qualified for pistols, because they are experts on every infantry weapons as their entire raison d'être.

Nor do I know if MPs or Counterintelligence specialists carry a pistol for self-defence on deployements and/or whether they may perhaps even be issued them at home, because they are effectively acting as cops.

Yes, American police are expected to be armed in general.

I've got some sort of hazy idea that enlisted personnel in roles that might call for their deployment to a base in a country that technically counts as combat, but not ones that will ever get them humping a pack or rifle out on patrol, might be issued a pistol for self-defence rather than a rifle.

Not that I know of.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Officers, MPs and people with high security workstations (the kind where they are expected to shoot unauthorized personnel, like with nuclear weapon security).

Project Jade Serenity was extremely secret, but I figured that giving doctors, nurses and health techs there sidearms would not help security there in any way. Better to have the buildings, in an outlying part of Camp Mackall, be as boringly ordinary as possible. Sure, there was probably a detachment of trusted base security instructed to pay special attention to it and there was a small detail of TS-SCI cleared guards there to check IDs and secure those test subjects who happened to be accused of crimes and/or psychological risk factors, but I don't think shooting unauthorised base personnel who wandered close to Project HQ was in anyone's ROE.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yeah it is some weird status thing now. Grant would probably hate it.

I doubt that any 19th century person used to officer's swords would consider sidearms as status signifiers weird.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The only warrants I am familiar with are Marine Gunners who absolutely are qualified for pistols, because they are experts on every infantry weapons as their entire raison d'être.

From what I can tell, special operators have a similar kind of deal. I've been assuming that the ODA of active-duty Special Forces connected to Project Jade Serenity had personal weapons available throughout, at least for range use, and that the prospective Green Berets in the modified version of SFQS that they were training with found it increasingly easy to draw any common weapon from stores and spend an afternoon shooting the **** (and more ammo than their unfortunate brethren in less exalted specialties get in a month) as they entered the language training phase of their training and had the occasional luxury of some free time.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, American police are expected to be armed in general.

Everyone? Do all MPs get pistols or are the uniformed soldiers who act as base security expected to just carry a rifle, with pistols confined to those who are acting as detectives.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Not that I know of.

Well, that clears it up a bit. Sherilyn Bell was almost certainly never issued any kind of firearm. She did shoot the M16A2 in BCT and may have shot an M9 and/or some of the more common support weapons there, but if she was allowed to fire any kind of MG, it was familiarity at most, not points in the skill.

In any event, Taylor probably taught her more Guns (Pistol) for civilian self-protection* than she learned as a soldier. Aside from practicality, it seems like something they could have done for fun together if we assume security concerns minimised leave off the base for the trainees. White knight or not, I'm fairly confident that at age 20, Taylor was not above doing something solely to maximise the time he could spend with a pretty girl.

*She had a rough background and some pretty good reasons to be afraid around strangers who were stronger and bigger than her (i.e. almost any man). Improving her self-confidence and sense of safety by teaching her some basic concepts of self-defence, as well as the use of TASERs, Mace and CCW pistols as an equaliser in the size and strength department, probably seemed like a worthwhile thing to do. Hell, regardless of what she may have done, it was still wortwhile.