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edited 11th Apr '18 6:31:51 PM by dRoy
In the name of being honest
Easiest way is to have them as ex-members of a military/paramilitary service, looking to make ends meet the best way they know how. Or you could have a third party (government or corporation) contract them on a temporary venture, after which they agree to set up their business. Best IRL example I could think of is Bob Denard, whose career was a bit of both (minus the "flying around in space" aspect).
If a soldier trained constantly in simulations that used highly advanced Hard Light technology would you say they're experience compared to a soldier who's done the same thing but the only thing is that he did *real* combat that their experience was the "same"?
New Survey coming this weekend!
literary masochist
I'm assuming the simulation and real life are physically indistinguishable?
If the first guy knows he's being put through simulations, I think that would alter the experience slightly. For example, he might not be as desensitized as the guy who was killing actual people.
This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...
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There's still the vital difference that he can still meet up with his squadmates after a simulation run, no matter how realistic, and discuss the battle over a beer; whereas an actual veteran would likely know and have to deal with their deaths. Plus, simulations can't cover months of being stuck in an intractable campaign, getting four hours of sleep a day, short on food and water. Attrition adds up over time, not as one battle.
Hmm...so basically live fire simulations with the *possibility* of dying is the only way to make the two experiences comparable?
New Survey coming this weekend!
Basically, yes. If the military has enough control over the matter, they could fake a few deaths and cycle out soldiers so that everyone is losing friends without anyone actually dying. But that might not fit your theme.
What does the CVN in the Nimitz supercarrier's designation
stand for? I'm trying to figure out military ship naming conventions, but most sites have a frustrating tendency to explain what they are without explaining what they mean.
According to this, "C" stands for "carrier" and "N" for "nuclear". Dunno what "V" is ("vehicle"?).
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"CV" is the code for carrier; the Navy uses two-letter codes (hence "DD" for destroyers and "SS" for subs, even though the second letter doesn't stand for anything).
Also: re: live-fire training: it should be very obvious why militaries, even ones known for callousness, avoid killing off their recruits in training. That kind of attrition—caused by your own side—will break an army's morale and lead to desertions.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Ahr river
What are the chances of finding illegal arm dealers in nyc? And is it possible to get fancier equipment than just hand guns? I can justify it via magic if I have to, but I'd rather know the actual mentality to know how out of place it would be.
Read my stories!
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Like what kind of weapons and how many of them are you trying to get from this hypothetical arms dealer?
Oh really when?
Ahr river
Sniper rifle. Grenades. Guns. Lots of shooty splodey things.
edited 13th Jul '14 5:21:13 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories!
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Yeah you could get those somewhere in New York.
Poke around where the The Mafiya had set up. But they're some right nasty fuckers.
edited 13th Jul '14 5:24:48 PM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?
Ahr river
Oh right they exist. Thanks muchly!
Read my stories!
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Potentially, a sniper rifle is available commercially and legally—after all, by definition, a hunting rifle with a scope and a bipod is a sniper rifle. Sure there are some restrictions, but nobody bans firearm optics. And there are decent-quality WWII-surplus Russian rifles for quite cheap. (Still, they're rarely used in crimes because they're difficult to conceal, and sniper "hits" are quite rare.)
The grenades and would be very difficult to get. This is mostly a function of demand: the main customers for the black-market dealers, gangs and so forth, don't usually use explosives. They attract too much attention, including Federal attention, and that's something nobody really wants. Automatic weapons would be somewhere in between: I'd imagine that the smaller the weapon is, the easier it'd be to get (as a function of concealability and thus demand); a full-scale light machine gun or automatic rifle would be more difficult to acquire than a machine pistol you could slip under a jacket.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Mosin Nagants are a dime a dozen and historically that's one of the best sniper rifles ever to grace this earth.
Oh really when?
The future of warfare in UC.
The Nagant is considerably overrated when you can buy Remington 700s with good optics at Walmart.
Nous restons ici.
In military training, do hand-to-hand combat instructors hold any sort of rank, or are they merely something like "Instructors"?
What would be a typical daily routine for an active-duty soldier deployed to a home base?
I feel like I'm missing something obvious here, but is there an adjective for "turtle-like"? (As in, "avian" for "bird-like").
Chelonian, as Google reveals.
"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
In the name of being honest
literary masochist
Yeah, I remember an item called the Chelonian Morningstar in Kingdom of Loathing, which is basically just a flail with the weight in the shape of a turtle shell.
This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...
If Earth had two additional moons, how would it affect physics calculations on the planet?
New Survey coming this weekend!
One would get slightly different and stronger tides and a notch more volcanic activity.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I'm thinking of doing something with a group of mercenaries in space flying around and doing missions. They're from a variety of backgrounds and have different personalities so how would all of them have met and agreed to form a group together. Real world parallels would be nice.