Civilian Uprising Question

[ahnospell44]

Hi all,

I was wondering, I am thinking of adding a civilian uprising to my campaign to throw my other players off, is there a rule in the books or even just a known rule that everyone goes by for un-armored civ's that don't like the way things are going? They would be going up against both battlearmor and 'mechs (if they were to make it that far, after all as a BM, I would give heavier weight to civ's that want their city/continent/planet back, but I can't give them to much to make it unrealistic)

I just didn't know if I should use the rifle(Balistic) infantry since it seems to be bottom man on the totem poll

[Stormfury]

I think they put mob rules in the recent Historical for the Reunification War.

Otherwise, Rifle platoons may be the way to go. You could also build platoons using TechManual rules and equip them with less than stellar weapons.

Obviously they are not going to have Anti-Mech training and probably need some sort of morale rule. Maybe any time they take casualties they need to roll 7+ to keep fighting, and if they take 50% casualties or fail the roll immediately attempt to flee at best speed?

[Martius]

Historical: Unification War has some rules on Mobs, Militias and Insurgents on page 200 and the following.

Battlearmor will slaughter Mobs with ease, but Insurgents might have some nasty surprises hidden somewhere. I used those rules already and they are fun.  O0

[MadCapellan]

Mob, meet flamer.  Flamer, meet mob!
This is what we call "population control"!  :D

I've used the mob rules in my campaign, and boy are they fun.  Getting to witness a Sentry kill 240 people in a single turn was worth the price of admission.

[billtfor3]

I'd have stand up fights be rare, and have the insurgients use bombings, attacks on supplys, and off duty personnel be common, and at some point have a militia unit turn rogue so the unit could have something to take out their frustrations on.  Also in a campaign I ran the insurgients robbed a major planetary bank, and the PCs thought I was setting them up to leave their base under defended (no idea why they were so paranoid) and the bad guys got away with a significant amount of money, then hired a Battalion sized Merc Mech unit (players were only a company and the only Mechs on planet at that point) to support the rebellion, and the players were then forced to go gurillia lol

Moral of the story is.... higher infantry and armor suppport for base defense so you can do things insteadb of always worrying about loosing supplys.

[billtfor3]

Mob, meet flamer.  Flamer, meet mob!
This is what we call "population control"!  :D

I've used the mob rules in my campaign, and boy are they fun.  Getting to witness a Sentry kill 240 people in a single turn was worth the price of admission.

But that is also a good way to get accused of a war crime......

Mechs are not good at crowd control and should shy away from the massive killing of civilian as much as possible.

Fire warning shots, hit your jump jets, play Drowning Pool "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" on max out of you external speakers, and let the damned militia do the bulk of the dirty work!  Unless you are specifically contracted (and have written orders) to put the mob down.  Then its all good, and you can do all of the above AND do the dirty work.

[ahnospell44]

Awesome, thank you very much, I found the rules in the book. Were they fun rules Martius?

I was thinking of doing something about the tide turn (alternate universe style) on the WoBbies, without the use of chem weapons :D

[MadCapellan]

But that is also a good way to get accused of a war crime......

Mechs are not good at crowd control and should shy away from the massive killing of civilian as much as possible.

Ha!  If it was good for the Star League, it's good for me! 

The Sentry in question was a Davion unit, but the mob attacked him, what was he to do, lay down and be pulled out of his 'Mech and killed?

As for me, I'm a Capellan.  Turning a flamer on a mob is not a war crime, it's "pacifying servitor dissidents" and "making efficient use of equipment on-hand to prevent damage to State property"!  ;)

[billtfor3]

Well it was an excellent kill count.... just saying depending on who you are and who you are working for you have to be careful how you handle things.

[soshi]

I guess if you want to view such things as "war crimes" that is your opinion,  I would tend to view it as labor disputes and a renegotiation of labor wages.   If you remove a few people from the equation there will be more to go around.  Not just with labor,  but also applicable to food, water, electric/power usage, or what ever the little peons are yapping about.  Remove a few and their is more to go around. 

   

[trboturtle]

Historical: Unification War has some rules on Mobs, Militias and Insurgents on page 200 and the following.

Battlearmor will slaughter Mobs with ease, but Insurgents might have some nasty surprises hidden somewhere. I used those rules already and they are fun.  O0

You could always run over a 'Mech with a dump truck...... ^-^

Craig

[ahnospell44]

You could always run over a 'Mech with a dump truck...... ^-^

Craig

that would have to be one hell of a dump truck if it were any mech over 20t

[Demon55]

Let the rebels hit the floor.

[trboturtle]

that would have to be one hell of a dump truck if it were any mech over 20t

Brunel Dump truck (TRO:VA) 150 tones, moves 3/5 -- can do 60 points of ramming damage with no problem. (Used one to take out a renegade Firestarter in "Color of Authority" -- I rolled the damage for it as if I was playing it out in a game....)

Craig

[verybad]

The ones to be concerned about aren't the idiots breaking open stores or charging mechs. It's the two or three guys quietly sneaking into your weapons supplies or sabotaging an ammo dump.

Decent uprisings always have a few people that aren't confusing the event with a Frat party. As for that dump truck charging a mech, how about a 1 ton minivan charging a mech...with a ton of explosives onboard.

Depending on the nature of the uprising, many successful methods can be found in order to make the place to dangerous or expensive to stay. For instance, Mechwarriors are a very high target for snipers when they're out of their mech. To protect against this you need infantry doing security. However, did you bring enough infantry on your mech? Importing them is also expensive...Local infantry may not be that reliable.

Mobs aren't insurgencies, they're simply chaos.

[Lysenko]

Privyet!

Be careful with your game, MadCap. the following article might change....

http://www.itworld.com/application-management/232085/red-cross-vows-not-prosecute-players-violent-video-games

It turns out the story that the Red Cross wants to prosecute people who play violent video games as war criminals is only kind of true, not completely true.

[rlbell]

You do not fight modern forces with mobs.

The clever insurgents lay upside down dinner plates on the road and post snipers to shoot the sappers trying to clear the antitank mines.  Once the regular forces clue in and just drive over the crockery, the clever insurgents replace a few of the dinner plates with white painted anti-tank mines.  Now that the regular forces are back to sending sappers to clear things, go back to just crockery and snipers.  That should allow only a few dozen antitank mines to harass a very large force, at little risk.

[Colt Ward]

Lysenko, the article is hilarious . . .

To avoid approaching the rule boundries, I shall just say current actions bend over backwards without even coming near what the Conventions would allow us to do.

[idea weenie]

The other fun is the locals calling in your position/movement to the local rebel faction.  So everywhere your forces go, the GM can set up the mapsheet as an ambush.  Even if you are ambushing them, it merely turns the battle into a straight-up fight, rather than a surprise party.

For other options, look at Operation Flashpoint for Public Opinion rules.  They are generalized, so if you are doing well, you can get extra supplies (or just cost discounts) to even extra troops, while if you are not doing well, you can get loss of supplies (theft, all the way up to sabotage), to having your troops get stabbed/killed while out in public, to the locals joining the other side overtly.

[SCC]

You could look up the Disposable Weapons rules to give the groups RPG and Moltov's, just be aware other then that those rules are pretty much worthless

[KlavoHunter]

Is there a special rule to see how many 10-second turns an ejected MechWarrior survives their richly-deserved lynching at the hands of the civilians they were just trying to massacre? 

[SCC]

Use arty rules to determine where pilot lands after ejection, first successful AI attack made by mob against one man platoon that is pilot kills him

[ahnospell44]

You could look up the Disposable Weapons rules to give the groups RPG and Moltov's, just be aware other then that those rules are pretty much worthless

There actually is Mototolv rules already in the book. However, I question, the Sniper can really cause Demorlaization, but can it be used for removing a mechwarrior from a cockpit, closed canopy? Other then the obvious "if it works for you"

[SCC]

Don't a lot of 'Mechs basically have glass canopies?

[snewsom2997]

Mobs get eaten alive by military forces, insurgencies on the other hand. I could see a mob getting attacked, Boston Massacre Style, and starting an insurgency, or the mob being caused by the insurgency, The Middle East Today.

[Jackmc]

But that is also a good way to get accused of a war crime......

While it's always abhorrent, the (il)legality of it is utterly situationally dependent.

Mechs are not good at crowd control and should shy away from the massive killing of civilian as much as possible.

That simply not true.  If you want to adjsut your statement to "most mechs" I'd go with that, but otherwise mechs can mount the required gear to do the job even if virtually none do.  OTOH, "crowd elimination" is something that mechs can certainly excel at, see the Firestarter for a good example.

-Jackmc

[Lysenko]

I agree that it is possible. SRM canisters loaded with tear or nausea gas. the 'machine guns' are probably close to 25mm autocannons; at the very least, they'd be .50/12.7mm heavy MGs. Rubber bullets not an option.

Maybe a modified flamer that actually spews a sticky "web" type substance.

Any other ideas for crowd control?

[StCptMara]

There actually is Mototolv rules already in the book. However, I question, the Sniper can really cause Demorlaization, but can it be used for removing a mechwarrior from a cockpit, closed canopy? Other then the obvious "if it works for you"

Thanks to A Time of War, the BAR of battlemech cockpit glass is known. It takes a sniper  using a Radium Sniper Rifle
a Margin of Success of 4 to breach the BAR of the cockpit glass and hit the pilot. Now, if we are talking about
a professional sniper, the first shot should be followed immediately by a second shot going through the hole he
just made in the window(this still requires the same number, IIRC, due to the called shot penalty, however
on this shot, the round should go through the 'mechwarriors cooling vest, since the BAR of the cockpit is not
being added to the armour).

[billtfor3]

While it's always abhorrent, the (il)legality of it is utterly situationally dependent.


That simply not true.  If you want to adjsut your statement to "most mechs" I'd go with that, but otherwise mechs can mount the required gear to do the job even if virtually none do.  OTOH, "crowd elimination" is something that mechs can certainly excel at, see the Firestarter for a good example.

-Jackmc

?

I am very familiar with the Firestarter, and if you want to deal with infantry accept no substitute.  I am merely stating that a Mech unit is asking for trouble if they go against civilians, not because they can't put down an uprising, Mechs with anti infantry weapons excel at it.  What gets you in trouble is the aftermath.  Reports will get out so if they stay there being attacked during off duty hours, being sabatoged supplies and equipment, and general harrassment can be expected.  Even changing duty stations, the word will get out and expect much of the same.

[Jackmc]

Now, if we are talking about a professional pure Hollywood sniper

There fixed it for you.  The shot you describe is not possible since the mech sports Tactical armor not personal scale armor and thus any damage doesn't comprimise the protection but attacks the armor itself.

Furthermore, the odds of being able to get a second shot off at precisely the same point are utterly astronomical at anything but point-blank range.  If you ignored the tactical armor rules in ATOW you might just be able to pull it off with a fiar bit of luck, but you have to remember that ATOW is designed to model cinematics, not realism. 

-Jackmc

[Jackmc]

What gets you in trouble is the aftermath.

You're missing my point.  If you are the duely authorized military or polcie force for a faction and both the law and the government authorize the use of deadly force to end a riot, then you are in the clear.  That's not an insignificant point in the BT universe where some factions grant that power.

-Jackmc

[billtfor3]

I'm not missing your point.  One page one I stated that if you have clear orders and the crowd needs put down then go to town.  Just be ready for the aftermath, which in more than a few units cases has been the employer placing the blame on the unit for using excessive force.

[Drasius]

The Lyran backwater planet civil war scenario book that I can't recall the name of ATM deals with some police and uprising forces either assisting or hindering the player group, as well as media spin if casualties are taken and media manipulation in general.

A quick note on fun games, chasing a hovervehicle holding the rebels who have just robbed/bombed/killed/whatever through a city in an appropriate battlemech can be super fun when playing a double blind game, especially if you are trying to capture them instead of reduce them to carbon. It's also rather fun escaping the pub/officers club/warehouse/whatever under the same circumstances if the bad guys have organised an ambush.