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A problem has occured in a regressed colony on the souther continent of Deenar III.
Briefing on regression colonies.
Technology level: Early CX-IV- approximately equivalent to 17th Century (old CE date)
Social level: Protonational neo-constitutional kingdoms.
Political Status: Stable War
Identified Major Political Groupings: 8 (plus loads of minor ones)
Population: approx. 12.8 million
The colony of Magrat occupies the whole of the southern continent. From time to time they have developed some intercontinental sea-going capability, but all of their intercontinental voyages have been impounded by the modern colonists on the two northern continents. The prevailing view is, therefore, that everyone who goes over the horizon falls off the edge of the world (or at least certainly never comes back - swallowed by sea serpents or something). This has quite naturally discouraged sea exploration, and their naval technology is fairly underdeveloped, since they only tend to make coastal voyages or short sea voyages to outlying islands.
The current war between the forces of King Kurt and his neighbouring kingdoms has taken on a disturbing turn of events. Reports are coming in of the use of new weapons and evidence of a technological leak.
Our agents know this is offworld influence and materials - the native engineering capability to produce Gatling-style machine guns does not yet exist anywhere on Magrat.
There has been some effort to make it look as though the King's scientists have developed the technology themselves - but the main factory is in a closely guarded manufacturing centre in one of the King's fortified palaces - and the key components seem to originate only from there.
The key innovations, in the bullet, cartridge and gun barrel technology, require machining to tolerances unknown to current Magrathean engineering - these machines (or their key components) must have been imported.
The introduction of even a small number of rapid-fire weapons has made the King's Army virtually unbeatable in the field, and there is a grave danger that he could destabilise the entire continent. We are also concerned that this may be a precursor to intervention by another interstellar polity.
A specialist team has to go planetside, locate the source of the leak, plug it and remove the non-local technology or capacity. Preferably with as little damage to the fabric of Magrathean society as possible. This is a job for the Starship Marines.
No detectable offworld technology is permitted on Magrat. You will be fitted out with modern specification unpowered body armour designed in the local fashion. Weapons will be wholly Magrathean design, though the materials and tolerances will be modern, and you will have a 14 day familiarisation course in the use of these.
No shuttle overflights or landings are permitted under any circumstances.
No robots permitted.
We have a submersible transport vessel that can visit the coast under cover of darkness.
Pikes (5 metre long sticks with sharp metal points)
Swords
Polearms (2 to 2.5 metre long sticks with heavy metal heads - halberd, partisan etc)
Black powder matchlock muskets (great big heavy single shot projectile weapons requiring two hands to fire and taking about 20-30 seconds to reload)
Black powder matchlock pistols (as musket, but more lightweight and short range and power)
Black powder cannons (like the musket but very big, firing an iron ball weighing about 3 kg, and mounted on wheels).
The powder and shot has been made to very high specifications making your muskets and pistols both more accurate and more penetrating than local models - though otherwise physically indistinguishable.
The locals also have 'cavalry' - soldiers mounted on hogradons, a local domesticated herbivorous reptilian beast of burden, quite fast moving, though difficult to learn to ride. You will not be taught hogradon riding because there isn't time.
Medical science is not well advanced. They have a basic knowledge of hygiene and rudimentary anatomical knowledge - but the doctors are not all that good. MedKits will be supplied containing what appear to be local materials - bandages, dressings etc. Antiseptics have been impregnated into the materials. There are various other materials and drugs disguised as 'herbal cures'. However, major trauma wounds might prove fatal since the full panoply of modern medical technology cannot be deployed in time.
Food - local food is edible, if rather unappetising, and not altogether healthy. Dietary supplements will be available, disguised as dried nuts and berries.
Everyone will get biological immunity shots before the mission to protect against the more common serious local ailments (syphilis, plague, typhoid, black death, influenza, cancer, AIDS etc).
Dr Agmar Thoughtpiece of the Institute, senior technical adviser
Kelly Walker, a field agent of the IIA with many years experience of conditions on Magrat.
Iain Mudlark, a field agent and ex-local (one of a 'lost' ship's crew, and recruited many years ago into the Institute)
Lt Philip Meapants, Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer (Smuggling Department)
There are a number of outlying islands to the main continent. The foreign accents of the marines will be explained by saying that we are mercenaries from the Island of Good Hope (a particularly remote and rugged island to the far south known for breeding hard and humourless fighting men).
The forces you choose to use will be inserted by coastal sea vessel (we have a number built to local specifications) crewed by specially trained Imperial GF personnel.
You will find that the marines are taller, stronger, fitter, more healthy and better looking than any of the locals. This is quite apart from your normal advantages of very fast reflexes and military skills like being very accurate shots and having extremely good hand-eye co-ordination.
Oh, and one more thing - apparently, for some reason, women in Magrathean society are regarded as second class citizens, suitable for breeding and looking after the home, but not suited for high office, and certainly too weak to be in the military. They have few rights, and little protection unless married or living with their families. This might necessitate some reorganisation of the regiment.
1. Query from Major Patel
>Communications between marines how is this organised. Do we have personal communicators of some sort?
Dr Agmars Thinkpiece: Hmmm - this might depend on how likely such things are to be detected if someone got captured (or if you got caught using them). Miniaturised commlinks can be sewn into the collars of jackets.
>Idle speculation.
>Weapons. James Bond. Can we use stealth weapons like or the equivalent of tranquillisers for knocking out those domesticated reptiles and even
>humans? Will the musket balls from pistols and muskets reliably kill one those human ridden reptiles? Can we have cloro-form or its modern
>equivalent.
JIM000: Technically, you could have tranquillisers - but how would you explain it away? The musket balls will kill then (well yours will anyway).
>Do we go in as say a mercenary band 30 to 50 males or as smaller groups of individuals say a few groups of 5 to 10 men. Or maybe just send in a
>small handful of men. I think the limiting factor on number of groups will be dependant on number of local guides we have attached. The size
>of group is how easily we can move around 50 heavily armed male warriors without attracting the wrong sort of attention.
Dr Agmars Thinkpiece: You could appear as a band of mercenaries - that would not be odd - there is war on you know.
2. Lt J M Kemp asks
> Just a thought that lies outside our rules of engagement as written.
> The natives don't have any kind of chemical warfare protection. So why don't we just drop a mix of smoke and anaesthetic at night and then drop
> in by shuttle while all the innocents sleep and hit the bad guys hard before getting out again well before the innocents wake up and the sun
> comes up. We could be in and out in less than an hour. Any mopping up could be done by the guys in the silly clothes with the ancient weapons
> while the girls go home and watch the boat.
Dr Agmars Thinkpiece (DAT): The IIA wouldn't wear it - not least because of the risk of the shuttle being seen fro a distance away from the KO gas - you couldn't gas everyone. Also, we don't yet know who the bad guys and good guys are - or exactly where they are.
> If the rules of engagement cannot be changed then how far is the closest > point we can be landed from the target?
DAT: Over the horizon from any inhabited coast. You have to make the rest of the distance by sailing ship.
> Are there any firm details on identification methods for the local forces? What are the arrangements
> for tactical communications and passing surveillance data to us when we're on the ground? Will we be able to carry communicators or other
> modern kit?
JIM0000: Major Patel raised this. Its risky but you could have mini communicators sewn into lapels etc.
> If the women can't pass as soldiers can we take them anyway in a different guise and then use them for combat, or would this screw
> up the IIA data by setting an example for the local women?
DAT: Yes and yes. But it depends whether you think your female marines can act a part.
Transmitting culturally anachronistic ideas is as bad as technology smuggling.
> (I was thinking about using the women when we get to the target rather than on the way there). Can we take any modern explosives to help us destroy the
> factory?
DAT: No modern explosives. Though you can take barrels of 'superior' black powder, which is about 10 times more powerful than normal local powder (but is otherwise indistinguishable).
3. Major Howland Contributes
>Well it would be nice to think that I didn't have to take any notice of the culture of Magrat; that the IIA field agents could conduct us to the
>KP without having to role play a Magrathean 'Hard Southern Mercenary'; that it would be a purely military operation. But that would be too
>easy .
DAT: The problem, from the point of view of the IIA is that the intervention itself can't be out of the blue - the intervention force has to be a credible part of the life and times of Magrat. So this means that picking a target and suddenly jumping on it is actually discouraged ('a purely military operation').
>HISTORICAL MODEL
>Several "real" historical models spring to mind: Renaissance or 30 Years War Europe, Sengoku Era Japan, or The Spanish Main. Which model
>best fits this situation?
DAT: 30 years war in Europe.
>COVER STORY
>The 'Hard Southern Mercenary company with camp followers' sounds good, but how convincing is it?
>Is King Kurt recruiting mercenary companies? If he's got an unbeatable army, what does he need them for?
DAT: Well he might not be recruiting them, but they do tend to turn up from time to time. Mercenary bands are quite common.
You are quite at liberty to formulate a different cover - or suggest alternatives. I just offered one possible one.
>If he is recruiting, how are we going to get sent to the "closely guarded manufacturing centre in one of the King's fortified palaces".
>This is a post for tried, tested and trusted veterans, not for a new company of unknown origin. New companies are cannon fodder; hmmm ...
>don't fancy that.
>It appears that we are to represent ourselves as a mercenary company of 50+ men with 50+ camp followers. Hmmm ... doesn't convince me; how
>about you? Or are we to represent the 50+ women Marines as a mobile cat house, or singers / dancers etc. (as seen on all the best B movies).
>Camp followers may work if there were to be say 10 of them.
DAT: It might work at that.
>As I mentioned in my last, it would be convenient to use the sailing ship as a base. Not only could we take lots of kit, but we could keep
>people (e.g. female Marines) under cover. However we would have to concoct some cover story for why the vessel was there; perhaps as a
>privateer offering its services to the winning side. The Marines could perhaps be presented as lubbers recruited as sea going marines.
DAT: Again, a sound thought. You could certainly keep the ship in hand if you wanted to.
4. The Colonel
Classification: RESTRICTED
To: All Officers
From: Lt Col Killgore, 130th EMR
Subject: OPERATION CRUMHORN
Gentlemen,
You are thinking tactically, when you should be thinking operationally (at least at first).
For Open Discussion.
In order to manufacture rapid-firing weapons like gatling guns (as opposed to "volley guns") the following is required:
It is possible that the manufacturing facility is an advanced automated fabrication facility, capable of producing the weapons and ammunitions (and repairing / re-calibrating itself) if simply fed with sufficient raw materials. If this is the case, the advanced power source and wagon train of raw materials leading to the front door will be obvious.
QUESTION: Is there evidence of an advanced automated facility?
If there is no automated facility, the manufacturing equipment can be imported and set-up, but unless it is adapted to use steam engines, there is likely to be some sort of power source.
QUESTION: Is there a suspicious power source?
The high grade steel will require advanced mining, smelting and milling - unless the steel is to be imported.
QUESTION: Is there any evidence of advanced mining, smelting and milling taking place?
Lastly, the production of the metal cartridges. This is by far the most difficult to achieve reliably, requiring precision manufacture, advanced metallurgy, advanced chemicals, and some sort of mass-production capacity.
QUESTION: Is there any evidence of the capability to produce the cartridges?
While the gun production facility and the raw materials can be imported easily and kept in one place, the ammunition is the difficult thing. Ammunition production takes up a lot of space and will require lots of people and machines to work effectively (or will require automated equipment).
The number of technological processes required to produce gatling guns are quite characteristic, and should be capable of being detected from space or from interrogation of the local contacts. It is extremely unlikely that all these processes are present - and if they are, the genie is out of the bottle, and we are too late. Blowing up the production site will simply not work as the large numbers of personnel involved in the processes will be able to re-create the technology when we leave. Unless we kill everyone who ever heard of the weapons.
If these processes are not present, it is more likely that the weapons are simply being imported, complete with ammunition, and "disguised" to look like locally produced equipment in the facility. In this case the leak has to be plugged at the point of origin - which is not on the Southern Continent - before the weapons systems on the Continent are dealt with. If this is not done, the external source will simply re-import the weapons with another faction.
Our Mission, therefore, will fail if we simple destroy the facility, destroy every weapon, and kill everyone who has ever been inside it.
Therefore, either:
There is something they're not telling us (someone else is working on this outside the Southern Continent?).
Our Mission might take some time until we can identify the source of the imports. Metallurgical analysis of the metal cartridges will quickly be able to produce enough data to be able to match the cartridge to the production facility (when found). The first part of the mission is likely to be to pick up some empty cases...
And only then do we go in and sort out the facility, the weapons and, above all, the cartridges.
Comments?
T A Killgore
Lt Col, Commanding
The 130th Regiment
Classification: RESTRICTED
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130th Regiment during its weapons familiraisation course - Deenar III