I'm liking the idea of the XM-25 with 60 rounds. Recommendations on grenade type mix? Perhaps 1 or 2 Flechette (for crowd suppression) and split the rest between Airburst and Thermobaric?

Also, how long is it likely to take to swap out magazines?

One mag thermobaric (never know when you might need 'em), three mags Flechette, the rest High Explosive Air Burst.

Gatac

It takes 1 turn to reload.

Gatac wrote:

One mag thermobaric (never know when you might need 'em), three mags Flechette, the rest High Explosive Air Burst.

Gatac,

My impression of the difference between the HE and Thermobaric is that the Thermobaric gives a bit bigger/more powerful explosion at the cost of needing an oxygen environment. Does that sound right?

Yep, thermobaric needs oxygen. It's not a straight up HE round, it's more useful to fuck with unarmored infantry and to clear buildings. It's occasionally been described as a tacnuke without the nuke, but of course a 25mm grenade won't make as much of a dent as a honest-to-God air-delivered Fuel Air Explosive.

Like I said, take a mag just in case we need to clear a bunker or somesuch. That's what they used to have flamethrowers for.

Gatac

ADS, Do we have any testing to determine whether Flechettes work against Turai armor?

It's a matter of simply bringing bigger guns, but yes, a 25mm flechette round will fairly consistently go through Turai armor.

Okay. Let's go with Gatac's recommended grenade selection and call it good. Time to introduce the Turai to rock'n'roll.

Angel is quite content with his current loadout of claymores and sundry chemical propelled nastiness.

All Davis needs is a small field surveillance kit. Some bugs, clandestine earpieces, and a few scanners.

We should take the AT4-CS. Backblast is bad.

Gatac

Gun bunny'd!

AT4 CSs use salt water to neutralize the backblast. No problem.

From E of Pi:

Guys, I’d like to once again sugest that we re-examine our priorities for the mission, perhaps reviving the old Not-Quite-Out-Of-Character Thread or something.

Basically, the reasoning is this: when we started, the goals were to act as a forward scouting unit and obtain data about the Imperium’s socio-political structure, and in particular try to make contact with any rebel groups who could serve as the basis for an Earth-supplied insurrection. Consider this one checked off. Next was to get “data”: Gatecodes of planets where we could make insertions, possible allies, government and military databases, ect. We were going to do this based on the theory that we would need this data if we were going to have to start our own insurrection.

However, the paradigm has shifted. With access to an existing rebellion’s intelligence-gathering system, that might not be as critical. We also need to really make a decision about how we will be fighting the Imperium, since most decisions will eventually have consequences on Earth. The longer we keep the secret, the more pissed the public in general (national and international) will be when they find out. The high-levels may know, but they aren’t what’re important. And make no mistake, eventually we will have to go public. Even if we keep things low key, rumors will start to leak out about some astounding new weapons, or armor, or medical technology. Or if we bring back the specs to a spacedrive for reverse-engineering, eventually somebody will spill. The other possibility is that we (the higher-ups) clamp down so hard on information flow that we (Earth in general) can’t get much useful done and we gamble that we can discretely fund and supply a rebellion successfully without a leak in under thirty years, and if we’re wrong we just kiss our butts good-bye when the Imperium shows up on our doorstep and all we can field against them is a couple of aging spaceplanes.

I think we need to call the mission a success so far, meet up with the rebellion, and then introduce them to HQ through a nice, secure Gate somewhere secret. We need to insure that the data we have gathered at the moment (the rebel contacts, the spacedrive, the experience of our team) isn’t lost before it can be reported for the guys back home to chew on. It’s worth thinking about seriously, but we could do it and keep the main thread of plot going simultaneously, at least at this point.

From Punkey:

I agree that we might want to consider recontacting Earth, especially after using most of our supply of armor-piercing rockets and high explosives. Also, now that we have weapons to spare, we should get more SCARs and use those whenever possible, as they've been much more effective than the beam rifles have been when facing multiple targets. Also, a few crates of them would go over well with our new friends. Finally, we could take some of the resistance and our other alien friends to Earth, show them that we're not making it up when we say we're from the Homeworld.

However, we should still push on towards the the ROBS. First, the resistance might know some things, but the ROBS knows everything. Every single secret they have is contained in that building, and that will give us a huge intelligence advantage over them. Plus, if we just wanted intel, we wouldn't need a strike force. The mission against the ROBS isn't just about gathering intel, it's about hitting back. The Imperium attack against Mesas Negras was Pearl Harbor, and this is the Doolittle Raid. The Imperium thinks that they can strike at us at their leisure, and this attack will prove to them that not only can we hit back, but we can hit them where it hurts. This will not only do a massive amount of damage to Imperial military confidence and serve as the opening salvo of the revolution, but will force them to consider every important site a potential target, forcing them to spread out their forces to such a degree that targeted strikes will become easier.

Also, as far as informing the general Earth populace goes, it really won't do any good either way. No matter how much we refocus society to invasion preparation, we will lose if we don't stop the Imperium from arriving in the first place, or somehow build a orbital gate and send a massive fleet through, neither of which will happen if we don't start putting some serious hurt on the Imperium right away. I agree that we will eventually have to go public, especially when we put the orbital gate up, but as of right now, it doesn't make much of a difference until we hit the ROBS. Plus, when we hit the ROBS, we'll get their shipbuilding technologies, and can start working on ways to take them out or build our own. I'd bet, given how sci-fi tends to go, we'll discover some way of making warp technology work on a ship-portable level.

I was just thinking that the Imperium ship in question might have all the data we need regarding gate locations and such.

It's about more than gate locations, people. If that was true, then hell, we could have gotten this done back on Botane. We're after strike target information, weapons and military technology designs, anything we could use in a fight. We're back in the Stone Age as far as these people are concerned, and we need to catch up fast. Then add in all the "hitting back" stuff I've already said.

I gotta go with Punkey on this one. We can't get bogged down in minor skirmishes and sneaking around the fringes. We gotta hit 'em where it hurts. I consider all gate info and such we can pluck out of the turai ship as consolation prize - handy if we have to abort, but not nearly as much as we'd get from raiding their central archives and then firebombing the shit out of it.

Gatac

With regard to the attack on the child-molester's ship, I think the real issue is keeping ourselves under the radar. If we leave it to the station personnel and they mess it up, allowing her to get away, we can expect a needleship on our asses right quick. Then we're screwed.

I'm not saying we leave them to it, primarily because paying them is out of the question. No, we have to go in there and kick their asses. But the ship's nav info is not a substitute for what we're really after.

Okay, so the eventual target is still the ROBS. Still, it sems like Punkey and I both think that we should call home to resupply and allow the higher-ups to meet & greet (rebel and ours).