Guerilla- and CI-tactics in post-apocalyptic setting

[Rasilak]

Hi!

My group is playing in a post-post-apocalyptic setting (about 30 years after a nuclear war). The game started in southern Mexico (Chiapas region), with the players being a mayan farmer, a mercenary from Colombia and a doctor who was kicked out of what was left of the united states. They joined a local warlord, but soon the region was attacked by a powerful religious cult backed by a big corporation (they supplied the corporation with resources and slaves in exchance for military hardware). The group of our warlord was taken by surprise (they had other things to worry about), and barely managed to escape north with some surviving peasants in the area. Now they're holing up in some mountains north of Veracruz, where they managed to convince another warlord to organize resistance.
The resistance group has about 200 people, and perhaps enough weapons for 50 (mainly old AKs and M1s, perhaps also a RPG or two, and a jeep which is in pretty bad shape). Also they're low on ammunition and fuel.
The cult can probably afford to send 1000-10000 soldiers in the region, equipped with what is military surplus in the age of the campaign, but would be top-notch hardware right now (except that they don't have large ships and planes).
What would be (in your opinion) reasonable tactics for both sides?
(Feel free to ask questions if you need information that I forgot to write here)

thx
Rasilak

[xPANCAKEx]

players - hit and run. Aquiring more weapons should be top priority. Then transport.

the otherside really should be systematically searching and sweeping to find them, using weight of numbers as an advantage.

the players in turn should be based somewhere they can at least mitigate the numerical advantage the opposition has (some sort of defensive position). Ideally the players could base themselves in a town and sink into the background so not to get noticed

[Subotei]

Well, supposing the group is going to stay and fight, the first thing to do would be get hold of more weapons, and unless they have allies not mentioned in your post, the most likely source is the cult.

So some kind of intellegence gathering operation followed by an attempt to raid an arms depot seems a logical first step. You'd also need transport to get away with as much as you can.

As to tactics, once you have weapons, the route depends on what your players have the stomach for - there are plenty of nasty guerilla tacttics which have been effective in recent conflicts - mines, roadside bombs, suicide attacks, ambushes, sniping, night raids, hostage taking etc etc. The Cult dont sound like the sort of people that would let bad press or bodycount change their approach, so some may be less use than others.

The tactics of the Cult will depend on whether they know you're a threat. If they don't, they'll go about their business (whatever the Corp sent them for). If you've been attacking them, they'll ensure key points are guarded well and try to flush you out - Maybe rounding up the locals etc.

[Rasilak]

Ideally the players could base themselves in a town and sink into the background so not to get noticed
Hm, the concepts of "town" and "enemy territory" should be mutually exclusive in this case. Once the cult is there, anyone found is deported to some gulag and forced to work in mines or factories. But there should at least be some canyons or caves (the Sierra Madre looks pretty craggy AFAIK).

unless they have allies not mentioned in your postNo luck here. They know some russian smugglers/pirates who traded weapons and ammunition for cocaine, but they're on the wrong side of the continent right now. Also, their usual meeting point is now controlled by the cult and it is not very likely that the smugglers will come back.
The states in South America are quite wealthy (mainly because they weren't nuked that much), but don't really care about Mexico. The Confederated Civilized States (what's left of the US) are backing the corps supporting the cult, so this doesn't look too good either. Quebec might help them, if only to piss off the CCS, but contacting them should be difficult, and they have probelms of their own, too. There are some power blocks left on Eurasia and Africa (New Russia (Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, but missing some now uninhabitable parts in the west), Free Europe (Spain, southern France, Ireland and Scandinavia), The North African Theocracy (Maghreb, Lybia and Egypt), The Mauryan Empire (what's left of India) and some smaller countries), but most of them wouldn't care if they knew about it, and the rest probably can't help either.

[Alejandro]

Have you ever read the Fallout pen and paper game? There is some good stuff in there on this topic.

[Rasilak]

Have you ever read the Fallout pen and paper game? There is some good stuff in there on this topic.
I've got the basic rulebook for Fallout P&P, but I can't find anything on tactics in there. And if I google for Fallout and tactics, I get only tips for the computer game. Do you know the name of the book you're referring to?

Oh, and @mean tactics: We'll have trouble to sell the concept of "suicide bombing", and to place mines we'd actually need some of those, but everything else would be fine, I think. (But I don't think the cult would care much about hostages, unless we'd capture one of their leaders, or maybe an "advisor" from the corps - if something like that exists).

[Iku Rex]

Maybe there's a way to successfully attack the cult's core beliefs, thus taking out thousands of enemy troops without firing a shot?

[Brom]

If I was your players:



Weapons. Everyone should have a gun. In an armed force as small as this, everyone should preferably have two guns, even if that just means an assault rifle and then a submachine gun or handgun. Grenades are needed - you can do all sorts of things with grenades. You can rig shotguns to fire them. You can make impromptu landmines out of them. You can use them as booby traps. You can fill them with other compounds for specialized area of effect attacks. Arming at least one in four soldiers of my army with frags would be up there on the list. That means I'd want to raid a weapon station and strip every enemy corpse I can find. Everyone fires for effect and we all preserve ammunition.

Firstly, though, I'd fortify. I'd find a mountain or something and I'd get it ready. It would be a place where we could bring our wounded, store our ammo, hide, and where we could repel an attack. Preferably I'd have multiple places like this, that I could escape from if it was about to be overrun, but at least one place that is highly defensible is ideal. Che Guevara talks about this in his book on guerrilla warfare - about how his unconventional troops could effectively fight a siege against enemies provided they were the defender. Simple iron slats draped over their heads could protect a soldier from a mortar round. Simply being high up and in cover could protect them from arms fire. RPG's and similar grenade/explosive launching devices allowed them to beat off tanks, light vehicles, and to a lesser extent, attack planes.

Then, after defending themselves, they'd all try to escape at night fall if at all possible and continue moving.

Training is crucial. Having a group that communicates quickly and effectively, organized into teams that can operate semi-independently and effectively is desirable. In a group where only fifty people have guns so far, that's even more so. If only fifty of us have guns, I want us to be coordinated enough to effectively fight off two hundred enemies.

Recruiting is essential. We need more people. Even if only fifty of us have guns, the guy behind me can pick up my gun and keep fighting with it after I've been shot. He can tend to my wounds. He can watch my flanks for me. He can run alerts about enemy movements to my commander. Another soldier on the battlefield, even if unarmed, is still very useful.

For a while, we fight solely from ambush. We watch enemy movement routes stealthily. We kill them along these routes when they are unsuspecting. We never work the same region more than once within any given month - we don't want enemies waiting for us. Every one of our men is essential. If we attack compounds, we do so encircling it at night and then hitting it with extreme prejudice. We station soldiers on the roads leading to the compound, in order to cut off reinforcement. We get surrenders whenever we can. When enemies surrender, we strip them of their weapons, grab whatever's useful, and then we run off into the dark.

We sabotage things whenever possible. If the cult is trying to swamp us under with 10, 000 men, you can be damn sure I'm going to make it hard for those men to sustain themselves in the position your players are in. If there is a river that they cross that makes them rely on a bridge to move supplies to their front against us, then I'm going to blow it up. If they establish a solid base that gets water through a pipeline, I'm going to blow it up. If they are coordinating offenses with a radio tower, I'm going to blow it up. If they have railroads that move things around for them, I'm going to blow it up. If my enemy can, in some fashion, use it to sustain, enhance, increase, or otherwise benefit his presence there, and it is at all accessible for me, I am going to blow it up.

I think that's enough for now. I can spin off more later, if you wanted. This is all just off the top of my head.

Now, for your cultists?

It's all about utilizing your mass to the fullest. If I can put 10, 000 boots on the ground, then I'm doing it. I'm flying helicopters around during the day, looking for my enemy. I'm guarding my compounds with dogs. I'll move my troops around with transport helicopters and armored personnel carriers. I'm looking to deny the enemy basic resources to subsist with, as well. If there is game to hunt, my men are hunting it. If there are farmers in the region, I'm occupying those farms and forcing the farmers to feed my army.

I'm being methodic and aware. I'm searching for the enemy. The enemy loses if he engages me directly during the day if I can bring my full force against him. He knows this. My goal:

Locate. Entrap. Encircle. Even if I just split my army into groups of two hundred, I can reliably outnumber the enemy when we battle one another. If I make extensive use of communications technology, I can keep all ten thousand of my men coordinated, and as soon as enemies show up, we just overrun it.

I'll burn swaths of forest and conduct bombing campaigns on places that I think my enemy occupies. I'll fill cave systems that my enemy occupies full of smoke. I'll outright demolish tunnels of any kind that they could be using. I'll deny them places to hide simply by destroying what they could hide amongst.

I'm pushing my tank superiority, if I have it. Nothing crushes an under armed guerrilla movement like, ''Your hit and run troops are met with a tank." Tanks can crush guerrilla fighters outright if they are not properly equipped. This bunch I'm in combat with doesn't sound properly equipped.

I'm capturing any of the guerrilla's that I can. Upon capture, I'm torturing and interrogating them. I'm learning everything I can about the guerrilla's, and then when I have, I kill the person I captured.

Radios. Everyone has a radio if I can manage it.. If they suspect guerrilla activity, they use it. I have helicopters with troops on standby within half an hours flight time to the front.

As long as I play smart, stay aware of enemy locations whenever possible, and deny them places to hide, it should really resolve itself rather quickly.

Good luck to your players. Unless they have some sort of magic ''I Win'' button, or unless you're incredibly merciful with them, I predict them all dying unless they ditch the whole country right now and go somewhere else. They aren't cut out for this war - unless the Cult is moronic, they have so many advantages, I can't see how they'd lose.

[Kzickas]

You seem to be seriously underestimating the time and resources it would take to do anything to all the people of a region. That means that the cult has a lot more resources for fighting the players compared to what they should have. Depending on the number of people the cult should first concentrate on establishing controll of the area then start carting people of at a steady rate. Probably nothing will bigin happening to the people until the cult establishes a railway. Oil and oil based fuels are going to be incredibly expensive because of the infrastructure needed, which was probably destroyed during the apocalypse, the vulnerability to sabotage meaning that it needs heavy guarding in an unstable post-apocalytic world, and requiring higher tech meaning that it's more difficult to repair, replace or expand operations post apocalypse. Once it becomes operational the rail line is going to be the life blood of the cults forces in the region and it should be attacked at any oppertunity. Every time it's inoperational means that non-priority activities will be put on hold and that the cost of the cults activities in the region will spike. That's important because it appears that the cults invasion is based on economics not religious grounds so the best way to make them leave is to convince them that trying to get their slaves elsewhere would be a better use of their resources. That means that increasing the resources they have to use and limiting the amount of slaves they get out is going to be the primary objectives

[Rasilak]

Maybe there's a way to successfully attack the cult's core beliefs, thus taking out thousands of enemy troops without firing a shot?The cult is actually some hardcore-christian sect. So good luck attacking the (heavily twisted) core beliefs of a world religion...
I'd expect killing priests and blasting churches only makes them *really* mad, and I've never seen anyone successfully arguing with a religious brickhead. (Your basic idea still sounds interesting, I just don't see any way to implement it.)

Good luck to your players. Unless they have some sort of magic ''I Win'' button, or unless you're incredibly merciful with them, I predict them all dying unless they ditch the whole country right now and go somewhere else. They aren't cut out for this war - unless the Cult is moronic, they have so many advantages, I can't see how they'd lose.
Wow, thanks for all those tips! Well, I didn't expect them to stay and fight; their decision has taken me quite by surprise. Seeing how much value you put in communications (which really sounds important), aquiring some transportable radio should also be top-priority for the players. Luckily they've got an appropriate source slowly but steadily advancing towards them...
Maybe the players can also get training and equipment (or allies) because the cult is chasing some regional warlords away - and they all have to go somewhere.

You seem to be seriously underestimating the time and resources it would take to do anything to all the people of a region.Hm, you've got a good point. The cult may be rebuilding the old railway lines (if only to transport supplies and resources), but that's nowhere near finished. The area is not very densely populated (think about one village of 1000 every 50km, and a group of huts every 5km) and I've imagined them advancing with about 10-20km a day when they're not meeting any resistance worth mentioning. Still, when I start to think about it, the logistics must be a nightmare - carrying everything with trucks over dirt paths in the jungle. What would you think is a reasonable speed of advancement?
Note: Fuel is a lot more expensive than today, but it's still cheap enough to run transport with it. After all, they had 30 years to rebuild the infrastructure, the demand is drastically reduced and the corporation does not pay taxes on it as long as it's operating in no-mans-land.

That's important because it appears that the cults invasion is based on economics not religious grounds so the best way to make them leave is to convince them that trying to get their slaves elsewhere would be a better use of their resources. That means that increasing the resources they have to use and limiting the amount of slaves they get out is going to be the primary objectivesWell, the cult has mainly religious reasons, but they still need to be profitable to afford new supplies. And the corporation would stop supplying them, if *they* would not profit. So, technically, you're right. You can expect the cult to behave irrationally at one spot for a short time, but not constantly. Also, the cult is locally limited to Yucatan, so they can't just pack up and leave. The corporation, however, can (leaving behind a very pissed cult short on supplies).