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[Roboson]

Silencers do feel like a design though. Unless they're gun specific. Not sure on how the GM would want to handle that. Like silencer technology in general seems more like a design to me. But if we have to make a new silencer for each gun, then that would be revision territory.

Wiretap sounds fine, that could be pretty useful.

TECH:
-B-R1940 : (1) Roboson
-Modified body armour : (1) NRDL
-Widespread Body Armour: (2) Taricus, Happerry
SKILLS:
-Modified Memorise Orders : (4) NRDL, Happerry, Taricus, Roboson

[Roboson]

Sorry about the double post, but in the interest of moving things on, I'll change my vote to widespread body armor. It seems like that'll be the winner so, may as well get on the bandwagon. Probably to necessary, but at least it makes the voting clear.

[Chiefwaffles]

Astria (and according to reports, Merkan) has already used basic suppressors to a limited extent during the war. Adapting these existing basic ones for use in espionage is quite possible for a revision.

Tech Revision: Widespread Body Armour
[4]

By making use of our governmental contacts, we have a factory subtly seized and fill it with trustworthy employees to begin dedicated manufacturing of body armor. Of course, on paper it's not connected to our agency at all. But all the armor made is going directly to us. It's a huge improvement to subtly siphoning off of the already minor supplies of armor headed towards the military.

Body Armor becomes Cheap thanks to this.


Skill Revision: Modified Memorize Orders
[3+1]

We have our soldiers given basic training regarding what exactly confidentiality means. While they were secretive about their mission before, our operatives can now be very easily trusted to not give anyone their mission details of their own accord. We're less sure if an operative is captured by Merkane forces, however. Under basic interrogation (such as in the field after being shot or being aggressively asked while detained), they shouldn't budge. But under any actual interrogation, we cannot trust our people to keep their mouths completely shut.


It is now the Operations Phase. Last chance to vote on an agency name.

[Chiefwaffles]

Operations Phase, 1954

This year we receive an official name - KOSMIC. And so does Merkan's agency - MOLE.


Our first true espionage operation isn't exactly subtle. While it shouldn't matter much thanks to some ongoing misinformation campaigns, local newspapers tell tales of loud gunfire in the night and heavily-armored men breaking into the corporate offices of Human Power Inc. with many dead. No connection to KOSMIC. It's fairly true, really.

An urban corporate office in Merkan is easily enough infiltrated by our teams. On-site security is very easily bypassed thanks to our fully-armored assault rifle-wielding agents. But as the team attempted to abscond with an apprehended Merkane executive in tow, they found out (much too late according to some officers in the agency) that some of the building security had notified the police after our team passed through.
Despite some initial reluctance, our operatives fought through the police blockade with no casualties (largely thanks to the Body Armor). It was bloody, but ultimately necessarily.

The main complication was found while escaping through the city, though. A Merkane MOLE team, likely working off of the police call, located and engaged with our own forces in the streets of the Merkane city. Multiple Astrian agents died in the confrontation, but we made it through. The deaths seem to have been caused by A-R1940 bullets, which the Merkane produce and use (inefficiently) in addition to us. But most of their forces were holding pistols that were largely ineffectual against the body armor. Though we didn't completely eliminate the Merkane MOLE team - when things started going noticeably bad for them they used an extremely thick smoke grenade and absconded. We noticed that some of their agents almost suffocated in the smoke (as did ours. Almost).

The Merkane executive was brought into custody. After some extensive persuasion, the executive gave us some very valuable influence over the company. Making the operation well worth it.
Astria gains further control of Human Power Inc. [A: 3/4; M: 1/4]



We encountered another Merkane team at Singleton Arms this year. It ultimately ended in an all-out skirmish favoring us, but the battle was less lopsided than the Human Power Inc. skirmish.

In anticipation of a Merkane attack on a particularly valuable facility, we had posted a standard combat team to guard it.

According to their report, they had noticed a giant smoke plume along with yells of a fire behind the factory. Worrying it was Merkane sabotage, part of the team was split up to locate the disturbance. After the second half was gone, MOLE operatives attacked the remaining KOSMIC operatives. Using their smoke grenades as cover, their A-R1940 wielding soldiers clashed with ours.
It was an extremely close encounter, but the sound of gunfire quickly drew the investigating team back, pushing the advantage back over to us and eventually forcing the hostiles to retreat. Their smoke grenade is quite worrying, but luckily wasn't enough.

With control of the factory remaining under us, we were able to use it to further draw the company under our power.
Astria gains further control of Singleton Arms [A: 3/4; M; 1/4]



Meanwhile, a small team was tasked with securing intel for our Global League diplomats.

Using disguises, they were able to easily enter the League compound. But once inside, it was trouble. MOLE agents entered in after us, obviously after the same thing. Not knowing what to do but not noticed by the MOLE operatives, our team elected to stay silent and continue heading towards the objective. But it simply didn't work - the disguises we use only work so far, and there's a point where one asks why a delivery man is accessing classified information. This is the point where the Merkane team connected the dots.

Our team was left defenseless after MOLE actually realized our presence, having no weaponry on their persons. A single Merkane agent, however, did have something - a suppressed pistol. He opened fire on our team, killing two.

We're told that our team leader chose to run to avoid further casualties. Our agents were apprehended by Global League security, who simply assumed they were victims. However, the suppressed pistol was quiet enough that it didn't bring down the security on the MOLE agents fast enough, allowing them to escape with the intelligence in tow.

The rest of the year, Merkane representatives at the Global League were particularly aggressive and hard-hitting at Astria and KOSMIC, using secrets we though were classified. The Global League begins to distance itself from us.
Merkan gains further control of Global League [A: 1/4; M; 3/4]


It is now the Design Phase of 1954. Vote for a single Tech or Skill proposal to be worked on as this year's design.

Spoiler: Theatres (click to show/hide)

Companies
- Human Power Inc. [A: 3/4; M: 1/4] (Gain bonus to Skill Bugs)
- Singleton Arms [A: 3/4; M: 1/4] (Gain bonus to Tech Bugs)

Governments
- Astria [A: 5/5; M: 0/5]
- Merkan [A: 0/5; M: 5/5]

Global League [A: 1/4; M: 3/4] (Gain bonus to Expense rolls)

Spoiler: Skills (click to show/hide)

• Intimidation - Operatives will attempt to force their way past security via waving their guns around and using loud words. Cheap.
• Forceful Exit - If made, Operatives will use copious amounts of violence to fight their way out of the area until they can regroup with reinforcements. Cheap.
• Memorized Orders - Operatives are given their mission in person at HQ, and are expected to remember the specifics of their mission until they report back (again in person) for debriefing and a new assignment. Operatives shouldn't give away info unless under notable interrogation. Cheap.
• Sneaking - With quick beforehand research, our operatives wear simple disguises with some quick training beforehand to very easily avoid passive detection by non-Astrian personnel. Can't bring any Tech that isn't extremely concealable. Cheap.

Spoiler: Tech (click to show/hide)

• A-R1940 - A simple yet functional assault rifle developed during the war, roughly on par with the weapons of other world powers developed around the same time. Very obvious, but quite versatile. Cheap.
• Body Armor - Very bulky body armor. Greatly increases survivability of operatives, but greatly reduces agility and is very obvious. Cheap.

[Roboson]

Design: Tri-Vision Goggles
- Our teams have often been limited by various conditions that make operations incredibly difficult. Light levels being a major problem. 100% of our agents reported being unable to see in extremely dark surroundings and through MOLE smokebombs. As a result, the nerds down in R&D put together the Tri-vision goggles. While not actually goggles, they utilize small cameras, microcomputers, and tiny screens over the eyes to achieve the same effect. This gives them a cool sci-fi look. These goggles have 3 separate settings: infared/heat vision, night vision, and targeted.

While the first two settings are self explanatory, the third is normal vision, but overlays it with useful outlines. Basically it outlines enemy agents in red, neutrals in blue, civilians in green, and targets in yellow. In the case that the subject is unknown, it simply outlines them in white.

Spoiler: Cool Sci-fi Look (click to show/hide)

[Taricus]

We only have 1950's tech, that sort of thing might be too ambitious.

May I suggest something like gas masks or flashbangs? Something that means they can't reasonably use the smoke grenade as a method of escape.

[Roboson]

The targeted one is a bit of a stretch, its one of those more super spy gadget sort of things, but night and heat vision applications showed up in the thirties and were used in warfare in the 1940s. So a super high priority spy agency in the 1950s could totally make night and heat vision technology. Those two at least are time period feasable.

[Taricus]

In the portable form you're suggesting though? I highly, HIGHLY doubt it. And the quality of it isn't going to be that particularly good either given the equivalent tech level in RL.

[Roboson]

That is hard to tell from wikipedia. It looks like 30s-40s stuff was not handheld, but was mostly used in vehicles (mostly planes and tanks), but I'm having trouble finding when it was used by infantry. Night vision scopes were used by German forces in the mid 1940s, mostly by snipers, so that one is legit.

From what I can tell, the first real time thermal imaging technology didn't become commercial until the mid-late 1960s. However, it seems as though it was used in military applications for years before that, but was prohibitively expensive. So, from what I can gather with a bit of googling, it could be within our grasp, but it would certainly be stretching into some grey areas of military technology. If we get a lot of resources from the government as a top priority, we would have access to that sort of technology, as some of the military was using it at that time.

The third could be based off of lateral inhibition, which was a concept we were coming to understand in the human eye in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its a little superspy gagetty, but a theoretical understanding of the principles that would make it work could be there. We see this technology today in photo apps that let you change photos to outlines, and has been around for a long time. I can't find a date on it though, so the best I can say on that one is "Theory is time period legitimate, but technology time period legitimacy is indeterminable".

[Taricus]

The big thing is that it relies on microcomputers, something that isn't going to be feasible in particular for our current tech level.

[Roboson]

Oh thats just fluff. I don't actually know how infared and night vision scopes/cameras work, so my answer was magic / a wizard did it computers. Thats not vital to the intended spirit of the of the design.

[Taricus]

Anyway, we need to either improved on our concealed weapons, or improve our infiltration. In my preferred case, I'll work on the former.

MP54 C
The Machinepistol 54 Compact is our first foray into making a light, concealable weapon which can be used by infiltrators. Accepting a 30 round magazine of 9mm bullets, the size of the weapon is not much larger than a pistol and easily concealed in something like a handbag or briefcase, if not on the person themselves like on the inside of a jacket. Making use of advances in plastics manufacturing the furniture of the weapon is light and easy to handle. Able to accept a silencer onto it's barrel as an attachment.

[Happerry]

I'd still like to get a Wiretap designed sometime soon, but yah, we are winning in the other areas currently so buffing up our ability to shoot people without getting caught isn't a bad idea. The Tri-Vision idea isn't a bad one, but it solves the problem of smoke clouds while we're winning in the smoke clouds, so I don't think it's urgent at this point.

Tri-Vision Goggles : (1) Roboson
Machinepistol 54 Compact  : (2) Taricus, Happerry

[Roboson]

Perhaps the trivision goggles are a tad ambitious. I could support the new gun if there was loose agreement for a night vison scope or something along those lines.

The reasons I'm supporting these sort of things is because
1) Smokebombs could become nuisance.
2) It would give us an extreme edge if we can do missions in the dark and the enemy cannot. 

I like the concealable gun, but we're already winning in firefights due to our body armor, so I'm not sure a new gun is a priority.

[Taricus]

Well, we're winning firefights when we can get our guns to bear, which isn't entirely the case. More to the point, the smoke grenade didn't do as much as our sneaking around did.