CS Organization

The Coalition States - depending on your perspective they're either one of the most evil organizations in North America, if not the world, or they're the saviors of humanity. It's quite possible that they're both.

One of the books that Palladium released for Rifts was World Book 11 (WB11): The Coalition War Campaign. It gave the CS a major face lift, updated and upgraded a lot of it's gear, and provided quite a bit of background information. However, I feel that the squad make-ups are lack luster and don't really feel like part of a true military. Now, this is easily chalked up to the writer simply not being familiar with the military and looking at it from the point of view not dissimilar from that of a Hollywood producer. I, however, want some extra realism with my extreme gonzo setting, so I'm setting about addressing that.

First, let's discuss how the US Army does things. The smallest unit usually encountered at an organization level is the Squad. A Squad is typically nine members strong, with a Squad Leader and two Fire Teams of four members each. A Squad's actual make up and load-out is dependent upon the intended purpose of the Squad. Here we will discuss two real world Squad types and two that will exist only in Rifts Earth.

Rifle Squad

A Rifle Squad is the bread-and-butter Squad of the military. When people think of an infantry squad, they're really thinking of a Rifle Squad. Generally speaking the squad will carry similar gear with two of the squad toting automatic weapons. The US Army fields Rifle Squads with nine members - a Squad Leader and two Fire Teams. Each Fire Team is lead by a Team Leader and consists of an additional three members. The CS version is similar, but instead of two Fire Teams of four, they field three Fire Teams of three, giving the CS Rifle Squad a size of ten members total. The reduced Fire-Team size is a nod to Siembieda's idea that the combat in Rifts Earth has evolved to be much smaller in scale due to the overall destructive power of an individual soldier.

• Squad Leader - SGT, CA-4, CP-50
• Fire Team Alpha
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29
• Fire Team Bravo
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29
• Fire Team Charlie
• Team Leader - CPL, CA-4, CP-40
• Rifleman - PVT, CA-4, CP-40
• SAW - PVT, CA-4, C-29

Heavy Weapons Squad

A HW Squad is typically designed to either provide heavy anti-infantry firepower or heavy anti-vehicular firepower. In the modern military, a HWS typically runs two machine guns and two anti-armor weapons. For the CS, this will likely be a pair of CTT-P40 particle beam cannons and a pair of CTT-M20 mini-missile launchers. There is a surprising lack of heavy machine gun equivalent in the CS arsenal - then again, they're typically dealing with single to small groups of high defense targets rather than other armies, so I suppose this makes sense.

Assault Squad

This is a purely fictitious squad designed for Rifts Earth. With the prevalence of magic, psionics, and the like, melee combat has seen a resurgence. The Assault Squad is designed to handle that. Composed primarily of juicers and combat 'borgs, the assault squad is designed to get into the enemy unit and wreak havoc up close an personal. Since this is a purely fictitious squad type, it will require more thought on it's composition and so will be detailed in a later post.

Psi-Squad

The Psi-Squad is an attachment from PSI-Batt. It's really just a larger version of the Rifle or Assault Squad, but with CS Psi-Stalkers and Dog Boys. The squad leader is either a highly trained SF type or a well respected Psi-Stalker. The fire teams are lead by Psi-Stalkers with their members comprised of between three and six Dog Boys. Total squad size: between 13 and 22.

Again, being a fictitious squad type, I will detail it's composition in a later post.