The following is a guide to collecting intelligence which has been written specifically for the REDFOR team. For a quick overview of how the intelligence system in this MBX works in general, please refer to the Tips & Guidelines section of the Global Thunder MBX Game Guide.
Intelligence Sources
In this game you have four sources of intelligence:
Let's take a quick look at each one in turn.
Intelligence Agencies and Staffs
As in any MBX, you and your staaff will receive continuous intel reports from the intel staff of your higher command. In this MBX in partiular, you may also direct these intel efforts to some extent, which could help save time in tracking down useful information.
During Stage I, your "higher" command's intel staff refers to your country's two intelligence agencies, the GRU and the FSB. The GRU is your main intelligence directorate (actually, that's what GRU stands for, in Russian) which is your resource for most of the intel you'll be seeking in this game. The FSB has special skills and functions which we will discuss shortly. Both are capable of retrieving information on a global and theater level. In Stages II and III you will only have one intel source, which will most likely represent a standard staff position (S2) at a theater-level and tactical level headquarters, respectively. Most of the information in this guide pertains to using the GRU, but the same principles will apply throughout the exercise.
Using the GRU
The rule for using the GRU is simple: just order it to search for whatever facts or events you need to know about. You may be as broad or as specific in your search parameters as you like, but the more specific you can make your query the less time it will take to receive results. The amount of time it takes to fulfill a request varies according to how much information is being requested and the type, number and condition of assets available to probe this area of information. For example, a question such as "What defenses does the enemy have along this coast?" might only take a day or two (in geme terms) to answer -- if you have the proper military reconnaisance assets or undercover operatives near the 'coast' in question. If you don't, the same question could take several (game) weeks to answer.
If the GRU is without ample resources to meet your demand, or if the task you have given is particularly ambitious or time-consuming, the "GRU Director" [Umpire] will alert you of this and provide you with a rough estimate as to how long such a project will take. You can then decide to proceed, re-define the task, or scrub the project altogether and move on to a different request.
Each piece of information requested will be treated as a separate "task." You may give the GRU up to three different tasks at any one time. To see if you have any task "slots" available, check the Intel status box in your team's planning area, where you'll find a list of assignments currently being researched. If you do not use up all the task slots the assignment currently being reserached will be completed sooner (but only slightly). Thus, if it is vital for your team to receive a particular piece of information as soon as possible, do not add a second or third assignment to the GRU work list.
Theoretically, you could leave the GRU on "auto-pilot" and not ask any questions at all. The GRU is on the job 24/7, regardless of whether you have given it orders or not. Whenever there are no pending requests, the GRU will take it upon itself to do a random survey of its datalinks and check for any news from sources that perhaps no one might have thought to check. (Here is where a lot of die-rolling comes into play, for those of you who are interested in the game mechanics).
Satellites
While satellite paths will be tracked in this game, you will generally not be privy to GRU operations to this degree of detail. If there is no satellite surveillance in the area for which you requested information, the GRU Director will let you know.
Under rare circumstances your team may be granted a request to change the flight path of a spy satellite in order to gain highly detailed surveillance of a particular locality. Such a request will probably not be granted more than once or twice during thewhole game, and only if you can provide good reason why such action must be taken. (Satellites have a certain finite amount of rocket fuel for such adjustments so their flight path must be redirected sparingly.) Any request for redirecting satellites must be made directly to the Admiralty (CINC Russian Navy).
Directing the focus of your search
The "GRU Director" will in most cases play conservatively, meaning he will be thorough, but time-consuming. This ensures that at the very least, that no major intelligence gaffes occur (such as a country that was reported as being "neutral" suddenly firing an array of nuclear missiles at you!) Players may be able to speed up the process if they are willing to risk "playing a hunch" and narrowing the search parameters somewhat.
For example, if you are anticipating going to war with the US soon, requesting the GRU to provide information on all troop movements going on in the US might be a smart thing to do. However, this kind of request could take a week (game time) or more to research, since data is theoretically being compiled on every fort, base, harbor and air base to see if there are signs of large deployments. If you were to break this task down into smaller tasks and prioritize them, however, -- for example, starting with the forts where paratroopers or some other rapid-response units are based, the search may yeild some highly useful information in very little time indeed. If your hunch was correct and paratroopers are indeed on their way, you may have time to organize a defense and counter this attack. In the meantime, the GRU can go on to the next level of priority in your list of search requests.
Adding manpower
Players can also do some of the research themelves. Locating maps (on the internet), or putting together tables or charts to help with planning (e.g., a mileage table showing the flight and/or road distances between several highly strategic locations in your area of operations). This will save your intelligence agencies and staffs for the important assignments that are more directly related to military operations.
Types of Intel
The game is set up to model, notionally at least, the various specialized departments that a real-life intelligence agency like the GRU would have. While you need not concern yourself too much with the actual game mechanics, it may be helpful to understand a bit more about how these departments work so that you can help keep the GRU running at top efficiency.
In this game, there are four basic types of intelligence that the GRU is capable of procuring:
HUMINT -- Human Intelligence. Generally this means any kind of information that has been observed or passed on by a person , as opposed to an electronic device -- espionage, counterespionage, and the interogation of a captured pilot all fit within this definition. This type of intelligence often provides you with the earliest leads on new developments in a war or battle, but is often sketchy and somewhat unreliable. If the task you request involves civilian undercover assignments, the GRU will direct the FSB to step in.
SIGINT -- Signals Intelligence. Any kind of intercepted electronic communications, such as radio signals, phone communications, codebreaking, etc. This type of intelligence is more reliable, though a crafty opponent can fool these devices occasionally.
IMINT -- Image Intelligence. Satellite and spy plane photography. This source of intel can be blocked by camouflage netting and other measures, but once a positive sighting is made it can usually be considered highly reliable -- especially if all spectra of imagery (photographic, infra-red, thermal, etc.) are consistent with one another.
DATA RETRIEVAL -- Intelligence gleaned from existing records, archives or reference materials. This data is the most reliable of all (though in a rare case, such records could conceivably have been tinkered with), and is generally easier to come by. However, it may take some work on the part of your team to sift through a lot of seemingly innocuous data and find patterns leading to important intel.
Efficiency vs. speed
Since your time for planning is limited, so too is your time for gaining intel. And the fastest way of retrieving information from the GRU is to do a "full court press" and have all of the GRU's departments working on one assignment. In other words, leaving two out of the three "task slots" empty.
However, unless speed is of utmost importance, it is probably best to cast a wide net and give the GRU a number of different projects to research at once. That way if only one of your three efforts pays off, the other two tasks can be stopped and redirected to exploit the lead.
When giving the GRU multiple assignments, try to choose misions that utilize the variouis "departments" efficiently. For example, obtaining information on NATO military doctrine would probably involve speaking to experts on the subject (HUMINT), while code-breaking would require ELINT satellites and computers (SIGINT) and requesting a report on weapons purchases would involve fact files (DATA RESEARCH), so all three projects could be conducted simultaneously without any one agency or department being too overloaded. On the other hand, if you ordered a codebreaking assignment along with a request to try and intercept enemy radio channels and try to determine the location of an enemy headquarters -- all three of which would require SIGINT assets -- you would create a logjam in one department and it would take some time to get all three projects completed.
There is no exact formula for all this, but you should be aware that the GM will be monitoring this sort of intel management to determine the rate at which teams will receive their intel.
Using the FSB
The FSB (Federal Security Bureau) is a special arm of the intelligence community whose main focus is on covert, civilian operatives. It is the branch of intelligence most people think of when they think of Russian spies.
By default, the FSB will be trying to dig up information on your enemies regarding new weapons technologies and other new developments that you could not possibly know to ask about. (Gamed continually by way of a die-roll). They will pass any new information on to you through the GRU, so there is little need to manage the FSB in this regard.
However, there may be times when you want to focus the FSB in a different direction, such domestic security in places where you are building your own secret weapons, or looking into fears of security leaks somewhere in the chain of command. You can also devise missions for the FSB to outsmart foreign spies, such as using operative sto spread misinformation in key locations where you think the enemy may have "ears." Only one project may be assigned to the FSB at any one time.
Using the FSB comes with one or two drawbacks, however. For one thing, any assignment you give to it will slightly lessen the odds that it will discover something useful on its own in the area of top-level national security. (In other words, the default dice-roll will stop). So, use the FSB at your discretion. Also, you may discover that the FSB has a bit of an agenda of its own, and posseses tremendous power ,domestically. It would be wise not to get on the wrong side of the FSB.
Military operations
The second way to gain useful information is to aggressively seek it out through deliberate military recon and/or intelligence-gathering operations. In peacetime, this might involve deploying intelligence ships or conducting military exercises close to vital shipping lanes or NATO bases, which will give your forces an opportunity to monitor NATO facilities and forces up close as well as test their reaction time. In wartime (Stages II and III), you have even more ways of obtaining intelligence, such as reports from front-lines reconnaisance missions, aerial photo-recon missions, interogation of prisoners, captured maps or plans and intercepted messages, just to name a few.
Special operations are another way to gather detailed intel, as they can be conducted stealthily by trained personnel. Such personnel and equipment are in high demand, however, and once they are deployed early (Stage I) they may not be available later when hostilities break out. Permission for use of special operations must be obtained from the Commander in Chief of the Northern Fleet. The plan itself, however, may be issued directly to the Commander of Special Operations. (It will be assumed that the plan is pre-approved by CINC Northern Fleet, based on his approval of turning over special forces to your control in the first place.)
Clandestine operations involving assassinations, inciting revolts or spreading misinformation among a population are options as well, and could be highly effective. The chance for success of such a mission is greater in peacetime, before enemy security is on the alert, but if detected it could have a catastrophic effect on world opinion and could give away our intentions before we are ready to launch our offensive. For this reason, all clandestine, covert operations must be expressly approved by the General Staff. As far as the matter of scruples are concerned, well, you are left to your own conscience for that.
Your headquarters staff
One of the best -- and most fun! -- ways to collect intelligence is to keep a sharp lookout for "leads" in sitreps, news stories, maps and other pieces of information. This could be a small detail that is seeminlgy useless at first, but begins to gain importance once a pattern begins to emerge from the "wall of noise" that you will be experiencing in this game.
One great example of this occurred in the Battle of Brunei MBX, where a "junior" member of the US team was looking over some bits and pieces of information regarding a recent "secret weapon" purchased by Malaysia involving a sizeable sum of money. The important information had been deleted in most cases -- except for one, where the word "Kokums" was tucked away in fine print on one purchase order. The player knew little about the military and almost nothing about the navy, but got curiouis, and did a search on the Internet. He discovered that Kokums was the name of a Swedish shipbuilder, whose particular area of expertise was submarines. This immediately alerted the higher command players, who did not expect Malaysia to own any subs (according to their "official" intellgence). This action led to aggressive ASW operations which, in at least one instance, prevented a potentially catastrophic loss of their Marine amphibious vessels. All because one player took the time to research the word "Kokums."
Collecting intel through Russian allies
Additional intelligence may be passed on to you through the GRU's connections to the intelligence services of other countries. However, our Russian allies have their own worries and will not always be actively seeking intel in our behalf. Thus, if there is an particular request for substantial piece of intel that you need that our friends in Cuba, for example, might easily acquire for us, you should request this intelligence directly through the GRU.
Bear in mind that proposals for obtaining intelligence with other countries, while possible, may take time to coordinate and put in motion.
Final note
If after reading this guide you have any pressing questions regarding how the intelligence system works in this game, please feel free to contact the GM. If you are only mildly confused and wondering how it will all work... good! That's exactly the feeling you should have at this point. More will become clear as the game unfolds. After all war is a great teacher!
RT.