[Stasi]

So, I shifted this thread over for a separate thread that was somewhat off topic but it got some good discussion.

We are trying to figure out what Cobra forces actually are:

Cobra troopers - Regular conventional army forces

Cobra Officers - Conventional infantry leadership

Cobra Vipers - Army Rangers. I would say USMC Force Recon but I don't think Vipers have any combat dive school training, per se.

Snow Serpents - Army 10th Mountain Division

Copperhead and any of those forces - Navy Riverine Squadrons?

Eels - Navy SEALs

HISS Drivers - Cobra's Armored Division

Crimson Guard - (this is the toughest one to analyze) specialized Cobra Officers that conduct internal security functions but can also augment conventional forces but because of their required education level of lawyers or accountants which are traditionally the education majors that the FBI looks for, I can see these guys acting like Cobra's FBI. They do investigations on Cobra personnel who may rob or steal from Cobra, maybe they killed a fellow Cobra solider, or something. I can also see them as private military contractors (PMC) under the Extensive Enterprises umbrella like Blackwater or Triple Canopy or some other PMC. I can see them like the Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) which is what Chuckles is...basically Cobra's cops but with conventional military training but not their main role. I can also see them as conducting protection services like the way the FBI has agents protect the Director of the FBI. Or how Army CID has agents protect senior Army leaders like the Chief of Staff or whatever....

Battle Android Troopers (BAT) - Artificial Intelligence (AI)??

Python Patrol??
Plague Troopers??
Sand Vipers??
Saw Vipers??
Range Vipers??

Also, who would be the leaders of these groups??

Crimson Twins, Crimson Asp, lead Crimson Guard

Guillotine - leads Eels.

There is a lot to unpack here....

I wish Hasbro came out with a book that explains a lot of this....

[Playful]

You might have a few misunderstandings about some elements of COBRA command.

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division, which is nearly the size of all COBRA forces worldwide. The individual roles and training of those soldiers more closely align with that of Cobra Rock Vipers than of Snow Serpents.

Snow Serpents are the Arctic Specialist branch of the Cobra Frogmen/Eels. They have all of the training of the Eels, but an additional 6 months of Cold Weather training. That does not even sound close to the light infantry training of the 10th Mountain Division.

My recommendation would be to read the file cards which came with the action figures. The first 30 years of file cards (1982-2011) contain many helpful pieces of information about their roles, selection process, and training.

[Trooper13]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Playful

You might have a few misunderstandings about some elements of COBRA command.

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division, which is nearly the size of all COBRA forces worldwide. The individual roles and training of those soldiers more closely align with that of Cobra Rock Vipers than of Snow Serpents.

Snow Serpents are the Arctic Specialist branch of the Cobra Frogmen/Eels. They have all of the training of the Eels, but an additional 6 months of Cold Weather training. That does not even sound close to the light infantry training of the 10th Mountain Division.

My recommendation would be to read the file cards which came with the action figures. The first 30 years of file cards (1982-2011) contain many helpful pieces of information about their roles, selection process, and training.

To be fair, I can see why without reading it he?d get that impression. Honestly, I always felt this was an odd decision on the part of the creator of this file card. What do we see of Snow Serpents and their equipment? Parachute, Snow Shoes, Pack, standalone Missile/Mortar system, and an AK. Parachuting in and trekking across the ice and tundra doesn?t seem like the SOP for an Arctic Naval Op. Not that SEALs aren?t trained to do it. It just seems like a more Army kind of approach to the problem.

[PlanckEpoch]

The way I see it is that I consider the Trooper/Viper dynamic more like the way the North Vietnamese were set up.

There were two primary forces. The Liberation Army of South Vietnam(The military fighting arm of the Viet Cong), and the North Vietnamese Army(NVA), who were regular troops trained and equipped like a traditional military force would be.

I trust the Viper file card to the letter. They're the basic grunt INFANTRY forces of Cobra. I say this because, based on the skill set and the gear of a Cobra Trooper, they're not line forces. They're lightly equipped, and their skills involve infiltration and espionage. They're spies, assassins, thugs and killers. They fight with hit and run tactics.

Meanwhile the natural evolution of the Trooper is the Infantry. If Troopers are the Viet Cong, then the Vipers are the NVA. Just look at the sheer difference. Vipers wear a fully enclosed helmet. They have a backpack. They have a rifle that resembles a futuristic infantry rifle. They have an armor/gear vest, indicating that with either an extra load of ammo or survivability, they're not going to be sent in just to die. They're going to go in with the expectation that they achieve their objectives and hold territory. Even if we look at troops in the 80s it's clear that the Viper is very analogous to contemporaneous western infantry forces.

So that leaves the more specialized vipers to be analogous to specialist divisions of the US military, with the Eels being clearly just Cobra versions of the US Navy SEALs. Going by file cards also that Eels is the starting point for other, more specialized branches of the Cobra special operations.

[books]

I think Stasi’s interpretation of what Snow Serpents do is a lot more logical than the file card’s description of them. As awesome as the file cards, comics, and shows are, there’s no need to treat them as holy texts that operate beyond or above the scope of any possible rational criticism or dissent.

[books]

As far as some of the other specialties:

Blueshirts: mostly guerrillas early on, some infantry ops in 82, more in 83-85 as Cobra size and finances grew and Hiss tanks started to appear. After 1986 or 87, mostly support troops and new recruits.

Viper: Front line infantry. Better equipped and trained than most blueshirts, and a greater emphasis on conventional military operations, especially the use of radio-based tactics. Created 86, but maybe some front line units still converting from blue shirts into 87.

Eels: Not SEALs with their direct action emphasis, but more like the old UDT diving teams that reconnoitered beaches for amphibious landings, infiltrated shipyards to place limpet mines on boats, helped with commando infiltration/exfiltration using ships and subs, and so on. Given the frequency with which Cobra did stuff on the sea floor and with submarines, I also figure deep diving, maritime engineering, and maritime maintenance & repair were more important emphases than firefights. I don’t think the idea of applying such specialized people to other areas like the Snow Serpents makes sense. Finally, I like to think that Eels were a major source of revenue for Cobra, by way of helping the Soviet Union spy on the US Navy, and helping South and Central American criminal empires smuggle narcotics into the US. Cobra may have been the leading 80s and early 90s importer of Cuban cigars into the US as well!

Siegies: the key word for me here is elite. I consider that CGs are CGs for DIFFERENT reasons, not a single unitary reason, beyond being considered by Cobra Commander himself or his personal staff to deserve to be considered an elite of some kind. Some get the position in recognition for extraordinary service or in reward for extreme personal loyalty to CC. Others get it as prestige and pay to keep higher skilled professionals happy ? many of the doctors or lawyers or businessmen who might be tempted to join Cobra might want a sense of VIPness that they?re used to having/wanting in their personal lives, and so Cobra buys that loyalty by buttering them up with a status that appeals to their ego. Some are highly placed people who join Cobra, others are highly able people that Cobra trains to rise into those positions. But like I said, only some are there because of who they are in the real world, while others are there as elite soldiers or as CC?s good friends and bodyguards, without any covert role. The twins are the highest status members of the group because of their wealth and influence, but for me they are not in charge. Only CC is; the highest function of the CGies is not to perform a distinct military, criminal, or governmental function, not any set of functions?rather, it is to constitute a core cadre of highly loyal insiders dedicated to CC personally, in case anyone else should ever try to wrest control of Cobra away from him.

Tele-Vipers: as I imagine it, the original specialist Viper concept was for a subset of regular Vipers who would handle longer-range, higher level communications between field units and high command, a task which required fancier and more complex equipment and greater loyalty. Soon it became faster and easier to make this a separate pipeline, and troops were drawn from the blueshirt ranks instead of the early Viper ranks. (Of course Cobra always had RTOs; the change was just that they soon didn?t have to become Vipers before becoming Tele-Vipers.).

Other specialist Vipers: After the Cobra civil war and his return from Billy-influenced retirement, CC decided to increase his level of personally dispensed patronage, in order to keep his popularity as high as possible. He also was influenced by (jealous of) Serpentor?s superior battlefield efficiency, and wanted to switch from spending money on high tech Sunbow-ish schemes to spending money on high tech field gear for his troops. In this way, he hoped to be even more successful than Serpentor while giving tangible items directly to the troops as tokens of what he claimed was his unlimited gratitude and utterly selfless devotion to the wonderful regular guys of Cobra. So, the profusion of specialist Vipers occurred because of neurotic personal ambitions and fears of Cobra Commander?s, not because of any deep military logic. The different units do ...sort of… have specific purposes, but the causal story is not analyzable in terms of military science. Instead, it?s patrimonialism and CC?s predilection for zany schemes.

[Jymree]

Quote:

Originally Posted by books

Other specialist Vipers: After the Cobra civil war and his return from Billy-influenced retirement, CC decided to increase his level of personally dispensed patronage, in order to keep his popularity high. He also was influenced (jealous of) Serpentor?s superior battlefield efficiency, and wanted to switch from spending money on high tech Sunbow-ish schemes to spending money high tech field gear for his troops. In this way, he hoped to be even more successful than Serpentor while giving tangible items directly to the troops as tokens his unlimited and utterly selfless devotion to the wonderful regular guys of Cobra. So, the profusion of specialist Vipers occurred because of neurotic personal ambitions of Cobra Commander?s, not because of any deep military logic. The different units do ?.sort of?. have specific purposes, but the causal story is not analyzable in terms of military science. Instead, it?s patrimonialism and CC?s predilection for zany schemes.

This bit kills. Absolutely love it.

[books]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jymree

This bit kills. Absolutely love it.

Thanks! As a 90s kid I never understood the switch away from the basic troops I saw in the Sunbow they still had at the local Blockbuster. But reading about the Cobra civil war, years later when I finally had access to old comic issues via reprints, it all kinda finally clicked.

Sorry about the typos and sloppiness; I?m writing on a phone?

[MGurlea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Playful

You might have a few misunderstandings about some elements of COBRA command.

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division, which is nearly the size of all COBRA forces worldwide. The individual roles and training of those soldiers more closely align with that of Cobra Rock Vipers than of Snow Serpents.

Snow Serpents are the Arctic Specialist branch of the Cobra Frogmen/Eels. They have all of the training of the Eels, but an additional 6 months of Cold Weather training. That does not even sound close to the light infantry training of the 10th Mountain Division.

My recommendation would be to read the file cards which came with the action figures. The first 30 years of file cards (1982-2011) contain many helpful pieces of information about their roles, selection process, and training.

Quote:

Originally Posted by books

Thanks! As a 90s kid I never understood the switch away from the basic troops I saw in the Sunbow they still had at the local Blockbuster. But reading about the Cobra civil war, years later when I finally had access to old comic issues via reprints, it all kinda finally clicked.

Sorry about the typos and sloppiness; I?m writing on a phone?

I think what Stasi was getting at, or at least how I took it, was what are the real life counter parts or inspirations for some of the different Cobra units. Of course, just like real life different countries' units might not line up exactly. Ya, we should probably dig out our old file cards to have a better discussion. But even then some of the stuff on the file cards didn't make sense as far as real life went.

I think what Stasi was looking for was how would you classify the different Cobra units say if you were writing up some intel report. For example,

-Cobra blue shirt infantry with officers - Regular Cobra army infantry soldiers

-Vipers - Cobra rangers

-Crimson Guard - Cobra's Secret Service or maybe more like the German SS

-ETC. I haven't put much more thought into the rest of their units. Because like you guys said some of the units are just out there. Be interesting who you guys say are supposed to be Cobra's Special Forces like Green Berets or SEALs.

[books]

Blueshirts: Vietcong, 70s-82. Infantry, 82-87. General purpose army soldier, 87-94.

Vipers: elite infantry, like Iraqi Republican Guard or Guards units of the Soviet army. Probably as good on average as any Cobra unit, but still below the all-around abilities of a US Army Ranger.

Crimson Guard: probably modeled on the praetorian guards of ancient Rome. Some subsets are champagne units for spies and bigwigs, others are grab bags of CC?s personal favorites, and still others are hard core excellent soldiers. All have bodyguard training, but the level of seriousness is higher for some than others. I do think they keep an eye out for shenanigans and report what they see, but I don?t see them as hard core ideological types mostly, especially since Cobra isn?t much of an ideological organization. I?d downplay the policing/counterintelligence role of the praetorians here. Cobra Commander doubtlessly prefers that his real spies not all be dressed in unique bright red dress uniforms!

specialist Vipers: not too different from the heavy weapons platoons of most infantry units, or the communications sections of them, or engineer sections, or what-have-you. IMO these guys are basically blueshirts with area-specific training, not higher level BAMFs who also got the gear.

Snow Serpents: 10th Mountain with some Ranger flavoring sounds about right

Eels: UDT

Desert Scorpions: French Foreign Legion, maybe?

Viper Glider Pilots: 327th Infantry Regiment, to give just one example

As far as the question about Green Berets and SEALs, I don?t necessarily think Cobra has any units trained to that level of expensive, broad-based excellence. I?m sure they have individual members who can hold their own with anyone, but on average I think Cobra tends to invest in numbers and technology moreso than in the individual operator and his/her skills. SF and members of the Teams get selected down from larger pools, get extensive training in general unconventional skills, gain a couple specialties, cross train in others, become experts in areas, environments, languages?I think all of that is more than Cobra has the patience or inclination to try. I?d say the more combat-oriented CGies are Cobra?s best, then Vipers, with Snow Serpents, Desert Scorpions, and Eels being about the same as Vipers, plus having environmental skills that make them better in-situ. Range Vipers are notably tough and survivalist-y, SAW Vipers are notably strong, but they?re probably not too far above the Vipers on average, if at all, outside of the effects of the specific weapons they carry. HEAT Vipers, for example, are pretty much just blueshirts with bazookas, but they are dangerous as hell because of their weaponry.