X-COM: A Military Analysis

Introduction

Wars are usually defining moments for military organizations, main sole reason of existence relies on the probability of armed conflict to erupt and thus test their preparedness. Thus X-COM was a military force defined under the circunstances of the First Alien War, defining a concept of integration of multiple resources together to accomplish one specific mission.

But, unlike other victorious armed forces who defined how the next wars would be fought (until some other innovation or change of circunstance occured) the organization used by X-COM was never copied by any other organization or Earth, despite some valuable lessions learned through the conflict. The reasons behind this are explainable: military forces and innovation have a love and hate relationship; the conflict was kept a secret; national armed forces resented their impotence in dealing with UFOs and aliens and how X-COM got all the credit.

But the main reason was that once the aliens were gone, Earth's nations went back to business as usual: fighting terrorism, civil wars, guerrilla movements, other nations, etc. And the weapons sold by X-COM during the conflict soon found their ways into the black market and from there to fringe nations and groups leading into an increase in intensity of some wars.

Thus when X-COM ceased to exist, its model organization also passed into History, but with few academic works detailing its organization, tables of equipment and other aspects.

The beginning of X-COM

In 1999 the result of the Geneva meeting of the United Nations Security Council resulted in [...] the decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate and defeat the alien threat. This organization would be equipped with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists and engineers, working together as one multi-national force.

From the published notes and interviews of participants on those high level meetings the original intention of the UNSC was not to create such a force. The proposal for the creation of a military command started on the Military Subcommittee, regarding issues such as the participation of national armed forces, the definition of regional subcommands, chain of command and other military matters. The need to coordinate all efforts in order to avoid replication of efforts was also quickly embraced by the Scientific Subcommittee, which lead to the Political Committee requesting draft proposals from both Subcommittees for discussion.

The Military proposal was analysed but the military organization was considered too complex and the time necessary for its implementation too long. Plus, national armed forces had been utterly impotent to deal with the current alien incursions. The Political Committee also had to consider another major factor: it had been decided to keep the existence of aliens a secret to prevent widespread panic and the more people got involved in the fighting the higher the possibility that the 'biggest story ever published' would be on the mass media headlines the next day.

Then the Committee turned to the Science proposal and was more satisfied with the conclusions reached by that subcommittee. The end conclusions stated that: 'History shows that the contact with an advanced civilization brings an enormous stress to the social and cultural fabric of less developed ones. It will be necessary to contain and restrict all knowledge learned from research on the aliens until we are aware of their full potential, bothcreative and destructive. At the same time it is necessary for the members of this team to be fully focused on their work: this is an enterprise that will require isolation for those individuals to have creative ideas and innovative solutions since they will be working in unchartered areas.'

Another conclusion of the report was that an independent multinational team should be created to study the aliens and their craft in order to overcome the technological disparity between Earth and the aliens. This team should work in secluded locations and given all resources that it asked for. And it also listed one specific item considered necessary for their mission: to have military forces tasked with the responsability of capturing extraterrestrial beings and their craft.

This ideas were widely considered by the Political Committee as more feasable than the version presented by the Military Subcommittee: such a small force could be assembled quickly and could be gradually expanded; the multinational flavor would be kept without compromising the efficiency of the force; its existence could be easily denied; all knowledge gathered would be shared in a secure manner; and the integration of both military and civilian personnel was considered a premium in dealing with this sort of threat.

After more consultations between all the working groups the final document was redacted to be signed by the newly constituted Council of Funding Nations (for a better look at the internal dynamics of the CFN see this document.

Special Forces Unit or Intelligence Agency?

The first question regarding X-COM is as to its nature. Usually the force is considered as 'Special Forces'(SF), which can be defined as:

"Special operations are highly-trained military units that conduct specialized operations such as reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, and counter-terrorism actions".

However, this definition clearly does not fully correspond to the ingame definition of X-COM's roles, which also include 'investigation' and 'defeat' (giving it a more strategic role than the one played by an SF unit, with a specific objective - defeat the alien threat).

The other possible model to apply to X-COM is the 'Intelligence Agency' (IA), defined as:

"An intelligence agency is a governmental organization that for the purposes of national security is devoted to the gathering of information (known in the context as "intelligence") by means of espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources."

But, while an IA is more close to match X-COM's mission, there is a major point that is not covered by this definition, its specific mission, to 'defeat the alien threat'. IAs do not have such specific proposes: they are large bureaucratic institutions made with more generic proposes and with a logic of continued existence.

Thus, the answer to this question is probably more akin to a unit like the UK's Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was created by Churchill to "set Europe ablaze". Amongst its missions:

• Encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines
• Serve as the core of a resistance movement in Britain in the possible event of an Axis invasion

X-COM thus has a specific mission and uses SF forces and Intelligence processes (scientific research, interrogations, etc.) and also develops its own equipment (like the SOE did).

Combat Units and Personnel

Ranks

Ranks in X-COM are very simple when compared to the military of nearly, if not all, countries. While regular militaries have more than 20 ranks (from the lowest private to a 5 star general), X-COM only has 6, [Rookie], Squaddie, Sergeant, Captain, Colonel and Commander, each corresponding to the usual classifications of rank (Enlisted (Privates and NCOs); Company Officer; Staff Officer; General). Since such a simpler system was adopted each officer rank (NCO and commissioned) should also correspond to a similar level on X-COM's combat organization. Taking the rate of promotions the most likely organization would be:

• Level 1 (Combat team) - 4 soldiers + Sergeant = 5 soldiers
• Level 2 (Combat squad) - 2 Level 1 + Captain = 11 soldiers
• Level 3 (Combat unit) - 2 Level 2 + Colonel = 23 soldiers
• HQ - Commander + 6 soldiers = 7 soldiers

Then the force organization of X-COM consists on the HQ plus a number of Level 3 units.

Deployment

Classic deployment modes include:

Skyranger

1 Squad + 1 HWP

1 Squad + 3 soldiers

1 Team + 2 HWP + 1 soldier

Lightning

1 Squad + 1 soldier

Avenger

1 Unit + 3 soldiers

1 Squad + 3 HWP + 3 soldiers

Nature of the beast

Good question. For me, the template and probably the inspiration for the X-COM organisation is S.H.A.D.O., but I know you are sticking to the canon here.

I would compare X-COM to the paramilitary arm of an intelligence agency such as the CIA or the wartime OSS. These organisations have a strategic goal, and include intelligence, scientific, special manufacturing and aircraft-using roles as well as a paramilitary function. X-COM is similar. We can assume that X-COM has personnel other that the scientists, soldiers and engineers in its secret, hardened bases. Apart from the pilots (who seem to sleep in their planes and whose salary is paid by some other organisation, possibly the aerospace forces of the funding nations) there are known to be X-COM "agents" and there are probably administrative, analytic and managerial staff - perhaps tucked away in an HQ facility in a non-descript (but highly secure) building in the UN complex in Geneva.

It is curious that X-COM never fields more than about 250 each of soldiers, scientists or engineers - any many fewer pilots. Possibly this is a constitutional limitation. Concerns about international law, jurisdictional issues with national militaries, a desire to keep X-COM under control, preservation of secrecy, or not provoking the aliens - all are possible reasons for keeping the organisation small. Perhaps the total staff is limited to 1000, with a decision to break this down as 250 each for military/scientific/technical/admin? Speculation.

Still it means the entire military forces of X-COM are only company-strength, and never operationally deployed in more than platoon strength. (Even in an attack on a heavily populated training base, X-COM will put into the field at most a reinforced platoon, under cover of which the remaining personnel will withdraw).

X-COM initially lacks any officers. Possibly in its early stages it is supervised by senior officers of the funding nations, attached to X-COM as advisors but not formally part of the X-COM complement (an old geopolitical trick!). Perhaps the difficulty of establishing precedence of ranks between soldiers of different nations led to this decision not to differentiate between soldiers. A 'team' approach may have prevailed in the early days. However, as in any situation, natural leaders soon emerge and are recognised with ranks. While drawn from existing elite units, humanity's finest soldiers, the capability to cope with the alien threat and handle the exotic technology does not become apparent until after live operations against the aliens. After a short time, X-COM developed a full rank structure appropriate to the small size and specialised nature of its paramilitary group. A good parallel to the X-COM paramilitary group is a Special Forces company, split operationally into small teams, sections, flights, etc. Another (perhaps better) parallel is the paramilitary teams inside agencies such as the CIA, KGB (in 1999), Mossad MI6 or the various French secret services.

The term X-COM, while shrouded in some mystery, is sometimes glossed as "EXtra-Terrestrial COMbat force". Does X-COM then refer only to the paramilitary division, relatively more visible, of an even more shadowy organisation whose very name is unknown? Or is "Combat" to be understood in the strategic sense of combatting the alien threat by all means?

Yeah, I didn't have time to continue my line of thinking but my idea is that X-COM is more akin to the OSS for a number of reasons. The CIA, KGB, etc. are also possibilities although their military component is significantly less than the OSS.

The 255 limit you mention only applies to individual bases IIRC, so the actual limit would be 255*8 (the number of possible bases), which leads into some 2000 and something maximum soldiers. And then there's also the Agents, support staff, etc. More into this article later.

The 255-per-base limit applies to Engineers and Scientists, but SOLDIER.DAT, which stores troop stats, has only 250 entries in it. This limits X-COM to only possessing 250 standing ground forces at any one time(which is probably a constitutional restriction, since given the equipment X-COM has access to, they could make a viable world domination bid with more. One soldier in a Flying Suit with Heavy Plasma would be practically invulnerable to most military forces in 1999.) Arrow Quivershaft 11:14, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Thanks for the clearup regarding the 250 soldiers issue. And yes, 1 such soldier equipped would be invulnerable to most military forces, but eventually exhaustion would take its toll against thousands of opponents with bullets. Hobbes 11:29, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

Er... no. Such soldiers would be impervious to small arms fire, but I think they could eventually be brought down by Anti-Vehicle class weapons, anti-tank missiles, and a Fuel Air Bomb would probably be able to take down an entire division in one shot. An Avalanche missile seems to be more powerful than a Blaster Bomb. And those craft mounted cannons are strong enough to penetrate UFO exterior hulls. ... The real threat is probably those Avengers armed with Plasma Cannons, I think one of those would be unstoppable unless you managed to take out it's resupply and repair base. Jasonred Jasonred 13:20, 25 February 2009 (CST)

Force limit

I just checked and there is a hard global limit in the game of 250 X-COM soldiers in total across all bases.

The error message is

"NO MORE SOLDIERS ALLOWED You have already recruited the maximum number of soldiers."

So I think what you are saying about 255*8 limit may apply to scientists and engineers, but not soldiers. Probably due to the size of SOLDIER.DAT. Or something.

Also there are 3 bugs: you still get charged for Soldiers you purchase above this limit, or above the transfer limit, and the error message for hiring too many soldiers loops once for each soldier over the limit, ie up to 250 times. Spike 11:38, 17 March 2008 (PDT)

It is exactly because of the size of SOLDIER.DAT. And I know you can hire a large number of engineers and scientists at different bases, because once I get well into the game, every base has at least 40 engineers on staff, and many have 90 or 140. Or possibly even more. Arrow Quivershaft 12:53, 17 March 2008 (PDT)