I want to run a military campaign where the players run a mercenary company, similar to Diamond Dogs/MSF/Outer Heaven

I want to run a military campaign where the players run a mercenary company, similar to Diamond Dogs/MSF/Outer Heaven.

What is the best system for modern military or urban combat? What is the best system to integrate base management, NPC followers (who have character while not being burdensome to use), and international politics?

I know I could just use D20 modern and make up base management, but is there a better option?

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Phoenix Command

Good lord, is it really this bad?

Any other suggestions?

Yeah, it is.

I like the gunplay in Traveller quite a bit. Haven't used it for modern stuff, but some guy on here did like a 19th century military game with it. It defaults to futuristic, but can scale back to like stone age easily. A plus is that there are pretty good rules for running a mercenary company in it.
GURPS is said to be pretty good at realistic firearm combat, too.

Gurps. High tech for gun porn. Tactical shooting for gun autism. Basic set for the core of it

Alright. Tell me about Traveller. What are the core dice mechanics and character gen system.

And is the mercenary management in the core system or in a supplement?

Stars Without Number's "Starvation Cheap" book has rules for running a dedicated mercenary campaign. Rules are predicated on a style of play wherein the PCs play two sets of characters: the boots-on-the-ground guys who do most of the PC stuff (and who the players spend most of their time as), and the "Brass", which are essentially the Mercenary Legion's leaders and chief advisors.

The boots-on-the-ground role is obvious. PCs do PC stuff. The Brass needs a little more explaining. Essentially, it's advised that at the end of each mission the players convene as the Brass and set the objectives for next session's mission (giving the GM time to prepare a suitable amount of nasty complications during it), manage which wars to join and how much of their forces to spend on them, and generally handle the financial and administrative work of running a military company. That way you don't run into the awkward question of "Why do we keep sending the top-tier military minds behind our organization on suicide missions?"

There's pretty in-depth rules for picking (and creating) mercenary contracts, funding and recruiting mercenary legions, creating different types of units ("artillery", "mechanized", etc) with in-game ramifications, and an abstracted war system based on "vital points". Take enough points and your side wins. PCs are, of course, integral in doing this.

The system's made for sci-fi, but it fully supports modern-day stuff: "Tech-level 3" in SWN is equivalent to modern-day tech, and the game has built-in support for modern weapons and vehicles. Add to that that SWN is an OSR game anyway, and on account of that it's super easy to hack.

Worth a read, it might be just what you're looking for.

Core dice mechanics are 2d6 + a skill and modifiers, get an 8+ to succeed.
Character generation defaults to a lifepath - apply for a service or career, if you fail to get in you might get drafted; get assigned duties for a given 4-year term and get skills, repeat until you're done or you get injured/discharged/drummed out, then enter play.
Mercenary rules are book #5 in Classic (sort of core, sort of optional, it's a little weird) and Book 1 in Mongoose Traveller.
Those are the two editions worth looking at -- Mongoose and Classic. They're pretty modular and compatible, though, lots of folks steal bits from one and bolt them onto the other.

Mongoose is a little shinier and more modern, but books outside the core rulebook can be poorly written and edited, so caveat emptor. The Mongoose core combat system is really good.
Classic is very old-school, and can require a bit more flipping through books to find the thing you want, but is pretty solidly written and edited.
As a bonus, Classic has a couple of different ground combat systems you can swap in, going all the way up to a 15mm skirmish/C&C wargame called Striker.

There was a general up a while back with a mega for all the books, you could probably find it in the archives if you want to have a look.

Its an older system, but I heartily recommend the Mechwarrior 3rd edition Field Manual: Mercenaries rules. They've got everything from unit creation and recruiting to mission creation, payoff and reputation. It was also a pretty experienced crew that made the rules, so I think they're pretty solid.

Note: I didn't say Mercenaries: Revised. The Wizkids crew tweaked those rules, and I don't vouch for them.

while SWN isn't my favorite system(I feel that it's kinda bland, especially from a player perspective), it is definitely one of the better choices for this sort of thing, also might want to look up the OSR game Colonial Troopers, as it might also be of use;

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