I was just reading about Cobra Troopers and I am starting not to see the point in them. Vipers are considered to be bottom of the barrel troops just like the Cobra Trooper. But if you look at the Vipers they at least have heck of a lot better weapons and armor than a Cobra Trooper. Is their something I am missing what is the point in have a Cobra Trooper in universe?

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To give GI Joe a plethora of targets to shoot vehicles out from under. And I guess a certain amount of tradition.

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Cobra Trooper = Basic Infantry

Vipers = Advanced Infantry


- JM

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I don't use the blueshirt troopers at all because they are equivalent in status to Vipers and less than half as cool looking.

I use Troopers for information gathering and sabotage operating in small cells. Vipers are more like traditional infantry.

The Viper filecard has always bugged me for that reason. Like most people I use the Troopers as the basic grunts. Vipers are a step up from them with better training, hence the greater investment in equipment.

I like Alexx Short's take on the cobra trooper:

http://www.joebattlelines.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=17184&sid=7ada6814f3678313ee528b7dfbb480c3


Personally I like them both, but would use Vipers as Dedicated Infantry, assault fellas. Plus I love the Helmets and redundant goggles (that do break up the top of the helmet, filling in empty space with something interesting visually)

For me, the Vipers are battlefield infantry.

Cobra Troopers are terrorists. They plant bombs, sabotage stuff, and cause general mayhem.

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I like having the troopers doing lowly stuff. Guard duty, front line troops, running equipment, or basically the whatever undefined jobs. Vipers get to fall back a bit from the front line and pick their targets. They are more armed and more relied on. they are still expendable but not as much so as a Trooper. Troopers are the lowest on the ladder. Vipers are just the next step up and are what troopers get promoted to after they have served time as a Cobra Officer.

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Trooper = Viper

They're the same dude in diff duty uniforms. Every service member here knows there's a uniform for out in hostile territory and another for working at the office back on base. Same with these guys. They are COBRA's Troopers; the 'Vipers'. They dither around on base in their sporty blue jumpsuits, then bust heads out on mission in the uniform appropriate for their MOS and pay grade.

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Cobra Vipers are the start of the Specialty-Vipers. You can't become a SAW-Viper unless you've gone through the Viper program.

Cobra Troopers are the backbone of the Cobra Legions.

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I look at it like the Army's Soldiers and the Rangers.

Blue shirts are basic soldiers and the bottom of the barrel. Once a person completes Cobra training, they're a blue shirt and work their way up the ranks, doing basic infantry, guard duty, manning vehicles (except in driver roles), that kind of thing. They can stay blue shirts if they want, maybe become blue shirt officers. Some of these guys become dive qualified, and become the red suited Cobra Divers.

Or they can become Vipers, more advanced infantry with better weapons and tactics, more training. Harder work, but less of the BS of guard duty and what not.

If they choose to become a Viper, after a while they then have the chance to become a member of any part of the Viper Corps like Tele-Viper, Laser Viper, Star Viper, etc as long as they meet the qualifications to be in those fields.

Both Blue Shirts and Vipers at any point have the option of joining the Driver or Pilot Corps. They can drive Stingers, HISSs or STUNs to start, then go from there or if they go the pilot route, start out with Gliders and CLAWs, then to FANGs, then the Rattlers and Night Ravens, again, as long as they meet the requirements.

They also have the option to join the EELs at any point and from there more on to Snow Serpents, most of these are chosen from the Viper ranks though, since they already have the extra training in. Ice Vipers aren't really Snow Serpents in training, just regular Vipers assigned to a cold weather environment.

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For me they actually are the same level, the Vipers are field infantry and the Troopers are the 'home office' workers infantry trained but mostly running around the Terror Drome and other Cobra bases doing the nonspeciality jobs.

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This has been my take on them as well.

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There's a lot of that I pretty much use. I do have more steps to the ranks though. An Ice Viper for me is a cold weather specialist Viper that hs chosen that training nd field to go into. A Snow Serpent requires a whole different set of training and would require an Ice Viper to go back to training to become one. Technically they are equal but witha different set of training. Some of the other Snow Troops though are step ups or beginning ranks. That movie snow trooper I use as a step below Snow Serpents.

With so many vipers ou there, it's hard to fit some of them. I still try to include them all. I don't upgrade or throw out any of them.

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