Australia Twilight War & After...

[Dogger]

Looking for any information on Australia during the war and after.

Was it nuked anywhere?

Did the government fall?

Current conditions in the country?

I seem to remember reading somthing way back about an invasion of OZ by Indonesia?

Any info wheather cannon or not would be helpful.

[Targan]

Looking for any information on Australia during the war and after.

There is very little info about Australia and its region in 1st ed T2K (I'm not sure if there is much more info about Oz in versions 2 or 2.2). The invasion of the very far northern parts of Australia by Indonesia is mentioned in the Traveller 2300 timeline (which technically is T2K canon but has been disputed a fair bit in discussions by those on this board).

If you have a look through the thread map for this board you should be able to find a number of discussions about Australasia that we've had. Here are a few threads that contain musings on Australasia:

Oceania OOB http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=515
International Trade http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=530
Australia/New Zealand in the Twilight War http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=317

If you look at the threads in the DC Working Group section of the site map I seem to recall that there are some mentions of Australia there in terms of its use as a resupply point for US forces during the later part of the Twilight War.

You could use the search function at the top of the page as well to find mentions of Australia in our discussions over the years. I recall there have been many but its hard to remember which threads they came up in.

[Legbreaker]

I personally see Australia in 2000 in a similar way as it's depicted in the early stages of the classic book and movie adaptions of "On the Beach"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(2000_film)

[Mohoender]

Targan is right and he reminds me of what we already said on the subject.

For my part, Australia isn't nuked and I made it (in fact the Oceanian Union which includes Australia, New Zealand, Fiji Islands and Papua New Guinea) the last truly industrial part of the world (they have more than enough resources for that). Their industries was shot down by the EMPs of course, but as their country's infrastructures were intact, they could fix pretty much everything in a matter of a few month (limited electricity within days and all vital power supplies with a couple of weeks).

As a result, it is indeed supplying US but also many other belligerants. After all trade is trade and I can see Australia acting (after the nukes) like Sweden in WW2 (with the exception of the Warsaw Pact).

About civil unrest, as I already said in other thread, I simply don't buy it. You might have some but this IMO remain limited.

I keep the war with Indonesia but If the Indonesians effectively land at Darwin, they are repelled (AMX-13 and PT-76 are simply no match for Leopard 1 and eventually Abrams). Cannon states that both air forces and navies destroyed each other. Except if Australians are the most stupid fighter (what they are not:D) on this planet I see that totally unrealistic.

I agree that the Australian/N-Z navy will suffer some losses (may be serious ones) but it should (IMO) come up on top. First, they won't engage their whole force without full control of the air. Second, they have better ships and better trained crews. Third, their ships are better maintained and they have ample supply to repair them while Indonesia will quickly suffer from supply shortages. Later, I even have Australia commissioning at least 2 aircraft carriers (similar to Principe de Asturias) and they can build new ships as well to replace the eventual losses.

Air power is the key IMO. From what I get, the Indonesian air force is no match for the Australian/N-Z air force, especially on its own soil. Just look at the combat aircrafts.

- The indonesian will have about 10 F-16, 16 F-5 and 32 A-4 (su-30 cancelled and further deliveries of F-16 cancelled by Indonesia itself in 1989).

- Australia can count on 70+ F/A-18, 24 F-111 (not matched by anything flown by Indonesia), A-4 from New Zealand (better suited for anti ship missions) and eventually 28 F-16 (N-Z). Depending on your timeline and choice, they might have kept the 50 Mirage III sold to Pakistan in 1990. Nevertheless, even with the minimal amount of aircraft they are still on the winning side (Australians are not known to fly with broken harms;)). In addition, they can produce more aircrafts what Indonesia can't do.

At last, I adapted the situation described in the Gazeteer (Merc 2000). Indonesians were pushed back to the sea and the Australians landed in Indonesia, ultimately controlling Java and Sumatra under a puppet government. However, they are faced with a difficult situation there with terrorist attacks and opposing forces controlling most of the other islands (not to talk of piracy).

If Indonesia's bet was short live, Australia can't control Indonesia.

[Mohoender]

I posted something on Australia under the thread dedicated to Regions.:)

[boogiedowndonovan]

someone can correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't have my T2k books in front of me.

V1 doesn't mention anything about Australia and Indonesia.

V2 and 2.2 mention that Indonesia invaded New Guinea and Australia intervened. There were a series of aero-naval battles that wiped out both airforces and navies. V2 and 2.2 don't mention anything specific about the aero-naval battles.

[Webstral]

Have the Soviets become such nice guys that they allow Australia, an ANZUS ally and close partner with the other Western powers, to go un-nuked?

Webstral

[Legbreaker]

Not all that much here worth nuking really, at least not unless it's a total nuclear war with ballistic missiles, etc.
A few smallish oil refineries, the odd industrial centre, and lots and lots and LOTS of wide open space with very little in it.
Although possessing targets that warranted nuking if located in Europe or N America, halfway around the world from the conflicts, Australia, especially in the latter stages of the war, isn't really going to be able to supply much to anyone (even ourselves).

As a target, we're a waste of nukes - New Zealand even more so.

[Mohoender]

Have the Soviets become such nice guys that they allow Australia, an ANZUS ally and close partner with the other Western powers, to go un-nuked?

Webstral

Simply what is implied by Cannon (v2.2). Here is the text:
Australia was largely untouched by the nuclear exchange, but the global panic which followed left its mark on both the cities and outback. Large parts of the countryside are now in anarchy, terrorized, or insular, but the major cities are organized and controlled by the central government. A short war was fought with Inodnesia after it invaded Australia's ally, Papua-New Guinea. The indonesian offensive quickly halted, mostly due to logistical collapse, but not before a majority of Australi's and Indonesia's modern aircraft and naval vessels had been damaged or destroyed in a series of running aeronaval actions.

I was largely inspired by this but found it insufficient. I changed some elements (especially the countryside) as it serves my purpose better but kept many of the basics. Cannon made the soviets nice guys. In fact, it makes Australia insignificant.:D

[Mohoender]

Although possessing targets that warranted nuking if located in Europe or N America, halfway around the world from the conflicts, Australia, especially in the latter stages of the war, isn't really going to be able to supply much to anyone (even ourselves).



I agree and that's why I made Australia trade with Thailand, France (In fact New Caledonia and may be Djibouti), and US troops in the Middle East (whuy not Kenya).

[Webstral]

Not all that much here worth nuking really, at least not unless it's a total nuclear war with ballistic missiles, etc.
A few smallish oil refineries, the odd industrial centre, and lots and lots and LOTS of wide open space with very little in it.
Although possessing targets that warranted nuking if located in Europe or N America, halfway around the world from the conflicts, Australia, especially in the latter stages of the war, isn't really going to be able to supply much to anyone (even ourselves).

As a target, we're a waste of nukes - New Zealand even more so.

Waste is all about perception. Those with lots of resources often are wasteful about the use of said resources. The USSR of 1997 has a spectacular number of warheads and delivery systems. The Soviets clearly aren't concerned about fair play: look at the pasting they give Canada. If we're to imagine that the Soviets smash virtually all of Canada's principal cities just to deny Canadian resources to the United States, then surely both Australia and New Zealand deserve a megaton or five. It's not like you guys will shoot back; nor are the Soviets short on warheads or delivery systems. Disrupting the main American forward bases in that part of the world is nothing more than a cheap insurance policy.

Webstral

P.S. Sorry to sound like such an ugly Yank.

[Mohoender]

Web

What you say make sense but it would be equally true for US, however (No I'm not anti-yank but governments continuously prove that they are not fair play independently of the side they are supposed to be on, and US already proved in past history that it is no exception).

I think that it's not the point in T2K because if you go that far, you don't end up with Twilight 2000 but with the movie "Wargame". Could be interesting to play but that would be an entirely different game.:D

[Targan]

If we're to imagine that the Soviets smash virtually all of Canada's principal cities just to deny Canadian resources to the United States, then surely both Australia and New Zealand deserve a megaton or five. It's not like you guys will shoot back; nor are the Soviets short on warheads or delivery systems. Disrupting the main American forward bases in that part of the world is nothing more than a cheap insurance policy.

So which targets then? The RAN's two main naval bases on the east and west coasts? Pine Gap? Auckland?

[Webstral]

Web

What you say make sense but it would be equally true for US, however (No I'm not anti-yank but governments continuously prove that they are not fair play independently of the side they are supposed to be on, and US already proved in past history that it is no exception).

I think that it's not the point in T2K because if you go that far, you don't end up with Twilight 2000 but with the movie "Wargame". Could be interesting to play but that would be an entirely different game.:D

I'm not sure I understand what is equally true for the US. That we would nuke a country aligned with our enemies regardless of whether that country could fire back? You can bet the farm on it. How does that unhappy fact prove or disprove the Soviet nuking of Australia?

I don't at all agree that there is some sort of firm boundary between a Twilight: 2000 exchange and a "Wargame" exchange and that we must find ourselves in one camp or another. The v1 chronology all but states that the level of nuclear exchange is based on what the Soviets feel they can get away with. They blow China to kingdom come because China can't effectively counterattack. The Soviets are more calculating with their nuclear use against the West because the West is capable of counterattacking. Fear of MAD counterbalances the impulse to use enough nukes to destroy the enemy's ability to pose any threat.

Note that Canada gets hit much harder than the US, given relative populations, etc. Canada can't fire back. Clearly, the USSR has decided that the US will retaliate for attacks on Canada to a lesser degree than for attacks on CONUS. If a single MIRV-capable SLBM takes out Sydney, Melbourne, and the appropriate military facilities, the US might not even retaliate. If the US does retaliate, then the appropriate targets would be in a Soviet satellite: the PDRK, Bulgaria, etc. Maybe Indonesia or Vietnam would suffer a couple of US strikes in exchange for a couple of strikes on Australia. At any rate, it's all part of the math. Only Westerners think in terms of absolute firebreaks. According to official doctrine, the Soviets calculate the relative merits of each strike and its most likely counterstrike.

Webstral

[Webstral]

So which targets then? The RAN's two main naval bases on the east and west coasts? Pine Gap? Auckland?

I honestly don't know without doing some research. Off the top of my head, I'd say the respective headquarters of Australia's Navy, Army, and Air Force; the capitol; the principal refinery(ies); and the most important defense-related industrial center(s). The same applies to New Zealand. Whatever logic applies to the attacks on Canada probably would apply to attacks on Australia and New Zealand.

Webstral

[Mohoender]

I'm not sure I understand what is equally true for the US. That we would nuke a country aligned with our enemies regardless of whether that country could fire back? You can bet the farm on it. How does that unhappy fact prove or disprove the Soviet nuking of Australia?


Nothing on Australia, but I simply wanted to point out that if any one could go that far, there was no way back and no possible recover.


I don't at all agree that there is some sort of firm boundary between a Twilight: 2000 exchange and a "Wargame" exchange and that we must find ourselves in one camp or another. The v1 chronology all but states that the level of nuclear exchange is based on what the Soviets feel they can get away with. They blow China to kingdom come because China can't effectively counterattack. The Soviets are more calculating with their nuclear use against the West because the West is capable of counterattacking. Fear of MAD counterbalances the impulse to use enough nukes to destroy the enemy's ability to pose any threat.


Now I understand a couple of things. First, my thinking are inspired by the v2 chronology and it has a different approach on this (at least in the way I understand it). Second, yes there is a firm boundary between a twilight 2000 exghange and a "wargame" exchange; with T2K your PCs are driving fairly damages hummer and you still have some people around. with "wargame", the world population is reduced to a few million s (at most) and your PCs are walking and using stone axes (something resembling it at least;)). Third, I can buy the v1 but as I played much longer with v2 (got my hand on v1 only three years ago) I have a different approach. Also, I'll never play with v1 but that's simply because it doesn't make me dream (if T2K can give you anything else than nightmares:D).


Note that Canada gets hit much harder than the US, given relative populations, etc. Canada can't fire back. Clearly, the USSR has decided that the US will retaliate for attacks on Canada to a lesser degree than for attacks on CONUS. If a single MIRV-capable SLBM takes out Sydney, Melbourne, and the appropriate military facilities, the US might not even retaliate. If the US does retaliate, then the appropriate targets would be in a Soviet satellite: the PDRK, Bulgaria, etc. Maybe Indonesia or Vietnam would suffer a couple of US strikes in exchange for a couple of strikes on Australia. At any rate, it's all part of the math. Only Westerners think in terms of absolute firebreaks. According to official doctrine, the Soviets calculate the relative merits of each strike and its most likely counterstrike.


I agree about Canada and always scaled down the exchange (back on "Wargames"). Something else on Australia: as someone pointed out its much further away and doesn't pose a direct threat in term of supply. I also understand the calculation point but when the entire chain of command is gone so is the calculation and things simply go wild. One more point, I agree with what you say on the West and that's why I made the West start the exchange. The Soviets (IMO) would never have started it. The main reason for Australia not being hit may simply come from the destruction of the subs who had to deliver the attack. Anyway, for my part I'm not interested in the reason, I simply like to have it that way. Your point is as good but if I was to follow you I would be much darker than you are.

My PCs would play in a world that would be more chaotic than the one in T2K: entire water supplies contaminated, canibalism everywhere, survivors in US being under 1 million (less than 10.000 in Poland a,d France destroyed); no cars, tanks..., nuclear winter in effect world wide since the exchange, snow to the chest and the best weapon in the group being a M16 with 5 bullets left. Their main problem would not be to avoid further contamination but it would simply be about how much time can they survive with such an important contamination level. Soviets wouldn't be a threat anymore, their fellow PCs would be the threat.:D;) As a result, I would not get any PCs and could close the chapter.:): I would probably have no more friends any more as well.:p

[RN7]

From Merc 2000:

Current Conditions:
In 1997 a military junta seized power in Indonesia and invaded Papa New Guinea, in what outside observers labelled as a desperate attempt to distract the attention of the populace from the nation’s economic problems. Australia (the defender of Papua New Guinea by treaty) sent troops in response. This army was the first of many forces to be primarily mercenary, but it was not the last. In 1999, the Australian mercenary army defeated the Indonesian forces on Java and Sumatra, and the government in Jakarta surrendered, although parts of the defeated army (primarily the units in Borneo) refused to surrender.

The forces of the pro-Australian government currently control 90 percent of Java and Sumatra (including 100 percent of the oil fields on these two islands), and all major airfields and seaports in the rest of the Indonesian Archipelago, except for the islands of Timor and the Moluccan group, which are controlled by Timorese and Moluccan insurgents, respectively. Some of the inhabitants of the smaller islands in the Sulu Sea region have fallen to their own devices and returned to their old livelihood-piracy. Technically, the Indonesian Army officers control the mercenary units, but the major command slots of each mercenary unit (and most of the Indonesian units) are occupied by Australians holding Indonesian commissions.

Ground Forces:
The Australians have raised nine brigades of mercenaries for service in Indonesia, and also have available the Australian SAS regiment, a cavalry regiment, and an armored regiment. An infantry division of native Australians remains in reserve, to be used only in case of dire emergency. The army force of helicopters consists of 47 OH-58 Kiowa’s and 48 AH-1s.

Air Power:
Indo-Australian fixed-wing assets in Indonesia consist of two 16 plane squadrons of A-6, one 14 plane squadron of F-5s, two KC-130 tankers, and two 14 plane squadrons of C-130 Hercules transports (Indonesian), plus two 18 plane squadrons of F-111s, three 16 plane squadrons of F-18s, and 24 C-130 Hercules transports (Australian). Rotary-wing assets include 12 Bo-105, 18 UH-1 (Indonesian), and 8 CH-47s and 12 UH-1s (Australian).

Naval Forces:
The Australian naval assets devoted to the Indonesian theatre consist of a Perth class (ex-US Adams class) destroyer and 12 patrol boats similar to the SAR-38. Long-range recon duties are performed by seven Sea King helicopters of the Fleet Air Arm. Much of the Indonesian Navy was destroyed during the war, but another 17 patrol boats are available for pro-Australian use as well as 18 unarmed maritime recon aircraft.

Australian Organizations:
At the conclusion of the formal portion of the war the Australians retained most of the mercenary forces for occupation duties, while dismissing the bulk of their regular units. This has eased the burden on the Australian labour pool, since it is not necessary to take large numbers of the Australian workforce into the military. Nonetheless supporting the large mercenary contingent has placed a strain on the economy. Recruitment of Australian civilians is minimal. The total Australian force breaks down to about 20 percent Australians and New Zealanders, 45 percent Indian, 15 percent former Soviet, 10 percent German, with the remainder consisting of mixed nationalities. Most of the combat mercenaries are Russians, Germans and Americans, although other nationalities are well represented. Some of the units have been in service for years, causing the Australian force in Indonesia to be nicknamed the Australian Foreign Legion. The Australian organisation and equipment mix represents a departure from their normal organisational practises and represents the realities of the situation in Indonesia.

Free Indonesian Army:
This force consists of remnants of the old Indonesian Army. Units from platoon to battalion size are still in action (more of the former than of the latter), and hold much of Borneo. This includes the oil fields of Borneo, although Australian air patrols and a semi-unfriendly government in Malaysia keep them from exporting. Small pockets of anti-Australian resistance are present on Sumatra, Java, and Irian as well. A single surviving light tank company is hidden somewhere on Java, hidden in the interior of the island where it awaits an opportunity to strike. The Free Indonesian forces also have four UH-1 s and an armed Bo-105 (hidden in the interior of Borneo). The Free Indonesian forces have no naval assets, except for a few small island hopping cargo boats, unarmed fishing boats, or tramp steamers. Some of the larger fishing boats or steamers are big enough to carry one or two armored vehicles while still being small enough to land anywhere along the coast.

Revolutionary Front East Timor:
For decades before the war with Australia, the Indonesians had been fighting a low-level guerrilla war against a small but virulent Timoran insurgency.

Free Papua Movement:
This group is still opposed to the Australian presence in Papua New Guinea. It consists of a few hundred ill armed guerrillas operating in the mountainous jungles on the island.

Front for an independent Moluccas:
These guerrillas operate from the islands of Moluccan Sea, but have terrorist cells as far away as Europe.

[RN7]

From Millennium’s End:

No nuclear war in this scenario but a similar world environment to Merc 2000. Economic recession, separatist movements and international terrorism has plunged the world into crisis and strained the resources of many of the worlds militaries, but the Australia armed forces seems to be doing well out of it.

The Australian Army
The Australian Army has undergone the largest expansion of the three services. Together with the purchase of US Army surplus after the Gulf War, this has provided a potent combination of modern equipment mated to traditional Australian field craft. There is a Mechanised Infantry Regiment equipped with M1A1 Abrams, M2 Bradley’s, and LAV-25’s. There is an Air Mobile Regiment with the UH-60 Blackhawk as transport, and a Marine Assault Regiment based around the Navy’s HMAS Perth (a former Tawara class amphibious assault ship). Two squadrons of Eurocopter Tiger helicopters provide Anti-armour and Close Air Support. A small air defence unit with a battery of Patriot and several batteries of Rapier are tasked with mainland air defence.

The Australian SAS Regiment consists of three sabres. At any time, one of these is tasked with Counter Terrorism, while the others are used as raiders, or in recon. The CT role is rotated regularly to ensure a broad mix of skills. In the field, Australian troops are armed with the Steyr AUG (the M203 grenade launcher is issued one per fire team), the M249 SAW and a mixture of Milan and the M-72 LAW for anti-tank / anti-bunker work. The SAS use what they want, typically the M-16 or the H&K MP-5. There is no PDW for rear echelon troops, but this is being evaluated, and it is likely that the FN P-90 will be adopted shortly. Training exercises are regularly held in conjunction with the Singaporean army in the jungles of northern Queensland and in the deserts of Western Australia.

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN)
The RAN has done well out of the expansion of the defence forces. The pride and joy of the Navy is HMAS Perth, formerly the USS Peleliu (A Tawara class Amphibious Assault Helicopter Carrier). Used in both the ASW and Amphibious Assault roles, she can carry almost 2000 troops, plus up to 35 helicopters. AV-8B Harrier II’s may be purchased to provide a self defence ability in the near future.

Available to escort HMAS Perth are three almost new former US Navy Arleigh Burke class AEGIS destroyers (HMAS Brisbane, HMAS Hobart and HMAS Freemantle). HMAS Hobart was badly damaged in a suicide boat attack in 1999, but is now back in service. 6 OH Perry class Missile Frigates (FFG) and 8 ANZAC class frigates (FF) round out the surface navy. Eight new Collins class conventional (non-nuclear) submarines make up the submarine fleet. These have been fitted with Tomahawk missile launching capability, and can carry up to 8 Tomahawks each. Silent when operating on batteries, they have also been used in landing special operations troops. The navy also maintains a small anti-mining and ports clearance unit to guard against mines and enemy SCUBA units. This unit regularly trains with the Singaporean navy. Navy air units are currently limited to the S-70 Sea Hawk and the SH-3 Sea King. The Sea Harrier, or AV-8B Harrier II may be purchased in the near future. The RAAF provides P-3 Orions for ASW and SAR work, and a squadron of former RNZAF A-4 Skyhawks for aggressor training. The RAAF’s F/A-18’s can be configured for an anti-surface role with Harpoon and Maverick missiles.

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)
The RAAF has doubled in size since 1990. There are now four squadrons for F/A- 18’s providing both air defence and ground strike. The two squadrons of F-111’s have been expanded by the purchase of USAF surplus FB-111’s to provide a strategic strike capability. A number of new E2 Hawkeye’s have been purchased to provide AWAC’s along with the Jindalee OTHR long range radar system. Air transport is an area of concern, as although the number of C-130’s has increased, they are limited in load. Where heavy lift is required, Russian or Ukrainian Antonov’s have been leased and this is likely to continue in the future in the absence of either the C-17 or the Airbus 400. A number of converted Boeing 707’s provide air-to-air refuelling expanding the area covered by the RAAF’s strike force.

A number of new bases have been opened in northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia to provide basing for the new squadrons. A squadron of either F-111’s or F/A-18’s rotate to Changi Air Base in Singapore as part of the defence agreement, while Singaporean F-16’s fly training exercises over north Queensland.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)
The ASIO is the Federal Government branch tasked with dealing in internal security and counter espionage. ASIO Headquarters are in Canberra with district offices in each state or territory capital. It is thought that around 600 people work for the ASIO, scattered around locations in Australia. The focus of the ASIO is on espionage, terrorists and violent political groups. It also performs background security checks on personnel working in areas of national interest, and it works closely with the Department of Immigration to weed out undesirable elements.

By law, it is not permitted to operate outside of Australia, but several recent operations appear to have had an overseas connection, much to the annoyance of the ASIS. Contacts with the British Security Service and America’s FBI are good, with a great deal of information exchanged between the organisations. Any actions requiring heavy duty firepower would be backed up by elements of the CT sabre of the SAS. Friction between the ASIO and State Police forces mean that Police SWAT teams are only occasionally used.

The Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO)
The DIGO is a branch of the Ministry of Defence. Its role is to provide intelligence to government agencies from satellite and other imagery sources. To provide this service it has the use of a number of assets include Photo-Recon configured RAAF F-111’s, Falcon business jets, E-2 AWACS and Aus-Sat (a spy satellite launched in 1999 from Guiana). It is run from Bendigo in Victoria, with a headquarters detachment in Canberra. It is suspected that members of DIGO are also present on the ground photographing sensitive overseas sites. Major roles handled by the DIGO include tracking of unknown shipping, unauthorised flights to and from Australian airspace and monitoring of National Security and Defence exclusion zones in the Northern Territories, Western Australia and Queensland.

The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS)
The ASIS is Australia’s overseas intelligence collection agency. Its primary function is to obtain and distribute information about the capabilities, intentions and activities of individuals or organisations outside Australia which may impact on Australian interests. The ASIS tasks include reporting on major defence, international relations and national economic issues. The ASIS is not regarded as a police or law enforcement agency. It is prohibited by law from planning for, or undertaking, paramilitary activities involving violence against the person or the use of weapons. Any operations requiring these activities are passed over the Australian Defence Forces. It is thought that in a number of these operations have been co-ordinated or headed by an ASIS staff member. It is certain that a number of ASIS field staff are former Special Forces members.

The ASIS headquarters are in Canberra. All Australian Embassies and Consulates in the Asian region will have at least one staff member working for the ASIS. In areas regarding as high priority such as Indonesia, India and China, that number will be much higher. The Director of the ASIS reports directly to the Prime Minister. It is though that there may be 400 staff based in Australia, and up to 50 based at foreign locations. The ASIS enjoys good relations with the UK SIS and with the CIA. Its relationship with the ASIO is not so good, as several operations by the ASIS have resulted in Australian espionage rings being exposed.

Joint Defence Facilities
These are US intelligence bases within Australia which are jointly owned with the Australia government. Australians provide much of the staffing and resources, and both share in information gleaned. The three known bases are Harold Holt Station near the North West Cape in Western Australia, Pine Gap near Alice Springs and Nurrungar which is within the Woomera defence zone in South Australia. Pine Gap is the only one easily accessible by the public, and attracts regular protests.

[Targan]

If a single MIRV-capable SLBM takes out Sydney, Melbourne, and the appropriate military facilities, the US might not even retaliate.

If you nuked Sydney and Melbourne you would probably wipe out a third of Australia's population. That would take us out of any war pretty quickly. After that Australia would probably revert to state-based government rather than a federally-governed system (due manly to the huge distances involved). Australia's state governments already have a lot of power. They could operate as individual countries without too much trouble. That would be the end of the Commonwealth of Australia though.

Edit: The combined populations of Sydney and Melbourne are around 8.3 million. Australia's population is about 22 million. I guess nukes wouldn't kill all of the inhabitants of Sydney and Melbourne but my guess of a third of the Australian population wiped out was pretty close.

[Webstral]

Anyway, for my part I'm not interested in the reason, I simply like to have it that way.

...As a result, I would not get any PCs and could close the chapter.:): I would probably have no more friends any more as well.:p

That's all you need to say. If that's the way you want it, no other justifications offered, I respect your position.

Webstral

[Legbreaker]

Before we head too far down the path of what was and was not nuked, the subject of Australian (and New Zealand) involvement in the war needs to be addressed.

Nowhere in canon that I can see are Australia and New Zealand shown to be directly involved in any theatre of war other than against Indonesia - a totally seperate conflict to that occuring between Nato and the Pact. Non-canon backgrounds such as Mo's are another matter of course.

Canada on the other hand has forces directly in contact with Pact forces - they are a member of the beligerant nations.

Australia and New Zealands only involvement is the possible supply of raw materials and limited finished goods to Nato countries (and in my mind at least a probable involvement in Korea as part of the UN against the North Koreans). The only US facility in Australia is Pine Gap located hundreds of miles from virtually anywhere and barely worth dropping conventional weapons on let alone a low yield nuke.

New Zealand, as far as I am aware, has no US facilities located within it's borders (and the population get VERY stroppy when a nuclear powered vessel even comes close regardless if the US are allies or not!)

So, what are we left with then? A small facility located in the middle of nowhere plus the possibility of strikes against industrial capacity (likely) and the (unlikely) possibility of strikes against military bases which are spread wide across the country (taking one out with a nuke might cause a few problems, but give it a week or two and we're back, ready to go again). There's a lot to be said for decentralisation....

Something else to keep in mind is that as Australia was not directly involved as a combatant, nor had war been declared, there is a strong chance Australia (and possibly NZ) would join the war on Nato's side. Troops and war material would be sent to the middle east, or if Korea could be politically linked in the eyes of the populace, to Russia, by an increased commitment there (maybe lifting from a battalion plus supporting elements to a full brigade). Numbers might not be a lot considering what's also happening with Indonesia, but it would certainly be a consideration for the planning of any nuclear attack.

Therefore, I would suggest that the only target nuked in the first exchange would be Pine Gap to cripple the US early warning and electronic surveillance capacity (plus whatever else they do there).

The second exchange might be targeted at the naval facilities at Perth and Sydney and the industrial cities of Newcastle and Woolongong (last three on the east coast all within about 400km). This is provided the Soviets still had anything even capable of attacking across such a vast distance - ie they'd either need a couple of subs, or use ballistic missiles which I believe barely reach across the Artic to attack continental USA. Note also that missiles wouldn't necessarily have the earths rotation to assist them either....

Attacking other cities would achieve little more than inflicting civilian casualties.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'd like to add a little here, some of it is from a bit of reading and some from a friend who's father was a Major in the Australian Corp of Signals.

The items from the Merc: 2000 book are unfortunately, like a lot of game products dealing with Australia, lacking in some research;

"The army force of helicopters consists of 47 OH-58 Kiowa’s and 48 AH-1s." As much as I like the Cobra, it wouldn't have been selected for Australia unless a fantastically good deal was made for its purchase. We evaluated them during the Vietnam War and the decision was made to acquire them to the point where they were issued an Australian aircraft serial prefix but the war ended and no purchase was made.
Later evaluation in the 1980s decided that attack helicopters were a very low priority and that a helicopter better suited to Australia's environment and long distances was required. More importantly, up until the late 1990s, the Air Force would most likely have been the operator of any attack helicopters we purchased as it was seen to be the primary supplier of combat air assets.
Also, the Army operated the Bell 206B Jet Ranger and not the military model OH-58 Kiowa. As such, they were not fitted for armaments of any sort and were used as light utility, recce/observation only.
This isn't a complaint really, just an attempt to provide some better information for everyone.

"Indo-Australian fixed-wing assets in Indonesia consist of two 16 plane squadrons of A-6..." I believe this is a typo that slipped past the editors as no force outside the USA operated/operates the A-6 as far as I'm aware. I believe it should have read A-4 as Indonesia was a customer for the Skyhawk.

Another mistake in the Merc: 2000 book is the notion that we would automatically buy small arms from the UK so we would be using the L85 and L86 when in fact we were looking to acquire a licence to build M16A2 rifles here but Colt said no so we went for the AUG instead. This is common misconception with RPG companies in Europe as well as the USA.

The Millenium's End information while being more up to date is no less mistaken in some areas.

It is entirely unlikely that we would have bought brand new M2 Bradleys let alone secondhand ones as there has not been any need identified for the operation of MICVs here. They are the province of nations with bigger budgets or larger logistics support. The mech infantry role here is sufficiently covered by updated M113 vehicles.
No mention is made of the L14 Carl Gustav and we have many more of those than the Milan.

Again, it was unlikely any specialized PDW would have been adopted because the military wanted to keep as few types of ammunition as it could. With the use of the AUG, we simply got a shorter barrel version thus rendering the need for a PDW less important. The SAS here rarely use the MP5 in roles outside of CT or VIP protection or special needs (e.g. silenced weapons), they normally use the M4 carbine when an M16 isn't appropriate.

This may be nit-picking but Fremantle (as in HMAS Fremantle) is not spelt Freemantle.
The E-2C Hawkeye, was felt to be too limited in range to serve Australia's needs. An AEW version of the P-3 Orion was actually being developed for Australia although that was eventually dropped in favour of an AEW version of the Boeing 737.

As for what would have been a nuclear target in Australia, the list is actually larger than might be expected.
Certainly Pine Gap would be a target but also the Harold E. Holt communications station next to Exmouth in Western Australia as it controlled all communications to USN submarines in this part of the southern hemisphere. Melbourne would certainly have been a target because it was (still is I think) the location of a Corp of Signals base that handled all the communications between Australia and Canada, the UK and the USA during the Cold War period (it served as a backup for communications between the UK and Canada/USA and the UK and New Zealand too by the looks of things).

Perth may have been on the target list as it is the site of the deep water harbour of Fremantle plus a RAN submarine base, ship building facilities and some petroleum refining/storage. Canberra may be hit simply because it is the site of Australian military command (along with being the seat of government).

[Legbreaker]

With the limited number of targets in Australia and the restrictions distance places on the nuclear options, what's the thoughts regarding Spetznaz type attacks instead?

I honestly can't see a nuke being used to take out the relatively small facilities scattered about the country when other options costing far less and (depending on the actual target, etc) the resource / asset could be reused on other targets. These conventional weapon attacks would also be less likely to stir Australia into action than being nuked, a definate "plus" for the Pact planners.

[Mohoender]

"The army force of helicopters consists of 47 OH-58 Kiowa’s and 48 AH-1s." As much as I like the Cobra, it wouldn't have been selected for Australia unless a fantastically good deal was made for its purchase. We evaluated them during the Vietnam War and the decision was made to acquire them to the point where they were issued an Australian aircraft serial prefix but the war ended and no purchase was made.
Later evaluation in the 1980s decided that attack helicopters were a very low priority and that a helicopter better suited to Australia's environment and long distances was required. More importantly, up until the late 1990s, the Air Force would most likely have been the operator of any attack helicopters we purchased as it was seen to be the primary supplier of combat air assets.
Also, the Army operated the Bell 206B Jet Ranger and not the military model OH-58 Kiowa. As such, they were not fitted for armaments of any sort and were used as light utility, recce/observation only.
This isn't a complaint really, just an attempt to provide some better information for everyone.


As my timeline takes place a little later (5 years later in fact), I provide Australia with Tiger attack helicopters.:D


"Indo-Australian fixed-wing assets in Indonesia consist of two 16 plane squadrons of A-6..." I believe this is a typo that slipped past the editors as no force outside the USA operated/operates the A-6 as far as I'm aware. I believe it should have read A-4 as Indonesia was a customer for the Skyhawk.


Yes about 32 A-4 that they got almost from the black market. I believe the deal was barely legal.


This may be nit-picking but Fremantle (as in HMAS Fremantle) is not spelt Freemantle.
The E-2C Hawkeye, was felt to be too limited in range to serve Australia's needs. An AEW version of the P-3 Orion was actually being developed for Australia although that was eventually dropped in favour of an AEW version of the Boeing 737.


The Fremantle might well come from me (just a small mispelling) and it would have come unoticed if you had remained silent on it. Thanks.:). What you say on the AEW Orion implies that you might find it in Australia (deal not cancelled)

[Targan]

Nowhere in canon that I can see are Australia and New Zealand shown to be directly involved in any theatre of war other than against Indonesia - a totally seperate conflict to that occuring between Nato and the Pact.

I could be wrong but I recall reading somewhere that Australian and New Zealand forces fought in Vietnam during the Twilight War (and maybe Korea too?). I could definitely see ANZAC spec ops (though probably in very small numbers) being sent to the Persian Gulf. They could well have been recalled to Australia for operations closer to home prior to late 2000, and if that was the case they wouldn't be listed in the RDF Sourcebook or Kings Ransom.

[RN7]

"The army force of helicopters consists of 47 OH-58 Kiowa’s and 48 AH-1s." As much as I like the Cobra, it wouldn't have been selected for Australia unless a fantastically good deal was made for its purchase. We evaluated them during the Vietnam War and the decision was made to acquire them to the point where they were issued an Australian aircraft serial prefix but the war ended and no purchase was made. Later evaluation in the 1980s decided that attack helicopters were a very low priority and that a helicopter better suited to Australia's environment and long distances was required. More importantly, up until the late 1990s, the Air Force would most likely have been the operator of any attack helicopters we purchased as it was seen to be the primary supplier of combat air assets.

Probably the thinking with the Cobra in Australian service was that it was bought second hand from the Americans, and was needed to give air support to the large mercenary force (nine brigades) that Australia created to occupy Indonesia.

Also, the Army operated the Bell 206B Jet Ranger and not the military model OH-58 Kiowa. As such, they were not fitted for armaments of any sort and were used as light utility, recce/observation only.
This isn't a complaint really, just an attempt to provide some better information for everyone.

Maybe similar thinking with the Kiowa, bought second hand from the US Army and used to supplement the Cobra force. Probably would have been better off buying more UH-1 or a few UH-60s though.


"Indo-Australian fixed-wing assets in Indonesia consist of two 16 plane squadrons of A-6..." I believe this is a typo that slipped past the editors as no force outside the USA operated/operates the A-6 as far as I'm aware. I believe it should have read A-4 as Indonesia was a customer for the Skyhawk.

Definetly a typo, Indonesia was a customer for the A-4.


Another mistake in the Merc: 2000 book is the notion that we would automatically buy small arms from the UK so we would be using the L85 and L86 when in fact we were looking to acquire a licence to build M16A2 rifles here but Colt said no so we went for the AUG instead. This is common misconception with RPG companies in Europe as well as the USA.

Common notion this, although both countries used to use much the same small arms. I think the only small arms of British origin that the Australian's currently use are sniper rifles and 81mm mortars, although both countries use the same German sub-machine guns, American heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, short range anti-armour weapons, shotguns and anti-tank guided missiles, Belgian light machine guns and general purpose machine guns, and Swedish recoilless rifles.


It is entirely unlikely that we would have bought brand new M2 Bradleys let alone secondhand ones as there has not been any need identified for the operation of MICVs here. They are the province of nations with bigger budgets or larger logistics support. The mech infantry role here is sufficiently covered by updated M113 vehicles. No mention is made of the L14 Carl Gustav and we have many more of those than the Milan.

Probable thinking was that if they are using the Abrams well the M2 would complement it, maybe bought second hand or new in smaller numbers to supplement the M113.


This may be nit-picking but Fremantle (as in HMAS Fremantle) is not spelt Freemantle.

A typo perhaps!

As for what would have been a nuclear target in Australia, the list is actually larger than might be expected. Certainly Pine Gap would be a target but also the Harold E. Holt communications station next to Exmouth in Western Australia as it controlled all communications to USN submarines in this part of the southern hemisphere. Melbourne would certainly have been a target because it was (still is I think) the location of a Corp of Signals base that handled all the communications between Australia and Canada, the UK and the USA during the Cold War period (it served as a backup for communications between the UK and Canada/USA and the UK and New Zealand too by the looks of things). Perth may have been on the target list as it is the site of the deep water harbour of Fremantle plus a RAN submarine base, ship building facilities and some petroleum refining/storage. Canberra may be hit simply because it is the site of Australian military command (along with being the seat of government).

Other targets of significance might be Adelaide were they build the Collins Class submarines and military vehicles, and Bendigo and Williamstown in Victoria were they build military vehicles and warships respectively. Possibly Lithgow in New South Wales as well were most Australian small arms are built.

Any thoughts on the HMAS Perth and Australian Harriers?

[Targan]

Any thoughts on the HMAS Perth and Australian Harriers?

It would be nice. But that would involve taking Australia's levels of defence spending to to whole new level.

[RN7]

It would be nice. But that would involve taking Australia's levels of defence spending to to whole new level.

Maybe not so, have a look at the two new planned Canberra Class LHDs..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra_class

[Webstral]

The only US facility in Australia is Pine Gap located hundreds of miles from virtually anywhere and barely worth dropping conventional weapons on let alone a low yield nuke.



I'm curious how you define "barely worth". Do you believe that the Soviets are afraid of angering Australia in the midst of an East-West nuclear exchange? Do you believe the Soviets will struggle to get a warhead on target? Do you believe the Soviets are rationing their thousands of nuclear warheads and/or missiles? Do you believe that the administrative effort of ordering a strike on Australia would be taxing on the Soviet leadership?

My affection for my Aussie cousins is great. Therefore, it with a heavy heart that I point out to you that you are in fact members of a Western nation with a sizeable population, industry, and resources. In the Twilight: 2000 world, you're going to get a bite of the s**t sandwich the rest of the Western world has to eat. The Soviets are not nice people who play fair. With thousands of warheads and delivery systems, they will ensure that Australia does not become a problem for them down the road. Bear in mind that the neutral countries were nuked just to deny their resources to the combatants. Australia is an American ally. Sorry guys--that's justification enough for a handful of nuclear strikes.

Webstral

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Some rambling thoughts here,

First to address RN7's post, with the Merc: 2000 situation.
Australia and the UK would be operating Milan as their ATGW and not a US system. I am fairly certain that the Javelin ATGW was not obtained by either nation until the early 2000s.
As for the Abrams and Bradleys, I think it was just a lucky guess that GDW picked the Abrams as MBTs for Australia, certainly the decision wasn't really made to buy them until long after the game books were published.
The thinking of the time was that we were probably going to buy the Leopard 2 or perhaps the Challenger to replace the Leopard 1. The Abrams was not a good choice for the Australian Army but it was a very good for the Australian government.

Second,
I support Webstral's assessment of the situation, Australia was already a target simply because we are heavily populated with peoples from NATO countries and therefore friends/allies with them. Sounds too simple but it is a simple truth, we are a former British colony so we are naturally going to be against the Soviets. Plus we have a massive reserve of natural resources that could be safely (well, reasonably so) shipped to Europe via the US via the lower part of the Pacific Ocean were the Soviet fleet would be spread too thin. Ruining Australian ports to prevent those resources reaching NATO nations would always be a consideration of Soviet high command (think of the movement of supplies from Argentina and Brazil to assist the Allied war effort in WW2).

Pine Gap was most definitely worth a nuclear strike as it was and still is an important link in the US (and also NATO) satellite communications network amongst it's other roles. Traffic from NATO forces in former Yugoslavia was apparently sent through Pine Gap.
Fremantle port (and by default Perth itself) was a known Soviet target simply because US fleets often called in for R&R and resupply & simple repair/maintenance let alone the facilities I mentioned earlier. As a side note, you could always tell when a USN fleet was due in because you'd start to see C-2 Greyhounds flying in to the Perth airport.
The other places I mentioned before were also known to be on Soviet target lists.

I also see that missile strikes on Australia would be far more efficient than sending special forces units (or any other type of attack force) simply because one Soviet submarine would possess all the warheads necessary to do the job.

However one thing I would say, when Webstral mentioned that the Soviets are not nice people who play fair, I'd extend that across the board to all the nations involved. As much as we like to believe that we ourselves would be more civilized/polite/fair/gentlemanly etc. etc., differences of ideology aside, we are all as bad as each other. I think once you throw nuclear weapons into the fight, you're really saying "The gloves are off, now we start to really get nasty".

[Targan]

Maybe not so, have a look at the two new planned Canberra Class LHDs.

But they aren't due to be in service until 2013. In the T2K timeline this suggested HMAS Perth (ex-USS Peleliu) would have to be purchased, modified/refitted and commissioned by the RAN all during the early to mid 1990s (20 years before 2013). Add to that the need to select and purchase the aircraft it carries and train all the required personnel.

Also, of the five Tarawa class vessels why would the USN decommission and sell off the Peleliu (unless in Millenium's End the USN decommissioned all five). IRL the USS Tarawa, USS Saipan and USS Belleau Wood were decommissioned in 2009, 2007 and 2005 respectively. USS Tarawa and USS Saipan are part of the inactive fleet but could be returned to service. USS Belleau Wood was sunk as part of the 2006 RIMPAC exercise but could easily have been sold off instead. IRL USS Nassau and USS Peleliu are still in service with the USN.

From Millennium’s End:
The Australian Army
[snip]There is a... Marine Assault Regiment based around the Navy’s HMAS Perth (a former Tawara class amphibious assault ship).[snip]

Perhaps this "Marine Assault Regiment" would be a third Commando Regiment, specialising in amphibious assault? This third Commando Regiment would be all-regular the amphibious assault role could cycle between 2 Cdo Regt and 3 Cdo Regt (with a two or three year rotation instead of the 12 month rotation followed by the SASR's Sabre Squadrons).

[Webstral]

However one thing I would say, when Webstral mentioned that the Soviets are not nice people who play fair, I'd extend that across the board to all the nations involved. As much as we like to believe that we ourselves would be more civilized/polite/fair/gentlemanly etc. etc., differences of ideology aside, we are all as bad as each other. I think once you throw nuclear weapons into the fight, you're really saying "The gloves are off, now we start to really get nasty".

Sad, but true.

Webstral

[ChalkLine]

It'd be madness for the USSR to nuke Australia unless a US warship is in port or they hit the telemetry stations at Pine Gap or North West Cape. Everything else is far less unimportant than tasking more warheads to critical European and US targets where the initial warheads may not get through.

Canonically the USSR plays a gentleman's nuclear war with the USA, launching just a few warheads at a time before making a half-hearted strike (that somehow takes everyone by surprise!) that is launched in dribs and drabs. In this odd and unrealistic scenario they may nuke an ally 'to show that it could be done', but no one was ever in any doubt anyway. They'd make the point better by nuking Peurto Rico.

It's all academic anyway. Both systems were designed that once confirmed nuke launches or strikes were observed the arsenals were immediately launched, because otherwise they would risk being destroyed in their silos. The crews knew they would be dead shortly anyway.

If there's one part of the canonical backstory I would have GMs looking at addressing, it is the fundamental question of how the nuclear aspect of the war was waged. At present it is ridiculous.

[Legbreaker]

I'm curious how you define "barely worth".
As in a few hundred people. The facility itself is important, but not exactly large. A few well placed explosives detonated at a critical time may well be enough.

Do you believe that the Soviets are afraid of angering Australia in the midst of an East-West nuclear exchange?
Afraid? Of course not. But bringing in yet another country on the enemy side is never a good thing, especially when that country is not within easy striking distance and possesses a signifiant resource base to exploit.
During WWII, Australia's military grew larger than the population could support, even with rationing, etc. At the height of the war, contrary to all other combatant nations, Australia actually REDUCED their military so it would have enough manpower to feed the nation, etc.
I can't recall any other country in history ever having so many people voluntarily carrying arms full time that they couldn't feed themselves....
That fact alone is going to give pause to anyone planning an attack against Australia (though probably won't stop them by itself).

Do you believe the Soviets will struggle to get a warhead on target? Do you believe the Soviets are rationing their thousands of nuclear warheads and/or missiles? Do you believe that the administrative effort of ordering a strike on Australia would be taxing on the Soviet leadership?
No, I'm simply questioning the need to use a nuke when other more efficent options (such as a Spetnaz type unit) may be available. Unlike a nuke, a team on the ground can be reused time and time again (provided they're not caught of course).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

... Perhaps this "Marine Assault Regiment" would be a third Commando Regiment, specialising in amphibious assault? This third Commando Regiment would be all-regular the amphibious assault role could cycle between 2 Cdo Regt and 3 Cdo Regt (with a two or three year rotation instead of the 12 month rotation followed by the SASR's Sabre Squadrons).

The Commando units in Australia were organized for amphibious warfare since the 1950s albeit in much smaller operations than say a British or French Marine type unit let alone the scale that the USA or USSR could organize.

[RN7]

First to address RN7's post, with the Merc: 2000 situation.
Australia and the UK would be operating Milan as their ATGW and not a US system. I am fairly certain that the Javelin ATGW was not obtained by either nation until the early 2000s.

Well I was talking about current Australian small arms not Cold War equipment, so both Australia and Britain would be using the Franco-German Milan system.

As for the Abrams and Bradleys, I think it was just a lucky guess that GDW picked the Abrams as MBTs for Australia, certainly the decision wasn't really made to buy them until long after the game books were published. The thinking of the time was that we were probably going to buy the Leopard 2 or perhaps the Challenger to replace the Leopard 1. The Abrams was not a good choice for the Australian Army but it was a very good for the Australian government.

What the Aussie Army wanted and what the Aussie government wanted where and probably still are entirely different things. The Challenger 1 or 2 was probably overlooked despite a tradition of British tanks in Australian service dating to well before WW2. I sence a cynical bias against all things British in Australian government circles and maybe some military circles as well, and it also occurs in Ireland were I'm from, despite the fact that British equipment may sometimes be the best suited for its needs. The Leopard 2 would be a logical choice to replace the Leopard 1, so the Abrams was a bit of a suprise.

[ChalkLine]

I'm not a fan of the M1 tanks but this isn't what happened. Simply put, the best tank in the world at the moment is the M1 tank. It's not as far ahead as many of its fans think it is, but it is the best.

However, you need to have the vast US logistics train behind it for it to work at its full potential, which we don't have and never will unless we operate under the US umbrella.

The government that bought was happy to because the centre-right government in Australia is very 'big and powerful friends' orientated, and really seems a little insecure about being an independent second (or even third) rank power. Just because you're not the baddest bastard on the block doesn't mean we should be hiding behind US skirts, but I'm letting my politics intrude.

The grunts wanted the Abrams because they're very, very survivable. Having few tanks means that more of the enemy's AT arsenal gets directed at the tanks that you have, The Abrams is aimed not just at battlefield lethality (at which it excels) but also at crew life expectancy. The whole third generation of tanks is like this but the Abrams adds interoperability with our US friends and an access to parts we'd never be able to manufacture ourselves.

That said, expect Australian Abrams to diverge rapidly away from the US model. We never leave anything like we bought it, and our Leopards are a unique vehicle themselves.

[RN7]

But they aren't due to be in service until 2013. In the T2K timeline this suggested HMAS Perth (ex-USS Peleliu) would have to be purchased, modified/refitted and commissioned by the RAN all during the early to mid 1990s (20 years before 2013). Add to that the need to select and purchase the aircraft it carries and train all the required personnel.

Well I knew that but you did say...

That would involve taking Australia's levels of defence spending to to whole new level.

Their doing it now despite the demise of the Soviet Union. Also Australia nearly bought the British HMS Invicible in the early 1980's before the Falklands War. They planned to use it as a helicopter carrier with embarked Sea King and Wessex helicopters to replace the then decommisioned HMAS Melbourne. Australia never officially planned to buy Harriers or Sea Harriers but they certainly could have been embarked.


Also, of the five Tarawa class vessels why would the USN decommission and sell off the Peleliu (unless in Millenium's End the USN decommissioned all five). IRL the USS Tarawa, USS Saipan and USS Belleau Wood were decommissioned in 2009, 2007 and 2005 respectively. USS Tarawa and USS Saipan are part of the inactive fleet but could be returned to service. USS Belleau Wood was sunk as part of the 2006 RIMPAC exercise but could easily have been sold off instead. IRL USS Nassau and USS Peleliu are still in service with the USN.

I have no idea but in Millenium's End the Australian's obviously needed a carrier and the USN had a few to spare and transfered it to Australia, probably for a lot of Aussie dollars. In Millenium's End the USN also mothballed its nuclear powered carriers. Why? I dunno.


Perhaps this "Marine Assault Regiment" would be a third Commando Regiment, specialising in amphibious assault? This third Commando Regiment would be all-regular the amphibious assault role could cycle between 2 Cdo Regt and 3 Cdo Regt (with a two or three year rotation instead of the 12 month rotation followed by the SASR's Sabre Squadrons).

Could be.

[RN7]

I'm not a fan of the M1 tanks but this isn't what happened. Simply put, the best tank in the world at the moment is the M1 tank. It's not as far ahead as many of its fans think it is, but it is the best.

I think the British Challenger 2 may be arguably the best of the lot, and I think certainly is the best protected. I could be wrong but to my knowledge none have been lost to enemy fire, and a few have survived almost unscathed from mass attacks in Iraq.

[ChalkLine]

They use Chobham+ (Renford Armour from memory?)

The problem is that that the UK doesn't have the lift ability that the US does in a crisis. If we get involved in a general conflict we will be on the side of the USA unless something really, really odd happens. If we get in a regional one it is likely that the US will intervene. If for some reason, like Timor Leste, the US is busy elsewhere they will still have lift available to ship stuff overseas. Finally, if the US can't lift it, no one is capable and we're well and truly stuffed :)

The big problem, in my uneducated but opinionated opinion, with the M1 is the mileage. We haven't got the ability to fuel the beasts with as much fuel as they need in a theatre sense. We run the risk of a smart enemy, and if you bank on your enemy being dumb you're already half way to losing, a smart enemy will strike at our under developed strategic fuel transport system and not have to worry about fighting the actual tanks. The US and other first order combatants don't have to worry about that, they can take losses in their strategic logistics and still win a war. We don't have that option.

[Legbreaker]

I think the British Challenger 2 may be arguably the best of the lot, and I think certainly is the best protected.
I tend to agree with you on that.

The milage problem is one all modern tanks face. Weighing in around and average of 50-60 tonnes they're all going to chew through the fuel and from that viewpoint alone, only the wealthier, more developed countries are ever likely to employ them.

As for Australia using tanks, the last time any were deployed outside the country was back during the Vietnam war and we were still using Centurions. That situation is not likely to change any time soon partly due to the logistical issues, but also because there simply isn't any need for them in todays conflict zones. The M113's and LAVs (plus a few other vehicle types) we have used in East Timor, Iraq and Afganistan have, on the whole, been sufficent for the job.

Of course in a WWIII situation this is quite likely to change. If Australian troops were sent to Korea as part of the UN, it's likely some tanks would be sent along in support of the infantry. It is highly doubtful however that they would be involved in a war with Indonesia, at least not outside Australia's mainland borders.

[Mohoender]

The milage problem is one all modern tanks face. Weighing in around and average of 50-60 tonnes they're all going to chew through the fuel and from that viewpoint alone, only the wealthier, more developed countries are ever likely to employ them.


Going away from the original thread, I have a question. Wouldn't modern tank quickly become useless simply because of their weight? In a modern world, the 50-60 tons are definitely not a problem but with decaying bridges and rusting infrastructures everywhere, wouldn't they be stopped by every small river around?

After a few years of the twilight war, I don't really expect many bridges to be still capable of resisting such heavy weights.

Another question. How many time can last a M1A2 Abrams (even worse: a french Leclerc) without proper care and the vast technological support system to fix them?

Erf. I make a a thread of its own with that.:)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

What the Aussie Army wanted and what the Aussie government wanted where and probably still are entirely different things. The Challenger 1 or 2 was probably overlooked despite a tradition of British tanks in Australian service dating to well before WW2. I sence a cynical bias against all things British in Australian government circles and maybe some military circles as well, and it also occurs in Ireland were I'm from, despite the fact that British equipment may sometimes be the best suited for its needs. The Leopard 2 would be a logical choice to replace the Leopard 1, so the Abrams was a bit of a suprise.

Generally true and despite the numbers of US armoured vehicles in service during and just after WW2, Australia literally did nothing except "buy British" when replacements were chosen for those WW2 vehicles.
As for a bias against all things British, I do think that this is somewhat correct but not in the "We are anti-British" sense.
It was more that certain people in Defence wanted nothing but US equipment and they took every opportunity to push the pro-US agenda and rubbish the competitors, these same people argued that we "must have" the AH-64 even though it was overkill for our projected needs. This was more a "toys for the boys" mentality than a proper consideration of our military needs.
For the government it was a very measured decision, it strengthened our ties with the US and proclaimed some sense of future interoperability... but it also made us beholden to the US for not just the tanks themselves but also an upgrade of our logistics system that would not have been required with tanks that were more fuel efficient as we also had to buy heavy fuel tankers and heavy recovery vehicles for those tankers just to support the Abrams.

The heavy lift argument has somewhat diminished with the C-17 entering service with the RAAF and the Canberra Class amphibious ships coming into service in the next half a decade.
But other than that, Chalkline's statement (The government that bought was happy to because the centre-right government in Australia is very 'big and powerful friends' orientated, and really seems a little insecure about being an independent second (or even third) rank power.) is right on the mark.

The other aspect of the Abrams that was initially overlooked was their thermal signature compared to the competitor tanks. The engine heat from the Abrams stands out far more in thermal scans than the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 even against a background of 45-50 degree C ambient temperature that is common in Australia's north where the tanks are based.
The single aspect of the Abrams that stands in favour of them was that they would already be wired for network centric warfare whereas the other two would have to be upgraded.

I remember one article in an Australian defence magazine claiming that anything other than the Abrams was bordering on criminal negligence because, to paraphrase
...the Leopard 2 was nothing more than a development of the Leopard 1 and the Leopards have never fired a shot in anger and they are based on WW2 design philosophy.

Well, even in a respectable defence magazine, the truth is sometimes lacking The Leopard 2 and the Abrams are in fact related, sharing not just the main gun but also their pedigree. The Leopard 2 is not a development of the Leopard 1 as it (and the Abrams) was the result of the failed German-US MBT-70 tank project. Also, Danish Leopard 1 tanks have been involved in combat albeit minor (if you call being shot at with ATGWs minor) in former Yugoslavia. Yes it was not tank combat as such but they have fired shots in anger so to speak.
And finally, what modern tank today isn't based on design philosophies from WW2?! There are three principles governing armoured vehicle design and they never change; protection, mobility, firepower. Each design team chooses to promote one or two over the other but the design philosophy will always be based on those three elements. these three elements have never changed and are unlikely to ever do so, so you could argue that every tank is based on design philosophies not just from WW2, but from WW1!

I would argue that the claim of "best tank" is too subjective, the Abrams is not as well suited to Australian terrain/climate as say the Merkava but it is faster. It certainly is not as fuel efficient as the Leopard 2 but it is wired for network centric warfare whereas the Leopard 2 would have to be upgraded. The Abrams has arguably less all around protection than the Challenger 2 but not too much less and again, it is faster. The reality is Australia probably does not need tanks unless they are to be used as the centrepiece for combined arms groups but unfortunately we seem intent on thinking that we need tanks because we might get into a tank fight sometime down the road.

[Mohoender]

And finally, what modern tank today isn't based on design philosophies from WW2?! There are three principles governing armoured vehicle design and they never change; protection, mobility, firepower. Each design team chooses to promote one or two over the other but the design philosophy will always be based on those three elements. these three elements have never changed and are unlikely to ever do so, so you could argue that every tank is based on design philosophies not just from WW2, but from WW1!


Actually these three principles date back to the first known armored vehicles, back to Mesopotamia (almost 3000 years ago). The only thing before ww1 is that such vehicles were all ultimately abandonned because of their poor mobility.

No need to argue, just a digression.:D

[Webstral]

As in a few hundred people. The facility itself is important, but not exactly large. A few well placed explosives detonated at a critical time may well be enough.

Delivered how? Aircraft, surface ships, and submarines approaching Australia's coastline are far more vulnerable to interception than a ballistic missile. A ballistic missile is quick, easy, and painless--at least from the Soviet point of view. Commandos, on the other hand, are valuable assets.


Afraid? Of course not. But bringing in yet another country on the enemy side is never a good thing, especially when that country is not within easy striking distance and possesses a signifiant resource base to exploit.
During WWII, Australia's military grew larger than the population could support, even with rationing, etc. At the height of the war, contrary to all other combatant nations, Australia actually REDUCED their military so it would have enough manpower to feed the nation, etc.
I can't recall any other country in history ever having so many people voluntarily carrying arms full time that they couldn't feed themselves....
That fact alone is going to give pause to anyone planning an attack against Australia (though probably won't stop them by itself).

That's exactly what strategic surgical strike is supposed to prevent. Why hope that a member of an alliance with the United States will sit on the sidelines ad infinitum when a handful of already paid-for ICBM and their warheads can take the guesswork and diplomacy out of the equation?[/QUOTE]


No, I'm simply questioning the need to use a nuke when other more efficent options (such as a Spetnaz type unit) may be available. Unlike a nuke, a team on the ground can be reused time and time again (provided they're not caught of course).

It's true that the Spetznaz offer a superior degree of precision. You don't knock nations out of war with commando raids, though. You knock nations out of a war by destroying their production facilities, their military facilities, and their power generation. The Soviets built a truly gratuitous armory of nuclear warheads (in a variety of sizes and colors) and missiles (in a variety of ranges and carrying capacities) so that they would have the option of attacking hard-to-reach targets at long range. (The US also assembled a gratuitous armory for exactly the same purpose.)

The very existence of a fully functional Australia furthers the aims of the Western powers. This is the way the Soviets will see it, at any rate. If Australia has sat on the sidelines until 1997 (an idea I question, but I'm not familiar with any canon material on Australia), then her military and industrial capabilities represents a very useful strategic reserve for ANZUS and, in effect, the Western Allies. The Soviets have no good reason to leave Australia unscathed and plenty of good reasons to ensure that a member of the Western Alliance is not in a position to cause mischief in the Pacific.

Webstral

[Webstral]

It'd be madness for the USSR to nuke Australia unless a US warship is in port or they hit the telemetry stations at Pine Gap or North West Cape. Everything else is far less unimportant than tasking more warheads to critical European and US targets where the initial warheads may not get through.

How would it be madness? Any form of retaliation Australia might mete out to the Soviets or their satellites is exactly the sort of thing a modest nuclear strike would be intended to prevent.

[QUOTE=ChalkLine;13921]It's all academic anyway. Both systems were designed that once confirmed nuke launches or strikes were observed the arsenals were immediately launched, because otherwise they would risk being destroyed in their silos. The crews knew they would be dead shortly anyway.
QUOTE]

Simply not true. If this were the case, we'd have been incinerated already due to the number of false alarms--some of them extremely convincing. In any event, the idea of massive automatic retaliation takes the fate of nations out of the hands of exactly the kinds of people who prefer to make important decisions themselves. The US (and presumably the other nuclear powers as well) haven't invested literally billions in communications so that a general can call up the President and tell him, "You're ******, sir. Sorry, you don't get a say. It's all automatic." It's a fact that some aspects of the system are automated. It's not a fact that the President gets no say.

Webstral

[ChalkLine]

How would it be madness? Any form of retaliation Australia might mete out to the Soviets or their satellites is exactly the sort of thing a modest nuclear strike would be intended to prevent.

Web, I think you may have misunderstood me. This is exactly what I'm saying.

Australia is so militarily insignificant in a USA/USSR war that any expenditure on targets there is a waste of resources.

The US has the only credible NATO ABM system, so you have to multitarget the same area as many times as you can to overwhelm defences. You send not 16 MIRVs at a US target, you sent 16 ICBMs with 16 MIRVs each at one to ensure you get a penetration.

Everyone goes on about the 3000 warheads the USSR has, but that's actually not as many missiles as you'd think. For target saturation you strike and strike again.

Don't forget, once you launch you're going to lose your targeting capability within ten minutes. There's no time to say 'bugger, target x didn't get hit' and task a few more missiles at it.

[Mohoender]

Sorry to say that but Web you are wrong despite having the wisest thinking. Australia can't be hit by nukes during the Twilight War (New Zealand even less).

- Following how the war is set up, the Soviets have lost their pacific fleet (not the case for US, however). I doubt that the US navy/Japanese navy (respectively 1st and 3rd navy in the world) would forget a single Soviet sub. Moreover, these Soviet subs would target US as a priority (as you said Australia can't hit you back).
- Australia is simply out of range (someone mentioned that loosely already but we overlooked that, me included:D).

At most, the Soviet can make the Australian desert glow in the dark. Aborigines and Kangaroos might be wiped out and the Soviets will have solve Australia's problems with wild horses and ferral camels:p.

Here is a small review of Soviet ICBM range to compare with Australia/New Zealand cities distances to the Soviet Union southern border (There are no ICBM bases directly on that border by the way: add 500/1.000km to the cities distances). That puts two cities within extreme range: Darwin (Crocodile Dundee is gone along with 50.000 Aussies) and eventually Perth (Sorry Targan but you are glowing in the dark;)). The most the Soviets will get out of this is a full commitment of an intact Australia to the war (about 3 million troops if you include male/female motivated by anger alone).

RT-23UTTKh Molodets (SS-24) : 10.450km
MR-UR-100 (SS-17) : 11.000km
R-36M/M2 Voyevoda (SS-18) : 11.000km/16.000km (only with 20Mt warhead solely targeted at US ICBM bases…)
RT-2P (SS-13) : 9.500km
RT-2PM Topol (SS-25) : 10.500km
UR-100N (SS-19) : 10.000km

Distance to Soviet Southern Border
Adelaide 10.500km
Brisbane 10.500km
Canberra 11.000km
Darwin 8.000km
Melbourne 11.500km
Perth 9.500km
Sydney 11.000km

Auckland 12.500km
Wellington 13.000km

You might be back to the Spetnaz raid advocated by Leg but that's doubtful as well: they would have to swim a F... Long Way.

One conclusion, T2K team was right, Soviets always considered Australia to be insignificant:D:p. More seriously, Australia without Europe and US is simply no threat except may be to penguins occupying Antartica.:rolleyes: Of course, Soviets have plenty of missiles and warheads but they can't deliver them that far.

I might have the end word on that one (no false modesty but take a map and measure distances:):):):))

[Rainbow Six]

If you're strictly observing canon, isn't Australia co operating with France? It's been a while since I looked at my copy of Twiilight Encounters but I seem to remember there was a scenario entitled "What's the Polish for G'day?" that had a squad of Australian SAS troopers in Poland who had got there on a French submarine? I know the whole scenario was meant to be a little out of the ordinary and quite vague on detail but wasn't there a reference in that about France and Australia forming a "League of non irradiated nations"?

Also, someone at one point in time posted a write up on a website about a group of troops from Australia, NZ, and the Pacific Islands who had been in Europe and North Africa on various UN missions at the outbreak of War and were now serving as a Brigade unit in Germany. Sorry, but I can't for the life of me find the link. It was non canon obviously.

Good discussion btw...I'm enjoying reading it.

Cheers

[Rainbow Six]

You might be back to the Spetnaz raid advocated by Leg but that's doubtful as well: they would have to swim a F... Long Way.



Give the Spetznaz a suitcase nuke and Australia still gets nuked ;)

Or, rather than Spetznaz, who probably are in greater need elsewhere (plus it does sound a bit like a suicide mission for spetznaz), a lone KGB agent operating under deep cover could do the same job and then blend back in to the population afterwards?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Give the Spetznaz a suitcase nuke and Australia still gets nuked ;)

Or, rather than Spetznaz, who probably are in greater need elsewhere (plus it does sound a bit like a suicide mission for spetznaz), a lone KGB agent operating under deep cover could do the same job and then blend back in to the population afterwards?

Would certainly make for an interesting game scenario with a lot of opportunity for long campaign tracking down the badguys.

I am, however, in full agreement with Webstral. I don't for a second believe that the quite significant US communications abilities found in at least two places in Australia (Pine Gap and Harold E. Holt AKA North-West Cape), would be ignored by the Soviets simply because they are out of range of Soviet land-based missiles.

After some discussion with friends who were more into Twilight: 2000 than I ever was (my primary interest is in the Cold War) I believe that the 'Australia invaded by Indonesia' scenario was an alternate history by a fellow Australian called Damian. None of us recall his full name but we are reasonably sure he had a website with the information and that he lived in Queensland.

Anyway, to throw out some more information, particularly for Mohoender...
http://www.geocities.com/lucktam/awacs/p3aew.htm A short page about the P-3 AEW plane

[Fusilier]

- Following how the war is set up, the Soviets have lost their pacific fleet (not the case for US, however). I doubt that the US navy/Japanese navy (respectively 1st and 3rd navy in the world) would forget a single Soviet sub.

I disagree. There is virtually nothing written about the naval events in the Pacific. Anything anyone says on the matter is merely opinion and any outcome you want can be said on the matter.

Not only that but, thinking about it a little more, we know that it isn't true because there were Soviet surface ships running around the Pacific in 1999, well after the nuclear exchange (Satellite Down).

There is a possibility subs could have been lurking within range of Australia in 1997.

[Mohoender]

If you're strictly observing canon, isn't Australia co operating with France?

I never got much on Australia per cannon and don't read scenarios. Possibly.:o

[Rainbow Six]

Just a passing thought...

I've read somewhere that during the Falklands War the Royal Navy warship that was stationed in the Caribbean was replaced by a Royal New Zealand Navy ship so that the Royal Navy ship could join the South Atlantic Task Force.

Would have thought that if Australia / NZ remained non combatant during the Twilight War (or at least the opening phases) it's possible that such a thing might be repeated and Australian and New Zealand warships might relieve NATO vessels in areas away from the active theatres (such as the Faklands) to allow the NATO vessels to redeploy to those active theatres?

Potentially this might mean that by the year 2000 Australian and New Zealand warships might be found many thousands of miles from home? Imagine the look on the faces of pirates in the caribbean finding themselves under attack by the Royal Australian or New Zealand Navies....

[Targan]

After some discussion with friends who were more into Twilight: 2000 than I ever was (my primary interest is in the Cold War) I believe that the 'Australia invaded by Indonesia' scenario was an alternate history by a fellow Australian called Damian. None of us recall his full name but we are reasonably sure he had a website with the information and that he lived in Queensland.

According to the Traveller 2300 timeline (which is theoretically T2K v.1 canon) Darwin and Cape York were occupied at one stage by Indonesia. That may have been after the Twilight War though, I don't have my T2300 books at hand to check.

[Targan]

If you're strictly observing canon, isn't Australia co operating with France? It's been a while since I looked at my copy of Twiilight Encounters but I seem to remember there was a scenario entitled "What's the Polish for G'day?" that had a squad of Australian SAS troopers in Poland who had got there on a French submarine? I know the whole scenario was meant to be a little out of the ordinary and quite vague on detail but wasn't there a reference in that about France and Australia forming a "League of non irradiated nations"?

I think it is possible that Australia took a pragmatic approach in its relationship with France, much as the two rival US governments' commanders in the Persian Gulf did.

Also, someone at one point in time posted a write up on a website about a group of troops from Australia, NZ, and the Pacific Islands who had been in Europe and North Africa on various UN missions at the outbreak of War and were now serving as a Brigade unit in Germany. Sorry, but I can't for the life of me find the link. It was non canon obviously.


I have attached a word document with this article. Sorry that I haven't included attribution to the author but I don't know its source.

[RN7]

They use Chobham+ (Renford Armour from memory?)

I think they call the 2nd generation Chobham armour on the Challenger 2 Dorchester. Its certainly very tough, only one tank has been destroyed in action, and that was in a friendly fire incident when it was hit from another British Challenger 2.

In one encounter in Iraq a Challenger 2 came under attack in an urban area. Despite damage to the driver's sight and throwing its tracks, and being hit directly by eight RPG's at close range and a MILAN ATGM, and being under fire from heavy small arms fire for hours, the crew survived safely and the tank was back in operation six hours later after repairs. Another Challenger 2 survived being hit by 70 RPGs with little damage.

I think the Challenger 2s 120mm/55 L30A1 rifled tank gun is also the longest ranged of any western tank gun, and may hold the record for the longest kill by a tank. Although the Rheinmetall L55 120mm/55 smoothbore gun used in the German Leopard 2A6 has proven slightly superior in penetration when fitted with Tungsten rounds versus the Challenger 2's DU rounds.

[Webstral]

Sorry to say that but Web you are wrong despite having the wisest thinking. Australia can't be hit by nukes during the Twilight War (New Zealand even less).

One conclusion, T2K team was right, Soviets always considered Australia to be insignificant:D:p. More seriously, Australia without Europe and US is simply no threat except may be to penguins occupying Antartica.:rolleyes: Of course, Soviets have plenty of missiles and warheads but they can't deliver them that far.

I might have the end word on that one (no false modesty but take a map and measure distances:):):):))


Sorry, Mo, but you are wrong despite some very good and very reasonable number crunching for land-based ICBM. You blithely assume that American attack boats sink every Soviet boomer that might come within range of Australia before November 1997. Even I, an unapologetic booster for the USN, would not go this far. Since the land-based missiles are adequate for the task of hitting CONUS, a single boomer operating in the Indian Ocean or South Pacific could supply all of the nukes needed to ensure that Australia gets put in the same category as the US or the other Western allies.

Australia may not have the largest industrial base in the Western world, but she's hardly a Third World country. Australia may not have the largest oil reserves in the world, but she has mineral wealth. Australia may not be the world's bread basket, but as of 1997 she is a net exporter of grains. These are strategic assets. It doesn't take very many nukes to disrupt the fabric of modern society, whereas leaving Australia's resource and production base fully functional is needlessly risky. Who knows how Australian aid might speed American recovery? One or two MIRV-capable missiles ought to do the job, leaving plenty for the launching boomer to continue other missions.

Again, I hope my Australian cousins don't take offense that I am pushing for an acceptance of nuclear incineration for hundreds of thousands of Australians and major disruption of the nation.

Webstral

[Rainbow Six]

I have attached a word document with this article. Sorry that I haven't included attribution to the author but I don't know its source.

Yep, that's the one. Unfortunately, like yourself I have no clue who the original author was.

[Targan]

I've read somewhere that during the Falklands War the Royal Navy warship that was stationed in the Caribbean was replaced by a Royal New Zealand Navy ship so that the Royal Navy ship could join the South Atlantic Task Force.

Would have thought that if Australia / NZ remained non combatant during the Twilight War (or at least the opening phases) it's possible that such a thing might be repeated and Australian and New Zealand warships might relieve NATO vessels in areas away from the active theatres (such as the Faklands) to allow the NATO vessels to redeploy to those active theatres?

Potentially this might mean that by the year 2000 Australian and New Zealand warships might be found many thousands of miles from home? Imagine the look on the faces of pirates in the caribbean finding themselves under attack by the Royal Australian or New Zealand Navies....

I've always thought that Australian and New Zealand forces would have fought in the Korean and/or Korean theatres during the Twilight War (but I can't be sure that I actually read it in canon).

In addition it seems a certainty to me that the RAN and RNZN would be engaged in patrolling the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean (to try to keep the fuel shipments safe from the Persian Gulf) as well as the South Pacific and South China Sea.

There is a specific mention in the Nautical/Aviation Sourcebook of a multinational UN peacekeeping force, which included Australians, being deployed in Sri Lanka between 1993 and the Twilight War.

[Mohoender]

I disagree. There is virtually nothing written about the naval events in the Pacific. Anything anyone says on the matter is merely opinion and any outcome you want can be said on the matter.



My mistake on that one, confused probably with something else. Nevertheless, given the US fleet in the Middle East the US still has some means of action while the fleet in the Atlantic is shatered.

For SSBN, the Soviets IRL at the time of T2K had at most 20 SSBN in the Pacific. 1/2 Delta and 1/2 Yankee carrying SS-N-8 (7000 km range) and SS-N-6 (2400km range) respectively. Having one sailing in Range of Australia is not that obvious, especially as these subs are much needed for retaliation on the US.

Moreover, giving the naval odd in the Pacific, having one closing unoticed within range of Australia is almost impossible (unless you consider, that US, China, Japan, Taiwan, Australia... are simply leaving the Soviet navy wander freely in the Pacific. What you say on soviet didn't escape the West and that may well be the reason explaining these comm centers down there). Sorry but if the Soviet forces in the Atlantic are more or less matching NATO, the Soviet Naval forces in the Pacific are fighting 1 out of 10.

A Soviet SSBN might get lucky but doing this on purpose, I doubt it. This sub would have to sail from 7000-10000 km in a fully hostile ocean. No support ships, no air cover, constantly chased down by hostile subs, destroyers, carriers, aircrafts and even petty boats. US was operating from Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, California... Why would you waste such a valuable asset when you need to hit your only true threat.

However, rumors states that the Soviets were pretty much advanced with EMP tech. If I were them I would try that instead. It would not destroy Australia, but it would disrupt the comm capablity when needed.

I agree with all of you that Australians target will be in the mind of Soviets but they are out of reach, simply and physically out of reach. By the way, how big was Pine Gap at the time (it seems that it wasn't fully grown until 1999)?

Of course, if you want so much nuking Australia, you can make a scenario for it. A lost Yankee, firing at it because it had no other target. Here are some sources but I'm not sure they are that convincing. The second document seems interesting but doesn't adress the problem of range. The last element is off-topic but I put for fun.:D

http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/index.htm
http://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/pdf/a000700.pdf
http://untreaty.un.org/unts/60001_120000/28/15/00054746.pdf

[Webstral]

The US has the only credible NATO ABM system, so you have to multitarget the same area as many times as you can to overwhelm defences. You send not 16 MIRVs at a US target, you sent 16 ICBMs with 16 MIRVs each at one to ensure you get a penetration.

Don't forget, once you launch you're going to lose your targeting capability within ten minutes. There's no time to say 'bugger, target x didn't get hit' and task a few more missiles at it.

The US ABM system in existence as of 1997 is sited to protect the missile silos in the Dakotas. If you're not attacking the silos, you don't have to worry about having your missiles intercepted. The v1 chronology specifically states that neither side attacks the land-based ICBM of the other side. Missile failure and accuracy issues still apply, but interception isn't a a real issue for the Soviet surgical nuclear strike. If your first attack experiences a malfunction, you have the option of a follow-up later on.

You're right that in an all-out exchange each side ought to target multiple missiles and/or reentry vehicles on each target to ensure destruction. Twilight: 2000 isn't about an all-out exchange. At the very heart of the game is the idea that everyone is terrified of exactly the situation you are describing; therefore, each nuclear use is intended to give the using side a little advantage. No one wants to destroy all human life, but neither the US nor the USSR can walk away from using just a couple more nukes to "redress" the situation until both nations (and global civilization) have been crippled. There are other games oriented around MAD gone wrong, but Twilight: 2000 has always been about a world knocked on its fourth point of contact without being hacked into hamburger.

Webstral

[RN7]

Accoring to GDW 2300AD Earth/Cybetech sourcebook the Twilight War heavily damaged Australia.

" Following the nuclear exchanges of 1997, Australia all but ceased to exist as a nation. 30% of the population perished in the first nuclear strike, which also accounted for the destruction of Australia's industrial base and oil refining capacity. With its government left powerless and its economy destroyed, Australia slipped in chaos.

For the next 40 years, the only cohesive force on the entire Australian continent was the Australian military. Australian troops established cantonments in New South Wales, Victoria, and the cities of Darwin in the north and Fremantle on the west coast. These forces regulated food production and distribution inside their cantonments but abandoned the regions outside."

So unfortunately Australia didn't either survive the war in good shape, and there is also no mention of a war with Indonesia.

A side effect of the Twilight War was the later independence of Tasmania from Australia, and the development of an independent and aparthied state in northern Queensland which also controlled much of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is later assimilated by northern Queensland, and the name of the state is changed to Papua as the majority of the population are ethnically Papuan.

[Mohoender]

Sorry, Mo, but you are wrong despite some very good and very reasonable number crunching for land-based ICBM. You blithely assume that American attack boats sink every Soviet boomer that might come within range of Australia before November 1997.
Webstral

No I just wasn't precise enough. I didn't count the boomers. I agree they are still a possiblity but they must be lucky as there are not enough of them facing too many ships and aircrafts. I also forgot you had boomers in mind, my mistake (hé hé).

[Mohoender]

Accoring to GDW 2300AD Earth/Cybetech sourcebook the Twilight War heavily damaged Australia.



Ok but I'm playing T2K (and don't care about GDW2300AD) and the two games are simply contradicting themselves as T2K states exactly the opposite. As ourselves, the authors serve their purpose.

[RN7]

Ok but I'm playing T2K (and don't care about GDW2300AD) and the two games are simply contradicting themselves as T2K states exactly the opposite. As ourselves, the authors serve their purpose.

Well if you have any information on how Australia was effected in the Twilight war then lets hear it.

[jester]

The land of Oz and nukes:

As Web said, yep you would get it!

You are a regional power. And thus a threat. Ivan has tons of nukes and the reality is, many targets have multiple warheads for redundancy sakes. A mirv, well, each rocket has X mumber of warheads and each one is programable for a different target. 1 missile in your direction landing half a dozen warheads would be enough.

You are a line of communication and a floating aircraft carrier, port and shipping facilities those factors alone would make you a nice juicy target.

And your folks in New Zealand would also be on the list as well for the same reason. A base of operation for any other allied nation to operate out of or even for their damaged vessels to head to after attacks by submarines, aircraft and comerce raiders per the Marines heading to Korea.

As for a Speitznaz unit verses a nuclear attack. That would make for a cool campaign. But, selecting, training, equiping for operations and we are talking long term operations over wilderness and urban operations in a remote area, getting them into the region then deploying them to the target country and then inserting them into the target. That is going to take alot of logistics. And maintaining communications with the team to report mission success and assign new targets based on the equipment and personel left, the skills of the personel and the intel delivered.

And of course the whole escape and or evasion the team would have to manage after their first couple of raids when it was determined that there is a comando force operating in the area. And your areas are often open deserts, <As scenes from Bravo 2.0. and "The One That Got Away." flash into my head, that is what a team would be up against. The logistics, the chances of success, the resources needed and the cost would be something that would make it a lower priority than punching a code into a nuclear weapon and pushing "launch" or just adding it to the target list.

I mean, what base would the team deploy from? The Soviet Pacific Bases is the nearest. And the most likely method would be by submarine. Which would be risky with the sensor and active anti submarine operations. And then having them surfaced long enough to get the team and their equipment enough to conduct combat operations and to survive with, ashore. And enough diverse equipment to plan and accomplish any number of unknown missions so they are going to have to bring ALOT of gear, I would guess over two tons of equipment for a squad. Figure about 4 large packs per man when you are talking food,some water, radios, spare radios, batteries, demotlitions equipment, camoflauge equipment, medical kits, personal weapons, special weapons, ammunition, special mission essential items, spare equipment and items all to last for an unknown but extended period of time. And none of your missions are planned, so you must have all manner of gear to cover all methods of attack.

You would need a good ammount of redundancy as well, setting up caches incase your main camp was compromised as well as for convience. Its easier to move with just a combat harness and personal weapon move to a cache where your food, water and demo is then assault the target than to trek 30km with all your goods.

It can be done. But there is alot of risk, alot more uncertanty. Heck, a P3 Orion nail the submarine leaving port and the mission is over before they even touch land.

A better use of a small team like that is to have assets already in place studying the target, knowing the specific target what it is and predetermining how your are going to attack it. Then you land, spend less than a week on station studying, moving and attacking and then immediate extraction. That sort of mission you can get away with one pack per man in addition to specialty equipment for the mission.

Nope, nuking Oz is the best way.

[Targan]

I think the Traveller 2300 history follows on from the T2K 1st edition timeline. Had T2300's history been an extension of the T2k 2nd ed timeline it probably would have contained some significant differences.

It seems possible that if you extend out the T2K ist ed timeline Australia "slipped in(to) chaos" and suffered an Indonesian invasion in the decades following the Twilight War, whereas if you extend out the T2K 2nd ed timeline you don't have any canon info after 2001 but up until then Australia maintains some kind of governmental and social cohesion and successfully prosecutes a war with Indonesia.

[Targan]

I can accept that Australia would suffer a number of nuclear strikes during the Twilight War, but there is some hope that it could be less damaging than hoped for by Ivan. After all the extensive naval and military command facilities in and around Norfolk VA were the target of a Soviet MIRV (obviously intended to be a ground burst) but it went off course and created a quasi-tsunami instead of a giant glowing bowl of glass.

I would suggest that Australia would be as badly affected by EMP bursts as its western industrialised allies (precise targetting isn't really necessary when you want to deliver a high altitude nuclear detonation that will fry electronics across half a continent) but could get lucky with a few of its facilities and cities targeted by the Soviet Rocket Corps.

[Targan]

As for a Speitznaz unit verses a nuclear attack. That would make for a cool campaign. But, selecting, training, equiping for operations and we are talking long term operations over wilderness and urban operations in a remote area, getting them into the region then deploying them to the target country and then inserting them into the target. That is going to take alot of logistics. And maintaining communications with the team to report mission success and assign new targets based on the equipment and personel left, the skills of the personel and the intel delivered.They would be russian head-long to their dooms (horrible pun I know but I couldn't help it). If the crocodiles and the brutal Australian environment didn't get the the Spetznaz first, NORFORCE would eventually detect their presence, track them, and finding them in a weakened and demoralised state, destroy them.

Nope, nuking Oz is the best way.

Sad but true :(. I respect your decision to tell it how it is despite the bitter flavour left in my mouth having read it :D.

[Mohoender]

Well if you have any information on how Australia was effected in the Twilight war then lets hear it.

RN7 you have not read the entirer thread.:) Post N°9 has what is written in v2.2. I know what we all think of cannon but as there are 3 different cannons..., often crontadicting each other (sometimes within each other). Your point is right about GDW 2300 but I never played, don't want to play and don't feel like playing it (just don't like futuristic Earth settings).

As a result, if you try to go by cannon the basic is simple: do as you want, like it is said on the back of the book: you are on your own.

At least we have a nice exchange and plenty of good and constructive ideas as we didn't have in some times. I like when we are arguing but keep it civil.:)

The last counter-argument by Webstral was a good one.:D His point on the lone boomer is the best you can get. I'll disagree only with one thing, given the types available, there is a good chance that it will not conduct any more missions. One more thing. As Alice Spring is within extreme range, there is no need to bother sending a boomer for the comm center.

[Mohoender]

You are a regional power. And thus a threat. Ivan has tons of nukes and the reality is, many targets have multiple warheads for redundancy sakes. A mirv, well, each rocket has X mumber of warheads and each one is programable for a different target. 1 missile in your direction landing half a dozen warheads would be enough.


3 at most given the boomer types with for half of them only 12 missiles.

[Mohoender]

I can accept that Australia would suffer a number of nuclear strikes during the Twilight War, but there is some hope that it could be less damaging than hoped for by Ivan. After all the extensive naval and military command facilities in and around Norfolk VA were the target of a Soviet MIRV (obviously intended to be a ground burst) but it went off course and created a quasi-tsunami instead of a giant glowing bowl of glass.

I would suggest that Australia would be as badly affected by EMP bursts as its western industrialised allies (precise targetting isn't really necessary when you want to deliver a high altitude nuclear detonation that will fry electronics across half a continent) but could get lucky with a few of its facilities and cities targeted by the Soviet Rocket Corps.

Definitely agree to that. I agree with Jest/Web opinion that nuking is the best option. I merely say that giving the difficulties to achieve this, there is a good chance for it not to be carried out. At least 50/50.

[Mohoender]

I mean, what base would the team deploy from? The Soviet Pacific Bases is the nearest. And the most likely method would be by submarine. Which would be risky with the sensor and active anti submarine operations. And then having them surfaced long enough to get the team and their equipment enough to conduct combat operations and to survive with, ashore. And enough diverse equipment to plan and accomplish any number of unknown missions so they are going to have to bring ALOT of gear, I would guess over two tons of equipment for a squad. Figure about 4 large packs per man when you are talking food,some water, radios, spare radios, batteries, demotlitions equipment, camoflauge equipment, medical kits, personal weapons, special weapons, ammunition, special mission essential items, spare equipment and items all to last for an unknown but extended period of time. And none of your missions are planned, so you must have all manner of gear to cover all methods of attack.


Here Jester, you are fueling my point on the Boomer. I agree nuking is their best option but a risky and hazardous bet nonetheless.:)

[Mohoender]

One last point about this.

If I was to change my mind (and probably will), giving the wise points developped here, I would effectively target three locations in Australia (North Cape West, Pine Gap and Nurrungar). Each one of them hit by a single warhead SS-18 Satan as part of the US strategic targets (MIRV versions don't reach that far). Not many targets but 20-25Mt each: put your sunglasses on.:cool:

[RN7]

RN7 you have not read the entirer thread. Post N°9 has what is written in v2.2. I know what we all think of cannon but as there are 3 different cannons..., often crontadicting each other (sometimes within each other). Your point is right about GDW 2300 but I never played, don't want to play and don't feel like playing it (just don't like futuristic Earth settings).

Well I was just providing information that I read about Australia in the Twilight War, canon or not. You can feel free to contradict it anyway you like.


As a result, if you try to go by cannon the basic is simple: do as you want, like it is said on the back of the book: you are on your own.

I don't think that I'm alone in the view that Australia was damaged by Soviet nuclear strikes.


At least we have a nice exchange and plenty of good and constructive ideas as we didn't have in some times. I like when we are arguing but keep it civil.

Who's being uncivil?


The last counter-argument by Webstral was a good one. His point on the lone boomer is the best you can get. I'll disagree only with one thing, given the types available, there is a good chance that it will not conduct any more missions.

From what I've checked in the early to mid 1990s the USSR had 326 UR-100/SS-11 and 308 R-36/SS-18s. Darwin and northern Queensland seem to be well within the range of an UR-100/SS-11 launched from the Soviet Far Eastern bases of Svobodnyy, Gladkaya, Olavyannaya and Drovyanaya. While an R-36/SS-18 from Aleysk, Dombarovskiy, Imeni Gastello, Kartaly, Uzhur or Zhangiz Tobe could probably hit any location in Australia depending on the model, with the possible exception of Tasmania.

Would somebody with some more time on their hands than me at the moment like to verify the range of the Soviet SS-11 & SS-18 ICBM, and check the distances from Soviet silos in the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Central Asia to Australian cities and locations to confirm this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cold_War_intercontinental_ballistic_missi les_of_the_Soviet_Union
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/icbm_fac.htm
http://www.mapcrow.info/cgi-bin/cities_distance.cgi?city1=Uzhur&cntry1=&city2=sydney&cntry2=

[Mohoender]

I changed my text on Australia. I'll put the changes in Italic.

RN7 you took me wrong sorry about that.

[simonmark6]

English Teacher mediation here:

Mo does an excellent job in English, about a thousand times better than I could do in French.

What he said was: I like it when we argue but keep it civil.

Meaning: I like it when we can discuss issues in a civil manner.

Rather than: I like it when we argue, but keep it civil.

Which would suggest that he felt RAN was straying from the bounds of civil discussion.

As Mo has indicated, he was complimenting Ran on his ability to keep the arguement civil, not the opposite.

Please excuse me this intrusion, I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi or put down anybody's use of the language, I'm just hoping to clarify that Mo was applauding the quality of debate, not denigrating it.

Here endeth the lesson, homework will be issued in the next post...

[jester]

Targan, sorry if it left a bad taste, but it is kinda true if one wants to be realistic. Which I tend to be often.

Now, as for your idea of a Russian Speitzie force landing to carry out sabotage and commando operations, that is what they do. And they did have alot of stashes or caches placed in Europe and even a few spots in N. America. So, they probably had a few in Oz.

As I said it would be a cool campaign still! Actualy that was what I was trying to do with my Arctic Raiders game. Except the raiding comando force was going to be Americans and Canadians operating in Siberia.


Now back to the Spetzies. To make it more plausible.

The Ruskies shoot their load and they have fewer nukes to toss around. But up-oh! They forgot to target the land of Oz. OOPSIE! Someone is going on a winter vacation for that one.

But, they have a bunch of Spetzies laying around being lazy and irritating the comand with their wild ways. After all all play and no work makes a Speitzi a dull boy. Ivan has a couple old time diesel subs laying around one of the bases in their Far East Ports. So some commander comes up with this hairbrained idea. <A Russian version of Cockellshell Heroes.> They repair an old diesel electric submarine, making it seaworthy with the purpose of inserting comando forces and raiding partys.

The submarine has a full platoon consisting of 3 or 4 12 man teams. They are going to land them on the N. Coast of Oz, each having a zone of operation where they will be tasked with disrupting industry, transit and communication assets. Each has half a dozen small cashes <enough to reequip a full team with basic equipment, weapons, ammo, food, batteries, radios, demolitions the works. And a couple big caches with again enough to reequip the entire team plus alot more equipment for specialty and mission specific items as well as consumables in great quantity. They may even have a vehicle or two with additional fuel. >

The teams land, they make it to specific broadcast point and radio their message back to HQ. To their horror! <OH NO!> the submarine was lost! And only 1 other team was landed successfully, the others went down with the sub. <Life now sucks for the Speitzis who landed> Their mission has expanded, as has their operational area! <No good deed ever goes unpunished! Or were they just victims of their own success?> And to make things worse! <GASP!> those other teams were specialized for the missions they would be required to preform. The team that landed, well they have the basic skills, but they aren't the experts that the other teams were by a long shot! So now you have to accomplish the new mission the hard way, by going old school!

I don't know, but to me it sounds like a campaign I would love to conduct.

And the purpose of the operation?

Oz and NZ are floating aircraft cariers, have port and shipping facilities. And dry docks to repair the vessels that are supporting the Chinese who are tying half the Russian Army, and Korea which they never thought would be such a thorn in their side! They need to deal with Oz but they just don't have anymore nukes to spare. So in goes a platoon or two of Spetzis.

I mean, imagine what a team of SEAL type or SBS comandoes could do to a port filled with ships laden with arms, ammunition and fuel? As well as the transport networds that feed these shipping centers. And of course the comm centers a nice relay station, and a base for Orion flights to detect comerce raiders and submarines. And of course the other aircraft that fly and detect enemy communication.

So, when hightech hardward is no longer available old methods would be brought back. So, a Spetzi attack would be possible in a T2K world.

[Mohoender]

Thanks to the english teacher. I make a copy of the way you write it down.:)

[Mohoender]

Would somebody with some more time on their hands than me at the moment like to verify the range of the Soviet SS-11 & SS-18 ICBM, and check the distances from Soviet silos in the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Central Asia to Australian cities and locations to confirm this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cold_War_intercontinental_ballistic_missi les_of_the_Soviet_Union
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/icbm_fac.htm
http://www.mapcrow.info/cgi-bin/cities_distance.cgi?city1=Uzhur&cntry1=&city2=sydney&cntry2=

Your numbers are accurate at least for the SS-18 (204 in Russia and 104 in Kazakhstan). SS-11 were being retired by 1986.

Replace the SS-11 by about 500 Topol (SS-25) that are mostly road mobile (MAZ-547) and regularly moving in Russia. These eventually located at fix bases are to be about 200. That makes them harder to hit and despite a slightly smaller range and single warhead they are much more threatening. SS-25 were designed to counter ABM systems. The ability to penetrate ABM systems should be true also of the R-36M2 (SS-18).

About the SS-18, they are to be R-36M2 (99) and R-36MU (209) as R-36M were retired by 1981. R-36M2 are the only one with enough range to hit any city in Australia (outside Alice Spring, Darwin, Norse West Cape and Perth) if they carry a single warhead of 20Mt. Out of the 99 (more or less) R-36M2 a question remain: how many are equipped with that 20Mt warhead? Don't expect to find this answer until 2020 as the missile will remain in service until at least 2014. Nevertheless they represent such a threat that the Start II treaty which didn't come into effect was specifically designed for them. One last thing about the R-36M2, IRL their number has possibly been reduced to about 2 dozens.

Here is a good site about missiles and the most reliable source on nukes today:
http://missile.index.ne.jp/en/
http://www.nti.org/b_aboutnti/b_index.html

Your research have been good but you should not rely on Globalsecurity (except as a starting point). As everyone I used them a lot until I got to the conlusion that they are among the worse source on the Web on military subjects.

[Webstral]

Mo, you’re probably right about the limited missiles on a boomer tasked to hit Australia. It's impossible to say which boomer gets tasked with the launch, but since we can't say for certain an older boat isn't the launch boat it's safest to assume the boomer in question expends his ammunition.

Another potential launch site for Soviet ballistic missiles is Vietnam. According to the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the USSR has several formations in Vietnam during the Twilight War. I don’t know if the presence of Soviet troops automatically means the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles, but there’s at least a chance that there are Soviet missiles in Vietnam in 1997. Vietnam is less than 3000 miles from Darwin.

Webstral

[Mohoender]

Web you can expect the formations in Vietnam to have a few nuclear device at hand but these would be carried by SCUDs or SS-21 with a maximum range of 300-400km.

Vietnam allows for another option, however: a Tu-95 Bear-H carrying 4 AS-15 Kent nuclear long range cruise missile (3000km range for the Bear and 3000km range for the AS-15).

Actually, the AS-15 could as well be used from a SSN (Victor III, Akula or Sierra). 6 to 8 were carried by each subs and IMO a SSN stands a much better chance to get within range unoticed as the priority would be to destroy the SSBN. The AS-15 carries only a single 200kt warhead but that's enough to do the job.

Anyway during the Twilight War the minimum number of nuclear warheads of the Soviets would be 35.000 (1990). The peak was at 45.000 in 1986. Depending on the timeline and the corresponding tensions this number as a good chance to be around 45.000 again and may be more if i was to follow v1.0.

That also makes the Exchange in T2K very limited indeed.

[RN7]

Which would suggest that he felt RAN was straying from the bounds of civil discussion.

That's RN7!

[RN7]

Your numbers are accurate at least for the SS-18 (204 in Russia and 104 in Kazakhstan). SS-11 were being retired by 1986.

But the SS-11 wasn't completely retired until 1996, and the main reason I mentioned it was because of its proliferation in the Soviet Far East and Siberia which is the closest part of the USSR to Australia.

Replace the SS-11 by about 500 Topol (SS-25) that are mostly road mobile (MAZ-547) and regularly moving in Russia. These eventually located at fix bases are to be about 200. That makes them harder to hit and despite a slightly smaller range and single warhead they are much more threatening. SS-25 were designed to counter ABM systems. The ability to penetrate ABM systems should be true also of the R-36M2 (SS-18).

Maybe they were aimed at North America as it was harder for the Americans to locate them.


About the SS-18, they are to be R-36M2 (99) and R-36MU (209) as R-36M were retired by 1981. R-36M2 are the only one with enough range to hit any city in Australia (outside Alice Spring, Darwin, Norse West Cape and Perth) if they carry a single warhead of 20Mt. Out of the 99 (more or less) R-36M2 a question remain: how many are equipped with that 20Mt warhead? Don't expect to find this answer until 2020 as the missile will remain in service until at least 2014. Nevertheless they represent such a threat that the Start II treaty which didn't come into effect was specifically designed for them. One last thing about the R-36M2, IRL their number has possibly been reduced to about 2 dozens.

In 2000 I believe there were a total of 122 R-36M2 with 20Mt warheads in Russian service, and another 58 with 10x MIRVs, although some of these were located in Kazakhstan. Today there are less but in the Twilight War timeline the Soviet Union or at least the Russian part of it depending on the version is still heavily militarised and beligerent.

Here is a good site about missiles and the most reliable source on nukes today:
http://missile.index.ne.jp/en/
http://www.nti.org/b_aboutnti/b_index.html


Here are a few more, and their Russian too!

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/index.html
http://warfare.ru/?lang=&catid=265&cattitle=Surface-to-Surface


Your research have been good but you should not rely on Globalsecurity (except as a starting point). As everyone I used them a lot until I got to the conlusion that they are among the worse source on the Web on military subjects.

I have some books too, I've been collecting them since the 1980s.

[Mohoender]

Thanks for the two websites.

I'm already using warfare.ru even as I'm not convinced of its reliability (interesting nonetheless). Then, real thanks for the other one as I had used it in the past and lost it. This time I put it in my favorites (an extremely good website IMO).

The main problem with Russia are secrecy, rumors and confusing serial numbers: UR-100 is both the SS-11 and SS-19.

Where did you get you figures for the warheads carried? I couldn't find that.

I also have books from the 1980's and so on. However, they are now proving to be mostly nice pieces of Science Fiction. Still usefull but authors writing on military issues have more imagination than novelists. I have a nice book from 1991 that I'm using to make OOBs (from a well respected author and a well respected editor) stating that despite the fall of the Berlin Wall there is no doubt that Russia will remain fully comited to its engagement abroad and that the army will remain an influencial force within Russia. No more than a year after the publication of the book the russian army started to shrink from 2 million to less than 400.000 (nowadays it can be back to about 1.2 million). Six months after the publication date, Moscow cut all military and economical aid to Afghanistan resulting in what we know today. :p

Not even talking of Russia, depending on sources you can't know how many SSBN are currently in French service. If you look at informations on BA103 "Cambrai". All sources states that the base had converted to Mirage 2000 by 1992. I was there in 1994 and at least one squadron was still flying Mirage F1C (not entirely retired before 1996). However, all pilots at the base had been qualified on Mirage 2000 by 1992 (an entirely different matter). Our ICBM base on the Plateau d'Albion (BA-200) was officially closed by 1999, may be. That's only for France, what about Russia?

[RN7]

The main problem with Russia are secrecy, rumors and confusing serial numbers: UR-100 is both the SS-11 and SS-19.

I think the UR-100N & UR-100NUTTkH models are SS-19s. The SS-17 was also called the MR-UR-100 as it was to be a replacement for the existing UR-100 missiles in service and designed to fit into existing UR-100 silos.


Where did you get you figures for the warheads carried? I couldn't find that.

Its on warfare.ru under information about the SS-18.


also have books from the 1980's and so on. However, they are now proving to be mostly nice pieces of Science Fiction. Still usefull but authors writing on military issues have more imagination than novelists. I have a nice book from 1991 that I'm using to make OOBs (from a well respected author and a well respected editor) stating that despite the fall of the Berlin Wall there is no doubt that Russia will remain fully comited to its engagement abroad and that the army will remain an influencial force within Russia. No more than a year after the publication of the book the russian army started to shrink from 2 million to less than 400.000 (nowadays it can be back to about 1.2 million). Six months after the publication date, Moscow cut all military and economical aid to Afghanistan resulting in what we know today.

Some books from the 80's and 90s are suprisingly accurate about force and equipment levels, orbats and technical information, and can also be better than online sources about the period than what is currently available online. Others have to be taken with a grain of salt as they were published before the end of the Cold War and their data on the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was largely based on western estimates, conjecture and rumour.

Not even talking of Russia, depending on sources you can't know how many SSBN are currently in French service. If you look at informations on BA103 "Cambrai". All sources states that the base had converted to Mirage 2000 by 1992. I was there in 1994 and at least one squadron was still flying Mirage F1C (not entirely retired before 1996). However, all pilots at the base had been qualified on Mirage 2000 by 1992 (an entirely different matter). Our ICBM base on the Plateau d'Albion (BA-200) was officially closed by 1999, may be. That's only for France, what about Russia?

I think the French were fairly notorious for upping their forces to confuse the Soviets and even the Americans during the Cold War. I would be fairly certain that France's IRBM force was retired in 1999, and I would be fairly certain that there are only 4 French Triomphant Class SSBN's at the moment. But France built 6 of the preceding Redoutable Class and it is possible that one or two were held in reserve for testing and training while the French Navy was switching over to the newer Triomphant Class which led to confusion during the transition period, and I'm sure the French where happy to go along with that. There were also rumours as late as the late 80s that Britain built 5 Resolution class SSBN's instead of the official 4 subs, which was never officially confirmed or denied during the Cold War by the British government.

[Mohoender]

Its on warfare.ru under information about the SS-18.


Thanks I had overlooked that one. However, the Start 2 agreement is no longer into effect as US administration under Bush refused to comply with parts of the treaty (actually the ABM part). Nevertheless, Russia will comply as soon as US does and I suspect that this is at the heart of the current discussions.


Some books from the 80's and 90s are suprisingly accurate about force and equipment levels, orbats and technical information, and can also be better than online sources about the period than what is currently available online. Others have to be taken with a grain of salt as they were published before the end of the Cold War and their data on the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact was largely based on western estimates, conjecture and rumour.


I often find books from the 70's-80's more accurate than the ones from the 90's.


I would be fairly certain that France's IRBM force was retired in 1999, and I would be fairly certain that there are only 4 French Triomphant Class SSBN's at the moment.


You right about the French Triomphant but I was only talking of the sources. However, one of the Redoutable remained in service until 2006 while another one was retired in 2004 (I think). About the IRBM force (sorry for writing ICBM), it is not retired but deactivated.

[Legbreaker]

Yep, that's the one. Unfortunately, like yourself I have no clue who the original author was.

That would come from here:
http://www.geocities.com/jimandpetalawrie/T2K-Index.html

I tend to agree that a couple of nukes may well have been used on Australian targets, but nowhere near the coverage the rest of the world received. As has been indicated, there are only limited numbers of missiles capable of even reaching Australia and the vast majority of these are likely to be targeted against Nato members (not just the US).

Yes, sub launched missiles are an option, but once again, any sub operating in the southern hemisphere is doing so without much in the way of support. They would also very quickly find themselves the target of a rather intensive search by the nations not directly involved in the European conflict. (Australia, New Zealand, perhaps a few others in Africa and South America - but I don't put a lot of stock in that). Would the Soviets be willing to loose a boomer just to strike at the non-involved and very distant Australia?

A long range air strike from Vietnam is possible, but Australia does have a decent air defence system. There is no guarantee the aircraft wouldreach their targets let alone manage to return.

So, yes a few nukes might fall, but it's not going to destroy the country.

When I mentioned the possibility of Spetnaz a few days ago, I was also thinking along the lines of spies, saboteurs, etc, not just military teams. It might also include rabid pacifists (contradition in terms, I know) who break in to places such as Pine Gap and go on a sledge hammer rampage in a misguided (and possibly Soviet supported) effort to keep Australia un-nuked. Just imagine how much trouble a few charismatic people could stir up given the right circumstances.

Getting back to the military units, it is HIGHLY unlikely any infiltration teams would be landed in the north of the country unless their primary, secondary and tertiary targets were all located in that area. It's far too remote to relocate and the military presence in the north WILL react very quickly, setting up road blocks, etc - it's what the annual Kangaroo exercises were all about (at least they were back in the 80's and early 90's).

A team may be dropped near Perth (I'm personally not too sure about what's over that way), Melbourne, Woolongong, Sydney, Newcastle and probably Brisbane. Adelaide, Townsville and Cairns may also attract attention while Tasmania is largely ignored (trust me, there's nearly nothing of military or industrial significance here).

These teams might be dropped at the opening stages of the war with China, or even be sleeper cells set up years in advance. If the weapons and equipment had been stockpiled previously, the actual personnel might even fly in on a regularly schedule airline flight! It's even conceivable unit members returned to the USSR (by rather long convoluted routes) for additional training, holidays, etc. What would it take? A couple of good quality false IDs, good English skills and the ability to act....

[jester]

Well I once read the manual on Speitzis, and they often do infiltrate as civis and have personel there as sleepers. A good number of embassy staff and olympic and similiar touring atheletes are said to have been spetzis. So have a handful on scene before hostilities is not out of the realm of posibility.

These advance personel would be the ones setting up the caches. A storage unit filled with basic gear. A shed on some property in the boonies filled with supplies and equipment. A shipping container or two with other gear, weapons, demo, com gear.

Other members of the sleeper cell will be studying targets, police, military and other targets and threats and they will have been studied and planned routes, operations, deleiveries shift changes etc.

Now, the landing of a team would be landing the operational members of the team/assault force. Who will operate with the help of members of the sleeper cell. Of course the contact would or should be minimalized to protect the sleepers from detection should info or team members be captured.

As for the landing of the operational team. Since your Northern Coast is pretty isolated it would be PERFECT to land a team undetected. Especialy if they had access to vehicles to travel in. Again part of preplanning, or even just stolen. A team could go to an isolated farm/ranch or minning operation or station. They capture or even kill the few people there and use it as a base of operations, using the facility as shelter and a place to hide out in and of course using their vehicles, supplies and radio since many isolated stations do have a long range or Ham radio. <even just listening and monitoring the channnels is going to glean ALOT of intel.>

The team would set out to attack targets about 100km away. A good sabotuer knows that it is best to make the attack not look like an attack. An attack that looks like an attack is a last resort since it will result in an almost immediate mobilization of all forces which would make things very unplesant.

No, one must make the attack look like an accident or failure of equipment or even negligance. And idealy it should be timed to allow you to some escape time, so the charges would be set to explode say an hour after they are armed or planted. That is enough time to get out of the immediate area and a decent head start.

Good ideas for sabotauge targets would be ports and hardbors. Train tunnels and bridges. Mines would be another target. I mean sink a vessel or two in a harbor, or set a tanker on fire or blow up an ammunition ship and you have seriously affected the harbor and alot of its shipping ability. A rail tunnel or mine, blow the sucker or cause a rockslide and it is closed. A bridge well you've just closed that route and now force a detour of all traffic for who knows how far a distance.

Communications facilities, those are another storey. Those would be well guarded, and would need a direct attack . On the plus side. In the twilight world it is doubtful that such assets would be replaced soon if at all.

Also, the idea of the area being a vast area also works in the favor of the team. A force hunting them down would be searching for a needle in a haystack. And if your wilderness is like our deserts or our west it is alot of wide open in which you would be able to see them comming well in advance.

Now, if team members had good English ability then they could even assimilate into the community in a more populated area and just blend in.

Think it would be similiar to the movie "The Eagle Has Landed."

Again, a good idea for a campaign.

[Webstral]

I'm firmly in the same camp as those who believe that Australia will receive a lighter load of nukes than, say, Canada. Issues like range, limited involvement, and limited capacity will be in turn limiting factors on what kind of megatonnage the USSR directs at Australia. My whole point is that the nuclear exchange will not simply bypass Australia and New Zealand, leaving two potentially important Western nations completely unscathed. I'm sure with a bit of research and analysis, we could come up with a list of ANZ targets that would involve perhaps five Mt--sufficient to knock out the site and support functions of civilian government, the principal military command-and-control center(s), a handful refineries, and a couple of important military bases in each country. The idea would not be annihilate Australia (or New Zealand), which would run the risk of an Allied nuclear response beyond the one already envisioned in canon. The idea would be to prevent Australia from projecting force beyond her own borders for a few years and to prevent the US from using Australia to pursue American aims in the South Pacific.

Webstral

[Dogger]

Hi guys!

Was out of town for a few days and am just now getting back to the board.

First: Thanks for the responses, lots of good information and good conjecture as well.

I tend to agree with Webstral that Oz would suffer some kind of nuclear strike. T2K v1 (which is what I'm working off of) clearly shows that the Soviets were targeting neutral countries to deny those resources to NATO.

In my game Australia was a Western combatant activly fighting the Soviets in the Middleeast and in N. Korea, as well as in the Pacific ocean.

--------------

Here's the back story I developed based on a lot of the info I got here:

Austraila was involved in combat against the Soviets & their allies and had deployed troops and equipment to the Middle East and Korea. It also acted as a resupply base for Allied shipping in the South Pacific.

Australia was not hit in the initial nuclear exchanges or late '97. But there was some limited civil panic and disruptions in the immediate aftermath (mostly in the bigger cities.)

By early 1998 the USSR realized the growing logistics and support roll Austraila had become to US/NATO forces in the ME and Korea and dispatched one of it's few remaining Boomers to take Oz out of the war. The Boomer in question only had 6 SLBM's remaining on board.

The Soviet boomer made it into the Coral Sea and began launching it missles when it was attacked and destroyed by a US 688 class attack sub that had been tracking it for weeks.

Four of the six SLBMs were launched before the boomer was destroyed.

Melbourne, Canberra, and Brisbane were destroyed/badly damaged by 3 of the SLBM strikes. the fourth missle targeted for Sydney malfunctioned and failed to detonate but did contaminate a three kilometer area of downtown Sydney with radiation for a short time.

The missles targeted for Perth and Darwin went down with the Soviet sub.

Chaos reigned for a time in the aftermath of the strikes mostly in the cities, in the vast rural areas of the country people mostly hunkered down and waited to see if more strikes were on the way.

Vital services and supplies were disrupted for a time, but the central government having relocated from Canberra at the start of the Soviet nuke strikes on NATO in '97 had survived the attack largely intact.

More devastating to Australia was the pandemic of plagues which swept over the country in the fall & winter of 1998 and into 1999.

While the government maintains control in most coastal areas, much of the interior of the country has become a lawless land ruled by bandits & local warlords. Though it should be noted these groups are few and hold little power.

From mid 1999 into 2000 a running conflict was fought with Indonesia for control of New Guinea, the Australian Forces have been largely victorious but some limited fighting continues.

Currently Australia is a vital link in the tenuous supply chain between US forces in the Middle East and the continental United States. The Australian government does not recognize either of the two American governments; CivGov & MilGov, but is in limited communication with both though has more dealings with MilGov via it's forces in the Middle East.

Though heavily damaged by EMP, Australia with much of its industrial base intact is in the beginnings of a recovery both domestically and as a world power.

-------------

I think I'll run with that.

Thanks again for all the info.

<S>

[Legbreaker]

Now you're getting it Jester! ;)

One point though, I don't think you understand just how isolated the north really is. Even in the more populated areas there's still vast stretches of beachfront without anyone around. There's no problem slipping ashore under cover of darkness, something the police can testify to in their struggle to intercept smugglers.

You go ashore up north and almost guarentee you're not going to survive. It only takes one mistake - the vehicle isn't where it's supposed to be, the landing was in the wrong spot, the weather is hotter than expected that day, and you're toast (litterally in some cases).

Dogger, I like what you've got there. Not sure I'd be nuking Brisbane in preference to Newcastle or Wollongong though (both MAJOR industrial centres).

[jester]

Now you're getting it Jester! ;)

One point though, I don't think you understand just how isolated the north really is. Even in the more populated areas there's still vast stretches of beachfront without anyone around. There's no problem slipping ashore under cover of darkness, something the police can testify to in their struggle to intercept smugglers.

You go ashore up north and almost guarentee you're not going to survive. It only takes one mistake - the vehicle isn't where it's supposed to be, the landing was in the wrong spot, the weather is hotter than expected that day, and you're toast (litterally in some cases).

Dogger, I like what you've got there. Not sure I'd be nuking Brisbane in preference to Newcastle or Wollongong though (both MAJOR industrial centres).


Leg do you doubt the Spetzis as anything less than the super human beings nay the supermen that they are! Oh nooo!

Actualy, the idea and the local makes it even more alluring as a landing place. As well as the inhospitality of the land as well. As for landing in the wrong spot. That is why one communicates with their shore people and do not deploy until the landing zone is confirmed, ie, the ground liason is on scene with transportation, as well as it is clear to land with no unwanted observers.

Here is another plan that would be decent.

The team lands, moves over road or even up some river via zodiak type inflatible raft to their base. A base like I described earlier.

They study their target. Say a factory. They study it for a week or two learnng its routine. They then assemble the team, prep and brief. Set up rally points for their withdraw, actualy they come up with multiple withdrawl routes to cover successful operations as well as if it all goes to hell.

They then make their way to an isolated road artery in which delivery trucks transit and enter their factory. They hijack a chosen vehicle and ride within the vehicle with their equipment. Thus, they transit a regular road not leaving any tracks that can be followed. That is how they reach the target. They will have studied the security of the facility. They can either off load before they reach the plant. Or if security is lax they can enter the facility, or they can just take down the guards. They are now inside and they act doing their thing. They could seriously cripple most places in about 15 minutes or less. They then use the vehicle they hijacked to make it to an extraction point, blend in with traffic and other vehicles, or another location where they have other vehicles waiting and make their getaway going to a safe house in another location. They may even send out a decoy vehicle laying down a track for persuers to follow as they go on a wild goose chase in the end only finding an abandoned and most likely boobyrapped vehicle.

And yes, I love planning things and figuring out how they can be maid to work.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

A few thoughts here.

Australia is a massive nation in size, in fact it's coastline is longer than the coastline of the USA even thought Australia is physically somewhat smaller. That coupled with a low population and for Twilight: 2000 timelines it would mean less than 20 million spread across the nation (probably closer to 18 million or less at that time).
Most of these people are found along the eastern coast as are many important industrial centres. In harsh reality, there's probably less than 25 important places to attack with nuclear weapons, some of these have already been mentioned.
So Australia could be significantly damaged with very little effort on behalf of the USSR including smuggling in teams and gear. As noted by Legbreaker, the vast expanse of the northern reaches are sparsely populated and some towns are as far apart as 200-800km from each other.

However, that decentralization has some benefits in that even with the complete destruction of one of those towns, it would not be sufficient to halt that State let alone the nation. The flip side of course is that that town is isolated from help should anything occur and in some cases, harbour towns being closed down would significantly affect trade etc. etc. for some time. For example, simply sinking a laden container or bulk carrier ship in the mouth of some ports up north would lock up that harbour for months simply because the heavy gear needed to clear it could take weeks to arrive (because of the distances involved).

As for sabotage teams wanting to get at least 100km clear of a target, in Australia it can be somewhat different. You would want to either stay close or get the hell out of Dodge by a good couple of hundred km's.
This is because in the country regions, the people are so isolated they tend to pay much more attention to things than city people expect. Any small town in the outback probably has a handful of people who are very aware of all the "newcomers" to town and all the 'comings & goings'.

If 'that nice young couple from Europe who'd been in town for the last few years' suddenly were absent after a local disaster/act of sabotage, somebody would likely notice and report it for fear that they had been injured etc. Obviously that could seriously compromise a special forces team trying to live in the area.
If leaving the area, you would want to get more than 100km away because in many of those towns, people regularly roam up to 100km+ away from town even in a day for various reasons (work, recreation or simply 'getting out of town for a while').
Again, these people pay attention to others in the area particularly because they may need assistance if anything goes wrong. Like any small community, people tend to recognize others from the town even if they don't actually know them so strangers will be spotted very quickly.
Any team wishing to hide out in the outback needs to be almost 100% self-sufficient because of these factors. And one other thing they absolutely must have - water, because if they want to camp out near any water source, they are going to be sharing it with all the other people in the area (again increasing their chance of detection).

You could travel for a thousand kilometres and not see another person in some places but then you would also be too far away from any normal source of food and water let alone tech/mechanical/medical assistance.

As for railways and roads, many areas of the outback are flat and road & rail can easily avoid having to go through tunnels or ravines etc. and bridges are few & far between so the chances of using these as chokepoints are much lessened. It's far easier to destroy the road/rail. Planting landmines on the road would be far more effective.
Or if it comes to that, it's easier (and probably safer) to contaminate a town's water storage.

[Legbreaker]

I'm not sure you're understanding the MASSIVE distances involved Jester....

Ok, landings are likely to be held off until contact is made with any shore party (if there is one), but you land too far from civilisation and you've got problems with fuel as well as food, water and shelter. It's not uncommon to have to carry additional fuel in your vehicle to last the distance between fuel stops....

Basically, if you're in a vehicle up north, you're going to be noticed at some point. If you're on foot, you're already dead.

[Targan]

More devastating to Australia was the pandemic of plagues which swept over the country in the fall & winter of 1998 and into 1999.

Unlikely. The only disease problems that Australia suffers from in modern times are the seasonal influenzas that arrive from other parts of the world each year. In other, more populous parts of the world there tend to be reservoirs of disease in the wild or in segments of populations which have poor socio economic conditions and health. Conjunctivitis and ear infections are endemic in many Aboriginal communities but not "plagues". By 1998 and 1999 Australia would not have very many overseas visitors arriving in its major population centres.

If there was a disease outbreak in Australia in 1998-99 it would probably be able to be confined by authorities to the area where it arrived. The great distances involved in moving around Australia and the lack of air travel would mean that disease outbreaks would be easily contained. Also, Australia has a pretty good healthcare system, it that wouldn't completely break down even during the Twilight War.

Australia also has excellent medical research facilities (private, university and public hospital-based) and organisations such as CSL and the CSIRO that even during the Twilight War would be capable of developing vaccines against new disease outbreaks. Of course, distributing vaccines could be a problem.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I thought this site may provide information that helps illustrate the conditions and size of the Australian bush

http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/australian-cattle-stations.html

It's worth the read

[Mohoender]

Unlikely. The only disease problems that Australia suffers from in modern times are the seasonal influenzas that arrive from other parts of the world each year. In other, more populous parts of the world there tend to be reservoirs of disease in the wild or in segments of populations which have poor socio economic conditions and health. Conjunctivitis and ear infections are endemic in many Aboriginal communities but not "plagues". By 1998 and 1999 Australia would not have very many overseas visitors arriving in its major population centres.


Entirely agree. Moreover, unlike the rest of the world and despite whatever damages it suffers, Australia will probably still has access to medical supplies and it will have enough surviving medics. Unless, of course, the conflicts turn to a full nulcear exchange with at least 20.000 nukes sent by both sides.

USSR is only hit by 50-100 warheads out of 9000+ (USA). USA is hit by 80-150 warheads out 45000+ (USSR). You can estimate that the total of warheads used worldwide doesn't exceeds 1000 (more probably 500). The T2K exchange is very limited indeed.:D

[ChalkLine]

That would come from here:
http://www.geocities.com/jimandpetalawrie/T2K-Index.html

Yep, that's my site.
It'll be gone at the end of the month, Geocities is closing down. I'll clean up the atrocious spelling, abysmal layout and general poor work before putting it up elsewhere. I've got a lot of new stuff that never made it up there because the formatting system for Geocities is very crude and difficult.

[ChalkLine]

I'm not sure you're understanding the MASSIVE distances involved Jester....

Ok, landings are likely to be held off until contact is made with any shore party (if there is one), but you land too far from civilisation and you've got problems with fuel as well as food, water and shelter. It's not uncommon to have to carry additional fuel in your vehicle to last the distance between fuel stops....

Basically, if you're in a vehicle up north, you're going to be noticed at some point. If you're on foot, you're already dead.

The Kangaroo 87 exercise worked out that an enemy coming in against any opposition at all could expect to lose 50% of their casualties due to the terrain, climate and fauna alone.

[Legbreaker]

Think of the toughest, nastiest, most brutal terrain imaginable.

Now multiply that by a factor of ten.

Then expand it's size to encompass about half the continental US.

If you can wrap your head around that, you're halfway to a vague understanding...

[Mohoender]

The worse terrains I can think of being the Sahara (roughly the size of the entire US) and some of the deepest rain forests, I'll avoid multiplying this by ten. However, I may mix both and add some swamps areas.

Of course, if you count Australians in the middle of that, may be you must multiply this by ten.:D:p

[ChalkLine]

The worse terrains I can think of being the Sahara (roughly the size of the entire US) and some of the deepest rain forests, I'll avoid multiplying this by ten. However, I may mix both and add some swamps areas.

Of course, if you count Australians in the middle of that, may be you must multiply this by ten.:D:p

We actually have those terrains, and they're all in the north too :)

Add to that gibber deserts, salt pans that span hundreds of kilometres, crocodile infested swamps, forests that catch fire every year and burn faster than you can run, and vast, vast distances with almost no one in it.

Nothing is safe to eat, it takes a life time living in the scrub to be able to discern what is edible and what is not, and any large area can only support a small amount of people once a year. The top 9 out of 10 poisonous snakes in the world live in the Top End, and even a kangaroo can kill you if you let it get too close. About half the year it is lethally dangerous to go into the ocean because huge swarms of deadly jellyfish carrying the world's most lethal poison drift about, all but invisible.

Then add people like Legbreaker and Targan shooting at you when you least expect it! :D

[headquarters]

If you were hell bent on getting a foot hold on Aussie soil ,those very same conditions would be as big a problem for a defender trying to evict you wouldnt it ?

I mean invasion -be it far fetched both strategically and logistically - could be done over decades of low or semi intensity " conflict" rather than in one fouls swoop like our military planners think .

1) invasion fleet with large contingent of support and camp followers arrive at suitable spot in Northern Australia - say a huge rag tag fleet of military and civillian followers of an ousted warlord /defeated side somewhere close or whatever with nowhere to go but where no one would consider it possible to attack..or back to the firing squads and re education camps of their homeland.

2) suitable land for settling and producing food and vegetable oils etc is conquered in a massive ,chaotic ,bloody landing operation .

3) rather than try to "secure lines of advance " etc they dig in and try to build up more or less like the KMT did when they ran to Taiwan/Formosa in the 1940s.Cottage industries and some more efficient ones are started as a part of the plan.

4)as years go by they will trade injury and insult with the righteous owners of the land and may or may not be able to expand said foothold a ways .

To all the incensed Aussies:D ( or everyone else for that matter )that fume at this laughable notion - I hope you get that I am thinking in game terms here - firstly that the situation COULD arise and then secondly that it DOES.

That means that T2K conditions would apply - and that leaves something to the individual to interpret imho .

I am thinking a sort of migrations type invasion /war on Australian soil due to the upheaval of T2K rather than a "operation whatsitsname" to coldly and planned conquer .

Tha Australian military would have to be sufficiently overwhelmed by the invasion that they cant repulse it , but withdraw to positions where they know it can be contained by the size and terrain of the continent.

The newcomers would have to have resources to maintain their enclaves and to keep up enough military pressure -either trough being reinforced or through local production and conscription .

history has examples of these kind of invasions a plenty -but not from Australia afaik - except for ypu Aussies that is .;)

[Mohoender]

To all the incensed Aussies:D ( or everyone else for that matter )that fume at this laughable notion - I hope you get that I am thinking in game terms here - firstly that the situation COULD arise and then secondly that it DOES.

history has examples of these kind of invasions a plenty -but not from Australia afaik - except for ypu Aussies that is .;)

That's basically why we are mostly called Indo-European. That's also how some of your ancestors, HQ, established kingdoms as far down as Sicily. Not to forget the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.:)

On second thought, that is effectilvely a good idea. In my game, the most important threat to Australia is refugees coming by sea (from Japan, Korea and Taiwan). At last they finally get to be 5 millions but when they reach 3 million the Australian government doesn't welcome them anymore and orders the fleet to push them back. This results in massacres and bloody killings. It would be more than possible to have a military fleet with one of the last groups to try and force their landing.

[headquarters]

That's basically why we are mostly called Indo-European. That's also how some of your ancestors, HQ, established kingdoms as far down as Sicily. Not to forget the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.:)

On second thought, that is effectilvely a good idea. In my game, the most important threat to Australia is refugees coming by sea (from Japan, Korea and Taiwan). At last they finally get to be 5 millions but when they reach 3 million the Australian government doesn't welcome them anymore and orders the fleet to push them back. This results in massacres and bloody killings. It would be more than possible to have a military fleet with one of the last groups to try and force their landing.


Maybe something like that -yes- those countries ,especially Korea has the shipping and arms needed to pull off something like that ,even if it did go down as a terrible and bloody mess.

I dont mean a nefarious evil invasion plan - but maybe a desperate mass exodus of civillians,key personel and whatever military could be brought along as their homelands are nuclear cinders and cannibalism is the new national sport due to famine.

Mo- I do know about the states that some of our ancestors created that way . I would argue that history repeats itself .

[Mohoender]

Mo- I do know about the states that some of our ancestors created that way . I would argue that history repeats itself .

I was sure you knew. That was some very impressive achievements nonetheless. The point behind it is that this rag tag fleet if it includes some fine military ships can also include inter-seas ferry and numerous junks. Such a fleet would progress (IMO) like the norsemen, stopping at various islands for trade, rest and raids. In fact, in my mind, it sounds as some sea marauders.

Could also be an interesting base for a campaign.

[ChalkLine]

Australia, frankly, is a dump. The Dutch sailed right around it long before Captain Cook turned up and the Dutch intelligently decided the whole place wasn't worth looking into. The only reason that the British liked the place was that because the USA had stopped taking their penal refuse they needed somewhere very, very far away to send them.

Really, we're more likely to invade Indonesia. If the weather gets much hotter due to global warming much of Australia will be utterly uninhabitable.

[jester]

The idea behind some of my post was other than a cool kick ass campaign. And not just the small scale actions with limited results they would accomplish, although a delay in production or shipping durring a critical phase could mean the difference between defeat and success to the nations troops in the field. I mean what happens when they do not get the fuel and supplies to continue their advance because a team of spetzis sunk a couplple of ships and closed a port bottling the supply ships up until the sunken wrecks could be removed?

Further, think of the fear and paranoia that would fill the population. Causing alot of distrust especialy of strangers.

Delays in passenger and employees due to new security protocols. The tying up of police forces. The curtailing of civil liberties, all of these adding to the stress to the population.

And the additional military forces in manpower and equipment to guard instalations and to hunt down the comandos thus robbing the commands at the front of men and material for defense at home.

I mean, water you say is an issue, so what happens if botulism is released into a water supply? I hear Ivan had a very nasty strain too. Or the teams set off some thermite bombs in those ready to burn tinder areas you mention? Add some of the above and you add more chaos and fear.

It is not so much the actual damage the small force does with a few kilos of explisives, it is the fear and panic and chaos that they create that is an even greater weapon.

An example, how effective was the Doolittle Raid on Japan? What effect did it have other than phsycological? The actual damage was very minor, but it did show the Japanese that they were not beyond the reach of an attack.

[RN7]

From logically trying to look at what a Soviet nuclear attack on Australia might look like, and what the Soviet command would be prepared to commit or spare from use elsewhere. From the location of Soviet missile silos it would seem that the SS-17, SS-19 and SS-18 (R-36MU) ICBM’s are largely arrayed against targets in North America and the Western Hemisphere. Therefore it is likely that the Soviets would use a combination of the SS-18 (R-36M2) and the SS-11 and mobile SS-25 missiles against Australian targets. From the Russian Far East the SS-11 & SS-25 with a range of at least 10,500km can hit any target in Australia north of the State of Victoria, while the SS-18 (R-36M2) with a single 20MT warhead can hit any location in Australia, including Tasmania. The SS-18 (R-36M2) is designed to obliterate major targets like large cities that are furthest away from the USSR, which happens to be all of Australia’s largest cities. However they are also unlikely to be targeting all that many against Australia as they are in a full scale war against the United States, NATO and China. Therefore to knock Australia out I would use no more than a half dozen SS-18s against Australia’s largest cities and perhaps another 7 SS-11 and SS-25s.


Primary Targets

SS-18
Adelaide, SA (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Submarine Building, Military Vehicles, International Airport and Sea Port, Army Base)
Canberra, ACT (National Capital and International Air Port, NASA Deep Space Communications Station)
Geelong, VIC (Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Airport and Sea Port)
Melbourne, VIC (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial centre, Oil Refinery, Warship Building, Military Aircraft, International Air Port and Sea Port, Army and Airforce Base)
Sydney, NSW (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Nuclear Reactor, International Air Port and Sea Port, Major Army Base, Garden Island Navy Base)
Woomera, SA (Air Force Air & Space Test Range)

SS-11 & SS-25
Brisbane, QLD (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, International Airport and Sea Port, Army Base)
Darwin, NT (Territorial Capital, International Airport and Sea Port, Army, Airforce and Navy Base, Radar Station, JORN Transponder)
Garden Island, WA (Major Navy Base)
Harold Holt Station (Joint Navy Communication Station)
Newcastle, NSW (Industrial Centre, Airport and Sea Port, Army Base)
Perth, WA (State Capital, and Major Population and Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Warship Building, International Airport, Army Base)
Pine Gap, NT (Joint Satellite Tracking Station)

To go the whole hog and wipe Australian civilisation out for the millennium I would also go for the following targets with a combination of SS-11, SS-25s and SLBMs from a boomer offshore.

Albury, NSW (Airport)
Alice Springs, NT (Airport, Radar Station)
Ajana, WA (JORN Radar Station)
Amberley, QLD (Major Airforce Base)
Avalon, VIC (Airport)
Barrow Island, WA (Oil and Natural Gas Field Support Facilities)
Benalla, VIC (Munitions Industry)
Bendigo, VIC (Military Vehicles, Military Uniforms)
Broome, WA (JORN Transponder)
Bullsbrook, WA (Airforce Base)
Cairns, QLD (Airport and Sea Port, Army and Navy Base)
Carnarvon, WA (JORN Radar Station)
Coffs Harbour, NSW (Airport)
Curtin, WA (Airforce Base, JORN Radar Station)
Dampier, WA (Sea Port, Army Base)
Derby, WA (Radar Station)
Devonport, TAS (Airport and Sea Port)
Edinburgh, SA (Airforce Base, JORN Radar Station)
East Sale, VIC (Airforce Base)
Elliot, NT (Radar Station)
Erina, NSW (Army Base)
Esperance, WA (Sea Port)
Exmouth, WA (Airforce Base, JORN Radar Station)
Fremantle, WA (Sea Port)
Geraldton, WA (Sea Port, Satellite Communication Monitoring Facility)
Gingin, WA (Airforce Base)
Gold Coast, QLD (Population Centre, International Airport)
Groote Eylandt, NT (JORN Radar Station)
Hamilton Island, QLD (Airport)
Hobart, TAS (State Capitol, International Airport and Sea Port, Army Base)
Jervis Bay, NSW (Navy Training Station)
Kalumburu, WA (JORN Transponder)
Kalkaringi, NT (JORN Radar Station)
Launceston, TAS (Airport, Army Base)
Laverton, WA (JORN Radar Station)
Lithgow, NSW (Small Arms and Ammunition)
Longreach, QLD (JORN Radar Station)
Lynd River, QLD (JORN Radar Station)
Mackay, QLD (Airport and Sea Port)
Moomba, SA (Natural Gas Pipeline Terminal and Processing Centre)
New Norcia Station, WA (European Space Agency Radio Antenna built in 2003)
Normanton, QLD (JORN Transponder)
Nowra, NSW (Navy Air Station)
Nhulunbuy, NT (JORN Transponder)
Oakey, QLD (Army Aviation Base)
Orange, NSW (Army Base)
Orchard Hill, NSW (Airforce Storage Facility)
Port Hedland, WA (Sea Port, JORN Radar Station)
Port Lincoln, SA (Sea Port)
Port Stanvac, SA (Oil Refinery and Sea Port)
Richmond, NSW (Major Airforce Base)
Rockhampton, QLD (Airport)
Scherger, QLD (Airforce Base, JORN Radar Station)
Shoal Bay, NT (Navy Intelligence Receiving Station)
Sunshine Coast, QLD (Population Centre, Airport)
Tamworth, NSW (Airport, Army Base)
Tindal, NT (Airforce Base)
Townsville, QLD (Airport and Sea Port, Major Army & Airforce Base)
Wagga Wagga, NSW (Airport, Airforce Base)
Williamstown, NSW (Major Airforce Base)
Woodside, SA (Army Base)
Wollongong, NSW (Industrial Centre and Sea Port)
Wyndham, WA (Radar Station)

[Targan]

I don't deny that that is a viable target list RN7 but just hitting the targets in the SS-18 and SS-11/SS-25 lists would wipe out probably 80% of Australia's population. After that you'd may as well recolonise Australia from Asia because Australia as a nation would cease to exist with no hope of recovery.

[RN7]

I don't deny that that is a viable target list RN7 but just hitting the targets in the SS-18 and SS-11/SS-25 lists would wipe out probably 80% of Australia's population. After that you'd may as well recolonise Australia from Asia because Australia as a nation would cease to exist with no hope of recovery.


Well Targan unfortunately for Australia it would be very easy for the Soviets to do so. Despite the size of Australia most of the population, industry and military bases are clustered along the south-east corner in the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, along the south Queensland Coast and in Perth on the other side, with a few small remote towns and facilities elsewhere. Launching a dozen or so nuclear missiles against Australia is not much problem or a burden for the Soviets, and basically if they wanted they could make most of Australia uninhabitable for the next thousand years.

[Mohoender]

RN7

I understand your point and agree to some extend (in case of an all out nuclear war). However, that is not what happens in the twilight war. Why would the Soviets wipe out Australia and only lightly strike at the USA? I agree that a few SS-18 will do the job but simply what would be the point of doing it in such a context?

I just don't get the logic behind this except if you understand the Twilight War as an all out nuclear war. But in that case welcome to an entirely different game.

I definitely underestimated the importance of facilities such as Pine Gap (definitely not all in the South East) and finally blew them up but I don't see the point of sending that many SS-18 to Australia while according to the game not even one get to the US (probably because they are destroyed first hand by US). I reverted that in my game but in the original T2K the SS-18 bases are all gone (at least those the T2K original team could know of). Just because of that simple fact, it still can't be done. Of course, I'm not thinking IRL terms, If you do that is an entirely different matter again.

[Webstral]

I love the target list. Thanks for taking the time to assemble this great resource, RN7. We now have a good idea, I think, of the list of potential targets in Australia and can assign some sort of order of precedence to them.

I don't think RN7 is arguing that the Soviets would render Australia a wasteland--just that they could (and here's how they'd do it...). The same logic that would apply to exercising restraint regarding any Western non-nuclear power would apply to Australia. Attacks on Australia invite counterattacks against Soviet allies. Severe attacks on Australia may invite retaliation against the USSR. Better to inflict just enough damage to put Australia out of the fight.

Webstral

[RN7]

I love the target list. Thanks for taking the time to assemble this great resource, RN7. We now have a good idea, I think, of the list of potential targets in Australia and can assign some sort of order of precedence to them.

Thanks Webstral, I had great fun doing that list.


I don't think RN7 is arguing that the Soviets would render Australia a wasteland--just that they could (and here's how they'd do it...). The same logic that would apply to exercising restraint regarding any Western non-nuclear power would apply to Australia. Attacks on Australia invite counterattacks against Soviet allies. Severe attacks on Australia may invite retaliation against the USSR. Better to inflict just enough damage to put Australia out of the fight.


Exactly.

[Mohoender]

Exactly.

Ok, thanks.:)

[RN7]

I understand your point and agree to some extend (in case of an all out nuclear war). However, that is not what happens in the twilight war. Why would the Soviets wipe out Australia and only lightly strike at the USA? I agree that a few SS-18 will do the job but simply what would be the point of doing it in such a context?

Its just a list of potential targets, and example of what the Soviets could do to Australia if they wanted to do it.


I just don't get the logic behind this except if you understand the Twilight War as an all out nuclear war. But in that case welcome to an entirely different game.

That list can be used for anyones game or interpretation of Twilight 2000.


I definitely underestimated the importance of facilities such as Pine Gap (definitely not all in the South East) and finally blew them up but I don't see the point of sending that many SS-18 to Australia

The SS-18 is the only Soviet ICBM that can reach any target in Australia, particularly the highly developed and populated south east.


while according to the game not even one get to the US (probably because they are destroyed first hand by US). I reverted that in my game but in the original T2K the SS-18 bases are all gone (at least those the T2K original team could know of). Just because of that simple fact, it still can't be done. Of course, I'm not thinking IRL terms, If you do that is an entirely different matter again.

The reason why the SS-18 wasn't used against the US may be because it wasn't needed as other Soviet ICBMs can do the job. Also who attacked who first in the Twilight War, was it the US or the Soviets? If it was the US then how did the Soviets strike the US if the US had taken out all their silos before they could retaliate. If it was the Soviets then how come the US managed to take out the SS-18 silos before the Soviets used them.

[Mohoender]

The reason why the SS-18 wasn't used against the US may be because it wasn't needed as other Soviet ICBMs can do the job. Also who attacked who first in the Twilight War, was it the US or the Soviets? If it was the US then how did the Soviets strike the US if the US had taken out all their silos before they could retaliate. If it was the Soviets then how come the US managed to take out the SS-18 silos before the Soviets used them.

Here you are forgetting about boomers and aircrafts. Then, in the game (always v2.2) the four Russian SS-18 bases were targeted and destroyed and there is no point to do that if the missiles are already launched (especially as no one hits any target anywere). That alone would explain why US wasn't hit by SS-18. Two things make me think that most of this comes from insufficient knowledge from the original T2K team (they didn't have internet and many informations were unavailable). Out of the 7 other bases destroyed in USSR, 3 are SS-26 (actual Iskander:D) and 1 is SS-27 (commissioned only after 1998:p). There is also no reason for them to have forgotten the 2 bases in Kazakhstan and especially/only these ones.

So to answer your question:
- All ICBM bases are not listed as destroyed but if two SS-18 bases remain why not use any of them (104) against US/Canada and their highly strategic targets?
- To retaliate the soviets still have boomers and aircrafts+mobile ICBM fire units (about 300 SS-25).
- If the soviets starts, it is possible that they don't send SS-18 in the first place. However, I would agree that it is highly unlikely. On the other hand, again, why leaving about 80 SS-18 in their Silos while they are the best suited weapons to take out NORAD, the US ICBM bases and even Washington DC?

In addition, according to the game text (again v2.2), both sides refrain from targetting the other side's ICBM land base for quite some times. At last, they do: All 4 US bases are taken out (Forks, Malmstrom, Minot & Warren +Vandenberg) and almost all Soviets bases in Russia with the base in others republics not accounted for (most likely forgotten). Then, they are two possibilities: All missiles are destroyed before being launched or they are launched before the bases are destroyed and, then, SS-18 should be accounted for all over (there are none/according to your own account most Satan were equipped with 20Mt warheads, they would have been used). I grant you that the Mt listed are highly questionable and can be open to debate (but that will become endless:))

For my parts (I mean in my game), I use several SS-18 but only on highly strategic targets. They are not used extensively because the first strike is successful in decapitating the US ICBM force. Then, in turn, the Soviets' ICBM force (silo only) is decapitated by strikes from SLBM.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Well there's been quite a lot of information generated about the nuclear weapon aspects of Australia but I think it's worth discussing some of the smaller points also. For example, the list of weapons available to PC groups, so I offer up the following. It's a small list of firearms available just from Australian sources (e.g. military, police) up to about 1996 and certainly not comprehensive.

.38 Smith & Wesson service revolver (don't know the type)
9mmP Browning HP
9mmP SIG P226 (limited numbers for trails with SASR and other special units)

9mmP F1 SMG
9mmP Owen Gun (very limited numbers)
9mmP MP5
9mmP MP5SD (limited numbers)
9mmP L34A1 (limited numbers)
various police/civilian pistols such as 9mm Glocks, CZ75 & CZ85, M1911 competition variants and up to .44 Desert Eagle and 9mmP Uzi Pistol

.303 SMLE
.303 Jungle Carbine (can't think of the proper designation)
5.56mm M16A1
5.56mm F88 (AUG) rifle
5.56mm F88 carbine
5.56mm M4 Carbine (used by Commando Regiment for amphibious tasks)
7.62mmN L1A1
7.62mmN L2A1 (automatic rifle)
various civilian versions of military rifles like the M16, G3, Chinese Type 63 (AKA type 68) and M14
various ex-military semi-autos such as the SKS, M1 Carbine
various ex-military bolt-action rifles such as Swedish Mauser types, Kar-98K etc.

5.56mm F89 Minimi
7.62mm L4A4 Bren Gun
.303 Vickers Gun (very limited number & used only in the training role, some were supposed to be converted to 7.62mmN)
7.62mm M60
7.62mm MAG58
.30-06 M1919A4 (can't recall the local designation)
12.7mm M2 BMG

Various pump-action and semi-auto shotguns from police & civilian sources.
There's also the potential for a very limited number of L85A1 and FN FNC rifles from Papua New Guinea as their Army bought small numbers for trails.

[Legbreaker]

From logically trying to look at what a Soviet nuclear attack on Australia might look like, and what the Soviet command would be prepared to commit or spare from use elsewhere...
A decent list, but one I feel could benefit from a local perspective.
Primary Targets

SS-18
Adelaide, SA (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Submarine Building, Military Vehicles, International Airport and Sea Port, Army Base) - As far as I am aware, no subs have been built here for some time.

Canberra, ACT (National Capital and International Air Port, NASA Deep Space Communications Station) - The "international air port" is barely worthy of the name. It's not a lot more than a landing strip and a few supporting buildings. As for the politicians in Canberra, nuke away - it'd be no great loss! ;)
I would miss that very cute woman I used to see there though. :(

Geelong, VIC (Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Airport and Sea Port)
Melbourne, VIC (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial centre, Oil Refinery, Warship Building, Military Aircraft, International Air Port and Sea Port, Army and Airforce Base) - Geelong and Melbourne could potentially be hit with one missile. Might take two warheads though to be sure. Warship (or any ship) building capacity is very limited (when compared to other locations). The various military bases are relatively small affairs and well dispursed.

Sydney, NSW (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Nuclear Reactor, International Air Port and Sea Port, Major Army Base, Garden Island Navy Base) - I spent nearly ten years in Sydney. It would require multiple warheads to strike at all the listed targets. One may take out the majority of the port facilities, air port and garden island, but Holsworthy, Ingleburn, Richmond etc are quite a distance away (Richmond would require a nuke of it's own, but it's not much of a target.

Woomera, SA (Air Force Air & Space Test Range) - Don't know a lot about this one, but I believe there's not a lot there to nuke. I think it's more of an open space than actual facility.

SS-11 & SS-25
Newcastle, NSW (Industrial Centre, Airport and Sea Port, Army Base) - The Newcastle area would require several warheads at least to cover all probable targets, however some of those targets simply aren't worth the effort. Singleton for example is the Infantry Training Centre for the Australian Army, but consists of a small collection of buildings housing around a thousand people (at most) the majority of whom are usually out in the field at any given time. And those fields, well, they're BIG!

The remaining "target"s I don't really know enough about to comment on effectively. Some, like Darwin, I haven't laid eyes on in over twenty years, others such as Perth I've never been to.


As for the "total war" list...

Alice Springs, NT (Airport, Radar Station) - Is it really worth nuking an airstrip and radar dish?

Devonport, TAS (Airport and Sea Port) - probably two nukes required although neither needs to be very big. The port facility is incapable of major work being barely more than docks.

Launceston, TAS (Airport, Army Base) - two warheads required as there is at least 15 km between them. The two army bases are barely worthy of the name however, both are reserve units no larger than about an acre in size (0.4 hectares) with a standing staff counted on one hand. One is an infantry company, the other in the CBD is Artillery and support units (medical, supply, admin).

Orange, NSW (Army Base) - reserve unit only. No more than a handful of standing staff in BHQ plus thousands of sheep...

Richmond, NSW (Major Airforce Base) - Hmm, major.... If you consider C-130's and a hospital unit as a major combat asset...

Wagga Wagga, NSW (Airport, Airforce Base) - definately nukable since 1RTB is located at Kapooka, a short drive away. 1RTB is the recruit training centre for the entire army, everyone besides officers goes through there.
HOWEVER, it is only a training centre...

[Legbreaker]

7.62mmN L2A1 (automatic rifle)
VERY rare. In all my years in the infantry I've seen a total of, one, count 'em, 1 L2A1 in working condition plus one in the infantry museum at Singleton near Newcastle.
This doesn't mean that they aren't relatively plentiful in other areas, just that they're not standard issue in the units I was in or associated with.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

VERY rare. In all my years in the infantry I've seen a total of, one, count 'em, 1 L2A1 in working condition plus one in the infantry museum at Singleton near Newcastle.
This doesn't mean that they aren't relatively plentiful in other areas, just that they're not standard issue in the units I was in or associated with.

I do find it very interesting the way the Army seemed to hand out it's equipment. One of my friends joined an armoured recce regiment in Sydney and they had about 12 L2A1s apparently and the infantry unit in Western Australia he was in later had about 6 but that unit also had a Series III Landrover while all the other units had 110s and had complained that support units were getting the Austcam uniforms while his infantry unit was still in JGs!

[RN7]

SS-18
Adelaide, SA (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Submarine Building, Military Vehicles, International Airport and Sea Port, Army Base) - As far as I am aware, no subs have been built here for some time.

Well were do the Collins Class subs go to be serviced or repaired if HMAS Stirling at Garden Island WA cant do the job or is nuked then?

Canberra, ACT (National Capital and International Air Port, NASA Deep Space Communications Station) - The "international air port" is barely worthy of the name. It's not a lot more than a landing strip and a few supporting buildings. As for the politicians in Canberra, nuke away - it'd be no great loss! I would miss that very cute woman I used to see there though.

Still an airport that handles 2.8 million people a year and that has a 3,270M runway and secondary 1,679M runway would be of some use.


Geelong, VIC (Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Airport and Sea Port)
Melbourne, VIC (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial centre, Oil Refinery, Warship Building, Military Aircraft, International Air Port and Sea Port, Army and Airforce Base) - Geelong and Melbourne could potentially be hit with one missile. Might take two warheads though to be sure.

My thinking exactly


Warship (or any ship) building capacity is very limited (when compared to other locations). The various military bases are relatively small affairs and well dispursed.

I think any shipyard that can build and repair modern warships is worth targeting.


Sydney, NSW (State Capital, Major Population and Industrial Centre, Oil Refinery, Nuclear Reactor, International Air Port and Sea Port, Major Army Base, Garden Island Navy Base) - I spent nearly ten years in Sydney. It would require multiple warheads to strike at all the listed targets. One may take out the majority of the port facilities, air port and garden island, but Holsworthy, Ingleburn, Richmond etc are quite a distance away (Richmond would require a nuke of it's own, but it's not much of a target.

A 20MT warhead might do the job, but I still would be open to a second missile strike on Australia's largest city. I think RAAF Richmond is home to much of Australia's military airlift resources, although its unlikely that all would be based there.


Woomera, SA (Air Force Air & Space Test Range) - Don't know a lot about this one, but I believe there's not a lot there to nuke. I think it's more of an open space than actual facility.

Woomera Test Range is the largest defence systems test and evaluation range in the western world and to be honest I'm not sure what there either as its sort of an Australian White Sands, so I believe a 20MT warhead would be needed to at least disable operations from it.

Newcastle, NSW (Industrial Centre, Airport and Sea Port, Army Base) - The Newcastle area would require several warheads at least to cover all probable targets, however some of those targets simply aren't worth the effort. Singleton for example is the Infantry Training Centre for the Australian Army, but consists of a small collection of buildings housing around a thousand people (at most) the majority of whom are usually out in the field at any given time. And those fields, well, they're BIG!

A MIRV strike then perphaps?

Alice Springs, NT (Airport, Radar Station) - Is it really worth nuking an airstrip and radar dish?

No its just a potential target.

Devonport, TAS (Airport and Sea Port) - probably two nukes required although neither needs to be very big. The port facility is incapable of major work being barely more than docks.

Launceston, TAS (Airport, Army Base) - two warheads required as there is at least 15 km between them. The two army bases are barely worthy of the name however, both are reserve units no larger than about an acre in size (0.4 hectares) with a standing staff counted on one hand. One is an infantry company, the other in the CBD is Artillery and support units (medical, supply, admin).

I wouldnt bother with Tasmania myself, as its of no strategic value.


Orange, NSW (Army Base) - reserve unit only. No more than a handful of standing staff in BHQ plus thousands of sheep...

Again just a potential target.

Richmond, NSW (Major Airforce Base) - Hmm, major.... If you consider C-130's and a hospital unit as a major combat asset...

Not all military resources are frontline combat ones.


Wagga Wagga, NSW (Airport, Airforce Base) - definately nukable since 1RTB is located at Kapooka, a short drive away. 1RTB is the recruit training centre for the entire army, everyone besides officers goes through there. HOWEVER, it is only a training centre...

Worth a nuke then?

[Legbreaker]

A 20MT warhead might do the job, but I still would be open to a second missile strike on Australia's largest city. I think RAAF Richmond is home to much of Australia's military airlift resources, although its unlikely that all would be based there.
Based maybe, but unlikely to remain there in the event of a war. Unless the nukes were sent as the opening shots of the war, I can't see a nuke hitting more than a handful of transport aircraft plus the servicing facilities (which I'm sure are duplicated elsewhere in various forms).

A MIRV strike then perphaps?
Newcastle, Woolongong and especially Sydney would need multiple warheads to take out completely. Unlike cities in the northern hemisphere (especially Europe), Australian cites are spread over a very wide area. Sydney, with only approximately 4 million people (a little under a 1/5th of the total Australian population) takes about an hour to drive across even taking the motorways and cruising at around 110 kph.
Richmond is approximately 50km from Garden Island/CBD, Orchard hills is 20km from Richmond, Holsworthy 45km from Richmond and Holsworthy to the CBD/Garden Island area is about 30km.
It is my estimate that you'd need at least five warheads to significantly damage just those targets mentioned.

Worth a nuke then?
I'm on the fence about this one actually. Being primarily just a training centre, it would be relatively easy to set up again elsewhere and be up and running within a short period or time (provided instructors could be found).
During WWII and Vietnam, other locations also conducted recruit training, so...
It's be worth a nuke if there were a few free, but it's not a location I'd have on my primary list (even though personally I'd LOVE to see it as a smoking, radioactive hole in the ground, but then so would anyone else who's ever been subjected to it's horrors).

[RN7]

It always good to get a local prospective on things. Would be great if we could do some target lists for other countries and get some local knowledge as well from people who live there.


Newcastle, Woolongong and especially Sydney would need multiple warheads to take out completely. Unlike cities in the northern hemisphere (especially Europe), Australian cites are spread over a very wide area. Sydney, with only approximately 4 million people (a little under a 1/5th of the total Australian population) takes about an hour to drive across even taking the motorways and cruising at around 110 kph. Richmond is approximately 50km from Garden Island/CBD, Orchard hills is 20km from Richmond, Holsworthy 45km from Richmond and Holsworthy to the CBD/Garden Island area is about 30km.
It is my estimate that you'd need at least five warheads to significantly damage just those targets mentioned.


I live in Dublin, Ireland which is a relatively small city compared to some of the bigger cities and conurbations in Britain and Europe, yet it would take nearly an hour to drive from the northern end to the southern end of it at a steady speed as the suburbs are huge, and the Dublin area has now spread well beyond Co. Dublin and out into four other counties.

[RN7]

Well this getting beyond the Australia discussion Mohender.

Here you are forgetting about boomers and aircrafts. Then, in the game (always v2.2) the four Russian SS-18 bases were targeted and destroyed and there is no point to do that if the missiles are already launched (especially as no one hits any target anywere). That alone would explain why US wasn't hit by SS-18.

I doubt bombers would used in a first strike by either America or Russia, particularly against each other. Although boomers may be used in conjunction with land based ICBMs.


Two things make me think that most of this comes from insufficient knowledge from the original T2K team (they didn't have internet and many informations were unavailable). Out of the 7 other bases destroyed in USSR, 3 are SS-26 (actual Iskander) and 1 is SS-27 (commissioned only after 1998). There is also no reason for them to have forgotten the 2 bases in Kazakhstan and especially/only these ones.

Probably right here.


So to answer your question:
- All ICBM bases are not listed as destroyed but if two SS-18 bases remain why not use any of them (104) against US/Canada and their highly strategic targets?

They may use some, but there are other targets (Australia) that need to be hit as well.


- To retaliate the soviets still have boomers and aircrafts+mobile ICBM fire units (about 300 SS-25).

I think they would be largely used against American and NATO targets closer to the USSR.


- If the soviets starts, it is possible that they don't send SS-18 in the first place. However, I would agree that it is highly unlikely. On the other hand, again, why leaving about 80 SS-18 in their Silos while they are the best suited weapons to take out NORAD, the US ICBM bases and even Washington DC?

Well they dont really need to use the SS-18 (R-36M2) to hit the US as other ICBM's have the range, but to cause the most damage they would be well suited.


In addition, according to the game text (again v2.2), both sides refrain from targetting the other side's ICBM land base for quite some times. At last, they do: All 4 US bases are taken out (Forks, Malmstrom, Minot & Warren +Vandenberg) and almost all Soviets bases in Russia with the base in others republics not accounted for (most likely forgotten). Then, they are two possibilities: All missiles are destroyed before being launched or they are launched before the bases are destroyed and, then, SS-18 should be accounted for all over (there are none/according to your own account most Satan were equipped with 20Mt warheads, they would have been used). I grant you that the Mt listed are highly questionable and can be open to debate (but that will become endless)

I don't think we will ever know will we.


For my parts (I mean in my game), I use several SS-18 but only on highly strategic targets. They are not used extensively because the first strike is successful in decapitating the US ICBM force. Then, in turn, the Soviets' ICBM force (silo only) is decapitated by strikes from SLBM.

If the Soviets launched a first strike on the US I think its highly probable that most if not all of the US silo based ICBMs would be launched before they were destroyed by the incoming Soviet missiles.

[Mohoender]

I'll answer that one on the What is Cannon? thread started by Leg.:)

[Targan]

VERY rare. In all my years in the infantry I've seen a total of, one, count 'em, 1 L2A1 in working condition plus one in the infantry museum at Singleton near Newcastle.

Same here. I've only ever seen one in working condition and I never actually saw it fired.

[Mohoender]

Same here. I've only ever seen one in working condition and I never actually saw it fired.

Weren't you producing the F1? What would be of these?

Oops realized that the L2A1 was a version of the FN-FAL/L1A1 produced in very little number by Australia:D.

What about the F1, nevertheless? Are there still some Owen around?

[Legbreaker]

I trained briefly with the F1 SMG waaaaay back in early 91. They were withdrawn from my unit within months of my arrival. A very simple weapon, although being a 9mm, I can't speak all that highly of effectiveness.

As for the Owen, I believe they went out of service back in the 60's. The F1 replaced it with the vast majority of Owens being destroyed. A few might be found "off the books" in unit armouries, but don't count on them being in working order (hard to ask the armourer to maintain them without parts and authorisation).

Besides the issued L1A1 SLRs, M60's, handful of M16A1s and the odd M203 (the latter two received as hand-me-downs from another unit which had received their F88 Steyr AUG earlier), my first unit had a Bren gun, two SMLEs and an ancient Martini Henry tucked away up the back of the company armoury.

[Legbreaker]

827

[Targan]

I'd add and important addition just below "Sharks" and just above "Stinging Jellyfish" on the left hand side of the map - "TARGAN".

:D

[Legbreaker]

I think "deranged gunmen" on Tasmania is right on the money.

:D

[rcaf_777]

My two cents is there is nothing saying that a ANZAC Division could organized and trained and sent somewhere ethier the middle east or Europe in the later stages???

I also think that eveybody needs to take a look at target list for nukes and remember that, they are just lists, many factors have taken into account for actually nukes fired off durring TW2000

The Targets Are

US Forces in Europe and Misslie Launch feilds in the CONUS

Then Staging/Training areas for troops for US Forces in CONUS (cause that were the bulk of it Military is)

War Industrials CONUS

Now comes tragets outside the CONUS but still covering the same areas

But we must remmber the following

how much was used before the counter attack ?
how missile fail to go off ?
how many were used againist new targets?

[Olefin]

Been reading this discussion (very interesting one) and frankly I think that the GDW 2300 nuking of Australia doesnt really agree with the T2K canon as to its extent.

The Russians in their attack on the US and the UK really didnt go for city busting - they went after industrial targets mainly - after all if they were going for a city buster then why is NY still standing and why are large areas of LA intact? Heck they barely touched Chicago.

The attack on Australia seems to be overkill compared to the rest of the nuclear strikes in general - i.e. if you are going to hit Australia that bad then the nuclear exchange is a lot worse than anything painted in Howling Wildnerness or the timeline in general.

Plus look at the size of warheads used in the rest of the attacks - the biggest in the US was a total yield of 1.75 MT - if you are taking out Sydney with a 20MT attack then there is no way that any major US city is still there.

Frankly what I saw Leg post a long time ago is the reality as far as I am concerned - a single nuclear attack on the one US facility there to take it out and try to convince Australia to stay out of the war.

And I agree with the comments about the US using Australia as a supply center for its forces in Kenya and the Middle East - especially since Australia uses much the same weapons as the US.

I see them as staying neutral initially in the war until and then possibly coming in late, but with Australian contingents of volunteers fighting in Europe, the Middle East and Kenya.

I will have a small contingent of Australian troops in the Kenya sourcebook I am writing now based on Frank Frey's notes - not much more than a company - and based on similar Australian deployments during the War on Terror.

[Legbreaker]

My two cents is there is nothing saying that a ANZAC Division could organized and trained and sent somewhere either the middle east or Europe in the later stages???
Just the small conflict with Indonesia which happens to have a much greater manpower than Australia (if somewhat lacking in decent aircraft and ships).
There's also the small matter of Australia only having 2 Divisions total with only about 2/3rds of 1st Division being regular army and the balance made up of reserve units which can have as little as 10% of their full strength.


The attack on Australia seems to be overkill compared to the rest of the nuclear strikes in general.
Umm, what?
This is from the 2.2 BYB
Australia
Australia was largely untouched by the nuclear exchange. but the global panic which followed left its mark on both the cities and outback. Large parts of the countryside are now in anarchy, terrorized, or insular, but the major cities are organized and controlled by the central government. A short war was fought with Indonesia after it invaded Australia's ally, Papua New Guinea.The Indonesian offensive quickly halted, mostly due to logistic collapse but not before a majority of Australia's and Indonesia's modern aircraft and naval vessels had been damaged or destroyed in a series of running aero-naval actions.
The previous comments in this thread I think you'll find are all hypothetical.

I see them as staying neutral initially in the war until and then possibly coming in late, but with Australian contingents of volunteers fighting in Europe, the Middle East and Kenya.
Not likely!
One of the scenarios in Twilight Encounters (What's Polish for G'day) has a small Australian SAS unit and the PC's are supposed to be taken by complete surprise at Australians being anywhere near Europe.
Only one Challenge mag has Australians serving anywhere, and that's just a brief note about a presence in Korea (I've been working on fleshing that out for a while with some difficulty - best unit appears to be the reserve 9th Brigade from 2nd Div after being brought up to strength with fresh recruits). With the situation at home, the limited numbers of troops, and the war with Indonesia, it's just not going to happen that Australians are going to be sent anywhere else. Might be a few freelancers/mercenaries, but don't count on any serving military personnel unless it's the odd individual caught overseas on exchange, on holiday, or deserted.

[Rainbow Six]

I've always thought that Australian and New Zealand forces would have fought in the Korean and/or Korean theatres during the Twilight War (but I can't be sure that I actually read it in canon).

I don't have the quote immediately to hand (am at work at the moment) but when I was researching the Anglo German Brigade I'm pretty sure I came across a reference to Australian troops being in Korea in the Challenge article on Canada (Issue #30).

Edit - just saw that Leg beat me to this one...

[Rainbow Six]

Only one Challenge mag has Australians serving anywhere, and that's just a brief note about a presence in Korea (I've been working on fleshing that out for a while with some difficulty - best unit appears to be the reserve 9th Brigade from 2nd Div after being brought up to strength with fresh recruits).

Leg, am pretty sure that article places Australian troops in Korea in early 1997 - would Reserve forces be ready to deploy overseas that early on in the War?

[Legbreaker]

Unlikely, but I think I proposed in a thread on Korea that regular army units would have been sent initially and rotated home as soon as the reserves were ready and the Indonesian situation had hotted up.
The reserve brigade (mostly light, foot mobile infantry) would have been used in Korea as rear area security most likely and supported by M113's and M113MRVs (Scorpion turrets). I'd like to see some New Zealanders there too as part of the Brigade, probably an artillery battery as occurred in Vietnam, or their light tanks (Scimitars?).

[Olefin]

I think it also comes down to what is canon - I use the original release as canon so version 2.0 or 2.2 isnt canon to me anymor than 2013 is

I will take a look at the challenge articles - thanks for the heads up on those Leg! (by the way I hope you dont take offense at my using Leg - if you want I can use the full Legbreaker)

And I also agree with you that Australian forces overseas will be either volunteers who went to serve with British units or will be small in size - i.e. a battalion at most, posssibly just scattered companies


face it - even if they dont get into a shooting war with Indonesia they have a lot of coastline to patrol and a lot of refugees who will be trying to get there

[James Langham]

The most likely Australians to be in Europe are in the British Army as part of the "Commonwealth Soldier" programme that would have been about 10% of the Army by 1995. Gives scope for a few fun characters.

[Webstral]

Regarding the apparent inequality of Soviet nuclear distribution, I think it's fair to have a look at how we hung the Turks, Jugoslavs, and Romanians out to dry once the tactical exchange began as a rationale for why Australia got hit. Once the Soviets get the idea that the US isn't going to stand up for all the allies equally, the equation changes. Just look at the treatment Canada gets. Is GDW making a very unfavorable statement about the US and her willingness to stand up for her allies in the worst circumstances? Quite possibly. Alternatively, the nuclear exchange logic might be that an attack on Canada merits an attack on Czechoslovakia; an attack on Australia merits an attack on Vietnam. If so, then the Soviets have every reason to cut Australia's throat and dump the body in the river. What do they have to lose, really? Anyway, these are just speculations.

[Rainbow Six]

The most likely Australians to be in Europe are in the British Army as part of the "Commonwealth Soldier" programme that would have been about 10% of the Army by 1995. Gives scope for a few fun characters.

Could be a few exchange personnel here and there as well. I remember an issue of "Soldier" magazine not long after Gulf War 1 that had a picture of an Australian officer in Aussie camo uniform and slouch hat (is that the right term?) who had served with the 1st UK Armoured Division during its drive into Iraq.

[Olefin]

Actually Vietnam may have been an afterthought in the GDW timeline - those three divisions sent there looked awfully tacked on the way they are presented

as if they forgto them earlier and put them there intending to have a module deal with them (possibly a Southeast Asia one involving Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam) and then never got it released

Considering how far out on a limb those troops are you would figure they would have been nuked for sure by the Chinese or the US - but they never got touched. (and frankly you would think the US would love to nuke northern Vietnam in a "lets get even with those SOB's" kind of event but we can say its really to get those pesky Russians)

[Webstral]

(and frankly you would think the US would love to nuke northern Vietnam in a "lets get even with those SOB's" kind of event but we can say its really to get those pesky Russians)

Agreed. The nuclear exchange is the opportunity for the US to settle the score once and for all. What Agent Orange failed to do, 20-30 megatons distributed liberally across Vietnam might accomplish. Payback is a b****, the Joint Chiefs might say.

[Legbreaker]

I think it also comes down to what is canon - I use the original release as canon so version 2.0 or 2.2 isnt canon to me anymor than 2013 is
V2.x is a direct cut and paste from V1 for the most part. V2.x has only expanded on V1 and made a handful of adjustments to account for changes in equipment (the LAV-75/M8 for example). As far as the timelines are concerned. There's almost NO difference from November 1996.

And I also agree with you that Australian forces overseas will be either volunteers who went to serve with British units or will be small in size - i.e. a battalion at most, posssibly just scattered companies
Nope, try a platoon at best, and they certainly won't be sent anywhere after war with Indonesia breaks out, and even before then won't be sent to remote places such as Kenya where Australia has absolutely no interests to worry about.
face it - even if they dont get into a shooting war with Indonesia they have a lot of coastline to patrol and a lot of refugees who will be trying to get there
We manage. Sometimes not well due to political interference, but when tensions increase, refugee boats tend to get "accidentally" sunk. Our greatest defence against an influx of refugees is the vast empty deserts refugees are likely to encounter. They may make it here, but it's extremely unlikely they'll survive long if they're not picked up by the authorities.
I remember an issue of "Soldier" magazine not long after Gulf War 1 that had a picture of an Australian officer in Aussie camo uniform and slouch hat (is that the right term?) who had served with the 1st UK Armoured Division during its drive into Iraq.
Yes, Slouch hat is the correct term.
WWIII is a lot different to WWII. 70 years ago, Australia still had a lot of emotional ties to the UK, today that's a distant memory for the most part. This is due mainly to the inability of the UK to assist Australia against the Japanese and Australia building closer defence ties with the US.

There will always be a few exchanges of officers and NCOs (there was a British Captain attached to my unit back in '91), but they're fairly few and far between - maybe one in a thousand. Given Australia's current regular army numbers just 30,000 personnel, we're talking about 30 on exchange. Add in Naval and RAAF and it's 59,000, so maybe 60 or so on exchange.
And that's world wide, not just to the UK.

Come WWIII a few observers may be deployed, and the 2.x Nautical & Aviation book has Australian UN peacekeepers in Cyprus, but besides that and the Australians mentioned as being in Korea (probably UN also) Australia simply doesn't have the manpower available, especially with the Indonesian conflict closer to home.

And besides small arms production and ship building, I don't believe we have any serious military industrial capacity. We're not going to be producing tanks, APCs, artillery, missiles, etc to equip additional forces (light infantry is the best we could manage). We don't even have enough APCs now to go around the reserve units (usually a single Squadron has to service an entire infantry Brigade) - most of the heavier equipment (rightly) being with the regular army.

[Rainbow Six]

And I also agree with you that Australian forces overseas will be either volunteers who went to serve with British units or will be small in size - i.e. a battalion at most, posssibly just scattered companies

WWIII is a lot different to WWII. 70 years ago, Australia still had a lot of emotional ties to the UK, today that's a distant memory for the most part.

I seem to recall the question of Australian / New Zealand (and other Commonwealth troops) fighting in the Twilight War under UK command has come up a few times before. Leg is spot on - the nature of the relationship between the UK and the Commonwealth has changed significantly since WWII and the days of Empire. With the exception of a handful of British overseas territories (such asthe Falklands) Commonwealth members are all independent States who would be under no obligation to get involved in the War (with the obvious exception of Canada, which is a member of NATO as well as the Commonwealth). Where Australian soldiers are serving overseas (including Korea) I agree that it would be under the auspices of the UN.

What you might see are ANZAC troops undertaking UN duties that would normally have been done by the UK to allow the UK troops to be deployed elsewhere - for example Leg references Australian forces in Cyprus. The UK usually has a number of troops assigned to UN duties in Cyprus (in addition to the Sovereign Base garrisons) - it's possible the Australians may have agreed to send some troops to Cyprus so the British forces could be sent elsewhere. There is past precedent for this - during the Falklands War the Royal New Zealand Navy took over the Royal Navy's Caribbean patrol so the RN ship tasked with that duty could join the South Atlantic Task Force.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

... What you might see are ANZAC troops undertaking UN duties that would normally have been done by the UK to allow the UK troops to be deployed elsewhere - for example Leg references Australian forces in Cyprus. The UK usually has a number of troops assigned to UN duties in Cyprus (in addition to the Sovereign Base garrisons) - it's possible the Australians may have agreed to send some troops to Cyprus so the British forces could be sent elsewhere. There is past precedent for this - during the Falklands War the Royal New Zealand Navy took over the Royal Navy's Caribbean patrol so the RN ship tasked with that duty could join the South Atlantic Task Force.

Just to add further weight to this, I work with a guy who used to be a senior radar operator in the RAN. In 1982 the ship he was on was tasked to take over the Hong Kong patrol (or whatever it's called) to free up the RN frigate that was stationed there so it could join the Falklands taskforce.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

... And besides small arms production and ship building, I don't believe we have any serious military industrial capacity. We're not going to be producing tanks, APCs, artillery, missiles, etc to equip additional forces (light infantry is the best we could manage). We don't even have enough APCs now to go around the reserve units (usually a single Squadron has to service an entire infantry Brigade) - most of the heavier equipment (rightly) being with the regular army.

While we weren't doing this in the timeframe of the Twilight War, we could have been producing light armoured vehicles. The facilities existed and the precedent had already been set in WW2 when we needed tanks and couldn't get them so we designed and manufactured the Sentinel cruiser tank. In 1996 British Aerospace Australian had the rights to the Shorland armoured car design. There was never enough demand for them so manufacture never commenced.

[Olefin]

I agree with much of what you said Leg but I think they will send more like company size based on their current dispositions in Afghanistan. May be as little as an MP company or a single infantry company but you dont use the fuel it takes to send men over for just 30 men.

And Australia does have good production facilities for ships and subs - i.e. the current series of frigates and the Collins subs. So that could be where they prove beneficial to the US - as a place to repair their ships and refit them.

It could be where the special US/Australian relationships comes from that was in 2300AD. I.e. keeping the USN in business (especially if the US helped with Indonesia) was where it all started.

[Olefin]

By the way - starting to put down some words on screen (who puts down words on paper anymore by the way?) about the Papuan New Guinea armed forces and a possible start to an Indonesian Australian War based on Papua New Guinea with Australian help doing an all out offensive to end the secession in Bougainville in early 1997 - and leaving themselves wide open to the Indonesians invading, thus starting that conflict.

Definitely a start in looking at an area that really wasnt in the game at all - and could make a great area for adventuring in 2000-2001 time period for Australian and New Zealand characters.

[RN7]

Someone put this T2K Australian ORBAT up a while back. Its very detailed but does anybody think its realy sustainable?


1st Australian Armoured Division
Subordination: I Australian Corps
Current Location: Ahvaz, Iran
Manpower: 5,000
Major Weapons: 46x Waler-120, 7x M1A2, 2x M1A1

History: A pre-war regular division known as the 1st Division with 1st Brigade (Mechanised) based in Darwin, NT, 2nd Brigade (Motorised) in Sydney, NSW and 6th Brigade (Motorised) in Brisbane, Qld. The full division was upgraded to armoured status and brought to a combat ready state during the defence build-up of 1995 and 1996. In early 1997 the division was deployed to the Middle East as the core component of the Australian contribution to the widening war between the West and the Soviet Union. The division came under the control of the US Central Command when it arrived at Saudi Arabian ports in February 1997. Attached to the US XVIII Airborne Corps the division was deployed to Iran, disembarking at the port of Abadan on May 3rd and deploying to combat straight off the boat. The division passed through the hard pressed US 82nd Airborne Division to drive the Soviet 104th Guards Air Assault Division out of its positions at Khorramshahr. Several Soviet counter attacks against the Khorramshahr/Abadan pocket were repelled after the 82nd Airborne was withdrawn. In concert with the US 24th Infantry Division (Mechanised) the division attacked northwards from early June towards Ahvaz as part of the US Congress mandated offensive. The attack stalled at the end of July when Soviet forces counterattacked. The division covered the withdrawal of the 24th Infantry from Ahvaz and was itself forced back to Khorramshahr. Tactical nuclear weapons were first used in late August and the division suffered heavy casualties from these weapons. After repelling a Soviet 7th Guards Army attack on October 6th the division launched limited counterattacks to tie down Soviet forces in support of Operation Pegasus II, the allied deep offensive. In late October the division began its drive on Ahvaz, overrunning the Soviet 261st Motorised Rifle Division and cutting off the badly mauled Soviet 24th Guards Motorised Rifle Division which was destroyed by the 24th Infantry. While the 24th Infantry took Ahvaz, the division leapfrogged northwards capturing Dezful. By the new year the two divisions had secured the entire Khuzestan Plain and linked up with the 82nd Airborne. On 26/1/98 the division linked up with the newly deployed 2nd Australian Armoured Division and the New Zealand Division to form I Australian Corps. Most of 1998 was spent in local security missions attempting to deal with the growing crisis caused by the GNE of late 1997. The Soviet 7th Guards Army launched another offensive in early August but this attack was repelled. In June 1999 the Soviets again launched an offensive but this faltered because of the collapse of their Iraqi allies leaving the Australians in control of the Khuzestan Plain.

2nd Australian Armoured Division
Subordination: I Australian Corps
Current Location: Dezful/Shushtar, Iran
Manpower: 5,500
Major Weapons: 48 x Waler-AGV

History: The division headquarters was formed 18/11/95 at Holsworthy Barracks, NSW and took under command the pre-war reserve 11th Brigade based in Townsville, Qld and the 13th Brigade from Perth, WA. The newly formed 1st Armoured Brigade in Sydney, NSW, brought the division to full strength. Mobilised under the general mobilisation order after the first US troops crossed the East German border in December 1996, the division was brought to full strength and began intensive training for conversion to armoured levels. The division was deployed along with the headquarters of I Australian Corps to Saudi Arabia during June/July 1997 to reinforce US Central Command and the 1st Australian Armoured Division. The division was responsible for security of the vital Saudi Arabian ports and oil fields along the north west coast of the Persian Gulf. Deployed to Iran on the eve of 1998 the division linked up with the 1st Australian Armoured under I Australian Corps control. After defeating two separate Soviet attacks the division has remained as a security force for the Khuzestan Plain, vital for its agriculture.

3rd Australian Armoured Division
Subordination: III Australian Corps
Current Location: Central NSW
Manpower: 14,000
Major Weapons: 98 x Waler-AGV

History: The division was formed 26/1/96 at Victoria Barracks, Brisbane with three brigades, the 2nd Armoured based in Wagga Wagga, NSW, the 3rd Armoured based in Woodside, SA and the 4th Armoured based in Puckapunyal, VIC. The division was deployed to South Australia, where it took advantage of this state’s large military training areas and defence infrastructure to train and equip for mechanised combat. SA was hit the hardest by the GNE with eight nuclear warheads detonating within 24 hours on "Ash Sunday," November 2, 1997, causing considerable destruction and nuclear fallout. The GNE and subsequent chaos decimated 7th Division and it was almost destroyed during its attempts to bring order to SA. The division was pulled out as part of the general evacuation of Adelaide during the summer of 97/98 and was transferred to Puckapunyal, Vic for rest and refitting. Once it was ready for operations again, in late 1999, the division was used to cover the general evacuation from the interior of Australia. Since then the 7th Division has provided the primary covering force for the line of control through central NSW and south eastern Queensland. The divisions main role is long range fire sweeps into uncontrolled areas, assisting local governments and trying to wipe out marauder groups and challenges to Australian Theatre’s authority.

1st Australian Division
Subordination: III Australian Corps
Current Location: Victoria
Manpower: 16,000
Major Weapons: 14x Leopard 1

History: The division was formed as a reserve formation on 26/1/96 at Victoria Barracks, Melbourne with three brigades; the 14th based in Melbourne, Vic, the 15th based in Puckapunyal, Vic and the 16th with units across SA, WA and Tas. The division was mobilised on 1/1/97 and tasked with the security of southern and central WA including Perth, Kalgoorlie and the Pilbara. The division was severely damaged by the nuclear strikes on the Perth region and suffered heavy casualties trying to quell civil disturbance during the summer of 97/98. After the division’s positions in the west became untenable it was withdrawn to Victoria in late 1998. The division was brought up to full strength during a spell of rest and recovery at Puckapunyal Barracks, Vic. Australian Theatre then allocated the division the ‘fire brigade’ role for security in the 3rd Military District area.

2nd Australian Division
Subordination: II Australian Corps
Current Location: Ceram, Ambon, Morotai, Halmahera and Timor
Manpower: 7,500
Major Weapons: 10x Leopard 1, 8x OH-58D

History: A pre-war reserve division with 5th Brigade based in Sydney, NSW, 7th Brigade in Brisbane, Qld and 8th Brigade in Newcastle, NSW. The division was upgraded to ready reserve status (about half full time personnel) and brought to a combat ready state during the defence build-up of 1995 and 1996. Mobilised in December 1996 as the US entered the war against the Soviet Union the division was deployed in security roles across North Eastern Australia. The division deployed its 7th Brigade to Papua New Guinea (PNG) in late 1997 to quell increasing urban and rural violence caused by the global destruction of the general nuclear exchange (GNE). When Indonesia attacked PNG in January 1998 the 7th Brigade held of the Indonesian 17th and 18th Airborne Brigades’ assault on Port Moresby. Reinforced by the rest of 2nd Division the Australian and PNG counterattack overrun the remaining Indonesian forces south of the highlands during operations in February. 2nd Division, reinforced by the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Pacific Islands Regiment then began a series of amphibious and airmobile strikes against the Indonesian cantonments across the northern shore of PNG. On the 3rd July 1998 the division captured Jayapura in West Papua (Irian Jaya) nominally Indonesian territory. Coming under II Australian Corps, the now veteran 2nd Division became the main force in the 1999 offensive into Eastern Indonesia. This offensive quickly captured the rest of West Papua, the Moluccan Islands and East Timor. The Australian forces meet little effective resistance as most of the Indonesian battle ready units, warships and combat aircraft had been destroyed the year before in Papua New Guinea. In fact many of the local communities greeted the Australians as liberators from Javanese control. 2nd Division spent the rest of 1999 and most of 2000 establishing II Corps authority across the newly occupied Indonesian territory. With the growing schism between II Corps commanding general MAJGEN Thurston and the Governor-General, Australian Theatre Commander and effective head of what is left of a central Australian government, GEN Walker, 2nd Division has declared its support to II Corps. The division is no longer responding to orders directly from Northern Command or Australian Theatre, it is only loyal to II Corps.

3rd Australian Division
Subordination: Northern Command
Current Location: North and North West Australia
Manpower: 10,000
Major Weapons: 10x Leopard 1, 6x OH-58D

History: A pre-war reserve division the 3rd included the 4th and 12th Brigades in Melbourne, Vic and the 9th Brigade in Adelaide, SA. The division was called out on 20 December 1996 as the war in China and Germany escalated into global conflict. Deployed to the Northern Territory and North West WA the division became the primary security force of Northern Command. The GNE hardly effected the division, as all nuclear strikes on Australia were to the south of its operational area and prevailing monsoonal winds at this time were northerly. Also the low population of northern Australia meant the division was spared the heavy toll of the post GNE disease outbreaks and civil disruption. The division is still controlling the Northern Command enclaves at the vital resource extraction centres across North Western Australia.

4th Australian Division
Subordination: II Australian Corps
Current Location: Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, Far North Queensland
Manpower: 10,000
Major Weapons: 4x OH-58D

History: The division was formed 26/1/96 at Victoria Barracks, Sydney with three brigades, the 16th based in Sydney, NSW, the 17th based in Brisbane, Qld and the 18th based in Newcastle, NSW. The division was filled with many ready reserve soldiers and recalled ex-servicemen, all with at least one years full time service, which enabled the division to come to a combat ready level reasonably quickly. The division took over security roles for the South Eastern corner of Australia during 1997 and was being prepared for service in the Middle East when the GNE caused considerable destruction. The division was able to avoid direct damage from the nuclear exchange but was heavily pressed in diaster relief and, at sometimes, quite brutal suppression of civil disorder. With the south east generally calm after the summer of 97/98 and with the 3rd Australian Armoured Division, 5th and 6th Australian Divisions deployed in the area, the 4th was moved by sea to PNG to reinforce II Australian Corps for the counteroffensive against the Indonesian forces. While 2nd Australian Division moved down the northern coast of PNG, 4th Division assaulted Indonesian forces on Manus Island and then prepared for the assault against Rabual. The two Australian brigades that landed at Rabual, not only faced the defending Indonesian brigade but the full fury of a volcanic eruption. The Rabual area was evacuated after 4th Division quickly offered diaster relief to the local population and most of the Indonesian forces that had surrendered after being caught between the ‘the frying-pan and the fire-place’. While 2nd Division moved into Eastern Indonesia in early 1999, 4th Division took up a rear area security task. This was no easy mission since it was responsible for the entire New Guinea Island; the world’s second largest island with the most rugged terrain in the world. 4th Division is still in control of New Guinea and is in fact the only effective authority in this region, something which II Corps exploits to the full. The division is no longer responding to orders directly from Northern Command or Australian Theatre; it is only loyal to II Corps.

5th Australian Division
Subordination: III Australian Corps
Current Location: East NSW
Manpower: 16,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: The division was formed on 25 April 1997 and was primarily made up of newly trained conscripts, though its 28th Brigade and some divisional elements comprised pre-war reserve training units. The division was tasked with security for the state of New South Wales and was intended to relieve the 3rd Australian Division in northern Australia, so that this formation could be deployed to the Middle East. The GNE and the Indonesian invasion of PNG ended these plans and the 5th Division has stayed on in NSW providing local security and disaster relief since its formation. The division was brought up to strength in early 1999 by comb-outs of surplus Navy and Air Force personnel. The division currently forms a border guard force across the ‘Newell Line’ in central NSW.

6th Australian Division
Subordination: III Australian Corps
Current Location: South East Queensland
Manpower: 14,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: The division was formed on 25 April, 1997 and was primarily made up of newly trained conscripts, with some divisional elements comprising pre-war reserve training units. The division was tasked with security for the state of Victoria and was intended to relieve the 2nd Australian Division in northern Australia and PNG, so that they could be deployed to the Middle East. The GNE and the subsequent Indonesian invasion of PNG ended these plans and the 6th Division was deployed to Queensland to secure the supply lines to II Corps in PNG. While the division was readied to deploy to PNG, the success of the Australian counter invasion meant it wasn’t required and since the required transport wasn’t available anyway the division stayed in South and Central Queensland. The division was forced to withdraw to the south east corner of Queensland due to increasing lawlessness and now forms a powerful guard force against any incursions into the controlled zone.

The New Zealand Division
Subordination: I Australian Corps
Current Location: Khorramshahr, Iran
Manpower: 3,500
Major Weapons: 10x M1A1

History: The ‘fireball’ division was formed on 10 February, 1997, comprising the 4th and 7th Brigades and was deployed to the Middle East as reinforcements to the 3rd Australian Expeditionary Force later in the year. All division elements had arrived in Saudi Arabian ports by October 1997. The division is made up of motorised and mechanised infantry, equipped with HMMWV and M113 vehicles, the divisional armoured regiment is a mix of Scorpion light tanks and M1s supplied by the US Army. The division has been under I Australian Corps since early 1998 and has partaken in all the battles for the Khuzestan Plain area of Iran.

1st Military District
Subordination: Australian Theatre
Current Location: South East Queensland
Manpower: 10,000
Major Weapons: 6x Leopard 1

History: A pre-war administrative command responsible for an area roughly aligned to the state of Queensland. Headquartered in Victoria Barracks, Brisbane the district took over all remaining civil authority as well as local naval and air forces in Queensland on 1/1/99. Given the regional security role several battalions of local infantry were raised across the district to provide local defence. These forces operated on a one month active/one month inactive rotation. Due to infrastructure damage and increasing lawlessness the districts area of authority has been reduced to an area south east of a line from the town of St. George to the coast at Bundaberg with a small enclave around Rockhampton and Gladstone.

2nd Military District
Subordination: Australian Theatre
Current Location: East NSW
Manpower: 45,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: A pre-war administrative command responsible for an area roughly aligned to the state of New South Wales. Headquartered in Victoria Barracks, Sydney the district took over all remaining civil authority as well as local naval and air forces in NSW on 1/1/99. The district’s area of authority has been reduced to the area east of the Newell Highway in central NSW. Several inland cantonments are under military authority but beyond these areas and the periodic fire sweeps most of NSW is on its own.

3rd Military District
Subordination: Australian Theatre
Current Location: Victoria
Manpower: 40,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: A pre-war administrative command responsible for an area roughly aligned to the state of Victoria. Headquartered in Victoria Barracks, Melbourne the district took over all remaining civil authority as well as local naval and air forces in Victoria on 1/1/99. The district controls virtually all of the state of Victoria, except for a few isolated areas.

5th Military District
Subordination: Northern Command
Current Location: South West Western Australia
Manpower: 6,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: A pre-war administrative command responsible for an area roughly aligned to the state of Western Australia. Headquartered in Irwin Barracks, Perth the district took over all remaining civil authority as well as local naval and air forces in Western Australia on 1/1/99. The 5th Military District has been reduced to the area between Perth and Albany in the south-west corner of WA. Also some cantonments in the north centred on the Pilbara are under the control of a brigade from the 3rd Australian Division. The district is under heavy pressure from the wild lawless elements operating out of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and is maintaining its area of control through particularly harsh martial law.

6th Military District
Subordination: None
Current Location: Tasmania
Manpower: 5,000
Major Weapons: 0

History: A pre-war administrative command responsible for an area aligned to the state of Tasmania. Headquartered at Battery Point, Hobart the district took over all remaining civil authority as well as local naval and air forces in Tasmania on 1/1/99. However after this date the district ceased responding to central authority on the Australian mainland. The district controls most of Tasmania on a collective basis with local civilian authorities and is intent on ignoring the rest of the world, beyond the odd mainland, Japanese and French trading vessel.

1st Cavalry Brigade
Subordination: I Australian Corps
Current Location: Khuzestan Plain, Iran
Manpower: 800
Major Weapons: 20x Waler-AGV

History: The brigade headquarters was formed 17/10/95 at Puckapunyal, Vic and took under command pre-war reserve armoured regiments from NSW and newly formed units. The brigade was structured and trained as an armoured reconnaissance formation on a TO&E very similar to a US Army Armoured Cavalry Regiment. Fully equipped with modern vehicles the brigade deployed to the Middle East with Headquarters I Australian Corps to act as its heavy reconnaissance and screening force. While I Corps secured Saudi ports the brigade was attached to 1st Australian Armoured Division in Iran. The brigade entered combat against Soviet mechanised forces in support of Pegasus II offensive. 1st Cavalry Brigade operated as far north as Kabir Kuh in support of 1st Armoured Division’s drive on Dezful. In 1998 the brigade patrolled the Iraqi border with frequent cross border operations to disrupt Iraqi logistic support of Soviet forces. The brigade suffered heavy casualties in the July 1999 Soviet offensive and it was temporary cut off by advancing Iraqi divisions. However remaining a fighting force behind Iraqi lines contributed to their collapse and the depleted brigade was able to link up with the rest of I Corps. After rest and refit the brigade has taken on a ‘fire brigade’ mission to reinforce threatened areas of the Khuzestan Plain.

2nd Cavalry Brigade
Subordination: Northern Command
Current Location: Darwin, NT
Manpower: 2,500, 1,000 cavalry
Major Weapons: 14x Waler-AGV

History: The brigade was formed 26/1/96 at Robertson Barracks, Darwin, NT as Northern Command’s reconnaissance formation. The 2nd Cavalry was never brought up to full mechanised scales with half of its squadron’s relaying on motorised transport.

3rd Cavalry Brigade
Subordination: III Australian Corps
Current Location: Dubbo, NSW
Manpower: 2,000 cavalry
Major Weapons: 0

History: The brigade was raised on 12/3/99 at Puckapunyal, Vic as a fully horse mounted formation.

3rd Infantry Brigade (Airborne)
Subordination: II Australian Corps
Current Location: Cairns, Queensland
Manpower: 1,500
Major Weapons: 10x OH-58D

History: A pre war regular brigade headquartered at Lavarack Barracks, Townsville, Qld. The 3rd Brigade was kept at a high state of readiness as Australia’s strategic reserve until April 1996 when it was deployed in a lightning strike against Bougainville separatists in PNG. The brigade combined with local forces and carried out a successful strike on the separatists and was able to re-open the contested Pangua copper mine. The brigade returned to Townsville, Qld in early 1997 and resumed its role as a regional ready reaction force. In response to the Indonesian invasion of PNG the brigade launched a successful airborne assault on Wewak, PNG. From this base the brigade was able to disrupt Indonesian lines of communication through the successful counterattack by PNG forces and the 2nd and 4th Divisions. During the successful counter invasion of eastern Indonesia in early 1999, the brigade was responsible for capturing East Timor. The brigade launched its second airborne assault on the town of Biablo from where it interdicted East and West Timor. Local counterattacks from Indonesian security forces were defeated by the brigade linking up with local anti Indonesian forces. The brigade was withdrawn to Cairns, Qld in October 1999 and replaced in East Timor by units of the 2nd Division. The brigade now serves as a reserve force for II Australian Corps and is no longer accepting orders from Northern Command or Australian Theatre.

The Special Air Service Regiment
Subordination: I Australian Corps
Current Location: Dezful, Iran
Manpower: 350
Major Weapons: 0

History: The regimental headquarters of the Australian SAS was deployed to the Middle East to take operational control over several special forces sub-units.

1st Commando Regiment
Subordination: II Australian Corps
Current Location: Port Moresby, PNG
Manpower: 250
Major Weapons: 0

7th Commando Regiment
Subordination: Australian Theatre
Current Location: Sydney, NSW
Manpower: 400
Major Weapons: 0

The Tactical Assault Group (SAS)
Subordination: Australian Theatre
Current Location: Melbourne, Vic
Manpower: 200
Major Weapons: 0

The Tasmanian Defence Brigade
Subordination: 6th Military District
Current Location: Tasmania
Manpower: 2,500, 1,000 cavalry
Major Weapons: 0

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I agree with much of what you said Leg but I think they will send more like company size based on their current dispositions in Afghanistan. May be as little as an MP company or a single infantry company but you dont use the fuel it takes to send men over for just 30 men.

And Australia does have good production facilities for ships and subs - i.e. the current series of frigates and the Collins subs. So that could be where they prove beneficial to the US - as a place to repair their ships and refit them.

It could be where the special US/Australian relationships comes from that was in 2300AD. I.e. keeping the USN in business (especially if the US helped with Indonesia) was where it all started.

Afghanistan is not a good basis for comparison, it's nothing like the commitment we'd have with the Twilight War (we can concentrate resources in Afghanistan that would not be available in the Twilight War).
However, I agree that it simply would not be worth the fuel to send anything smaller than a Company anywhere.

Our Military Police don't operate in the same manner as US Army MP Companies do, the MPs are usually sent in small groups to where ever they are required. They don't have the assets or personnel to do something like convoy escort like the US MPs do.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Someone put this T2K Australian ORBAT up a while back. Its very detailed but does anybody think its realy sustainable? ...

It's very nice but too much of a "wish-list" I think. While Australia in that timeline might be able to raise the levels of manpower listed here, there's too many vehicles. The mention of the Waler vehicle infers some level of local manufacture and considering the numbers quoted it would be significant manufacture.

I think that the Waler listed here is meant to be the new armoured vehicle from Project Whaler of the mid-1980s. In real-life, bureaucrats and arm-chair strategists decided the Australian Army didn't need a medium/heavy protected troop carrier so the project went nowhere.

I just don't see that with the disorganized state of Australia (and lack of central control) as listed in the main books, that the Federal Government could muster the resources or manpower to supply such a massive army (these figures total about 220,000) in the Twilight War.

[Olefin]

I looked at the order of battle and I think its too big for what Australia could put in the field unless they totally mobilized the country and even then not sure they could equip it.

And I dont see Australia getting hit by nukes in the timeline - they just arent that good a target for nukes when places like Chicago never got touched - let alone important military production facilities like the United Defense plant in York PA or Anniston Army Depot.

They just arent a real threat to the Soviets as they are.

Now once Australia starts being very important to the US once a lot of their facilities in the US are getting either abandoned or overrun by marauders - sure - but thats not till late 1998 early 1999 - and by then both countries are done with using nukes for the most part.

Plus - if Australia is wiped out by nukes or collapses I dont see the special relationship in 2300 AD happening - but having them there to help the US restart again thats different - even if a lot of the interior of the country ends up looking like Mad Max due to fuel shortages for a few decades.

[Olefin]

Could I see Australia raising perhaps 5-6 Divisions of men - yes that could be done as long as arms could be found for them - even if a lot of them are armed with civilian weapons initially or civilian vehicles converted to military use (they sure have enough good off road vehicles)

And with the coal reserves they have getting power for their industry shouldnt be that much of an issue.

[RN7]

It's very nice but too much of a "wish-list" I think. While Australia in that timeline might be able to raise the levels of manpower listed here, there's too many vehicles. The mention of the Waler vehicle infers some level of local manufacture and considering the numbers quoted it would be significant manufacture.

I think that the Waler listed here is meant to be the new armoured vehicle from Project Whaler of the mid-1980s. In real-life, bureaucrats and arm-chair strategists decided the Australian Army didn't need a medium/heavy protected troop carrier so the project went nowhere.

I just don't see that with the disorganized state of Australia (and lack of central control) as listed in the main books, that the Federal Government could muster the resources or manpower to supply such a massive army (these figures total about 220,000) in the Twilight War.


Australia actually does have a significant vehicle production capacity. General Dynamics builds the ASLAV in Adelaide and Thales Australia makes the Bushmaster & Hawkei in Bendigo and Wingfield, and there are commercial car and light vehicle factories in Adelaide (GM-Holden), Melbourne (Ford, IVECO, Toyota) and Geelong (Ford), a truck factory in Brisbane (Mack) and engine factories in Geelong (Ford) and Melbourne (GM-Holden).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Australia actually does have a significant vehicle production capacity. General Dynamics builds the ASLAV in Adelaide and Thales Australia makes the Bushmaster & Hawkei in Bendigo and Wingfield, and there are commercial car and light vehicle factories in Adelaide (GM-Holden), Melbourne (Ford, IVECO, Toyota) and Geelong (Ford), a truck factory in Brisbane (Mack) and engine factories in Geelong (Ford) and Melbourne (GM-Holden).

You have to take into account that for the armoured vehicles mentioned, the factories were not even in the construction phase let alone ready for production in the time period covered by Twilight: 2000. Also, some of the truck plants mentioned didn't come about until the mid-late 1990s and later and they don't produce a lot of vehicles - production has only risen to 7000/year in the late 2000s.

There was also significant loss of production in the 1990s due to the growth of the Korean car manufacturers and the end of Nissan production in Australia in 1992. The cheaper Korean imports caused major losses for local car makers and they cut the number of models offered and staff numbers to save money. It was widely felt in the early 1990s that the Australia auto industry would be in major decline by the 2000s

We are undoubtedly able to produce armoured vehicles, design studies were conducted in the 1980s when Project Whaler was being examined and they found that we had all the necessary infrastructure but were somewhat lacking in experience.
Having the infrastructure was one thing, political will and military necessity are other things again and at the time the political will was lacking. Nothing was really done to address this until the late 1990s - outside the timeframe of Twilight: 2000.

For example, I believe the ASLAV production in South Australia was begun in the early 2000s. The Global War On Terror gave the Australian Government the political will to invest in these facilities but for the Twilight War, I'd argue that the Australian Government would probably feel insulated from the war in Europe and would not see any urgent need to commence our own armoured vehicle production until the war with Indonesia.

By that time, it would be too late. By 2000, the country as described in the books, is in a state of chaos with significant breakdown of central government. Starting a project to build armoured vehicles would be very much a localized affair suffering all the problems that that would entail. Certainly some projects may have been started in the 1996-2000 period but with the gradual breakdown of central authority, I can't see them having much more than a limited run of vehicles at best.

Small arms, grenades & other explosives, uniforms and light vehicles are another matter again. The infrastructure for these has existed for quite some time but they too would suffer after the breakdown of central authority because their components are often sourced from either outside the nation or in areas within the nation separated by large distances.

[RN7]

You have to take into account that for the armoured vehicles mentioned, the factories were not even in the construction phase let alone ready for production in the time period covered by Twilight: 2000. Also, some of the truck plants mentioned didn't come about until the mid-late 1990s and later and they don't produce a lot of vehicles - production has only risen to 7000/year in the late 2000s.

I think the plant at Bendigo was around during the Twilight War period and run by ADI Ltd. The Mack truck factory in Wacol QLD was built in 1972 and is now owned by Volvo. Also I think FIAT-IVECO were building trucks and plant machinery in Australia in the 1990s.


There was also significant loss of production in the 1990s due to the growth of the Korean car manufacturers and the end of Nissan production in Australia in 1992. The cheaper Korean imports caused major losses for local car makers and they cut the number of models offered and staff numbers to save money. It was widely felt in the early 1990s that the Australia auto industry would be in major decline by the 2000s.

Chrysler and the British car makers are long gone but GM Holden and Ford have been in Australia since well before WW2 and are still going strong, in fact they seem to be doing better than the Japanese as Nissan and Mitsubishi are now gone leaving only Toyota.


We are undoubtedly able to produce armoured vehicles, design studies were conducted in the 1980s when Project Whaler was being examined and they found that we had all the necessary infrastructure but were somewhat lacking in experience.
Having the infrastructure was one thing, political will and military necessity are other things again and at the time the political will was lacking. Nothing was really done to address this until the late 1990s - outside the timeframe of Twilight: 2000.

For example, I believe the ASLAV production in South Australia was begun in the early 2000s. The Global War On Terror gave the Australian Government the political will to invest in these facilities but for the Twilight War, I'd argue that the Australian Government would probably feel insulated from the war in Europe and would not see any urgent need to commence our own armoured vehicle production until the war with Indonesia.

By that time, it would be too late. By 2000, the country as described in the books, is in a state of chaos with significant breakdown of central government. Starting a project to build armoured vehicles would be very much a localized affair suffering all the problems that that would entail. Certainly some projects may have been started in the 1996-2000 period but with the gradual breakdown of central authority, I can't see them having much more than a limited run of vehicles at best.

Small arms, grenades & other explosives, uniforms and light vehicles are another matter again. The infrastructure for these has existed for quite some time but they too would suffer after the breakdown of central authority because their components are often sourced from either outside the nation or in areas within the nation separated by large distances.

Australia's defence industry has certainly been on an upswing since 2000, their even building ships for the US Navy at the moment. Although a lot of the infrastructure is new, a lot of it was also around in the 1990s. Outside of the 2300AD timeline there is little of nothing about what happens in Australia during the Twilight War from canon, so we dont know if it was nuked or how heavily it was nuked. But 2300AD does state that the Australian military survived and took control of the country, and if that is the case then factories that produced its guns, munitions, uniforms and sundaries are likely to have been well defended.

[Targan]

Chrysler and the British car makers are long gone but GM Holden and Ford have been in Australia since well before WW2 and are still going strong, in fact they seem to be doing better than the Japanese as Nissan and Mitsubishi are now gone leaving only Toyota.
"Going strong" is an illusion. They're heavily propped up by government (state and federal) financial assistance. It's a vote-buying exercise. Realistically, the Australian car making industry is no longer economically viable in a self-sufficient way.

Australia's defence industry has certainly been on an upswing since 2000, their even building ships for the US Navy at the moment. Although a lot of the infrastructure is new, a lot of it was also around in the 1990s. Outside of the 2300AD timeline there is little of nothing about what happens in Australia during the Twilight War from canon, so we dont know if it was nuked or how heavily it was nuked. But 2300AD does state that the Australian military survived and took control of the country, and if that is the case then factories that produced its guns, munitions, uniforms and sundaries are likely to have been well defended.
I suspect there were 4 major factors which led to the US-Australian alliance in 2300. 1) A logical extension of the alliance as it exists in RL now and in the time of the Twilight War; 2) Australia is likely to have become a vital stepping stone in the US Navy's links between the CONUS and the Middle East in the years at the end of and immediately after the Twilight War; 3) Australia has vast natural resources that are relatively easy to get to and far less tapped-out than America's so Australia is likely to have been a major trading partner of the US post-Twilight War (and something of a breadbasket too); and 4) I strongly suspect that Australia was one of those nations lucky enough to have found significant tantalum reserves in its territory, but needed the technological expertise of the US to fully realise tantalum's potential to make those nations with access to it into space-going powers.

[Webstral]

And I dont see Australia getting hit by nukes in the timeline - they just arent that good a target for nukes when places like Chicago never got touched - let alone important military production facilities like the United Defense plant in York PA or Anniston Army Depot.

They just arent a real threat to the Soviets as they are.

They are members of an alliance containing the US. That's more than enough justification. If Australian forces have in any way opposed, much less hampered, Soviet forces or interests or the forces or interests of nations friendly to the Soviet Union, the justification becomes iron-clad. The Soviets are not fair-minded. To whatever degree the US might care about fair play, the Soviet Union cares even less.

From the start, the logic of the nuclear exchange has been to gain advantage without initiating a general strategic US-USSR exchange. Each nuke used in the US-USSR strategic exchange had a place in this logic. Washington D.C. gets hit because it is the US seat of power. New York, the nation’s most populous city, does not. Moscow gets hit because it is the seat of Soviet power. The rest of the targets are very important military targets, like SAC HQ, or refineries. The strikes on Los Angeles wipe out the city as a matter of collateral damage, not deliberate policy. The Soviets calculate that knocking out the electricity and petroleum refining will ruin the American war economy without inviting retaliatory strikes against Soviet population centers as a whole.

The allies, on the other hand, are a different story. If the US is playing a game of even exchange, which is about the only way to prevent MAD from becoming a reality, then nuclear attacks on US allies shouldn’t bring about attacks on the USSR. As I tried to point out already, Soviet attacks on Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand should not result in American attacks on Soviet targets, provided the Americans read the signs correctly. If one looks at the Canada hit list, Canada gets hit a lot harder than the US on a per capita basis. Clearly, the Soviets weren’t that worried about retaliation for beating the crap out of Canada.

Australia has raw materials, energy resources, industry, and a well-educated population. In the post-Exchange world, an intact Australia poses a threat to Soviet interests. The Soviets know perfectly well that it may take a century to repair all of the damage from the Exchange. If any Western nation, or for that matter any nation not under the thumb of the Soviets, is left with the kinds of assets possessed by Australia or France in 1997, that nation gets a massive advantage in the reshuffling of global power that will occur in the early 21st Century. The Soviets are not the kind of people to permit this. The US got off comparatively lightly because the US had the means to annihilate the Soviet Union if the Soviets got carried away. Australia lacks even the deterrent that France possesses. With all sympathy to my Australian compatriots, I think GDW’s portrayal of Australia as being hard hit shows Soviet thinking accurately.

[RN7]

"Going strong" is an illusion. They're heavily propped up by government (state and federal) financial assistance. It's a vote-buying exercise. Realistically, the Australian car making industry is no longer economically viable in a self-sufficient way.

I think every countries car industry is or has been propped up by their government to a varying extent for the reasons you mentioned, usualy because their whoefully innefficient. The French, Germans, Italians and the Japanese have all practised protectionism, subtle or not so subtle. Even truely free-market economies like America and Britain have dabbled in the affairs of their car makers.

[Legbreaker]

The Australian OOB RN7 reposted above is complete rubbish for the reasons others have posted. The "Tasmanian Brigade" as just one example is near impossible! IRL, Tasmania has on paper an infantry Battalion plus a handful of small support units (one artillery battery of just a few 81mm mortars, medical unit, admin and transport (a few trucks). Total manpower right now is about 2-300, with most of them in the infantry "Battalion" (which only has one company with a platoon in Devonport, Launceston and Hobart, the state capital).

The population of the entire state can't support much more than that for long (about 400,000 people) and after the three population centres listed above, the next largest town only has 19,000.

So, a sustainable force of 3,500 in addition to the Tasmanians the writer assigned to his 1st Aus Division? Not a chance!

Also, the 3rd Airborne "Brigade" is nothing more than a Battalion. Last year (2011) it changed from an airborne (Parachute) battalion to only having a "smaller high-readiness Airborne Combat Team". http://www.3rar.com/3rarhistory.html

I believe the original writer may have been confused about what a "Regiment" is in Australia. Basically, regiment is an infantry term. RAR is Royal Australian Regiment, RNSWR is Royal New South Wales Regiment, RQR is Royal Queensland Regiment and so forth. RAR is regular army, the rest are reserve and organised on state lines. The Tasmanians mentioned above IRL are 12/40 Battalion RTR and a part of 9th Brigade, with in turn is a component of 2nd Division.

[RN7]

The Australian OOB RN7 reposted above is complete rubbish for the reasons others have posted. The "Tasmanian Brigade" as just one example is near impossible! IRL, Tasmania has on paper an infantry Battalion plus a handful of small support units (one artillery battery of just a few 81mm mortars, medical unit, admin and transport (a few trucks). Total manpower right now is about 2-300, with most of them in the infantry "Battalion" (which only has one company with a platoon in Devonport, Launceston and Hobart, the state capital).

The population of the entire state can't support much more than that for long (about 400,000 people) and after the three population centres listed above, the next largest town only has 19,000.

So, a sustainable force of 3,500 in addition to the Tasmanians the writer assigned to his 1st Aus Division? Not a chance!

Also, the 3rd Airborne "Brigade" is nothing more than a Battalion. Last year (2011) it changed from an airborne (Parachute) battalion to only having a "smaller high-readiness Airborne Combat Team". http://www.3rar.com/3rarhistory.html

I believe the original writer may have been confused about what a "Regiment" is in Australia. Basically, regiment is an infantry term. RAR is Royal Australian Regiment, RNSWR is Royal New South Wales Regiment, RQR is Royal Queensland Regiment and so forth. RAR is regular army, the rest are reserve and organised on state lines. The Tasmanians mentioned above IRL are 12/40 Battalion RTR and a part of 9th Brigade, with in turn is a component of 2nd Division.


I think Australian in T2K could support an army of no more than four divisions and maybe a few independent units. This would include all the reserves and two of those divisions are going to be light infantry divisions at best.

However in WW2 Australia did actually put together a large army. On paper the Australian Army was very large; two armoured divisons (1, 3) twelve infantry divisions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) of which two were motorised at one time, and two independent armoured brigades. One million Australians served in the armed forces including 727,000 in the army, and 397,000 served overseas. However both of the armoured divsions and five of the infantry divisions never left Australia and were reserve & training units, three of the active infantry divisions (3, 5, 11) were formed from militia and the 8th Infantry Division surrendered to the Japanese in Malaya in 1942 and was never reformed.

[Olefin]

Have seen the comments about Australia getting heavily nuked and on this one I will say I totally agree with Legbreaker - I dont see it happening - for one I doubt Australia may have even been involved in the war in 1997 and 1998 except possibly with Indonesia in a local war

Face it - Greece, Italy, France and Belguim did not fight on the NATO side - the chance of a non-NATO country not getting involved in the war is rather high given that fact

Now could the Soviets have hit their oil production capabilities - ok thats a possibility - but even then if Mombasa isnt a big hole in the ground (i.e. its obvious from Frank Frey that the refinery is still there) then it means that they didnt hit every refinery in every neutral country

And also Australia is very remote - hitting Mexico and Saudi heck yes - you dont hit the US and leave Mexican facilities alone and intact

As for Canada - its a NATO nation that sent troops to fight the Russians - you do that, you can get nuked

But I highly doubt, outside of volunteers that on their own went to the UK to join up with the fighting, that any Australian unit in the early part of the war when the nukes were still flying ever deployed to Europe

However Kenya, Korea, Vietnam, possibly the RDF - yes there I could see it happening but even then until Indonesia and New Guinea is settled not much beyond possibly a company or two here and there or possibly Special Forces types

Oh and volunteer units could have been large - I could see the country officially being neutral and several thousand Aussies heading out to join up - or they could have been a token force of a few hundred

[Webstral]

People are going to have to believe what fits their preferred narrative when it comes to nuclear actions against Australia. It makes me smile, though, to read fussing about where a few ships in the Persian Gulf might have gone during the 1997-2000 period, then read that Soviets essentially have gone all fluffy bunny and decided that Australia will be spared nuclear attention because they really weren’t that involved in the war. It’s like after two years of conventional war, Western treachery, the deaths of millions of Soviet troops and citizens, the crippling of Soviet industry, and the loss of the paradigm of the USSR as a global power they’ve found a way to bring out their inner sunshine instead of using a small portion of their massive nuclear arsenal to establish a more tolerable post-war global balance of power at little cost to themselves. It’s nice.

“First, military targets were hit. Then industrial targets clearly vital to the war effort. Then economic targets of military importance. Then transportation and communications, oil fields and refineries. Then major industrial and oil centers in neutral nations, to prevent their possible use by the other side (emphasis added)(p. 26, Referee’s Manual).”

[Legbreaker]

Australians today, and even 20 years ago are a totally different animal to those of the 1930's and 40's - Vietnam saw to that.
It's hard for reserve units to maintain even 25% strength in peacetime with tax free pay, and all the other benefits, start throwing the possibility of being killed into the mix and voluntary recruitment will drop. Conscription may fill out the numbers, but it will also put any government who tries it out of power for decades in about 5 seconds flat, and they know it.

Right now we have a paper strength of two woefully understrength divisions. In T2K where we don't have a clear enemy of our own (until Indonesia) and only a small UN presence to worry about (Korea perhaps and Cyprus), there'll be no obvious need to increase recruitment soon enough to make a serious difference.

In WWII, we still had ironclad links to the UK and many people still felt somewhat British at heart, or at least their parents and grandparents certainly did. It was our DUTY as Commonwealth citizens to join up and go fight the Nazi's who were putting the motherland at threat. Then, when Singapore fell, virtually all Australian units were brought home as fast as transport could be found for them - only individuals and small units stayed behind.

Australia only raised such a large army at the time because we had no hope of help from elsewhere - the British were pinned down at home and bogged in Africa, the rest of the Commonwealth were assisting them, and the US were still neutral. Once the US came on board, our military started to be downsized as it had been completely unsustainable - there were serious shortages of food, equipment, and machines for the soldiers, and even less available for the civilians, even with the militia only being part time soldiers for the most part.

Now admittedly that was when we had a much smaller population than today, however even if Australia was subject to only a handful of nukes to take out the industrial capabilities (or part thereof) of the major cities, we'd suffer some pretty damn high casualties since roughly 80% of our population lives in those locations.

At best we may have three Divisions, but more likely the two current ones would be brought up to strength (in manpower, if not heavy equipment) and an "adequate" supply of reserves trained and probably used in civil defence duties until called up as replacements.

[RN7]

Is has always puzzled me how people think that WW2 led to a dramatic shift in Australia's relationship with Britain and closer links with America, when in fact the oppinion of the Australian military was as critical of America as it was of Britain in regards to its treatment and use of Australian soldiers. Sure after the war America was the new super power and Britain couldn't afford an empire anymore, and after 1970 there where no British forces left East of Cyprus other than the Gurkhas and a few garrison units in Hong Kong, so its obvious why Australia drew militarily closer to America.

But when war broke out in Europe it was logical to see why Britain used ANZAC troops as its own troops were tied up fighting the Germans and Italians, and it was very easy to to ship ANZAC reinforcements to North Africa and the Far East. The fact that Australian troops weren't immediately transferred back to Australia to defend the country when war broke out with Japan, and Singapore fell was due to poor political leadership in both Australia as well as Britain.

What is not logical is how America failed to fully utilise Australian troops in the Pacific from 1942. When MacArthur fled to Australia after the fall of the Philippines Australian troops accounted for nearly all the land forces under his command, as well as a substantial proportion of the air and naval forces present in the south Pacific. Although the US quickly started to build up its own forces in the area, Australian forces were only realy used for secondary roles such flanking US forces or mopping up operations once the US forces had been moved on to another assignment or battleground. This has always puzzled me as the Australian soldier had a very good reputation before WW2, with training levels as good as any British soldier and coming from a culture similar in many ways to the US soldier; largely white and superior in physical health and education to the majority of the brown or black troops from India and Africa that Britain used in Burma and the Middle East.

[Webstral]

Looking back over the old comments in the thread, I’m struck by a few ideas.

1) The idea that nuclear strikes on targets in Australia might not be “worth it”.
2) The idea that Australia might sit entirely on the sidelines
3) The idea that there is some sort of spirit of fair play such that the light treatment given to CONUS results in an even lighter treatment of Australia
4) The idea that the absence of evidence of Aussie and Kiwi involvement in the fighting in Korea amounts to evidence of absence

In 1997, the Soviets have thousands of warheads and hundreds of delivery systems. France and the UK might have to worry about whether a given strike is “worth it”. The US and the USSR don’t have to worry about wasting nukes. Even if 75% of the delivery systems are destroyed prior to November 1997, they have more than enough to do all of the work discussed in the written materials and have hundreds left over. Their issue is whether they want to pay in form of absorbing retaliatory strikes.

Long before 1997, the Soviets have allocated more than enough resources to turn Australia into Mad Max land. By the 1980’s, they’ve already figured out how they are going to get enough warheads there to turn the urban centers into glass parking lots. Just as there are redundancies for ensuring every other target of interest is incinerated three times over, there are redundancies for getting warheads to Australia. The Soviets aren’t the sort of people to allow their strategic planning to be upended by the loss of a single boomer.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, Australia and New Zealand are partners in ANZUS. I know the US-New Zealand part of ANZUS is dysfunctional as of 1996. However, the New Zealand-Australia part is functioning just fine, as is the Australia-US portion. That amounts to guilty by association in the Soviet book.

I’ve said it many times, but it seems to bear repeating yet again. The US gets lighter treatment than a general exchange because the US is in a position to retaliate in kind. The USSR also gets lighter treatment than we’d expect from a general exchange for the very same reason. This has nothing to do with good-heartedness or fair play on the part of the Soviets. They’d love to go after York, PA. But they aren’t willing to have the US hit a major Soviet arms factory in return. That logic changes when it comes to the non-nuclear Western allies, since none of them can retaliate with nuclear weapons.

One of the arguments for distinguishing between Canada and Australia is that Canada actively participates in combat against the Pact. It would be great if a Korea sourcebook had been published such that the presence of Australian troops in Korea could be established. But let’s think it through. The DPRK invades the ROK in late 1996. The Left in Australia probably would argue that the North invades the South only in response to German and Anglo-American provocation in Europe. There would be some validity to this viewpoint. However, the fact remains that the ROK has been invaded by another country. Australia can fight to defend the ROK’s sovereignty without endorsing any of the actions undertaken by NATO in Europe or the West in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, there’s ANZUS. US forces are under attack in the ROK. Australia is signatory to a treaty that states that an attack on one signatory in the Pacific basin is an attack on the other signatories.

We don’t have much knowledge regarding events in Korea. The history of 2nd Infantry Division states “The division was first engaged against North Korean commando units on 12/19/96 and by 1/3/97 was actively engaged against mechanized elements of the North Korean Army. The division participated in holding actions along the 38th Parallel throughout the first half of 1997…(US Army Vehicle Guide, p. 5)” The other US formations in Eighth US Army arrived in Korea after the fighting started. This is a reasonable basis for concluding that the North Koreans initiated offensive action. Therefore, regardless of what Australia thinks of the war in Germany, the ROK is under attack by a foreign power not associated with events in Europe or the Middle East. A fellow ANZUS signatory is under attack by a foreign power not associated with events in Europe or the Middle East. Surely this constitutes a reasonable basis for the deployment of a ANZAC brigade, plus supporting sea and air assets. Thus while we have no categorical evidence one way or another, we have good reason to believe that Australia was involved in the fighting in Korea on the side of the Allies.

[Webstral]

What is not logical is how America failed to fully utilise Australian troops in the Pacific from 1942.

Ego, my friend. Pure ego. MacArthur was not about to have some Aussie upstart getting headlines. Therefore, the Australians were assigned the crappy job of clearing New Guinea while the Americans engaged in more newsworthy operations, once there were enough Americans available to conduct separate operations.

[Rainbow Six]

Legbreaker and I both referenced Challenge #30 earlier in this thread. Here's the quote in question.

The Canadian Army began to organise a battlegroup to be ready for departure for Korea by the 20th of July [1997] in order to assist the American, Australian, and South Korean (ROK) troops already fighting against North Korean troops in Korea.

So there we have it...definitive confirmation that not only were Australian soldiers in Korea but they were playing an active role in the fighting. Other than the 20th of July there's no specific dates given, although the paragraph in question follows one that refers to conscription beginning in May, so likliehood is that it's sometime in the early Summer of 1997 (at the latest), which I think is compatible with what Webstral has said. There's no mention of the size of the Australian force. Nor is there confirmation of New Zealand involvement, although I'd agree that's likely.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Australia only raised such a large army at the time because we had no hope of help from elsewhere - the British were pinned down at home and bogged in Africa, the rest of the Commonwealth were assisting them, and the US were still neutral. Once the US came on board, our military started to be downsized as it had been completely unsustainable - there were serious shortages of food, equipment, and machines for the soldiers, and even less available for the civilians, even with the militia only being part time soldiers for the most part.

I'd like to clarify some points here.
At one point during WW2, there were so many volunteers coming forward that the Australian government actually stopped men from joining the military because the drain on the workforce was becoming too severe. Men involved in transport, agriculture and mining just to name a few, were often not allowed to leave their jobs to join the military to ensure that those industries could still produce enough material to support the war.

The militia soldiers mentioned were full time during the war as they constituted the bulk of land forces for the defence of Australia. The regular army was deployed overseas but under the legislation of the day, militia forces could not serve outside Australia - so they were used for the defence of the nation while the regular forces were deployed to other theatres.

The ground fighting in Papua New Guinea was done primarily by Australian militia forces and not the regular army. PNG was an Australian protectorate so the law allowed the militia forces to be sent there.

During the earlier stages of the war, Australia saw itself in dire need of aircraft and armoured vehicles. These were traditionally supplied by Great Britain but with GB herself needing them, orders for the Australia forces could not be supplied. We set about building our own aircraft and also a cruiser tank to alleviate this. After the US entry into the war and the gearing up of their factories to produce war materiel, they were able to supply much of the needed aircraft and armoured vehicles - it could be argued that this was likely the start of the "buy American" relationship between Australia and the US.

[Webstral]

Legbreaker and I both referenced Challenge #30 earlier in this thread. Here's the quote in question...definitive confirmation that not only were Australian soldiers in Korea but they were playing an active role in the fighting. Other than the 20th of July there's no specific dates given, although the paragraph in question follows one that refers to conscription beginning in May, so likliehood is that it's sometime in the early Summer of 1997 (at the latest), which I think is compatible with what Webstral has said. There's no mention of the size of the Australian force. Nor is there confirmation of New Zealand involvement, although I'd agree that's likely.

How could I have missed that? I'm hearing voices from my past at Benning School for Boys. "Attention to detail, Candidate..."

[kato13]

While I would considered it "barely canon" the mini adventure "Whats Polish for G'day" seems to put the Australians in the same category as the French.

They are both jokingly in the "Organization of non irritated nations" or something similar according to one of the SAS chaps.

[Legbreaker]

Surely this constitutes a reasonable basis for the deployment of a ANZAC brigade, plus supporting sea and air assets. Thus while we have no categorical evidence one way or another, we have good reason to believe that Australia was involved in the fighting in Korea on the side of the Allies.

Yes, that's something I've been trying to work on for a while now. My thoughts are a regular army Brigade was sent over initially and replaced by a reserve Brigade (the 9th) when things hotted up in Papua New Guinea with the Indonesians. The majority of sea and air assets assigned to Korea were withdrawn with the initial troops to deal with the problem closer to home and never returned (damaged/destroyed as mentioned in the books). 9 Brigade were used by the UN/US commanders in Korea to secure rear areas and as of 2000 are looking for some way of getting home.

The militia soldiers mentioned were full time during the war as they constituted the bulk of land forces for the defence of Australia. The regular army was deployed overseas but under the legislation of the day, militia forces could not serve outside Australia - so they were used for the defence of the nation while the regular forces were deployed to other theatres. It depended on where they were. Members of some units still participated in their prewar occupations, or the entire unit was used in traditionally non-military tasks.
Edit: Militia were indeed employed on a similar basis as the AIF troops, I was thinking of the VDC - Volunteer Defence Corps.

The ground fighting in Papua New Guinea was done primarily by Australian militia forces and not the regular army.
Initially yes. The first unit in contact with the Japanese advance over the Owen Stanley Ranges was the Militia 39th Battalion, a unit which up until a few weeks before had received little to no military training (previously used as labourers in and around Port Moresby) and were (under) equipped. Most were armed with SMLEs but there was only a handful of Brens and even less Thompson SMGs. They conducted an almost textbook fighting withdrawal over the mountains in what can only be described as some of the worst terrain possible in the face of approximately 10,000 of Japans finest.

The 53rd Battalion of the militia were sent in to support them but as a unit performed dismally - they'd received even less training than the 39th and were just as poorly equipped, if not worse.

Eventually the 21st Brigade AIF (regular soldiers) arrived having been fighting in Syria just a few months before. But even the injection of fresh, veteran troops didn't stop the Australians being pushed back. In fact, the Japanese managed to move so far south that they could see Port Moresby below them before they were pushed back.

[Rainbow Six]

Yes, that's something I've been trying to work on for a while now. My thoughts are a regular army Brigade was sent over initially and replaced by a reserve Brigade (the 9th) when things hotted up in Papua New Guinea with the Indonesians. The majority of sea and air assets assigned to Korea were withdrawn with the initial troops to deal with the problem closer to home and never returned (damaged/destroyed as mentioned in the books). 9 Brigade were used by the UN/US commanders in Korea to secure rear areas and as of 2000 are looking for some way of getting home.

Out of curiosity, when did the fighting start between Australia and Indonesia? Did it kick off in PNG?

[Legbreaker]

Everything seems to indicate it only happened in PNG. When is open for debate, but it would seem logical for Indonesia to wait until Australia was involved heavily in Korea and none of our allies could help due to entanglements in Europe and elsewhere.
So, shall we say no sooner than mid 1997?

Whenever it was, it would appear to have been rather short and sharp, at least as far as naval and air operations go anyway. The ground conflict could be one that grinds on for years, or barely happens at all.

I'm of the opinion a force of around Brigade strength were sent in to reinforce the local PNG military, there's a Brigade or so in Korea and the rest are back home either carrying out disaster relief missions, assisting the police, securing vital facilities or training for deployment to PNG (not much of the latter). Most of the major population centres are nuked to some degree or another with Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth almost certainly receiving at least a warhead each (probably 3-4 for Sydney) and Townsville, Cairns and Darwin being possible secondary targets. Pine Gap may have suffered a small warhead. Canberra, the national capital, seems an unlikely target as there's not much in the way of military, industrial or other targets of worth - just a lot of politicians which are easily replaced.

Even with only those primary targets I've listed being hit with small yield warheads, the effects are going to be huge. Roughly 30-40% of the countries population are going to be killed either in the initial strikes or the aftermath. Medical facilities will be completely overwhelmed, especially as most of the specialists and advanced facilities are located in the strike zones. Survivors aren't going to be hanging around for radiation, starvation, etc to kill them, so there's going to be a few million people heading into the countryside looking for food and shelter. By the time things settle down a bit, about 50%, or ten million people will be dead.

Meanwhile, there's upwards of 5,000 troops deployed in Korea, and about the same in PNG. Reserves will be called up (probably the moment Indonesia invades PNG) but are unlikely to have completed training by late 1997. They, and every other available unit, will be rushed into action trying to control the refugees and provide for their basic needs - they'll make only a small difference and be completely overwhelmed. What's left of the government will be desperately trying to get the troops home from Korea, but with the destruction the RAN suffers fighting the Indonesians, there'll be few or even no ships available for escort duties. The destruction wreaked on the oil processing facilities will also rule out using civilian shipping as troop carriers as what small amounts are available will be desperately needed by the troops still at home.

Some additional recruitment will occur post nuke, but most of these troops will be rushed through training and are likely to be used in humanitarian tasks rather than military. As previously posted, small arms will be available (in quantity given the stockpiles we've got tucked away here and there), but heavy weapons and military vehicles will be scarce. Most of these units will have to either walk, or use requisitioned civilian transport.

With the lack of fuel, many of the old steam engines will be pulled from their museums and used for longer distance transport of troops and supplies, however the mere rumour of a train carrying food is likely to result in ambushes, derailments and the loss of these valuable resources. While Australia does have a fairly extensive rail network, outside the major cities they're usually single lines and in poor shape due to insufficient maintenance (even today). Sabotaging them in the hope of capturing a container or two of flour isn't going to be all that difficult and once the line is cut, re-routing will require going hundreds of miles out of the way.

South east Queensland is likely to be the best place to be after around 2000 due to the availability of sugar cane for fuel and the ability to grow crops year round. Sugar mills are scattered about the countryside and breweries and distilleries are relatively common.

[Rainbow Six]

Thanks Leg, that looks like a pretty decent summary to me - I would certainly buy into it.

Just one question...if we settle on a mid 97 start date for the Australian / Indonesian conflict and Reserves aren't called up until that time, wouldn't that make it more difficult to replace a Regular Brigade in Korea with a Reserve one given the time that would be required to bring the Reserves up to speed and deploy them to Korea? Might there not be a call up of the Reserves at the end of 1996 as a purely precautionary measure (and possibly limited in scope)? or could you end up with one Regular Brigade in Korea and another Regular Brigade in PNG?

[Olefin]

this huge nuking of australia still makes no sense and definitely seems to be added on a long time after the rest of the canon was in place - as in "oh crap we forget about the Aussies" kind of thing

[Jason Weiser]

In terms of any Australian target list/ORBAT. I would say I would be more than willing to defer to Leg and Targan on that one. It's your country guys, and honestly, you know it better than anyone.

I would say considering the nature of the exchange, the Soviets wouldn't have much incentive to hit a lot of targets in Australia/New Zealand.

Let's go down the list of potential reasons and target base in Australia.

Nuclear weapons? None that I know of, unless you guys have something to tell us. Now there might be some SAC recovery bases but that's a bit of a stretch....though Chico might know something there. Also, a US or British SSBN might put into an Aussie port? Again, those are time sensitive targets, so methinks those would be dealt with by a Soviet SSN with SS-N-21 SLCM.

C3 targets? I am sure Australia has a few, but how hardened are they and are they joint commands with PACCOM? Or are they national, and if so, are they supporting Australian forces cooperating with the Allies? If so, they're going to be hit, if not, then why waste the warhead?

Oil refining? I could see that on the principle of resource denial, but how big are they and how much do they produce? Chico and I worked on a revised target list for a project we will release later. Suffice to say, we decided to hit Oil Refineries of 100,000bpd production or greater. It conformed CLOSELY to the canon list, but there were some differences, heck, if anything, I think MORE targets wound up on the list.

Here's the list for Australia and New Zealand from Wiki


Australia
New South Wales
Kurnell Refinery, (Caltex), 124,500 bbl/d (19,790 m3/d),[17] Botany Bay
Clyde Refinery, (Royal Dutch Shell), 100,000 bbl/d (16,000 m3/d), Clyde
Victoria
Geelong Refinery, (Royal Dutch Shell), 130,000 bbl/d (21,000 m3/d), Geelong
Altona Refinery, (ExxonMobil), about 75,000 bbl/d (11,900 m3/d), Altona North (refinery reduced from 2 trains to 1 train between 2000–2004)
Queensland
Bulwer Island Refinery, (BP), 90,000 bbl/d (14,000 m3/d), Bulwer Island
Lytton Refinery, (Caltex), 104,000 bbl/d (16,500 m3/d), Lytton
South Australia
Port Stanvac Refinery, (ExxonMobil), 100,000 bbl/d (16,000 m3/d), Lonsdale (mothballed since 2003 - 239 ha site to be cleaned up and redeveloped for housing)
Western Australia
Kwinana Refinery, (BP), 138,000 bbl/d (21,900 m3/d), Kwinana
New Zealand
Marsden Point Oil Refinery (NZRC), 96,000 bbl/d (15,300 m3/d)

Now, what I did? Took google earth, got a lat long, then found a decent blast mapper and actually did a targeting plot. Chico then revised some of my targeting (I kinda went HULK SMASH, such as the infamous example of hitting oil refineries with 400-500kt each, when they were across the street from each other...)

That's about it..I am sure you guys can come up with other ideas...but I thought putting that out there might help.

[Olefin]

if you need two 500 kt warheads for refineries that close you have some pretty crappy warheads

[Webstral]

if you need two 500 kt warheads for refineries that close you have some pretty crappy warheads

Perhaps terrain is a factor. Or perhaps the CEP is so great that two strikes are warranted.

[Webstral]

… sense and definitely seems to be added on a long time after the rest of the canon was in place - as in "oh crap we forget about the Aussies" kind of thing

Agreed. We can only expect so much from a small group of guys creating a game against publishing timelines before the advent of the Internet. Our Bible has limitations.

this huge nuking of australia still makes no sense

Legbreaker pointed out that something like 80% of Australia’s population is urban. A couple of nukes directed at important targets in those urban areas will hurt Australia more than a couple of nukes directed against a nation with a less urban population.

I’ve included a couple of attachments regarding how Canada fared in the Twilight: 2000. We’ve now established that both Canada and Australia fought against the Soviet Union. They are both non-nuclear middle powers allied with the US. Cut the megatonnage directed against Australia in half (compared to Canada)just for the sake of being nice to Australia, and you’ll still get a pretty serious body blow to the Land Down Under. Again, I don’t say this because I like the idea of my Australian cousins being incinerated or dying of radiation poisoning. I say this so that we don’t create separate standards for important players in WW3.

All of this said, we all have to go with what we like most. I believe I told Mo that all he had to tell me was that he didn’t want to have a nuked Australia in his campaign and I’d close my mouth on the matter. However, if one wants to present a rationale for Australia being un-nuked, then that rationale a) must defend itself and b) is available for challenge. There’s no reason for it to be personal.

[Legbreaker]

There's bound to be some indications of Indonesia's intentions beforehand, so we should be able to justify pushing the reserve call up back about 6 months. Perhaps the official explanation, at least the one given to Indonesia anyway, was that it was a response to Australia's UN obligations in Korea, or to help out in Cyprus letting the British got to war in Europe. A bit thin, but aren't most political statements?

The timeline is important here too. 3rd Brigade probably goes over to Korea first and the reserves are called up at the same time to begin training. Recruiting efforts kick into overdrive and maybe conscription sugar coated as a way of reducing unemployment, kick starting the economy or something like that.

Officially the reserves are only supposed to serve inside Australia as a defence only force, somewhat like the WWII militia were supposed to, however once Indonesia makes it's move, 1st (less 1 Armoured Regiment aka Koalas - protected species not allowed outside Australia ;)) and 7th Brigades are sent into action, 9th Brigade is sent to relieve 3rd in Korea who are brought back home for predeployment training and reaclimatisation for PNG and to give commanders an airborne option (3 Para battalion).

8th, 11th and 13th Brigades are deployed to the north of the country while 4th and 5th Brigades (plus the Koalas) are kept as "strategic reserve" but sent into disaster relief duties when the nukes hit.

3rd Brigade may not make it to PNG but could be redirected as a "fire brigade" at home.

The list of refineries from Wiki is a very decent starting point and only needs fairly minimal expansion to completely screw Australia. Another half dozen warheads aimed at shipyards and the like and it's all over. Hitting those targets will also still take out a huge percentage of the population, even if that wasn't the intended aim.

[Targan]

Officially the reserves are only supposed to serve inside Australia as a defence only force, somewhat like the WWII militia were supposed to, however once Indonesia makes it's move, 1st (less 1 Armoured Regiment aka Koalas - protected species not allowed outside Australia ;)) and 7th Brigades are sent into action, 9th Brigade is sent to relieve 3rd in Korea who are brought back home for predeployment training and reaclimatisation for PNG and to give commanders an airborne option (3 Para battalion).
That restriction on the Reserves only serving within Australia was watered down years ago. East Timor, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands are just a few of the places I can think of off the top of my head that Reserves have been sent to in recent decades. Heck, official ADF recruitment advertisements on TV have for many years suggested that overseas service is a potential benefit of joining the Reserves.


The list of refineries from Wiki is a very decent starting point and only needs fairly minimal expansion to completely screw Australia. Another half dozen warheads aimed at shipyards and the like and it's all over. Hitting those targets will also still take out a huge percentage of the population, even if that wasn't the intended aim.
Very true. Over here in my corner of this Wide Brown Land the Kwinana Refinery sits right on the coast, in a strip of industrial zoned land south of the main metropolitan area. Perth and it's satellite cities and suburbs occupy a long, narrow strip of very flat sand plain, bordered to the east by a continuous low escarpment rising up where the old shoreline used to be in ancient times. The prevailing winds along this section of the West Australian coast tend to be consistently from the south-west. A single nuclear warhead detonated over the Kwinana Refinery would demolish a very significant proportion of this region's heavy industry, shipbuilding and fuel refining capabilities. Conveniently that same warhead would also severely damage or destroy the nearby HMAS Stirling, the largest naval base in this part of the world and the home port for half of Australia's submarine fleet. Then, just as a nice little additional kick in the teeth, the radioactive plume would be carried by the consistent prevailing winds right across a significant part of Perth's southern suburbs and urban-rural interface (market gardens, dairy farms, quasi-rural redneck spawning grounds etc.).

And in the event of a summer nuking, the nuke plume would also tend to get trapped in the lower atmosphere by the almost-constant temperature inversion layer held in place over Perth by the eastern escarpment. Look, in a way a modest nuking would probably do Australians some good. As it is now we're so used to surviving on a continent that seems hell-bent on trying to kill us with its horrible climates, vast deserts, limited fresh water, inedible/angry/poisonous/morphologically confusing flora and fauna and soul-crushing isolation that we've developed cultural assumptions of near-indestructibility. Radioactive fallout would finally give us an environmental factor that we couldn't just avoid, ignore, blow up or shoot.

[Legbreaker]

That restriction on the Reserves only serving within Australia was watered down years ago. East Timor, Bougainville, the Solomon Islands are just a few of the places I can think of off the top of my head that Reserves have been sent to in recent decades.

Absolutely (see my treatment of the reserve 9th Brigade being sent to Korea). My thoughts about leaving the rest at home are that about 75% of their numbers would be new recruits and possibly conscripts (if not in name, in practise). Ensuring only volunteers went overseas may go some way towards placating the anti-conscription groups.

[Olefin]

I would make an argument that some of the targets in Australia may have been missed as well. If you look at the attacks in the US there were clearly misses and malfunctions in the attacks there.

Given the distances involved (any shot against Australia from either of the sub bastions the Soviets had in real life near the Soviet coast or from their ICBM silos), the fact that they are are targeting areas not normally targeted (I have real doubts any Australian facility was ever targeted for real during the Cold War with the exception of one or two major cities), and the performance of the missiles as seen in the timeline I would see some of their naval and oil production facilities surviving - with these being the basis for the areas of control that the Army builds on.

I.e. they go for Sydney but the shot misses and lands off in the ocean instead of the city center or the missile hits dead center in a naval ship yard and fails to detonate but still causes a lot of damage just from radioactive debris that has to be cleaned up.

Canada is a much different case as the attack on the US had to pass right overhead - so obviously that country has a much higher possibility of successful missile impacts. Its a much easier shooting solution than Australia and also one that they can get better data about if they did miss - i.e. a recon plane can pretty quickly tell them they missed and fire again where Australia, if their satellite network is down, could take quite some time before they know they missed the target.

[Legbreaker]

...the fact that they are are targeting areas not normally targeted (I have real doubts any Australian facility was ever targeted for real during the Cold War with the exception of one or two major cities)

Why would they not be targeted during the cold war? It's not like they had a shortage of warheads. My guess is the US probably targeted us as well, just for the practise and just in case a decade down the track we switched sides for some reason - not like the US were short of missiles either, and targeting doesn't automatically mean launching.

Even a near miss though would inflict terrifying casualties on the population. Australian cities aren't as condensed as those elsewhere in the world. You can drive along a highway for an hour in some cases and still be in the same city. Given the range the Soviets would have to deal with, it's likely they'd have used ICBMs too with their correspondingly larger potential payload and therefore theoretically larger blast radius.

Outside of Europe and North America, Australia is one of the most developed countries on the planet (technologically and economically). It simply makes no sense for the Soviets not to attack.

As for recon of the damage, isn't that what satellites are for? No need to fly a plane all this way just to take a few photos.

[Targan]

As for recon of the damage, isn't that what satellites are for? No need to fly a plane all this way just to take a few photos.
They'd learn plenty from terrestrial sigint. The Australian media would be screaming its lungs out on every functioning bandwidth in the aftermath of a nuclear strike. And in the cases of isolated but highly developed places such as Perth, the sudden total lack of available sources of sigint would tell the Soviets plenty. A single low altitude airburst over the industrial parks south of Perth would clear the local communication EM bands instantly and utterly, and the EMP would fry electronics and most electrics over a wide area. No more ULF from the submarine HQ, no more commercial and military ship-to-shore transmissions, no more emergency services dedicated bands, or TV or AM/FM radio broadcasts. Just long lines of shell shocked survivors streaming north and east on foot or in the few drivable vehicles in search of accessible water supplies, because the pumping stations would be dead, the Swan River is estuarine and the ground water is undrinkable.

Darn, how depressing. Why the hell do I live here? :D

[Legbreaker]

Darn, how depressing. Why the hell do I live here? :D
Why do you think I moved to Tasmania where the air is the cleanest in the world and there's no nuke targets? :p

[Webstral]

My guess is the US probably targeted us as well, just for the practise and just in case a decade down the track we switched sides for some reason - not like the US were short of missiles either, and targeting doesn't automatically mean launching.

And not just during the Cold War, either.

Why do you think I moved to Tasmania where the air is the cleanest in the world and there's no nuke targets? :p

In fact, that subject came up recently. As a card-carrying member of the NRA and a former MI squint, I’m invited periodically to provide feedback on our nuclear target list. (That NRA lobby really knows how to influence people and policy!) There is now a target identifier with the label “Legbreaker’s house”. When asked why I wanted to invest a 20Mt warhead on a ground burst in the Australian boonies, I replied,

“If we’re making any plans at all to hit Australia, this guy has to go. He’s not the sort we want to leave alive. I say we nuke the site into orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

[Jason Weiser]

In fact, that subject came up recently. As a card-carrying member of the NRA and a former MI squint, I’m invited periodically to provide feedback on our nuclear target list. (That NRA lobby really knows how to influence people and policy!) There is now a target identifier with the label “Legbreaker’s house”. When asked why I wanted to invest a 20Mt warhead on a ground burst in the Australian boonies, I replied,

“If we’re making any plans at all to hit Australia, this guy has to go. He’s not the sort we want to leave alive. I say we nuke the site into orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Web, you weren't supposed to tell him that! Aw darn it, now the birthday surprise is all gone. Hell, we even taught the nuke to knock and say "Avon calling". :D

[Webstral]

"Candygram!"

[James1978]

Given the distances involved (any shot against Australia from either of the sub bastions the Soviets had in real life near the Soviet coast or from their ICBM silos), the fact that they are are targeting areas not normally targeted (I have real doubts any Australian facility was ever targeted for real during the Cold War with the exception of one or two major cities), and the performance of the missiles as seen in the timeline I would see some of their naval and oil production facilities surviving - with these being the basis for the areas of control that the Army builds on.
Ever heard of Pine Gap? I'd be shocked if it wasn't on the Soviet target list.

[Jason Weiser]

As would I James. Nurrungar probably not, it's an early warning facility associated with the DSP, which is not something the Soviets wanna screw with considering the nature of the T2K exchange.

[boogiedowndonovan]

"Candygram!"

P8ciVBQixpU

sorry couldn't resist, and no, I am not saying Leg is Mongo or Webstral is Sheriff Bart...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Ever heard of Pine Gap? I'd be shocked if it wasn't on the Soviet target list.

Yeah and that's just one of the places that were on the target list.

There was also the Harold Holt US Navy submarine communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia that provided naval communications as far afield as the eastern part of the Indian Ocean and the western part of the Pacific Ocean.

There was also the Australian Army communications base in Melbourne that provided direct comms from Australia to Canada, the UK and the USA. One of it's secondary functions was to provide alternate comms for any of those three northern hemisphere nations to any of the other ones should their normal comms go down.

There were some others that aren't common knowledge but in general, there were at least five potential targets for Soviet nukes and two of them were in major Australian cities.

Edit:
A quote from Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 7, December 1982, pp. 14-26 by Brian Martin titled "The global health effects of nuclear war"
In the main, the section quoted below was lifted from the following source:-

Desmond Ball, 'Target Australia? No 1: Pinpointing the US Installations', Pacific Defence Reporter, Vol. 8, No. 3, September 1981, pp.25-33; D. W. Posener, 'Target Australia? No 3: Planning for Radiological Defence', ibid., pp.42-52; Desmond Ball, 'Limiting Damage from Nuclear Attack', in Desmond Ball and J. O. Langtry (editors), Civil Defence and Australia's Security, Australian National University, Canberra, 1982.

"The prime targets in Australia are the United States military bases at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North West Cape. Attacks on these bases would kill perhaps a few thousand people. There is a smaller chance of attacks on Cockburn Sound and on Darwin RAAF base, which are hosts for United States strategic nuclear ships, submarines and aircraft. Nuclear bombing of these two facilities, which are close to the population centres of Perth and Darwin respectively, could kill up to one hundred thousand people, depending on the wind direction at the time. Perhaps least likely, but certainly most devastating, would be nuclear attacks on major population centres. For example, the ports of major Australian cities could well be bombed if United States warships carrying strategic nuclear weapons were in harbour. Major population centres might also be hit as a consequence of attacks on associated military or economic facilities. Such attacks could kill from a few hundred thousand to several million people."

[RN7]

Weren't all these potential targets in Australia covered in my list?

[Webstral]

Perhaps independent confirmation was needed for some. Your list was quite good, RN7.

[Jason Weiser]

My attempt at a list...YMMV

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Weren't all these potential targets in Australia covered in my list?

Not diminishing or disputing your list, trying to add weight to it by showing that like any country that was allied to the UK and US, Australia too was on the target list no matter how insignificant we might have seemed during the Cold War.

While the ANZUS treaty has been mentioned, Australia was also part of the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) until it's end in 1977. SEATO was a directly anti-communist pact developed from the Truman Doctrine.

We are still part of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), a series of defence relationships established by a series of bilateral agreements between the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Australia, by virtue of British colonization, is intimately tied in with the UK and the US. While not part of NATO, we are definitely part of the allied nations for the UK and the US. While that may or may not rate an immediate nuking, it certainly means we were kept under observation by the Soviets especially after being actively involved in attempting to stem Communist influence in Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.

[Legbreaker]

There is now a target identifier with the label “Legbreaker’s house”. When asked why I wanted to invest a 20Mt warhead on a ground burst in the Australian boonies, I replied,

“If we’re making any plans at all to hit Australia, this guy has to go. He’s not the sort we want to leave alive. I say we nuke the site into orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Awww, only 20mt? I feel so.....slighted! Surely I'm worth more than that!? :confused:

[Webstral]

Awww, only 20mt? I feel so.....slighted! Surely I'm worth more than that!? :confused:

For what it's worth, I asked for three warheads of 20Mt each. There was some grumbled mention of diverting nukes from targets like land-based ICBMs, overkill, and the like... They just don't know you like we do.

[Targan]

Why do you think I moved to Tasmania where the air is the cleanest in the world and there's no nuke targets? :p

I'd always assumed it was due to the lack of extradition treaties with the rest of Australia :D

[RN7]

My attempt at a list...YMMV

For those of you who think that Australia survived T2K without much nuclear damage then Jason's list must be a disapointment!!

The combined population of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Newcastle, Geelong and the other targets is about 13 million people even in the 1990's. It includes most of Australia's manufacturing capacity, oil refineries, major sea ports, strategic intelligence and communications facilities, airports and air and naval bases.

What survives of note?

Major cities over 100,000: Gold Coast (QLD) (probabaly damaged from strike on Brisbane), Wollongong (NSW), Sunshine Coast (QLD), Hobart (TAS), Townsville (QLD), Cairns (QLD), Toowoomba (QLD), Albury (NSW/SA), Launceston (TAS) and Ballarat (VIC). Basically NSW, Victoria, South Australia, southern Queensland and Perth gets hammered. Tasmania, northern Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory outside of Perth and Darwin are the best places to be.

Oil Refineries: The Exxon-Mobil refinery at Alton (Vic) 75,000 bbl/d and the BP refinery at Bulwer Island (QLD) 90,000 bbl/d. But both probably damaged from nuclear strikes on Melbourne and Brisbane.

RAAF Bases: RAAF Curtin (WA), RAAF East Sale (VIC), RAAF Pearce (WA) (probably damaged from strike on Perth), RAAF Scherger (QLD), RAAF Tindal (NT), RAAF Townsville (QLD), RAAF Wagga Wagga (NSW) RAAF Williams (VIC) (probably damaged from strike on Melbourne) and Woomera (SA)

Naval Bases: HMAS Cairnes, HMAS Stirling (probably some damage from the strike on Perth).

[Legbreaker]

Wollongong is high priority on my list of targets due to it's coal mining and heavy industry. It may survive if the warhead hits a couple of miles off course inland (the escarpment might partially protect it), but I doubt it.

[Jason Weiser]

True, but without the oil from the now dead refineries, the coal mining and manufacturing is coming to a screeching halt. It was an argument Chico and I had, do you take out the tank plant, or the oil refinery providing fuel for the tanks and power for the plant?

I remembered that in 1944-45, as the Allied bombing campaign switched to hitting Germany's synthetic oil refineries, you had Germany making more fighters and tanks than ever...that just sat where they were, with no gas to power them....

Sure, there's two refineries left, but they are low output, probably damaged by the blasts from other attacks and there's a lot of competing priorities now for whatever gasoline is left.

[Targan]

For those of you who think that Australia survived T2K without much nuclear damage then Jason's list must be a disapointment!!

Well, yes. If we go off that list with every warhead doing roughly the level of damage to it's target that it was intended to, that's it, game over for Australia as the nation is now. Pretty much permanently. I guess the people that came here after the Twilight War and founded whatever nation or nations that came to exist on this continent might still use the name Australia but anything resembling my Australia in terms of its culture, society, governmental institutions would likely be gone. The Australia described in Traveller: 2300 sounds very much like the direct descendent of the pre-Twilight War Australia so for me it couldn't have been so thoroughly cleansed by nuclear as that list suggests. I happily recognise that not everyone regards T2300 as a believable future timeline for the T2K universe but I do.

What survives of note?

Naval Bases: HMAS Cairnes, HMAS Stirling (probably some damage from the strike on Perth).

Are we going off your list or Jason's? According to Jason's list HMAS Stirling is literally carpet-nuked. Coming up with feasible Twilight War strike lists is quite a tricky process and I wouldn't expect everyone who assembles a strike list is going to have the time or patience to make themselves extensively familiar with the geography every every target. But the strikes listed for the Perth area in Jason's list are a fairly obvious case of massive overkill. Two of the three targets listed (Kwinana Refinery and HMAS Stirling) are about 7km apart and face each other unobstructed across protected, open water and between them receive six (count 'em, six!) 800kt warheads.

Just... why? Why would you pour a combined 4.8mt of nuclear destruction onto an area less than 10km across which is completely flat and not hardened against that sort of attack? One warhead would do all the damage needed, but why not say two for good measure. And lobbing three 800mt warheads all at Perth Airport? Is there a vast hidden subterranean military-industrial facility buried under there? And why would you throw three warheads at one airport but not throw even one at the biggest RAAF fighter base on this part of the continent, RAAF Pearce, which is just north of Perth?

[Jason Weiser]

Well, yes. If we go off that list with every warhead doing roughly the level of damage to it's target that it was intended to, that's it, game over for Australia as the nation is now. Pretty much permanently. I guess the people that came here after the Twilight War and founded whatever nation or nations that came to exist on this continent might still use the name Australia but anything resembling my Australia in terms of its culture, society, governmental institutions would likely be gone. The Australia described in Traveller: 2300 sounds very much like the direct descendent of the pre-Twilight War Australia so for me it couldn't have been so thoroughly cleansed by nuclear as that list suggests. I happily recognise that not everyone regards T2300 as a believable future timeline for the T2K universe but I do.



Are we going off your list or Jason's? According to Jason's list HMAS Stirling is literally carpet-nuked. Coming up with feasible Twilight War strike lists is quite a tricky process and I wouldn't expect everyone who assembles a strike list is going to have the time or patience to make themselves extensively familiar with the geography every every target. But the strikes listed for the Perth area in Jason's list are a fairly obvious case of massive overkill. Two of the three targets listed (Kwinana Refinery and HMAS Stirling) are about 7km apart and face each other unobstructed across protected, open water and between them receive six (count 'em, six!) 800kt warheads.

Just... why? Why would you pour a combined 4.8mt of nuclear destruction onto an area less than 10km across which is completely flat and not hardened against that sort of attack? One warhead would do all the damage needed, but why not say two for good measure. And lobbing three 800mt warheads all at Perth Airport? Is there a vast hidden subterranean military-industrial facility buried under there? And why would you throw three warheads at one airport but not throw even one at the biggest RAAF fighter base on this part of the continent, RAAF Pearce, which is just north of Perth?

Ok, some notes, I chose the SS-18m5 as it had a 16,000km range thus the oomph to GET to Australia. It's the longest ranged ICBM in the Soviet arsenal. It's got 10 800kt warheads. So, sadly, the overkill factor is a given.

I double teamed a lot of targets on the assumption one or more warheads might fail to fuze. It was a Soviet preoccupation. Not to mention their warheads tended to be higher yield to make up for their higher CEP.

As for Perth Airport, I wasn't sure if RAAF Pearce had such a role. I can switch that. I hit the airport as the Soviets would see it and say "Ah, B-52s could land there comrade".

To do an airfield, you want to parcel out three per runway. One warhead at either end and a third right on the middle.

Finally, in terms of overkill...it's the Soviets? When have they not been into overkill?

[RN7]

Are we going off your list or Jason's? According to Jason's list HMAS Stirling is literally carpet-nuked. Coming up with feasible Twilight War strike lists is quite a tricky process and I wouldn't expect everyone who assembles a strike list is going to have the time or patience to make themselves extensively familiar with the geography every every target. But the strikes listed for the Perth area in Jason's list are a fairly obvious case of massive overkill. Two of the three targets listed (Kwinana Refinery and HMAS Stirling) are about 7km apart and face each other unobstructed across protected, open water and between them receive six (count 'em, six!) 800kt warheads.?

Which is why I said " probably some damage from the strike on Perth". HMAS Stirling is a very small naval base, a few building, a dock and two jetty's. Its located on Garden Island, a slender island about ten kilometres long and one and a half kilometres wide, lying about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) off the Western Australian coast, to which it is now linked by a man-made causeway. HMAS Stirling is located right on its southern extremety and I doubt that the Soviet SS-18 travelling from Russia 10,000 miles away was accurate enough to hit it right on the dockyard. More likely it landed on the eastern side of it in Cockburn Sound or to the west in the Indian Ocean if not further out in the ocean or on the mainland. It certainly would be badly damaged but I'd be certain that not all of ships were at port during the nuclear strike, and that the dock and jetty survived which is all the ships need to have a mooring.


Just... why? Why would you pour a combined 4.8mt of nuclear destruction onto an area less than 10km across which is completely flat and not hardened against that sort of attack? One warhead would do all the damage needed, but why not say two for good measure. And lobbing three 800mt warheads all at Perth Airport? Is there a vast hidden subterranean military-industrial facility buried under there? And why would you throw three warheads at one airport but not throw even one at the biggest RAAF fighter base on this part of the continent, RAAF Pearce, which is just north of Perth?

You'd have to ask Jason that.

[Rainbow Six]

Whilst speculating about potential Austalian nuclear targets, it's probably worth bearing in mind that the BYB would suggest that Australia was definitely hit, but not to the point of saturation.

Australia was largely untouched by the nuclear exchange, but the global panic which followed left its mark on both the Cities and the outback.

(page 240, v2.0)

"Largely untouched" is obviously open to interpretation, but suggests to me at least, a relatively limited number of targets (I note SSC mentioned at least five potential targets in one post, which would seem to me to be consistent with the country being relatively untouched).

[Webstral]

One compromise might be to have a first round of strikes carried out by a single long-range ICBM with a large number of warheads, as Jason suggests. The first round has a couple of hits, a couple of near-misses, and a couple of flat-out misses. Throw a malfunction or two in there to round out the picture.

Then weird things start to happen. The follow-on strike gets delayed for some reason, and then the missile allocated for the job has a malfunction. In the original thread, I advocated a strike from a boomer. Maybe the Soviets get unlucky, and they lose three boomers trying to get into a good firing position around Australia. Finally, another missile is sent in and also has spotty results. By this time, the Soviets are losing interest in further punishing Australia. Perhaps the US counts re-entry vehicles and hits Vietnam with a string of much more successful nuclear strikes. The surviving Soviet leadership decides that Australia has had enough for the purpose of denying the West an intact industrial base in that part of the world and pencils in "Mission Accomplished" after Australia takes a half-dozen good hits.

[Olefin]

I would think that the panic alone might be what damaged Australia to the extent it was - you have a lot of people living in the cities and if you get widespread panic that they are about to get hit that would cause a lot of damage - i.e. widespread looting, cops and firemen leaving their positions and fleeing or being overwhelmed, fires out of control -

for instance think about the large scale wild fires that Australia has had - now imagine you get large scale fires breaking out from panic and looting in the cities and no firemen to fight them - you could end up with huge areas of the cities burned out or heavily damaged without a single nuclear bomb hitting them

Now add in a single nuclear strike that takes out Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane to start that panic - and viola you have that combined with the resulting panic causing the damage to Australia that causes the government to collapse and the military to take over

[Targan]

Ok, some notes, I chose the SS-18m5 as it had a 16,000km range thus the oomph to GET to Australia. It's the longest ranged ICBM in the Soviet arsenal. It's got 10 800kt warheads. So, sadly, the overkill factor is a given.

I double teamed a lot of targets on the assumption one or more warheads might fail to fuze. It was a Soviet preoccupation. Not to mention their warheads tended to be higher yield to make up for their higher CEP.
Ah, that makes sense. One ICBM launched on a trajectory for the SW coast of Australia, what are the juiciest targets in its payload footprint? If there aren't many, just do a thorough job on the ones you target. If I'd only had the one bourbon on the rocks instead of three when I wrote my last post I probably would've figured that out myself. Oops!

As for Perth Airport, I wasn't sure if RAAF Pearce had such a role. I can switch that. I hit the airport as the Soviets would see it and say "Ah, B-52s could land there comrade".

To do an airfield, you want to parcel out three per runway. One warhead at either end and a third right on the middle.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing media articles or footage of very large military aircraft landing at RAAF Pearce.

Finally, in terms of overkill...it's the Soviets? When have they not been into overkill?
Just to make sure we're on the same page, is your list showing the targets that were hit (either directly or close enough that the target was neutralised) or the locations that were targeted (whether or not they were actually destroyed)?

[Olefin]

Very nice site on Australian Forces that gives some good information of the setup of their armed forces

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/structure/one_army.asp

I.e. The Infantry Battalion


1993 Rifle Section:

9 Other Ranks
2 x Minimi light support weapon
1 x M79 grenade launcher
2 x 66mm rocket launcher


Rifle Platoon:
Platoon Headquarters (1 Officer, 2 Other Ranks)

3 x Section

Rifle Company:
Company Headquarters (2 Officers, 4 Other Ranks)

3 x Rifle Platoon

Battalion:

39 Officers, 662 Other Ranks

Battalion Headquarters

Administration Company
Transport Platoon
Quartermasters Platoon
Catering Platoon
Technical Support Platoon
Medical Platoon

Support Company

Signals Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Assault Pioneer Platoon
DFSW (Direct fire support weapon) Platoon
Reconnaissance and
Surveillance Platoon

4x Rifle Company

1993
Armoured Personnel Carrier (Cavalry) Squadron **

Section:
6 Other Ranks
3 armoured personnel carriers


Troop:
Troop Headquarters (1 Officer, 5 Other Ranks, 3 armoured personnel carriers)

3 x Section

Squadron:
9 Officers, 132 Other Ranks

Squadron Headquarters (9 armoured personnel carriers)
Support Troop (17 armoured personnel carriers, 3 tracked load carriers)
Administration Troop (4 armoured personnel carriers, 12 tracked load carriers)
Tech Support Troop (6 armoured personnel carriers, 1 cargo carrier, 1 armoured recovery vehicle)

4 x Armoured Personnel Carrier Troop

I am assuming the 9 officers and 132 other ranks are what is in addition to the 4 x APC troops it mentions

[Jason Weiser]

Just to make sure we're on the same page, is your list showing the targets that were hit (either directly or close enough that the target was neutralised) or the locations that were targeted (whether or not they were actually destroyed)?

The first column is the common map reference location, and the second is the description of the actual target. I did it this way because in this post 9/11 world, I am not going to have wrong headed individuals swear I am in league with other more wrong headed individuals, if you get my drift.

[Legbreaker]

Very nice site on Australian Forces that gives some good information of the setup of their armed forces

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/structure/one_army.asp
1993 Rifle Section:

9 Other Ranks
2 x Minimi light support weapon
1 x M79 grenade launcher
2 x 66mm rocket launcher
Varied from unit to unit. Some units had the grenadier armed with M16/M203. Many units were still using the old structure of one GPMG (M60 in reserve units, MAG 58 in regular) and no Minimi.

Rifle Platoon:
Platoon Headquarters (1 Officer, 2 Other Ranks)
In my experience the PHQ consisted of the Officer (1st or 2nd Lt), 2IC (Sergeant), Signalman (private) and a runner (usually the most senior private and next in line for promotion to Lance Corporal).


Rifle Company:
Company Headquarters (2 Officers, 4 Other Ranks)

3 x Rifle Platoon
Plus support section (9 men) which (in addition to either F88 or L1A1 rifles) was armed with 84mm Carl Gustav's (4 of) and GPMGs (4 of) and occasionally had a Landrover 110 plus trailer attached (to carry tripods, extra ammo, etc)

Support Company

Signals Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Assault Pioneer Platoon
DFSW (Direct fire support weapon) Platoon
Reconnaissance and Surveillance Platoon
Occasionally included an SFMG Platoon armed with GPMGs and tripods for use mainly in the indirect role at ranges up to 3,000 metres. This was separate to the Anti Armour Platoon (armed with 84mm Carl Gustav).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Mention was made of RAAF Base Curtin in an earlier post. I'd like to offer some clarification of Curtin's status. It is not an active duty base and no squadrons are meant to be based there during peacetime.
It is one of three 'bare bases' that the RAAF maintain as forward deployment bases. The three bases and their locations are now available on on the net so there's no security breach in posting them here.
They are: -
RAAF Scherger near Weipa, Queensland
RAAF Curtin near Derby, Western Australia
RAAF Learmonth near Exmouth, Western Australia

More information can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAAF_Bare_Bases

[Legbreaker]

Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who is considering visiting Australia in the near future, please be advised drop bear mating season has just commenced. It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

1849

[Targan]

It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

Thank God they don't hunt in packs. That's all I'll say.

[Jason Weiser]

Thank God they don't hunt in packs. That's all I'll say.

So, do they come at night mostly?

[Jason Weiser]

Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who is considering visiting Australia in the near future, please be advised drop bear mating season has just commenced. It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

1849

Wait? 1 in 10? Are you telling me, assuming a population of 30 so million... approx. 3 million Aussies have been attacked? Man you may need to try the rabbit solution on those critters before they start depopulating the country!

[Olefin]

Interesting pic there

To get back to the thread topic the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook I am working on, as part of its description of forces, has a small section detaliing how the Australians were not able to send any forces to aid the US and Brits in Kenya until 1999 due to both the war they had with Indonesia and because of the damage they took from taking three nukes from the Soviets on three of their biggest refineries, one of which took out most of Rockingham and HMAS Stirling along with it, with the strike being carried out by a single ICBM in December of 1997 with three warheads, and causing 500,000 casualties in the process.

In other words big enough to really hurt (thats 1 out of every 60 Aussies killed along with a big naval base along with a lot of industry) but not catastrophic to where the country falls apart.

[Legbreaker]

Wait? 1 in 10? Are you telling me, assuming a population of 30 so million... approx. 3 million Aussies have been attacked? Man you may need to try the rabbit solution on those critters before they start depopulating the country!

Actually, we only just cracked 21 million a short time ago. And yes, about 2 million Australians (mostly city dwellers who've stupidly wandered out into the bush alone) have had an "encounter". Most get away with little more than a scratch and a pressing need for a change of underwear (only through dumb blind luck though for the most part), but there are a few deaths every month, and many more serious maulings, especially of the unaware tourists who think backpacking in the wilds without protection is a good idea...

In some respects, Drop Bears are our best solution to illegal immigrants, ever since the government stopped the navy putting .50 cal "warning holes" in their boats anyway. :(

[Webstral]

21 million. Wow. About the population of Texas, give or take. And that makes Australia a larger-than-average nation. Sometimes I think every American ought to live in a very small, poor nation (not Australia, lest my Australian cousins interpret the physical proximity of their nation's name with the adjectives "very small" and "poor" as meaning those adjectives apply to the jewel of the Southern Hemisphere) for at least a year to get a better perspective on things.

[Legbreaker]

And that's up from the 6 million we had during WWII.