Norfolk, VA - Homecoming

[Tombot]

Was there anywhere some data about that place (i mean BEFORE 2001, where "Howling wilderness" just has a small entry about the "shrinking Milgov-enclave in the ruins of Norfolk") ?
I am wondering.

And how would any G.I. end up siding with the civil government & the CIA, when Milgov organized the evacuation from europe, and had hold of Norfolk ?
(Thats why iam asking myself about the installations there, in the first place).


What would it be like there ?
I imagine a burned and ruined place. Some patrolling soldiers in NBC-suits on the surface, listening to the crackling geiger-counters.
And lots of sweaty Milgov-soldiers crawling around in underground-messhalls beneath... Rationing, and a police-state-like atmosphere. Units getting their orders to make their way to different Milgov-installations, etc.

Any ideas ?

[Tombot]

All right, i read through several older threads, where i discovered a lot.

I am going to use it the way, some forummembers went for: Norfolk was drastically damaged, but not destroyed.
In my campaign, it gonna be a (for the PC´s surprisingly, but pretty "postapocalyptic") sad homecoming for the returnees; a base with a skeleton-crew, having meager foodstocks; a place which is about to be abandoned soon..

There will be a bizarre mix out of propaganda, rationing, bad morale among the newcomers and thoughts of desertion.
Right after the arrival of the fleet, every european vet is expected to leave for another place.The soldiers must hurry with the distribution of the returnees, to avoid starvation.

The PC´s will get options which (mostly very long) travel to anyother Milgov-enclave they should undertake next. New Jersey, a mission in N.Y., Texas maybe...
"Could be less shitty there, than here.."

[Rainbow Six]

I always imagined a bittersweet scene where the Omega ships were greeted by what passes as a band (i.e. half a dozen guys on the quayside with a variety of instruments) playing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" as the troops disembark and realise that things are just as bad as they were in Europe.

[Olefin]

add in several half sunken or clearly heavily damaged ships being seen clearly by the arriving troops or better yet them being ordered into their MOPP gear as they approach Norfolk or having iodine pills distributed to them

[M-Type]

...or better yet them being ordered into their MOPP gear as they approach Norfolk or having iodine pills distributed to them

I like that.

[Rainbow Six]

add in several half sunken or clearly heavily damaged ships

Nice...maybe they see the derelict island of a sunken aircraft carrier protruding above the ocean's surface. As they get closer they can see the number painted on the side spelling out the fact that it's a USN CVN.

[Adm.Lee]

add in several half sunken or clearly heavily damaged ships being seen clearly by the arriving troops or better yet them being ordered into their MOPP gear as they approach Norfolk or having iodine pills distributed to them

Ya know, if there's still radiation about, why is MilGov even using the port to unload? Surely, there's someplace else on the Virginia coast/Chesapeake Bay that isn't so bad off?

IMC, the naval base might be hit, but there's a civil port that could be used?

[Targan]

My take on it has always been that it couldn't have been a direct hit. If the nuke strike had been on target, why would the US military bother using the naval base at Norfolk? Way too much effort to make it even partly functional.

[Olefin]

There would still be low level radiation around - and the sunken ships could be from damage from a hit off the coast - i.e. tsunami caused by a nuke burst hitting ships in shallow water

[Fusilier]

i.e. tsunami caused by a nuke burst hitting ships in shallow water

A nuclear induced tsunami is mentioned occurring elsewhere in one of the Twilight2000 books, but it's an improbable event. Even the largest nuclear weapons don't have the required energy that is required to create a true tsunami of radiated seawater from an air/surface burst offshore.

Unless it was a controlled underwater blast, like the test types used in the Pacific, a normal surface blast close enough to the harbor for large wave action to hit ships would also be irrelevant with regards to blast effects.

An underwater detonation could create large waves that may irradiate ships if close enough, but there's the unresolved issue of the nuclear weapons needing to survive the initial impact against the surface of the ocean and then for some reason, going through a delayed detonation.

For myself, I just go with the idea that it is a near miss. Enough for blast damage to effect the harbor facilities, but distant enough to keep enough intact for basic use. An airbust also negates the issue of radiation a great deal.

[Tombot]

"...For myself, I just go with the idea that it is a near miss. Enough for blast damage to effect the harbor facilities, but distant enough to keep enough intact for basic use. An airbust also negates the issue of radiation a great deal".[/QUOTE]

Thats the way to go for me,too.
And i liked Rainbow & Olefins scene descriptions.

After reading through the older threads regarding this topic, i am convinced, that there is no way, that
a) if you want to use Norfolk as an active (at least still in winter 2000) Milgov-base,
b) and it was nearly missed by the nukes (canon had it nuked)
the people running the place have had no way of preparing the arrival of ca. 43.000 people in a fashion, that everyone has enough food and "safe" transportation out of Norfolk. Or the hygienic conditions to provide a longer stay for everyone.

Here we have a opportunity for a drastic T2k- "mass-scene", as the ships are unloaded within the ruined harbor-area. Lots of queues, which are under strict control by unfriendly marines in NBC-gear. And loudspeakers with patriotic music, warnings about radiation-hazards, desertion, etc.

The girls and boys get off the ships with several thousands of others, but they dont get, what they expected. Instead of enough food, and a save haven with lots of information about several locations within conus ("what about our familys back home in Walnut Grove, sir?" - they get rations for 2 days max and learn, that they will get to Jersey or some other base, far away.
And fast! IF they are able, after getting off the ship.. where they had rationed food and water, too i guess.

As long as the PC´s are in the massive bulk of the undistributed european vets, they have to be treated like refugees - just because of the pure amount of them. Theres no other way to handle that many hungry people.
And even that wont be good enough for the survival of everyone, if the hordes of soldiers, are not split in several different directions.
"Sorry, there´s not enough vaccine here for everyone. Just look around you, idiot! Get back in line!" (a shot in the background once in a while).

Ohter ideas could include drugged patrol-soldiers (heavy on all kinds of happy-pills "to handle this shit" - radiation, fear of starvation in the near future, no privacy in crowded underground installations, same underwear for weeks now..), people dying from old injuries and new diseases in cramped fieldbeds, after getting through the whole war in europe..

Remember that scene in "apocalypse now", when the boat reaches a US outpost at a bridge upstream under constant attack?
The whole scene screamed "everything is spiraling downwards" and was filled with little details, how the military order falls apart.
That would the atmosphere i think would be fitting, till the PC´s reach another place with less people around to feed (or to catch disease from).
Norfolk is just a makeshift solution of Milgovs former plans for the returnees - whats ahead, is pretty much open (at least to the players).

[raketenjagdpanzer]

For myself, I just go with the idea that it is a near miss. Enough for blast damage to effect the harbor facilities, but distant enough to keep enough intact for basic use. An airbust also negates the issue of radiation a great deal.

At Crossroads, a "direct hit" only sank five ships (now, granted, it was a 23kiloton blast, not the multiple-megaton city-killers that would have been used during a general nuclear war, so a near miss that buried itself in the mud a few clicks from Norfolk prior to going off probably wouldn't wreck that many ships.

[Fusilier]

Probably not. And in addition, it was also a static detonation. For a inbound missile to embed itself in the mud, it would need to survive an ocean impact while traveling at tremendous speed.

[James1978]

I think there is some wiggle room here if you want to add some detail or play with the background a little.

Now Howling Wilderness says Norfolk/Portsmouth took a 1 Mt. hit. I think that "/Portsmouth" part is interesting. If you play with NUKEMAP (http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) some to adjust ground zero, you can make the facts be just about whatever you like.
* With a 1 Mt. hit, I can get Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Norfolk Naval Station, Little Creek Amphibious Base, Craney Naval Fuel Terminal, the Coast Guard Station all within the thermal radiation radius.
* Ground Zero on Little Creek leaves Portsmouth and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard intact. Most of the Naval Station is within the thermal radiation radius, but not the docks/piers.
* Ground Zero on Norfolk Naval shipyard leaves Little Creek intact, and most of the Naval Station.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Depending on just where Ground Zero is/was, the location where the European vets disembark can easily be what Olefin describes. Not destroyed, but not a nice place either. I like it.

Now what all of this makes me wonder, is what is going on across Hampton Roads on the Virginia Peninsula. Over there, you've got Newport News Shipbuilding, Langley AFB, Fort Eustis, Fort Monroe, and the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. At first glance that strikes me as a better place to set up a cantonment if the south side of Hampton Roads took a 1 Mt. nuke.

GlobalSecurity has a good listing of military facilities in the Hampton Roads area (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/hampton-roads.htm) for anyone wanting to add some texture.

[Tombot]

I think there is some wiggle room here if you want to add some detail or play with the background a little.

GlobalSecurity has a good listing of military facilities in the Hampton Roads area (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/hampton-roads.htm) for anyone wanting to add some texture.

Thats an informative reference,thx.
Has anyone maybe made some form of a map with a view notes on positions of current villages and milgov-/ marauder-bases of that area ?

One part of my usual work with the modules is always to copy a normal map and make a "GM - Map" with hints about all the info from the book to keep an overview.
Was the same with "Howling wilderness" and for the slesia-area near Krakow. After i read through it, i could´nt keep track of who was going where, till i started to make a crude hexmap with several dots and coloured arrows for movement of groups/cantonments...
And i have to do a catalogue (usually statwise in alphabetical order) with a
short Profile of every important/interesting place mentioned (a bit like they do it with planet-profiles in Traveller). The center here should be undoubtly Fort Dix.

[Adm.Lee]

I think there is some wiggle room here if you want to add some detail or play with the background a little.

Now what all of this makes me wonder, is what is going on across Hampton Roads on the Virginia Peninsula. Over there, you've got Newport News Shipbuilding, Langley AFB, Fort Eustis, Fort Monroe, and the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station. At first glance that strikes me as a better place to set up a cantonment if the south side of Hampton Roads took a 1 Mt. nuke.


This sounds a lot more likely/workable to me. "This fleet is heading to Norfolk" might really mean, "well, close to that, anyway."

[raketenjagdpanzer]

This sounds a lot more likely/workable to me. "This fleet is heading to Norfolk" might really mean, "well, close to that, anyway."

Someone mentioned regarding the Going Home boarding handout I bashed together that the tone of it was good (and important) because it painted a picture of things not being quite so bad. Perhaps the Norfolk destination is meant to be the same thing to US Servicemen and Women. Hey, we're going home - to Norfolk, the big US Navy base. Things are still up and running back home! Woo! Versus Hey, we're going to run the ships aground near Myrtle Beach and everyone has to scramble off via nets because every port on the East Coast is fucked beyond believe thanks to saturation nuclear strikes.

[Bullet Magnet]

Versus Hey, we're going to run the ships aground near Myrtle Beach and everyone has to scramble off via nets because every port on the East Coast is fucked beyond believe thanks to saturation nuclear strikes.

I'd never accuse a government of being afraid to mislabel a product. Of course they're going to try to make it sound like everything is just fine back home.
Hell, look at the military recruitment brochures! they make it sound like a luxury resort, with a bit of a free college education thrown in.

[James1978]

This sounds a lot more likely/workable to me. "This fleet is heading to Norfolk" might really mean, "well, close to that, anyway."
That was my thought. Norfolk is a location that more people are likely to be familiar with than say the Virginia Peninsula. Substitute "Hampton Roads area" for Norfolk, and you really expand the possible geography. Newport News Shipbuilding seems like as good a place to come ashore as anywhere. I'd say there is a good chance that there is a damaged carrier in one of the drydocks, and possibly the remains of one that was under construction. Add damaged ships right near you with a view of wrecked naval facilities on the other side of Hampton Roads, and I think we've got a grim homecoming.

If Norfolk Naval Station survived, it's certainly someplace I'd see MilGov trying to hold onto for as long as possible. But if the Virginia Peninsula came through relatively unscathed by the nukes, it seems like a better location to set up a regional base of operations since you can build a barrier at the base of the peninsula. But for me, I just think it would be cool to set up HQ at Fort Monroe.

[Adm.Lee]

Newport News Shipbuilding seems like as good a place to come ashore as anywhere. I'd say there is a good chance that there is a damaged carrier in one of the drydocks, and possibly the remains of one that was under construction.

I brought this up on another thread, there were potentially 2 CVNs under construction at Newport News. USS Harry Truman was launched in '96 and commissioned in '98 IRL, so I think we can assume she was finished earlier in the Twilight War. USS Ronald Reagan wasn't laid down until Feb '98 IRL, that may not have happened after TDM? If it were my game, I suspect she may have been barely started, but never finished. Maybe used parts to repair one or more of her damaged sisters?

[James1978]

I brought this up on another thread, there were potentially 2 CVNs under construction at Newport News. USS Harry Truman was launched in '96 and commissioned in '98 IRL, so I think we can assume she was finished earlier in the Twilight War. USS Ronald Reagan wasn't laid down until Feb '98 IRL, that may not have happened after TDM? If it were my game, I suspect she may have been barely started, but never finished. Maybe used parts to repair one or more of her damaged sisters?
Or . . . build rates don't slow down after 1989 because the Cold War never ended and CVN-76 (Reagan) was laid down earlier. Ditto for CVN-75 (Truman).

It doesn't really affect the game or the naval war, but if anyone wanted to have an under construction CVN at Newport News, I think an earlier lay down for CVN-76 can be justified given the continued Cold War. GM's choice.

[Olefin]

If you look at Challenge Magazine 42 you get this tidbit in A Rock in Troubled Waters

Monitors: These are a variation on a Vietnam-era modification. LCM6s drawn from the amphibious base at Norfolk received boiler plate armor and whatever weaponry was handy.

To me that sounds like the Little Creek Amphibious Base wasnt hit by the nuke and has intact LCM6's there for MilGov to build these monitors

[Targan]

Or . . . build rates don't slow down after 1989 because the Cold War never ended and CVN-76 (Reagan) was laid down earlier. Ditto for CVN-75 (Truman).

It doesn't really affect the game or the naval war, but if anyone wanted to have an under construction CVN at Newport News, I think an earlier lay down for CVN-76 can be justified given the continued Cold War. GM's choice.

I agree completely. I've argued the same myself in the past.

[James1978]

If you look at Challenge Magazine 42 you get this tidbit in A Rock in Troubled Waters

Monitors: These are a variation on a Vietnam-era modification. LCM6s drawn from the amphibious base at Norfolk received boiler plate armor and whatever weaponry was handy.

To me that sounds like the Little Creek Amphibious Base wasnt hit by the nuke and has intact LCM6's there for MilGov to build these monitors
Now that is helpful!

Playing with NUKEMAP (http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) and using a 1 Mt. nuke, Little Creek and most of the Norfolk Naval Station are "safe" when I plant GZ on Norfolk Naval Shipyard. BUT, the Coast Guard Station and Craney Island fuel depot are within the thermal radiation radius.

So if you want to have Little Creek intact, it can work.

Alternatively, those wanting to have Little Creek unusable for whatever reason - fire, radiation, nuke GZ, etc. - could say the monitor conversions were done at Newport News Shipyard, or possibly Fort Eustis.

[Webstral]

I'm coming to this one late, so I'll be quick. It seems to me that the nuking of the main Atlantic base has to be handled delicately. Outright destruction of the whole place is out, as many have said. Negligible destruction is out, too, because the Soviets will follow up and finish the job. There has to be enough destruction that the Soviets, who know the US will go warhead-for-warhead, don't want to put another nuke on the table. There has to be little enough destruction that parts of the place are quite usable.

I agree that the returning Europe vets are going to be passed on as quickly as possible. Cantonments on the Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Watershed, and adjacent to major rivers draining into the Atlantic are good candidates. This pretty much leaves out the West Coast and the Southwest. Colorado might get some folks, though. Milgov appears to own a swath of territory running from Colorado across Oklahoma and much of Arkansas to the Father of Waters. Provided the locks and dams along the Arkansas River are in operation, the Arkansas River is navigable by barge to the vicinity of Tulsa, OK. At the very least, 49th AD could get some troops.

Would this be an appropriate place to bring up the utility of airships again?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I'm coming to this one late, so I'll be quick. It seems to me that the nuking of the main Atlantic base has to be handled delicately. Outright destruction of the whole place is out, as many have said. Negligible destruction is out, too, because the Soviets will follow up and finish the job. There has to be enough destruction that the Soviets, who know the US will go warhead-for-warhead, don't want to put another nuke on the table. There has to be little enough destruction that parts of the place are quite usable.


I have a suggestion about this, one that is highly speculative guesswork and requires stepping out of the literal, hard-numbers strategic point of view, but bear with me a moment:

Let us suppose that Norfolk was a near-miss. The spread was too far apart, the pattern was badly programmed and the warhead missed off the coast, whatever. From the point of view of the poor civilians there, they were most definitely nuked. Enough of the city is irradiated rubble, enough people went through a "The Day After" or "Threads" type scenario that if you ask anyone who was there what happened they'll tell you "A nuclear strike."

Norfolk was, by our own lingo, a counterforce strike. To wit: the destruction of an enemy military base to reduce his force capability. Presuming the Soviets "saw" what happened (sleeper cell did a direct observation, satellite, nearby sub, later strategic overflight, whatever) there might have been some thinking along these lines: we hit that city, or rather, we brushed it. There's wrecked ships, there's probably in excess of a hundred thousand dead civilians, the port facilities are for the time being, unusable. However if we hit it again the Americans may well view it as a countervalue strike - that we are at this point "terror bombing" and just trying to kill people for no good reason other than to kill people. That might lead beyond even where we are now, with 3000+ nuclear weapons coming out of their remaining subs, silos and bombers. No, we've hurt them, that's enough.

That's very thin, but it's all I can think of at the moment.

[JHart]

Seeing as I've lived in Hampton Roads for 25 years and have been on nearly every military installation listed here (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/hampton-roads.htm) I thought I'd say chime in.

I think raketenjagdpanzer has the best idea. One nuke wouldn't do Hampton Roads any favors, but it is survivable and odds are it would be an airburst. With all the potential targets around, (I live less than two miles from NAS Oceana) I would think the Soviets would sling a few more ground burst nukes with priority given to Newport News SB&DD and other shipyards, and the airbases at Langley and Oceana to crater the runways. None of the local Army bases and smaller Navy installations are worth nuking in in the limited tit for tat T2K nuke slinging in my opinion.

Assuming it was only one "close" or "near miss" 1MT nuke, or 1MT and a few smaller KT at the targets selected above then Hampton Roads and Norfolk could still be in business. Ft. Eustis and Story are transport centers and might have some resources left to help with the returning Omega fleet in addition to all the beached sailors, odd Marine guards and grounded airmen. There is also Ft Lee and Pickett up the road near Richmond that might be able to lend support.

Another factor is the large retiree community whose experience and manpower could be drawn on, at least from those who survived the nuke attacks.


The last factor could be the weather, assuming Omega arrives late November or early December, it will be little warmer in Hampton Roads than a port farther up the Eastern seaboard.

[Legbreaker]

And don't forget you don't have to completely destroy the docks to make them essentially useless. Hitting a nearby transportation hub will result in ships still being able to tie up, but not being able to load or unload cargo and passengers all that efficiently. If the rail yards were wiped out, everything would have to come by truck or animal, skirting the possibly radioactive areas. Rubble from the burst(s) is likely to interfere with that also, blocking roads, canals, footpaths and requiring a major effort to clear.
One only has to look at the results of WWII bombing raids to see what might be faced.

Rubble from dockside warehouses could have been blown into the water, making the waterways too shallow for much beyond a canoe. Without heavy machinery, dredges and time, there's very little that could be done to make them usable again even if the other infrastructure is still good.

Sunken ships have also been mentioned previously. To me there seems a reasonable chance saboteurs could have had an impact either before the nukes, or after to ensure the port was out of commission. A couple of limpet mines detonated as the ship is passing though a choke point and the whole port can be closed.

[Olefin]

Well Legbreaker that may explain what the 40,000 plus troops that are at Norfolk are assigned to - i.e. clearing the roads and whatever of debris so the docks can be put back into full operation

The Japanese used mainly manpower with almost no machines to do it both during and right after WWII so I can see that happening here as well. And that would keep them occupied for quite a while - and would earn them their pay - in this case food.

[Legbreaker]

Perhaps, but Op Omega has "selected units will remain in service and the remainder stood down for muster out."
This has been previously discussed here: http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=3130 and http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=2408
http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=2088, here, http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=1957, and here http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=1745

[Olefin]

it doesnt say when they were mustered out

and I can see MilGov saying ok guys we brought you home, now you get to pay for the trip. You can leave with what you have - or you can do some work for us and when you are done we will provide whatever we can to get you home or close to home

Plus it would help put the US back on its feet at least locally

You still get mustered out its just that you use a shovel instead of a rifle for a while before you go hoome

[Olefin]

By the way Legbreaker love your quote you use on all your posts

I prefer the shorter Myth Buster version

"When in doubt, C4!"

[raketenjagdpanzer]

it doesnt say when they were mustered out

and I can see MilGov saying ok guys we brought you home, now you get to pay for the trip. You can leave with what you have - or you can do some work for us and when you are done we will provide whatever we can to get you home or close to home

Plus it would help put the US back on its feet at least locally

You still get mustered out its just that you use a shovel instead of a rifle for a while before you go hoome

One of the premises in The Forever War (excellent book by the way - I recommend reading Starship Troopers and then TFW in that order) is that keeping veterans from mustering out of the military is a very easy thing: there is no FTL, only near-FTL and time dilation and relativistic travel means that soldiers who go out for a single campaign don't come home for potentially hundreds of earth-years, despite only six months to a years time passed.

What they come home to is so utterly alien, socially, that the only "old world" they know are the troopers they went in with in the early 21st century. So the military tells them "Well...you know, you've earned your contract, you can leave any time you want but take a look at the world you're entering."

That, I think, is what retains a lot of the military after OpOrd Omega: docking at Norfolk, getting the real picture of what things are like and then being given the "option" to stay in the military. Three hots and a cot plus a gun to defend yourself, plus staying with the people you have fought and bled with for five years or walk out into a post-war wasteland, into the hands of factional local "governments", and assuming you survive the various ongoing social upheavals you get home to a place that looks as bad as Warsaw. I'd tend to think soldiers, even those with dependents, would stay in and continue to serve.

I know I would.