Would France sit out the War?

[dragoon500ly]

Source is "Armies of NATO's Central Front"

"France is a special case, while she remains a member of the NATO alliance, her forces are not part of any NATO integrated military structure, nor are they under NATO control. France goes even further than Norway and Denmark, which do not permit foreign forces to be stationed on their soil during peacetime, by also ruling out NATO exercise and having only limited participation in NATO commands, activity and decision making.

France believes that the independence it seeks in its foreign policy is incompatible with integration into NATO defense planning. Yet, just about all of the decision-makers in the mainstream of French political life realize that the country is totally committed to the West, and the realities of modern geopolitics have forced France to act in concert with her NATO allies in assuring European security. While France retains the right not to participate with NATO forces in a future conflict, plans exist for such participation should it be seen as necessary."

Now, while admiting that GDW had a wonderful plot point, given the world situation in the early 1990s, would France have really sit out a general war?

[Olefin]

I could see them sitting out a conventional war as long as France herself wasnt touched. But GDW stretched the timeline to the point of breaking as believeable when they had France take several hits from Russian nukes on their refineries and oil production capability and they still sat out the war.

I cant see any French government surviving taking several hits from nukes and just sitting it out - you would have a military coup within weeks if not days.

At the very least you would have had some French units say the heck with this and go over to NATO so they could strike back. Now not saying division size units but possibly up to regimental sized units especially those in areas where defection would be easier - i.e. its one thing to march from Brittany to Germany against orders and get away with it, totally another to be on Rhineland occupation duty and defect to NATO or be in the Middle East and take on the Russians.

Add in at least some of their Air Force and Navy as well - unless they ground their whole air force its impossible to stop pilots from going to burner and getting into German air space to join the fight. Same with the navy - especially if the officers are in on it.

This applies to the Belgians as well. A more realistic timeilne would have had either an attempted coup that failed or several "rebel" units that joined NATO from both France and Belguim - especially as the French military having a large vocal minority wanting to take France into the war is mentioned very prominently in Survivors Guide to the UK.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

This applies to the Belgians as well. A more realistic timeilne would have had either an attempted coup that failed or several "rebel" units that joined NATO from both France and Belguim - especially as the French military having a large vocal minority wanting to take France into the war is mentioned very prominently in Survivors Guide to the UK.

My T2k universe has an extant Belgian "rump state" that's wedged between "Free Belgium" (the death zone that France rules) and Germany. They took some hard hits but are more-or-less intact, and are very receptive to US mercenaries in their own army after Omega, having been close NATO allies.

[Badbru]

I could see them sitting out a conventional war as long as France herself wasnt touched. But GDW stretched the timeline to the point of breaking as believeable when they had France take several hits from Russian nukes on their refineries and oil production capability and they still sat out the war.

I still think it's believable. France stayed out initially as they were opposed to renewed German aggression towards Poland. Germany invades in both timelines don't they? The French remember WW2. Once they make that initial decision they kinda politically need to stick to it.
Several hits from Russian nukes you say? Are you sure, are they sure?
The French will want to be certain of the aggressor before doing the one thing that will guarantee more nukes arriving on their doorstep, or have you not considered the Soviet response if France had have joined Nato Forces immediatly after their first home strike. What satelites there were in 95 are gone by 97. Radar might track bombers and ICBM's comming from Russian territory but a Sub launch, hmmn could be a few nations capable of that.

I cant see any French government surviving taking several hits from nukes and just sitting it out - you would have a military coup within weeks if not days.

The French military is pretty busy in La Zone Morte by this stage and they've allready followed their political masters in an invasion of Belgium and Germany
so, now you see them as seditious and willing to attempt a coup?

At the very least you would have had some French units say the heck with this and go over to NATO so they could strike back. Now not saying division size units but possibly up to regimental sized units especially those in areas where defection would be easier - i.e. its one thing to march from Brittany to Germany against orders and get away with it, totally another to be on Rhineland occupation duty and defect to NATO or be in the Middle East and take on the Russians.

Add in at least some of their Air Force and Navy as well - unless they ground their whole air force its impossible to stop pilots from going to burner and getting into German air space to join the fight. Same with the navy - especially if the officers are in on it.

This applies to the Belgians as well. A more realistic timeilne would have had either an attempted coup that failed or several "rebel" units that joined NATO from both France and Belguim - especially as the French military having a large vocal minority wanting to take France into the war is mentioned very prominently in Survivors Guide to the UK.

By your own resoning as to why you couldn't, wouldn't and didn't swallow whole the desertions of US Forces after returning from Omega, or in Texas, it's desertion in a time of war, "They get shot". So you're happy to have French military personel be deserters, side switchers, perhaps even labelled traitors, but it's inconcievable for US personel? Ok

[James Langham]

Who said all the nukes were Soviet? Unlikely to be US but who is likely to be able to tell if sub-launched (I know they could identify the origin of the plutonium but this could be misleading in itself).

Logically would France have gained anything from siding with NATO? With the Pact held in Germany, they gain little by joining in and risk a lot.

France COULD even flirt with the idea of joining the Pact with it's long socialist history. There is great opportunity for a power politics based game with the players playing senior French politicians, military officers and civil servants. There are hints of this in the UK Sourcebook.

[boogiedowndonovan]

This applies to the Belgians as well. A more realistic timeilne would have had either an attempted coup that failed or several "rebel" units that joined NATO from both France and Belguim - especially as the French military having a large vocal minority wanting to take France into the war is mentioned very prominently in Survivors Guide to the UK.

I'm a broken record when it comes to the T2k Belgium.

Consider the demographics of Belgium, over 50% speak a variant of Dutch (Flemish), a significant minority 40% speak French (Walloons) and a smaller minority speaks German. All three are official languages of Belgium. So I don't think the whole nation would automatically side with the French. Most of the Dutch speakers are in the north of the country, most of the French speakers are in the south, the German speakers are also in the south along the border with Germany. Ironically, the capitol, Brussels is mostly French speaking but within the Dutch speaking Flanders area.

In my campaign, Belgium honors its NATO commitments, 1st Paracommando Rgt goes to Norway, Belgian I Corps which has forward units stationed in West Germany mobilizes, possibly when the nukes hit and France pushes through Belgium to establish La Zone Morte , the Belgian armed forces disintegrate as Dutch and French speakers head home.

There may be small Belgian units and individuals who've attached themselves to NATO units and are still fighting in Norway or Central Europe. Or even Belgian military personnel stranded in the US, UK or Canada.

I think a question that should be considered is whether French speaking Belgians consider themselves more "Belgian" or more "French". I would assume that although a good minority of Belgians speak non-Dutch langauges, there is still national sentiment amongst them. I'm not doubting that some French speaking Belgians (and even some Dutch and German speakers) would side with the French, but I can't see the entire nation siding with them.

Another assumption that I have is that the GDW staff didn't even know that most Belgians speak Dutch or that the Belgian military is divided into Dutch and French speaking units.

perhaps once I get off my lazy ass, I will write an article for the T2k gazette about this.

Back on topic, as for the French, I do like the idea of French volunteers supporting and serving with NATO units.

[Raellus]

Of all of the alternative history elements in the T2K v1.0 (the only timeline, AFAIC), I find the French position to be the most believable. IRL, France always stayed on the periphery of NATO, preferring to retain as much political/military autonomy as possible, and playing a sort of double game pitting the west versus the east, while simultaneously flirting with both. Since WWII, France has put its own self interest above that of any alliance, and the T2K creators simply continued this policy to a logical conclusion.

In T2K, France benefits much more by staying out of the war than it likely would have by jumping in on NATO's side.

There's historical precedence for this. France didn't attack Germany when it invaded Poland in 1939, despite a standing alliance with the Poles. Despite having one of the largest militaries in Europe at the time, France quite simply did not want another war with Germany. It talked tough, but when it came to backing it up, France took the path of least resistance. I can see this repeating in 1996-'97, when its nominal ally, Germany, invaded Poland. First, German reunification would likely have dredged up old fears of a powerful German neighbor, and if the French goverment at the time was left-leaning, perhaps pros-socialist sympathies as well. Second, by practicing restraint after being nuked a couple of times, France avoids getting nuked a whole lot more. Its opportunism also results in territorial gains in the Benelux countries. And by playing a long-game, France becomes a global power (in the 2300 timeline

It's a winning foreign policy, both in the short term and in the long-run. It makes a lot of sense, both historically, and in terms of realpolitik.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

There's a story, probably apocryphal, that when de Gaulle told Macnamara that he planned to withdraw militarily from NATO and wanted all US troops removed from French soil the response was "Does that mean the ones we buried at Normandy, too, you son of a bitch?"

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Also: if you're of the mind that France didn't withdraw from NATO and wind up as a Post-TDM belligerent nation, then real world events dovetail nicely: in 1995 France realigned it's military more with NATO and started more active participation in NATO operations, increasing on a yearly basis and they're now a full member again (although clearly T2k changes everything from '96 onward).

So if you're playing with the idea that France comes back in to line with NATO, there's real-world events to support that point of view.

[stg58fal]

France COULD even flirt with the idea of joining the Pact

So since they dont actually get invaded, they skip "surrender" and go directly to "collaborate", eh? :D

[Olefin]

its very obvious that the nukes that hit the French had to be Soviet

the US would have to be insane to nuke the French - they are sitting right on the US supply lines into Europe for one. For another they have a bunch of nicely nuke capable jets and nuclear capable aircraft that can launch nuclear missiles and drop bombs and basically wipe out what is left of the US and Germans

Plus the French radar system would have still been intact - that system would have been able to identify by trajectory and speed what kind of missiles were coming in on them and thus id the launch as US or Soviet

as for it happening - multiple references in the canon of all the timelines of France being nuked during the war to take out petroleum facilities

V2.2 timeline makes direct reference to it - i.e. France was hit by nukes to deny their ports and oil refining facilities to NATO

Howling Wildnerness in its description of 1997 also has the French and Venezuela hit by nukes to take out their petroleum facilities as well

[Olefin]

its the getting nuked part and not joining the war that makes no sense

just sitting it out and letting the US and Soviets and Germans and the UK tear themselves to pieces - very French, very believeable - as in a la Red Dawn - twice in one century is enough

Getting nuked and just taking it - nope no way - at the very least they would have retaliated, hit the Soviets with a few nukes and said if you nuke us again then we join NATO and we are at war - i.e. you took out Toulon so we take out Sevastopol or the naval base at Leningrad or Murmansk or Archangel

[HorseSoldier]

If they join the war they are going to get a lot more megatonnage for the .sovs. It's pretty likely the Soviets communicated this to them. And it's plausibly French to be rational about things when the chips are down.

[Olefin]

then why not join the war later - i.e. wait till the Soviets are close to down and out and finish the job? i.e. after the Soviets have broken down, push them over the cliff in revenge for their lost cities? and by 2000 the Soviets would have no idea where the nukes came from

I just dont see the French, at some point, not giving the Soviets one hell of a bloody nose for what they did to them

basically what they are doing in the Middle East and Africa right now is a proxy war with them already

I worked for a French company at one time that built military equipment for the French army - seeing the Germans take a hit and having a good time watching it makes a lot of sense - but the French are very very patriotic about their country - they would have hit back and hit back hard - or their government would have fallen and the new one would have hit back hard

[HorseSoldier]

Because it was a limited exchange -- even 2000, the remnants of the Soviet government or US government had, at least in theory, enough megatonnage to destroy France. Whether or not either nation had enough functional command and control to do so would be a huge question mark which the French were likely unable to be 100% about. The realpolitik (if it can even be called that) of not being annihilated has trumped national pride and patriotism quite a bit since WW2, worldwide, and the parts of that equation are still partially in effect I the T2K year 2000.

[dragoon500ly]

From a logistical standpoint, it would be hard for NATO to standup to a Soviet attack. Leaving France out of the mix, the major ports would be Antwerp (Belgium), Kiel, Hamburg and Bremenhaven (West Germany), Rotterdam and Amsterdam (Holland). That's right! The major major supply lines for NATO run roughly northwest to south in Germany...rand in an excellent position for an advancing Russian tank army to cut...and I wonder what multi-star genius thought that idea would work during wartime!

Of these, Kiel and Hamburg would both be knocked out of action within a very short period of time, both are well within SSM range of the border and any major attack by the Russians would lead to their capture/isolation. Bremenhaven is a fair sized port, but the loss of Kiel/Hamburg would make this one of the major nuke targets for the Soviets,

Which leaves the Dutch/Begium ports. Of these Antwerp would be THE major port...and a ripe target for several nukes, not to mention being fairly easy to mine. Rotterdam/Amsterdam are good size ports, but their sea approaches are a nightmare of shallows that requires near constant dredging to keep open.

Which leaves France, and its support of NATO as the big question; Brest, Cherbourg and Bordeaux would be the key ports for NATO, all attached by major road/railways and fairly safe from air attack as well as being much harder for the Soviet Navy/Air Force to strike.

This makes France's decision to support, or not support NATO so important.

[Webstral]

France really had to sit out the NATO offensives into East Germany and across Poland for things to be somewhat in balance.

We know that China was all-in on the Far Eastern Front. The Soviets were so badly pressed that they were withdrawing forces from Eastern Europe and taking Warsaw Pact formations to make up the numbers. The West German invasion came reasonably close to success. The sudden introduction of 10+ Anglo-American heavy divisions, plus the full weight of the RAF and USAF, would have been absolutely devastating for the Pact forces in East Germany. Were it not for the contents of the Soviet Vehicle Guide stating otherwise, I’d expect whole armies to be enveloped and destroyed in the DDR. As it is, the best interpretation of the given histories I can make is that the Anglo-American forces behaved much as NATO forces do after the counterattack into the Krefeld Salient in General Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War: they push forward less with the intention of inflicting a decisive defeat on the enemy than getting the enemy off German soil. Falaise Gap-style openings would not have been closed, and tens or hundreds of thousands of Pact troops would have been allowed to withdraw. Combat equipment might have drawn very heavy fire, but streams of troops might not have been subjected to a Highway of Death-style punishment in an effort to end the fighting on somewhat good terms with the Soviets.

The addition of the French military, along possibly with the Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Belgian militaries, would have severely overpowered the Soviets. At the very least, French participation in NATO would have nullified the Italian intervention in Austria and southern Germany. Also, the French might have had the common sense to point out that the Soviets would go nuclear once NATO troops crossed the Soviet border. That’s not a given, of course. But the French at least would not be shy about disagreeing with SACEUR and POTUS. Cutting out the French and the other NATO members who bail makes the NATO-Pact contest in Europe more balanced than it otherwise would be. So in a very real sense, the French have to sit out the fight.

In hindsight, of course, we know that the French were willing to have Germany reunited. It actually happened. But who could have predicted as much in 1984? I had high school social studies teachers who swore on their mothers’ graves that Germany would never be reunited, and the Soviet Union would last forever. Their views reflected the conventional wisdom of the day.

[James Langham]

Do the French have the capability to hit Russia with nukes? I'm no expert on strategic nuclear weapons. If they have sub launched what is the range? If they do have the range maybe the submarine is destroyed by either side in error.

As for the Soviets they may have hit limited targets with a warning that any retaliation would be met with massive strikes. The trigger for this could be French action in the Middle East that threatened the Soviets, maybe small skirmishes or covert actions (about which the French government might be unaware - consider DGSE's actions over the Rainbow Warrior) and the Kremlin (or at least the survivors from the rubble of it!) wanted to send a message to stay out or else.

What really needs to be worked out is the political make up of the French Government, can anyone recall anything from canon on this?

[dragoon500ly]

At the time, France fielded:

18 SSBS S-3 IRBM (1MT wearhead and range of 3,500km).
42 Pluton SSM (10KT warhead and range of 120km).
16 Mirage IVA with the AN-22 nuclear bomb (60 KT), max range of 3,200km.
18 Mirage IVA with the ASMP nuclear bomb (70-90KT?), max range of 3,200km.
30 Mirage IIIE with the AN-52 (15KT), max range of 2,400km.
36 Super Etendard with the AN-52 (15KT), max range of 1,500km.
80 M-4 SLBM (6x150KT warheads and 4,000km range).
16 + 16 M-45 SLBM (6x150KT warheads and 5,000km range).
0 + 16 M5 SLBM (6x150KT with rqange of 5,000km, in service 1997-98).

[pmulcahy11b]

The question is, "Would the Russians let the French sit out the war?" I can't see the Russians not hitting the French to deny NATO the use of their ports and to cut off the possibility that the French might throw in with NATO early in the war.

[Olefin]

Maybe the real question is how long will the French continue to sit out the war - the timeline basically stopped in the early spring of 2001. While the war in Europe has pretty much petered out in Germany and Poland the war in the Middle East is still very much on - and there the French are there in force directly in contact with the Russians or at least Russian backed forces in Iraq.

So will France finally get into the war with the Soviets directly but only in the Middle East? Not so much by directly engaging the Soviets but possibly by taking on their proxy forces in Iraq? Or maybe staging an excuse so they can hit the Soviets hard and get some payback. Especially if doing so allows CENTCOM to pull out for home with a Soviet defeat and leave them as the only power remaining in the Middle East?

By the way - as to the Soviets using nukes on France by the 2000-2001 era I dont see that as very likely. The events of Boomer suggest that the Soviets may no longer have any operational nuclear missiles that can reach France - i.e. those missiles on the boomer they were trying to recover may be the only ones they have left

i.e. From the module "The potential of intact nuclear missiles and a submarine to launch them fanned the embers of vengeance in Kozlov's mind, and they soon burst into flame"

The Soviets may have done what MilGov did in the US - i.e. removed the warheads off their remaining missiles to keep them from being used against them by rebels. Thus the French by 2001 may be where they can finally hit back against the Soviets for what they did to them in 1997 and be able to do it without any risk of the Soviets being able to use their nukes on them.

[Rainbow Six]

I've always assumed that the French (and Belgian) "withdrawal" from NATO would have included refusing to allow NATO forces to use Belgian / French ports, in which case the Soviets wouldn't have had to take any overt action to deny NATO use of French ports before November 1997 if the French Government were already denying such use.

Obviously we know the French were nuked by someone at the end of 1997 -although I have in the past had a different position on this, arguments put forward on these boards have caused me to change my mind, and I'm now inclined to agree with the point put forward by Horsesoldier, i.e. that if the French join the war they risk getting a much heavier megatonnage dropped on them so stay out (I'm also inclined to agree that there may well have been some sort of communication between the French and Soviet Governments to that effect).

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I realize this is wandering further afield from Canon, but bear with me...

Maybe France staying in is exactly why it got nuked. As was said upthread, a united NATO would squash the USSR in Central Europe - maybe that's exactly what the USSR feared and struck preemptively. France is sitting on its hinder, waiting for things to sort out, and then starts mobilizing troops when it looks like a NATO win is a fait accompli, and they offer to open up le Harve and other ports to full NATO usage, and French "observers" are seen moving in to position in Western Germany.

This encourages Italy to start doing similar moves.

The USSR then nukes France and she quickly withdraws, and Italy "gets the message" and becomes neutral/belligerent (I mean they sank a good portion of the USN in being during the last attempt to send a resupply convoy to Southern Europe so...)

Just idle speculation.

[Adm.Lee]

Do we know for certain that the French IRBM's didn't pay the Soviets back for the hits on their ports?

[Rainbow Six]

Do we know for certain that the French IRBM's didn't pay the Soviets back for the hits on their ports?

Not aware of any published material that specifically says one way or the other. (At the risk of going off on a tangent, a French sourcebook might have been quite interesting...)

Those who do advocate a French attack on the USSR might be interested in this page on the etranger site which puts forward a scenario where that happened:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Historical/PGAA1.htm

[Adm.Lee]

Not aware of any published material that specifically says one way or the other. (At the risk of going off on a tangent, a French sourcebook might have been quite interesting...)

Those who do advocate a French attack on the USSR might be interested in this page on the etranger site which puts forward a scenario where that happened:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Historical/PGAA1.htm

That may have given me the idea; it seems logical and fitting to me.

[Raellus]

I realize this is wandering further afield from Canon, but bear with me...

Maybe France staying in is exactly why it got nuked. As was said upthread, a united NATO would squash the USSR in Central Europe - maybe that's exactly what the USSR feared and struck preemptively. France is sitting on its hinder, waiting for things to sort out, and then starts mobilizing troops when it looks like a NATO win is a fait accompli, and they offer to open up le Harve and other ports to full NATO usage, and French "observers" are seen moving in to position in Western Germany.

This encourages Italy to start doing similar moves.

The USSR then nukes France and she quickly withdraws, and Italy "gets the message" and becomes neutral/belligerent (I mean they sank a good portion of the USN in being during the last attempt to send a resupply convoy to Southern Europe so...)

Just idle speculation.

Seems quite logical to me. Wouldn't be the first time a sharp punch in the nose forced the French to back down and reexamine its own best interests.

[Olefin]

I would think that France standing down after a nuclear strike without hitting back would have definitely had a coup attempt that would have had to fail for the timeline to go forward as it did.

Something like what happened at the end of WWII - i.e. when the Emperor recorded the surrender address a bunch of hard line Japanese officers tried to overthrown the govt but failed and the surrender went ahead.

Something similar most likely happened here as I cant see conservative members of the French military and government just accepting getting nuked and applauding the decision to not hit back and hit back hard - or to not join the war whole heartedly after a lot of French citizens were killed.

Consider the following list from Wikipedia of French refineries and you can see how many nukes we are talking about just to hit them - and this is the list of those over 100,000 bbl/day which I have seen posted here before as what was considered the threshold for a nuclear strike.

Provence Refinery, (Total), 155,000 bbl/d (24,600 m3/d)

Normandy Refinery, (Total), 350,000 bbl/d (56,000 m3/d)

Flandres Refinery, (Total), 160,000 bbl/d (25,000 m3/d)

Donges Refinery, (Total), 231,000 bbl/d (36,700 m3/d)

Feyzin Refinery, (Total), 119,000 bbl/d (18,900 m3/d)

Grandpuits Refinery, (Total), 99,000 bbl/d (15,700 m3/d)

Port Jérôme-Gravenchon Refinery, 270,000 bbl/d (43,000 m3/d)

Fos-sur-Mer Refinery, (ExxonMobil), 140,000 bbl/d (22,000 m3/d)

Petit Couronne Refinery, (Petroplus), 142,000 bbl/d (22,600 m3/d)

Lavera Marseilles Refinery, (Ineos), 220,000 bbl/d (35,000 m3/d)

Thats a lot of nuclear strikes in a country that is a nuclear power and it just sits there and takes it.

Assuming they didnt hit back you would have most likely had a significant amount of the French military going over the hill to join NATO. Probably on the order of as much as 25 percent of their total military perhaps even higher, with some naval ships and aircraft for sure added to that list. (doesnt take much on burner to go from patrolling the Dead Zone to landing at a Luftwaffe base or go from patrolling the English Channel to landing in the UK)

That could also explain the gaps in French units that was talked about quite a while ago here by me and others - i.e. that the RDF units are significantly understrength for a country not at war.

Well one reason could be Frenchmen who couldnt just sit back and let the Soviets hit their country and joined NATO to fight. Possibly even in their own units, similar to the Waffen SS French unit that was formed in WWII.

[Rainbow Six]

The USSR then nukes France and she quickly withdraws, and Italy "gets the message" and becomes neutral/belligerent (I mean they sank a good portion of the USN in being during the last attempt to send a resupply convoy to Southern Europe so...)

With regard to the Italians, they are already committed as a belligerent before the nuclear exchanges begin (at least in V2.X - following the signing of a mutual defence pact with Greece in February 97, Italy declares War on NATO on 02 July 97, whilst the first use of nuclear weapons takes place on 09 July 97. V1 dates may differ).

[Olefin]

Thats right - Italy was already at war long before the nukes started to fly - always thought the only way they would have joined the war would be with a takeover by Socialists. I cant see Christian Democrats ever joining a war on the US and Germany - not without being attacked first.

Especially since the only areas in Italy that have ties to Greece and thus would go to war over them being attacked are the southern areas, Sardinia and Sicily - and they are not traditionally ones that have much power in the modern Italian government.

[Rainbow Six]

Thats right - Italy was already at war long before the nukes started to fly

Unless I'm mistaken it's exactly one week from when the Italians entered the War to the first use of nuclear weapons

always thought the only way they would have joined the war would be with a takeover by Socialists. I cant see Christian Democrats ever joining a war on the US and Germany - not without being attacked first.

It appears that's exactly what GDW had happening - from the BYB (V2.2) page 11

In late February (1997) the socialist Governments of Italy and Greece conclude a mutual defence pact

[Olefin]

V2.2

On July 1 st, 1997 Greece declares war against the NATO nations, and Italy, in compliance with her treaty obligations, follows suit on the 2nd

First use of nukes in Europe against civilian targets doesnt happen till the end of September. They were used against military formations only earlier as you stated so that is correct.

However the strikes against the French, which is the ones we were referring to that might have knocked the French out of considering any joining in the war didnt happen until November.

[Rainbow Six]

V2.2

On July 1 st, 1997 Greece declares war against the NATO nations, and Italy, in compliance with her treaty obligations, follows suit on the 2nd

First use of nukes in Europe against civilian targets doesnt happen till the end of September. They were used against military formations only earlier as you stated so that is correct.

However the strikes against the French, which is the ones we were referring to that might have knocked the French out of considering any joining in the war didnt happen until November.

That's why I specifically stated the first use of nuclear weapons twice, but in any event I think we're agreed that the general nuclear exchanges from jul - nov 97 wouldn't have had an effect on Italy's participation as a belligerent on the warpac side.

[Webstral]

I’m not at all sold on the idea that France does not go nuke-for-nuke with the USSR. Why in God’s name would they have a nuclear arsenal if not to go nuke-for-nuke with the Soviets? As de Gaulle pointed out, it is not necessary to kill the enemy—only tear off an arm. The Soviets aren’t going to go nuclear with France in a separate show from the main East-West confrontation because hurting France won’t do much to the NATO war effort (if France is neutral), but French retaliatory nukes will definitely affect the Soviet war effort. France won’t get hit until the show starts winding down such that an intact France represents an intolerable salient of Western power. The idea that France would passively accept a mushroom cloud over any French city while the French nuclear arsenal remains unable stretches credibility pretty darned far.

[HorseSoldier]

Is there a published list of targets in France? I am not recalling one.

The Soviets don't have to hit every large refinery and major port in France to achieve their objective, which would be denying French facilities to NATO. I can see a pretty logical progression of other ports and fuel production available to NATO being taken off the board when the tactical and then strategic nukes fly. NATO's desperation may have allowed France sufficient ability to name their price that France might have loosened, or made political rumblings about loosening, their neutrality -- say, only allowing materiel for humanitarian disaster relief to go through. That may have been enough to trigger limited Soviet strikes less to eradicate French refining and shipping as to nudge them back out of even marginal support for NATO.

Or Soviet paranoia that France might open its ports and fuel reserves to NATO is entirely enough to trigger some strikes to show resolve and force a resolution involving continued French neutrality.

Neither of which precludes French retaliatory strikes from the scenario. I'd personally think that if France did not answer back at all they'd have taken more hits than they did.

As things went, I think we're discussing an extremely limited number of strikes -- less than five, probably 2-3, taken and reciprocated. France is depicted as having enough fuel reserves and refining capacity to function in the manner of a pre-nuke military, so the thumping can't have been that bad.

There is a viable alternate argument that the US/UK made the strikes. Either overtly to try and force France to open its ports, refineries and other facilities to support the war effort or (as was suggested up thread) as a black flag operation to try and provoke French entry against the Soviets. The former seems unlikely to me, since by that point in the war NATO has a lot more to lose from France not standing up to bullying than the Soviets do. Of course at a certain point -- after France invaded West Germany and the Netherlands to put its border on the Rhine, nuking France might start making a lot more sense. It might honestly be seen as obligatory.

The black flag option -- once the strategic strikes start, what's one more random SLBM launch from somewhere north of the Iceland-UK part of the G-I-UK gap?

(And, sitting here thinking about it, what about an atomic demolition charge? I think there might be an interesting campaign there. During the peak nuclear phase of the exchange, a group of SF types -- maybe Dutch or German, once the dead zone is established, maybe other NATO nation(s) -- get sent on a mission behind Soviet lines to seize some nuke man packs. Mission accomplished, same guys get ordered to smuggle said weapons back through Central Europe as the nukes fly, conventional fighting continues, and refugees, deserters, and marauders wander. Maybe the target for the original mission is situated so the PCs have to thread the eye of the NATO vs Italy fighting in southern Germany and Austria. Anyway, PCs are then to infiltrate the French border and deliver strikes with Soviet man pack nukes on multiple targets. Pretty murky but possibly a good sort of T2K/espionage fusion campaign. One could make it easy on PCs by having most or all of them being fluent French speakers, or not -- obviously by that phase of the war even for a mission involving national asset level SF you use what you've got available rather than wait for a 100% solution that may never arrive.)

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Does anyone know if France has a SIOP-like plan?

A decapitation strike on Paris followed up by Le Harvre, Calais, and a few other key points would pretty much knock them on their asses if France didn't have a SIOP in place.

[Raellus]

Where is the published French target list? The arguments that France got nuked hard and responded in kind don't hold much water considering what the published timeline stuff has to say about France's condition vis-a-vis the rest of western Europe c. 2000.

If one assumes every major French port facility and refinery is hit by a Soviet nuclear weapon, then yes, it does strain credulity to posit that France doesn't retaliate in kind. But where's the evidence that France got hit that hard? If it did, why didn't it join NATO in its larger war against the USSR/WTO? To suggest that France gets hit hard by the Soviets AND retaliates in kind BUT then sits on the sidelines, and still manages to avoid the destruction Germany and the UK experiences, doesn't make any more sense than the restraint argument.

On the other hand, if the Soviets hit only one or three such strategic French targets, combining that with the threat of much more to come unless the French deny the use of said ports to NATO, then I'm not sure it's such a stretch. We're not talking about Imperial Japan here, we're talking about France- the same country that sued for peace and set up the collaborationist Vichy government rather than continue fighting the Nazis when they still had the capacity (but not the willpower or strong leadership) to do so.

Just because one has the means to retaliate doesn't dictate that they will.

The published material is clear that France leaves NATO, sustains much less nuclear destruction than any other major NATO country, and opportunistically takes advantage of its eastern neighbors' weakened state. For this to occur, France can't have had a major nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

[Targan]

(And, sitting here thinking about it, what about an atomic demolition charge? I think there might be an interesting campaign there. During the peak nuclear phase of the exchange, a group of SF types -- maybe Dutch or German, once the dead zone is established, maybe other NATO nation(s) -- get sent on a mission behind Soviet lines to seize some nuke man packs. Mission accomplished, same guys get ordered to smuggle said weapons back through Central Europe as the nukes fly, conventional fighting continues, and refugees, deserters, and marauders wander. Maybe the target for the original mission is situated so the PCs have to thread the eye of the NATO vs Italy fighting in southern Germany and Austria. Anyway, PCs are then to infiltrate the French border and deliver strikes with Soviet man pack nukes on multiple targets. Pretty murky but possibly a good sort of T2K/espionage fusion campaign. One could make it easy on PCs by having most or all of them being fluent French speakers, or not -- obviously by that phase of the war even for a mission involving national asset level SF you use what you've got available rather than wait for a 100% solution that may never arrive.)

In my last campaign, after the PC party successfully infiltrated and triggered a demolition nuke at the WarPac Reserve Front HQ in Lublin, the PCs were keen to attempt a similar operation against France. They didn't have a second backpack nuke but when they got back to Bremerhaven Major Po tried to sell the proposal to the US commanders there. US forces were in full-blown withdrawal mode by then and the idea fell on deaf ears but Po was still keen on the idea when he got back to CONUS. By then MilGov was keen to keep the French on good terms to continue the profitable Franco-US cooperation in the Middle East. The Joint Chiefs wouldn't have been willing to risk a nuke-equipped US team being caught inside France. In any case, as GM I never allowed Po's player to know how far up the chain his proposal had been heard.

[Graebarde]

Does France have ANY dometic oil production (wells/fields, not refineries)?

Where do they import their oil from?


If they have to import, and the production fields are closed, it doesn't matter if they can refine a billion barrels a day if they don't have the product to do it with.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Does France have ANY dometic oil production (wells/fields, not refineries)?

Where do they import their oil from?


If they have to import, and the production fields are closed, it doesn't matter if they can refine a billion barrels a day if they don't have the product to do it with.

From here:

http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/france-facts/economy-of-france.htm

we see that:


With virtually no domestic oil production, France has relied heavily on the development of nuclear power, which now accounts for about 80% of the country's electricity production.


Now, does that mean they have no oil-bearing strata or lack the willpower to dig for it in their own backyard? Either way after the missiles fly they're going to be importing: setting up a refinery from zero requires nontrivial technology use that would likely require expertise and equipment that like everything in every other country calls for a degree of trade and import, two things that are not going to be happening much at all from 1997 to 20??.

With that said the authors wanted a forever crippled/subservient US, so at some juncture France gets its shit together and seizes control of just about everything, so clearly they do get POL up and running.

[HorseSoldier]

Oil is why they're parked in Kuwait in the RDF Sourcebook, isn't it?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Oil is why they're parked in Kuwait in the RDF Sourcebook, isn't it?

Yep.

[Rainbow Six]

Where do they import their oil from?

In addition to the Middle East, North and West Africa are also both possibilities dependent on how badly they've been hit. North Africa is touched on in Med Cruise but I'm not sure about the state of affairs in West Africa - I think consensus has generally been that Nigeria would get hit, but there are a lot more oil producing areas in Africa - if the Middle East didn't get flattened it's reasonable to assume that Africa didn't either. I'm going from memory here, but the V2 NATO guide has French troops based in Libreville in Gabon as well as somewhere else in West Africa (Ivory Coast maybe?)

[Olefin]

this line from V2.2 suggests that Nigeria, Libya and other areas producing oil got hit in Africa (we know that Libya is out of business from Med Cruise)

"Except for petroleum-producing areas, the bulk of the continent escaped the war, but prewar events combined with global chaos have taken their toll."

There is no way they didnt hit Nigeria - they alone produce more than enough to keep NATO, or whats left of it, awash in oil if their oil producing areas were still intact and functional.

And the line about no sizeable refinery closer than Romania also suggests every major refinery over the magic 100,000 bbl/day number got taken out as well - which would explain why Mombasa's refinery is still there (its only at 78,000) per Frank Frey and the ones in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Senegal, Nigeria and other areas are gone.

V2.2 also has this - "France: Although ostensibly neutral in the war, France was still subjected to nuclear attacks to deny its port and oil refining facilities to NATO. Damage was largely confined to the coasts, but the resulting casualties were severe."

As per the list I submitted if they hit every oil refining target at or over 100,000 bbl/day then you are talking about 10 refineries going up in nuclear smoke. And if its ports you have to start putting a bunch more targets up as well - possibly as many as 15-16 nukes hitting France.

Places like Calais, St. Nazaire and the ports in Brittany are probably just smoking ruins by late 1997.

Thats a lot of nukes.

And they arent awash in oil or able to act like a pre-war military oil wise - Going Home makes that pretty clear

"Units in the dead zone are in constant radio communication
with their base. If they get into more trouble than they can handle
alone, they can call for and receive support in the form of
airstrikes or airmobile reinforcements (unlike their opponents,
the French Army still has a small quantity of functional aircraft
and the fuel to run them). Avgas does not grow on trees,
however, and the platoon who calls for aviation help had better
have a good reason for doing so."

A small quantity of functional aircraft and enough avgas to run a small quantity of aircraft is not a pre-war Army.

That could imply also that their aircraft industry got hit as well to some extent and aircraft spare parts are in short supply.

And while France is getting oil from the Middle East (per the RDF it mentions that most is consumed locally, but a trickle is exported
by the various nations who control the oilfields. This trade in
oil is slowing, as attrition reduces the number of ships available.
What remains is now mostly with nations of the Franco-Belgian
Union) with most of their refineries and ports knocked out they wont have much in the way of production.

Again - if they took at least 15 nukes if not more (ports plus those ten refineries most likely) then they had to hit back and hit back hard. Or face, at the least, a de Gaullist coup to overthrown the government.

Its the one thing that is really missing from all the versions - I cant believe there is no French sourcebook.

[Olefin]

keep in mind guys that the strikes on the refineries may have been pin point strikes with small nukes - you only need about .25 megatons at most to really screw up a port or refinery

they arent using city busters - i.e. they arent taking out Paris - but a lot of French ports are very congested as to civilian housing areas being right on top of the port area itself - you would have a lot of deaths

and in Europe the workers tend to live right next to the plants they are working at - the Renault plant in Lyon for instance was right in the middle of a ton of houses and apts - you hit that with any kind of nuke and you kill 20-30K civilians no matter how pinpoint you are

2-3 nukes wouldnt do the job mentioned in V2.2 - you are taking over a dozen minimum considering how many ports that NATO could conceiveably use on the Atlantic and Med coasts along with taking out refinining capacity

[Rainbow Six]

With regards to whether French ports were or were not targets for nuclear attack, it's worth bearing in mind that even in belligerent nations ports were not always targeted. For example in the Survivor's Guide to the UK Portsmouth and Plymouth, both of which are major ports and Naval bases, were not nuclear targets (to the extent that Portsmouth now serves as the canon UK Capital). Bremerhaven also appears to be intact enough to support the US and British evacuations in late 2000.

[Raellus]

Again - if they took at least 15 nukes if not more (ports plus those ten refineries most likely) then they had to hit back and hit back hard. Or face, at the least, a de Gaullist coup to overthrown the government.

Its the one thing that is really missing from all the versions - I cant believe there is no French sourcebook.

And if they hit back hard, why are they considered neutral? Why not throw their full weight behind the folks (NATO) fighting the folks (USSR) that nuked them so hard? Why risk further nuclear strikes by launching large scale retaliatory strikes?

The fact is, France remains neutral. France does not get hit as hard as Germany, the UK, or the USA. It does not support NATO. In fact, it invades at least one neighboring NATO country. This does not suggest a nation at war with the Soviet Union. It doesn't not suggest a badly hurt, hungry-for-vengeance country. It suggests a country doing its utmost to avoid full-blown [nuclear] war with the Soviets. It suggests an opportunistic, rather than idealist, nation.

I posted these arguments yesterday and, so far, no one on the other side of the debate has even attempted to refute them. Ignoring something doesn't make it go away.

[Rainbow Six]

Its the one thing that is really missing from all the versions - I cant believe there is no French sourcebook.

It would be an interesting project to try and create one, although it might be a challenge to put together something that would have broad appeal given the limited canon material and the range of differing opinions on France. I've toyed with the idea a couple of times as a companion piece to my UK work but I've been discouraged by a lack of time and the fact that I'm not French, so don't have sufficient knowledge of French culture, politics, etc.

[Olefin]

Actually the post by Rainbow Six earlier is the counterargument

"Those who do advocate a French attack on the USSR might be interested in this page on the etranger site which puts forward a scenario where that happened:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dh...ical/PGAA1.htm"

- it specifically mentions a limited French counterattack on the Soviets that basically says hit us again and we are at war with you but they stay neutral in the war - i.e. they hit the Soviets back but dont join the war in any way after that and the Soviets take the hint

and the French are neutral but they arent stupid either - no government could take being hit by nukes and say we wont hit back - not going to happen no matter how realistic or fantastical the scenario

seeing your people die under nukes when you were neutral and got hit anyway and doing nothing says MILITARY COUP in letters about 300 feet high - i.e basically what happened to bring De Gaulle to power with what happened in Algeria but this time with a lot more power and force because of the large amounts of deaths on French soil and the govt just taking it

that doesnt mean they join the war - it means a hit back to say dont screw with us again or we are in and in all the way

as for the US doing it - no way - the French are sitting on the jugular line of supplies for the US to their forces in Europe - plus the French would not be helping the US logistically in the Middle East if we nuked them - if anything they would have joined the Soviets in kicking us out

now there is one alternative that is suggested by the wording of V2.2 that says maybe they didnt hit back and that there was a coup attempt that failed, possibly with some of the military in on it as well

i.e. "Some areas (the mountains, especially) are in open rebellion against the central government, and martial law is in effect almost everywhere"

those areas could have risen against the central government because France took that hit and just sat there and took it without hitting back - would give a reason for why they are in rebellion - and the mountains would be where rebel or dissident military forces could hold out against the rest of the loyal military -

[Raellus]

You're ignoring the historical precedent. How did the French government respond to the Nazi invasion in 1940? There's nothing "fantasical" about that.

Also, you assume Soviet cooperation with the French strategy described in the link. In terms of their respective nuclear arsenals, the Soviets have the capacity to destroy France; the French don't have the capacity to destroy the Soviet Union. Why would the Soviets back down?

I've never argued for a U.S. nuclear strike on French targets.

[Olefin]

I didnt say you argued for the US hitting France -that is a reply to earlier posts thinking it might have been the US that hit them by other posters.

I think the Soviets would have backed down after a French counterstrike for three reasons

1) Its limited and its communicated as such - this is in response to what you did to us. If you reply then we are at war. And by limited I am thinking the French hit a couple of targets - enough to say we got pay back and mollify their military but not enough to push the Soviets over the edge.

2) The USSR by then would have taken a lot of hits from the US and the UK and all they dont need is facing another nuclear power hitting them with their full arsenal.

3) The Soviets already had nuked what they wanted to nuke in France - NATO didnt have ports to use and French refining capablites are severely impacted - their is nothing to gain with more nukes and a lot to lose if France joins the war.

Thus France hitting back in a communicated limited fashion and then staying neutral because the Soviets take the hint works.

This isnt the Nazis attacking France with a hundred plus divisions in 1940 - the Soviets didnt take out Paris, Lyon, etc.. - it was a limited strike on limited targets.

In other words, in this one case, nuclear deterrence worked for both sides - the Soviets took out the targets they wanted, the French hit back for national pride in a limited way and then the war, such as it was, between them came to an end.

And by the way - the French being neutral doesnt mean they couldnt have had a short war of their own against the Soviets. It means they didnt join NATO in their war. So could they have had a two day war of their own - i.e. the Soviets hit them, they hit back and thats it and they dont join NATO in the general war and thus the timeline is still intact?

The answer is yes.

However that doesnt mean they did.

It just means that a short Franco Soviet War of basically exchanging two limited nuclear strikes is possible without France joining NATO in their war and thus staying neutral as far as NATO versus the Soviets are concerned.

[Raellus]

I guess your take is somewhat plausible, Olefin. I guess I just prefer my France pusilanimous and duplicitous. I also prefer my alternative history, v1.0 T2K-style.

My France is a little left of center and very alarmed at the forced reunification of Germany (v1.0) and subsequent fighting with Soviet forces still stationed there. "Within a week [of the bloodless military coup in W. Germany in early December of 1996], France, Belgium, Italy, and Greece first demanded that U.S. troops withdraw to their start line, and then withdrew from NATO completely." (v.10 Twilight 2000: Referee's Manual, p. 24).

My France wants to avoid any kind of war with the Soviet Union. My France breaks with NATO well before nuclear weapons come into play at all. In fact, in v1.0, there's very little, if any, reason for the Soviets to have used nuclear weapons on France. Even if they did so, it was likely only very lightly. Read on.

"1998... In Europe, France and Blegium had been hit the lightest and stood virtually alone in maintaining a semblance of internal order throughout the cataclysm. As refugees began flooding across their borders, the French and Belgian governments closed their frontiers and military units began turning back refugees with gunfire. The French government authorized the army to move west to the Rhine to secure a solid geographical barrier." (v.10 Twilight 2000: Referee's Manual, p. 26) That's the last time France is mentioned in the chronology. This also fits with the 2300 world, as I understand it.

[HorseSoldier]

+1 on the ver1.0 timeline. Version 2.x really did nothing to improve the chronology or the game mechanics, in my opinion.

As was noted, the 2300 timeline implies both France and Japan weathered the Twilight War in comparatively very good order. The main problem there is that I think the 2300 timeline was written before the publication of Howling Wilderness and later supplements and the Drought storyline is not consistent with it. There was definitely no effort made to keep the 2.x additional information consistent with 2300AD (or overly consistent with ver 1.0).

Anyway, I think there are two separate issues on the table here -- first, why didn't France nuke back at the Soviets. I don't think anyone is opposed to the concept that a limited exchange took place. The other is why France did not join NATO in the war -- and I think the majority of people are entirely comfortable with the fact that the game setting says they didn't, so they didn't.

(Though honestly it doesn't make any difference in the game except for potentially tweaking things a bit in a couple of supplements -- if that. When I played Going Home years ago, nobody went anywhere near the dead zone, for instance. You could play a full run from Kalisz back to the US and all the US modules without France having any impact at all . . .)

[Webstral]

On this one, I find myself supporting a position very similar to Olefin’s. A very limited Franco-Soviet nuclear exchange is quite likely for reasons I have beaten into the ground. I believe the timing would coincide with other Soviet strikes against important neutral nations. The same tit-for-tat logic that would apply to US-USSR exchanges would apply to a Franco-Soviet exchange as well. The French will reply in kind to Soviet attacks until the French nuclear capability ceases to exist. France enters the Twilight War with 500+ nuclear devices.

The French nuclear capability was based on the idea that if they could kill more Soviets than there were French for the Soviets to kill, the Soviets would find France an unrewarding and therefore uninviting target. Although the logic of a limited East-West exchange altered the equation somewhat, the unhappy fact remained that France could hurt the USSR very badly indeed in an all-out Franco-Soviet exchange. The limited nature of the exchange had been intended to keep the combatants from crossing the threshold of annihilation. The loss of additional Soviet targets to French retaliation on top of Soviet targets lost to Anglo-American strikes would hardly be seen to be checks in the plus column unless Soviet strikes on France were against very important targets whose destruction would have important long-term consequences.

As always, I maintain that the Soviets would have nuked Paris. Why Paris? Paris is France, as they say. Paris is to France what Moscow is to the USSR and London is to the UK. By the time the Soviets hit Paris, Moscow probably has been destroyed. In a one-for-one exchange, the Soviets come out ahead in that the French are obliged to choose a lesser Soviet city.

The Soviets might very well have hit Brest (which is, I believe, the main French naval base on the Atlantic) and the main French naval base in the Mediterranean (Marseilles?). The main French nuclear air base probably would have taken a hit, too. The most important French refineries probably would have been hit, too. The total package might have been 7-10 warheads. France would have retaliated against a suitable number and type of surviving Soviet targets.

Failure on the part of France to respond in kind to a nuclear attack would be to invite further attack. The Soviets are not nice people, after all. Unless the French want to suffer further damage, they are obliged to retaliate to keep what they have left. While the nuclear exchange stopped far short of killing everybody, in 1997 and 1998 there was no way of knowing where the limits would end up being. So the French really have no choice but to counterattack. The Soviets would expect it. That’s why the French built a nuclear arsenal in the first place.

[Legbreaker]

Please note that V1 and V2.x histories are virtually the same and almost word for word except for a the lead up to the war (pre December 1996).
Everything after the war kicks off is cut and pasted from V1 to V2.x (excluding some VERY MINOR exceptions).

[Raellus]

On this one, I find myself supporting a position very similar to Olefin’s. A very limited Franco-Soviet nuclear exchange is quite likely for reasons I have beaten into the ground. I believe the timing would coincide with other Soviet strikes against important neutral nations. The same tit-for-tat logic that would apply to US-USSR exchanges would apply to a Franco-Soviet exchange as well. The French will reply in kind to Soviet attacks until the French nuclear capability ceases to exist. France enters the Twilight War with 500+ nuclear devices.

The French nuclear capability was based on the idea that if they could kill more Soviets than there were French for the Soviets to kill, the Soviets would find France an unrewarding and therefore uninviting target. Although the logic of a limited East-West exchange altered the equation somewhat, the unhappy fact remained that France could hurt the USSR very badly indeed in an all-out Franco-Soviet exchange. The limited nature of the exchange had been intended to keep the combatants from crossing the threshold of annihilation. The loss of additional Soviet targets to French retaliation on top of Soviet targets lost to Anglo-American strikes would hardly be seen to be checks in the plus column unless Soviet strikes on France were against very important targets whose destruction would have important long-term consequences.

As always, I maintain that the Soviets would have nuked Paris. Why Paris? Paris is France, as they say. Paris is to France what Moscow is to the USSR and London is to the UK. By the time the Soviets hit Paris, Moscow probably has been destroyed. In a one-for-one exchange, the Soviets come out ahead in that the French are obliged to choose a lesser Soviet city.

The Soviets might very well have hit Brest (which is, I believe, the main French naval base on the Atlantic) and the main French naval base in the Mediterranean (Marseilles?). The main French nuclear air base probably would have taken a hit, too. The most important French refineries probably would have been hit, too. The total package might have been 7-10 warheads. France would have retaliated against a suitable number and type of surviving Soviet targets.

Failure on the part of France to respond in kind to a nuclear attack would be to invite further attack. The Soviets are not nice people, after all. Unless the French want to suffer further damage, they are obliged to retaliate to keep what they have left. While the nuclear exchange stopped far short of killing everybody, in 1997 and 1998 there was no way of knowing where the limits would end up being. So the French really have no choice but to counterattack. The Soviets would expect it. That’s why the French built a nuclear arsenal in the first place.

If you guys are theorizing about a general WWIII scenario, then yes, your version makes a fair bit of sense. But if you're trying to "reconstruct" what happens in the T2K-verse, based on the very sparse published material out there that specifically references France, then your picture strays pretty far from what's been established. I will punch the deceased equine one more time by reposting:

"1998... In Europe, France and Blegium had been hit the lightest and stood virtually alone in maintaining a semblance of internal order throughout the cataclysm. As refugees began flooding across their borders, the French and Belgian governments closed their frontiers and military units began turning back refugees with gunfire. The French government authorized the army to move west to the Rhine to secure a solid geographical barrier." (v.10 Twilight 2000: Referee's Manual, p. 26)

That does not sound like a France where the major Atlantic ports, fuel refineries, and Paris have been nuked by the Soviets.

[kato13]

That does not sound like a France where the major Atlantic ports, fuel refineries, and Paris have been nuked by the Soviets.

According to V2.2 country summaries we can assume that Paris was nuked.


"France: Although ostensibly neutral in the war, France was still subjected to nuclear attacks to deny its port and oil refining facilities to NATO. Damage was largely confined to the coasts, but the resulting casualties were severe."

"Marseilles is the largest undamaged city"

This also rules out NATO attacking IMHO


V.2.2 Manual ~ Page 226

[Webstral]

"1998... In Europe, France and Blegium had been hit the lightest and stood virtually alone in maintaining a semblance of internal order throughout the cataclysm..." (v.10 Twilight 2000: Referee's Manual, p. 26)

This excellent passage from the Referee’s Manual offers a great deal of latitude for interpretation. France and Belgium are hit the lightest, meaning only that they aren’t hurt as badly as everyone else. France and Belgium maintain a semblance of internal order throughout the cataclysm, which also leaves a great deal of room for bad things of all description.

By way of comparison, we should look at the maps of Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands that come with some of the modules. These places are wrecks. With few exceptions, the major cities all got reduced to rubble. If memory serves, Czechoslovakia is in much the same condition as Poland and Germany. We know the Soviets use tactical nuclear weapons in Jugoslavia, Romania, and Turkey. We know from The Survivor’s Guide to the UK that the United Kingdom is hit pretty hard. A lot of Europe gets to the end of 1998 in wretched condition. What I’ve described for France is pretty modest treatment, given the size and population of the country. There are plenty of other Atlantic ports besides Brest, and there are other large cities besides Paris. Three or four nukes directed against the largest refineries won’t end France’s ability to refine crude, but they will prevent France from maintaining a mechanized wartime economy up to prewar standards. France doesn’t get hit by battlefield nukes, like so many other countries in Europe. So even with the loss of Paris, Brest, Marseilles, and some refineries, France is doing much better than Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, the UK, Czechoslovakia, and probably Jugoslavia, Romania, Turkey, and Italy.

[Rainbow Six]

On the subject of Paris the RDF sourcebook has the following quote:

The French Force Actione Rapide (FAR or Rapid Action Force) is the visible symbol of French military and diplomatic presence in the Persian Gulf region. The FAR was created in the 1980's to provide France with power projection capabilities similar to those of CENTCOM. Like CENTCOM, it is a unified command.

The first major deployment of the FAR came in the fall of 1995. The Foreign Legion Operational Group was activated and sent to Djibouti to assist in internal security duties. A task force of French Marine Infantry was stationed at Dakar at the request of the Senegalese government. In 1998, when the Franco-Belgian Union was formed, Senegal and Djibouti became member nations. The biggest break came when the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia gave permission for France to station troops in their countries (to the chagrin of some Americans in the region). The Paris government responded quickly and by fall of 1998, the 9th Marine Infantry Division and the 2nd Brigade of the 11th Airborne Division were in the region along with supporting elements. There they have remained, providing a visible symbol of France's commitment to the stability of the region (and to assure that France gets its share when the Americans leave).

The Survivor's Guide to the UK has the following in the bio of Colonel Patrick Rochefort

When war broke out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Rochefort was in the forefront of French military personnel demanding that France help NATO.
He spent the next two years in Paris trying to convince the French government to join NATO. Seeing that his cause was getting nowhere, he began to organize his own political party and gained strong support from right-wing figures who feared that the Soviets would soon be at France’s borders.

Bolding is mine. If War broke out in late 96, unless I'm mistaken Rochefort (and the French Government) must have been in Paris from late 96 - late 98.

V2 Sourcebook does state that Marseilles is the largest undamaged City in France, which presumably rules out a nuclear strike on Marseilles (although that doesn't really help much working out what else was attacked because Marseilles is the second largest City in France after Paris), so it would appear that Paris certainly suffered some sort of damage from either nuclear or conventional attack (it's possible that conventional attacks could have been carried out by Dutch or German air forces following the invasion of those countries by the FBU in January 1998).

However the above quotes suggest (to me at least) that the French Government is still located in Paris in 1998 (and I see no reason for it to move after that date).

I think the Soviets would have backed down after a French counterstrike for three reasons

1) Its limited and its communicated as such - this is in response to what you did to us. If you reply then we are at war. And by limited I am thinking the French hit a couple of targets - enough to say we got pay back and mollify their military but not enough to push the Soviets over the edge.

2) The USSR by then would have taken a lot of hits from the US and the UK and all they dont need is facing another nuclear power hitting them with their full arsenal.

3) The Soviets already had nuked what they wanted to nuke in France - NATO didnt have ports to use and French refining capablites are severely impacted - their is nothing to gain with more nukes and a lot to lose if France joins the war.


I also find this quite a plausible scenario.

[HorseSoldier]

Severe rioting and arson could also result in a city being describable as damaged -- think LA riots if they had occurred while nukes were falling and huge chunks of emergency services and military were tied up elsewhere. Suppressing those riots in that scenario would have likely been a heavy handed operation, with more resultant damage. Top it off with a devastated economy making rebuilding difficult and you could easily have big burned out zones of Paris, with refugee camps or shanty towns making up for lost housing and spotty utility services to non-essential facilities.

Doesn't require any conventional or nuclear action. Which is not to say such didn't occur, only that there is more than one way to rubble a city.

[Olefin]

Just for the record there are a lot of differences between V1 and V2 as to France. The details of areas in rebellion from the main government, the Corsican Mafia controlling much of Southern France and the fact that French ports and refineries got nuked dont appear in V1 at all V1 paints a France that is short of oil (and makes hints that its because the Middle Eastern oil fields getting nailed in the war are the reason - i.e. thats why they are there in the RDF module to make sure they get most of what is left).

V1 paints a France that seems to be in much better shape than in V2. Clearly the V2.2 France is in much worse shape than we had been led to believe in the original timeline - still vastly better than the US, Soviets or the UK but clearly not as powerful as the V1 France.

And this France takes severe casualties from nuclear attacks and definitely says that Paris took some kind of damage in the war.

The timeline itself isnt that much different in V1 and V2 - but when you get to the area that describes the world and its conditions it is really different.

By the way its the same with Japan - in V1 Japan sounds like an untouched industrial society that only saw damage from its oil being cut off - in V2 they are at war with the Soviets and Japan has taken quite the nuclear beating.

And the point Horse Soldier makes about HW and 2300AD is well taken - I have said it before that you cant have the HW uber drought that only leaves 12 percent or so of the US population left alive at the end of 2001 (and that doesnt take into account what kind of new plagues would strike the US from 3/4 of the surviving population starving to death and leaving that many corpses rotting away unburied most likely by the survivors) and the US being as described in 2300AD - just not possible for both to occur in the same timeline. Not to where the US has a space navy, colonies on outer space, etc.. after that kind of loss of population (i.e. to where she loses at least 88 percent of her pre-war population).

But that is a discussion for another thread.

One thing to look at is what cities are France's main refineries located in - that basically tells you the tale of who lived and who died in France during the 1997 nuclear strikes. And what ports would be the most useful to NATO and thus the targets for the nuclear strikes that the V2 timeline says happens.

Brest, Calais and St. Nazaire all come to mind as potentials and Toulon in the Med as well. However I am of the opinion that the Med ports may not have been as important to NATO as the Atlantic ones and thus may not have been touched while the Atlantic ones took quite a hammering (but not ones like La Rochelle - way too far south to be a viable supply port for NATO operations in Germany)

[Rainbow Six]

Just for the record there are a lot of differences between V1 and V2 as to France...The timeline itself isnt that much different in V1 and V2 - but when you get to the area that describes the world and its conditions it is really different.

I'm not sure I agree it could be described as "different" - when it comes to the section in the V2 BYB that describes global conditions, I don't have a V1 ref's guide to hand but to the best of my memory there isn't an equivalent section in V1, so it's not a case of it being different, it's a case of it not being specified in V1. So it's different in the sense that one version (2) is specific, the other (1) is not, but I don't think there's anything in 2 that contradicts 1.

For example, to me it would be different if V1 specifically stated that the largest undamaged City in France was Bordeaux whilst V2 states it's Marseilles, but that's not the case. V1 doesn't state one way or the other, so leaves the reader to draw their own conclusions.

I do agree with your thoughts about the Med ports being left untouched, as that's consistent with Marseilles not being nuked and is supported by Med Cruise, which suggests that the French now view the Med as "their own private lake".

[dragoon500ly]

I think we are missing the point of the original question. Canon is quite clear that France sits this one out, but is cannon based on what France would have down in real life?

I recently had the pleasure of working with a French Army officer serving an exchange tour, casual lunch soon turned into wargaming sessions. After one late night session, he saw a copy of T2K on by bookshelf and asked about it. This led into a massive BS session over what a Third World War in Europe would have been like...his opinion was that, in spite of its political stance, France would have gone to war with NATO. "It would be in France's best intrest to keep the Russians on the other side of the Elbe River."

When I posed the question of what France would do in the event that West Germany launched an attack to reclaim East Germany, he was silent for a few moments, "Given the circumstances at the time, I do not belive that it was possible, from either a political or a military standpoint, for West Germany to use force to reunifiy with East Germany."

When I asked what France would have done, "At the time, nobody wanted a reunified Germany, there are too many memories from the World Wars to allow that to happen."

So I asked if France would have opposed such a move, his opinion was that "France would have done everything possible to convince Bonn to not make such a foolish decision, had the Russians opposed such a move, the general war that would have broke out would have left no neutrals, even the Swiss would have been dragged into such a war."

So I asked the killer question, "what side would France have fought on?" His answer was accompanied with an evil grin "My friend, France would have been on France's side!"

[Legbreaker]

...so it's not a case of it being different, it's a case of it not being specified in V1. So it's different in the sense that one version (2) is specific, the other (1) is not, but I don't think there's anything in 2 that contradicts 1.

Exactly right. V2.x simply expanded on V1.0 EXCEPT for the lead up to the war. You might even say the additional information in V2.x is just a continuation of V1 and should be seen by V1 sticklers as V1 canon (except where it is directly and specifically in contradiction).

[B.T.]

Just out of couriosity:
Did anyone here ever think about the Franco-German Brigade or the Eurocorps? In our reality, both units had been founded before 1996 (The Franco-German Brigade in 1989/1990, the Eurocorps in 1993). Espacially the founding of the Franco-German Brigade had been initialized by Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand (in 1987). One of the ideas was to tighten the Franco-German bonds.
If these units had come to life in the T2k-universe, what do you think? Would their existence have any influence on the political decisions in France?

The German Wikipedia says: ”Im SACEUR-Abkommen vom 21. Januar 1993 wurden die Beziehungen und Kompetenzen zwischen NATO und Eurokorps geregelt.“ (Something like: The SACEUR-agreement from 21. January 1993 rules out the relations and compences between NATO and Eurokorps.) I did not find such a paragraph in the English Wikipedia.

[HorseSoldier]

I personally see a number of points where the regional information in the 2.0/2.2 diverges from the 1.0 setting as either explicitly said or implied in ver 1.0 books (primarily supplements rather than core rules books). France and Japan are the two main issues that come to mind, but there are others I am not remembering at the moment (been a while since I read the big yellow book).

I should probably note I'm also a big 2300 fan, so departures from the T2K --> Traveller 2300/2300AD timeline progression may or may not seem screwed up to me in ways that aren't a problem for other T2K fans.

EDIT TO ADD: On the Franco-German Brigade, I think the basic outcome in T2K would have been France withdrawing from it when the war kicked off. Now, had those kind of limited reintegrations of France with NATO been going on in the timeframe when the game was written, it might have prompted an altered storyline (and the French were in it to win it in GDW's Third World War war game series). (And had the 2.x reboots been done better it could have.)

[Raellus]

Exactly right. V2.x simply expanded on V1.0 EXCEPT for the lead up to the war. You might even say the additional information in V2.x is just a continuation of V1 and should be seen by V1 sticklers as V1 canon (except where it is directly and specifically in contradiction).

Like the situation with France.

[Olefin]

I would add Japan as well to one place where V1 and V2 significantly diverge as well as Vietnam.

V1 has a large Soviet force in Vietnam where V2 doesnt - instead that force is in the Kuriles and is now fighting Japan.

another example of why V1 and V2.2 are not identical can be found in the American Combat Vehicle Handbook (Version 2) versus the US
Army Vehicle Guide of the initial timeline

1st edition US Army Vehicle Guide

2ND INFANTRY DIVISION
A pre-war regular army division stationed in Korea at Tongduchon-Ni under the command of US 8th Army. 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.

2nd Edition American Combat Vehicle Handbook

2nd Infantry Division
A prewar regular army division stationed at Cam Ranh Bay, Republic of Vietnam from 1991 until 1996, when it was transferred to Korea under command of the reconstituted 8th U.S. Army. The division was first engaged against Soviet raiding units on 19 December 1996, and by 3 January 1997 was actively engaged against mechanized elements of the Red Army.


thus you have two completely different histories for the 2nd Infantry Division and where it was until 1996, with V1 saying already in Korea and V2 saying it was in Vietnam and had to be deployed to Korea

V2.2. is very contradictory on Vietnam by the way - its says the following:

Indochina: Indochina was invaded by the Chinese as it became apparent that the Soviets planned to use Cam Ranh Bay as a base against them, but they were rapidly thrown back by the Vietnamese Army (which took considerable casualties). Cam Ranh Bay and Haiphong were the targets of nuclear attacks and were devastated

Ok - if the US Army 2nd Infantry is stationed at Cam Ranh Bay then how could the Soviets be using it as a base? And if they are stationed there from 1991 to 1996 then that makes Vietnam a US ally doesnt it?

V1 and V2 may be similar but they arent the same - and France, Japan and Vietnam are three places where they definitely differ.