Austria in T2K

[Raellus]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using Austria as a T2K campaign setting. It just seems like a really fertile area for a T2K game- devastated, disputed, and relatively chaotic. In addition the Austrian military and your relatively standard belligerents that are encountered frequently in the Poland modules, you've got the Italians, Hungarians, and Czechs all occupying pieces of Austrian territory. This also makes available some fairly uncommon weaponry and AFVs.

I've been pouring over my T2K stuff looking for any and all mention of Austria. I guess I've always taken Austria for granted, assuming for all of these years that it was a part of Cold War NATO. Much to my embarrassment, I discovered that this was not the case (the big clue being that Austria doesn't feature in any of my NATO gear/uni books).

Anyway, references to Austria in the T2K canon are pretty scattered, and not much detail is given. I remember reading snippets here and there in the past but I can't find them now. For example, I'm sure that I read somewhere that much of the Austrian military was absorbed into the German military at some point during the war. There's references to Soviet, American, and German forces present there in the respective T2K Vehicle Guides, and multiple references to Austria's invasion by Italian and Hungarian forces. IIRC seeing a reference or two to Czech forces being involved but can't find any Czech units listed as being there as of July 1, 2000, which I find a bit surprising.

Anyway, any help you could give in directing me to T2K info on Austria, or just good references on the Cold War Austrian military would be greatly appreciated.

[Cdnwolf]

I am trying to do a campaign in the Alp mountain range along the Austria, Italy, Swiss borders. I have a great map from National Geographic detailing the area and it would be ripe for encounters.

[Raellus]

I am trying to do a campaign in the Alp mountain range along the Austria, Italy, Swiss borders. I have a great map from National Geographic detailing the area and it would be ripe for encounters.

That map really drives home how defensible/isolated a lot of those mountain towns are. On one hand, a small group of trained, well armed and/or resourceful fighters could hold off a much larger force in one of those mountain passes. On other, isolated valley settlements would have to keep transportation lines open and maintain good relationships with neighboring settlements so as not to starve to death.

[Raellus]

I've decided that my next T2K-related project will be a adventure module/sourcebook for Austria.

I've already mapped NATO and WTO unit locations in Austria for Winter 2000-2001, using the Going Home module as the main reference. https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=206956330743072967253.00047d76b9c45ea5604e e&msa=0

There are quite a few more American units (all of 4th U.S. Army) listed as being in Austria in July of 2000 but, unfortunately, the U.S. Army Vehicle Guide doesn't give exact locations for any of them. Same goes for Soviet units in the S.V.G. That 5-6 month gap is open to interpretation, but I'd like a fairly solid starting place from which to start my speculation. I did place a handful of U.S. & Soviet on my Summer 2000 map, but that was a few years ago and I can't remember where I found the exact location references. Any ideas?

[kato13]

Here is what I have for the Area. I don't know exactly where I got the data but I went chronologically through the modules and updated any location as I found a new one.

http://games.juhlin.com/files/austria_a.jpg


This is the same except units are color coded by country
http://games.juhlin.com/files/austria_b.jpg

[Raellus]

Awesome, Kato. Thanks! Your maps mostly line up with mine but I've got a couple of Soviet units (2nd SW Front HQ, 8th GTA w/ 5th TD and 51st TD) based in and around Vienna. According to Going Home, from which I got the bulk of my information, the Italian Folgore MD is also in the vicinity, but they've gone rogue!

Do you happen to know of any nuke strikes in Austria? IIRC, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Vienna got hit, but I don't recall coming across any other mention of specific targets on Austrian soil. I'm currently working on a write up of paramilitary factions in Austria c. 2000 and I want to make sure that I don't base any of them in cities that have been nuked.

[kato13]

The only canon strike i have is
Bratislava, Slovakia, 100 Kt

The damage ring crosses the border slightly into Austria

http://games.juhlin.com/files/austria_c.jpg

[Raellus]

The only canon strike i have is
Bratislava, Slovakia, 100 Kt

The damage ring crosses the border slightly into Austria

Do you think Vienna somehow avoided a strike?

[kato13]

Do you think Vienna somehow avoided a strike?

Well going home mentions a few soviet units wintering in Vienna and the DIA still operating a station there so if it was hit it must have been minor.

[kato13]

Awesome, Kato. Thanks! Your maps mostly line up with mine but I've got a couple of Soviet units (2nd SW Front HQ, 8th GTA w/ 5th TD and 51st TD) based in and around Vienna. According to Going Home, from which I got the bulk of my information, the Italian Folgore MD is also in the vicinity, but they've gone rogue!


That is what I should have. I have the 51st in Wolkersdorf Austria in my database, but it is not on the map because of some problem with the image pulls. I may have updated maps later.


Update 1
Looks like a geocoding error for the 51st
5th TD I have outside Linz

Update 2.

Ok I think I see what happened. There are two listings within Going home. One is the official listing for the GM and the other is a Handout for the players. I think because the handout is physically after the GM listing, I updated at least a portion of the units.

I'll look at smoothing this out as I have time.

[dragoon500ly]

Of intrest is what the pre-war Austrian armed forces look like (did you know that Austria was prevented by treaty from fielding missiles of any kind?)

Army: 45,400 (29,600 conscripts)

Standing Alert Force:
1 Mechanized Division of three brigades (1 armd bn, 1 mech bn, 2 SP Arty bns, 2 SP Antitank bns each), with 1 AA bn, 1 engineer bn and 1 signal bn.

Standing Field Units
1 Army HQ
1 reconnaissance bn
2 signal bns
1 Arty bn
1 SP Antitank bn
2 AA bns
1 engineer bn (corps)
1 air-mobile inf bn
2 mountain inf bns
1 guards bn

Cadre Force units (full strength on mobilization)
2 Corps HQ
2 arty bns
2 engineer bns
5 signal bns
3 logistic regiments
9 Regional Commands with 8 mobile brigade HQs; 24 infantry bns, 8 arty bns, 8 engineer/antitank bns, 8 support battalions; 1 territoral command with 28 Landwehrstamm-regimente (training 'bns'); 26 infantry regiments, 40 engineer/antitank companies

Equipment includes
50 M-60A3 MBT
120 M-60A1 MBT
467 Saurer 4K4F APCs
300 M-68 105mm turret-mounted fortress guns
22 SFKM2 155mm fortress guns
108 IFH 105mm towed hows
24 FHM-1 155mm towed hows
56 M-109 SP 155mm hows (42 more on order)
18 M-51 130 MRLs
305 81mm mortars
100 M-2/M-30 107mm mortars
100 120mm mortars
482 20m towed AA guns
75 35mm towed AA guns
60 40mm AA guns
38 M-42 SP AA guns
1,400 74mm, 84mm recoilless rifles
397 106mm recoilless rifles
240 M-52/M-55 85mm towed antitank guns
189 JPz SK Kuerassier 105mm SP antitank guns


Reserves: 197,000 men, another 970,000 have reserve commitments

Air Force: 4,600 (2,400 conscripts); 32 combat aircraft

4 Fighter Ground Attack Squadrons w/32 Saab 105OE
6 helicopter squadrons w/13 AB-206A, 23 AB-212, 23 Alouette III, 12
OH-58B, 21 AB-204
1 Training/liaison squadron w/2 Skyvan, 12 Turbo-Porter, 6 O-1E, 18
Saab 91D, 19 L-19
3 AD Bns w/36 20mm towed AA guns, 18 35mm towed AA guns

souce is the Military Balance 1988/89

[Cdnwolf]

Great now it means I have to finish my map and listing for Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania areas...

[rcaf_777]

Cool

Got any more

[Webstral]

I agree that Austria is a splendid area for Twilight: 2000 development. Given all of the players involved, one could imagine almost anything.

[Raellus]

One obstacle that I'm running into is Austria's geography. It's pretty mountainous, making it difficult to move around and limiting the amount of arable land. According to Going Home, the Soviets have strong forces inside or close to Austria's most productive agricultural region. I've come up with a bunch of factions, but there aren't a whole lot of places to put them that make sense.

[Tegyrius]

One obstacle that I'm running into is Austria's geography. It's pretty mountainous, making it difficult to move around and limiting the amount of arable land. According to Going Home, the Soviets have strong forces inside or close to Austria's most productive agricultural region. I've come up with a bunch of factions, but there aren't a whole lot of places to put them that make sense.

I think that's a feature rather than a bug. If the Pact forces are sitting on the main food supply, then they have a mechanism for controlling the surviving civilian population (and/or Austrian puppet government). The same situation also makes all the other factions devote too much effort to self-sustainment to really be effective threats to local Soviet power. Which makes a perfect situation for PCs to stumble into...

- C.

[Raellus]

I think that's a feature rather than a bug. If the Pact forces are sitting on the main food supply, then they have a mechanism for controlling the surviving civilian population (and/or Austrian puppet government). The same situation also makes all the other factions devote too much effort to self-sustainment to really be effective threats to local Soviet power. Which makes a perfect situation for PCs to stumble into...


Perhaps. I'm trying, but I don't think I see what you do. I'm still going to finish what I started, though. I'm just finding that the geography issues are making the area much less sandboxy than I originally imagined it. It was that wide-open feeling- in terms of the relative chaos of the region and the potential players present there- that attracted me to Austria. Unfortunately, its geography is really squeezing the freedom out of the country. For example, in mountainous central Austria, geography can railroad PCs since, in many cases, their choices will be limited to heading up the valley or heading down the valley. Put a marauder force in there at either end and it seems even more like a two-way track. I hope I'm making sense.

I've been writing up the factions with the notion that a group of PCs puttering around in Austria could realistically expect to run into each and every one of them but, the more I look at Austria's topography, that just seems unrealistic, and it's disappointing.

On the other hand, scaling back the forces that each faction can support (due to limited agricultural output in most parts of Austria) might make it a little easier for the PCs to really have a lasting impact on the region (i.e. it would be easier, relatively speaking, for a PC party to destroy a marauder force of 100 than it would one ten times larger).

[simonmark6]

I don't know if you've considered this, but in mountainous regions, arable agriculture isn't the only option. A lot of agriculture in Austria involves a method called transhumance. In this style of agriculture, the flocks and herds are moved up to high pastures in the spring/summer and kept up there as long as possible. This leaves more fertile land lower down to concentrate on winter feed and food for the farmers.

My uncle uses a similar method although the altitudes aren't as extreme. The flocks and herd graze the common land on the Beacons from about April until early October and all they need is care from shepherds and an intense two weeks for shearing. This leaves the good land he has (about thirty acres) to be planted with sugar beet and some type of hay for winter bedding and silage as well as the more intensive uses like market gardening and some potatoes.

It's a fairly self-contained system and whilst it's a hard life that's dependent on the weather and a little bit of luck you can scrape a living off what is essentially rock.

My uncle's farm is about half the size of an Austrian mountain farm and he raises a flock of over five hundred mountain sheep, a hundred heritage sheep, twenty Welsh Black cattle and assorted pigs, goats and poultry that are more a hobby than an industry. The farm rarely has to buy in fodder to sustain these animals and in addition produces enough fruit, veg and potatoes to feed about fifty people as well as the family.

The only thing it doesn't produce is bread as we don't grow wheat. Switching some of the potato acres to oats would solve this.

Now, assuming that the farm would operate on a much less efficient footing without modern technology (not as inefficient as a big farm but the tech does make life easier), these farms are still viable. If we assume that the farm can sustain 20% of its production (I'd guess more like 50% but let's assume less), the farm could still sustain the family and workers (fifteen people) and twenty other people with a fairly balanced diet. If people are growing their own potatoes, the meat and milk production could sustain up to thirty more.

Bearing in mind the farm is half the size of the average Austrian Alpine farm I would guess that an Austrian farm would sustain thirty people on the land and provide food for another hundred (some sort of starchy food would need to be grown in addition to what my uncle produces).

At present there are about 70,000 such farms in Austria and they are located in areas that wouldn't necessarily be ravaged by war.

So by deciding how many of these farms survived in your version of Austria, it is feasible to support populations that are larger than the available arable land would suggest: maybe not much larger but enough to give you more confidence in being able to support the factions you are imagining. The diet would be boring: skimmed milk and potatoes as standard with a small amount of mutton or beef with the occasional egg or foul or bit of pork. The sugar beet is a big advantage as it can be processed and provide a nutritious winter feed for the animals as well as providing some sugar in the diet (probably in the form of alcohol as you'd need to be smashed regularly to endure such a boring diet).

I hope this helps and isn't too boring to read.

[Webstral]

Nice!

[Raellus]

At present there are about 70,000 such farms in Austria and they are located in areas that wouldn't necessarily be ravaged by war.

So by deciding how many of these farms survived in your version of Austria, it is feasible to support populations that are larger than the available arable land would suggest: maybe not much larger but enough to give you more confidence in being able to support the factions you are imagining. The diet would be boring: skimmed milk and potatoes as standard with a small amount of mutton or beef with the occasional egg or foul or bit of pork. The sugar beet is a big advantage as it can be processed and provide a nutritious winter feed for the animals as well as providing some sugar in the diet (probably in the form of alcohol as you'd need to be smashed regularly to endure such a boring diet).

I hope this helps and isn't too boring to read.

This is quite helpful and not the least bit boring to read. You've considerably alleviated my concerns about Austria's capacity to feed its surviving population outside of the prime agricultural region controlled by the Soviets. In fact, a countryside of scattered smallholders/yeoman farmers is in many ways ideal for what I've got in mind.

[boogiedowndonovan]

Do you have a copy of the NATO 1989 orbat thats floating around the internet?

Although the title is NATO orbat, later versions include non-aligned nations like Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland that could be drawn into conflict on the side of NATO

here's the thread from Tanknet. The author hasn't updated the doc in awhile but people keep adding to the thread.

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20414&page=35

Here is the entry for Austria. As you can see, Austria had a huge defensive reserve force including stay behind troops.

[Raellus]

Thanks, BDD. All of this helps.

[Muti]

Raellus,

I suggest you to read "Confrontation - The Strategic Geography of NATO and the Warsaw Pact" by Hugh Faringdon. It contains several useful information on the strategical importance of the central european neutrals countries like Austria, Switzerland and even Liechtenstein.

[Raellus]

Thanks, Muti. I'll see if I can find a copy.

[Muti]

Don't think about it, Raellus.

Here you go: