Going Home Adventure

[rcaf_777]

I came up with this idea for a take on the going home adventure

Background

The PC's are assigned as crew the ORP Lublin, (a polish minelayer-landing ship) a landing ship being used to take US and Canadian personnel from the Port of Świnoujście to the Port of Bremerhaven. Via the Kiel Canal for departure on Task Force 34

ORP Lublin

The ship was undergoing repairs at the nearby Szczecin Shipyard, when Szczecin fell to US forces. The ship was captured with no other damage by the local anti-communist resistance. The ship still required some repairs, which was done by local polish labour supervised by the US Navy personnel sent to inspect the ship. Once repaired the ship sailed from the Szczecin Shipyard to the Port of Świnoujście where it began to take on Marines for the trip (See Photo)

Lublin-Class Minelayer-Landing Ship

Displacement: 1745 tones
Length: 95.8 m
Beam: 10.8 m
Draft: 2.38 m

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/orp-lublin.htm

Kiel Canal

Now some of you may be saying “Hey wasn’t the Kiel Canal destroyed” and the answer can be found in the Going Home Module.

“If the players have completed the two Vistula River modules (Pirates of the Vistula and Ruins of Warsaw) and managed to end up in control of the Wisla Krolowa or a similar craft, they may choose to make their way along the coast of Poland to the Danish peninsula and either cross it overland or try to make use of the Kiel canal. This is a major undertaking, and we have chosen not to cover it in this module because of space limitations. If the players choose this option, the referee will need to devise river and shore encounters along the way. Refer to Pirates of the Vistula for samples of these sorts of encounters”

So not describe her but left open for another time

The Kiel Canal is a 98 kilometer long freshwater canal in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The canal was finished in 1895, but later widened, and links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of 460 km is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula. This not only saves time but also avoids storm-prone seas and having to pass through the Øresund straits.

Maximum length for ships passing the Kiel Canal is 235.50 metres; with the maximum width of 32.50 metres these ships can have a draught of up to 7.00 metres. Ships up to a length of 160.00 metres may have a draught up to 9.50 metres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_Canal

Distance Calculator

So I figured out that it’s a day half trip by boat going at around ten knots I used there two sites to figure this out

https://sea-distances.org/

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/voyage-planner

Speed Conversions

1 Knots to Kilometers per Hour = 1.852

Other Places

Szczecin Shipyard

It was founded in the aftermath of World War II, when the important German port of Stettin was taken over by Poland and renamed Szczecin, it then began operating as a state-owned shipyard. In the 1970s and into the 1980s, the shipyard was one of the most important centers of anticommunist resistance in Poland It is the 5th biggest shipyard in Europe

Port of Szczecin

The Port of Szczecin is a Polish seaport and deep water harbour in Szczecin, Poland. It is located at the Oder and Regalica rivers in the Lower Oder Valley, off the Szczecin Lagoon. It includes the Szczecin Shipyard.

Port of Świnoujście

The Port of Świnoujście is a Polish seaport in Świnoujście, Poland at the Baltic Sea located at the Świna strait, on Wolin and Usedom islands. The port has passenger terminal.

[RN7]

Good article rcaf_777.

In my version of T2K Germany the Kiel Canal and the port of Kiel are highly important to the Germans.

Kiel

The 98 kilometre Kiel Canal which cuts through the state of Schleswig-Holstein with the smaller Elbe-Lubeck Canal has physically isolated Schleswig-Holstein from the rest of Germany. This has preserved the pre-war society of Schleswig-Holstein better than most other regions of the country. Many of the canal crossings on the Kiel Canal were deliberately disabled after the nuclear strikes on Germany to regulate travel across the canal, and the remaining bridges at Brunsbuttel, Holtenau, Levensau and Rendsburg are all heavily guarded. The town of Rendsburg is the main defensive stronghold along the canal, and the small Krogerwerfte and Nobiskrug shipyards in Rendsburg are still capable of producing sailing boats and small sea going craft. Rendsburg was also the location of the Bundesheer's air defence school before the war and they left behind a few anti-aircraft guns that have been placed around the approaches to the Rendsburg High Bridge; the longest railway bridge in Europe with a suspended movable transporter bridge that traverses the canal. Just north of the canal the Luftwaffe maintain Hohn Air Base, which allows for the rapid reinforcement by helicopter or transport aircraft in emergencies. Most of the communities in the state have some form of local militia which liaise with the German Army, particularly south of the Kiel Canal. No marauder or criminal group now exists in Schleswig-Holstein, or has ever successfully made it across the canal.

The city of Kiel located on the Baltic Sea was one of the largest ports in Germany and was the largest city in Schleswig-Holstein before the war. Kiel was also a major port and transportation hub due to its location at the eastern entrance to the Kiel Canal, and was a centre of Germany's ship building industry and a world renowned centre of marine science. Kiel hosted a major German naval base and two shipyard; the Lindenau Werft commercial yard and the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft; which built diesel-electric submarines and warships. Kiel also manufactured marine diesel engines and locomotives, and the defence company MaK also built engines and military vehicles in the city. Despite heavy NATO air defences Kiel was subjected to intensive Soviet bombing raids, which damaged parts of the city including the port facilities, ship yards and the naval base. However Kiel was not subjected to nuclear attack and has survived the war in fairly good shape.

In 1998 the Bundeswehr chose Kiel to be the location of the new provisional capital of the reformed government of Germany, due its defendable location against land and sea attack. The provisional government established a parliament in the former Schleswig-Holstein Landtag building. The provisional government has been busy repairing the city's infrastructure, and maintaining the road network across the area. A railway line linking Kiel with Bremerhaven on the North Sea, and Neubrandenburg on the Polish border has also been reopened. Some repairs to the shipyards has also been undertaken, although they are a long way from able to build warships again. The naval base and the cargo handling facilities of the port have been reactivated which has opened up Kiel to ocean going shipping and trade with Scandinavia and Britain, and a large number of passenger and cargo ships remain anchored in the Bay of Kiel. Power supply to the city remains a problem and the hospitals in Kiel rely on military generators. However engineers are busy salvaging machinery at the Krummel pumped storage hydroelectricity plant near Geesthacht. The adjacent nuclear power plant was destroyed by a Polish airstrike in 1997, but the hydroelectricity plant could be brought back online and provide regular power services to Kiel.

Kiel is host to the command staff of the Bundeswehr, and the German military deliberately chose Kiel as a redoubt following the destruction of its command centre in Koblenz during the nuclear strikes in 1997. The command staff of the Bundeswehr; including the Bundesheer, Deutsche Marine and the Luftwaffe, and surviving elements of the nation’s intelligence agencies are based in Kiel Naval Base and other government buildings in the city. The US Military Government, Great Britain and other NATO allies also have consulates in the city, while the Soviet Union and France undoubtedly have their own intelligence sections in Kiel. Kiel's location at the entrance to the Kiel Canal is important for transport and communications links between the Baltic and the North Sea and the mouth of the Elbe River, and also as a defensive line behind the canal to shield the food producing farms and fishing ports of Schleswig-Holstein. Kiel Bay is also easy to defend due to its narrow entrance, and a number of old forts as Fort Herwarth and Fort Falkenstein that were built in previous centuries to defend Germany from the Danish, Russian, Swedish and British navies have been reopened. The approaches to Kiel are heavily defended, with German forces encamped behind a series of earthworks, anti-tank traps and minefields on the outskirts of Kiel. A network of checkpoints and well protected pickets stretch out across the countryside, with German forces patrolling the roads up to 30 kilometres south of Kiel. Military and militia forces in neighbouring towns such as Bad Segeberg, Lubeck, Neumunster and Rendsburg are also part of Kiel's outer defence perimeter.

The Deutsche Marine's 1st Naval Flotilla are based at Kiel Naval base and the city's commercial docks, while the Luftwaffe maintain a functional air field at Kiel Airport located 8 kilometres north of the city that can be reinforced by other Luftwaffe forces at Hohn and Schleswig Air Bases. The headquarters of the Third German Army and the III German Corp are also located in Kiel, with the city garrison including some components of the Third Army and the III Corp, as well as Wachbataillon beim BMVg, 151st and 900th Military Police Battalions, 3rd Border Guard Battalion and the special forces of GSG-9 and Verwendungsgruppe 3402. The concentration of military forces in Kiel makes it one of the safest and most formidably defended places in Twilight War Europe.

Usedom Island

Off the coast of the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein in the Baltic Sea are 12 German islands. Danholm, Fehmarn, Hiddensee, Poel, Rugen, Ummanz and Usedom are inhabited; and Rugen and Usedom are Germany's largest islands. None of these islands are of any strategic importance other than being German territory, but in the context of the Twilight War the islands of Rugen and Usedom are highly significant to Germany.

Usedom is located in the Szczecin (Stettin) Lagoon near the estuary of the Oder River in Poland. The island is separated from the mainland by the 20 kilometre long Peenestrom strait that is only one kilometre wide and was entirely German territory until 1945. During the Second World War Usedom was highly important in the development of rocket technology, with the Nazi's developing V2 rockets at the Peenemunde research centre located on the island. After the Second World War control of the island was split between Germany and Poland. Germany retained control over most of the island, but the eastern part of Usedom including its largest city Swinoujscie (Swinemunde) and the entrance to the Bay of Szczecin (Stettin) was given to Poland under border changes according to the Potsdam Conference. The Poles expelled the German population to the western half of the island leading to decades of lingering tension between the German and Polish communities.

During the Reunification of Germany in 1996 the Polish Army invaded the German half of Usedom as part of the Warsaw Pact offensive against Germany. However the Poles also forcefully expelled German civilians from the whole island despite East German protests to the Soviet Union. During NATO's Advent Crown offensive in 1997 the Bundesheer rapidly overran the Polish garrison on Usedom, and the returning Germans expelled all of the Poles from the island in revenge for Polish actions against German civilians in 1996. Despite a number of Warsaw Pact offensives the Germans have retained control over Usedom since 1997, and the population of the island is now almost exclusively German and under the protection of the 4th Panzergrenadier Division. The 4th Panzergrenadier Division occupies the city of Szczecin (Stettin) on the mainland in Poland. The Germans have declared Usedom to be German territory, and have started using German names for many locations east of the Oder-Neisse Line including Stettin. This policy has unnerved the Poles and has led to series of condemnations from all sections of Poland's fragmented political order and the Soviet Union. NATO and the US Military Government has declined to comment on the German proclamation.

[rcaf_777]

I am thinking that it would make more sense to have the ORP Lublin out fitted as some sort of gun boat and PC's could crew and or VBSS Team.

PC's would Navy or Marines, I might also allow a Seal as it would fit here if they had one, no officers but maybe a Petty Officers

Encounters would Pirate's, fisherman, and maybe a surface contact some of equal size.

[The Dark]

I am thinking that it would make more sense to have the ORP Lublin out fitted as some sort of gun boat and PC's could crew and or VBSS Team.

PC's would Navy or Marines, I might also allow a Seal as it would fit here if they had one, no officers but maybe a Petty Officers

Encounters would Pirate's, fisherman, and maybe a surface contact some of equal size.The Lublins already are sort of gunboats. Each of them mounts 4 twin 23mm guns.

According to Haze Gray, the Lublins have a crew of 37, can carry 135 troops, and have a cargo capacity of 536 tons. Maximum speed is 16.8 knots, and it runs on diesel.

Another good option for this sort of adventure would be a Z-3 tanker. 57.7 meters long, 9.5 meter beam, 3.32 meter draft. 10 knot top speed, so slower than a Lublin. Crew's only 12, which makes the party more important proportionately. 656 tons of cargo capacity, and a pair of dual 23mm cannon for defense.