Totally logical for this to happen, and the Dutch do have close military links with Britain.

Ports in both the UK and Germany are quite likely. UK for the frigates (they're more likely to have been used for escort duty) and Germany for the sweepers. Bound to be the odd exception, but on the whole that's where they're probably going to be (if not sunk).

Also keep in mind that the minesweepers don't have the range to make it to the US unless they refueled en route - so the most likely destination for them is going to be either the UK, Germany or Norway - and Portsmouth would be the easiest escape route

Interesting article in the post today regarding Venezuela. Doesn't mean that this happens in a T2K timeline. But they don't need WWIII to happen to collapse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...9&kwp_1=268845

The only way that they can prevent collapse if there is a major war in the Middle East which pushes up the oil prizes giving the Regime money to spend.

True, but oddly their dysfunction and inability to produce oil is one of the things holding up prices, at least on the margin.

British Forces in Belize/Caribbean in 1990/91

Belize
Army: 1,200 troops
1 Infantry battalion
1 Armoured reconnaissance troop (Scimitar)
1 Field artillery battery (105mm guns)
1 Engineer squadron
1 Helicopter flight (3x Gazelle AH-1)
RAF: 300 troops
1 FGA flight (4x Harrier GR-3)
1 Helicopter flight (4x Puma)
1 RAF Regiment detachment (4x Rapier SAM)
Royal Navy West Indies Detachment
1 Missile Destroyer/Frigate (Lynx helicopters)

One thing that struck me, since my campaign is all in Texas, I have researched ALOT of the local resources and such.

Going canon, there are least 5 refineries still operational in Texas potentially. Oklahoma another 5 or 6....there are ALOT of refineries that did not get hit by nukes.

Why nuke Venezuela or Aruba or Mexico even if you left so much refining capability in the US itself?

Don't forget that were listed on the strike list. There's nothing to say smaller warheads weren't used, or even conventional munitions - how hard is it to destroy a refinery when a simple match can set off a catastrophic event?
Sure, some may not be completely flattened, but given refineries were high on the list of targets, how much use are they really?

Look at the Ploesti oil fields and refineries in Romania. The Soviets have sunk a great deal of resources into getting that working again, even at a radically reduced production rate.

So the Soviets have devoted an entire Army to protecting the area, even while other areas were under intense pressure from enemy forces.
Can anyone say the Texas and Oklahoma oils fields and refineries would be any less important? Why haven't the Americans, the Mexicans or even the Soviets in Division Cuba camped on top of them as the Soviets have in Romania?
My opinion - because they're damaged beyond practical repair using current resources and manpower. That may change in the coming years, but it won't happen any time soon.

IDK, thats a stretch to me. I think its just another glaring gap in the information they came up with to write the storyline. Even they say it only took out 60% of the US refining capability, why hit non allied sovereign nations if you left 60% of the US capacity intact?

The Mexicans/Division Cuba wouldn't bomb them, since they were in fact trying to annex Texas.

Unless your talking cruise missiles with conventional warheads, not sure if the Soviets even had them tbh, there are no other forces on American soil to hit them.

If, all those 130+ refineries were hit, all command centers and bomber wings/missile ranges, power plants (including nuclear) and major industrial centers I think we would be calling the game Gamma World not T2K. :)

The KGB have had quite a number of sleeper agents within the US during the cold war. It would be a reasonable assumption for them to have had contingency orders to follow in case of war, with many of them assigned to sabotage industry vital to the war effort. Refineries are a prime target for this sort of activity - only takes a few small charges planted in various locations to take the entire facility out of action.
Keeping the refineries in close to pristine condition radically changes the game setting. It allows for the quick production of petroleum based fuels and large scale movements by large forces (see the destruction of the US 5th ID as an example of what would happen). The lack of fuel is vital to the setting.

The Soviets had a number of SLCMs during the 1980s and onward. These were/are more than capable of rendering refineries inoperable too. Then there's their strategic bomber force which could certainly reach some areas of the US (Alaska as a certainty, other areas depending on aircraft model and a number of other factors). These too didn't have to be armed with nukes.

They didn't have to hit every last possible target either. Just the threat of an attack would send the workers scurrying for cover and with only a skeleton staff remaining in most facilities (at best) accident would likely increase in both number and severity. Some facilities could in fact have been damaged just because there wasn't enough of the right people left to operate it correctly!

And you're right about the neutral countries. Why indeed bother with them when you're actual enemy still has the capability you're trying to deny them? The canon seems to support this by mentioning the attacks on neutrals.

It would seem fairly clear after properly assessing the information provided in the game materials that the US (and other combatant nations of course) have very little industrial capability remaining.

Valid points for sure.

However, I think the "60%" comment proves that these 5 refineries in Texas and others I am talking about would not be hit. Not necessarily fully functional without the skills/infrastructure of course, but not destroyed out right.

Also, I think it gives some doubt to the extent of the damage of the neutral nations refinery capacity. Again, the "60%" comment lends to the idea of perhaps only the major facilities being taken out while other smaller ones being ignored or left to the chaos that ensured after the bombs dropped.

FYI the Americans have camped out armies in Oklahoma and in California to guard the oil facilities - that's what the troops are doing in Oklahoma and Bakersfield - and also why there is an armored brigade guarding an oil refinery in Illinois

you still have refineries working in the US and power being generated - but its very spotty and here and there (for instance the nuclear power station that is still up and running in Colorado that they got the people to run the Corpus Christi when they got her back) - and you don't have a lot of reliable transportation to get from one place to another with what you do have

and as the game says most of what is being made is going for lubricants and to keep the few US armored units in business as well as provide a trickle of fuel to keep some transport aircraft and the like in business

obviously the US still has some industrial capacity remaining - the problem is getting the goods that are still being made distributed and getting raw materials and power to the facilities that are still intact - which is why the US pulled an armored brigade out of Texas to retake Memphis - they need the Mississippi to be able to transport goods

as for Texas obviously at least one refinery is still very much in business a la Red Star - again its just a case of who gets to have all that fuel


As for nuking the neutrals - the big reason is that they aren't going to hit back (with the exception of the French) - so hitting Venezuela or Curacao or Algeria isn't going to get you nuked back - whereas there is a point where either the US or Russians say enough is enough and launch everything they have left - and then it is Gamma World or Aftermath

Where is the "60%" figure coming from?

Howling Wilderness page 10, although I do have it backwards. It destroyed 60%, leaving 40% active.

The nukes destroyed over 60%. The remainder was absolutely not left intact, and definitely not 40%. It specifically states in the very next sentence there was "other destruction".
It's always best to take what's written in it's full context.

Well, I am not going to go far down this slippery slope here but....

It specified a number 60%. Over 60%, meaning some portion of the remainder was functional. There is no "definitely" in that paragraph, except over 60% of the US refinery capability was destroyed.

And the very next sentence "This (destroying over 60% of the US refinery capability), in combination with the other destruction, effectively eliminated electrical power generation and industrial facilities." does not mention anything about refineries.

In context, using just whats written and not assumed, there IS something close to 40% of the US refinery capability that was NOT destroyed in the nuclear exchange. What the state of those locations is come December 2000 is up for debate...

No, you're missing the point. The over 60% figure was nukes only. It does not include the other cause of destruction which as previously demonstrated are many.

I dont think I am missing anything, just saying that although canon indicates that "over 60%" has been hit with a nuke, everything left is open entirely to our own interpretations.

There is no "definite" outcome for the other 40%ish...

Actually, you don't even need a match. In the TV series Life Without People, it shows that just leaving a functioning refinery unattended will cause its explosive demise. The sections of a refinery depend upon raw materials moving along bit by bit in an uninterrupted chain -- Most refinery explosions have taken place because some part of this progression did not happen, sometimes only for a few hours. Things get backed up, concentrations of hydrocarbons occurs where there shouldn't be concentrations, temperatures rise, and BOOM.

It's a long, tedious, difficult process to properly turn off a refinery complex. And with war at full gallop, no one is going to want to turn off functioning refineries deliberately.

And there are safety procedures for an emergency shutdown as well.

Again, not trying to imply that all refineries except the ones mentioned explicitly are up and running, but saying NONE of them are up is statistically improbable and canonically inaccurate.

Part of this game is about rebuilding, the US could not recover from having every single refinery in the country completely and utterly destroyed. Unless we make this MP or something...

That could be an idea for an adventure. The PCs have to escort a technical team to properly shut down a refinery and take possession of any oil products there. Your opponents also want those oil products, or maybe to even take control of the refinery because they have a supply of oil to refine. And then the bosses tell the PC team to go get that oil the NPCs have...it could go on and on.

Not at all what I'm saying. What I am asserting is the 40% figure of surviving refineries is wildly optimistic given the multitude of ways besides nukes for these facilities to be damaged or destroyed. Even the 40% figure is not supported by canon (although 39.9% is possible, although not plausible).

Ill agree with that, I say survived meaning not nuked. What happened after the nuke exchange is prime mission material there.

I will say though that I think it still brings a shadow of doubt, or at least possible mission material when thinking about the foreign national attacks. If they only took out 60% of their primary targets, surely they left something of the non allied foreign national infrastructure intact.

And then look at it through the eyes of a PC. Nukes are known to be nasty, super destructive things, and nobody in 2000, not even those who think they're in charge (leadership of the three various US Governments) really have much idea of what's left standing over the hill, let alone across the country. Until proven otherwise, they could be forgiven for believing the nukes got everything, especially if they've spent the last couple of years in a more devastated region.
Even if it was known a refinery was still standing somewhere, it may well be completely impossible for, say, Milgov to secure it with the available manpower and other pressures.
A more local group on the other hand might be able to occupy it, but have no hope of actually operating it due to lack of skilled personnel, and possibly a real shortage of actual crude oil to process.

The same applies almost anywhere in the world.

We know some refineries got shut down correctly - i.e. the one that is being put back on like at Brownsville is an example - and that the one in IL is still on line fully even as late as 2001 - although HW has it suffering an accident that reduces it to 1 percent of capacity by the end of the year (which by the way is still a lot of processed oil considering how big that particular refinery is)

and its not quite a life without people event - there would be emergency cutoffs and safeties used at most facilities - its not like poof and everyone disappeared as in Life Without People - also remember that its relatively easy to make diesel fuel which is what a lot of military vehicles can run on, let alone the grade of fuel that can be used to generate power - avgas or jet fuel on the other hand basically needs an intact facility

We don't know that actually. We do know most refineries were destroyed or damaged by the Americans as they withdrew from the area. All we really know about the Port Isabel refinery is that it's in the process of bring repaired.

This isn't to say there aren't other facilities in better condition, however the problem is getting crude to them. If that were possible, nobody would be bothering with Port Isabel.

That's why MilGov went thru the trouble of pulling an armored brigade out to be able to clear the Mississippi - they needed to be able to get oil up to the Robinson refinery in Illinois and using the river is probably the best way to do it

and that refinery still being in full operation (at least until the accident in Howling Wilderness) shows they didn't hit every major refinery with nukes - that's a 200,000+ barrels per day facility - definitely qualifies to be hit but yet there it is

I suspect the places with working refineries are going to be in Oklahoma (Ardmore or Wynnewood for instance) or Kansas given the presence of MilGov troops as well as near Bakersfield in CA - there are three small refineries in Bakersfield that are way way too small to expend a nuke on but perfect to provide enough oil to keep the reduced forces there are in CA going

MilGov may also have sent troops to non-functional refineries to salvage surviving difficult-to-manufacture parts to then transport to refineries that were more intact and/or were in better locations in terms of transport hubs, ability to be protected etc.

Also as has been mentioned in other discussions over the years, the Soviets' targeting systems were notoriously unreliable, and as the war progressed their ability to perform post-strike reconnaissance became more difficult or impossible, so some facilities like refineries may have been damaged by near-misses but not obliterated. If the Soviets couldn't get eyes-on but noted through other means that fuel production had dropped, they might assume the job was done. But in reality some refineries may have been put out of commission temporarily but been intact enough to have been brought back into production later, particularly if critical parts could be salvaged from elsewhere and the EMP-affected electronics could be repaired, replaced or bypassed.

Same could be said for targets in Pact controlled areas too. Without satellite surveillance and communications, it would be very difficult to confirm the details of a hit. Sure you might have people (spies) in the area, but who's going to want to go towards a possible nuke crater? Orders be damned when it comes to personal survival for most (if not all sane) people.

which is probably why Ploesti survived and was able to be put back into operation - my GM surmised that the NATO strike against the refinery had been one that was supposed to limit collateral damage to the city as much as possible (because Romania was a NATO member) and as a result they didn't destroy it, they damaged it enough to take it off line - and that it took till 2000 for the Soviets to get it back into operation

that's why our version of Med Cruise ended with a nuke strike that definitely 100% took it out for good and if it killed Romanians then it did - because they were looking to win the war in Europe one way or another and civilian casualties be damned