Twilight Smoke Launchers.

(No one uses these in their games)

The standard NATO vehicle smoke launcher is a 66mm grenade. The Warsaw Pact uses the 71mm "Tucha" launcher. Generally it produces a thick IR-defeating smoke and may or may not be based on white phosphorus. WP smoke grenades are simply WP grenades, there's no difference except they have about three to four times or more the payload of a 40mm WP grenade. As they have a very simple fuzing system they have a larger payload percentage.

However vehicles can also launch CS gas, but that's a niche munition.

Early on and its up to you if you want to reintroduce this but vehicles also had the option of fragmentation munitions for these installations. These were often used in urban fighting or other places where the vehicle might be overrun by hostile infantry. Note that the US M34 WP grenade had a fragmentation jacket.

As a rough guide the standard load for smoke grenades was 32 rounds with four to eight being on each side of the vehicle. Some vehicles expected to fight in urban terrain even had them facing in a 360º arc. These munitions are stored internally.

I'm not quite sure of the firing procedure. I know many installations allowed for single and barrage fire. I hope someone can enlighten us on this.

These little fellas go a long way. Here's a diagram from the M551 showing its arc. As is obvious these things present a very real risk to friendly personnel.

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...2a&oe=6143963E

This is a really long technical look at what survival would be like for one centre; Kraków. It is a model for the sort of capability that will be available to anywhere in the Twilight 2000 world. If this sort of boring navel-gazing makes your eyes cross it probably won’t be very interesting.

In a spare moment I gave some thought to The Free City of Kraków. To be precise how its economy works. This is pretty much going to be a critique and then I thought we could workshop an actual real, logical Kraków.
Note: I'm not disrespecting GDW here. They did a great job on extremely little information. Older posters here will remember just how little information came out of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War.

Now, disclaimer: I've never been quite sure why the Kraków authorities thought making a "free city" would be of any use. By definition in Twilight 2000 there's very little travel and what little there is can be handled by normal procedures. In effect they're saying to Lublin "NATO Welcome Here", and you can imagine how well that would go over. Secondly, no matter how well-disposed many people were towards the west before the war that's not going to be the case any more. The west was well-thought of in many places because they offered a lot and didn't do anything overly damaging to Poland, most of the western hatred was focused on Russia and East Germany. Since then in the game NATO has massively nuked Poland. Now, let that sink in. Not only did they invade but they also used nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. NATO has killed an enormous amount of Polish people. NATO PCs will not be viewed as "good guys" by many Poles, and also the activity of NATO marauders will be conflated with NATO troops. (This also goes for other nations, they're probably sick of Russia too, but at least Russia fought alongside the Poles). Now add in anti-NATO propaganda.

In my campaign Kraków is a very different place to what GDW envisaged. Anyway, that's just an aside.

Now, this might well be far too much detail and nitpicking, but I was wondering how they grow food, produce materials and so on. The reason I do this is because it puts stuff in the world. If there's an ammonium nitrate source it's not only extremely valuable to everyone, you can make fertiliser and explosives with it, but it's really something the players should bounce off. It makes the world real rather than an exercise in rolling on tables.
The first big problem with Kraków being that you simply can't run industry on a significant scale without significant power generation and the generator listed on page 17 of the source-book brings up a few problems. Firstly, yes you can move a boiler, although they are insanely technical and fragile things, but it also means you have to move the generators, the transformers, and then you have to rebuild the electrical infrastructure hooking it to the grid all while needing a food and security surplus to allow you to apply the personnel to the task.

Nowa Huta had a power plant but that's almost certainly bombed into oblivion (canonically it was vaporised in a triple nuclear strike) and also it ran on brown coal, and that would mean yet another industry required. Worse, the coal came originally from Silesia (it's complicated but Poland had a lot of odd inefficiencies due to Stalin-era requirements of industry going to certain places for political reasons and this meant long supply lines) and of course this isn't going to arrive, even if the plant is both reasonably intact and running at extremely low capacity. The problem with our steam-powered plant is we simply can’t fuel it. Wood does not produce enough calories when burnt and also you’re going to run out of wood in just a few months. In addition wood is difficult and costly to transport from it’s ever-moving harvesting areas.

So, big power is out. So that means small power, and of course you can distil fuel and run that but really it's both inefficient and insufficient to run things like lathes, industrial presses and so on for the likes of the Wojo Mortar Factory that is going to need at least those two pieces of industrial tools and many more.

[Edit: Since then I've researched the Dąbie Power Station, a small hydro-electric station on the barrage (weir) at Kraków.]

Secondly, it's stated that Kraków imports most of its food. From where? Now, as I said before I don't blame GDW for this but people familiar with modern farming know that there's a massive infrastructure associated with it so you can make a reasonable surplus.

In the 1950s to 1960s there was a thing called The Green Revolution (The Third Agricultural Revolution) when inefficient smaller farms switched over to agri-industry on a massive scale (the Soviets showed exactly how not to do this in the 1920s) and of course that infrastructure is gone in Twilight 2000. Fertiliser, pesticides, the systems for storing and applying those two, and especially the massive infrastructure that revolves around irrigation and its equipment (and the fuel required). Modern farming uses a large amount of fuel. This infrastructure came from central hubs that then went to transportation feeders, both military targets (although food production targeting is a war crime it's usually inevitable collateral damage).
Simply put there is no food for Kraków to import and there's no way the people nearby could get it there. While "sail it on a barge" is the canonical answer it doesn't really cover the logistics of getting the food from granaries, loading barges with heavy equipment and then fuelling them for the run downriver. Even if it was possible, would Kraków produce enough for it to be worth it when those people know that cyclical famine is now a thing they have to contend with?

So we have no food and no fuel. But that doesn't mean we can't have some sort of large unit in Kraków running a city.
So, we have to have Kraków produce enough food and also create a surplus. Luckily, there is a large amount of farmland to the north west of the city, however I can’t get a size on this to determine how many people it can support.

Unfortunately potassium and phosphorus do not occur naturally in Poland and along with nitrogen (which is not hard to get with ingenuity) you need all three for commercial surplus level farming. (The Polish government is probably getting all three from Russia which explains their ability to support troops and Germany has sources which explains NATO continuing on). This means the farming production is going to drop to pre-1870s levels.
Now, this was between 0.6 to 2.0 tonnes per hectare in optimum conditions, with the low numbers being for backwards areas with little mechanisation (what there was for the time) and the higher level for optimised areas in advanced countries. It took between 625 and 875 man-hours to produce that amount. Note these are when the mechanisation is gone. Tractors and farm gear will quickly wear out, especially when not lubricated or using poor quality fuel. Even so the immediate loss of fertilisers will be the main reducing factor in output.

Those numbers are only important if you want to go into eye-glazing detail, and that’s not even where I’m going and my reputation proceeds me. Instead the basic rule is that 80% of an established population will be engaged in food production. In transient or survival-level farming that number jumps to 95%. In areas that have access to modern farming level technology and infrastructure that plummets but I think only Lublin could manage that locally.

This means that the Kraków soldiery spends nearly all their time farming and only small patrols and checkpoints guard Kraków itself. It also means those patrols take away from those running the very inefficient post apocalypse industry and commercial activity. As can be seen almost no one lives in idleness and things like bars and shops will all be part time affairs. It also means the Kraków troops are going to be centred in the farming areas and more of a reaction force. The centre of Kraków is going to be a very dreary place as the focus of the city will be on the farming areas.

With food understood and the subsistence level of production worked out we now look at power production. As can be understood fuel is the primary problem. The only really available source is agricultural waste, however most of that is put back into the soil as fertiliser and only a tiny amount will be available to brew fuel. Forestry reduction is available in the short term, this might be where Kraków is now, but as mentioned above forestry is also a fuel-intensive industry. The two nearest coal deposits are the Lublin Basin, they’re not sharing with a rogue unit, and the Upper Silesia Basin which is too far away. However the canal between the two was used as a transport hub and is unlikely to have been directly targeted by anyone. GMs might want to have a resource war between Kraków and Silesia over the coal at some point.

It now appears that Kraków on the surface simply can’t get the power to run any industry on the scale of a factory capable of making mortar shells (the fuzes are totally impossible), which is rather sad. It is in fact unlikely they’ll be able to maintain their equipment and will eventually go under to someone with access to fuel unless the expand to absorb such a region.

Component units in the Kraków Defence Forces.

(Following on the Kraków theme)

The unit controlling Kraków is listed as the "8th Motor Rifle Division", which is actually something of a misnomer. The Polish called those units "Mechanised Divisions"

By the way, I really don't think the 8th are going to disband the colours and call themselves an OTK unit if for no other reason that the local OTK unit was already in place.

Here's the official Order of Battle from 1985:

8th "Dresden" Mechanised Division
- 16th "Dnowsko-Łużycki" Tank Regiment
- 28th "Sudecki" Mechanised Regiment
- 32nd "Budziszyński" Mechanized Regiment
- 36th "Łużycki" Mechanised Regiment
- 4th Artillery Regiment
- 83rd Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment
- 47th Rocket Artillery Battalion
- 1st Tactical Missile Battalion
- 15th Division Artillery Commander Command Battery
- 5th Reconnaissance Battalion
- 19th Sapper Battalion
- 13th Signal Battalion
- 8th Supply Battalion
- 8th Maintenance Battalion
- 39th Medical Battalion
- 64th Chemical Defence Company

Also, the 8th will be associated with a few other units that would have been in Kraków. These are:

3rd "Carpathian" Brigade WOP ("Border Protection Troops")
- 264th WOP battalion
- 32nd WOP battalion
- 34th WOP battalion

5th Podhalańska Brygada WOW ("Internal Defence Forces"; "Wojsk Obrony Wewnętrznej")
- command and staff
- three motorized infantry regiments (each with three battalions, a - mortar battery and a battery of guns)
- tank battalion
- 122 mm cannon squadron
- 120 mm mortar squadron
- 57 mm AA cannon squadron
- reconnaissance company
- company of sappers
- chemical company
- communications company
- traffic regulation company
- medical company

Kraków Territorial Defence "Bartosz Głowacki" Regiment. ("OTK").
- command and staff [4] .
- 4-6 infantry companies each with 3 infantry platoons and a heavy machine gun platoon
- special company including sapper platoon, communications platoon and chemical platoon
- supply platoon
This is who we think the "ORMO" were. They are the local military defence unit.

Kraków Civil Defence Units ("OP") Obrona Cywilna PRL
Don't underestimate these people, this is what every civilian is more or less part of. As Poland was a communist country they subscribed to the "People's War" concept and everyone had a role to play in the conflict. If you had nothing else you could do the OP took you.

Kraków Militia ("MO") This was the pre-war police force. It must be remembered that Polish police were paramilitary.

One unit you'll notice that are not here is the local ORMO units. This is because the ORMO was an arm of the Polish communist party, the guys the 8th are rebelling against.

Also I should belabour the point that Polish society in the Cold War was more militarised than what we in the west (assuming the reader is western) are used to. Some sort of civil training was very common. Civil Defence was especially widespread. Note that "civil defence" meant just that; not only did they do disaster relief and medical services but the OP also did things like create strongpoints, assist AA weaponry and other military functions.

Running Text-Based Twilight 2000 Games.

Many times we've all been stinging for a game but can't organise a tabletop campaign. T2K is by definition more of a campaign game due to its resources management and travel focus so one-off games usually don't do the trick. As such we often think "hey, I'll just run this online on RPOL or something". Lots of people have, and I encourage you to join one, but what makes it difficult to run in a one-off session is also what makes it very hard to play as a play-by-post or play-by-e mail game. This is because the medium is incredibly slow.

I mean *really* slow. It took me five years to run a very detailed game with two to three "Turn Posts" a week to get the players together, do a small investigation, clear a small group of marauders from the environs of a bridge and then deal with a counter attack. So this brings us to our first rule:

Keep It Small

You have to have small, compartmentalised adventures. They have to be easily resolvable because you will have players either go missing for a while or disappearing entirely. A long campaign is simply impossible given the level of detail that T2K involves unless you are going to gloss over much of the richness of the campaign.
So instead of a long adventure you instead have several small adventures that link to each other. The idea here is that if the thing goes on too long some players will simply become too fatigued to deal with it and drop out. This also gives the players a bit of autonomy; they finish up one area and then can choose the next direction from the choices you give them. Always keep in mind what the next scenario will be however, because here is where the next thing comes in:

Foreshadowing

This goes for any game but is vital for text games. "Foreshadowing" is a literary term for where the writer introduces a plot element early so the reader gets used to it and when it finally features in the script it seem natural that it should occur. If your next scenario features marauders then have survivors of one of their attacks be a feature of some of the NPCs. This links the scenarios together in more ways than just exploration. Foreshadowing is great for mysteries, introducing NPCs and laying the groundwork for large events. Due to its plt-setting nature it makes things seem like to campaign is "alive" and doesn't freeze when the players turn their back.

That leads to the next bit:

The Living Campaign

Because text-based games have to be very focused and you have to provide lots of information in an economical form that doesn't make the reader's eyes glaze over, the important work of giving the feeling that the world is alive and doing other things has to dealt with in most posts, it's not something you can forget and just dump on the players later. In a firefight they should hear artillery off in the distance. When travelling they might hear shooting in the hills or see tracers at night. This needs a bit of practice because it can also be distracting and confusing, the player suddenly doesn't know if a mortar duel twenty kilometres away is landing on their convoy or not. Have one of the last surviving helicopters fly across the far north, its rumbling rotors waking them from their sleep. In one game I had a trio of cruise missile flash over the brigade they were in and keep going. They were headed for France but the players never found that out.

Firm Rules.

Finally I'm going to post my two-decade old play-by-post rules here. Each has a little explanation of why the rule was needed that is usually omitted from the rules page when I play.

Jim's Play-By-Post Rules

1) Do Not Meta-Game
"Meta-Gaming" is where a player uses information or knowledge not available to their character.
This is not that much of a problem any more and usually is exhibited by excited and enthusiastic players. As text-based games are slow many players try and be in as much action as possible or access information (such as another player spotting a sniper but being unable to warn his companions) that is not available to them.

2) Do Not Lie to, Cheat or Steal From Other Characters.
The basic social agreement of gaming is that players will work together. The game is dangerous enough for the characters without their colleagues actively trying to get them killed. Also note that while this sort of behaviour might seem like fun role-playing many players approach this as a relaxation from such behaviour. Please be considerate.
This is a new rule because, hey, I'm 56 and what was cool and edgy when I was 20 is tedious and offensive now.

3) Be Aware Your Actions Have Reactions.
You are not an island, mistreating NPCs will eventually get out, you will find it difficult to interact peacefully with the world if you have a reputation for torture or murder. It's a tough world but there are obvious over-reactions that will impact negatively on your reputations, you have been warned.
I'm not a big believer in making examples of players but sometimes you have to show that the PCs are not always the biggest dog in town, and if they have a bad reputation those big powers will seek them out.

4) You may NOT kill or attack with intent to harm another PC without prior GM approval.
The GM reserves the right to make an empathy roll, if you fail this roll you cannot bring yourself to harm the other player, although you're more than welcome to be bitter and nasty! The GM may well re-roll this without your knowledge as time and the campaign goes on, so you may 'be pushed too far' and be told that you are ready for violent confrontation, but PCs aren't permitted to open up on other PCs willy-nilly.
I use the Cyberpunk 2020 rules (without classes) and one of the statistics is "Empathy". This statistic is you interpersonal stat and is quite important in play, and it's also the sort of "shield" the players has against becoming the evil they strive against. While I hate alignments I think we can all agree that evil really does exist in the world and generally the players are opposed to it. I had to boot a guy who just up and shot another PC during an argument over a triviality, and then another guy used the new 'no attack' rule as a way of sheltering his own poor interaction, thus it was modified again. I try and make it clear that while a player knows that a gun can only do so many "hit points damage" the *character* only sees a deadly weapon.

5) Turns: The GM posts Two times a week, Australian Tuesday and Friday
You must have your response in before then or you are NPC'd for that turn. If you miss three turns without telling anyone, your PC is 'walked offstage' and out of the game. If something catastrophic has occurred, your PC is then brought back on when you can play again.
Turn Posts are different to just posting. The Turn Post moves the action along and is exactly the same as ending a round of combat, and is used for just that during combat. This gives players a firm idea of when things have to be achieved by and how long they can discuss things. Also, people were dropping out without warning or not responding and holding up turns for weeks. I picked twice a week because I had those days off more than any other reason. We had a guy who had a house fire, so you could hardly blame him for not posting, but others just vaporised and I needed a system for everyone to know when they'd be cut out. After this I always was given good warning that a player would have to miss turns

6) Players MUST answer other players
You should always answer any speech directed at your character, even if it's to only post something like 'I ignore John.'
If this isn't instituted some players aren't answered and are stuck waiting for a response, missing turns and slowing everything down. Sometimes this turns into the dreaded 'talking to the air' where players address the air rather than be held up.

7) PCs must NOT 'think aloud' about other PCs. Never post 'Fred thinks John is a total jerk, his plan is stupid and will get them all killed.' etc. It's cowardly, the other player gets no right of response, role-play out your differences and resolve them on the board, that's the name of the game.
We had a rash of this; I had to stamp on it because I was getting a lot of off-list complaints. It's a pernicious thing that many players fall into, the other way of doing it is the PC speaks to an NPC while well away from everyone else, but it amounts to the same thing.
- When in combat, post a combat summary after your post.
The summary looks like:
Who you are,
Where you are,
What you're using,
What you're doing.

Such as:
Private John
In the ditch, crouching, by the wrecked BTR.
M16A2, 5 magazines
Covering Private Fred's advance to the gully.

9) A Rules-Speak Paragraph is A Good Idea.
If you post a long and descriptive turn, you may want to follow it by a 'rulespeak paragraph' after your turn - but before your summary - if you're concerned the GM may get it wrong. Don't skimp on your descriptions, they're the meat of the game, but sometimes a quick clarification of the 'round 1: run to barn, round 2: ready bow, round 3: shoot at brown-haired bandit’ makes things amazingly easier for me to GM out and I hate it when I make mistakes about your intentions.
I know it's hard to come up with thrilling narrative every turn, but please try and make longer posts of good descriptions of your actions for a few reasons. Firstly, they get me really enthused to write the story for you. Secondly, they add so much to the game. Thirdly, fifteen separate posts of "yes", "no", and "maybe" tends to "spam-out" people in different time zones, they get up and there's a hundred posts of drivel that they can hardly inject themselves into. It also is amazingly confusing to GM.

10) Trim your posts.
Only have in your post the text that you are responding to or relates to your post, and only respond AFTER the text and not before.

11) Colour Your Speech.
When your PC talks, the text of his comments should be enclosed within inverted commas and the text should be Blue, this is so other players can sort your conversation from your descriptions. However, if a character thinks something they are written the same way but they are in italics; "such as this."

What sort of add-on units we could attach to the the 5th?

This wouldn't contradict canon at all, it would be an interesting addition and give players other choices when starting.

My first thought would be a unit do attach orphan NATO units to. Some sort of umbrella unit.

The next would be somewhere to put ex-Warsaw Pact troops in the same manner. Once again they'd have their own organisational charts. (In 1st Edition the East Germans might have an odd tension on who wants them)
Finally we can make up some purely T2K units that deal with farming, battlefield reclamation and fabrication.

Polish Civil Defence, Air Raid Shelters and Disaster Relief.

The Cold War Polish people lived in a militarised society. They prepared for a conventional war on their territory, and in the T2K world this preparation will bear fruit.

It has to be remembered that in the People's Republic of Poland everyone had a job to do and if war erupted everyone had a job to do in that. Civilian training in disaster relief was on a level unequalled in the West. The civilians had shelters and were expected to use them. In devastated areas civilians were expect to fall back with the troops and not stay in place. Civilians will be active in the defence of their country and NATO is an invader.

Civilians were incorporated into the war effort under the umbrella of the Obrona Cywilna PRL (OP).
The OP was the primary civil defence organisation and a large proportion of the civilian population had a role in it. The OP as a civil defence unit is off limits to hostile forces and it is illegal to utilise their equipment. Civilian infrastructure such as school buses and bus shelters were designed to be quickly converted into ambulances and aid stations. This thinking permeated the Polish government and society. Firemen, police and medical staff all wore military uniforms. In fact nearly everyone in this situation wore uniforms, it would be rare to see civilian clothes after a while. Civilians had access to shelters and these were stocked with food, medicine and NBC equipment. Huge amounts of earthmoving gear was available to them to shift rubble and enter damaged buildings. The OP had comprehensive NBC detection and decontamination equipment that included decontaminating every facet of life right down to livestock.

Now, it's very hard for me to tell as I don't speak Polish but there was another organisation that has the acronym ZOS. They were either part of the OP, ran in parallel to them or were superseded by them. ZOS had fire, medical, sanitary, technical, social and specialist shelter staff all organised along military lines. ZOS seems to have worked alongside the MO (police) in rear area operations and go into action to mitigate the effects of the war on the population. Poland had the experience of the Nazi occupation to draw from and had no illusions as to how bad war could be and prepared accordingly.

Air Raid Shelters were short term shelters. They were located in a huge amount of places such as railway stations, hospitals, industrial plants and government buildings. These things were not small. They usually had double thick steel doors, a decontamination room, a generator/air filtration/water systems complex, medical centre, storage area for uniforms, helmets, medical equipment, tools, food, and other stores, a series of actual shelter areas, a commander's room and an array of escape tunnels. Most were buried well below ground with a concrete shield overhead and would have survived anything but a direct hit from a heavy bomb. In the twilight 2000 world these will form the nucleus of survivor enclaves. During the real world many of these shelters existed in structure only but during the drumbeat to war it is unlikely that Poland would have neglected these structures.

Note that Nowa Huta near Kraków had over 250 of these structures.

OP Guardsman

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...4d&oe=61427F74

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...a7&oe=614323E3

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...92&oe=6142F040

Some very good bunker diagrams

On my quest to make the perfect Twilight 2000 Sheridan I think I've finally found it.

Believe it or not but way back in 1967 there was already concerns that the M81 (as it was then) Gun/Launcher may not be a good idea. As such Rock Island Arsenal did a crash program of four other weapon systems to fit in the M551 turret should the M81 develop problems.

Of the four only two were recommended mainly due to space problems, although it was mentioned that if serious redesign work was done all four would fit in the turret. The two weapon systems were:

- M32 76mm Cannon, the same as was on the M41 Walker Bulldog
- XM180 105mm Gun/Howitzer from the XM104 super mobile lightweight howitzer (which really should have gone into service)

Of the two the XM180 was the preferred weapon system as it coupled low pressure and trunnion loading with high damage output and ammunition that was still largely in service.
This weapon fired much faster than the existing M81 because it didn't need a compressed air purge to blow out the bore so the combustible cartridge cases wouldn't ignite prematurely. It's likely that by the time of the Twilight War an A1 version of the gun/howitzer would have been developed with a bore evacuator for even faster firing. Notably the XM108 could fire any 105mm howitzer ammunition in US stocks and new racks for the vehicle gave a stowage of 50 Rounds. (I note the UK ammo has a squash head round)

If the M551A1 is the M81-armed standard version with vision upgrades and a minor modernisation package that would make the M32 76mm the M551A2A1 and the XM108 105mm the M551A3A1

Here's an image of the gun way back in 1967

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...bc&oe=614216A5

The Polish PT-91 Twardy MBT really should exist in the game, it's awesome.
Although prior to the dissolution there was a strong drive to keep military equipment the same across the board, invariably Russian equipment, it's obvious in hindsight this was impossible to maintain. I guess to ease the problems that might arise from this situation there'd be lots of cross-training with Russian kit so when they resupplied other national armies with gear in case of loss of industrial capacity due to strikes or being overrun there were fewer problems.
Of special interest is the PT-91EU which was an Urban Warfare variant. Although in real life this vehicle turns up way later in 2011 the exigencies of war would see it being developed far earlier. Due to its high survivability it's likely more of these would survive than the other variants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT-91_Twardy

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...rdy_MSPO09.jpg

ZSU-23-4M2 "Afghan" version.

What, it gets worse?!

The deadly "Zoo" or "Shilka" evolved over its ongoing lifetime and the ZSU-23-4 in the books is not necessarily the ones your PCs will meet on the battlefield.

During the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989 the Soviets developed the M2 kit for their Shilkas. This was the following and converted the weapon from the anti-air role to the ground support role:

- Removed the Gun Dish J Band anti-air radar
- Installed enlarged ammunition bays doubling ammunition capacity from 2,000 to 4,000 rounds.
- Installed the TPNZ-49 tank night scope.
- Installed the PSNR-5 man-portable ground surveillance radar.
- Ammunition was a mixed belt of BZT API and OBZT HE-T ammunition to destroy by blast and penetration.


Now, it's important to note that these modification kits exist in the Twilight 2000 era. It just a job of dropping the beast back to a workshop and having them fitted. It's likely this will happen wholesale when the air threat diminishes.

However, what you can use against Afghan rebels and what you can use against NATO regulars are not the same thing. NATO troops can reach out and kill things at night time and the Shilka can only accurately hit targets at around 1,500m in the ground support role. It's going to need some sort of mix of Applique armour, ERA and bar armour.

I can't tell if the Shilkas in the book had the old, unmodified engine that was slow in the book and all the upgrades the vehicles had by the Twilight 2000 era M3 vehicle.

https://preview.redd.it/a0svvtu88065...=webp&92feceec

I do love vehicles that, to put it bluntly, were no good.

If it was that they lost their raison d'être due to technological advances, if they were good ideas that were ahead of their time or in case of the vehicle coming up, they were simply a crap boondoggle, I do love my failures.
The M247 Sergeant York SPAAG could have been awesome. It's one of those vehicles that simply "looks right". It was an utter failure, but the failure was mainly due to its design criteria as much as dodgy corporate swindling and corruption.

What the US Army wanted: A ZSU-23-4 with bigger guns and a fast engine.
What the US Army asked for: an SPAAG using two heavy guns and a heavy radar on an out of date chassis that still had to keep up with the M1 Abrams, one of the world's fastest tanks.

They specified the M48A5 chassis because they had lots and they were very reliable. They also stated that it had to use off-the-shelf equipment so the radar was a repurposed air-to-air radar, not even a ground attack radar. Now, Ford Aerospace seemed to have been thinking if they got the contract the could simply deal with the issues later. Issues like making it work.
Really, the whole sorry tale is too long to go into here. I do recommend you look it up now that 35 years have passed.

What I want to do is suggest that the M247 didn't ignominiously end its days being blown to pieces on live-fire ranges but that the 50 that were made in our alternate universe languished in a boneyard simply because everyone was too embarrassed to talk about them. There they sat, essentially useless and incapable of even defending themselves until the final phase of resupply for the European campaign. By this time the Mil-24 Hinds were all gone and the USA is desperate to send its troops ground fighting vehicles. They looked at the M247s sitting there and gave them the ZSU-23-4M2 "Afghan" treatment.

The hypothetical M247A2 is purely a ground support vehicle. It has had its radar stripped out and the AN/PPS-15A(V)1 ground search radar (1,500m for personnel, 3,000m for vehicles) placed in the forward radar nacelle.
The ammunition is increased from 580 to 650 rounds.
The turret armour is given applique panels that bring it up from STANAG 4569 level 3 to level 4 armour protection, capable of resisting the KPV 14.5mm. A sliding mantlet is provided to protect the crew from direct fire of the same level. The rear of the turret is kept the same and the hull is of course the basic robust M48A5. In the European theatre ERA blocks and wire/bar armour were occasionally used by some units. This extra armour drops the road speed to a slow 40kmh, a speed demon it is not.
The turret had a large bustle rack at the rear and is still roomy after the removal of the large radar even when the extra ammunition is fitted.

The commander's cupola from the LAV-25 was fitted and has a NATO heavy mount capable of accepting the M240E1 GPMG (spade grip version), the M2HB HMG or the Mk19 AGL. Many were equipped with gunshields at various times.

The sights are upgraded. The optical sights are retained and light intensification added. The commander has no override for the gun. At least one of these vehicles was fitted with thermal sights during its war service.
Note that the 40mm twin autocannon are belt-fed, a huge improvement over the crew-intensive five round clips normally used. Its crew remains three with commander, gunner and driver, making it something of a bear for maintenance and an endurance test when keeping watch.

The ubiquitous Polish FSC Żuk A-07

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...f5&oe=6141C0CE

One of the things that always irked me a tad is that GDW liked to resurrect ancient titles for modern commanders. It seems to have been based on some sort of "hey, it's Europe right? They'd love someone called "baron"!"

Looking at failed states, and everywhere in T2K is a failed state, tinpot dictators tend to give themselves military monikers, sometimes extremely grandiose ones (Idi Amin? "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular"), to legitimise themselves and to let their goons fool themselves into thinking they're part of a properly constituted and respectable force.

I think the players will meet a certain Marszałek ("Field Marshal") Czarny when they get to Warsawa

Lublin and the Warsaw Pact in the Central Polish Corridor. The WarPact MSR.

Way over near the Ukrainian/Belarusian border of Poland is the large town of Lublin, seat of the Reserve Front Head Quarters.
Oddly enough most of the headquarters' actual units seem to be at least about two hundred and thirty kilometres west, the nearest being at Piotrków Trybunalski which is the base for the Fourth Soviet Guards Tank Army.
This implies there's an MSR (Main Supply Route) connecting the two. Now, it will probably eventually fail but when the 5th Infantry Division (US) gets nailed at Kalisz it's definitely still in operation.

The route crosses the Vistula/Wisła river at Pulawy, then heads due west to Piotrków Trybunalski and then heads north west to Łódź itself.
Now, it's written in the various sources that the Polish government and the Warsaw Pact command is having trouble with bandits in this area, so you can expect heavy contingents of anti-partisan elements from both Reserve Front HQ and its security elements in Lublin, the formidable Soviet 20th Tank Division and the 6th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Łódź and the nearby 11th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Lask. Not listed will be the various OTK local defence units, formations not to be discounted.

While the 11th are cavalry you can expect the 6th to be mounted in light vehicles with possible guntrucks, UAZ-469 and Tarpan Honker technicals if they send a rapid reaction force. The 20th Guards Tank Division however is a different proposition. They can send actual APCs, IFVs backed by their 8 remaining MBTs along the route and won't hesitate to do so. Players running into a patrol should think carefully about attacking as the situation will simply escalate until the 20th take a serious interest in eliminating the threat to its rear areas. Note that as these are all experienced Warsaw Pact units they won't be mindlessly attacking from the front but will hit hard and fast from all directions.

Along the MSR you'll find a series of fortified checkpoints possibly stiffened by dug-in light and heavy armour. It would not be unreasonable to find these checkpoints using hardened concrete bunkers and even with things like IFV or MBT turrets installed. At this point the supply routes are actually more important than combat capacity.
The checkpoints will send out patrols to dominate the area and fly the flag. Apart from fighting marauders and bouncing player characters they'll also do things like gather up Displaced Persons and then send them towards collection points and relief camps. They might reconnoitre interesting sites for salvage and collect intelligence on things too large to handle themselves.
Support for these units will be at a premium so they can't expect much, but they definitely will be able to call on mortar support if they're close to their base.

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...77&oe=61440792
As movement is often restricted to infantry endurance there are large checkpoint/bases for platoon sized elements at Zwolen, on the outskirts of Radom, the Pillica river bridge at Inowłódz and at Tomaszow Mazowiecki (all available on Google Maps)

Self Propelled Guns and why every party should have one.

Twilight 2000 is not actually a modern warfare game but a distinctly different creature, and in the context of the game vehicles often change roles and capabilities and there's no better example of this than SPGs.

Most of the game involves long distance slow movement using limited fuel. Combat is often meeting engagements involving lightly armed and unsupported infantry in a wide variety of situations. While the premier infantry support vehicle, the IFV, is capable in many regards the one thing it lacks is heavy payload direct fire high explosive capability.

There are two stand-out vehicles that vie for supremacy here and they are the British FV433 Abbot and the Soviet 2S1 Gvozdika (SO-122 in T2K terms). Both these vehicles are to be preferred over their heavier 150mm+ counterparts because they are much faster firing, have smaller crews, are amphibious (although this might well change, see the close support package below), carry more ammunition onboard, use less fuel and are more nimble vehicles.

However as standard they are not suitable. Their extremely light armour, just 12mm for the Abbot and 20mm for the Gvozdika, makes them vulnerable to even 12.7mm AP rounds [Edit: Gvoszdika is frontally proof against 12.7 SLAP it seems because like most Soviet light vehicles it has HHA composition steel for its armour] and HEDP rounds from the various grenade launchers commonly encountered in Twilight 2000 engagements. Of course dedicated anti-armour weapons are a threat unable to be countered.

A close support combat package is thus required, being:
- Applique armour to bring the vehicles up to 25mm to 30mm armour levels.
- Bar armour where possible.
- Close defence machineguns. A HMG/Grenade Launcher and and at least one GPMG.
- ERA if possible.
- Possibly even Shtora anti-ATGM dazzlers if these systems are able to be salvaged from BMP-3M, T-80 or T-90 vehicles.

It is unlikely that a vehicle would have all these upgrades. Bar armour tends to be destroyed by ERA detonation. ERA is heavy, reduces mobility, increases fuel consumption and is a danger to accompanying infantry.

Both vehicles have an onboard crew of four.

Finally the two vehicles each have an ammunition variant that the other does not have. The Abbot can fire the bunker-busting L42 Shell 105mm Field, HESH round that has a myriad of applications and is a good HE weapon as well. The Gvozdika has the SH-1 AP Flechette infantry killer as well as some dedicated HEAT rounds (BK-6M and BK-13). The Abbot is faster firing but the Gvozdika has a much larger payload.

Of course these are not main battle tanks or even assault guns, their armour is far too light on a battlefield where the RPG-7V and the AT-4 are common. The infantry has to first go in and clear out opposing infantry, then suppress anti-tank positions so the SPG can manoeuvre in to a firing position and destroy its target. At this point the vehicle should immediately retire. These vehicles are even capable of destroying dug-in or otherwise immobilised MBTs if handled well, although such missions might be considered "high risk" to say the least. Like SPAAGs the SPGs have high angle firing arcs and can engage enemies in elevated positions and this makes them suitable for urban combat.

One of the big drawbacks, and it's a huge one, is that these vehicles have terrible gun depression. The Abbot has an awful -5º depression and the Gvozdika has an abysmal -3º depression. This means the weapons have difficulty engaging close, low targets and can't fire from hull-down positions. While the Soviet vehicles always had the terrible gun depression, the T-72 had only a -5º and the early PT-76 couldn't depress its gun at all, this sort of drawback in Twilight 2000 is significant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV433_Abbot_SPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2S1_Gvozdika
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm...zer_2A18_(D-30)

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...dd&oe=6144B5D9

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...69&oe=614486F4

A few thoughts on adding the Gulf War to the game history.

Most people include the Soviet-Afghanistan War in their campaigns. However doing so means there's going to be some very skilled veteran Russian officers and senior NCOs getting around when the Twilight War starts. The same goes for the 1st Russian-Chechen War but for more ranks.

In a similar fashion people might be thinking of introducing the 1990–1991 Gulf War which also would be good experience for western troops. If you do so you should understand the massive influence this war had on Russian warfare concepts. According to a report for the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College "The Soviet Military Views Operation Desert Storm: A Preliminary Assessment" there was a lot of consternation about the outcome of this war and it's not an overstatement to say that this caused a revolution in Russian warfare so that the warfighting in the Twilight War would be significantly different.

The Russians deemed that their level of training was insufficient to deal with western armies and that the system for training conscripts would have to incorporate a new full time army of professional troops capable of being rapidly expanded. A quote from a Russian source is:
"It's simply impossible to continue to reject the idea of deep military reform from bottom to top. (The Gulf War) plays in our favor because it's absolutely clear that these sophisticated weapons can't be used with high efficiency without an adequate level of preparation of personnel, and also demand a new kind of commander."

They fully understood the difference of Iraq's rather unskilled (at all levels from trooper to generals), unmotivated and poorly/unevenly equipped army compared to theirs but also understood the West had actually only conservatively exerted themselves to deal with Saddam's forces compared to the level of exertion a war with Russia would involve. The major levels of concern were precision weapons, interconnectivity (the Interconnectivity Revolution was only just underway), and the acknowledged technology gap in some areas that had developed. Principle among these were computing power and night vision/sensing, not only in its capabilities but in its level of deployment through the forces. One level of concern was the way the West had deployed force with precision over mass, meaning that even though they 200,000 troops in-theatre they hadn't required that number to force a resolution. This implied that heavy blows could come from all directions, even from comparatively small and seemingly poorly-supported forces such as airborne or marine troops.

"Volouev asserts that the U.S. Army expects that confrontations in a TVD (the Theater of Strategic Military operations-a purely Soviet concept telling the reader that the argument also applies to the Soviet Army) will be highly mobile and aggressive. The front will be fragmented. Operations will occur along isolated, separate gaps in formations. PGMs will give combat operations the quality of tactical and operational focus that blurs distinctions between offense and defense, the front, flanks, and rear. Combat operations will become three-dimensional with width, depth, and height parameters. Strategic systems will perform tactical missions-something the VVS has been particularly keen on. Army aviation helicopters will repeatedly reduce by a factor of 8-10 the time needed to maneuver forces and assets on the battlefield. Air/Land Battle will become a means of destroying and defeating larger enemy formations in depth."

Note that the Russians and the Soviets before them weren't blind to these concepts, they fully understood the West had been developing them. However they were concerned at not only how pervasive the systems were but how quickly they had been developed. A lot of the Soviet planning had been not only out-fighting but also out-staying the enemy.
As can be understood this sort of thinking led to rapid and frank re-evaluation of how the whole concept of warfare was to be undertaken, and what strengths could be called upon and which strengths needed to be rapidly developed. The Russians had already moved away strongly from the early-mid Cold War thinking of costly breakthroughs that were designed to save lives in the long run after the Soviet-Afghanistan War. In that war they had met an enemy that could outstay even the Red Army, causing a revision of systems towards survivability that arguably has produced things like the T-14 Armata family and the crash program in body armour of the 1990s. Now the Russians were thinking along the lines of integrated systems that would produce the S-300/S-400 integrated air defence network and similar concepts, precision weapons and other concepts faster than the canonical campaign allows for.

In summary integrating the Gulf War into the campaign brings these things closer.

Soviet Slat Armour
(You guys must be getting sick of all this Soviet stuff)

During the Soviet-Afghanistan War the threat from captured and Chinese-supplied RPG-7s proliferated and the close combat ranges made this threat a high priority. While the Soviets were looking into the ERA-technology that would emerge as the Kontakt-1 and Kontakt-5 ERA packages there was a protection gap that needed to be filled.

The Soviets had already developed the BDD composite armour turret package (not cast blocks as is listed in T2K) and this added a large amount of protection against both kinetic and chemical jet rounds, but it weighed in at 1.8 tonnes for the turret alone. Now their vehicles were being attacked from all sides and something needed to be done quickly.

The USA had developed slat armour during the American-Vietnam War for a variety of purposes including installations, boats and vehicles. The Soviets quickly developed a slat armour package for their deployed vehicles that covered the hull and turret sides and rear. The package weighed in at 0.55 tonnes and could be fitted at any workshop that had an arc welder (the same as the BDD armour package).

Here's a few images:
https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...84&oe=6142DC65

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...b0&oe=61439A70

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...99&oe=61439D6E

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...ee&oe=6142AB86

M60/AX "Super 60"; the M60A3 for the Twilight War.

The M60A3 in US service was declared surplus to requirements in 1991. A steady wind-down of stocks occurred but by the time hostilities are discernable it's sensible that the Department of Defence would put the brakes on discarding these vehicles.

General Dynamics had put out a serious upgrade package for the M60 in 1985 that was turned down because the US was moving towards M1. However it is to be noted that this package was superior to pretty much every other package available and was a pretty much bolt-on upgrade. I'm just going to cut-and paste the wikipedia entry:

"The tank upgrade is based on the M60A1 RISE hull and the T95E7 turret as used on the M60A1 and A3 variants of the M60 series. Mobility was increased by 20% with a new engine and transmission. It featured the AVCR-1790-1B engine coupled to a Renk RK-304 transmission with 4 forward and 4 reverse gears. The torsion bar suspension system of the M60 was replaced with the National Waterlift hydropneumatic suspension system (HSS).[101] Survivability was enhanced with a layer of Chobham spaced applique armor built around the M60A1 turret, that noticeably changed its appearance. The hull armor is enhanced with a layer of laminated steel armor panels covering the frontal arc of the hull. A pair of steel track skirts were added as well as Kevlar spall liners for the fighting compartment. It has a crew of 4, the commander, loader and gunner are positioned in the turret and the driver in the front of the hull.
The weapons of the M60/AX are similar to those of the M60A3, but different models were used. The main gun is the rifled 105 mm/L55 M68A1E2 with a longer XM24 tube and a thermal sleeve, the same weapon used on the M1 and M1IP versions of the M1 Abrams MBT with 43 rounds.[102] The 7.62 mm M73 coaxial machine gun used on the M60A1 is replaced with a 7.62 mm M240C, with the same number of rounds. The M19 cupola was replaced with a low silhouette model with a pop-up hatch for the commander and a 12.7 mm M2HB machine gun on a pintle mount with 600 rounds. The Fire Control System (FCS) is essentially the same as used on the M60A3TTS consisting of an M21E1 solid-state ballistic computer, Raytheon AN/VSG2 Tank Thermal Sight (TTS) for the gunner, a Raytheon AN/VVS2 flash-lamp pumped ruby-laser based range finder, accurate up to 5000 meters, an M10A2E3 electro-mechanical ballistic drive and solid-state analog data card bus. The prototype built did not have an optical range finder but one could have been easily installed.
As one of the first upgrade packages offered for the M60 series, the M60/AX prototype demonstrated the potential for upgrading the M60A1/A3 and even the M48 series as well. Even though this update package offered M60 users an opportunity to dramatically increase the combat capabilities of their tank fleets, no country ever bought the update, and the program effectively ceased by the end of the Cold War. Only one prototype was built. The overall failure of the Super 60 Program was likely due to the lack of immediate necessity for such a vehicle."

While it's noted that this vehicle became the Israeli "Magach" it was actually a superior vehicle due to General Dynamic's superior manufacturing ability.
Note that the Super M60 as depicted is the "demonstrator model". Super M60s in the Twilight War would probably under go similar modifications the M1A1 underwent such as the TUSK program. Importantly there's no need for any design work to be done, the upgrade is ten years old at the start of the war. The sensors would probably be upgraded to M1A1 standards and incorporate other technology that had arisen during the time of its design and the start of the war.

http://www.military-today.com/tanks/super_m60.jpg

A bit of a sobering thought:
In 1989 the BMP-2 factory was making 1,800 vehicles a year

One of the few problems I have with Twilight 2000 is the backstory is such a crock of horseshit.

Nearly every NATO nation decides to either stab NATO in the back or stay neutral?! Please, it's not just stupid but it's also offensive.

Every nation's behaviour, both Warsaw Pact and NATO, in the backstory is so incredibly stupid it totally destroys the "willing suspension of disbelief" for me.

Yes, yes, I know GDW was trying to create a world war fought everywhere but what they did make was a good game that is fun despite its backstory and not because of it. If they'd simply had a proper Cold War fight with the proper sides it'd stop punching you clean out of the immersion.

Grumble grumble get off my lawn.

This is probably irrelevant to most people, but a 44 gallon drum (UK)/55 gallon drum (US) holds 200 litres which roughly equals 200 kilograms of potatoes.

I'm a bit torn on the humble spud. They are extremely energy dense food and don't really deserve to be termed "wild food".
(An empty 44 weighs 20kg)

Ahh, I should have added this:
Paul lists this:

Drum, 200-liter: Normal steel or aluminum drum, though plastic is becoming available. Weight: 10kg; Price: $30 (V/V)

I would add:
Rotary Oil Drum Pump: Pump for dispensing fluids from large drums. Weight: 2.0kg; Price $50 (V/V)

https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...b8&oe=6143133E

Iso-Butanol, the fuel that acts like T2K "alcohol"

Iso-Butanol is a biofuel under study that is derived from agricultural waste. It has a whopping 98% efficiency of that of gasoline and it doesn't even use the high-sugar feedstock like sweet sorghum or beets that modern bio-fuels use. It needs a fermentation-distillation system that uses some odd microbes, the infamous E-Coli stomach bug is one, and it needs some finicky kit to make. It's still in the experimental phase (this is actually great news for the world, it doesn't even use the edible parts of the food).

Now, a few of us have never been comfortable with ethanol-methanol fuels for the simple reason is they don't work the way they do in the books. Ethanol has a very high burning temperature and needs to be mixed with other fuels to lower it. Methanol has, to use the Australian idiom, bugger-all energy. Neither fuel has nearly enough energy to run a vehicle or frankly you'd see everyone cooking fuel now.

So, for those OCD people such as myself you can consider that the iso-butanol revolution came early. As the war ground on the fuel crunch hit and one side or the other introduced the fuel and the other side quickly caught on and did likewise. Specialty brewing/distilling kits were issued to the troops and these are the "stills" we see in the game.

If you don't like having that sort of high-efficiency fuel around simply rule that the kits the troops make and the microbe stock they have access to is less efficient.

A possible menace for the T2K battlefield.
Now illegal since 1995, blinding lasers were developed but not fielded by all the powers.
If you're feeling brutal here's some ways they work that are more involved than you might think.
There is no protection against blinding lasers that still allows you to see.

Horses (yet again)

Many months ago a poster here brought up the brilliant point that there wouldn't be all that many horses in Poland and probably not enough for cavalry units. I did some "research" since then and found that Poland actually had several state horse studs and Polish race horses were an important vector of western funds. In The Second World War these studs were moved east and then south for safety to save them from the Germans. They did actually fall into their hands but it seems obvious to me that this would probably happen again. The obvious upshot of this is that horse units are raised in the east and sent west using Russian and Polish breed-stock. This saves them from the worst of the chemical warfare. Similarly cavalry units in NATO are raised from French and Spanish stocks (if you ignore the stupid French stab-in-the-back theory) and are moved east and this is where the horse studs are.

Now, this all might seem useless trivia but it does give us some useful information. Cavalry units after the general collapse might even furtively trade across enemy lines for instance. Also horse stocks are rife for raid-and-capture and a scenario of troops raiding across the Oder to grab mounts if your supply line to your mount resupply collapses.

As we've discussed earlier horses actually do not run on grass. If you want grass-fed horses you need something on the order of seven remounts per trooper as horses are rested. Cavalry work is hard going for horses and historically in pre-modern armies fodder took up the bulk of logistical space as horses need high energy feed. There's also the annoying thing that horses won't graze in strange territory after dark even if fodder is their supplement. This gives you in idea of why horses with their higher land speed don't cover as much ground as infantry; horses move more quickly but for a shorter time. Also if you're running a cavalry game then unlike in the infantry game clean water becomes an issue. Horses drink about 30 litres to 50 litres a day, we can say 30 litres if resting and 50 litres if working. This water has to be clean. So a careful scouting route has to be made and water sources reconnoitred.

Although we tend to think of cavalry as just a few guys on horseback and maybe a packhorse or two, in an actual unit this will be different. The best example of this is going to be European cavalry units serving in the Second World War. For scenario and campaign ideas here's a Lone Sentry article on soviet cavalry from the early 1940s.

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/cavalry/

Group Morale

Panic in Twilight 2000 2.2 relates to wounds and incoming fire and this is an example of personal morale.

Group morale is the behaviour of groups to events and situations. Player characters are not effected by group morale in standard games but non player characters do not have this luxury.

Normally, a unit's morale is based heavily on its leadership. Well indoctrinated, well-rested and well-fed troops with good leaders are capable of surprising accomplishments. Unsure, tired and starving troops with poor leadership regularly break at first contact. They will flee if possible or surrender if it is not. Often they will not even fight at all. In their desire for self preservation they might discard their weapons and anything else that hinders their ability to run at top speed. Leadership also incorporates many other aspects of group character and leadership figures often help shape unit behaviour in many situations, but that's getting a bit complex for this post.

It would be onerous to have to roll for every individual NPC constantly during a fight. Instead GMs should think on the following aspects before the encounter to come up with a sort of unit character to understand how they will react during combat.

- Leadership (if any)
Troops under an effective leader have the morale rating their leader has and this is why leaders are primary targets. Leadership usually but not always is equivalent to rank, however actual leadership roles have been found in very low ranking members of units. This aspect is brittle, troops that have a significant difference in NPC quality such as Novice troops under a Veteran leader often break when they become aware the leader is out of action.
- Training.
The four NPC levels depict training and the acclimatisation of the individual to combat and campaigning. Very experienced troops might be reduced to Novice morale if they are ill, disillusioned or fearful. Training has a strong influence on reaction (see below)
- Condition.
Hunger, thirst, fatigue and similar conditions sap the individual of their will to fight. Sieges frequently are resolved when troops simply lose the will to continue fighting due to privation.
- Indoctrination.
The level of commitment to fighting comes from how the soldier sees the situation and the information they are given about the fighting. Many things influence this and these include exposure to formal and informal indoctrination such as political training or propaganda or rumours and biases. Fraternisation strongly effects the will to fight and soldiers who have had friendly relationships with the enemy frequently refuse to fight at all.
- Circumstances
A catch-all category that influences the group and individual. For instance troops that have traded with the enemy might assume they will be given good treatment if they surrender. Troops who have been engaged in atrocities might assume that surrender will mean abuse followed by execution (although even at the last moment troops often choose surrender knowing this will happen to put off death for a short time). If a strong position is to the rear troops might wish to fall back towards it or if reinforcements are nearby troops might fight on knowing help is at hand.

All these modify the following hard fact:

The vast majority of troops do not attack at 10% casualties, retreat at 25% casualties and flee at 50% casualties.

Humans are not D&D orcs and only very rarely fight to the death (this is really a player character thing). These events are so rare they are nearly always noted in the history accounts. When morale fails there are three major human reactions that follow in decreasing order: Flight, Freeze and Fight. These reactions become Retreat, Surrender or Last Stand. Highly trained individuals have this retrained to Fight and Retreat through various means. Anyway, this is very rarely group behaviour. Note that most military operations deliberately give equal size units escape avenues as last stands can cause significant friendly casualties out of proportion to their operational gains.

Morale Failure Reactions:
As there's little if any evidence for group minds morale tends to fail in a smaller section of the unit and rapidly spread. Isolated individuals under pressure, flanks struck from the side, lower quality troops witnessing a leader's fall or capture often break first and then other members of the unit become aware of it and lose morale as well. While some leaders or sub leaders can salvage the situation and rally the troops on the spot what usually happens is some sort of reduction in fighting capability is managed. This can happen over and over during combat. One flank can start to fall back which requires rallying and shoring up while another sector comes under pressure. Troops can press forward and then stall or fall back. This sort of behaviour brings realism to T2K fights that are often lacking.

Player Leaders.
Using all this lets the players take the roles of battlefield leaders in unit actions. GMs should consider the nature of the led troops, the behaviour of the player leader and situation. Some troops might respond well to a brutal player leader while others might not. All these factors should give dice modifiers to the Leadership skill roll. All-or-nothing rolls should be avoided (as in all things) and excellent rolls should give excellent results and only-just-failures should not mean the troops run for the hills. Careful managing of the Condition, Indoctrination and Circumstance aspects relating to the troops can give bonuses while neglecting them can give adverse results. Note that heavily indoctrinated troops might misbehave when not under a leader's immediate control.

Does anyone use dirt bikes in the game?
I'm a motorbike rider myself and I have to say I'd rather not be riding a dirt-squirt around World War Three Poland. Not only are they pretty noisy but they have fairly limited carrying capacity. They don't even have the illusory armour of a humvee in which you can at least crouch down in the back and hope they don't see you. It also takes all your hands and feet to control the thing. Yes, I've seen people shooting things off bikes but let's be honest, you can't do it in life and death fighting. When people use them to kill people in cities the pillion passenger does the shooting.
The only use I can find for them would be for getting around inside the canton with and you can use a pushbike for that. If you scout with it you'd better make damn well sure you didn't miss an enemy on your next bound.

I put a few thoughts down about something, added a bit and then bit more and I sort of got a bit carried away. 3,000 words later . . .

Here's a combined Soviet-Polish unit to chase the characters around. Not actually bad people, however they want that intel document you have and they're determined to get it.

Leaving France in NATO

If you do away with the kinda dumb France stab-in-the-back-legend you can have the falling out between France and Germany anyway. In this scenario French troops have trouble with German forces and displaced persons as they start to carve out cantons (just like everyone else, it's just seen in a different context). Perhaps rumours are starting that the supply lines coming out of France and Spain also have stuff going back and the Germans feel they're being strip-mined of assets.

If you do have this you can move the non-German, non-British and non-US troops (the only NATO troops in T2K really) up to the gap in the line towards the southern German-Polish border. Sooner or later these troops are going to want to go home for stabilisation work and you can either leave them in place for some good multinational NATO colour or have their cantons deserted as they pull out and make for their respective territories.

This opens up some more backstory. Instead of the French Perfidy you can have NATO thrust right back across the French border in some places at some times and thus whole swathes of German territory have WarPact troops still in place, living off the land and looking for a way out now that their strategic reason for being is gone. Soviet plans might involve linking up with these isolated units and if you're doing Going Home these units might present a problem for the fairly quiet section of getting across Germany.

This also gives you a far greater political angle. When the collapse starts national character is going to figure heavily when it comes to unit cooperation. Does a French unit really want to go to aid of a German unit when another French unit is in danger? Most of the time they will but this strain will steadily mount and the players might have to navigate a national political minefield of competing requirements. Also they can play each off each other, like if they're pulling out and some unit demands all their equipment but a nearby unit is prepared to be far more equitable if they pass through their territory instead (and do that little job for them the PCs don't know about yet).

Russian Shotguns

(This kinda doesn't fit for Poland games but I add it if your PCs ever get into ex-USSR territories)

While we generally tend to assume that every soviet citizen had a Kalash in the cupboard that really only applies to the post-soviet breakdown period. Of course soviet citizens had to undergo mandatory conscription so the idea that these trained individuals should have easy access to rifles was something the soviet authorities weren't keen to allow. Thus Russia had strict rules on rifle ownership, however shotgun ownership was common for hunting and as such were often used in places were rifles would be used in the west. This meant Russian shotguns usually had rifle sights and also rifled slug and heavy dart ammunition were not uncommon.

These slugs, darts and sabot rounds were varied and grew over time. Russia also adopted the plastic shotgun cartridge early and constantly refined them. Here's some of the basic slugs:
Brenneke Slug: Actually a German design, this was quite common in the 1960s to the 1980s. As an enormous amount of these were in circulation it's likely some would still exist.
Polev Slug: Designed in the 1980s, this is a complex plastic shell slug purely for big game. There are several variations but these were not in use in the Twilight Era apart from the first. The actual slug looks like a honking great pistol bullet and has the same damage potential as a big game rifle.
Mayer "Turbinka" ("turbine") Slug: Another from the 1960s, this slug is similar in some ways to the US Foster Slug in having a forward weight bias for stability. Notably a turbinka can be home-made if the sophisticated moulds are available however careful mixing of the slug material is important for bore life and accuracy.
"Udar" ("strike") Sabot Round: A sub-calibre round with serious armour penetrative ability and range. Originally a specialist round for government use it soon became a sought-after black market item for hunting and no doubt for settling the odd personal grievance.

Now, when it comes to Russian shotguns the name "TOZ", "Tulsky Oruzheiny Zavod" or the Tula Arms Plant is as easily recognised to a Russian as Winchester or Remington is to an American, it is a TOZ shotgun that will be on the wall or behind the door. TOZ made a plethora of civilian weapons and I won't list them all but I will note the most widespread shotguns.

TOZ-34 is an under-and-over double barrelled shotgun, 3.00kg
TOZ-66 is a side-by-side double barrelled shotgun, 3.00kg
TOZ-87 is a semiautomatic, 4 or 7 shot shotgun, 3.20kg

[EDIT]: Note that there are lots of Russian hunting rifles and in some very curious calibres, I'm just posting these as they are so common. Please don't think rifles were totally banned, it was just harder to get a licence for them.)

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(Summary: arctic troops should eat double)

Another nuclear winter is rolling in on my players and soon the winter whites will be part of the dress code. As it's going to be a long hard winter with even more famine and nutrition deficiency illnesses I thought I might make a few notes here about climate and food.

Firstly, modern westerners have different bodies to twilight soldiers. Since the 1970s our body fat content has doubled due to our modern food types. This layer of energy-rich insulating fat will be much missed by the troops who have been primarily eating potatoes and dog meat for over a year. They are lean and stringy rather than buff. You can see the average perfectly fit, healthy and enduring soldiers today that would be categorised as "moon faced" in former wars.

Twilight 2000 has us surviving on terms of kilograms, an annoying metric but useful for kit purposes. The net says one MRE is 1250 calories, well below the daily requirement for soldiers in tropical environments (3300 calories). Notably this number is for 1947 and is more presentative of twilight 2000 conditions. This is considered bare survival level and just above a starvation diet. Realistically twilight 2000 troops should binge occasionally and build up a body reserve, especially before it gets cold.

So, winter rolls in for Poland and the normal temperatures vary where you are. but -5ºc is the common bottom temperature. However we've thrown nukes about with MAD (pun) abandon so we could probably expect temperatures to hit -15ºc regularly. Note that this is a best case Nuclear Autumn. I can see really horrid blizzards rolling in off the Russian Massif going well below that. Don't forget wind chill lowers the temperature from -5ºc to -30ºc and even just slowly moving in a vehicle adds the minimum amount.

So what will the troops be eating?

The gold standard for arctic weather food intake is 4400 calories per day. We could argue that as a game mechanism that we could use double standard twilight 2000 rations of 2500 calories per day but I think this is being fairly lenient. 3750 calories, or triple standard rations, is actually more likely for troops who expect to be outside and active. Twilight 2000 life is hard, grinding work with little sleep and constant stress.

So, your party of military hillbillies straggle into a Polish village short on fuel and food.
However, when they get there they find the locals aren't willing to trade. Their spokesman demands the group instead redeem the hundreds of Military Payment Certificates (MPCs) they'd been saddled with during a period of former occupation, reducing them to a poverty level even lower than elsewhere.
Of course the group can't pay and the sullen villagers send a runner to report the group to a local OTK outpost while being nice to their faces.

(In Vietnam the locals would regularly get saddled with MPCs, a form of military scrip designed to keep high value US dollars out of the Vietnamese economy and ruining it. These would regularly be changed over on secret "C Days" to a new type, ruining the local people who didn't understand and were kept in the dark on how the currency worked. After a few times of this they tended to join the Viet Cong and attacks on bases after C Days were frequent.)

The Polish Government in Exile

When NATO goes over the border in the Twilight War they can't just rampage around in Poland without good reason, those things just aren't done (legally). So, they have to be invited in, and to do this they need a power that asks them to and this will be a hastily created "Government in Exile" (GiE) which of course will be instantly branded a "Puppet State" by the Polish People's Republic (PPR).

To be honest, political scientists get very cautious naming these entities because there's a whole lot of moral bias going on, the best description I've seen for them is a "Nominally Sovereign State". These can be as free willed as The Free French Government in The Second World War to something as blatantly controlled as one of the many Imperial Japanese puppet states*.
Usually these powers are complex and change stature frequently, at first supportive and then suddenly becoming obstructive. Like any political entity it may only partially be concerned with military rationales as they have to consistently tread a fine line between excusing their allies and appearing to be a puppet of their military guarantors.

However, in role playing terms it's first and foremost important to say that the PPR are going to hate these people with an incandescent fury. Not only are they to them national traitors but in communist terms they are also class traitors. They are everything a communist Pole is going to loathe, and seeing them fight alongside those who nuked, gassed and plagued as well as bombed their own country makes them implacable enemies (their own allies doing the same might be treated with a bit more lenience, what the average Polish survivor thinks will vary widely).
So, when the US 5th Infantry Division (Mechanised) goes under the first thing that is going to happen is a lot of unpleasantly harsh questions are going to be asked of the POWs about the 1st Polish Free Legion and where they are, what their strengths are and what their support is. Also are going to be some uncomfortable questions about who in the civilian population supported them. These questions aren't going to be asked by the Polish People's Army but rather by the less restrained political authorities.

It will be priority one for Polish PPA troops to engage, destroy and then capture any 1st Legionnaires. Note this will probably clash with Soviet war aims which will be to encircle and destroy NATO main force units. PPA troops will be extensively indoctrinated before engaging rebels to whatever levels are locally possible. If possible political troops will be integrated with PPA units to enforce discipline and deter desertion. A classic problem for political operations such as these is troops allowing rebels to escape because they can sympathise with them even if they don't agree with them.
Historically soviet forces avoid these operations but if they see the need to join in they will use the usual soviet method of ensuring success: overwhelming force. Unlike local troops soviet troops will see no problems with encircling and annihilating rebel units as a method of enforcing political orthodoxy (believe it or not but NATO will generally act in a similar way on their side of the border). World War Three is an ideological war fought for ideological aims and this means ugly ideological operations.

So, where does this place player characters? First off, Polish and Soviet players are at an even more increased risk than normal. Deserters who go over to the other side are always treated badly, and switching sides in an overtly political war even more so. Communists officials have historically treated traitors harshly and while Stalinism is over forty years dead at this time the very fact there’s a war on means that all sides will be run by hardliners.

Secondly, there will have been vestiges of the GiE here and there right across Poland. These people will most have left with retreating troops but a portion of those that remained will have survived. They may be operating as Stay Behind Troops or Partisans. Note; don’t expect normal military aims from a partisan group or any other paramilitary group. Quite often their operations have more to do with group dynamics than any coherent military aim. Of course many partisan groups are brave and dedicated people.

GiE officials may want to try and create enclaves in the desolate Polish rear areas. These cantons will draw military activity like honey draws flies. The players may well understand that eventually someone will inform Lublin for whatever reason and then the hammer will fall, Lublin is likely to tolerate the Black Baron far more than a GiE hamlet.

GiE offcials and infrastructure can be a help to the players. If they’ve had a series of awful rolls, bad outcomes or simply rotten choices then blundering onto a hidden GiE base can be a godsend. These are good plot devices because they can’t keep the players too long or they’ll draw attention, especially if the players have the usual gaggle of clapped out vehicles along. A GiE base can be rife with intrigue, betrayal and other drama the players can blunder into. Factional struggles, petty personal squabbles that blow up into existential threats and other threats abound. These are even more likely than the usual tiny village problems because of the massive overreaction that Lublin has for these groups so they have to maintain the utmost secrecy. Lublin is, of course, well aware that they are out there and has dedicated specialist TKO units that exist solely to root them out and destroy them.

Some missions that these groups give in exchange for their help can be at odds to the strictly military or survival orientated tasks the players are used to. Tax gathering (everyone loves the tax man! Not.), persuading villages to switch sides, drawing off inquisitive government forces, hearts-and-minds ops and some of the weirder Vietnam-era operations are all possible. The players might be happy to get on the road again.

Finally, traces of this organisation should be rife, even if they are grimly negative. Bodies strung up from lamp poles with placards on them remind the average Pole of who is really in charge, and usually it is Lublin. Some average Poles may be on the road because they made a bad choice out of two bad options in some situation where both sides demanded loyalty. Informers realise that both sides are willing to give precious food or security for information and that there are denunciation networks available to them.



(*I try not to use recent examples for obvious reasons)

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

'nuff said

I haven't really gone into it but is the 5th Infantry Division's doomed ride even possible logistically?

The supply lines don't seem to make sense and they sort of would require rail transport to shift the tanks and other heavy equipment. I don't even think the trucks could actually be moved on the alcohol possible to the unit.
Has anyone ever had a look into this?

If it does require a higher level of logistical support it means the collapse the players see is happening really fast as everything just falls to pieces. This kinda follows the historical maxim of "everything varies with time and place" meaning the 5th Infantry division collapses logistically at the worst time when the Soviet units are looming over it.

Another thing that's always made me wonder is "where is the massive supply lines of the Soviet 4th Guards Tank Army?" I know a few logistical units are mentioned but they are nowhere near enough for a unit that's just powered across Poland. They also should be following rail lines now I think on it.

Distinctive Soviet Tactics developed in the Soviet-Afghanistan War.

Most of the standard soviet tactics are the same as those of the west. However during and after the Soviet-Afghanistan War many innovations and idiosyncratic tactics turned up that are little known outside some tactical appraisal documents. Here's a few:

- Carrying heavy weapons forward.
After dismounting from their carriers soviet troops will lug their 12.7mm HMGs and 30mm AGLs along with them. This extra-heavy weapons group is attached to the normal heavy weapons group. Lightening these weapons and their ammunition has become something of an obsession in Russia since then.

- Bronnegruppa
"The bronegruppa is a temporary grouping of four-five tanks, BMPs or BTRs-or any combination of such vehicles. The BMPs (tracked combat vehicles) or BTRs (wheeled combat vehicles) are deployed without their normally assigned infantry squad on board and fight away from their dismounted troops. The grouping has a significant direct-fire capability and serves as a manoeuvre reserve."

- Enveloping detachments (obkhodiashchii otriad)
A fast moving, hard hitting group designed to sweep around and block avenues. Now, every force does this but this unit was specifically trained in the task. While they might mount an attack from an unexpected direction the emphasis of these troops was speed.
The soviets also radically changed their doctrine and when possible emphasised training in switching rapidly from pre-Soviet-Afghanistan War tactics to post-war ones. This includes armoured columns quickly reorganising into combined arms units for other purposes.

Many of the other innovations don't really carry over into the Twilight War phase. Note that after the Soviet-Afghanistan War there was a heavier emphasis on training for small unit actions, flexible logistics and units operating away from parent units due to the lessons learned in that war.

I'm reading up on Armoured Reconnaissance and I just encountered probably the most blunt statement of military reality:

"It's pointless to strive for risk-free scouting. Small scout teams are to be sent forward into traps in order to avoid that the whole formation walks into that trap."

The following is for discussion. It's not a hate-on against GDW and as it's for discussion "it's just a game" is not a valid answer. The point is at the end of the post that we might have something to think about the demise of the 5th Infantry, Mechanised (US) that may not have occurred to other GMs.

Over the decades (sigh, I'm old) I've constantly wondered about aspects of the game. One that's been bothering me a bit lately is the 5th Infantry Division's doomed ride into Poland in what became an unsupported attack that couldn't possibly be sustained.

There are a few main problems. Warfare runs on the trinity of Strategy, Tactics and Logistics and it fails on this basic level in at least two of the points.

The first is that supply-wise it's just not doable and even 17 year old me suspected this back in the old days.

"A typical US armoured division was composed of 350 tanks, 200 Bradley fighting vehicles and 16,000 soldiers. Together their daily supply requirement could amount to 5,000 tons (4,350+ tonnes) of ammunition, 555,000 gallons (2,081,976 litres) of fuel, 300,000 gallons (1,135,624 litres) of water, and 80,000 meals".

Now, obviously the 5th Infantry Division is a shadow of its former self but it's still going to consume a torrent of supplies that people underestimate by orders of magnitude. Remember that the divisions' logistical base will probably have a maximum of five 83 ton stills and all the gathering, monitoring, storage, forage, guarding and so on that takes to maintain all the while the division is actively using that fuel while making it. That goes for all the other stuff as well. Yes, the division was hoarding its supplies but it still looks impossible even then.

Secondly it just looks like they can't hold what they take. Reading up on The Red Ball Express, the logistics of the western allied push into continental Europe, it becomes apparent that your logistical train even using brand new vehicles with fresh lubricants and proper fuel suffer horrific wastage. Fatigue alone killed many drivers and their vehicles before you take into account bad roads and infrastructure and that's before the enemy takes an interest. Just one blown bridge or ambush means this lifeline clogs up. A single division pushing into Indian Country can't secure this line and it probably would have ground to a halt long before the soviets hit it.

Thirdly we have to think for a minute in the context of the situation. That tank ammunition will never be replenished and the troops knew it. Same with the artillery fuzes in the ammo and so on and so on. Driving into a largely static enemy country where the soviets and Poles seem generally happy to stick to their side of the Oder and expending these precious resources seems to make no strategic sense when they should be eliminating Marauders in Germany and rebuilding their side of Europe.

Okay, I've argued why it wouldn't work. But actually in the game it doesn't.

Maybe it was planned that way.

What on earth would make the NATO forces lurch into Poland in an unsustained and unsustainable attack?

Perhaps NATO knew that the soviets were coming with a mobile, well-equipped force that could locally overmatch any units in Germany? If a single division could be placed forwards in its path it's possible that they could knock the momentum out of it and stall it long enough to allow for interior forces to be deployed where it could strike from there. If you think this is insane it actually happened in the Korean War when the US 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division was forward deployed to buy time to allow the US forces and this unit was utterly was destroyed at the Battle of Pyongtaek, although the heroic men of the 34th went in knowing full well what was about to happen. Reading Death of a Division it's obvious that the 5th didn't know they'd end up unsupported and floundering around in Poland without a vital logistical lifeline.

Or maybe some MilGov/CivGov bastardry is involved? Could the preparations for Operation Omega be underway and CivGov is worried that MilGov is about to return several heavily armed, well equipped and battle hardened divisions from Europe? Those units could well decide the whole question in one campaign season. Regardless of that's not actually what Operation Omega was it could easily and probably would be perceived that way. Did some local CivGov supporters organise for at least one division to get so mired in Poland that it couldn't get out?

Did the Soviets pull off an espionage coup? Have they managed to suborn some general somewhere to pull that logistical tail out from under the 5th?
Or did NATO simply panic and cut the 5th loose? Was some higher-up overpromoted past his or her ability and when the 5th wandered off they lost their bottle and drew everyone back over the Oder leaving them out there without support and logistics?

You can bet your PCs are going to suspect just a few of these things.

Horse Drawn Wagons

This is kinda over-detailed and probably would never feature in a campaign, but it's just some thoughts on why you won't see old-style wooden construction wagons in the Twilight World.

Wooden wagons are insanely complex and require wood crafting skills that simply don't exist on a large scale and take far too long to relearn or teach in the time period. During a national emergency you don't take a huge amount of people out of the workforce and teach them an ancient, almost forgotten-at-the-time massive array of skills. Many years ago as a re-enactor I wanted to make a comparatively crude wagon wheel and I was amazed at the amount of knowledge and equipment it took to make a proper wooden wheel let alone a functioning axle.

But that's not important because welded mild steel is lighter, in some ways more flexible and also more rigid where needed and well understood. Light rubber tyred-wheels are widespread and motorcycle and off-road vehicles make these wheels and axles. There's only a short window where criteria and perhaps even standard plans can be created but I think this would happen.

What would a "developed" version look like?
First off, unless it's cargo-bearing it might not be a rigid frame but rather two articulated units for better manoeuvrability such as some German examples from The Second World War.
Simple box steel frames support a lightweight cargo bed if fitted, probably wooden but thin steel isn't that different in weight. Drop down sides for some cargo versions might be fitted and users could experience the joy of having their fingers mashed when the other person suddenly drops one.
A standard width would allow bows and covers from existing cargo vehicles for light weight weather protection. A lightweight small generator platform under the cargo bed allows for radios and a standard aerial mount would go somewhere, probably forward and just behind the front passenger, however this puts it at risk in fording procedures and a space between operators and payload area might be better. For local protection a small frame between the driver and assistant would hold individual weapons and under their vehicle seats, probably the same all-weather seats from some light vehicle, would be space for ammunition and personal storage. If a battery is fitted (and I can't see why not) there'd probably be convoy marker lights for low visibility mounted on the extremities of the vehicle.
There has to be space for pioneer tools and also to store the horse tack and harness and this usually goes between the payload and operators as well, shifting the power to one side in a metal box.

Obligatory German versions:

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So, we talked about the upgraded Super M60, the T-55M2 and others, but there's still a whole lot of ironware that'll be dragged out of reserve and upgraded before being thrown to the front. Two of the big things I like to emphasise with these jobs is that it both won't be an even process, some will have stuff others don't have, and also that no one sends out 1960s vehicles into combat in 1995 without as many upgrades as they can jam in.

There's oodles of the venerable and successful M48 still around in the timeline. After a rocky start (like every vehicle really) it became a bedrock of NATO and really the M60 is only an upgrade of it. However there's aftermarket industries that can be called to the colours to bring these things close to standard and send them into battle (undoubtedly driving the logistics people insane).

The Super M48

Like the Super M60, this is a bringing together of the upgrade kits to a new standard. I think this is a really attractive vehicle.
The hardness of the base M48 armour, a mere 200 BHN, was extremely underwhelming but this actually has a payoff in that low BHN armour spalls less and the comprehensive spall management package in the Super M48 might make this the least spall-prone vehicle of this class in the theatre.

Essentially they take the already upgraded M48 and strip it bare before rebuilding it and replacing everything that can be updated. Forget everything you know about these vehicles and look at some of these fine features . . .

MOLF 48 Fire Control System
L7A3 105mm Rifled Main Gun (this is the Low Recoil Force gun also used on the Stingray)
New electro-hydraulic gun/turret drive and weapon stabilisation system
New roof-mounted primary gunner’s sight with day and night channels
New power pack comprised of a 1000hp MTU MB 837 Ea-500 V12 diesel engine and Renk RK-304 automatic transmission with 4 forward and 4 reverse gears
MG3 coaxial machine gun
Modular appliqué armour
Smoke grenade launchers

These tanks would probably be backing up German and US (the US still had gazillions of them) formations as second line vehicles. Most of the Super M48 package is German manufactured so it'd probably not see use in other theatres.

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