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ChalkLine's Desiderata
The following being a couple of years-long stream-of-consciousness posts on the Twilight 2000 Face Book page. Please note that nearly all these posts refer to the First Edition timeline. I know a lot of the vehicles here are covered on Paul's site, most of what I'm posting is for colour and context. |
20 years ago I was working on a largish building site. It was pouring down raining one day so I made up a list of what would be salvaged there if the workers just never came back.
It was a large site; about eight five-story buildings: - Mobile 25t crane, four-wheel drive, as ten-ton truck. This has four wheels and a crane only as structure, and is abysmally slow on the road. - 3x Hoists, each hoist lifts a steel, 1m high, 'basket' about 3m˛, the hoist gantry is three sided and runs on an inbuilt generator. Each gantry section was 6m long. There is no 'floor' button on each level; an operator at the foot of the gantry controls it. Total gantry length would be about 60m but it wouldn't be safe up to that height! - 8x Oxy Acetylene welding kits, usually about 60% full. There was a supply container (20') onsite for welding supplies. - 18 wheeler and pup trailer, dumper. - 2x Compressors (trailer size, mondo) - First Aid demountable shed, well stocked - 20x temporary power poles, steel, 6m high - 100m power cable - 2x mini refrigerators - 4x civilian sedans - 3x civilian utilities (pick ups) - 2x civilian vans - 1300m˛ form-boards, 16mm 12ply. We were making the structures out of concrete. This is sufficient to make an eight-story building with three lifts in one shot. Of course, it was spread over eight buildings. - 3x bobcats and interchangeable tools - Four wheel drive forklift, about 8t - 100x pallets of concrete block bricks - 13x 20' shipping containers - 4x 40' shipping containers - 2x backhoes - 1x excavator - 1x concrete pumping truck, the arm had a ten-story reach. - 2x concrete trucks - 7x demountable sheds, with sinks. - 2x demountable toilet/shower blocks, filthy. - 14x power-boards - 8x garbage skips - 870x star pickets (star droppers, steel stakes) - 3000m x 3m (9m sections) Green plastic shade cloth - 3000m x 3m (9m sections) steel 'cyclone' chain-link mesh - 3x 25' cabin cruisers (I have no idea either) - 35' yacht (ditto) - 60x (2m x 3m) 'cyclone' chain-link mesh frames with 2" steel pipe frame. - 10x 40m (40mm) Water hose (we were always pumping) - 5t truck with extendable crane and bore for footings - 5x 50m coils copper water pipe - 20' container plumbing supplies - 20' container paint supplies - 20' container power tools and expendables - 20' container electrical supplies - 20' container safety supplies Concrete and reinforcement steel was brought in as needed so the players would have to go look for that. |
If you're like me it always confused me that when you get a vehicle in T2k you don't get *any* of its equipment, not even a jack! 🙂
Anyway, here's a load plan someone gave me for a Bradley M3A2. I'm not sure of how accurate it is but it was given to me by someone with intimate experience with Brads. M3A2 ODS Bradley CFV Ammunition & Pyrotechnics 2 TOW 2A ATGMs ready loaded 100 rounds 25mm APDS-T M791 ready loaded 200 rounds 25mm HEI-T M792 ready loaded 800 rounds 7.62mm (4-1) ready loaded COAX 200 rounds 25mm APDS-T M791 stowed 400 rounds 25mm HEI-T M792 stowed 1 400 rounds 7.62mm (4-1) stowed 1 000 rounds 5.56mm stowed 2 M47 Dragon missiles 2 M18 Claymore mines 16 smoke grenades for vehicle launchers 4 illumination flares 4 coloured smoke grenades 4 incendiary grenades (for vehicle self-destruction only) Other Expendables 330 litres of fuel in the fuel tank 5 20-litre plastic jerry cans of potable water (10 lts per man per day all uses) Vehicle Equipment 3 Fire extinguishers (turret, driver & rear compartments) (Internal Halon system inoperable) Flotation screen & supports Flotation screen repair kit Spare screen supports 2 Camouflage screens and poles Tarpaulin 2 Track links 1 Track ficture 1 Track drift pin Maintenance platform on the upper hull (this can be attached to the hull in front of the engine access panel, to give the crew a horizontal surface to stand and work on). Tracked vehicle tools sufficient to undertake routine maintenance and perform simple tasks. Shovel Axe Mattock Sledge hammer Crow bar Heavy duty two cable 50 metres of razor wire concertina 1 5-litre can of motor oil 1 2-litre can of transmission fluid 1 2-litre can of grease 2 20-litre plastic jerry cans filled with non-potable water Grease gun Cable reel Pintle Panel marker Traversing unit Windshield kit Driver’s thermal night viewer & spare lens AND/VDR-2 tactical survey meter and vehicle radiac set AN/PRS-7 or -11 mine detector M256 chemical detector kit M42 alarm detector M43 alarm detector and battery A decontamination apparatus is stored on the forward part of the turret shield, AN/GRA-39 radio set AT-784/PRC antenna Spare radio antennas TA-1/PT telephone set TA-312/TP telephone set First aid kit, contents limited to a selection of wound dressings, bandages, scissors and antiseptic Hand crank generator M91 Mounted Water Ration Heater Camp stove Bucket Dozen bungee cords Lantern, powered by vehicle Rope, 50 m Sandbags, empty, 1 dozen Battery charger Commander’s Equipment Issue mapcase 1:100 000 map of Poland, eastern Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria 1:50 000 map of western Poland Prismatic compass Protractor, ruler, pencils Angle head torch & 2 D cell batteries M22 7x50 binoculars Prismatic compass M238 flag set Scout Equipment M60 machine gun (temperamental - doesn’t like heat, cold, dirt or water, ie frequent malfunctions) M60 spare barrel equipment bag including asbestos glove for barrel changing M60 tripod AN/PRC-77 radio and LC-2 cargo frame M49 telescope & tripod M22 7x50 binoculars Prismatic compass AN/PVS-7B night vision goggles (2 prs) (no batteries) AN/PVS-4 night vision sight (no batteries) Individual Equipment 1 MOPP suit including gloves per man stored under his seat 1 Personal weapon, set of LBE, rucksack and duffel bag per man |
When the warbirds get grounded the ground pounders probably breathe a sigh of relief right?
Almost. The USSR still had its huge 2S4 240mm mortar, a beast throwing a massive shell the size of a middling air to ground dumb bomb and capable of doing the tasks that things like the JDARM do today. Bunker busters, the dreaded CHEM shell, vast HE rounds and cluster bombs, not to mention its tactical nuclear shell. Put a few in your game today . . . https://www.armyrecognition.com/imag...eprint_001.jpg https://www.armyrecognition.com/imag...an_925_001.jpg |
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Chemical Warfare
While the Rool-Of-Cool states the GM can use anything anywhere, T2k has always had a strong grounding in some realities about where or why things appear in the campaign. Chemical warfare, one of the most feared things that exist in the game, is not usually looked into simply because it is so feared. However, let's have look at why and where it's deployed. Basically, chemical warfare is simply a tool in the military toolbox. Once approval has been granted for release the OPFOR or Allied commander will look at the battle-space and see if chemical weapons have the ability to act as a force multiplier and what the effects will be. They don't simply soak the battleground in chemicals. Chemical weapons are one of a class that have effects on both sides, and as such aren't applicable to many situations. As many of the posters here have over the years have made accounts of the terrible conditions that chemical warfare countermeasures inflict on the combat personnel and their large negative effects on combat capability - especially combat endurance - it becomes obvious that chemicals have a fairly niche application. As everyone here knows, there's essentially three sorts of of chemical weapon: - Nerve Agents - Blister Agents - Choking Agents Nerve Agents promise fast disabling of enemy forces but also heavily contaminate the battlefield. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War we can actually admit that the USSR did actually see the Poles as allies, and as such weren't in a big hurry to contaminate Poland wholesale for many practical reasons. Nerve agent release also limits the enemy from manoeuvring in the contaminated area as all nerve agents are very persistent and also have very damaging long-term contamination that may make the battleground impassable for years to come. As such important choke points and other strategic areas should never be attacked with nerve agents. Also areas that have water run-off towards strategic areas should also be avoided, especially if that run-off flows back into your own territory. Prevailing winds, which in the European plain blows mainly west, should be taken into account when looking at nerve agent deployment. This means Warsaw Pact deployment of nerve agents are more likely to blow into enemy territory than NATO deployments. However NATO long range deployments might be used to attack rear-areas without an accompanying ground attack. These attacks would be invariably area-denial in nature so players could expect them to be well-marked by Warsaw Pact forces by the time they got to them - assuming there was any local survivors. Nerve agents, like biological and nuclear weapons, are the best way of limiting player movement into areas where the campaign simply doesn't go. Blister Agents are less persistent in most cases, but this is relative. Stormwater runoff can become heavily contaminated and cause significant injuries on contact if the blister agent has had a heavy release. Blister agents re seen by militaries as more-easily countered and so have been kept in store alongside more effective nerve agents because friendly troops can manoeuvre through contaminated areas with less losses. Blister agents are used, like artillery, against set positions and less as area-denial. Blister agents are a serious threat to players and the GM should think long and hard on how blister agent attacks should be made on characters. I personally thing they should be encountered more as an NPC-on-NPC attack to allow the players to experience them but to be well prepared. Blister agents are, in my opinion, at the upper limit of destructive power a GM should allow players. It should be noted that civilians are almost never protected against blister or nerve agents and collateral damage of this sort of release will be high in civilian populations, especially among the vulnerable. Choking agents are commonly deployed by even very advanced governments on their own citizens. Choking agents have little persistence except in very high concentrations and rapidly degrade, but that doesn't mean that they're harmless. In Viet Nam the USA deployed choking agents as area denial in OPFOR tunnel complexes in concentrations that were lethal. However choking agents are easily countered if a group is prepared and make a good tactical complication in T2k combat. Choking agents are also far less restricted in use than nerve or blister agents and can be encountered far further down the command chain than the other agents that are usually restricted to the divisional level or release. They have a heavy effect when used by surprise on unaware or resting troops. Long term use on set positions can make those positions untenable, and both players and NPCs may resort to 'smoking out' well-entrenched units with these agents deployed over long periods. Persistence. The major aspect the players will encounter with chemical agents is their persistent nature and the contamination of the campaign area. As noted above, water runoff is a prime area of contamination, as is the interior of areas not exposed to the weather. Some of the more persistent agents such as the nerve agent VX 'stick' to the underside of surfaces and can make contaminated areas instantly lethal for long and varying periods after deployment. The interior of structures used as shelter and defensive positions, abandoned vehicles and public structures can all be contaminated by chemical agents and the GM should give this some thought when designing a new area. Small spaces such as utility sheds that are rarely opened are especially prone to contamination. Another danger is the repair and use of utilities such as water and air services that may flush out contamination. To be fair a GM should have this happen to NPCs before inflicting it on players so the players can develop some survival skills regarding this aspect. Anyone want to chime in? How about storing chemical weapons and decontamination? |
The rare form of transport device:
Porters. People who carry your stuff. Apart from their food, bedding and so on, how much can the average person carry? Who are these people? Some can be hired. Some might be from your country in a strange land and hook up for protection. Some might be related to you. Something that has disappeared from the world since World War 2; hand carts. Simply it's a cart you drag along by hand. Perhaps they can be made from wheel barrow materials now. Also, I wonder how much a wheel barrow can carry? |
Vehicle Load-Outs.
I always liked how The Morrow Project bit the bullet and created vehicle's load-outs for their vehicles. I get the sneaking feeling that the standard Twilight 2000 'all the stuff on the vehicles has been lost' was just a cop-out. The problem is of course that in reality no two vehicle type has the same load-out and making a list for them would be nigh on impossible. https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...2a&oe=6144F466 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...a2&oe=6141A355 |
What changes have you made to your game?
I went for a radical change to a more lethal system, but I also noted a few things that I personally didn't like too much about the standard game: (Please note the following is simply personal preference) - An over emphasis on special forces by many players. I think this is frankly because players know 'skills = survival' and playing a spec ops gets you those skills. To change this I just gave out a skill total that was the same for everyone and players got to choose whatever skills they liked within reason. I also made it clear that after four years alive in world war three the PCs were now as skilled as any special forces operator even if they were a lowly private in an infantry section. - The ranks seem too high. I've been in many a game where there are multiple colonels and sergeant majors. It just seemed silly even with the rapid advancement. The campaigns I ran we did without rank tables and just had nearly everyone a private, one or two corporals and a sergeant plus one LT. This actually had a strange development where the privates became the main social group. Typing this out I suddenly realised that I may have been heavily influenced by movies like Cross of Iron and Kelly's Heroes. |
Missions outside the perimeter for canton troops:
- Basic Patrols Intelligence is vital and clearing patrols stop OPFOR from making positions outside the perimeter. Things spotted from the lookout positions need someone to go and check them out such as smoke columns and various sounds such as gunfire or screams for example. - Salvage and Upkeep. The perimeter is never strong enough and forays into the hinterland for barbed wire from old positions, recovered land mines (who wants that job?!), bunker materials and similar can be scavenged from spots the patrols find. Similarly fuel, even something as simple as wood for heating and stills, can be hunted up. Food is a constant requirement and intel from patrols or friendly civvies and stragglers might develop locations for these. Vehicle wrecks are great resources that need specialised missions to recover. - Anti-Battery Missions. Nothing sucks more than being mortared for days on end. Missions to deal with OPFOR indirect fire observers and artillery units or to place your own observers in position might be common place. From simple elimination to destroy-and-seizure missions to grab equipment such as weapons, position materials, radios and so on can be developed. When under indirect fire attack most cantonal tasks can't be accomplished. Exposed equipment might be destroyed (a good way to keep your PCs lean and hungry and thus ready to go out and adventure). |
Here's an article on what food would be available in a Nuclear Winter.
It prompts a lot of questions and the thing about the Twilight War is that it always postulated a 'friendly nuclear war' that wasn't overly destructive. In fact every T2K campaign I've been in on reflection the damage to the fabric of the world probably wasn't as bad as the Second World War and never as bad as The First World War (there's places in northern France that are so contaminated by chemicals from gasses and explosives from The First World War that they kill 95% of plants and are so toxic they probably can't be entered for another 700 years by unprotected people) However a true Nuclear Winter is a really terrifying setting. A general exchange would probably stop most sunlight reaching the surface of the earth and survivors have about two to three years to get to the equatorial areas and set up enough infrastructure to exist. A campaign set on this isn't just getting back to friendly territory but transiting a whole section of a global hemisphere. It also is a lot harsher in every respect. Everyone left behind is going to starve or die of exposure. Food supplies are going to rapidly exhausted in that short window of transit because the very next crop is going to fail after the exchange, and its going to fail on a global scale and keep on failing. Players are not going to be able to comparably comfortably wait out the winter months in a canton but instead are going to have to keep moving as the cold starts to set in around the polar latitudes and then move. Endless darkness from the nuclear clouds will make the going tough. Most people will simply psychologically fail and die, unable to move. In fact most surviving people may be even unaware that they have to move towards the equator and this will doom them. It definitely makes for a different game in every sense. The article says that a general exchange between just India and Pakistan is probably enough to trigger the Nuclear Winter, an exchange between the WTO and NATO is more than enough to do so, even one that only uses a fraction of the combined arsenal. The biggest problem once the players get moving may just be starting. A general mass movement in an equatorial direction will overwhelm every society on the planet, both those moving and those already at the equators. Players may well need to fight the whole way and the fight for space once they're there and finally fight again against others arriving. |
I was just watching a video on Viet Nam and came across an interesting thing that relates a bit to the Twilight War.
(Note that this does not cover every area and time but is simply a broad generalisation.) After about '68 the Viet Cong (not the NVA) switched tactics. Prior to this they'd been fighting large unit actions and encounters would be in the nature of battles that might run up to days of combat. However the preponderance of US firepower meant that this was a losing proposition. While some of the hard-fought battles might cause large US losses in some cases usually they'd inevitably lose more men and materiel the VC couldn't afford. After '68 they shifted to ambushes to fight an attritional war where combat rarely took longer than ten minutes. Before the US troops could marshal their support the VC would simply withdraw. This had a strange effect on infantry fighting in that it totally destroyed any ability to manouevre. The US troops would go to ground, call in airstrikes or artillery and then by the time they'd got that sorted the fighting was over. The infantry rarely shifted position from when they'd first been hit. In the vast majority of cases the skilled US infantry didn't flank, didn't suppress and envelope or any of the advanced infantry fighting they'd been taught. They just shot back until the shells landed and then cautiously went over to see if they'd hit anyone. It was a major paradigm shift in combat and many of the soldiers had to relearn the fighting they had to do. Now, to get to Twilight 2000. This major shift in tactics will probably happen quite a few times and at varying times in different places. A GM who wanted to have different areas of the war fighting different types of fighting could do so. For instance, during The Siege of Warsaw you might see positional fighting with trenches, barbed wire, mines and artillery duels much like in The Second World War at The Siege of Sevastopol. In my campaign the siege is unsuccessful and NATO never gets into the city but if they did then you shift to the awful 'rattenkrieg' ('rat war') of Stalingrad where there's no armour to be seen and you can fight for days for three rooms of a ruined building while the civilians huddle in the basement. However on the river banks of the Vistula there might be the Mekong Delta hit-and-run tactics mentioned above and between there and the Oder on the plains you might see vehicle manouevre warfare with sweeping movements of mobile mechanised units. Player characters moving between areas should be confronted with new types of fighting suited to the tactical realities of the areas. Trying to add flavour this way I think would start to differentiate between player backgrounds and experiences. One player might be a survivor of the trenches, another a brown water patroller and yet another a cavalry soldier as an example. I don't recommend penalising players for being 'out of area' but I do recommend giving players a bonus for a specialty. A point on their initiative and cool for being in a combat situation they're (undoubtedly unwillingly) accustomed to might give a nice touch of difference. Also this means that players can specialise in something they do quite a lot and the GM can promote their area of expertise. The specialist character might get Idea Rolls to come up with a helpful tactic if they're stuck ('You remember at Warsaw you crawled through a land drain and came out behind the enemy in a similar situation'). I'd use this cautiously as players resent the GM steering their players, it can make them feel a bit like a passenger in the game. But if they don't know what 'mouse-holing' is or what a flank sweep is then I can't see the harm with the GM providing an option. |
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Here's the description of my armoured train from my campaign for you to use or abuse.
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Here's a simple encounter driven scenario that might cover one or two sessions. It's nothing special and is written to be able to slot into any campaign. There's no NPC stats or maps as it's very generic.
On the whole it's here simply to round out a campaign or when you're stuck for ideas one night |
While not a standard Twilight 2000 game, I've been doing a bit of wikipedia reading and the idea of various military 'advisers' stranded deep in Africa in the 1990s and trying to fight their way out has suddenly appealed to me.
The premise is that some former troops are contacted by their respective governments to act as advisers for a rebel group in a fictional country and try and overthrow the current government. Once on the ground they realise that the intel they've been given is totally wrong and the situation is far more complex than they were briefed. After a bit of scene setting where they start to realise that they're probably not on the side of the angels (obviously there simply isn't any in this situation) a factional struggle kills the rebel group's leaders and the new leaders have other backers. As this is post-Glasnost I'd probably pick some other nation than Russia as 'bad guys', probably a fictional one as regional governments often fostered rebel groups in each other's territory. (Liberia was infamous for this). A loyal soldier gets them a warning that the new rebel leadership has targeted them for arrest. Some of the group will be executed as a spectacle and the rest extradited to the rebel's backers for intel. The executed will probably be the lucky ones as the backer's methods of interrogation are similar to those of Idi Amin's. In true T2K fashion the advisers have to get to an extraction zone with plenty of betrayal and conflict as well as the possibility of using their skills to do what they consider is correct on the way as they're no longer considered 'employed'. Behind them and pushing the plot is a horde of various factions in technicals displaying various levels of the brutality that marked the regional conflicts of that era. The players start in a situation much like the end of the 5th ID; grabbing whoever and whatever they can and beating feet. The infrastructure in front of them is destroyed by the war and they may even end up cooking fuel. Worse they may now be seen as something of a liability by their own backers; the shadowy organisations that put them in theatre. How this develops would depend on the plot. Of course all is not lost. There was some very good people in the area in that time and they might be able to help out. However it would inevitably be a tangled situation as these helpful groups or individuals tried to liaise with each other to provide help or guidance. [Edit] I actually started researching background for this and the setting was so awful and depressing I simply abandoned it. |
"Wow, we've got a lot of stuff!"
Players are acquisitive. They start out fairly normally, and if you use the usual rules and say a five man group they get a load of equipment just starting out. However, after a few weeks of game time they can have a caravan of gear they can't bear to leave behind. I've seen players happy to start out on foot with just a backpack soon end up with an MBT towing a trailer of junk, plus more. It's in their nature. It makes a lot of sense. Everything about the setting states that all this stuff will get rarer and rarer. The constant struggle for food especially makes hoarding a natural response. Also, the game tends to throw up friendly NPCs, even the much-loved UK stragglers with their sterling SMGs, and soon they have a little train of camp followers traipsing along behind them. Now, the first thing many GMs think is "how do I trim this train of stuff down to a lean, mean crew?" Well, that's not hard and I'm not going to talk about that. Instead I thought we might discuss embracing the little society the PCs create and some ways it can be teased into good story-moments for players. The first concern is of course working out how they move all this junk. Road trains are the usual method but there's also trains and watercraft as well. Now, from a tactical point of view you don't want your camp followers subject to a meeting engagement. It's going to be upsetting for the PCs if they have a heavy firefight complete with IEDs against a marauder ambush to find out that their NPCs are scattered across the road in bloody heaps and their stuff is on fire. So sensibly they should have two groups; the caravan and the scouts. This works well with road, rail and river travel. The scout team(s) has or have a small, fast and nimble vehicle or two and they move ahead of the slow caravan looking for threats and either dealing with them or ensuring the caravan avoids them. T2K has many scouting vehicles in the list and these can often be used for rail and rivercraft as well although both these methods of travel can have specialist vehicles/vessels that travel on those mediums as well. 'Bogghammer'-style 'technical-boats' are great for river scouting and there's an enormous amount of specialist small rail vehicles in use by railways that range from the size of a jeep up to that of a railway car. These scouting groups don't brew fuel or haul heavy loads, they are combat groups and only haul combat loads. If they need to rearm and resupply they go back to the caravan. The caravan can haul everything else including specialist assault equipment that can toughen up the scouts. If the players need to penetrate some serious blocking situation that T-55 on a railcar or barge then comes into play without it having to be guzzling fuel every game day. Similarly the NPCs or wounded and recuperating PCs can be useful for providing supporting fires as well as just tending stills, scrounging/scavenging and standing guard. This means those mortars they've never been able to leave behind become useful and they may even be able to get a few shots off with that huge D-30 they've been lugging about to overawe any opposition. After all, the OPFOR don't know how many tubes or how much ammunition they have. Of course the main group, the caravan, will not move fast but this in most games is a definite plus. Slow and steady exploration means that the GM can spend some time to detail the terrain they travel through. Of course this is going to need some careful keeping track of. Players range from the bookkeeping-avoidant to those who revel in the minutiae. I find an hour or so with a cup of coffee and some paper spent with the players can organise shifts for the NPCs, how far each caravan vehicle goes on a fuel load and how much fuel the whole circus needs. You also can work out how fast the NPCs go through food and other supplies. Those NPCs permitted armaments (quite often the odd POW gets dragged along) need access to resupply as well and some NPCs will be tasked as hunters, although the large size of the caravan will tend to scare off game and it's more likely the scouts will do the bulk of the hunting. While the card system for working out NPC motivations is a good start there's also many other systems for fleshing out NPCs and I really recommend the GM take the time to use these. The old AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide had a great set of tables (admit it, we all loved those tables) on page 101 to 102, Cyberpunk 2020 has some stuff on page 36 to 39 and I'm sure other games I don't know about have some good stuff you might want to look into, as well as your imaginations. These NPCs then become real, rounded individuals with wants, needs and desires and it becomes very easy to craft adventures and side adventures around, and the best thing is the players take them where ever they go! How they do their scouting is of course going to vary wildly. Crossing flat farmland will be quick but traversing a ruined city might take weeks. In fact much of the time might simply be taken up finding a route the heavier vehicles in the convoy can use. While heavy trucks dragging big trailers might just need a good bridge every now and then a deep draught vessel or a heavy train might need both a special route as well as some careful engineering occasionally. GMs can use this to pause movement for a while to get the players to properly explore an area, deal with some sort of threat or even if the GM needs to take a breath to detail the upcoming route. Some scouting groups might well be comprised entirely of NPCs and this is both a boon and a bane for the GM. It's good in that they might get into sticky situations the players have to get them out of and the GM can just feed info via them to the players, but it also means the GM has to sit down and work out their movements, consumables cost and what they discover. Also, as the players will be the commanders in most cases this will not be something you can just do all in one hit as the players will reroute them fairly often. I'd be interested in trying it out but it might not be for the fainthearted. A caravan such as this is of course going to be an entirely different kettle of fish for settlements and groups they meet on the way. A bunch of nobodies in a hummer might not be a big problem; they won't impact the local foraging and hunting too much and the settlement would probably outnumber them so they'd feel a bit more confident but an entire convoy with heavy equipment is a different matter. As mentioned there will be concern about their impact on the local resources and also the presence of heavily equipped individuals in large numbers might be off-putting. |
Wisla Kralowa - Using Bunker Fuel
As many of you may know the use of coal/wood for the Vistula Queen has never sat well with me. I grew up among merchant seamen and when I chatted about that vessel's conversion system the general consensus of the engineers and shipwrights I talked to was "it would be easier to build a new vessel". However, many soviet-era ships used what we call here in Australia "bunker fuel". Bunker fuel is a heavy very low grade oil from the very bottom of the fuel distillation process. It's of no use to vehicles smaller than a locomotive, you can't run a tank or truck on it. It needs to be heated up to 65–120 °C (149–248 °F) to be used and at cold temperatures it congeals into a kludgey, tarry goo. It was used in may places, primarily heavy industry and power generation. It's also extremely polluting which is why it's been largely phased out in many places but it still soldiers on in Russia for instance. It's notoriously horrid stuff to deal with and gets everywhere when being handled, which of course adds to the notorious "Post Apocalyptic Suck". Now, rather than just brewing up fuel or cutting down trees having a heavy fuel oil used for the Vistula Queen actually adds to the game rather than takes away from it. Limiting options isn't such a bad thing as long as the GM let's the players have multiple choices. So rather than just blithely sailing down the Wisla the players now have to seek out sources of fuel for the tug giving the GM ready-made hooks for scenarios. Looting deserted towns is fun and crawling through abandoned factories or power plants (coal power plants use bunker fuel to get the combustion going) lets the players meet different situations than the usual 'settlement-with-a-problem' or armed mooks. First off the players are going to need intel. Either the NPCs can have prior knowledge of the area or the PCs can interact with NPCs while scouting. Having one or two Boghammars/gunboats snooping along the river lets the PCs do this. Then they find out if the fuel is either on the river or inland. If on the river the PCs can simply clear the location, secure the resource and then bring the tug up to pump the fuel aboard after heating it. If it's inland this then requires a dedicated tanker, and I'd be inclined to have them search out a tanker-trailer before leaving. A work truck towing this trailer would be a useful utility vehicle for the game and the truck could come in handy if the players also need to do any other repair, rebuilding or construction jobs in the game (and they should!) Remember this stuff needs heating before it can be pumped out and recovered and the area it is found in may need repair or rebuilding before it can be heated up. This not only allows more encounters while this noisy process is undertaken but also allows the PCs to interact a bit with the environment such as scrounging. This fuel gives the GM a little bit more narrative control. The PCs can have a hard limit put on their mobility, the GM can add a little tension as fuel stocks run low and it also forces the PCs to get out and look around more. A whole micro-campaign can be built just finding a good amount of fuel that opens up movement. Here's some ideas to finish up with: - Some NPC group has recognised the fuel's worth and has already recovered it when the PCs arrive to secure it. They can trade, negotiate or secure the fuel via violence/stealth. - The facility storing the fuel has suffered an airstrike and is dangerous because of contamination, hazardous ruins, unexploded ordnance or a combination of these things. The PCs must deal with the dangers using their skills. - A fuel source is now being used by a community of civilians and their militia and they are planning to use the fuel to kickstart a bit of light industry and at the very least for heating during the upcoming bitter winter. Who's need is greater? - The PCs find some fuel but it is contaminated and requires a specialist chemist, an engineer and specialist distilling gear to clean. - An NPC group is also running a ship and needs the same fuel, they might be in a race with the players to secure stocks. When the PCs negotiate somewhere this group might attack or try and outbid the PCs, if the PCs are too strong they might tip off nearby OPFOR units to the PC's presence. This group can be fleshed out and be great recurring rivals. Maybe some times they come to the player's aid if the player's are outmatched in exchange for sharing? |
Hmm . . did you say there's a sniper up there?
A water tower in Lubne, Poland. South near the Slovakian-Ukrainian border. These are very common structures in this area. https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...f2&oe=61442B2D |
Steam Tug
This is the "William C. Daldy". While she's a New Zealand vessel she was built in Glasgow in 1935 and is fairly representative of a vessel built right across Europe at that time. She's a proper steam vessel so she can actually do her rated 13 knots (24km/ph) and has a crew of ten. I've fixed up the plans a bit for clarity for you. My only problem with her is that she's a harbour tug and thus has a deeper draught than a river tug. She's actually too deep for the upper Vistula as rated in the scenario which is given as 4.0 metres. Maybe she lurks downriver and you have to take her. Here's her stats. Specifications Built: 1935 by Lobnitz & Co., Renfrew, Glasgow, Scotland. Yard number 986. Launched: 1st October 1935. Left U.K. 7th November 1935 Arrived Auckland 30th January 1936 Total Price: Ł30,499 Sterling including delivery to Auckland Registered tonnage: 348 gross Speed: 13.4 knots on trials Bollard Pull: 17 tons (at approximately 1,300 I.H.P.) Registered Length: 127 feet (38.7 metres) Beam: 34 feet 6 inches (10.5 metres) Draft: 15 feet (4.5 metres) Boilers: Two coal fired Scotch boilers, with 3 furnaces in each Engines: Two triple expansion steam engines, surface condensing. 980 Indicated Horse Power each. 110 - 115 revolutions per minute. Propellers: Two 11 feet (3.4 metres) diameter Bunker capacity: 130 tons Coal consumption: Long tow 1 ton/hour. Harbour work 3 - 3.5 a day Crew): 10 - Master, Mate, 2 deckhands, 3 engineers and 3 firemen. https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...30&oe=614331F7 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...a8&oe=6142AEDF https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...d2&oe=6142EE94 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...68&oe=61451767 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...cc&oe=614231E0 |
Police Forces in T2K Poland
The police in Poland are a vital game playing element because they would be a major element in player interactions. When a disaster occurs, surviving police generally take charge and organise other survivors. As the only government representatives available in the atomised environment of Poland they lend an important element of solidity to traumatised civilians as well as projecting what they see as the government's will and trying to enforce laws when applicable and practical. Of course they're not going to be everywhere. Police tend to be rounded up or otherwise de-powered when an invading force overruns an area. Due to their protective nature many might well die in the fighting and others simply die in the general destruction or the after-effects of warfare. Historically many former-regime police are active in insurgencies for many reasons. In the Twilight Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (PRL), the Polish People's Republic, the police force is known as the MO, Milicja Obywatelska, Citizens' Militia, These guys aren't called up for military service because they are a gendarmerie, or paramilitary police force of the style that is common in Europe. They wear light grey uniforms and in wartime would be outfitted with equipment similar to the army (Polish People's Army Ludowe Wojsko Polskie LWP) although they would be very lightly armed. They wore the Wz. 67 helmet in light grey in combat situations, a grey peaked hat, a grey ushanka-style fur hat or a blue beret (for some units). Normally they would be only armed, if at all, with the FB P-83 Wanad pistol (in 9x18mmM). I think you'd probably see them with AKMs rather than the Kbk wz. 88 Tantal if in action though. The elite of the MO was the ZOMO, Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej, Motorized Reserves of the Citizens' Militia. These guys were a sort of vast SWAT/Riot Troops/Disaster Reaction group who had stringent enlistment requirements (180 cm/90 kg) and even more political reliability. It was these characters that did much of the mass repression. They were armed as light infantry (including the BTR-60 in the special platoons). These guys make really nifty "bad guys" but once again I think they should be handled carefully like all NPCs. For role playing I generally have the MO depicted as good communists, prone to corruption (like all soviet-style governments) but otherwise fairly normal. I let them have a wide ranging personalities and in fact in my canon the Warsaw Milicja make a famous last stand against NATO forces at the Warszawa Główna railway station during The Siege of Warsaw, the pivotal battle in my campaign's history. They make both good helpers and adversaries. If you don't stereotype them the players will never know what to expect and this adds a lot to the game. The ZOMO however were used to keep the population in line and their brutality suppressing protests is legendary. They will be active in rear areas hunting down stragglers - ie: player characters. Worse, they will probably hand prisoners over to their bosses - the feared Ministry of Public Security, Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego, the SB. The SB was not noted for their humanity. |
More Polish Places
The Chełm Chalk Tunnels 50km east of Lublin, home of the Sov 127th CD [(2000 men): Glogow, Nowa Sol], these tunnels were medieval and were only recently fully explored after the events in the game. Several galleries were walled off and difficult to find , let alone access. These tunnels are unique in the world and cover in total about 15km. Their vast extents may provide cover for a partisan scenario in the region of the main supply line from the USSR to the front lines that runs through Lublin. Check it out. Bochnia Salt Mine Halfway between Kraków and Tarnów lies the little town of Bochnia and its ancient salt mines, very similar but smaller than the Wieliczka Salt Mine. This one has a little trainway running through it, in fact right through the chapel that these mines often have, and this no doubt works in the scenario because, well, why not. It's time for tunnel-train fighting. I can see a subterranean hospital being down here for some reason, and also perhaps something more sinister. One side or the other, maybe even both, has stashed some biological weapons done there and two or more teams arrive simultaneously to do something about it. Cue "Call of Duty - Modern Warfare" style desperate penetration of a facility while trying not to bring down the mine on the nearby hospital. |
The PT-76 amphibious gun vehicle
Use in combat in the Twilight 2000 setting You'll note that I have not referred to this vehicle as either a Light Tank or a Reconnaissance Vehicle. This is although it has often been used in these roles where it predictably performed extremely badly it was not envisioned for these roles when it was designed. The USSR experimented with it for these and rather unscrupulously marketed it as them but it's not either. In fact what its actual role is for is quite different. Let me explain. The PT-76 gets a bad rap in T2K and Cold War gaming because it's huge, thin-skinned, under-powered and has a very bad turret/crewing design choice. The usual assumption is that the soviet union screwed up with it but kept it on because the chassis was useful. What it's actual role is for is extremely narrow. It's a boat that can climb over sandbars and provide fire support to troops assaulting rivers and beaches, places where the soviets took extreme casualties in The Great Patriotic War. When you examine the following aspects it starts to make sense; Actual zero gun depression. Very large hull but a tiny turret. A gun with a medium calibre but ammunition the soviet union had already discontinued using. Very thin armour, so thin it can only stop rifle ammunition and shell fragments. All systems placed below the turret ring. Limited vision blocks. Less rather than more than their MBTs, an odd choice for a scout vehicle. Very large, strange, two man hatch with a superimposed commander's hatch. Looking at these things you start to see why the soviets made their trade-offs in design. The gun has -0ş depression because it's meant to shoot from the water level upwards. [Edit: The hull was modified in 1957 to allow the gun to get a -4ş gun depression. I suspect that the buyers were unimpressed] The D-56T tank gun (it's actually a unique gun, not a conversion as some sources say) uses a comparatively large calibre round because they contain more HE filler. If it was to use a 'tankerised' S-60 57mm autocannon it couldn't store the amount of ammo it would need to put down the same amount of HE and the 85mm D-44 gun would have meant a vast 20 tonne amphibious hull. The hull is meant to be submerged where it's safer (HEAT rounds of the time detonated when they hit the water and no light tank armour would stop the 90mm guns then in use) so the turret is tiny to limit its target profile - and thus the hull size is less important. A large hull is vital for a swimming tank and this also mandates thin armour because weight has to be kept down. The radio and so on was placed low, below the waterline where they were safe. As it was in effect a self-propelled gun it didn't need much vision equipment, far less than even much earlier reconnaissance tanks and even less that the contemporaneous T-55. The big hatch was designed so that the turret crew could escape wearing breathing gear or life vests. So, the PT-76 wasn't a light tank/reconnaissance vehicle and when used in these roles it failed abysmally. It couldn't fight other tanks and it couldn't see anything to be any use. The BMP, BRDM and similar vehicles filled that role instead where they perform(ed) well. When the PT-76 fought actual light tanks such as the M41 Walker Bulldog it generally was destroyed before it could get a shot off or was even aware of the enemy. In fact the soviets only put stabilisation on the gun when it was shown that it had trouble hitting beach targets in any sort of swell. Right, enough of the essay on what it is. Where would you see this thing? Well, unless it's pressed into service as a gun tank like so many specialist vehicles often are with "mixed results" (ie: a death trap) it is strictly a fire support vehicle. It's best function is if you imagine it as a direct fire artillery piece with the pathetic armour and vision that entails. By the time the Twilight War starts it's strictly used by naval infantry and only they have stockpiles of its rare ammunition so it's only where they are. Each vehicle should have a section/squad of troops that accompany it as it's relatively blind and they keep infantry and their nasty RPGs away from it. If any sort of armour is in the vicinity these things immediately retire, they have no business even fighting M2 Bradleys or even lighter reconnaissance vehicles. It can be considered to have no effective armour. Is it any use? Well, yes and no. For the fighting that goes on in the Twilight War it is very good in that it can get across the demolished infrastructure. It doesn't need a bridge and this should not be underestimated as to how important that is. A good example is WW2 IJA tanks that were light to the point of uselessness in opposition to anything with a gun but they could get places where anything with a gun couldn't, meaning they were often very handy indeed. The PT-76 can appear in a lakes district or riverine area and rain down HE from outside of HMG or RPG distance. A careful enemy can utilise one to manouevre into a spot to whack a strongpoint with an HE round or two and then get it out before it's wrecked. Otherwise it's only good for carting stuff around. Consider this when considering it for an AFV; the commander's sight is not slaved to the gunsight. This means the commander/gunner has to use two sights, one to acquire a target and then one to engage it. As these sights might be pointing in different directions and the gunner's sight is of a narrow focus there might be a lot of hunting around to engage a moving vehicle that will likely result in the vehicle's destruction. The crews know this all too well. |
This is a first world war Canadian video on what goes into making an 8" (203mm) artillery shell.
So when you specify that some or other two can create artillery shells, ask yourself if they have this sort of set up. If they can feed, clothe and shelter the workers and if they can source the specialist metals required. Then have a thought about the insane amount of working going into a fuze . . . |
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Pilotage Map of the Kalisz area
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Soviet/Russian Body Armour
(This includes post-dissolution armour that was in development during the soviet period. All armour apart from the SSh-68 came with a cloth TTsKO or VSR camouflage cover unless otherwise noted.) 6B2 Type: Body Armour Designation: 6Б2 Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1979-1983 Manufacturer(s): Research Institute “Stali” Material(s): Cloth, titanium and kevlar Weight: 4.8 kg Used by army and GRU spetsnaz (Main Intelligence Directorate of army). 6B2 is first generation army armor vest. It is first modern bulletproof vest in the Soviet army. Was used in Afghanistan 1979-1989, 1-st Chechen campain and 1993 Moscow Crisis. Widely used in the war in Afghanistan. 6B2 consists of chest and back parts connected with each other in the shoulder joints and with the side buckles. Protective composition consists of titanium armor plates ADU-605-80 1.25 mm thick and ballistic screen of 30 layers of aramid fabric TSVM-G. Provides Ballistic protection and protection from pistol bullets. 6B3 Type: Body Armour Designation: 6Б3 Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1984-onwards Manufacturer(s): Research Institute “Stali” Material(s): Cloth, titanium and kevlar Weight: 10.0 kg One of first mass produced body armour in USSR (later in Russian Federation). Vest was adopted in 1984 and first used in Afghan war (1979-89). Protected the user against rounds of AKM calibre and weighed around 10kg. Later the 6B3 was developed into more versions and camouflage covers were also adopted. The vest saw widespread use in both Chechnyan conflicts and recently even in the South Ossetian conflict. - 6B3 - ballistic vest Zhe-85T (romanized from 6Б3 and Ж-85Т) - 6B3-01 - ballistic vest Zhe-85T (romanized from 6Б3-01 and Ж-85Т) - 6B3TM - ballistic vest Zhe-85TM (romanized from 6Б3ТМ and Ж-85ТМ) - 6B3TM-01 - ballistic vest Zhe-85TM-01 (romanized from 6Б3ТМ-01 and Ж-85ТМ-01) 6B4-01-P Type: Body Armour Designation: 6B4-01-P (6Б4-01-П) Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1988- onwards Manufacturer(s): - Material(s): Cloth, titanium and kevlar Weight: 10.0 kg This vest was produced in limited quantity for spetsnaz assault teams and for KGB Alpha and Vympel units On the front cover located pouches for 4 AK magazines, spare parts, first-aid kit. On the back cover located 4 pockets for F1/RGD grenade and a buttpack. (Note: I don't have the armour rating for this but I assume it's heavy assault armour with a greater than normal protection) 6B5-15 Type: Body Armour Designation: 6Б5 Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1986-1998 Manufacturer(s): Research Institute “Stali” Material(s): Cotton, Nylon, TSVM-G, Titanium, and Carbon Boride Weight: varies The 6Б5 vest is ballistic by having inner slabs/plates made from: Titanium, and Carbon Boride. Then having a TSVM-G inserts that go behind the plates reducing the chance of bullet penetration occurring. These vests came in sizes 1 and 2, 1 being good for 48-54 and 2 for 54-60 Furthermore, the covers are made from Nylon and Cotton These vests had differing ballistic classes and had 8 different classifications. 6Б5-11 (First iteration of the 6Б5 vest, Came only with ballistic fabric TSVM-G) 6Б5-12 (1.25mm Titanium front and back) 6Б5-14 (Classification does exist, not enough documentation) 6Б5-15 (Most common seen variant, Carbon Boride plates in the front and back) 6Б5-16 (6mm/1.25mm Titanium plates in the front and 1.25mm Titanium plates in the back) 6Б5-17 (Front was a mixture of plates, 4.3mm Iron plates and 1.25mm Titanium plates in the front.) 6Б5-18 (Last Soviet 6Б5 vest developed, 6mm Titanium plates in the front.) 6Б5-19 (This was a classification of the vest after the fall of the Soviet Union, 4.3mm Steel plates and 1.25mm Titanium plates in the front.) KIRASA "universal" (cuirass) armor vest Type: Body Armour Designation: KIRASA Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1996-1997 Manufacturer(s): - Material(s): Cotton, Nylon, TSVM-G, Titanium, and Carbon Boride Weight: 10.5 kg. Used during 1st and 2nd Chechen campaign by Maroon Berets MIA special forces. Olive color set, protects from SVD 7.62 sniper rifle and AKM 7.62 Armor vest KM-1 Type: Body Armour Designation: KM-1 Place of Origin: Russian Federation Produced: 1999-onwards Manufacturer(s): NPO "Class" Material(s): Cotton, Nylon, TSVM-G, Titanium, and Carbon Boride Weight: 6.6 kg. Was used by Russian police, MIA MVD, VV, SVR units. Class II (pistols and submachine guns 9x19, 7.62x25). Flora or VSR-98 flora camouflage. Universal size, adjusted by velcro. Pocket for radio. Full protection set includes: 1. 2x armor plates 2. VSR-98 flora cover 3. 2x soft buffer 4. 4x kevlar (tvaron) plates SSh-68 Helmet Type: Helmet Designation: SSh-68 Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1968-1980s Manufacturer(s): Varies Material(s): Steel Weight: 1.5 kg. SSh-68M Helmet Type: Helmet Designation: SSh-68M Place of Origin: USSR Produced: 1980s-Unknown Manufacturer(s): Varies Material(s): Steel with internal Aramid Liner Weight: 1.8kg. Notes: This is the standard SSh-68 Helmet with an internal aramid/kevlar liner. As the SSh-68 Helmet was a fairly large helmet the liner was possible. In the Twilight War this would probably be a second echelon helmet, with the 6B7 for first echelon and the old SSh-68 Helmet for third and mobilisation-only troops. PSH-77 Titanium Helmet with visor and internal radio Type: Helmet Designation: PSH-77 Place of Origin: Switzerland Produced: 1977-??? Manufacturer(s): Tig Bicord AG (Switzerland), Ulbrechts (Austria) Material(s): Titanium Weight 2.7 kg with visor. Weight 1.4 kg without visor Used by Soviet/Russian elite special forces KGB/FSB. Special forces "Alpha" and "Vympel". Helmet safety class 2. "Altyn" Titanium/Aramid Helmet with clear visor and internal radio (without radio is the K6-3) Designation: Алтын Place of Origin: USSR, Russia Produced: 1984-??? Manufacturer(s): NII Stali (НИИ стали) Material(s): Titanium, kevlar Weight with face-shield/visor: 4.3 kg 6B7 Kevlar Helmet Type: Helmet Designation: 6Б7 Place of Origin: Russian Federation Produced: 2000s-onwards Manufacturer(s): - Material(s): Kevlar Weight 1.2kg In development in the Soviet Union prior to the dissolution and slated to replace existing helmets for the ground forces in the 1990s. An updated version, the 6B7-M1, was adopted by the Russian SVR (army) in 2008 STSh-81 “Sfera” Type: Helmet Place of Origin: Russian Federation Produced: 1981 to 1994 Manufacturer(s): - Material(s): Titanium Weight 2.4kg SSSh-94 “Sfera” Type: Helmet Place of Origin: Russian Federation Produced:1994-onwards Manufacturer(s): - Material(s): Steel Weight 3.3kg |
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East German stay-behinds after Reunification.
Anyone who's done any reading on the loathsome Stasi understand why the East Germans were happy to reunify with West Germany, however after reunification the people that made up the Stasi and former NVA didn't just disappear, they still resided in Germany. In the Twilight War most of these people must have looked at an uncertain fate. The most obvious thing to do would be to immediately round them up and intern them as they posed a significant security risk. These individuals had links to various Warsaw Pact forces and the Stasi in particular worked closely with the KGB among others (the KGB thought so highly of them that they were the only intelligence service permitted to work inside Russia). Obviously many former members of these organisations and organisations like them were not particularly linked or even positive towards the east but some undoubtedly would have been. It's tempting to create stay-behind units from these people. Utilising cached equipment in secret locations they could wreak appropriate havoc where needed. They might have a variety of ideology and motivations that vary from unit to unit and would undoubtedly use the classic cell structure to minimise any compromising of other cells when caught. While demolition and sabotage are simple enough to design we might want to create more complex aims for these groups. |
So, you've got yourself a settlement but the nasty OPFOR are monitoring your hand-helds? No worries, here's something to string between your bunkers.
Field Telephones. Battery-powered hand sets appeared to all be able to run of external power, usually in the 3 volt range. Most phones seem to have a hand crank to enable ringing at the other end if not used with a switchboard. Nearly all these phones, you can probably assume it is all of them, are sound-powered. The only reason you need to use power is to ring the buzzer. If you don't have a dedicated switchboard, and let's be honest you won't, a simple task will be to rig up a series of switches that exclude or include lines for multiple use. In this case it's possible to have "party lines" of multiple phones. German FF OB/ZB (Introduced late 1950s) Requires 2x D-Batteries 5.0kg SFT800 (Introduced early 1980s) 3.6kg USA TA-1 Sound-powered 1.2kg TA-43 Requires 2x D-Batteries 5.0kg TA-312 (Introduced late 1960s) Requires 2x D-Batteries 4.35 Kg USSR TA-57 (Introduced 1957) Requires 1x 1.5v Battery 2.5kg |
Chemical and Biological Warfare
HAZMAT Suits and Endurance Many people here have been in the military and understand the destructive effect HAZMAT suits have on endurance and functionality. However it's difficult to represent anecdotal information in a game environment so I thought I'd post the two primary systems that cause that degradation of ability. First and probably the most notable is heat build up. Not being able to escape the heat your body generates is an incredible and unpleasant experience but the effects are not only overheating but the actual composition of your muscles change. They become less elastic and lose the ability to flex. This is not a linear progression but rather a bell curve as the effects rapidly degrade after a steady decline. I can't over-emphasis how dangerous this is. Not only can the victim's organs shut down and brain damage occur but in extreme cases the muscles can actually stop being elastic strands and become just masses of jelly-like tissue. In a twilight 2000 environment there's probably no possible recovery from this and a lingering death is almost certain. The other one is exhalation of carbon dioxide. Both these two are linked. Carbon dioxide build up occurs because HAZMAT filters cannot pass nearly enough air through them to both give the lungs the required oxygen and expel enough carbon dioxide. Physical exertion builds up lactic acid in the bloodstream that is broken down in the organs and then expelled as carbon dioxide. If this can't be done at the correct rate a logjam occurs in the body and the lactic acid is not broken down. The upshot of this is the body fatigues very quickly. So there's three primary systems working here; heat build up, oxygen intake restriction and carbon dioxide expulsion restriction. The effects tend to snowball and also create feed-back loops which increases the snowball effect. In game terms what happens is the character is in the three work states given in the rules; rest, light work and hard work. The saves are harder for each work state as the work gets harder. An important thing about this mechanism is it's very unlikely the PC will notice the effect happening before other, watchful PCs do due to the disruption of brain activity. This isn't like ordinary heat-stroke, it's much faster occurring and more damaging, especially as the usual methods of relieving heat stroke cannot be maintained in a HAZMAT environment. So the GM should apply Observation checks for team mates to see the effects occurring and the victim has a much higher save on the roll. Contaminated Environments in the Game I'm a big believer in the MOPP suit. I think at least once in each campaign a hazardous environment should be encountered to bring home that this was a Nuclear, Chemical and Biological War. This is not a summer Sunday afternoon in the woods. As it's a bit unfair to inflict this sort of nightmare on unprepared PCs it's best to use the universal "I Show, You Do" approach where the PCs can see someone else go down with this, how it occurs and what the effects are. On a game note to varying effects even just gas masks do this with less but still some heat build up. Now, having the OPFOR dump some VX on your PCs as they drive along is probably going to get you some hard stares from across the table. Harsh campaigns might have this, my campaigns are very harsh and I wouldn't, but normally it's best to give the PCs both a bit of reaction/preparation time and access to at least normal protective gear. This means you'll need a significant carrot and/or stick to send them into the environment about which the players probably have few illusions about. There are two main differences in the situation apart from environmental factors; Attacks and Contaminations. An attack means the risk is acute. The level of contaminants are high and none have had time to degrade. These are extremely hazardous environments where a failure of the containment systems probably means heavy exposure. Obviously these are rare. To be frank the players are nearly never important enough for the OPFOR to expend precious contaminants purposefully on them, however there are many gas mines used by both sides that might create this situation. Generally I tend to use those as events that happen to other people (they are great for blocking off avenues of exploration) but as it's your game I leave that to you. Contamination is a far more common situation and this gives the PCs several options an attack does not, not the least of being simply to avoid the contamination. In this case a failure of the protection does not necessarily mean exposure depending on the nature of the contamination. Some contamination are so persistent they can be be considered permanent Attacks. One of the biggest problems in a contamination environment is that the individual goes through cycles of hyper-vigilance, awareness and negligence. Once again other PCs can monitor the player. As a side note hyper-vigilance is fatiguing. This is not a good situation for the player. If the player becomes negligent then the normal risks of an exposure increases dramatically. As this has such severe repercussions I'd suggest the GM let this be based on player attitude rather than arbitrary dice rolls and leave those to NPCs. The Leadership skill can buff rolls here. There is an enormous amount of literature on the effects of contamination and decontamination which I won't go into here. The GM should take into account the amount of weathering and degradation of the contaminant. Weathering degrades exposed surfaces and leaves unexposed areas less effected. This makes simple things such as going over a fence hazardous because the bottoms of the railings may still be heavily contaminated. Also note that some agents rapidly break down, especially some biological agents, and can cause far less damage. If you really want to give your PCs a heart attack have them become inadvertently exposed to a serious agent that has degraded to the point here it is about the level of an irritant. |
Settlements - Party-Driven Settlements
Quite often in the campaign the group decides to settle down and oversee a settlement. I've had immense fun doing this as not only are adventures self-generating but they add a layer of involvement for the players. Settlements rarely involve starting anew but are usually the characters gathering enough NPCs that an existing position is reconfigured into what Twilight 2000 terms a "Canton". In my campaigns so far these have taken two forms: 1) An existing civilian settlement is settled in and developed. This has been by far the most common. 2) A military position such as a bunker system or outpost is created or adapted as a settlement. Both have aspects that impact the balance of features. A civilian settlement is often at a trade point nexus, a resource point or similar where a military outpost usually has a site positioned for its defensive capability.Note the term "balance of features". As GM resist the temptation to make everything perfect, every situation should be a trade-off. Some features will be sub-optimal and thus require a greater expenditure of resources, time and manpower than others. Strangely enough in my experience players actually like this and these become the standout memory of the game at that part. Civilian Settlements. Configuring a town or farm and so on is simple. It involves simply adding defensive positions and repairing the infrastructure. Existing infrastructure may or may not have been designed with self sufficiency in mind and usually isn't but can be modified Military Settlements These settlements are more difficult in some ways because military positions, especially pre-war ones, are usually not designed with self-sufficiency in mind and as the supply chain is a distant and pleasant memory all the infrastructure must be created from scratch. Basic Necessities: Defence. First and foremost Twilight 2000 is a violent environment and comfy spots the players make others will try and take. The important part of this is that it's easy to skimp the interim defence plans for the advanced plans that will come later. Don't do this. Have the players tested constantly so these defences give a pay-off. Players will get bored doing things they start to consider window-dressing. The first defence plans are simply guarding existing features. Every soldier I've talked to can tell you exactly how much dirt they've shoveled in their lives and rubble and earthwork positions are the primary positions here. If you don't have a working plan of fighting positions the US field manual of the time has some great information for you: https://www.globalsecurity.org/.../p.../fm/index.html After this the troops will strengthen the position and create a continuous perimeter. To foreshadow this have some OPFOR attempt penetrations into the positions by identifying strong-points and trying to infiltrate between them. Two to three man teams sneak in while the strong-points are either unwary, distracted or engaged. This can be a whole adventure right here. The perimeter should contain two primary features that you undoubtedly already know; the free-fire zone and the barrier. A fun adventure can be PCs going off in a truck to salvage barrier and defensive materials such as concertina wire. Note that this stuff is often booby trapped. However the PCs may want to salvage that too. Of course not only the PCs want this stuff. After the perimeter is established the defences are simply hardened. This can be as involved as PCs like and some of my PCs actually carefully constructed concrete bunker systems. I can post reams of stuff about that. However one of the most important aspects will be mines. Passive and/or command-detonated mines are a massive force multiplier and decent minefield allows the players to reduce the perimeter guard significantly. Note that in some cases you don't even need the actual mines, the warning signs are enough. However this implies they take them from an existing minefield thus leaving it unmarked, a sucky thing to do. Maybe making your own is the way to go. Water: Water supplies are integral to any settlement. Most people seriously underestimate settlement water requirements that are usually about ten times field requirements. Water needs a few things, firstly being the water source itself. After that a pump, piping (which may already exist) and a holding facility that is usually elevated and most importantly armoured. Enemies seeing an elevated structure assume it's an observation point, the players may indeed use it as one, and direct fire at it. Perhaps they learn about this the hard way 🙂 Pumps should be dug in both to protect them and to stop their noise alerting enemies. Waterwheels and windmills are very effective although vulnerable structures and of course use no fuel. Their structures make good defensive points. Piping may be below ground or above ground. Water-points do not have to be a tap in every house, having running water is an unimaginable luxury as it is and a central water-point is fine. Note that if the players neglect to both armour and link the water-point to the defensive positions they can get very thirsty with water just a few metres away if it can be swept by hostile fire. Food: This is an amazing subject considering the situation. A lot of food is actually capable of being created inside the defensive perimeter and the players should think to to so. Pigs especially need little room and can turn a large amount of waste into food. Livestock raids by post-nuclear soldiers drive home the environment the players live in. Note that in nearly all cases livestock is very vulnerable to enemy fire even if inside the perimeter, as are glasshouses and food gardens. Chemical contaminants can wipe out the player's food production in one strike as it kills livestock and contaminates the ground and even irritant gasses can do this. Actual broad acre farming is problematic. If you model climate damage in your game it might not be even possible. As there are no longer industrial fertlisers the rewards are much smaller as well. Also note that it requires about 0.4 hectares (1.0 acres) of grain production to support one cavalry horse. Broad acre farming is normally outside the perimeter and liable to being overrun by the enemy or burnt/contaminated in an effort to deny the players resources. Defending this ground can be extraordinarily hard but the payoff should be equal to the effort. Non Player Characters. It is tempting and easy to have the NPCs simply as robots but you are doing your players and yourself a disservice if you do so. Having complex personalities as your NPCs brings a richness to the game and makes the players live in the world. Some NPCs might not be all that helpful, some can be very much so, some can have good qualities offset by drawbacks and finally some can be treacherous. Every game should have some treachery. The key I think in developing NPCs in a settlement is to introduce them slowly. If you you dump fifteen squabbling NPCs on the PCs their eyes will cross and they'll ignore them. Then when something happens the NPC could have helped with will lead them to feeling cheated. NPCs are obvioulsy the way you introduce outlier skills into the game. As T2K is in most editions very lean on skills the player who takes "Civil Engineer 6" is taking a big risk in combat should their lack of skills let them down. In the dark ages before the internet GMs were recommended to have index cards for each NPC. These days a simple word file for the NPCs is enough and as you play leave yourself a bit of time to update the NPC's entry. I have a file the PCs can access that briefly notes the NPC, their wound state and skills as well as the weapons and equipment they have. As players can never know what sort of skills an NPC really has you can have a previously boring NPC in the settlement turn out to be a plumber before the war and suddenly you can make a focus of a session that NPC. NPCs are living, breathing people with wants and desires. This may mean many things. Some NPCs may bargain to some extent before using their skills. Keep in mind the PCs are generally offering a big thing in the intrinsic safety and stability of the settlement and the NPC would be very aware of that. Make the bargaining only for certain characters or for when the NPC is being taken advantage of. Note that NPCs often have strong solidarity and if one NPC is treated badly the whole lot start to show negative effects. NPCs are going to want to have a say in the direction of things the players do. This will cause conflict as players resent infringement on their agency and so has to be handled carefully. It's best if you can make the players understand the NPC's viewpoint, it makes perfect sense if they want a bandit they caught to be strung up over the gate but perhaps the player's promised not to do so. Have the NPCs say clearly why they want things and not simply what they want. This has gotten way too long to add industry, crafts, trading and all the other stuff I wanted to talk about. |
Has anyone had a look at the Romanian Cold War military?
It's interesting because Romania wasn't really a very enthusiastic member of the Warsaw Pact and it's army wasn't all that thrilled by the way the country was going and with the Patriot Guards, Romania's territorial defence, even less so. In 1989 the Guards were turned out to repress the people and they promptly made the people's uprising an armed uprising. The reason I go into this is that Romania had some really nifty kit. It was variants of the Soviet stuff but with a unique twist and some of this stuff actually suits T2K a little bit better in some respects because it's really functional yet robust even for Warsaw Pact standards. The one I've really been enjoying reading is the ABC-79M, a little recon-APC. The Romanians were already making the BTR-80 and when they saw they needed something like a BDRM recon vehicle they simply cut the BTR-80 down into a four wheeler rather than get stuff from outside the country. These purpose-built variants had a short chassis and the BTR's turret. In retrospect it's amazing no one else thought of it (and it makes you wonder what other vehicles would be like if someone did that). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social...lic_of_Romania (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_People%27s_Army) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Guards_(Romania)) (https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Equipment_of_the_Romanian...) https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Pu%C8%99c%C4%83_Automat%C4... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC-79M) |
Tank Riding
Tank riding, or "Infantry Tank Desant" is the practice of riding atop a tank into combat rather than merely for transport. While on the surface this might seem stupid it actually has some slight advantages as it allows the tankers to have more eyes and weapons scanning for threats. However tanks draw fire and the practice of "scrubbing" infantry off tanks rapidly becomes standard. Now, while most people assume this is purely an eastern Bloc practice this is not the case. The USA for instance has not totally disavowed the practice and reading some field manuals shows that there's actually instructions given on things to keep in mind when adopting this practice. Of course with things like an M1 series MBT the gas turbine makes riding on the engine deck dangerous in the extreme however there are images of US vehicles carrying infantry on the turret and even the front deck (which doesn't seem wise). This must be either an emergency or a doctrinal shift because the M551 manual strictly bans infantry from riding forward of or in close proximity to the smoke/grenade launchers. How many troops can you get on your ride? Luckily, there's actually a table for this: - Heavy tank, 10-12 soldiers - Medium tank, 8-10 soldiers - Light tank, 5-6 soldiers It should be easy to extrapolate from this how many PCs you can get to cling onto a fast moving vehicle as it smashes through urban wreckage and trees that do their best to wipe them off. |
BMP-1M, probably the Twilight War standard.
During the 80s we thought the BMP-1 would stay as it is and would be thrown into depots before being issued to third-echelon troops. It seems the Russians, knowing they didn't have the rubles to make the BMP-3 in sufficient numbers, decided to have a hard look at the old war horse. The big complaint among the many of the BMP-1 was that it was built with another role to the one it now occupies (although that role didn't exist when it was designed). It was only designed to stop shell fragments and rifle calibre rounds, not even having enough armour to defeat the 12.7mm on the sides. This is the vehicle in the rules. Obviously, this had to change. I could go on about soviet battle concepts, they're quite different to what they led us to believe, but the main thing is that the soviets moved from a "well, we're going to lose men, let's make sure the objective is achieved so it doesn't turn into a slugging match where we'll lose lots of men" theory to a theory where they needed to stop attritional warfare grinding down their troops. This occurred during their Afghan commitment and went fairly unnoticed by the west. Thus we get the first modernisation; the BMP-1 Afghanka package. This is a survivability package to minimise crew losses. It is a 6mm applique armour package that brings the sides of the vehicle up to a level where it's resistant to 12.7mm armour piercing rounds. They also developed a system where the troops could remove the ATGM from the roof (already upgraded to those used by the latest vehicles) and replace it with a carried Plamya 30mm AGL in a remote mount. If you really want the old 73mm-armed BMP in your game you should be using this one. However after Chechnya, Afghanistan and watching the west in Iraq the Russians decided that the standard BMP-1 was going to be a rolling coffin in modern combat and embarked on a widespread upgrade to give these vehicles some effective firepower to hold western IFVs at bay. Here we get the BMP-1M, a very different beast and probably quite a surprise to many people. They turfed out the old turret because they'd come to believe that IFVs were unavoidably going to be involved in urban combat. In its place was put a remote mount, here's the blurb: "It is fitted with a TKB-799 "Kliver" one-man weapons station armed with a missile pod, a 30 mm 2A72 multipurpose autocannon (it can be used against both ground and air targets) and a 7.62 mm PKTM coaxial machine gun. The missile pod is mounted on the right side of the weapons station and normally holds four 9M133 Kornet (AT-14 Spriggan) or 9M133F "Kornet" ATGMs with a laser jam-resistant fire control system, but these can be removed and replaced by a pod of 9K38 Igla (SA-18 Grouse) surface-to-air missiles. It carries 300 rounds for the main gun, 2000 rounds for the machine gun and 4 ATGMs. It also has a modern computerized fire control system with a two-plane stabilizer and a 1K13-2 telescopic sight with distance measurement/thermal/laser channels and ballistic calculator with external sensors. Computer simulations proved that the BMP-1M can outperform the American M2/M3 Bradley at firepower efficiency (the tested aspects included ATGM power, the effective range of the ATGM and the autocannon during day and night conditions and launching the ATGM while on the move). In these simulations the BMP-1M won a combat engagement with the M2 Bradley 1.3 times more often." This beastie was available in 1998 but you can bet your bottom ruble it'd be turning up a lot earlier during the Twilight War. |
Do you still have East Germany in your campaign?
I've had reunification but before it was made the East Germans shifted stocks of all their gear to other communist nations. This leaves all sorts of NVA kit turning up in odd places. This causes problems. Also in my game the Germans created several emergency units using residue NVA stocks for service elsewhere. Sometimes these units end up encountering units using old NVA equipment. However the Germans only use Bundeswehr body armour and webbing. (I also ditched the "French Stab In The Back" gimmick as it's frankly offensive. Instead there's Warsaw pact troops all over Germany and in France) |
My players have just encountered this Twilight 2000 refugee vehicle
Goat Cart Weight: 34kg (75lb) Capacity: 227kg (500lb) Uses one goat as a draught animal. Generally constructed from lightweight steel construction and wheelbarrow wheels. In T2K the operator usually walks alongside the vehicle. This draught vehicle has surprising cross country mobility and is really only limited by the skill in which the load is secured and the balanced nature of the load itself. It generally moves at human walking speed. |
Denmark, a much-forgotten NATO member, actually fielded their version of the M41 Walker Bulldog right into the Twilight 2000 period.
Now, it's been covered in some source-books but the salient feature is that it was updated to mid-nineties grade while still keeping the venerable to impressive derivative of the late Second World War US M1 76mm cannon in its 76mm M32A1 form. Now, this gun is absolutely perfect for Twilight 2000 and I don't use that lightly. The reason is that it's powerful but not too powerful. While powerful enough to see off anything below an MBT the M32A1 isn't so powerful that your players can tear a swathe right across Poland and Germany. If you come up against a T-62 or above you have to pull your head in and go around or become extremely creative in how you deal with it. This means a GM can give the players the effects of modern tank warfare but also have that moment where they look at the two T-80s nosing around the hill an decide that that direction is not worth investigating. As the Danish M41, the M41DK, has only about 25mm of very well-sloped armour it can tussle with stuff that mounts KPVs but has to be an ambush predator for anything else. Thus the infantry players still have a role as they screen and protect the gun tank. They go in, clear out the RPG teams and look for mines/IEDs so the M41DK can get into position and then it does its job. This sort of combined arms warfare should be the meat and potatoes of T2K fighting. For play I recommend one player be the TC and give the rest of the crew positions to NPCs. The TC controls the NPCs through his Leadership skill (or equivalent). Still, the GM should do the NPC's rolls or the TC suddenly gets a whole bunch of characters to play and that makes a power disparity for those players who elected to run a PBI out there in the mud. I recommend also a far larger diversity for crew personalities than the cards and training quality. I'd make entirely new characters and base them on someone. This makes the crews much more memorable and stops them being robots that one player controls. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M41_Walker_Bulldog) https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...f7&oe=614354C7 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...1f&oe=61431BA0 https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...25&oe=6142250F https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...5a&oe=6142381A https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...31&oe=6144962B |
Well, last game the players were sneaking across the rainy, muddy Polish fields when they found one of these lying in the mud.
https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...fe&oe=61439121 |
BRDM-2M
What's not to love? It's a UAZ with (some) armour! The BRDM-2M was pioneered by the, uh, "BRDM-2M" but not the Russian one but rather the Polish one. The Poles noted that even though they loved this thing it had serious flaws. They especially didn't like the way you had to enter and exit the vehicle's deck hatches. The vehicle isn't short so it's a big drop to the ground and they wanted a way to get in and out quickly, it is a scout car after all. You need to get out and scout. So the Poles had a long hard look at it and decided they didn't need the belly-wheels. Out they went and now not only could they put actual doors just aft of the forward wheels but there was room inside for two scouts as well. The Russians looked at this and thought the Poles had totally missed the point. Until the Polish vehicles worked so well in actual combat. At that point the Russians also looked at ditching the belly-wheels and adding stuff including the doors and passenger positions. However when they switched to newer radios in the 1990s they noticed that there was now room in the turret due to the smaller systems. Rather than lavish stuff on crew comfort, Russian wars are supposed to be unpleasant, they managed to cram in a mount for the AGS-17 slaved to the main armament and now had something a bit like a M1117. Okay, new stats: Same speed stats except the vehicle doesn't have the same obstacle crossing ability the old one had which was remarkable. Now it's just "good". +1 AGS-17, external mount but belt fed from internal stores. I can't tell you how much ammo it carries for this but I do know the other ammunition stowage is unchanged. +2 passengers. (While this might not be all that common, I would make it common though, all the Polish ones had the extra passengers during the period) https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...06&oe=61447C2D https://scontent.fbne6-1.fna.fbcdn.n...f1&oe=6142CD12 |
Phases of the Twilight War
Note: This is my take and it's not the usual one. I'm not pushing my program but rather throwing this out here for anyone that might find it useful. By definition the Twilight War is unlike any other. It goes from a state-of-the-art modern peer-to-peer conflict using all weapons possible and winds down to gangs of soldiers wandering around scavenging food and gear. There may well be phases beyond this that simply don't bear thinking about. The reason this is important as not only will the whole concept of operations change but it will also strongly reflect the legacy equipment left around, something that impacts strongly on the game. In The Second World War Nazi Germany came up with a bewildering array of "Last Ditch" equipment that ranged from the technically advanced to the medieval. There may well be other things sometimes touched on in the game like the M16EZ, that are sprinkled in the campaign. Some of these phases will not happen everywhere at the same time. Note: This uses the 1st Edition timeline. (In this the Chinese start a war with the USSR and the West joins in later). Phase One: Preceding 1995. The March to War This is just before the war and it's worth having because otherwise things get left out. The history states "after a period of increasing tensions". In this stage every future belligerent nation takes stock of the unfolding situation. The USSR and the PRC have switched to full wartime economies. The West has several options but it's likely that every military of the time will defer destroying obsolescent equipment. I place this around 1987+. Plans will be created to have in place systems to rapidly restore "boneyard" and "mothball" equipment however the systems themselves will not be created but rather serious preparations for them. Military expenditure while be increased but not significantly. R&D projects will be increased. Observers will watch the fighting and note technical and doctrinal lessons being learned. Plans will be created for the TO&E of legacy units. Game effects. Larger numbers of pre-war equipment will be created. Some gear that is historically from post 1995 will be fast-tracked and will appear in the game earlier. Phase Two: 1995 Eastern Engagement The Warsaw Pact and the PRC are now serious and it's now that their modern equipment starts pouring out. The USSR starts creation in the large scale that post-Cold War history associates only with elite units: body armour, night vision gear, squad communications. NATO starts creating large stocks of modern gear that will be shipped to the PRC next year. Game Effects: Apart from a higher level of equipment it is as can be expected. Phase Three: 1996 The West gets involved. At this point the West starts arming the PRC (who then shamelessly reverse-engineers most of it) and in a strange reversal of what has happened in the Middle East the Warsaw Pact encounters NATO equipment used by poorly-trained but enthusiastic troops. Large amounts of it are captured and shipped back for examination and the WarPact are appalled at the level of connectivity involved in these modern systems. Crash programs reverse-engineer these in an effort to incorporate them into Soviet equipment and doctrine and these are then tested against the Chinese. (Note that at this time Albania is a Chinese ally flanked by hostile nations. This does not bode well for their future in Europe) NATO also gets direct doctrinal information on state-of-the-art WarPact gear and the rising level of experience in the Eastern European armies as they get blooded. Game Effects: Some late 1990s equipment is already in place due to the experience from the preceding year. I would go so far as to make gear from 2000 to 2005-ish available. Phase Four: 1997 It All Goes South In this part Germany partly reunifies and the Western Front opens up. With the fighting in Germany and the US drive into Poland the fresh but un-blooded NATO troops meet Polish and Russian forces in Poland. These troops have been cycled through the Chinese Theatre and are hardened and experienced in manouevre to the extent NATO does not expect. At this point every nation on the planet starts rearming as fast as they can if they are not already well down that path. With two year's experience on the nature of the fighting advanced systems are created and shipped to the general conflict in Europe. I'm not averse to early 2000s gear appearing here, war is a huge accelerator of technology and this is largely ignored by the canon. Notably the city-fighting means you'll see things like TUSK upgrades for M1s and similar vehicles appear on all sides. Those programs to rebuild and restore mothballed equipment swing into action. As it's bleedingly obvious that This Is It the West's total manufacturing starts churning out top-of-the-line munitions while also refurbishing everything and anything. Game Effects: Out-of-period equipment is put into production. Things such as weapon optics and rails become common. Legacy gear is rebuilt and upgraded to modern standards, if not for Western Theatre use then for holding the line elsewhere and to supply allied nations. All the peripheral builders of proposed but not accepted equipment also swing into action resulting in much of the small-scale stuff sold to minor countries appearing in larger quantities. Phase Five: 1998 Is Everyone Having Fun? This where we have a lot of to-and-froing and then it all happens as the nuclear strikes hit first tactically and strategically. Industry is smashed and if you were working in a tank factory you became reduced to hot plasma. Only well-hidden, and rarely then, industry survives. Dispersed equipment stocks are used. The bulk of governmental effort goes into disaster relief. Game Effects: Production ceases. It's "make do with what you have". Phase Five: 1999+ What Do We Do Now? The war continues for some unknown reason, probably because no one tells everyone to stop. This is where the run-down of gear starts in earnest and quickly things like ATGMs start to dry up as they are used out-of-doctrine to hit anything that looks "blowupable". This phase I usually call "The Missile Drought" as the top of the line munitions are expended. However, the military units are still in business and now the civilian sector (their reason for being) are ash they take over production. It's at this time we see things like rechargeable batteries and low-tech solutions being built in restored factories. The focus is on sustaining the gear they have and not creating new answers. Lower tech solutions are grafted onto high-tech equipment. Game Effects: It is here the GM gets a chance to shine. Repurposed and add-on equipment starts to diffuse out to the troops. Also, second-line gear kept in depots replace things like optics that are no longer produced so those Aimpoints start to disappear. Some vehicles are turned into Frankensteins as old systems are shoehorned in to replace newer, destroyed ones. We have to be careful here as older systems are invariably larger, bulkier and heavier and may not fit. It might be common to see armoured boxes welded onto the exteriors of vehicles to mount extraneous systems. Really, by the time the players get a hold of it nothing is standard. It will probably have been upgraded and then part of that in return downgraded, making for some truly unique kit. Very advanced gear will tend to be more worn out usually as it served longer unless it's been lying under rubble for a few years. An M60A5 with a 120mm gun jammed in but all the MGs are Browning M37s isn't unusual. Maybe it only has a thermal camera for the TC but not the gunner. Note that autocannon barrels get shot-out faster and it will be common to see worn-out cannons, especially on the more modern ones as they were in combat service longer. Towed artillery might make a comeback. As the SPGs wear out their weapons might be removed and new mounts created or old mounts repurposed. This goes for any gun-carry vehicle. Specialist vehicles are going to be repurposed as fighting vehicles. Having an armoured radar vehicle is pointless as is a command post vehicle if it can be used for other stuff. Some turrets can drop in on surprising vehicles or you can simply plonk a weapon on top as the much-loved ZSU-23mm gun has been everywhere. Divisional workshops are the focus of this but it gets steadily more dispersed as the units break up. |
Beutefahrzeug (Loot Vehicle)
This was a Second World War German term and these were very common as they were always under-stocked with native vehicles (they really liked Shermans). However, they usually did a few things to them to ease logistics problems. First off, the replaced the radios if they could. When you think about it this is a no-brainer. Second off they'd usually try at least to replace the secondary weapons. German co-axial machine guns would be shoe-horned in unless it was one of the large amount of units that used captured weapons stocks. In the Cold War the PKM-Ts and the various MAG versions actually aren't that different in size. They'd also often change the cupolas on captured armoured vehicles so the TC had the same capabilities as that of their own vehicles. In a Twilight 2000 sense all these apply. A T-80 in NATO service would have these modifications as well as the over-size identification markers and probably a large IR marker as well. As I've mentioned earlier some of them will have retro-fits of NATO sensors to bring them up to standard. Some might even have engine swaps. Soviet engines are notorious for running dirty as they have huge tolerances to cope with massive temperature changes and it's a bit of a fuel waster in a logistical sense. NATO smoke launchers are another probable change (nearly no one uses these in their games). UK-service vehicles would have had the large reel on the outside to connect vehicles in laager so they could maintain radio silence. There's probably no room for the water-boiler so it'd be a hardship post. Maybe they could mounted a liberated samovar on the outside. |
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