SAR & Medical Corps
 

I was watching something on the German SAR today. Therefore, what about these people in T2K?

I have no doubt that they will be facing terrible difficulties but I have the feeling that they would continue to be around, at least at the local level.

SAR services will hardly have access to helicopters but i wouldn't be surprised to see some ships still on patrol (even sailing ship).

Medical services (the ones out of the military) could still be around also. They have some training with light weapons, they might even have their own weapons, they are dedicated to saving people. Therefore, even when isolated, I hardly imagine them fleeing the scene. Instead, I could imagine them setting up some kind of medical post, organizing its defense and helping people in needs as much as they can (even if the only medical material they have is needles and knives).

I found such an exemple in one of the book of Dark Conspiracy. The action takes place in a fairly chaotic Moscow and one of the few military unit is built around a field hospital. The comanding officer organized a mechanized infantry unit and remain the only hospital in town.

In France, the SAR, the firebrigades of Paris and Marseille as well as the Mountain Gendarmerie could well be around in the mist of total chaos. I would expect the same from US coast guards, German SAR...

Remember, in T2K we would be talking West German SAR (plus whatever (probably pretty miniscule in the case of civilian) SAR capabilities existed in East Germany).

Of course Targan

I didn't imply they would be everywhere. Nevertheless, part of these people tend to go where they are needed no matter what is happening. I suspect that several groups (probably isolated) would be active, may be disobeing their prime orders to remain true to what they think is their duty.

About Germany, I was indeed thinking of West German SAR. I don't know if there was any similar organization in East Germany.

These people can also be members of former international organization (Red Cross, Red Crescent, UN relief operations, Religious orders...). Some groups would be true relief groups, other might use their identification to cover some other activities...

Nevertheless, last November, Sister Emanuelle died in the village were I'm living. At the time of T2K she would have been in Cairo sharing the life of the poorest population in that city. In case of twilight (and if she had survived it of course), I hardly see her leaving the place and letting down the people.

Mo, its people like that that restore my faith in human nature - given everything that is going on its massively impressive that some people will still give up everything to help people they've never met.

If I recall correctly, UK SAR is partly done by the Military (RAF and RN), partly done by the Coastguard, and partly done by private contractors (companies like Bond Helicopters and Bristow Helicopters). I'd need to do a bit of investigation to find out when the private contractors came on the scene though...in a T2K World it might still have been 100% Military.

Personally, I would have thought after the nukes started flying any available helicopters would be transferred to more out and out military roles. I think the likliehood that any military personnel would continue to carry out SAR duties if ordered otherwise is slim...not only would they be going against their orders but they would, presumably, be reliant on higher headquarters for more fuel once their original supplies were exhausted.

There is a civilian organisation in the UK called the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which consists of civilian volunteers who man lifeboats; they can be found in a multitude of small towns and villages all along the British coast, and it's highly likely that they would remain true to their ethos, again provided they could maintain a supply of fuel.

More details on the RNLI can be found here

http://www.rnli.org.uk/

One point you have made me think of Mo is the organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (apologies if I have spelled that incorrectly!). I'm sure that these people, and others like them, could be found in conflict spots throughout the T2K World, and would make an excellent cover for the activities of French Intelligence...

The US Coast Guard has a national defense mission. The larger cutters would be used for open-ocean and coastwise escorts, the patrol boats for more inshore work. (The inshore would seem to be more for morale purposes only - with the exception of surface raiders the threat along the US coastlines is Soviet subs, and USCG patrol boats carried small caliber guns only - pretty useless for ASW - and no sonar.) Coast Guard aviaition, with good surface search capabilities but no ASW sensors or weapons, could be useful for surface raider hunts. When we write up the hunt for the Kirov in the Caribbean, we'll have her located by a USCG Falcon aircraft who then calls in the Navy for the sinking.

Military SAR: So the most part I think the role would evaporate for the following reasons:

1.) The assets to use them in the role they are intended would no longer be there. No aircraft, helicopters, communications and intel data to get an idea of where the victims they would rescue are at. Another reason as well, in the military enviroment, who does SAR normaly rescue? Aviators, and without aircraft thier would no longer be any aviators to rescue so no jobs for SAR. And thus they would be absorbed by field units needing the well skilled personel that these units would have. Think of the skill base most of these SAR personel have?

First Aid for many, plus rope skills, and depending on the type of SAR either insane water or ffield or mountaineering or arctic skills and all of them would have communications and land nav skills as well as suriving in their enviroment.

In the US hell in my tricounty area we have the following resources who have multiple types of SAR be they AIR, Water, Mountain or white water or Wilderness or Desert. And those are just the Sheriffs Department of paid members.

We also have:

Sheriff volunteers who do that sort of work.

Forest Service Volunteers
Four or Five private organizations who do mountain, desert and wilderness SAR missions

As stated the Forrest and Park services both State and National

Now lets toss in other organizations:

Coastguard and its auxilary
Civil Air Patrol that is half of their mission and they do alot of it, an example was the Steve Faucet disapearance.

National Guard and Air National Guard although in a T2K world their resources maybe scarce.

And iof course alot of communities and ski l and mountain odges also have their own rescue teams as well.


Chico you mentioned the Coastguard inshore side of the house not having weaponry, what would it take to add it? I recall durring WWII they had volunteers with sailboats and binoculars, and maybe a machinegun. Granted the odds are not in the favor of a modernsailboat in locating a sub, hell toss on a fish finder and you increase your chances but still it is slim but none the less it is a chance, 1 chance multiplied times how many?

Further, it would deny a submarine the chance to operate in a limited area for fear of being spotted, or at least keep them from surfacing, kinda like opening up on tanks with small arms, it won't take it out but it will keep em buttoned up.

And think about it, what did the PT Boats of WWII have? A few roll off depthcharges, which is simple technology, not overly effective of course but still a deterant.

And as I recall durring WWII the Civil Air Patrol was credited with sinking a submarine from airdropped depthcharges, so they can do something. I am still hoping for the odd one manned sailboat who spots a sub radiomast out to sea as he is trying to fish for dinner.

But mostly I would imagine the SAR units would have had ALOT of attrition even before their ability and reason had disapeared. If one things of what SAR in the early T2K would be doing they would have done some hairy missions. And alot of those missions would have been behind enemy controled territory, with some ending in failure which would result in casualties among the SAR personel.

You must also remember, without combat but a high operational tempo accidents will happen as people and eguipment reach their endurance point, machines fail, people make mistakes and you will suffer losses that way.

And also, lets not forget that military type SAR and even Civilians in that role would stand out as targets, not to mention even in the rear military personel would still be at risk of attack reguardless of their duty, be they cler,k, rifleman or SAR tyhey are still going to fall victim of enemy attacks.

So, in the end with their missions drying up, and their equipment disapearing they will be reforged into smaller units on standbye with surplus personel going into scout type units and medical units.

I can see some SAR types forming behind the lines type units to act as scouts since alot of them as I said would have survival skills and behind the lines training that would be second to none.

Thats just my take on it.

Something else to keep in mind is that primarily civilan equipment is rarely (if ever) hardened against EMP. Any available spare parts to repair EMP damage is likely to be sent to priority organisations, the military no doubt being very much to top of the food chain.

People might still be available, but without their aircraft, radars, fuel supplies, radios, etc, etc, etc, SAR organisations, at least the air and sea based ones, are almost certainly hamstrung after 1997.

Land based on the other hand, while also suffering heavily from the lack of working communications, are still going to be able to operate albeit at a lesser level than prewar.

I'd imagine personnel from Air and Sea organisations would gravitate towards the military through conscription and volunteering (the latter possibly more likely dus to the usual sense of duty this type of person often has), or simply be absorbed into the land based organisations. Wherever they go, their skills will serve them in good stead and I can see them being used (in the military) in specialist roles rather than say infantry replacements.

I'm inclined to agree with jester. SAR assets will be scarce at best. In some locales, there may be a limited capacity resembling a terribly scaled-back version of what we have today. Airborne SAR is hard to imagine in more than a handful of locations. Surface-based SAR would require large-scale coordination and functioning assets--both of which are in short supply in North America by late 2000. The Sealord of Jacksonville, Norfolk, the Puget Sound enclave, and a few other locations might be able to conduct very limited SAR. Very few others will have the means or inclination to expend carefully-hoarded resources.

Webstral

Don't forget Iran and the Gulf Region: the USAF has the 129th Rescue Wing (CA ANG) and a detachment from the 16th Special Operations Wing for such tasks, then there's the Navy, with a pair of HH-60Hs from CVW-10 at NAS Bahrain (Sheikh Isa AB). The RSAF's 99 Squadron with Cougar Helos heavily modified for Combat SAR (extra guns, rocket pods, armor) is also available. 99 Squadron has an advantage over the USAF: they still have parts support from the French for their helicopters.