Twilight 2025

[ChalkLine]

If we were to make a time set seven years in the future, what would it look like?

How different would it be from a NATO vs USSR clash we know from T2K?

[Cdnwolf]

China Sea clash over Spratley Islands
Ukraine Russia clash
Potential South America clash involving Columbia and Venezuela
Economic crisis in Greece/Italy leading to civil war
Syria war expands drawing in the US vs Russia clashes
Mexico/US border clashes heat up
US economic boycott of Chinese products

Hey some of this sound like they came from TWL2013
Now just need some reason for Canada and the USA to .... ooops...

[Raellus]

Proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen and Syria. By means of deliberate attack, mistake, accident, brinksmanship, or what-have-you, the Israelis, Americans, and Russians (and their respective allies) get dragged into the fight. Voila! Armageddon a-la Revelations. It's not as far fetched as it seemed even just a decade ago.

[ChalkLine]

True, but apart from the causes what else would be different?

The Satellite War would now have to be fairly involved and, as usual, possibly causing a Kessler Cascade where all the satellites in orbit are destroyed by debris. This means there will be no future satellite launches either for those 2300ad people. Goodbye GPS targeting, one of the most important artillery advances. Also good bye to instant map updating.

[Raellus]

Space force!

In all seriousness, the History Channel series Dogfights had a special near-future air/space warfare episode that was really great. This was 5-10 years ago. Unfortunately, it wasn't included on the DVD series. But the "special episode" had a "dogfight" between U.S. and Chinese space planes that seemed very realistic.

Found it! It's not in HD, but it's worth your time if you have an interest in aerial warfare c. 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9XgldnXb5s

[.45cultist]

A little tweeking of IRL get's these premise:
The state of some western Europe forces suggest a desperate rearming. I don't believe any would jump to nukes. The refugee shuffling may stretch infrastructure and inflame friction in Europe, and even less so in Canada, where they don't want to integrate. And in the U.S. social strife is a big business already.

[bash]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

True, but apart from the causes what else would be different?

The Satellite War would now have to be fairly involved and, as usual, possibly causing a Kessler Cascade where all the satellites in orbit are destroyed by debris. This means there will be no future satellite launches either for those 2300ad people. Goodbye GPS targeting, one of the most important artillery advances. Also good bye to instant map updating.

GPS satellites (of all varieties) are in MEO. They are not trivially destroyed as you need a launch vehicle with similar capability to the satellite's own launch vehicle to deliver a ASAT vehicle to it. There's a finite number of launch facilities in the world capable of handling such launch vehicles. The same goes for GEO communication satellites. If launch and construction facilities were disabled early in a conflict where ASAT warfare is a concern there's a lot of stuff out of reach.

What would be vulnerable to ASAT weapons would be LEO satellites. This includes things like IMINT and MASINT satellites. Lower altitude LEO satellites can be hit with some air and surface launched missiles.

The chances of a Kessler cascade are a bit overblown though. If a satellite is destroyed by an ASAT weapon it goes from being a solid hunk of satellite in orbit to a slightly less solid hunk of satellite in the same orbit. An ASAT weapon isn't going to provide so much energy as to majorly change the orbit of the mass of the satellite and definitely won't provide enough energy to send pieces into significantly higher orbits. Small bits of debris deorbit more readily than larger bits. They have less momentum and lose relatively more energy as they smack into molecules of the atmosphere.

Even if MEO and GEO satellites were successfully attacked, the surface of the Earth is a well measured place. INS navigation is also extremely advanced and accurate. Even without GPS there's lots of ways to accurately navigate (and target things). GPS is nice but not strictly necessary for a lot of things.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

Hey some of this sound like they came from TWL2013

Thoroughly implausible and poorly-researched. None of that could ever happen.

- C.

[ChalkLine]

What new weapons apart from drones have been developed since 2000?

[Legbreaker]

Quite a lot. Only got to trawl through Paul's site to see that.

[Ewan]

Russian jets and ships target British warship https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57583363

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Ewan

Russian jets and ships target British warship https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57583363

Just one piece...

China threatened Australia and the US recently over "meddling in internal Chinese matters" over Taiwan, nine dash line, and belt and road.

Belarus's forced diversion of a flight to arrest an opposition journalist.

Ukraine raid on ransomware gang associated with Colonial Pipeline.

Iranian ships and facilities being mysteriously destroyed or disabled.

Lebanon military asking for foreign aid amidst EU threat of sanctions if they can't form a government.

EU sanctions on Myanmar.

North Korean edict to "housewives" to do fieldwork in rice paddies.

Naftali Bennett saying Israel's patience with Hamas has run out.

Canada-US border closures over COVID.

China crackdowns on Hong Kong.

Japan rejecting summit with South Korea at G7.

Turkish and Iranian attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan.

Russia in Syria.

Russia in Crimea.

Ongoing investigations into if/how China covered up origins of COVID - and any involvement from various private and governmental entities external to China.

Lots of tiny little things that, if they went just a little pear-shaped, could all contribute to Twilight 2025.

You could start with putting together a timeline starting last year (or earlier) of all the things that happened - and then tweak them...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._and_millennia is a good starting point.

A few examples from 2020:

1. What if the Russia-Saudi Arabia price war ends differently and OPEC doesn't cut production?

2. What if the STC in Yemen doesn't accept a Saudi-brokered peace deal and doesn't end it's self-rule aspirations?

3. What if the attempt to remove Maduro from office in Venezuela was successful?

4. What if Greece bailed from NATO over the statements that they support the GNA in Libya,?

5. What if the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict blew out of control?

6. What if India/China clashes along the border escalated into a shooting war?

7. What if Trump supporters killed congress people on Jan 6th and took over govt?

I think the most likely of these as potential fuses worried be Nagorno-Kabarakh and India/China.

Azerbaijan has relationships with NATO and the EU. Saudi and Pakistan don't recognize Armenia. Armenia is in the Eurasian Union and has ties with China. Armenia recognizes Kashmir to be part of India. Armenia is friendly with Russia. India is friendly with Russia.

That big ball of twine can easily draw countries into conflict at the behest of allies...

[Raellus]

I'm not sure that I agree with the validity of this article's thesis, (essentially, "this is when/why China has gone to war in the past, so China will continue to follow this pattern in the very near future") but this piece is interesting nonetheless.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...na-war/620571/

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[Olefin]

"China naval duels with Vietnam, S. Korea, Australia."

Add in Taiwan or Philippines as well - then US forces try to intervene to get China to back down and in the scrum a US ship gets targeted by the Chinese (possibly accidentally) - and the US ship fires back and sinks the Chinese ship

That could very rapidly build into one hell of a regional conflict - and you could see Putin or his successor taking advantage of that to go into Eastern Europe to settle old scores with the Ukraine and Baltic States - and bingo - WWIII

[pmulcahy11b]

I personally think we'll be at war with China by the end of the decade. It won't be nuclear -- neither side is that stupid -- but it will be primarily naval in nature, with the occasional special ops raids in mainland China. Taiwan -- well, as one earlier poster said, China will mop the floor with Taiwan after a tough fight that is ultimately lost. After that, it will be a matter of whether China can KEEP Taiwan.

Two items that will be war zones that have never been before -- cyberspace and the space above us. China's been experimenting with killer sats, we can shoot down satellites as well warheads, and well, just imagine the capabilities of the X-37. And what if had more of them? (Hunch: I'll bet we do!)

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Mahatatain

Moderators - would it be worth splitting this thread into two, one to discuss Putin's war and one for theoretical discussions about a Twilight 2025 setting?

Done. For discussion of the current conflict in Ukraine, please use:

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=6627

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[swaghauler]

We can clearly see a pattern in modern warfare starting with the First Gulf War. In the digital age, we are seeing countries in conflict who lack sufficient material to fight a sustained war like we saw in WWII. From the India-pakistan conflict to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we are seeing shortages in Tanks, Aircraft, and heavy weapons. Due to the complexity and cost of these systems, only a few examples of these weapons would be trickling out of the various defense plants.

In the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the Russians had 1300 MBTs staged and may have less than 500 left after just 1 WEEK of fighting. The Ukrainian Army had 1500 MBTs and are down around the same strength. That a loss of over 100 tanks a day. This rate of loss would literally WIPE OUT the armored forces of 9 out of 10 Armed Forces on the planet. The losses in Aircraft are even more significant. Ukraine is down to about a dozen operational jets in a week.

Now you can see WHY I have always said that the next war will be a "come as you are" war.

[Raellus]

Might be a repost, but in case I didn't share back in 2016...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-of-the-future

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For those who have contemplated or run Twilight 20xx games set in 2025/2030, how will this attack on Ukraine inform your future campaigns? Will you gloss over the major issues Russia has had with wartime logistics or will those be incorporated in those settings?

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Spartan-117

For those who have contemplated or run Twilight 20xx games set in 2025/2030, how will this attack on Ukraine inform your future campaigns? Will you gloss over the major issues Russia has had with wartime logistics or will those be incorporated in those settings?

That is a tough one, considering things are changing on the ground every day, and many feel anxiety over nuclear sabre rattling.

However, the proliferation of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missles has obviously changed the battlefield; it looks like some Russian trucks may have been hit with Javelins,.suggesting the Ukrainian have large stocks.

Drones are a part of Ukrianian defenses, but that is something I know very little about. Recovering a downed enemy drone seems like a decent plot hook.

Cyber warfare is another area I just know very little about, but both sides in this conflict seem to have the capicity to launch attacks on one another.

Breached nuclear power plants could make parts of Europe unlivable. Ugh. Such plants could be targeted by conventional forces, which is a nightmare.

Fantasy scenarios (for now)

Russian Civil War.

Ukraine has a couple of nukes they secretly held back.

Full-scale proxy war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine/Baltic States. Maybe Merc; 2024?

Like I said, it is tough to imagine where this nightmare may lead.

[swaghauler]

A VERY GOOD video on Tradecraft in the modern age!

https://youtu.be/uAUcmweiQEw

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Spartan-117

For those who have contemplated or run Twilight 20xx games set in 2025/2030, how will this attack on Ukraine inform your future campaigns? Will you gloss over the major issues Russia has had with wartime logistics or will those be incorporated in those settings?

Hmmm. I don’t really know to be honest - i think current events open up a range of related questions, e.g. what effect any long term sanctions might have on future Russian military procurement. I imagine I’d try and incorporate as much as possible, maybe by positing some sort of ceasefire that ends up kicking the can a few years down the road, sanctions ease off a bit, the Russians rearm and things kick off again, possibly with the conventional period of the War shortened and things going nuclear more quickly if NATO steam rollers the Russians.

[Raellus]

One would definitely encounter this weapon in Ukraine in a 2025 scenario.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...cial-operators

And the Russians would probably be fielding larger numbers of these by 2025:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...nian-officials

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[swaghauler]

I'm posting this here because Russia still has THOUSANDS of these.

https://youtu.be/5aNYPipsqOI

Swag

[swaghauler]

Peter Zeihan talks about The Changing Character Of War

https://youtu.be/l0CQsifJrMc





Swag