US 43rd MP Brigade Mutiny

[schnickelfritz]

To mutiny and disperse into nothing, or not?

Has anyone else not bought the fate presented in Howling Wilderness of the US 43rd MP Brigade? After reading The Last Submarine and the story of the 43rd, including the failed mutiny and how the power players basically seemed to disappear afterward, I just don't agree. I can see some casualties due to the fighting, but not a wholesale disintegration. With electrcity at hand and the prepared positions available to them (not to mention armor and artillery), it just doesn't make sense to me. I can see some disaffected troops deserting, but I would expect that by now, most the the unit members would believe in the safety in numbers.

I had a medium size group of players walk in the front door and get caught in the middle of the failed coup. From there I developed a timeline where some of the PC's assumed command from the dying Col. Fort and were able to rally the troops. By providing security and electricity to the local authorities (and some earnest good faith negotiation), what was left of the 43rd was able to help rebuild the local area.

The key here was Holyoke Dam, the reservoir of fish, and the electrical power. The locals were able to supply a pool of skilled and unskilled labor to help bring the other generators online and bring some amount of normal life back to the Boston area.

The 43rd was also able to begin training raw refugee recruits into a viable militia and salvage what armor/transport it could.

The gangs of Boston fought amongst themselves until the survivors struck out in numbers into the countryside, where they met a hail of lead and shrapnel.

Any thoughts?

[Legbreaker]

Anything is possible, but in a situation such as faces the 43rd, there is a "critical mass" of soldiers. Drop below the minimum level required (which I believe they were VERY close to at the beginning of the scenario) and they're unable to hold what they have. This would force them to concentrate within a smaller area, thereby reducing access to resources, thereby reducing the number of soldiers they can support and so on.

Given even a 10% casualty rate to the 43rd, and their prior record of oppressing the dispossessed, I can see the 43rd falling apart very quickly into small marauder bands or isolated pockets.

HOWEVER, if a strong leader could be found to quickly (as in within 24 hours) take over and impose order and discipline, the 43rd could potentially be held together a bit longer. Without reinforcements though it's fate is sealed.

[HorseSoldier]

I never had a problem buying it -- the bigger suspension of disbelief for me was that similar munities and disintegrations did not happen more frequently, especially CONUS and other places where troop densities relative to starving and desperate civilian populations were so extremely low.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

I never had a problem buying it -- the bigger suspension of disbelief for me was that similar munities and disintegrations did not happen more frequently, especially CONUS and other places where troop densities relative to starving and desperate civilian populations were so extremely low.

HS,

I would agree, but I think odds of are far less important than the arms and organisation of the opposition. That is, being starving and desperate does little to make a population an effective force in taking on military units, even if the odds are 100 or 1000-1. We're familiar with police lines getting broken and riot police being overwhelmed, but those are police and not soldiers with a completely different mindset, rules of engagement, tactical doctrine and even mindset.

Tony

[sglancy12]

Yeah, I was never too sure about this total disintegration thing... after all, in The Last Submarine it sounded like the mutiny failed utterly.

The only real explanation seems to be the drought/famine introduced in Howling Wilderness. That would drive human waves of starving Boston Megapunks at the MPs (and all the other communities) which might grind the unit down to nothing, leaving the survivors to do do what? Desert?

How do you desert a unit that has ceased to exist? I guess the survivors would have to hump it to a community that doesn't hate them or just turn into a band of brigands. Maybe the 78th ID will take them in? Maybe New America up in Maine? Maybe even the Coast Guard or the RI Isolationists. After all isn't the 43rd mostly drawn from RI?

Actually, that was one big reason the 43rd's decision to pull out never made sense. They were from RI. They have local ties. A unit called up from TX would be more likely to pull out and decide to look after themselves first and &*@% the locals.

If they were going to abandon their duty in MA, why wouldn't they retreat to RI and hole up with the Isolationists? I can think of plenty of reasons, but none of them are presented in the original material. I mean, I like the part in The Last Submarine where the unit had turned Warlord, but it seems unlikely... UNLESS part of the pullout involved rescuing their family members!

Holy crap! Maybe that's the retcon fix I've been looking for? It's not in the book, but if they got their families out with them, its FAR more likely that they would pull out and look after themselves.

One of these days, I should start a threat about how much I HATE the drought. I really think Loren Wiseman made a mistake by introducing that element into the campaign background.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by sglancy12

Yeah, I was never too sure about this total disintegration thing... after all, in The Last Submarine it sounded like the mutiny failed utterly.

The only real explanation seems to be the drought/famine introduced in Howling Wilderness. That would drive human waves of starving Boston Megapunks at the MPs (and all the other communities) which might grind the unit down to nothing, leaving the survivors to do do what? Desert?


One of these days, I should start a threat about how much I HATE the drought. I really think Loren Wiseman made a mistake by introducing that element into the campaign background.

Scott,

Human waves of starving and desperate people rushing a military unit and succeeding is a favourite image of post-holocaust fiction and RPGs, but it doesn't make sense.

We're used to human waves as an element of warfare (Russians in WWII, Chinese in Korea, Republican Guard in the Gulf War, etc.) but the conditions that make these attacks possible and give them the outside chance of success don't exist. These attacks are largely (and obviously) suicidal in nature. This urge to preserve one's life is overcome by ideology or religion, and require a command cadre dedicated to motivating and organising a mass of troops to carry it out.

Mobs, even starving mobs, want to live. They have no motivation to personally do anything suicidal. That's actually opposite to the point of the exercise: survival. You could argue some kind of group loyalty or solidarity, but I would imagine starving and desperate people are very disorganised and unlikely to coalesce. I would say it's more likely that there was some kind of organised resistance or marauder force that took advantage of the 43rd's disorganised state to administer a coup de main.

As for climate, that unfortunately is realistic, or at least realistic enough. It does get across the global effect of the war. What I would gripe about is the CIVGOV/MILGOV split and the apparent semi-permanent nature of it (for at least decades). It makes no sense when the US is at its lowest point to hamstring any kind of national organisation and response.

Tony

[sglancy12]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Human waves of starving and desperate people rushing a military unit and succeeding is a favourite image of post-holocaust fiction and RPGs, but it doesn't make sense.

Let me rephrase my statement. I said "The only real explanation seems to be the drought/famine." What I meant to say was "The only real explanation offered by GDW seems to be the drought/famine."

I agree 100% that hordes starving refugees are not going to turn into human wave attacks throwing themselves carelessly in front of the guns like something out of 28 Days Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake. But that sure seems to be the message I get from Howling Wilderness.

Okay, sure, these starving mobs are likely to have plenty of fire arms and act in an organized fashion, but Howling Wilderness seems to think that starving refugees will overwhelm just about every organized area east of the Mississippi.

In my opinion, starving mobs machine gunned and shelled will disburse. More likely starving mobs will vote with their feet and try and move to where they think the food is, taking horrific casualties from disease, malnutrition, and bandits along the way.

Originally Posted by helbent4

As for climate, that unfortunately is realistic, or at least realistic enough. It does get across the global effect of the war.

I can't argue the science. I don't know enough about climatology and how it would be affected by the particulate in the atmosphere from the limited nuclear exchange. A good place to start researching might be conditions following the explosion of Krakatoa in the 19th century.

Wikipedia says In the year following the eruption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F). Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888. The eruption injected an unusually large amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas high into the stratosphere which was subsequently transported by high-level winds all over the planet. This led to a global increase in sulfurous acid (H2SO3) concentration in high-level cirrus clouds. The resulting increase in cloud reflectivity (or albedo) would reflect more incoming light from the sun than usual, and cool the entire planet until the suspended sulfur fell to the ground as acid precipitation.

Anyone care to find out how many megatons that accounted for? We sure don't have a complete list of the megatonage expended during the Twilight War, but I bet someone has already added up all the published data.

No, its not the science of the drought that bugs me. It's the philosophy behind it. When I corresponded with Loren Wiseman back in the day he said (and yes I'm quoting from a 23 year old dot-matrix printed letter he mailed me):

"We felt that the adventures in Twilight:2000 were becoming too tame and the letters we had been receiving from our customers reflected this. The most common complaint was that most adventures were too civilized enough (sic), and that most of them were set in places where the plumbing worked and the electricity was just about to be reconnected. The phrase "wild and wooly" which you use in describing adventures was just the phrase one customer used to detail what Twilight:2000 adventures were missing.

"We felt that the solution was to eliminate the upper levels of government, and leave nothing functioning much above the local community level, putting the players in a situation more like the dark ages than the wiild west. In the dark ages, there was a king and a national government, but in most cases their effect upon local affairs was almost non-existent. The king was a nebulous, quasi-mythical figure that people swore loyalty to, but few ever saw. Everybody was expected to lend a hand (and a pitchfork) to defend the community when the time came. There were even mercenary warriors that local communities would hire for protection from bandits and the like (the inspiration for the Seven Samurai story line).

"A massive drought-induced famine was the method we chose to accomplish this."

Later in that same letter, he wrote:

"I totally disagree that the only way a player can survive is to become part of the problem by turning marauder. Players will still be fighting for the good guys . . . its just that the good guys are now locals rather than some nebulous group in Colorado Springs or Omaha. Your particular town can hang on by the skin of its teeth. Your particular town can be the exception to the rule that everybody has turned marauder. There are still plenty of foreign invaders and home-grown bad guys around to keep the characters on their toes."

Rather than reprint everything here from the four letters I have, let me just say that I got the impression from Loren that the philosophy at GDW was "the more chaos, the more opportunity for adventure, the more fun." Certainly that was the design philosophy behind Howling Wilderness, MegaTraveller and Traveller: The New Era.

Apparently having the country nuked, with 95% of the power out, two rival governments, two foreign invasions, two armies trapped overseas, and a neo-fascist insurgency just wasn't chaotic enough to provide a fun gaming environment. So they threw in the drought.

THAT is why I hate the drought. It's a deus ex machina to promote a game philosophy that I just don't like and don't believe is true.

I have yet to meet a TW2K player who told me that they would have liked the game better if only there had been less societal and economic recovery depicted and more chaos and barbarism.

Originally Posted by helbent4

What I would gripe about is the CIVGOV/MILGOV split and the apparent semi-permanent nature of it (for at least decades). It makes no sense when the US is at its lowest point to hamstring any kind of national organisation and response.

I would have thought the same thing too... and then there was Katrina. If we ever wanted a snapshot of our tax dollars at work on doomsday, that was it. People are very likely to do very dumb things in a crisis. So human folly isn't unbelievable to me. However, I think that it wouldn't go on for the decades mentioned in the Traveller: 2300 books. The split starts in 1999 so I wouldn't be surprised to see it last (particularly seeing as how shabby the communications net is) until 2003.


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing