The Italian Campaign during the Euro-Soviet War in T2k...

[natehale1971]

Okay... we know that the Italians were mostly fighting in the Balkans with their alllies the Albanians and Greeks. And that they pushed through Austria into Southern Germany to provide support for the French occupation of the Rhineline, Luxembourg, Belgium and the southern provines of the Netherlands.

In my campaign there were some different things that happened. namely the attempts to undermine the power and authoirty of the three major powers of the Med Alliance (France, Italy and Greece). And to this end the major players in NATO Allaince (US, UK, FRG) opens covert operations with various groups (the Mafia, the Catholic Church, San Marino).

I'm going to try and work on the Operational Names and the Codenames & Callsigns of assets and handlers. And would like some feedback and suggestions for them. I was thinking of using various movies, TV shows, plays and books that deals with the Mafia alot. With callsigns/codenames being drawn from reationship types (Father, mother, daughter, uncle, ect)

And the Operational Names for the Catholic Church alliance would have operations named after staints. I still haven't been able to come up with the Callsigns/codenames.. but I really was thinking of using ancient clerical names for religious figures (Hierophant, Apostle, Vicar, Decan, ect), someone i use to game with had thought of using the names of various Gods from a wide range of various Pantheons... but that just didnt work.

As Ive said, I have been working on a mini-article that deals with a new type of ship... built with cutting edge high tech verison of the old technical research vessels. While the ship's are small and light, with the look of a ship that would be operated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)... but that appearence is only skin deep.

Now a routine boarding of the ship by customs officials, all they would see is a floating laboratory and research ship thats got a cutting edge medical suite capable of doing MRIs, CAT scans and a full surgery suite. Because all the real equipment and top secret stuff is located in hidden areas that are made to look like parts of the bilges and void spaces.

The cutting edge high-tech equipment that was the centre piece in these vessels where a great concern for the United States Intelligence Community, for the Defense Department, and for the Department of the US Navy. But it was settled with special self-destruct systems that would annihilate the sensitive material while not compromising the ships integrity and reduced threats to the lives of the crew.

I've still got six paragraphs that i want to write about the new generation of US Navy spy ships. It really makes me wish i knew how to use the program that allows you to make ship deckplans.


The Return of the Spy Ship

In 1991 the US Navy commissioned the construction of several high-tech Liberty-class technical research vessels to monitor and be a mobile field headquarters that would coordinate covert and special operations missions floating off the coasts of their targets inside the safety of international waters… The vessels were operated by the NSA, ONI and MCIA. The cutting edge high-tech equipment that was the centre piece in these vessels where a great concern for the United States Intelligence Community, for the Defense Department, and for the Department of the US Navy. But it was settled with special self-destruct systems that would annihilate the sensitive material while not compromising the ships integrity and reduced threats to the lives of the crew. There was a fifth ship that was planned for construction that was to operate in the Meditterean Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, but the start of the Euro-Soviet War caused construction it to be put on hold.

USS Liberty (TRV-1) North Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic Sea.
USS Freedom (TRV-2) Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Rim
USS Independence (TRV-3) The Caribbean Sea and South Atlantic
USS Justice (TRV-4) Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Persian gulf.
USS (TRV-5) Mederterreamn Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf.

[Canadian Army]

After USS Pueblo and USS Liberty incidents, US SIGINT doctrine was change; all ship-based SIGINT missions would only be conducted by U.S. Navy destroyers equipped with a mobile "van" of signals intelligence equipment. These types of patrols were conducted off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea, but are widely recognized for their role in the Vietnam War. The USS Sphinx (ARL-24) was the exception to this rule; the ship went through a $25 million overhaul to become an intelligence-collection platform. It conducted patrols off the Pacific coast of El Salvador monitoring the actions of the communist guerrilla forces. The ship was decommissioned for the last time on 16 June 1989 at Norfolk and laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

Base on this information, the US would not like build new Spy Ships from the ground up, but instead modified an existing naval vessel; like the Stalwart-class Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance Ship (TAGOS); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Surveillance_Ship; or lease a civilian vessel, though a dummy corpration.

[natehale1971]

My idea for the purpose built technical research vessels being built from the keel up, was to have each vessel have specific areas of operation... with the ability to outrun anything they couldn't outgun. and from my time in the navy, i don't remember if you can convert a ship's propulsion systems like that.

I'm not shooting this down, hell, i'm going to use this info you've give me CA and work it into my mini-article.

I just need something that i can use... at one time the original idea for the new spy vessels, they were really stealhly submarines that would have special sensors they would trail behind them that would pick up signals and data. That when they surface in the nighttime, they'd have running lights and the like that would make them look like a fishing boat or something (yes i got the idea from "up periscope").

Sorry for the brief posts... i'm about to run out the door to a VA Medical Appointment.

[Sanjuro]

In Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, there is a submarine sitting submerged near the Russian coast, watching all the bombing raids set off. It even has an onboard team of NSA analysts, who have to assess each raid for whether it is serious enough to risk transmitting a report. I forget the name of the sub, but as an intelligence source it is codenamed "Realtime."

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

In Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, there is a submarine sitting submerged near the Russian coast, watching all the bombing raids set off. It even has an onboard team of NSA analysts, who have to assess each raid for whether it is serious enough to risk transmitting a report. I forget the name of the sub, but as an intelligence source it is codenamed "Realtime."

Oh I like that... "Realtime" goes well with codenames like "Looking Glass"... anyone else got some good codenames that could go with some more vessels or aircraft that are like them?