East Coast MilGov Naval assets 2001

[Olefin]

I wanted to start a new thread specifically to discuss East Coast MilGov naval assets based on the canon material that is out there - to make it more accessbile for anyone searching for this info instead of on the other threads that have discussed this

The canon that I used is the following:

A Rock In Troubled Waters, Challenge Magazine 42

Going Home

Last Submarine

I know there are at least two other canon sources but I dont presently have them

Inland Waterway Challenge Magazine (not sure of the issue)

Rifle River, Challenge Magazine 39

These ships are in commission, armed and crewed - fuel is short but they have sortied recently and are active duty ships

Per the canon here is what I found so far

Norfolk -

Forrest Sherman class DD's USS Manley (DD 940), USS Blandy (DD 943) (Troubled Waters)

Spruance class John Hancock (Going Home)

SSN Corpus Christi (Last Submarine) - assumed she returns to Norfolk after the events in Boomer

Cape May

Forrest Sherman class DD USS Bigelow (DD 942)

USS Hyman Rickover - formely the Barkentine Gazela Primeiro - and considered the best duty at Cape May - crack crew with high morale - used as a coastal patrol boat looking for Russian or pirate vessels

Length: 177 ft. overall, 140 ft. on deck, 133 ft. on the waterline
Height: 94 ft. from the deck
Width: 26 ft. at maximum beam
Draft: approx. 17 ft.
Tonnage: 652 deadweight, 299 gross

armed with a 3"/54 deck gun, two pintle mount M2 MG, two pintle mount Mk19 AGL, two 81mm mortars, crew of 28

She is used as a patrol ship and can operate under power or under sail and her commander is Commander Beckly a former nuclear sub commander - and no I have no idea why he is not in Last Submarine

USCGC Confidence (WMEC-619) - her armament was supplemented with a Mk75 turret mounting a 76mm gun in the early 90's

4 PCF inshore patrol craft - modified off-shore drilling support vessels, mounting twin 50's and a 40mm AGL

one ocean going tug

two Cape May/Lewes ferries

two LCM 6 turned into monitors - taken from the amphib base at Norfolk and modified to add boiler plate armor and available weaponry - forward turret with two 20mm Vulcans from wrecked fighters, a 20mm or 25mm autocannon and a 40mm AGL, bucket amidships with a 81mm mortar and two 7.62mm MG, rear turrets carrying either twin 50's or a 40mm GL and a 5.56mm minigun

two LCM 6 turned into Armored Troop Carriers - lack the forward turret and the midship bucket of the monitors - 20 men can be carried or eight tons of cargo

eight patrol boats Riverine - four with salil/motor , four with motor

one 10,000 ton tanker, immobile used for fuel storage

plus a civilian fleet of 120 fishing boats, 14 large motorized, 21 large sail, 85 small sail - large being over 50 tons, small being under 15 tons

there are also small aerial detachments as well

according to the article if the gold is found in Armies of the Night the Bigelow is what would have been called in to help in retrieval and fire support

If you want the article it can be downloaded for only $2.24 - the only T2000 article is that one but its a very good one if you have campaigns in the Delaware to NJ area and inland to Lancaster PA - has a wealth of information on that area and its canon - written by Adam Giebel


Does anyone have other info from canon articles for this thread?

[Olefin]

Oh forgot this detail so I will add it here

Gazela acted as a auxilliary packet ship from January of 1998 to March of 1998 ferryin supplies, personnel and messages between scattered military forces and the dozen or so naval vessels hiding along the Chesapeake

Norfolk was declared operational again and put in for minor maintenance and was then changed to the Rickover (implies April to May 1998) - and then got her new armament and paint job

So that says that there were at least a dozen or so operational USN vessels on the East Coast in the Norfolk area in the Jan 1998 to March 1998 time frame - and the Forrest Sherman DD's, five of which were recommissioned and put back into operation, didnt join the navy until Thanksgiving 1998 with what is described as a greatly swollen work force

So that means there were at least 19 operational USN ships on the East Coast in the 1998 time frame, 12 survivors of the Norfolk nuking, the five Forrest Shermans, the Hyman Rickover and the Corpus Christi which was undergoing repair in CT.


Of which the canon is giving 5 known survivors (the three Shermans, the Rickover and the Corpus Christi) - and some of the others may be the ships that Frank Frey had in Kenya (the deployment timeframe of the 173rd and the followup units in his notes suggests that possibility)

As for Hancock - she may have been one of the 12 ships or she may have already been in Europe

I highly recommend picking up A Rock in Troubled Waters - a literal gem of an article

[Legbreaker]

The article does indeed list those vessels, but states there is little to no fuel for them.

The article also lists a few air assets in the area (little more than light civilian aircraft with a machinegun or two strapped to the wing and a couple of ex-cropdusting helicopters), but these too rarely leave the ground due to fuel supply issues. There's a couple of larger aircraft included, but the article clearly states they NEVER leave the ground.

[Olefin]

it states that they rarely put to sea due to a lack of fuel

but it does say they sortied to escort Task Force 34 in on the last third of the journey back on Omega and also that Bigelow sortied for a mission to Atlantic City and shelled and destroyed three casinos that were home to marauders and destroyed at least one of them with a single shot.

And the aircraft are as you say -

112th Naval Aviation Squadron

A Flight - two P-3C Orions (fuel limitations keep them from flying at all but engines being turned over most likely as with B and C flights)

two 0-2 Cessna's armed as B flight

B Flight - three Cessna 0-2 twin engine spotter planes with a 7.62mm MG

C Flight - two Bell 47G helos

enough fuel to turn over the engines and fly the planes for only critical support ops

It does have info also on the Cape May County Airport

hangars, fortified control tower, four runways, one being 5000 feet long, constantly patrolled, navigation aids and control equipment in place

filed is maintained as a relay station to New England - which implies MilGov forces operating in New England recieving air shipments - and is one of the few airbases in the country operating

fuel and spare parts are scarce, fuel bunkers are guarded and flights are restriced to a minimum

so limited fuel is available for military operations for both the ships and the planes, less so for the planes but sorties by the big boys (i.e. the DD's) would be limited to very important ops - for instance as mentioned fire support and recovery assistance if the gold is found in Armies of the Night

from the article there is fuel for ops like Hyman Rickover using it for shallow draft operations or for the various patrol craft and monitors - no limits on their operational availability was stated

[Olefin]

thus the question of whether or not there are corvette or bigger ships operational on the East Coast is settled per canon - they are there, under MilGov and USN control, with very limited fuel but they can sortie on critical ops

with Corpus Christi being the exception due to her being a nuke boat

by the way the info in the article on the 78th and the New Jersey units is terrific as well - the kind of details that is tailor made for referees and story tellers

[Legbreaker]

For a bit of context, this is from the introduction of the article.

This article provides a detailed reference of the area, centering on the Intracoastal Waterway-the most reliable local avenue in the year 2001 used by slow-moving military and civilian traffic. It is also designed to tie the Going Home module with any adventure set in the northeastern United Slates. "A Rock In Troubled Waters" (set in early 2001) details the territory and notable clusters of civilization from the Delaware Canal and Cape Henlopen in Delaware, north and east across Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Perth Amboy. This includes Philadelphia, Trenton, Wilmington, Cape May Naval Base, Fort Dix, and Tom's River Naval Station. Also covered are the specifications on several "brown water navy" vessels, as well as the state government and militia system for New Jersey (as organized by Milgov).

[Olefin]

Thats right Legbreaker

which puts it as possible tie in to Armies of the Night and The Last Submarine and Rifle River as well - for the former two the vessels used to transport the characters probably came from Cape May

especially Rifle River - the start has a 78th Infantry soldier meeting up with the characters coming from the MilGov enclave around Fort Dix which is what this module details

Also its description of Eastern PA would be very useful for Allegheny Uprising as well

[Legbreaker]

It's worth noting that besides a few hundred soldiers sent from Omega to the 78th, (it will receive only 800 by 01APR01) there's very little evidence of European troops in the area. Given this either there's still 30,000+ troops stuck waiting around the Norfolk docks, or they've been moved on west and southward as quickly as possible.

The article states:

Although it has dissipated, radiation from the west was a problem for a couple of years after the nuclear strikes. The nuclear attacks around Philadelphia and New York (plus disease, starvation and chaos) killed millions. Many more fled the state, and New Jersey was seriously depopulated. The survivors are relatively prosperous by Twilight: 2000 standards - they farm enough to eat well and even export a bit.
Dietary protein comes from fish and chicken. Goats, sheep, cattle and horses are raised primarily for government consumption. Salvage and re-manufacturing are thriving cottage industries, and pay the taxes in the Milgov protected areas.

Even though the terrible climatic changes aren't yet apparent at the time this was written, it's clear that number of soldiers can't stay long without starving themselves, and those who live in the region. By Spring it's obvious to everyone famine is on the way with a vengeance.

[Olefin]

From how it is written you can see why MilGov is still holding on around Fort Dix - between the fishing fleet and the assets already in place its as good a place as any - and that area should still be good farming country no matter what happens elsewhere

and Rifle River which is later on in the timeline (after the drought starts) still depicts that enclave as being there and the 78th still there - have only seen the first page - most likely going to buy it tonight

By the way the module says that the area around Cape May is exporting some food - the hungry areas you are talking about are more the refugee camps in PA

By the way since Baltimore wasnt nuked during the war when are we going to see the USS Constellation in the game? I think the writers forgot about her - she is a for real sailing naval ship and she can be sailed. And while her armament is old from what I remember its still functional. And you can always add some nice M2 or M60 MG to her as well.

By the way you can see how numbers change in units - the 78th as presented in Howling Wildnerness has 900 men and one tank, in Rock In Troubled Waters she has 1000 men and no tanks, in the US Vehicle guide she has 1000 men -

[Olefin]

One thing that is interesting about the canon is how Rock in Troubled Waters and Howling Wildnerness, both canon, seem to contradict themselves

The command and control situation in A Rock in Troubled Waters, let alone the situation of the area in general is not what is described in Howling Wildnerness, at least not the conditions in April 2001 which is about the time of the module

Rock in Troubled Waters is written Feb-March 1990 and show the MilGov people in Cape May in communication with MilGov, well organized and a lot of troops in the area, between federal and NJ troops

Howling Wildnerness is written in 1988 so it predates it by two years but it makes the area look much worse than that and of course by the fall its a disaster area - but it also makes the 78th into a dictatorship

but if you look at Rock in Troubled Waters its clear the New Jersey troops answerable to the governor seriously outnumber the 78th - as in 2 to 1 at least

so if anyone is the dictator it should be the local governor

And Rifle River makes it clear that late in 2001 the 78th was still in contact with MilGov - otherwise why are they sending that team to secure the dies for the MilGov enclave in the west at the Colt factory that sets up the adventure? That is not the out of touch 78th now a dictatorhip of Howling Wildnerness

And that was issued even earlier than A Rock in Troubled Waters


Loren Wiseman was the editor for Challenge Magazine and the author of Howling Wildnerness so you almost have to wonder if he started to rethink Howling Wildnerness in some ways after a couple of years and realized he had been too harsh - so he had modules issued in Challenge Magazine not have it be as bad as he said it would have been earlier

clearly at least NJ appears to be is in a lot better shape than what he described 2 years earlier

I have seen this in other modules as well

for instance Alleghany Uprising (which is mentioned in A Rock in Troubled Waters) takes place after Dec of 2000 - but it hints that the module could take place as late as the summer of 2001

by the summer of 2001 Howling Wildnerness has that area having fighting and evacuations that would make Allegheny Uprising a completely different module - but since it had already been printed they couldnt go back and change it

heck the whole start of Allegheny Uprising makes no sense with a summer 2001 start since CivGov by then is in the process of evacuating and that whole area is consumed in the fighting that Howling Wildnerness says destroys all the groups mentioned in that module - but the module clearly gives it as a potential starting point if you happened to do Ozarks or the Texas module

You have to wonder if eventually GDW lost control of the timeline and started having canon contradict itself or interfere with itself because there was either:

a) internal disagreement about some aspects of the official timeline and some authors started to ignore it or plot it without looking at past modules or articles

b) sloppy practices where modules werent checked out so that they didnt contradict other modules or have important things not mentioned - like the tank reinforcment that the RDF got in the RDF sourcebook or tanks being used in one book and AFV's in another but both meaning tanks

c) a lack of a story bible similar to what Battlestar Galactica and Babylon Five had (the new series BSG I mean) so that all the writers had to follow that no matter what so that they wouldnt contradict each other

Especially in a game where the timeline is so important - You see that initially in Going Home - the Polish modules had so much detail you could have played them for a year of play time easiliy - but once Going Home came out if you had already spent more than five months of play timeline advancing you missed the boat home or had to retcon your game to reduce time in Poland -

and god help anyone who's players ended up in Romania or the Balkans and then Going Home came out and suddenly had to have them cross half of Europe in some way

Oh and not in any way trying to start a big canon or non-canon fight or whatever - just a stream of consciousness post on why sometimes canon can be so tricky to wrap your hands around with this game

can see why it could lead to some of the bigger fights that happened here on the board in the past

its one reason I wish that some of the writers and creators of Twilight 2000 would weigh in on some of these issues - I know they have more important things to do surely than talk about articles and modules they issued over 20 years ago

but hey I bet Shatner and Nimoy had better things to do than get asked detailed questions about Star Trek - and they still did their best to make the fans happy (at least when the fans werent too in their face about it)

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Olefin

You have to wonder if eventually GDW lost control…

I believe they did. The scatterbrained quality of the later material indicates that the factors that led to the creation of Twilight: 2000 as such a remarkable work were changing.

It has been said often enough that Howling Wilderness was created to keep the sense of chaos and adventure alive. By the end of 2000, things seemed to be stabilizing. GDW felt that people would lose interest because the opportunities for small groups of PCs to roam, have fun, and influence events were seen to be slipping away as a new order emerged from the chaos. The drought was seen as a way to re-stir the pot.

Master Uguay [Kung-Fu Panda] tells us, “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” In trying to keep Twilight: 2000 from becoming too settled and boring, GDW sent it off the rails with the drought.

[Adm.Lee]

I think it's more that they didn't think to put the amount of time & energy into continuity checking, over however many months or weeks that they had, as only part of their jobs, whereas we have had years to think about it. In other words, the playtesting and/or editing among different authors was hit & miss.

I was thinking about this as I re-read parts of Bear's Den last night-- I found two different dates and a very murky timeline as to when the 27th TD mutinied, and where it went. The authors had a different idea about how T2k worked than the authors of the other modules, and it shows.

I've read elsewhere that GDW was impressed with the sales of T2k, and thought that the setting chaos was a big element of that (they did try hard to introduce it in the first place). That led, indirectly or directly, to the Shattered Imperium that took Traveller to MegaTraveller (which turned out to be less popular) and the Virus that took MegaTraveller to Traveller: the New Era.

IMO, the Drought follows this line of thinking, too. "Aha, we'll make things SUCK even worse!" The Kafer Invasion of 2300AD might be a similar device, but not as universally destructive.

[Targan]

I listed all those Rock in Troubled Waters assets in a thread only a few months ago.

[Olefin]

You did Targan? - I apologize - I should have checked for that - didnt mean to step on your toes.

[Targan]

LOL! Toes not stepped on at all. I'm glad you posted the same along with other canon, east coast assets. I should've put in the extra effort myself. At the time I was demonstrating for those without access to the Challenge mags that there are pretty substantial MilGov assets in the CONUS listed in non-sourcebook, non-module canon sources.

[Olefin]

That is what I was trying to show as well - especially after comments were made that MilGov didnt have anything as big as a corvette or frigate left on the East Coast

They might not have a lot of fuel

but they have at least seven such ships between the four DD's, the two WMEC and the Corpus Christi - and thats not bad considering that the next most substantial force on the East Coast is Carlucci's fishing boats - which they could blow out of the water without even trying

and if you add in the NJ forces you can see that the Fort Dix enclave is a very substantial MilGov holding

[Webstral]

The USCG under Nils Holsgirder has a medium-endurance cutter, USCGC Chilula (WMEC-153). Chilula is a former WW2 auxiliary tug.

Displacement: 1,731 long tons (1,759 t)
Length: 205 ft 6 in (62.64 m)
Beam: 39 ft 3.25 in (11.9698 m)
Draft: 18 ft (5.5 m)
Propulsion: 4 × General Motors model 12-278 diesels with diesel-electric drive: 3,010 shp (2,240 kW)
Speed: 16.1 kn (29.8 km/h; 18.5 mph) maximum
8.0 kn (14.8 km/h; 9.2 mph) economical
Range: 15,000 nmi (28,000 km; 17,000 mi) at 8 kn (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) (1990)
Complement: 10 officers, 74 enlisted (1990)
Sensors and
processing systems: Radar: SPN-25 (1961); no sonar.
Armament: WWII:
• 1 x 3"/50 caliber gun


One has to wonder how the UBF planned to deal with confrontation with Chilula. Aftermarket gunboats aren't addressed at all in Last Submarine, so we are left to speculate. Also unaddressed is whether or not the UBF managed to capture or salvage any USN or USCG ships.