Venezuela in TW 2000

[kalos72]

And there are safety procedures for an emergency shutdown as well.

Again, not trying to imply that all refineries except the ones mentioned explicitly are up and running, but saying NONE of them are up is statistically improbable and canonically inaccurate.

Part of this game is about rebuilding, the US could not recover from having every single refinery in the country completely and utterly destroyed. Unless we make this MP or something...

[pmulcahy11b]

That could be an idea for an adventure. The PCs have to escort a technical team to properly shut down a refinery and take possession of any oil products there. Your opponents also want those oil products, or maybe to even take control of the refinery because they have a supply of oil to refine. And then the bosses tell the PC team to go get that oil the NPCs have...it could go on and on.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by kalos72

...but saying NONE of them are up is statistically improbable and canonically inaccurate.

Not at all what I'm saying. What I am asserting is the 40% figure of surviving refineries is wildly optimistic given the multitude of ways besides nukes for these facilities to be damaged or destroyed. Even the 40% figure is not supported by canon (although 39.9% is possible, although not plausible).

[kalos72]

Ill agree with that, I say survived meaning not nuked. What happened after the nuke exchange is prime mission material there.

I will say though that I think it still brings a shadow of doubt, or at least possible mission material when thinking about the foreign national attacks. If they only took out 60% of their primary targets, surely they left something of the non allied foreign national infrastructure intact.

[Legbreaker]

And then look at it through the eyes of a PC. Nukes are known to be nasty, super destructive things, and nobody in 2000, not even those who think they're in charge (leadership of the three various US Governments) really have much idea of what's left standing over the hill, let alone across the country. Until proven otherwise, they could be forgiven for believing the nukes got everything, especially if they've spent the last couple of years in a more devastated region.
Even if it was known a refinery was still standing somewhere, it may well be completely impossible for, say, Milgov to secure it with the available manpower and other pressures.
A more local group on the other hand might be able to occupy it, but have no hope of actually operating it due to lack of skilled personnel, and possibly a real shortage of actual crude oil to process.

The same applies almost anywhere in the world.

[Olefin]

We know some refineries got shut down correctly - i.e. the one that is being put back on like at Brownsville is an example - and that the one in IL is still on line fully even as late as 2001 - although HW has it suffering an accident that reduces it to 1 percent of capacity by the end of the year (which by the way is still a lot of processed oil considering how big that particular refinery is)

and its not quite a life without people event - there would be emergency cutoffs and safeties used at most facilities - its not like poof and everyone disappeared as in Life Without People - also remember that its relatively easy to make diesel fuel which is what a lot of military vehicles can run on, let alone the grade of fuel that can be used to generate power - avgas or jet fuel on the other hand basically needs an intact facility

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

We know some refineries got shut down correctly - i.e. the one that is being put back on like at Brownsville is an example.

We don't know that actually. We do know most refineries were destroyed or damaged by the Americans as they withdrew from the area. All we really know about the Port Isabel refinery is that it's in the process of bring repaired.

This isn't to say there aren't other facilities in better condition, however the problem is getting crude to them. If that were possible, nobody would be bothering with Port Isabel.

[Olefin]

That's why MilGov went thru the trouble of pulling an armored brigade out to be able to clear the Mississippi - they needed to be able to get oil up to the Robinson refinery in Illinois and using the river is probably the best way to do it

and that refinery still being in full operation (at least until the accident in Howling Wilderness) shows they didn't hit every major refinery with nukes - that's a 200,000+ barrels per day facility - definitely qualifies to be hit but yet there it is

I suspect the places with working refineries are going to be in Oklahoma (Ardmore or Wynnewood for instance) or Kansas given the presence of MilGov troops as well as near Bakersfield in CA - there are three small refineries in Bakersfield that are way way too small to expend a nuke on but perfect to provide enough oil to keep the reduced forces there are in CA going

[Targan]

MilGov may also have sent troops to non-functional refineries to salvage surviving difficult-to-manufacture parts to then transport to refineries that were more intact and/or were in better locations in terms of transport hubs, ability to be protected etc.

Also as has been mentioned in other discussions over the years, the Soviets' targeting systems were notoriously unreliable, and as the war progressed their ability to perform post-strike reconnaissance became more difficult or impossible, so some facilities like refineries may have been damaged by near-misses but not obliterated. If the Soviets couldn't get eyes-on but noted through other means that fuel production had dropped, they might assume the job was done. But in reality some refineries may have been put out of commission temporarily but been intact enough to have been brought back into production later, particularly if critical parts could be salvaged from elsewhere and the EMP-affected electronics could be repaired, replaced or bypassed.

[Legbreaker]

Same could be said for targets in Pact controlled areas too. Without satellite surveillance and communications, it would be very difficult to confirm the details of a hit. Sure you might have people (spies) in the area, but who's going to want to go towards a possible nuke crater? Orders be damned when it comes to personal survival for most (if not all sane) people.

[Olefin]

which is probably why Ploesti survived and was able to be put back into operation - my GM surmised that the NATO strike against the refinery had been one that was supposed to limit collateral damage to the city as much as possible (because Romania was a NATO member) and as a result they didn't destroy it, they damaged it enough to take it off line - and that it took till 2000 for the Soviets to get it back into operation

that's why our version of Med Cruise ended with a nuke strike that definitely 100% took it out for good and if it killed Romanians then it did - because they were looking to win the war in Europe one way or another and civilian casualties be damned