Australia Twilight War & After...

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Targan

Are we going off your list or Jason's? According to Jason's list HMAS Stirling is literally carpet-nuked. Coming up with feasible Twilight War strike lists is quite a tricky process and I wouldn't expect everyone who assembles a strike list is going to have the time or patience to make themselves extensively familiar with the geography every every target. But the strikes listed for the Perth area in Jason's list are a fairly obvious case of massive overkill. Two of the three targets listed (Kwinana Refinery and HMAS Stirling) are about 7km apart and face each other unobstructed across protected, open water and between them receive six (count 'em, six!) 800kt warheads.?

Which is why I said " probably some damage from the strike on Perth". HMAS Stirling is a very small naval base, a few building, a dock and two jetty's. Its located on Garden Island, a slender island about ten kilometres long and one and a half kilometres wide, lying about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) off the Western Australian coast, to which it is now linked by a man-made causeway. HMAS Stirling is located right on its southern extremety and I doubt that the Soviet SS-18 travelling from Russia 10,000 miles away was accurate enough to hit it right on the dockyard. More likely it landed on the eastern side of it in Cockburn Sound or to the west in the Indian Ocean if not further out in the ocean or on the mainland. It certainly would be badly damaged but I'd be certain that not all of ships were at port during the nuclear strike, and that the dock and jetty survived which is all the ships need to have a mooring.

Originally Posted by Targan

Just... why? Why would you pour a combined 4.8mt of nuclear destruction onto an area less than 10km across which is completely flat and not hardened against that sort of attack? One warhead would do all the damage needed, but why not say two for good measure. And lobbing three 800mt warheads all at Perth Airport? Is there a vast hidden subterranean military-industrial facility buried under there? And why would you throw three warheads at one airport but not throw even one at the biggest RAAF fighter base on this part of the continent, RAAF Pearce, which is just north of Perth?

You'd have to ask Jason that.

[Rainbow Six]

Whilst speculating about potential Austalian nuclear targets, it's probably worth bearing in mind that the BYB would suggest that Australia was definitely hit, but not to the point of saturation.

Australia was largely untouched by the nuclear exchange, but the global panic which followed left its mark on both the Cities and the outback.

(page 240, v2.0)

"Largely untouched" is obviously open to interpretation, but suggests to me at least, a relatively limited number of targets (I note SSC mentioned at least five potential targets in one post, which would seem to me to be consistent with the country being relatively untouched).

[Webstral]

One compromise might be to have a first round of strikes carried out by a single long-range ICBM with a large number of warheads, as Jason suggests. The first round has a couple of hits, a couple of near-misses, and a couple of flat-out misses. Throw a malfunction or two in there to round out the picture.

Then weird things start to happen. The follow-on strike gets delayed for some reason, and then the missile allocated for the job has a malfunction. In the original thread, I advocated a strike from a boomer. Maybe the Soviets get unlucky, and they lose three boomers trying to get into a good firing position around Australia. Finally, another missile is sent in and also has spotty results. By this time, the Soviets are losing interest in further punishing Australia. Perhaps the US counts re-entry vehicles and hits Vietnam with a string of much more successful nuclear strikes. The surviving Soviet leadership decides that Australia has had enough for the purpose of denying the West an intact industrial base in that part of the world and pencils in "Mission Accomplished" after Australia takes a half-dozen good hits.

[Olefin]

I would think that the panic alone might be what damaged Australia to the extent it was - you have a lot of people living in the cities and if you get widespread panic that they are about to get hit that would cause a lot of damage - i.e. widespread looting, cops and firemen leaving their positions and fleeing or being overwhelmed, fires out of control -

for instance think about the large scale wild fires that Australia has had - now imagine you get large scale fires breaking out from panic and looting in the cities and no firemen to fight them - you could end up with huge areas of the cities burned out or heavily damaged without a single nuclear bomb hitting them

Now add in a single nuclear strike that takes out Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane to start that panic - and viola you have that combined with the resulting panic causing the damage to Australia that causes the government to collapse and the military to take over

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Jason Weiser

Ok, some notes, I chose the SS-18m5 as it had a 16,000km range thus the oomph to GET to Australia. It's the longest ranged ICBM in the Soviet arsenal. It's got 10 800kt warheads. So, sadly, the overkill factor is a given.

I double teamed a lot of targets on the assumption one or more warheads might fail to fuze. It was a Soviet preoccupation. Not to mention their warheads tended to be higher yield to make up for their higher CEP.

Ah, that makes sense. One ICBM launched on a trajectory for the SW coast of Australia, what are the juiciest targets in its payload footprint? If there aren't many, just do a thorough job on the ones you target. If I'd only had the one bourbon on the rocks instead of three when I wrote my last post I probably would've figured that out myself. Oops!

Originally Posted by Jason Weiser

As for Perth Airport, I wasn't sure if RAAF Pearce had such a role. I can switch that. I hit the airport as the Soviets would see it and say "Ah, B-52s could land there comrade".

To do an airfield, you want to parcel out three per runway. One warhead at either end and a third right on the middle.

I'm pretty sure I remember seeing media articles or footage of very large military aircraft landing at RAAF Pearce.

Originally Posted by Jason Weiser

Finally, in terms of overkill...it's the Soviets? When have they not been into overkill?

Just to make sure we're on the same page, is your list showing the targets that were hit (either directly or close enough that the target was neutralised) or the locations that were targeted (whether or not they were actually destroyed)?

[Olefin]

Very nice site on Australian Forces that gives some good information of the setup of their armed forces

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/structure/one_army.asp

I.e. The Infantry Battalion


1993 Rifle Section:

9 Other Ranks
2 x Minimi light support weapon
1 x M79 grenade launcher
2 x 66mm rocket launcher


Rifle Platoon:
Platoon Headquarters (1 Officer, 2 Other Ranks)

3 x Section

Rifle Company:
Company Headquarters (2 Officers, 4 Other Ranks)

3 x Rifle Platoon

Battalion:

39 Officers, 662 Other Ranks

Battalion Headquarters

Administration Company
Transport Platoon
Quartermasters Platoon
Catering Platoon
Technical Support Platoon
Medical Platoon

Support Company

Signals Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Assault Pioneer Platoon
DFSW (Direct fire support weapon) Platoon
Reconnaissance and
Surveillance Platoon

4x Rifle Company

1993
Armoured Personnel Carrier (Cavalry) Squadron **

Section:
6 Other Ranks
3 armoured personnel carriers


Troop:
Troop Headquarters (1 Officer, 5 Other Ranks, 3 armoured personnel carriers)

3 x Section

Squadron:
9 Officers, 132 Other Ranks

Squadron Headquarters (9 armoured personnel carriers)
Support Troop (17 armoured personnel carriers, 3 tracked load carriers)
Administration Troop (4 armoured personnel carriers, 12 tracked load carriers)
Tech Support Troop (6 armoured personnel carriers, 1 cargo carrier, 1 armoured recovery vehicle)

4 x Armoured Personnel Carrier Troop

I am assuming the 9 officers and 132 other ranks are what is in addition to the 4 x APC troops it mentions

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by Targan

Just to make sure we're on the same page, is your list showing the targets that were hit (either directly or close enough that the target was neutralised) or the locations that were targeted (whether or not they were actually destroyed)?

The first column is the common map reference location, and the second is the description of the actual target. I did it this way because in this post 9/11 world, I am not going to have wrong headed individuals swear I am in league with other more wrong headed individuals, if you get my drift.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Very nice site on Australian Forces that gives some good information of the setup of their armed forces

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/structure/one_army.asp
1993 Rifle Section:

9 Other Ranks
2 x Minimi light support weapon
1 x M79 grenade launcher
2 x 66mm rocket launcher

Varied from unit to unit. Some units had the grenadier armed with M16/M203. Many units were still using the old structure of one GPMG (M60 in reserve units, MAG 58 in regular) and no Minimi.

Originally Posted by Olefin

Rifle Platoon:
Platoon Headquarters (1 Officer, 2 Other Ranks)

In my experience the PHQ consisted of the Officer (1st or 2nd Lt), 2IC (Sergeant), Signalman (private) and a runner (usually the most senior private and next in line for promotion to Lance Corporal).

Originally Posted by Olefin

Rifle Company:
Company Headquarters (2 Officers, 4 Other Ranks)

3 x Rifle Platoon

Plus support section (9 men) which (in addition to either F88 or L1A1 rifles) was armed with 84mm Carl Gustav's (4 of) and GPMGs (4 of) and occasionally had a Landrover 110 plus trailer attached (to carry tripods, extra ammo, etc)

Originally Posted by Olefin

Support Company

Signals Platoon
Mortar Platoon
Assault Pioneer Platoon
DFSW (Direct fire support weapon) Platoon
Reconnaissance and Surveillance Platoon

Occasionally included an SFMG Platoon armed with GPMGs and tripods for use mainly in the indirect role at ranges up to 3,000 metres. This was separate to the Anti Armour Platoon (armed with 84mm Carl Gustav).

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Mention was made of RAAF Base Curtin in an earlier post. I'd like to offer some clarification of Curtin's status. It is not an active duty base and no squadrons are meant to be based there during peacetime.
It is one of three 'bare bases' that the RAAF maintain as forward deployment bases. The three bases and their locations are now available on on the net so there's no security breach in posting them here.
They are: -
RAAF Scherger near Weipa, Queensland
RAAF Curtin near Derby, Western Australia
RAAF Learmonth near Exmouth, Western Australia

More information can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAAF_Bare_Bases

[Legbreaker]

Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who is considering visiting Australia in the near future, please be advised drop bear mating season has just commenced. It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

Attachment 1849

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

Thank God they don't hunt in packs. That's all I'll say.

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by Targan

Thank God they don't hunt in packs. That's all I'll say.

So, do they come at night mostly?

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who is considering visiting Australia in the near future, please be advised drop bear mating season has just commenced. It's an especially dangerous time to be walking in forested areas.

Attachment 1849

Wait? 1 in 10? Are you telling me, assuming a population of 30 so million... approx. 3 million Aussies have been attacked? Man you may need to try the rabbit solution on those critters before they start depopulating the country!

[Olefin]

Interesting pic there

To get back to the thread topic the East Africa/Kenya sourcebook I am working on, as part of its description of forces, has a small section detaliing how the Australians were not able to send any forces to aid the US and Brits in Kenya until 1999 due to both the war they had with Indonesia and because of the damage they took from taking three nukes from the Soviets on three of their biggest refineries, one of which took out most of Rockingham and HMAS Stirling along with it, with the strike being carried out by a single ICBM in December of 1997 with three warheads, and causing 500,000 casualties in the process.

In other words big enough to really hurt (thats 1 out of every 60 Aussies killed along with a big naval base along with a lot of industry) but not catastrophic to where the country falls apart.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Jason Weiser

Wait? 1 in 10? Are you telling me, assuming a population of 30 so million... approx. 3 million Aussies have been attacked? Man you may need to try the rabbit solution on those critters before they start depopulating the country!

Actually, we only just cracked 21 million a short time ago. And yes, about 2 million Australians (mostly city dwellers who've stupidly wandered out into the bush alone) have had an "encounter". Most get away with little more than a scratch and a pressing need for a change of underwear (only through dumb blind luck though for the most part), but there are a few deaths every month, and many more serious maulings, especially of the unaware tourists who think backpacking in the wilds without protection is a good idea...

In some respects, Drop Bears are our best solution to illegal immigrants, ever since the government stopped the navy putting .50 cal "warning holes" in their boats anyway.

[Webstral]

21 million. Wow. About the population of Texas, give or take. And that makes Australia a larger-than-average nation. Sometimes I think every American ought to live in a very small, poor nation (not Australia, lest my Australian cousins interpret the physical proximity of their nation's name with the adjectives "very small" and "poor" as meaning those adjectives apply to the jewel of the Southern Hemisphere) for at least a year to get a better perspective on things.

[Legbreaker]

And that's up from the 6 million we had during WWII.