An Australian Morrow Project

[ChalkLine]

Hi guys. I've been thinking idly about an Australian Morrow Project (name to be decided) so I was wondering what specifically signature weapons the Project would use in Oz. Remember that The Morrow Project prefers to use weapons not associated with the armed forces.

Standard Military small arms of Australia during the Morrow Project's duration were;

- L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (semi-auto FAL 'inch') 7.62x51mm
- F88 Austeyr Assault Rifle (Steyr AUG) 5.56x45mm
- EF88 Austeyr Assault Rifle (F90) 5.56x45mm
- HK416 Assault Rifle 5.56x45mm
- Sterling SMG 9x19mm
- Self-Loading Pistol 9 millimetre Mark 3 (Browning Hi-Power) 9x19mm
- Parker-Hale M82 7.62x51mm
- SR-98 (Accuracy International Arctic Warfare) 7.62x51mm
- Heckler & Koch HK417 Marksman Rifle 7.62x51mm
- F89 Minimi Light machine gun 5.56x45mm
- Maximi Light machine gun 7.62x51mm
- FN MAG 58 General-purpose machine gun 7.62x51mm

Note that Australian special forces tend to use similar weapons to US special forces so such weapons as the M4 are also found in the ADF

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Remember that The Morrow Project prefers to use weapons not associated with the armed forces.

Is this a restriction you have in your game? No where in either 3rd or 4th edition can I find a mention that the weapons are not associated with the armed forces. Quite the contrary, in mentions that teams are likely to meet survivors that may have recovered military weapons and vehicles and that the teams are to be armed up to be at least as strong or stronger than expected resistance to achieve "peace through superior firepower" if necessary. Using standard weapons of the resident military also allows for easy sharing of ammo and spare parts in both directions. This seems to correspond well with the MARS role of Military Assistance as well.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Hey Chalkie,
Some minor corrections to your weapons list.

The Sterling SMG was not in general use, the suppressed version, the L34A1, was used by SASR. They also used a few variants of the MP5 series SMGs.
Other units used the F1 SMG. I am unaware of any units using the Sterling in its standard L2 variant.
Depending on your start time for an Australian version of the Project, then the Owen Gun could still be in armouries (it was still on issue in the 1960s and was in war reserve in the 1970s).

And while mentioning the war reserve, there were thousands of .303 SMLEs in storage until the late 1980s.
If you're including the L1A1 SLR, then you should also add the L2A1 Automatic Rifle version and also the M16A1, M16A1 with M203, the M60 GPMG and M79 (all of simliar vintage). And you should also add the 7.62mm version of the Bren Gun, the only one I know from personal experience was the L4A2 but there could have been other variants in Aussie service.
The Australian military were also using .38 revolvers into the mid-1980s although I would have to check some books to find out if they were Colts or Smith & Wessons.

Again, depending on your timeline, the HK416, HK417 and Maximi didn't come into service until the 21st century. Some units also had SR-25 marksman's rifles by the late 1990s (they were fielded in East Timor).
And if you want a little exotica for the military, the Army's OpFor training group had a number of AKMs and RPDs.

[ChalkLine]

I must admit I confused the Sterling with the F1 :hangs head in OCD shame:

I'm thinking of having The Morrow Project establish an Australian project and using XM8 series weapons and other HK Gucci kit

[StainlessSteelCynic]

There's a strong precedence in the region for HK smallarms. Aside from Pakistan manufacturing various iterations of the MP5 & G3, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma and even Papua New Guinea were using the HK33 and/or HK53 at some stage so there's already a presence that may have a positive influence on a decision to use the XM8 family.

I don't think you need to enforce the disassociation with smallarms in use by the military though, if I remember right, the Project did use such items as the M16A1, M203 and M60 which were very much in use with the US military at the time.

[ChalkLine]

I've got no idea where I got that 'the Project likes to remain distinctive' and I've only read the 4th edition, maybe it was on a blog somewhere.

I wonder if there should have been a small Project presence that picked up in a sudden so most caches are new but there's some old ones.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

I've got no idea where I got that 'the Project likes to remain distinctive' and I've only read the 4th edition, maybe it was on a blog somewhere.

I wonder if there should have been a small Project presence that picked up in a sudden so most caches are new but there's some old ones.

That's very likely, I have a vague recollection of some older TMP websites that filled the teams gear lists with all manner of new "gucci" equipment to the point where they had no US military equipment at all. Most of the time I just went to "The Supply Bunker" for my TMP material but I was always interested in other people's sites for the game (mostly because I could never find anyone nearby who wanted to play TMP so I was living vicariously through others!)
But back on topic, the earlier editions had a strong representation of equipment that had either been in US military use, was still in US service or had been contenders for US service (hence the XR311 which was touted as a potential replacement for the M151 jeep in US service years before the HMMWV came into being).

For me, I haven't seen 4th edition yet, I'll buy it sometime in the near future. I've had the 3rd edition book for several years. I am lead to believe 3rd Ed. isn't that much different from the earlier editions except that it introduced rules associated with role-playing (because, apparently, they didn't actually have such rules originally - I don't know this for certain as I've never seen the 1st or 2nd Ed. books).

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

. . .
For me, I haven't seen 4th edition yet, I'll buy it sometime in the near future. I've had the 3rd edition book for several years. I am lead to believe 3rd Ed. isn't that much different from the earlier editions except that it introduced rules associated with role-playing (because, apparently, they didn't actually have such rules originally - I don't know this for certain as I've never seen the 1st or 2nd Ed. books).

I used to post quite often on RPG.net and I've been mildly amused that younger role players seem to feel the need for all sorts of rules and regulations for RPing where us older lumps would just 'act in character' and the GM would adjudicate it.
Then again in older games it was traditional that everyone was very enthused with the rules and usually have a good knowledge of them so GMing was kind of a group thing

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

I used to post quite often on RPG.net and I've been mildly amused that younger role players seem to feel the need for all sorts of rules and regulations for RPing where us older lumps would just 'act in character' and the GM would adjudicate it.
Then again in older games it was traditional that everyone was very enthused with the rules and usually have a good knowledge of them so GMing was kind of a group thing

Oh yes indeed! It frustrates me these days where many of the new players I talk to have no desire to read and understand the rules yet moan that without a total write-up of their character archetype, they don't know what their 'role' is or how to "properly play" their PC.
And unfortunately, too many of them have been influenced by MMOs (which, while having the level up experience system seen in many RPGs, actually have precious few real RPG elements). This makes them think every RPG character has to be built around the MMO trinity of 'healer', 'DPS' i.e. the damage dealer and the 'tank' i.e. the damage taker (which is so totally mislabelled as to give people a completely stupid view of what actual tanks actually do).

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Oh yes indeed! It frustrates me these days where many of the new players I talk to have no desire to read and understand the rules yet moan that without a total write-up of their character archetype, they don't know what their 'role' is or how to "properly play" their PC.

Tell me about it. I had one player, who is the wife of one of my other players, who fit this very well. She rolled up a great character and every managed to have psionics. This is fine in my world since I have a place for it. She had a concept, but asked me to write the backstory. So I did and she still seemed lost and asking what she could do. It's frustrating. They are so wound up in their min/max vertical character class world that they are lost in a class-less system like MP. Even when you tell they you can try anything, you might just suck at it they seem lost.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Tell me about it. I had one player, who is the wife of one of my other players, who fit this very well. She rolled up a great character and every managed to have psionics. This is fine in my world since I have a place for it. She had a concept, but asked me to write the backstory. So I did and she still seemed lost and asking what she could do. It's frustrating. They are so wound up in their min/max vertical character class world that they are lost in a class-less system like MP. Even when you tell they you can try anything, you might just suck at it they seem lost.

I feel your pain, these sorts frustrate me no end
I've been using a concept I blatantly stole from a friend of mine who would run his games under the idea of "No restrictions, only consequences." So basically, do whatever you want to do but don't be surprised if you break the law and then the law comes hunting for you. Actions & consequences.

To this end, I've been telling players for some time, "You can do or try to do anything, as long as it's within reasonable grounds and if you do something bad, somebody is going to be angry about it. So yeah, plan a bank robbery, do the bank robbery but do NOT expect the gameworld to just sit back and let you get away with it".

Even with that explanation, I've had players ask what they can do. Now I fully expect that from people new to the hobby and even to some extent, players who are new to a specific game/rules system. But my jaw drops when I encounter people who have been gaming for a decade or so who say to me things like, "So I have all my skills marked on my character sheet and I've got all my equipment sorted out but what can I actually do with this character?"
Huh? You mean you have no idea of how to play this game? You have no idea what's involved in a role-playing game after gaming for 10 years or whatever amount of time you claimed?

I think this is only marginally worse than those experienced players who try to get some freebie bonus out of the GM for some task check by saying something along the lines of: -
"Can I try to force open the blocked door?"
WHAT!?
Of course you can 'try', I explained that already. You can try anything you could reasonably try in the real world. But stop trying to find out if you're going to succeed on the skill test before you even attempt it!
Those people annoy me quite a bit too!

Sorry Chalkline, didn't mean to go off on a rant

So anyway, an Australian version of the Morrow Project...
You wouldn't have so much worry about locating bolt-holes in out of the way places - with such a large continent but with such a small population you don't have to worry so much about people stumbling upon one of the Project's secret bases.
I've been to minesites out in the middle of nowhere where although the site has shutdown, they've left reasonable quantities of equipment behind because they know in a few years the industry will pickup and make the mine economical again. Very little incidence of theft in such places while shutdown because it's so far out of the way in a lot of cases.

You could even place a Project base on a sheep or cattle station without having to hide it too much. With those sorts of properties covering thousands of square kilometres in area and with people fully expecting them to be reasonable self-sufficient, it does not surprise people to see all manner of equipment & vehicles, sheds, fuel stores and so on in the location. Most of them even have an airstrip and may even have their own aircraft (and hangar - although I knew one farmer down south of Western Australia who kept his Cessna 172 in the tractor shed). And again, many of these stations are quite remote from the nearest towns.

I think the only issue that is likely to cause problems is getting sufficient Project personnel. With a population as small as Australia's (in comparison to almost any nation in the northern hemisphere), large numbers of people disappearing to join the Project might be noticed by some aspiring journo.
You could recruit people from other countries but that runs the risk of them wanting to return home to help fix their own nation.
I don't have any other ideas about this at the moment so I'll leave it at that.

[ChalkLine]

I'm wondering if the original Morrow Project would be applicable to Australia at all.
The nuclear strikes, if any, would be few and targeted against infrastructure. This means that civil disaster relief wouldn't be as fragmented as it would have been in the US (especially pre-FEMA) which would have had nuked cities. The biggest problems would have been either conventional warfare assuming a land invasion (not really probably) or simple dislocation when the world linkings went down.

Maybe some other problem arose in those 200 years?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Loss of international trade would certainly hurt us at the start but I think we could probably weather that storm well enough to miss out on the badness of the typical Project situation in the USA. So yeah, unless there was some sort of NBC attack on Australia, the Project (as much as I would love to see it hosted in my home country) probably isn't applicable to Australia
To make it viable we have to either have Australia directly attacked with WMDs of some sort to ruin the government/society or we have to have some natural catastrophe occur (like say, the loss of NASA due to the war, means that space monitoring is no longer done and a wandering asteroid crashes into good ol' Oz and we cop a right spanking.)

[mmartin798]

Even predictions of nuclear winter are not as bad in the southern hemisphere. One prediction only shows a 30% reduction in crops. They warn that this could still be bad if there is a large influx of refugees. So the disruption of services in Papau New Guinea and other parts of Indonesia may cause conflict on the northern shores. Alice Springs will be iffy thanks to Pine Gap. Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth are likely hit hard. I have to admit I am not very familiar with military bases and power stations in Australia.

Given all that, the role of something like the Morrow Project in Australia may be more focused on helping the agriculture with faster maturing strains of wheat and other crops to make the most of the shorter, drier and cooler growing seasons. They would also have more teams suited less for recon and more towards refugee management and re-settlement. Given the distances and amount of supplies needed, I would assume that we would see land trains larger than already present in Australia, or at the very least many more of them. A fair number of the will be fusion powered.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

This is a more workable situation I think, particularly with the idea of refugees coming in from Indo-Pacific nations swamping the country and helping to deplete any resources available.
In terms of the road trains in Australia, it's common to see two trailers being hauled, these seem to be the most common images in the media. However some trucking companies regularly haul three and four trailers and it is not unusual to see some trucks hauling five trailers and sometimes more.

This is pretty normal because the rail network isn't viable in the more remote regions of Australia. Road transport is the only way and to achieve decent income, economy of scale means hauling many more trailers than would be seen in the more developed parts of the country. So in short, we have a precedent already for long road trains so it won't be much of a leap to having them in an Aussie version of the Project.

[mmartin798]

I have seen pictures of the triples and and quads from Australia. Quite impressive looking. Though given the need for road trains in Australia, the project there would likely have many teams equipped to either maintain or replace existing road infrastructure. Probably with a large number of graders, rollers. compactors, scrapers and loaders. They could either have a concrete plant to make a sealed roadway or just a crusher to convert broken concrete into material for making gravel road or, if they have the tar available, a chip and seal roadway. Growing up I remember the summers spent at my grandparents cabin. There is a quarry nearby and there were hundreds of loaded doubles running along the chip and seal road every month. The road withstood it well with relatively modest maintenance.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Typically , they'll use a lot less road working equipment. The vast majority of roads in the outback are unpaved because it's simply too expensive to seal them and then maintain them. They scrape the road out of the gravel and then level it every few years with a scraper and that's about it.

Australia has an average population density as of late 2018 of 3.3 people per square kilometre. In some outback areas, that density can drop to as little as 0.02 people per square km. We have a number of towns in outback areas revolving around primary industry and the distance between those towns can be hundreds of kilometres from each other so basically, it's just too damned expensive to maintain those "roads" as anything more than wide gravel tracks.

Only specific roads (e.g. state or national highways) are sealed and maintained however they generally travel from one major city to another (or major regional town) and if some smaller towns along the way happen to be nearby, they can claim the benefits of a sealed road as well. Everywhere else gets gravel tracks.

Any Project team will have to be far more self-sufficient than teams in North America or Europe because of the lack of population here. When you're 500 kilometres away from the nearest town with a doctor, you have to manage any medical emergency yourself. When you're 200 kilometres away from the nearest service station, you have to carry plenty of spares, not just fuel but tyres, fanbelts, radiator hoses, tools and more importantly, water, plenty of water (unless you know the area, you aren't going to find anywhere with water until you hit the next town - unless you're lucky and happen to be travelling near a river).
And so on and so on.

I think in this regard, a Project set up for Australia could probably focus more on re-establishing trade/transport and connecting societies with each other rather than spending major effort in rebuilding towns etc. etc. Most of those outback towns are going to be too remote to be worth destroying if we're talking a war type cataclysm and they're too spread out for major spread of disease, earthquake, meteor strike, fire or flooding to damage all of them beyond rebuilding. It needs to be a catastrophe of apocalyptic scale to smash all those spreadout towns to a point where they cannot do something to help themselves.

[mmartin798]

I agree that in the arid outback, the need for equipment to make and create roads is minimal. Unimproved roads would hold up pretty well. But in the north coast of the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and parts of Queensland where they get significant rainfall, you would want an improved all-weather road, like a gravel road. These would require a bit more equipment than just a dozen graders to make and maintain, especially if there is significant truck traffic.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Yeah they definitely want paved roads in some of those places, but in many areas they have to do without. During the wet season there's often a lot of flooding that makes the roads unpassable regardless of being sealed or not.
In some places in the far north it's not uncommon to see roads closed due to the wet seasons.
The Western Australian, Northern Territory and Queensland governments regularly post info on road hazards and what roads are okay to use because of this.
Haha, I call them roads when in fact they're dirt or gravel tracks.
We have just over half a million kilometres out of 900,000 km that are unpaved. However the government has been trying to convert the most important rural/outback unpaved roads to paved for the last few decades.

Having said all that, the quickest way to get communities back in touch with each other is via trade and for trade in Australian, you need roads. So yes I can see your point. Having the Project re-establishing roads is probably the quickest way to get that trade back in operation.

[mmartin798]

So to get a feel for what the Australian Project might prepare for, we should look at what they would likely expect.

The nuclear exchange between China and the US would likely force surviving naval units from both sides most likely south, as Vietnam and Korea would probably suffered heavy damage as well to ports capable of large deep sea ships.This would put highly trained and armed men in places like the Philippines and Indonesia. There would also be some military and refugee movement into Malaysia. This may also displace some refugees into the Java Islands.

Much would seem to stabilize for a short time, until the resource pressure on the smaller island causes another wave of refugee movement. A good portion of this would be through the archipelago toward the larger island of Papua New Guinea. It is likely that from here, refugees may finally make their way to Australia by making the relatively short route to Queensland, or even island hopping the same route.

I would suspect some organized pirate activity, and a possible beach head, from elements that arise from the displaced navies on the more temperate northern shores of Western Australia, Northern Territory and possible getting close to Queensland. There may be some activity around Perth, if for no other reason than to try and find pre-war technology in decent condition for use, repair or parts.

At about the 25 year mark, Australia would see refugees encroaching natives in the northern coastal Queensland area; pirates looking for resources and labor; the outback areas adapting relatively quickly to the new norm and wanting to keep it that way; Australian agriculture being affected by the shorter, cooler and dryer growing seasons being unable to realistically sustaining the external pressures for crops and still serving the native Australian survivors. Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales would become rather resource abundant, and therefor an attractor for the bands of refugees.

That's my first, relatively simplistic look at what will happen. The Project will have to fill in the blanks to keep stability and restoration in this climate.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Any refugee group (regardless of origin) with some intelligent leadership, that wants to make landfall on Australia is going to go somewhere near known towns/cities. Any group that doesn't is going to run out of water very quickly.
With the exception of Queensland, most of the top end of Australia has very few permanent water sources of useful size (and some of these are a distance inland).
The majority of rivers and lakes seen on maps of Australia in the inland areas or near desert regions are dry and may only (and temporarily) see water during the wet season.
Worst of these are the salt lakes, quite literally dry lake beds where evaporation has left mineral salts leached out of the soil, deposited on the surface. Any water found in these salt lakes is going to be useless for consumption unless it can be distilled first.

It could be argued that during the wet season getting water won't be so much of a problem because flooding often occurs and there's water in abundance over vast tracts of the landscape. However it's typically muddy surface water that's only there because the soil cannot absorb any more water. This also means it's temporary and obviously cannot be relied upon for any length of time.
The dry season will require good arid climate survival skills because fresh water is incredibly scare along the coast.

The reason for mentioning this is because I think it gives two specific opportunities for the GM and one general consideration for the Project as a whole: -

The first is that any settlement the Project encounters in these regions can have widely different ethnic compositions than expected for Australia. Some refugees will assimilate but some might want to establish their own enclaves within surviving communities. When the Project finally gets activated and then encounters these communities, they might find quite varied social situations (e.g. a town divided along "originals' and 'newcomers" lines even though, from an outsiders perspective, the same people/community, but cultural traditions can hang on long after the original need for them has died so this could cause some interesting frictions within a community).

The second is the opportunity to find interesting salvage along the coastline from where some of the refugee groups came ashore and attempted to establish themselves but due to a lack of food and fresh water, ultimately succumbed to the environment.
There could be the remains of old ships that were beached to provide some sort of shelter or protection. Rust/corrosion from saltwater will obviously have taken it's toll on anything on the beach but if a refugee group moved a short distance off the beach they may have set up shelters and so on including salvaging items from the ships (e.g. workshop tools/machines, medical equipment, lengths of wire/tubing or even doors, hatches and portholes).

As for the general consideration; like many armies around the world, it's going to be incredibly useful for the Project to have units concerned with finding and purifying water. Whether that be building wells, small dams and so on, locating new sources of water or cleaning existing water sources for consumption, I think this should be a big factor in the design of any Project for Australia. It could prove to be a good player element if the players aren't so interested in gameplay that revolves around combat.

As a side note, the Aboriginal peoples used a few techniques that were latter used by early settlers in some regions. One such idea was using thin slices/wedges of rock as walls on top of large flattish sections of rock. Whenever it rained, these walls would channel any water running off the rocks into a reservoir of some sort. There's a number of these setups still in existence in parts of Western Australia (and they still work) although I have only seen them myself in the Goldfields region.

[ChalkLine]

Supporting people who come from a possible war in Indonesia may be a big task. The people would need a lot of resources unavailable in the area. Keeping them alive while organising transport would be hard. You couldn't leave them there because the place is just inhospitable and can't support much in the way of life

[mmartin798]

That is why I see them making their way, in make shift boats or rafts, along the archipelago. Queensland is not only the closest to Papua New Guinea, it is the most agriculturally rich area in Australia. Rumors of it being a land of milk and honey would draw these desperate people, despite the risks involved.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Plus it's been a traditional migration path into Australia for thousands of years so potentially it's the first path they would consider if they don't have access to more seaworthy craft.
And in regards to that migration, I was also thinking of it in terms of decades after the war had finished (if we follow the typical Project wakeup of 200 years or so after the apocalypse). I think people may be using the path in Queensland for coastal trade by the time the Project wakes up and it may very well be using it for immigration but there's also the potential for people with better boats and ships to try and make for the north coast of Western Australia or the Northern Territory.

[ChalkLine]

Of course if the climate changed for some reason people might be head towards Indonesia rather than away from it

[StainlessSteelCynic]

An intriguing idea!
I tend to think of people leaving Indonesia due to overpopulation, volcanic activity, famine and so on so having people move to Indonesia is some interesting food for thought.