ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

The BTZ-3 Armoured Fuel Tanker

During the little Afghan fiasco the Soviets discovered that getting fuel up to the troops had become somewhat problematic, what with all the bullets flying around. So, in the spirit of "lessons learned" they created the BTZ-3 Armoured Fuel Tanker.

From the outside it looks exactly like a BMP-1 without a turret, all the hatches, firing ports and so on remain the same. Instead of a turret the deck is sealed by a circular plate with an access hatch.

Inside they stripped the hull out, leaving the front two crew positions and installing two 1,500 litre fuel tanks, a single 100 litre oil tank and various pumping gear. Opening the rear hatches allowed access to hoses and the roof "troop compartment" hatches allowed access to machinery.

Of course in the scheme of things 3,000 litres is too little, 5,000 litres is considered minimum - but if a tanker truck can't get up forward its possible one of these might. If nothing else they present a very low target, not something to be ignored.

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TKB-0249 "Crossbow" grenade launcher

Introduced in 1998, probably earlier if the USSR doesn't implode in your timeline.

The Soviets really warmed to the grenade launcher idea. Due to having less radios than Western armies there tended to be something of a lag in getting supporting fires. Just speculating, this may be why they started attaching AGS-17s to infantry platoons but they also attached 12.7mm MG guns to that unit so I might be misunderstanding their doctrine.

Anyway, even with the RPG-7V along for the ride they liked the idea of an organic accurate grenade launcher, probably because the RPG-7V's ammo is on the bulky side and also its blast effect is a bit over the top if you're using it in the support role.

So in 1998 they brought out the Crossbow ("arbalet") which sort of doesn't have an analogue in the West. Essentially it's a dirty great big grenade launcher that's used for accurate point firing. Instead of just plastering the area this launcher shoots accurate grenades onto small point targets such as bunker embrasures, weapon pits or windows. They occasionally refer to is as a "sniper grenade launcher" in imperfect translations.

In many ways it seems to be a weapon in search of a role. Troops in battle usually have little compunction against hitting positions with weapons that are way too powerful for the application and most commanders would rather their lads carried stuff with too much destructive capacity rather than too little. Still, you can pack a lot of the ammo.

Anyway, this 10kg beasty is a drum-fed weapon from a bipod utilising 10-round magazines containing the standard 30mm VOG-17M or VOG-30 grenades. It's considered highly accurate as grenade launchers go and evidently has less recoil than an assault rifle. Notably I've never seen it in use anywhere. Maximum range is 1,700m.

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M67 Recoilless Rifle
(For that time when you want to be sure)

While everyone loves the Carl Gustaf ("Charlie Guts-Ache" to Australians) the US had a workhorse analogue in the 90mm M67 RR as well. Often thought to have been phased out when the M47 Dragon was introduced it actually soldiered on for niche applications as it's rock-solid in extreme environments when Dragon or TOW might fail.

The Alaskan 6th Division (Light), 502nd Infantry Regiment in Berlin and the Rangers hung onto this monster as long as they could through to the end of the Cold War and its even been reintroduced recently in Afghanistan.

Weighing in at a spine-shortening 17kg with 4kg rounds for HEAT and HE munitions it reproduces everything the Carl Gustaf does in an admittedly heavier package except one; the M67 also had a 3kg canister round loaded with 2,400 steel flechettes that could turn everything to chaff for 300m.

So yeah, this critter goes back into the starting kit options.

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Wild Food Spoilage.

Summary:
- Wild Vegetable Preparation Time = 1 period per 100kg (2d6% wastage/month)
- Wild Grain Preparation Time = 1 period per 200kg (1d6% wastage/month)
- Carcass Preparation and Storage = 1 period per 50kg (1d6% wastage/month)
- Dried Meat Preparation Time = 1 period per 50kg + 6 Days Drying + 1.5kg "salting" salt per kg. (1d6% wastage/month)
- Salt Meat Preparation Time = 2 period per 50kg + 3 Days Drying (1d6% wastage/month)
- Dried Meat Preparation Time = 1 period per smoker up 200kg + 2 to 3 periods smoking (no wastage)
- Fats Preparation Time = 1 period per 100kg meat (no wastage) Requires large cookers.
Each of these periods shown requires a Task
- Easy: Survival/Cooking/Biology (unskilled)

(Note this can be an Average Task or even higher if the required equipment is not available or if the player has to avoid observation. Salting must have "salting" salt or is not possible).

Food goes off, and it goes off faster depending on a range of factors. Firstly, it definitely doesn't like getting wet. That bit about all the food you gathered from a field? Well the first time it rains you can either have everyone pull the vehicles off the road to dry out the food somehow or you can throw most of it out. This is because most players don't have nearly enough containers to put the stuff in so it's often lumped into the back of a truck in a huge, awful mess of a mound (which will give you wastage as well). Players should become obsessive about gathering and cleaning those 44 gallon drums.
Food doesn't like to just sit, although some food is more stable than others. Spuds and other roots will sit happily in a cool, dark and ventilated space for a few months. Wheat and other grains last better in the kernel so if the players didn't separate the chaff (page 150, T2K v2.2) they will find it spoils rapidly. While grain might last 6 months if stored correctly you can expect your root vegetables to be useless in three months tops, less if in not ideal environments.

The following assumes that each unit of meat is about 50kg, and even small units take the same time.
Meat, game or fish, goes off fast and unrefrigerated meat in small amounts is dangerous after two hours. Really dangerous. Now, this actually isn't all the meat, the outer layers are the most affected by the atmosphere and all the greebies in it in a well-dressed carcass (something the players are adept at is cleaning carcasses by now, even with just a bayonet). But if you can't preserve your meat for some reason you'll get rapid wastage as you keep cleaning off the carcass. Raw meat has to be kept away from flies and other vermin, usually by wrapping in coarse cloth that can still breath such as burlap, coincidently what most of the sandbags are made from.

However if you want meat to stay stable you have to start to do some serious work, it takes about six days minimum to air dry meat correctly. The food should be kept stationary in this time. Now, it's conceivable you could make up a large meat rack for a truck but expect a large amount of your load capacity to go out the window, far more than the mass of the food. This can only be done in areas with a low humidity.

Salt-curing meat is the other method suggested last time. Now, for a start you need more than just normal sodium chloride, you also need some special salting salts that include nitrates and nitrites, this will have to be traded for as the players aren't going to just find it. You don't need much but it is still needed otherwise the fats in the food will oxidise. Salted meat has little fat, the salt won't penetrate it. Fat is vital for the players so we'll cover this elsewhere. Salt-cured meat must be dried for three days before being salted and then takes after cooking, the cooking process takes a period to gather equipment and fuel, set up, clean the food, cook and then prepare for drying. All this salting stuff is really wasteful of salt, you can use half again as much salt as you have meat.

Smoked meat is a dark art.
A smoker is either a hole in the ground, a structure or a portable device, this last one being far preferable to gypsy player characters however portable smokers can only handle limited amounts of meat at a time whereas a smokehouse or smoke pit can be constructed to process as much as the PCs desire. On average a smoker can do its job in 2 to 3 periods using 20kg fresh-cut hardwood per 50kg meat. It takes 1 period to get everything set up.

Animal fat is vital, especially in winter. Players are going to want to create lard from carcasses. It takes another period of cooking to render animal fat that should be added to the preparation times, if not reduce the amount of nutrition the food provides in snow periods. Note that the players also derive soap from this step which should give them a bonus to avoid some diseases and even lower some enemy recon rolls! Being less stinky also makes hunting easier.

It also takes some upkeep and just looking after this wild food is going start eating into the player's time. Players will be assume to be constantly checking the food sources and making sure that it's aired, vermin free and clearing out wastage. This should be assumed to be part of their daily upkeep.

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So, ten stragglers of various nationalities got hoovered up in the last scenario and the first thing a player asks is "what are their names?"
Well, the Fantasy Name Generator is here to help you out. It can give you hundreds of names by nationality and language for the real world ranging from Australian Aboriginal names to Zulu names and everything in between.
It also generates tons of other stuff as well, it will generate business names by type, town names and landform names. And it also does lots of fantasy names as well.
A brilliant GM tool and for those players that get stuck on naming their PC, check it out.

[ChalkLine]

This thing's adorable.

Weighing in at a tiny 2,900kg and capable of moving at 55km/h, the XM108 was to have a crew of four gunners and was to be deployed with rapid reaction groups. It could cross mud, snow, swamps and water. It was unfortunately tested well before "Hello Kitty" stickers were available.

It also provided absolutely SFA protection to the tiny crew and carried no ammunition. The 105mm guns were "being phased out in favour of the heavier weight artillery" (didn't happen for another fifty years) and of course the Blue Sky School said they could do anything that was needed, no need for organic weapons.

Twilight 2000 Role:

Added to airborne formations later in the war, the tiny guns outperformed the standard M102 howitzers in the area of recoil trunnion loading meaning they could be deployed on softer ground, but otherwise maintaining the same standard of fire up to the small crew's endurance. Although nothing is said, the standard M102 had a crew of eight gunners so I'm assuming more gunners would turn up on an ammo/support vehicle.

GM Use: Have one of these stoically motor west with a few guys on it if you want artillery stragglers, just for the laughs.

Edit: These little things don't really offer anything the M102 doesn't except it can cross water or soft ground, I'm submitting it because it's cute.

[ChalkLine]

The Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV)

Replacing the long-nosed M35 2.5 ton truck and the M809 and M939 5.0 ton trucks, the FMTV is the first line gear for the US army in tactical trucks in the T2K setting.

I wonder, however, if they became a bit like the Soviet experience.
The Soviets had been using the long-nosed Ural 357 trucks since roughly the early Pleistocene Era when they switched over to the KamAZ 4310 series, a similar cab-over design that has gone on to be legendary in Soviet/Russian service and the term "to KAMaz out of here" is now ubiquitous. However it's been strongly disliked by the actual drivers since Afghanistan as an IED or mine detonates directly under the cab. The rough equation (depending a lot on the weapon) is that for every metre away from the blast you quarter the blast effect. The KamAZ developed a nasty reputation as a crew-killer.

So maybe when going through the list you might still take the old clapped-out M35, M809 or M939 after all.

Still, the FMTVs are nice looking trucks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Family_of_Medium_Tactical...
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../M35_ser...C2%BD-ton_6%C3...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M809_s...-ton_6x6_truck
(The M809 page has some great line drawings to help with visualisation of the variants)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M939_s...-ton_6x6_truck

[ChalkLine]

Driver Tasks and Events

Much of Twilight 2000 is going from A to B.
However, due to recent activities the interval tends to be somewhat "modified" by various events. This means that drivers, the unsung heroes of the Twilight games who don't get to man the cool guns, should be doing things to keep their interest high.

Now, this is going to be a very long post. You might want to skip much of it and go to the end bit which will be situations to navigate if you don't want to read the waffle.

I really can't labour the point enough as to just how much the infrastructure of your World War Three is smashed. Yes, there will be some relatively untouched places but on the whole they will be rare. Bombing, artillery, heavy vehicles (those rubber track cleats disappeared in the first year and the soviets never even used them at all) all abuse the infrastructure. Modern buildings are actually rather fragile compared to some of the mediaeval houses you see in The Second World War images and modern buildings have a habit of collapsing into a pile of crap although Eastern European modern buildings were often built with an eye towards survivability in a conflict. However even just neglect can do immense damage to infrastructure as culverts block up, pot holes blow through the road base and stuff falls down dragging other stuff with it, making an awful mess. If you do any damage and then don't fix that damage immediately it's ten times worse within a few months as nature starts trying to make new systems around the heaps of rubble.

The players and the hordes of NPCs are going to insist on driving over this wreckage. Most military vehicles can climb absurd slopes, usually sliding at about 60º, but even they won't be able to get over most wreckage. For instance an MBT usually has only about a just over a metre obstacle clearing height and wheeled vehicles often are less than this. So, how does the GM adjudicate all this?

First off you need to know that it's there. As usual trawling through images of wreckage gives the GM great ideas and tools to use in play. Making up a list beforehand is I'd say essential and I'm going to ask the list members to add more hazards in the comments below so we can create a file the GMs can use. I actually recommend never rolling on tables, they're awful things that break immersion and frequently give silly results but rather craft an adventure using the lists provided.

Now, there's essentially two methods of negotiating a hazard and that's under pressure and not under pressure. This is because when not under pressure the Driver or the Ground Guide can diagnose the hazard(s), evaluate if the vehicle is capable of negotiating it and then developing a strategy for dealing with it. After that it's up to driver skill and the vehicle's capabilities to deal with the hazard. Under pressure simply means there's no time for that and often the driver has no idea there's even a hazard there until the vehicle is in it. They have to rely on skill, experience and the vehicle's innate off-road capability to deal with the problem.

The Ground Guide.
Ground Guides help vehicles of whatever size and loading condition get through hazards by giving instructions to the driver whether they can or cannot sense the environment themselves. Ideally the Ground Guide and the Driver should both have at least 4+ in the same language. From bitter experience I can tell you the Ground Guide and the Driver should ideally have negotiated many smaller obstacles together first before tackling a difficult obstacle together so they understand each other's assessment criteria and it's relation to reality. It is vital that a Ground Guide have vehicle driving experience themselves, sending a non-driver out to assess a hazard is an exercise in futility.

Note that a driver can always get out and go and look at the obstacle themselves, acting as their own ground guide in a sense.
If there is time an obstacle can be diagnosed to ascertain what hidden hazards and features it presents. Succeeding in this task reduces the drive task by one level with GM approval. Of course sometimes no matter how much you check out a problem the essential difficulty still remains.
Diagnose Hazards -
Drive (wheeled) or Drive Tracked): [Task difficulty varies]

Of course, if you have all the time in the world you can actually just bust a gut and make a road over it. broken down small bridges can be filled in with logs, dirt heaped over them and a road made. Sure, it will wash away soon but you'll be gone. Similarly, craters can be filled in, rubble cleared away and so on.
Mitigate Hazard -
Civil Engineering or Combat Engineering

Finally, there are composite hazards/obstacles. These may need several rolls to get past. The GM should require a diagnose, engineering and drive roll for each one.

A short list of actual hazards for your trip away:
(Important note: Hazards are often observed by the enemy and covered by their fire or used as IED/mine locations.
A note in Attribute Only tasks: multiply all Attributes by 1.5, rounding up)

- A small bridge has been demolished/collapsed creating a "V"-shaped gap about a truck-length long.
The ground on each side is soft. A tracked vehicle requires an average task to negotiate the soft banks, failure means it cannot get across. A catastrophic failure results in it getting bogged.
Wheeled vehicles require engineering assistance to fill the gap. Even with the gap filled the task is still hazardous as the filling material can shift, sliding the vehicle into the gully on one side of the ruined bridge. Note that very long vehicles such as the HEMMT are at a bonus due to their trench-crossing ability due to their long wheel base.
Task: To fill the gap
Civil Engineering or Combat Engineering: Easy [1 period for two personnel to cut material, transport material and place it. For every extra two personnel halve the time to a minimum of one hour]

- A small bridge has been demolished/collapsed creating a "V"-shaped gap about a truck-length long. The centre of the bridge has been filled in with logs and dirt.
The same as above but the work has already been done by someone else. However the in-fill might have already started to shift and the driving task is slightly higher.

- The road is heavily cratered by a heavy artillery/bombing strike.
This is only of importance if the players can't get around it such as in a street or some other choke point.
This is a composite task. There are several hazards in a row and the ground guide is quite exposed moving through them, finding the best path. Note that you can get serious problems with this simple hazard as a vehicle gets far in before bogging and then the extraction vehicle bogs trying to get in to remove the first vehicle.

- A bridge or causeway about fifty metres long is flooded.
Downstream there is a blockage and the watercourse has backed up, making it impossible to see the nature of the structure underneath due to the muddy water. Standard practice is for a ground guide to get soaking wet walking across the flooded structure first. That's right, out there in the open. Pucker up and put on your armour.

- A bridge or causeway about fifty metres long is flooded.
Recent rains have flooded the area, making this a potentially lethal situation that kills hundreds of people each year. The water flowing over the structure occasionally has debris ranging from floating items no bigger than a suitcase up to whole trees moving at high speed, root-ball first and striking like a battering ram. The structure underneath the water has taken serious damage and may or may not be repairable. Whole sections of the sides of the structure are missing in a random pattern and trying to get across blindly will result in going over the downstream side and being swept away or the upstream side and being pinned by the current. This is as deadly as a firefight and many sensible people will simply avoid it and go back the way they came.

Tasks:
To walk across the flooded section
Agility: Average to Difficult

To recover a swept away individual:
Strength: Average
(Swept away individuals have to make a Swimming: Difficult task to avoid drowning rolls. This increases to Formidable if the individual is wearing other than minimal equipment)

Note that all recovery attempts for vehicles will be at a level higher and catastrophic failures result in an individual being swept away if they don not make a swimming check

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The KGB
(Russian: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) "The Committee for State Security".

I see the KGB mentioned a lot and I thought I'd define who they are and what they do in the Twilight War to clear a few things up.

First up, the KGB is a counter-intelligence military organisation. They are separate from the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) and the SSV (the Soviet Ground Forces). Regardless of what they did in peacetime they have two primary functions in war time; defeat domestic espionage and to succeed in foreign espionage. This will take the form of two main operations, the first being hunting down and capturing foreign agents in the USSR and the second is to maintain intelligence webs in enemy countries and to carry out acts of sabotage.

As you can see, they have no place on the battlefield. About the only time you might encounter them would be in either a NATO-held Canton or in Kraków and even then they would be loathe to be found out. For the KGB their secrecy is their armour, they depend on it to survive.

The KGB does not hunt spies in other Warsaw Pact nations, they have the native intelligence organisations do that instead. They do maintain a liaison officer in each branch and are part of any Warsaw Pact intelligence command chain. Very little is known how this command structure worked but they seemed to have had a dual-reporting system where they let other nations do their thing but had to be kept in the loop.

Sabotage units do not liaise with special forces units such as Spetsnaz. Instead they create their own cells of saboteurs that source equipment through deniable channels to create confusion in the enemy. For instance it is likely that a saboteur operating in the USA would be American and armed with US equipment.

All the other stuff, the military intelligence operations you'd see in Europe, is done by the GRU. If you have the (frankly silly) "Division Cuba" in your campaign then all the spook stuff should be done by GRU officers and their attendant Spetsnaz.

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The MVD.
(Russian: Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del) Ministry of Internal Affairs

Probably one of the most important formations in Twilight 2000 and one that is totally neglected. The MVD is a parallel military organisation to the SSV and is a defining feature of Leninist Communist countries; it is a militarised umbrella organisation that includes not only internal security troops but firemen, paramedics and police. There is considered no distinction between these and other groups. In European terminology it is a Gendarmerie and it is the parallel to the Polish TKO. In US terms they have a separate identity and a Corp d' Esprit similar to the situation with the USMC in contrast to the US Army.

The reason MVD troops are so important to the game is that they act in concert with similar Warsaw Pact organisations to provide rear area security, ie; the area the players are in.
Unlike the Polish TKO the MVD was a behemoth that had over one and a half million men under arms. These troops aren't second rate warriors, they are specialists that not only secure rear areas from stragglers, provide disaster relief and wipe out special forces but they also act as a ready reserve to deal with penetrations of main force units as well as fight on the front lines. One of their specialties is urban warfare. To do so they are heavily armed but have an emphasis on fast movement and independent action.

For a TOE you can use standard USSR Motor Rifle Division for the Field Units (the ones the players will encounter) but generally with a smaller armour contingent. The MVD also do prisoner control, both civil and military, and so on being the police force. The MVD was essentially broken into three parts, the Police Force that stays in the USSR, the Logistics units and the Field Units. Note that the MVD rigorously maintains a separate chain of command to the SSV and this means that the MVD is not going to be drained off to fill up depleted army divisions. However they do fight in front line situations as well, having fought in all the conflicts of the USSR up to and including the 2nd Chechen War.

The MVD had unique uniforms with their own particular camouflage patterns and are often easily distinguished from main force SSV troops. MVD troops used a variety of specialist weapons such as the OTs-02 Kiparis SMG, OTs-14 Groza bullpup, OTs-20 Gnom revolver and many more. I can actually trawl up all their unique ironmongery if people are interested.
The MVD had several Spetsnaz groups of their own and these may well figure in the campaign, however most of these will have suffered massive attrition and others had a policing orientation similar to elite SWAT groups that would probably keep them in the USSR.

I have mentioned elsewhere the MVD “did not get on well with the KGB”. To give you an insight into this situation in the early 1980s some MVD officers and enlisted men hunted down and murdered a KGB officer in the Moscow Metro, as they were the police it’s unsurprising that no one is was never charged for this crime and the reason for why the man was killed is unknown to this day.

The MVD in the Twilight War.
While some of the MVD is going to be on the Oder Line holding back the “capitalist imperialists” they are also going to be behind the lines and controlling the population, providing what disaster relief they can and dealing with stragglers (ie: player characters). The USSR was quite sensitive to how their troops operated after the fiasco of the Prussian Campaign in the latter Second World War and preferred that their troops acted as back up to local internal troops, in this Poland this is the TKO. However it is likely that the TKO would have suffered massive casualties fighting for their homeland so it is equally likely that MVD units will instead have the local surviving TKO contingent attached and who are the primary interaction with the locals.
The MVD is going to secure the web of supply lines leading back to what is left of the USSR. As the strikes were quite limited there will a degree of industrial capacity, the USSR having a far more dispersed logistics network, and as this is a communist group of nations the military will be given the bulk of that capacity and the civilians will get what’s left. Note that while the situation is bad in the USSR a lot of cooperation can be gained over the civilian population by loudly supplying the troops and like everything in a communist country these operations have to have a political/ideological component. From these logistics centres the MVD will range out and try to exert control over the devastated areas. The players will encounter them holding checkpoints, involved in disaster relief operations, guarding logistics routes, maintaining communications relay outposts, engaged in bandit and partisan suppression and of course hunting down NATO stragglers.

[ChalkLine]

OTO Melara Mod 56 Pack Howitzer

This old soldier served in several nations before being put into storage and in fact remains there in many European nations. In the Twilight War it's in the armouries of Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and it still soldiers on with the Greek and Italian armies to this day.

It's a pack howitzer meaning that it can be broken down into sections for transportation and to overcome obstacles by loading up squaddies and making them hump it over the intervening barrier. It's 1,290 kg weight breaks into 12 sub-sections and it's such a little gun that it can be towed by a Jeep or Land Rover. You can even pop the wheels off and fit it into the back of an M113.

This is almost a field gun, an obsolete class of weapon that equally mixes direct and indirect fire capabilities. The weapon has an asymmetrical axle meaning once in place you can lower the gun for a smaller silhouette or leave it at its normal height for indirect fire. Its little stubby barrel means it hasn't got the range of the longer howitzers but it can pop up anywhere due to its mobility. However it's not suitable for long fire missions due to its light construction, it works best as a shoot-and-scoot gun. It fires the standard US type M1 ammunition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_Mod_56
http://www.pmulcahy.com/towed_guns/i...owed_guns.html

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Artillery and the Twilight 2000 Soldier

From 1939 to 1985 artillery was the biggest killer at war.

This is no generalisation. A study over that period titled "Development of Protection Technologies" published in the June 2009 issue of Defence Technology Review, ballistic casualties in general war, including World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Israel, and the Falklands were recorded as 59% from projectile fragments, only 19% from bullets, and 22% from other causes.
Obviously artillery has a place in the Twilight 2000 game.

However as an adventure device it's awful. Players understandably dislike not having the ability to strike back in some way and their ability to influence artillery's lethal power over them is limited to mitigation techniques, primarily relocating or taking cover. Due to this nearly all GMs leave it out of their games (the same as proper sniper attacks).
However, it can still be used - albeit carefully.

Firstly, artillery doesn't automatically hit.
Weather (you guys don't have every game on a cloudless and still summer afternoon do you?) can disperse fires, spreading out the rounds so that even accurate shots don't all hit on target. Shifting targets like moving player vehicles can land in front or behind, signally to the players that the enemy will shift fire soon. Bad weather can lower the gunner's effectiveness, serving the guns in a heavy rainstorm just makes everything harder as the gunners slog about in deep mud. The guns might physically shift in bad positions, meaning the dispersion of their fire is increased.

NPCs using artillery on players have to take many things into account.
Gunners don't live attached to their guns and the artillery and its command might not be ready for shooting. The guns might be pointing the wrong way, some guns such as the Soviet 122 mm howitzer 2A18 (D-30) have a 360º traverse but most do not, meaning the weapon's trails have to be physically shifted to aim at the target. The guns might be remote and may have to be moved to be in range of the target and that alone can take hours as the guns don't just have to be pulled down, hitched up and towed to the new firing position but that position also has to be scouted and secured all while the artillery convoy is protected. Once there the guns have to be oriented on the map, the fire mission calculated and so on. This is especially hard if the players have annoyingly moved in the meantime.

If artillery is pre-ranged on an area there may well be signs of it in the mess left after previous fire missions, alerting the players to the unhealthy condition of the location. Ranging markers might be found in the area, alerting players to the danger.
Finally, there might be mitigating factors that limit the effectiveness of the munitions. Artillery shells are meant to come in almost vertically and don't explode in a sphere of unhappiness, but rather as a disc with a lessened danger zone on front and behind the shell. Direct fire artillery is more dangerous to the sides of the line of fire than to the front angles or behind, although this is only relative and if you're close you might have a lessened fragmentation threat to some degree but the shockwave is still the same. Fuzes might contain high levels of duds as happened during the initial stages of The Great War due to poor manufacture. Clever direct-fire gunners try and hit above or just behind infantry if they have the option as infantry to get cover in front first.

Artillery uses different fuzing and this directly modifies the effects of the munition. "Super-Fast" fuzes detonate instantly on contact with anything and produce a ground burst, individuals in field positions such as rubble sangars, trenches or other fighting positions have a significantly lessened fragmentation danger. "Proximity Fuzes" detonate above the target and this can be set before shooting, the distances are variable depending on the fuze type (many have variable distances that can be set) and some of these also have a Super Fast setting in case the Proximity setting fails. These are extremely dangerous as the can burst above firing positions or individuals in the open and cause maximum casualties. They are offset by having overhead cover. Note that as they burst above the ground they have a slightly reduced blast effect. Finally "Delay Fuzes" detonate a fraction of a second after contact allowing them to penetrate cover and detonate behind it or to dig into earthworks and detonate for maximum effect beside or inside the position.

There are many other types of fuzes. Some fuzes such as the US M734 fuze have the following settings (from wikipedia):
PRX = Proximity air burst between 3 and 13 feet
NSB = Near surface burst between 0 and 3 feet
IMP = Impact burst on contact. (In the event an IMP setting fails, detonation is 1/2 second after impact.)
DLY = Delay after impact of 0.05 seconds in the fuze explosive train before the shell detonates.

In all four settings, the high explosive in the mortar shell is detonated by a cascading explosive train of four increasing energies within the fuze. These are the Microdet electric detonator, the explosive lead, the explosive booster, and the delay primer assembly functioning as follows:
In the PROX, NSB, and IMP fuze settings, a firing circuit applies a voltage to the small Microdet which faces and ignites a bigger explosive lead that channels into the explosive booster which initiates the shell's high explosive.
In the DLY setting, the explosive lead is initiated instead by the delay primer assembly, which operates even in the event of power supply or electronics failures.

Reliability against duds is increased by the fact that if the M734 fails to detonate the mortar shell at one setting, it will immediately and automatically use the next one along, i.e. failure at the PRX setting causes NSB detonation to be selected. Similarly, failure to detonate at the NSB setting will automatically cause IMP to be selected, and so on.
This redundancy is a safety factor designed to prevent malfunctioning mortar shells from being buried upon ground impact and becoming a risk to civilians after a battle or becoming ammunition for enemy activities.
However it is likely that as the war ground on and the vast amount of fuzes were expended simpler, single-setting fuzes would return in large numbers and the gunners might have the wrong fuzes for the task. Proximity Fuzes with their multifunctional uses and high lethality would probably be expended firstly, followed by the various instant fuzes. This might once again ameliorate player casualties.

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D-44 85mm Divisional Gun

What, an AT gun? isn't that a Second World War thing?

Believe it or not the USSR still used this sort of gun as a stop line defence. Never supposed to see the main line of battle, this style of gun lurked in the rear line and right now is seeing action in several places across the globe. They would be carefully sited for oblique fire and dug in with a security element and most importantly belts of minefields. Notably it was calculated that weapons in this class like the "Rapira-3" ("Rapier-3") cost 05% as much as similarly armed MBT (note that the 125mm Rapira-3, although not the 100mm "Rapira", and the 125mm Sprut-B were never really adopted for service and only made in small numbers. The vast majority of this sort of gun was either the 85mm D-44 or the 100mm MT-12 anti-tank gun (2A29), a heavier weapon)

The D-44 is a strange gun, it's an actual field gun. This means that it is optimised for both direct fire and indirect fire. It's also extremely obsolete, the last MBT it could penetrate everywhere frontally was the US M47 (which had really terrible armour, like only 200 BHN) and that old warhorse was retired in the early 1960s.

What makes this gun so significant is that it was the primary training gun of the Soviet Bloc. Everyone used this gun or similar versions to train their gun crews, and as such there are simply buckets of them. 10,800 of them to be exact. And as such they still see combat to this day and they're still churning out ammo for it. This means there's tons of them to appear in the AO when more sophisticated weapons disappear through attrition.

The D-44 is actually a viable weapon in Twilight 2000 as apart from the odd rare MBT that someone somehow manages to haul about it only has to face IFVs, APCs and Light Tanks, something it can easily demolish. It's no heavier than the Second World War Wehrmacht 7.5cm Pak 42 yet it develops much more behind armour effect. What makes this weapon distinctive is not only is it comparatively mobile but it is physically small for such a weapon, it's only 1.42 metres (4 ft 8 in) high. Tactically that's tiny. This thing can be dug in with it's barrel not far off the ground in an earthwork and be almost invisible, and this is probably where it will turn up. Note that even thermograph has trouble seeing positions like this.

Mass: 1,725 kg (3,803 lbs)
Length: 8.34 metres (27 ft 4 in)
Barrel length: 4.7 m (15 ft 5 in) 55 calibers
Width: 1.78 metres (5 ft 10 in)
Height: 1.42 metres (4 ft 8 in)
Crew: 8
Sights:
- OP2-7 daylight sight
- S71-7 and PG-1 indirect fire complex
- APN-3-7 "Yablonya" passive/active infrared (note that the IR illuminators are not always attached to the weapon but tripod mounted supplementary units that complemented the system may be some distance from the gun itself. This can cause confusion in attackers as illuminators are switched on and off as tactical requirements require.)
- DAK-2M laser rangefinder
- Some batteries may have the PSNR-1 portable ground reconnaissance radar station (10km)

It's usually deployed in three-gun platoons, two of which comprise a battery. It's tractor is the ubiquitous MT-LB fully tracked vehicle and it is accompanied by other MT-LBs as ammo carriers and command vehicles, otherwise they'll use various trucks, usually the Ural 375 or older ones like the GAZ-66.
Why mention this dinosaur?

You can do a "Guns of Navarone" scenario for these or other AT guns. A friendly group has to pass by some area dominated by these weapons, which are of course immobile and dug into a trench system complete with firing positions. The friendly group is being chased by some overwhelming group so they have a strict time limit. The players must infiltrate and destroy the guns before the friendly convoy passes. This can be the bit where the players get separated from their unit and head off into Poland for further adventures. I know, it's a lot of waffle just for one little scenario idea.
http://www.pmulcahy.com/misc_pages/lgcal_guns.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/85_mm_divisional_gun_D-44

(Note that the images are of practice formations. You'd never see them in battle like this. The last image is of a WW2 Soviet light AT position for reference)

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BTR-152

Paul Mulcahey has some great info on the BTR-152, an armoured truck that players should try and grab a hold of. However he doesn't have the up-gunned version I'll note here.

First up, the venerable BTR-152 is an odd critter, it has oodles of space inside, especially the open-topped version. This makes it a decent T2K cargo hauler that's immune to 7.62x51mm on the sides and 12.7x99mm on the front. They can carry a ton of people however the engine is kind of ordinary to be charitable, although the transmission and suspension is great. Inventive players might consider an engine swap (and move those fuel tanks away from behind the driver and front passenger!)

But the old beast also had a little-known career as a sort of guntruck. They mounted a stock 7.62mm GPMG over the driver behind a gun shield but got festooned with all sorts of weapon loads after that:
- Single 12.7mm DShKM HMG (instead of GPMG)
- Quad 12.7mm DShKM HMG (no GPMG)
- Single 14.5mm KPV HMG (instead of GPMG)
- Double 14.5mm KPV HMG (no GPMG)
- Quad 14.5mm KPV HMG (no GPMG)
- Single SPG-9 Kopye (Spear) 73mm recoilless gun

And they could even carry a decent load while mounting these monsters; eight troops or equivalent cargo. This makes it a great cargo/fire support vehicle.

As an aside, I found the load list for it:
Axe
Compartment for RPG launcher
Headset bag
Container for RPG rockets
Compartment for driver/co-driver personal effects
Compartment for spare radio parts
Gun rack
Compartment for spare parts
Compartment for ammunition
Starting lamp
Oil tank
Compartment for spare parts
Block winch (some variants have a front winch, the rest have tow cables)
Spare tire
Ammunition box
Shovel
Canvas bucket
Spare box (?)
Mounting kit (?)
Antenna
First aid kit
Tool kit
Compartment for spare parts
Saw
Extinguisher
“Document bag”
Jack
Starting handle
Tow cable.

The open topped version came with a canvas cover and later versions had IR driving lights to be used with IR driving goggles.

http://www.pmulcahy.com/wheeled.../r...eeled_apcs.htm

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Just a little thought:
Every armoured Soviet vehicle with NBC capability uses the GO-27 gamma radiation detector. This device alerts the crew and actives the seals and over-pressure systems. A huge amount of similar systems outfitted Soviet vehicles as well as the infantry, in fact these types of detectors were very common among the Polish Obrona Cywilna PRL Civil Defence units.

Even if NATO units didn't have access to these devices it's not a long stretch for GMs to assume that they'd been recovered from Warsaw Pact vehicles and integrated into NATO survivor vehicles.

[Edit]
AND/VDR-2 Gamma-ray and Beta radiation Detection System. (Civilian name RDS-110V)
This unit comes standard on all US armoured vehicles such as the M2 Bradley IFV. It's a demountable, lightweight radiation detector with the following characteristics:
Wide dynamic range for dose rate and dose
• Pre-settable audio and visual alarms
• 600 hr battery life
• Vehicle mount for operation using vehicle or aircraft power (available option)
• Not affected by EMP
• Nuclear hardened
• Meets MIL-STD-810G for military environments
• Operable/readable by personnel in Mission Oriented Protection Posture (MOPP IV) or arctic clothing
Dimensions:
• Radiac meter: 19.2 x 10.4 x 4.8 cm (7.6 x 4.1 x 1.9 in.).
• Detector probe: 18.2 x 5.1 x 3.8 cm (7.2 x 2 x 1.5 in.).
• Radiac set in pouch: 23.2 x 17.5 x 7.9 cm (9.12 x 6.88 x 3.13 in.).
Weight:
• Radiac with Beta /Gamma Probe: 1.73 kg (3.8 Ib).
• Radiac set in pouch: 2.08 kg (4.6 lb).
Power:
• Six AA batteries.
• 600 hours of continuous operation and monitoring.
• Low battery LCD indication with 10 hr of battery life remaining,
a “Go/No Go” feature provides battery status.
• Can be operated on vehicle or aircraft power (12 or 24 V dc via universal connector).
Alarms:
• Has selectable Visual and Audible indicators for DOSE and RATE alarm for
day or night use.
• Alarm levels are settable over entire dynamic range.
Probe and Detectors:
• “SMART” probe Technology: Instantly recognized and functional upon hook-up, without any adjustment, programming or calibration.
• Combined two GM Tubes; low range EWGM and high range GM.
• Beta radiation: 0.01 μSv/hr to 50 mSv/hr.
• Gamma radiation: 0.01 μSv/hr to 99.9 Sv/hr (dose rate) and 0.01 μSv to 99.9 Sv (total dose).
• Energy response: ±20% 80 keV to 3 MeV.
• Accuracy: ±10% of true dose and dose rate over the entire dynamic range.
• Dose rate: Minimum detectable level 0.01 μSv/hr.
• Response time: Within 10% of final reading in 4 sec at 10 mSv/hr; returns to background within 4 sec. Meets ANSI N42.17A.

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Arsenal Lavina Multi-Shot Grenade Launcher

The Bulgarian “Lavina” («Лавина», Bulgarian: “Avalanche”) is a six-shot, 40mm grenade launcher designed for the Soviet VOG-25 series of grenades. Now, this thing is rare in Bulgarian service so by the time it gets to places like Poland it'll be incredibly rare. However as we all know this is just the sort of thing to get players salivating so maybe now's the time to create some lost Bulgarians who can either be traded with or fought against.

This is a double action only revolver which because the VOG-25 is caseless is faster to load than usual weapons of this type as there's no need to eject spent casings. Note that the sprung telescoping stock that incorporates a buffer pad implies this "little" guy has some hefty recoil.

Calibre: 40mm caseless (VOG-25 grenades)
Type: Multi-shot revolver pepperbox
Length: 525 / 388 mm
Weight, empty: 6.3 kg
Capacity: 6 rounds
Maximum effective range: 400 metres

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KPV Ammunition.

The basic ammunition of the KPV listed in the rules is the B-32 round. This is a steel-cored armour piercing round with a small explosive tip for aim correction. It's got a black and red tip and is well known to T2K players.
However there are two more types that saw use in Soviet service that give the redoubtable KPV more utility, these are the BZT Enhanced Penetration rounds and the MDZ explosive round.

BZT and BZT-M Armour Piercing Incendiary ammunition
The BZT, first introduced in the early 1990s, has an incendiary load in the tail but is otherwise similar to the B-32. The BZT-M was introduced shortly afterwards to replace the BZT and uses a tungsten penetrator. However due to the shortened penetrator it seems that the BZT series has similar penetration and energy values to the B-32 and just adds an incendiary effect. These appear in dedicated belts or are added to B-32 belts in a 1:4 ratio. It has a purple and red tip.

MDZ High Explosive Incendiary Ammunition
This is the interesting one. The MDZ rounds are designed to be used against soft targets such as unarmoured vehicles, infantry in the open and installations such as communications gear. They are also the primary anti-aircraft round.
The MDZ uses phlegmatised PETN explosive and a simple detonator cap rather than a fuze, and this means it carries the same payload as the Soviet 20mm HE round that uses a bulky mechanical fuze that takes up much of its payload. Twilight 2000 v2.2 stats would be C1 B5, -4C. It has a solid purple bullet.

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An interesting thing I've just read is that Polish houses often have a "half floor".

These are half-sunk levels with the main living area above. No doubt this has to do with the frost line being between 0.8m and 1.8m down in Poland (the frost line is the level you have to sink your foundations for us warm climate people).

This means your players are going to see Polish houses in a few new ways. This half level is a natural fighting position providing good cover and concealment. These half levels often have their own access, especially with the new builds.

There is standard methods of fortifying these sorts of structure. Usually the first thing to do is reinforce the floors above as much as possible so massive baulks of wood create a layer overhead combined with vertical heavy supports. This level is then sandbagged for a few layers.

Underneath the walls should be sandbagged as they are often only concrete block or double brick construction. After this blast walls are erected, these are baffles so that any munition penetrating the roof does not directly fragment the entire space. Behind every firing point should also be another sandbag wall to stop projectiles penetrating into the space and attacking defenders. As the firing points are at ground level they offer natural grazing fire for the area. Of course this is the optimum, you can even make these positions gas proof if you want go all out, but that sort of position is doable by a squad in a reasonable amount of time.

As Polish houses, especially in rural and regional areas, do not abut closely you cannot mousehole between them and covered trenches should be created between positions. These trenches should have traverses built in so they cannot be enfiladed. If a blast wall is placed in front of its entrance a loophole can be placed in it to cover the entry.

They are also a trap for vehicles. Trying to plough through a Polish house, never a good idea in the first place, should end up with the vehicle dropping a metre of so into the wreckage. You'll probably see unfortunate vehicles suffering this all over the place.
Of course, now that many buildings are abandoned many of these levels will be flooded.

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MG3 Multimounts

For when you simply can't expend ammunition fast enough and can't get an M134

Double: 12.0kg, $500 R/-
Quadruple(!): 15.0kg, $750 R/-
(Weight is approximate. I can't really think why these wouldn't take other MGs)

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Land Rover 101 Forward Control

This little critter is a really good Land Rover Defender and Humvee alternative for beginning UK players. Now, it was sold off in the early 1990s but with storm clouds gathering I think GMs and players could make a case for it being kept on.

Of course, you would probably wonder why you'd want a clapped-out old mid 1970s truck but this really isn't the case. It seems the MoD had a large amount of these trucks and the vast majority of them spent nearly all their time in storage. Even today you can easily get them with only a few thousand kms on them. This of course begs the question "why did the MoD get rid of these perfectly good vehicles?" The answer seems to be that the MoD had and still has the habit of doing some strange things. (A classic case would be ditching and rebuying the ATMP 6x6 Supacat three times . . . )

Anyway, it's gorgeous and should be in your game. Paul Mulcahy of course has stats for it under "Land Rover 1000 kg Truck".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_R...orward_Control

https://www.military-vehicle.org/veh...and-rover-101/

https://www.ultraflex4x4.com/.../Land_Rover_101FC...

http://www.pmulcahy.com/light_uv/british_luv.htm

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Rail Adapter

A precision-made, slimline adapter that converts one rail system to another. Each rail adapter is unique to its two systems and cannot be used to carry another optic from a different rail system. The vast majority are Soviet to Picatinny and Picatinny to Soviet but there also adapters to the UK and German systems as well.

Note that the NATO standard was the Picatinny Rail (MIL-STD-1913 rail or STANAG 2324 rail) from February 1995 but adapters exist for legacy optics.
Some field conversions do exist but these tend to be larger and lift the optic higher off the bore axis.

$250
0.25kg (including pouch and adjusters)
(S/R) or (R/S) as applicable.

(Note: the 1994 AK-74M/AK-100 and subsequent AKs such as the 7.62x39mm AK-103 of 1995 come standard with a dovetail rail, prior to this only the "N" versions could accept a rail)

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Spähpanzer 2 Luchs

The German Ghost

This vehicle is kinda unique in many ways, a wheeled long range reconnaissance vehicle is no outlier but the complex and physically large Luchs ("Lynx"), which is bigger than a BTR-70, has some unusual features in modern vehicles.

The first is its rear driver, something common in armoured cars of The Second World War. The Luchs with its eight-wheel steering can get its normal 19m turning circle (about the size a bus has) down to 11m (about the size a car has) but even then you can't turn and show your thin rear armour if you have to pull out in the face of hostile fire. So the Luchs can simply be driven in either direction and has a driver facing each direction, and its complex gearbox allows it to reach the same 100km/h speed either forwards or backwards.

Secondly is the speed in which it can swim. The Luchs is a comparatively fast swimmer for an armoured car and can just drive straight into the water without the need for the crew to deploy fording boards or rig for swimming, something found usually only on Soviet vehicles which automate those systems.

Extensive work was put into making this vehicle as quiet as possible, and it was so quiet that it was commonly supposed to be a risk to friendly troops in that it would suddenly appear at high speed on roads.

It's 20x139mm Rheinmetall Mk 20 Rh-202 automatic cannon might seem underwhelming but it can generally damage opposing reconnaissance elements until the up-armoured BMR appears. It is also extremely accurate, possibly one of the most accurate autocannons and its 139mm-long cartridge gives it more penetration than the standard 20x102mm US ammunition. The commander's MG3 is an ammo hog but can lay down serious suppression, it puts out twice as many rounds as the usual MGs in various service around the world and systems such as FNFF that have developed suppression rules can make it a massive killer.

As a player vehicle it can't slug it out against opposition light armour, it was designed expressly to avoid that sort of fight. However its blistering speed means it can dash to the flanks and take other vehicles under fire and then just as quickly retire. GMs will need good maps for this thing as players will want to utilise its speed in order to increase survivability.

http://www.pmulcahy.com/wheeled_lcv/german_wlcv.htm

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Westland WG.33

(A what if, or possibly an April Fool's scenario)

"Suicide Bubble" might be an apt name for this, or maybe the "Fort Zinderneuf Helo" after the Beau Geste fort where everyone got killed when they got ordered up the observation tower. This little thing was an observation prototype that never got off the ground but you are well within your rights to assume that Westland Helicopters made one or two without any official requirements and shipped them off to Europe before someone at the MoD realised what was going on and made them stop.

The WG.33 had a circular body giving excellent vision.
Rotor diameter: 5.0m, fuselage length: 2.0m, max take-off weight: 500kg, max speed: 157km/h, cruising speed: 130km/h.

It has as much armour as a sturdy shower curtain.

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Reloaded Ammunition: T2K hazards

While I personally don't use reloaded ammunition in my games except for niche calibres as I think the projectiles and primers would probably be more scarce than the ammunition itself, we might want to look into the possibilities in such ammo.
Now, the esteemed reloaders here might want to chime in.

The infamous Turkish 1941 7.92mm Mauser rifle round immediately springs to mind when thinking about poorly stored large scale military chambering (thank you Daniel Thompson for the correction) . Unlike the careful reloads done by nearly all private reloaders these factory loads are infamous for having widely varying pressures and have been known to blow up semi-automatic and automatic firearms and the lighter other types of firearm. Note that many military weapons are designed to be able to bear some high pressure rounds if accidently loaded but if fired enough through the weapon even they will eventually fail too.

So, what's the problem with this stuff?
First off, if the players are swapping brass for rounds (we used to use a 1:10 round:brass ratio) then they might be getting various odd stuff indeed. Primers might be poorly seated, the incorrect type or home made. The projectile might be of the wrong type for a variety of reasons leading to varying accuracy and in some cases even to pressure spikes in the chamber if it is incorrectly sized or weighted. The cases might not properly reconditioned leading to splitting or warping. The propellant is undoubtedly sourced from post-war manufacturing of varying power ranging from the damp-squib to the massive overload that destroys the gun and blows the firer's fingers off. I once saw the aftermath of what happened when a heavy-bore hunting rifle let go and the bolt drove back into the firer's face and it wasn't attractive.

So, as we can see you're taking your life in your own hands with this stuff. It might let you down in combat or actively maim/kill you at worst.

The problem from a game perspective is this is pretty sucky stuff to do to the players, what with the radiation, bandits/military, hunger and so on they have it hard enough as it is. If you think about this aspect you want to warn the players in advance through foreshadowing. Add an extra individual into the combat and have the players find his weapon featuring a stoppage after the fight. Have a friendly person warn you about the ammo from a certain supplier. Give them a chance to be wary. I'd also limit this as to make it extremely rare or they'll just avoid it from then on and that feature of the game will disappear. One game effect is that if your PC's have in your opinion too much ammo than this crap can start to appear and they'll stick to military rounds they trust and offload what is probably garbage. However if you go this route you must be scrupulously fair and have the individuals/events they source this junk off suffer the full effects, if not more so, in combat.

By the way, getting crap ammo off a trader is perfect way of sending the players into a vendetta-driven detour to catch the bastard if their favourite sniper rifle suffers damage.

Players are not numpties who just jam any brass into their weapons. They have their weapon skill to spot bad brass that is visibly defective and also they should have the same skill to notice if the power is varying. Misfires and other mishaps are immediately obvious of course. Give the players either weapon rolls or MEB rolls for 1st edition when they first look at it and you can assume they do check it out unless you're playing a firearms newbie.

A simple table is easy for bad ammo:

01-02 Misfire
03-04 Jammed round
05-19 Functions normally
20-20 Catastrophic failure

You can add variables, some rounds might be just a little crap and give a minus on this table. Some rounds might be death in waiting and add a tiny bonus.
For automatic weapons this is simply unworkable in practice. make an adjudication.

Note that in many cases this ammunition might still have saveable brass.

A final note, some ammunition might be remade to match standards as well. I leave that up to GM adjudication.

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Vehicle Wrecks.

First off, Matt Geisler has an awesome page on vehicle recovery and even creating post apocalyptic recycling infrastructure. If you want a sound but unique campaign economy you have to use this.

Everyone loves finding a wreck. Out come the spanners and the players descend on it like a horde of happy little locusts. Woe betide the mechanically-inept GM who has a player with an actual knowledge of working vehicles as the GM will totally misunderstand the players is sneakily building a land battleship with bits. Anyway, it's all good fun.

So, where is some good places to put wrecks?

I like to use what I call the "Fallout Method". Anyone who's ever played the fallout video games knows the devs tell stories with found objects. Just looking at and interacting with the objects builds a narrative that draws players into a story and makes the encounter memorable. "Tank in ditch" says nothing, but saying that beside the tank is some expended medical supplies and spent brass implies the crew fought a last ditch fight beside their stricken vehicle. A drag trail to another position then a sad vignette of some graves show where they didn't get away. The story now sticks in their minds. Usefully these landmarks are also good tactically, you'll hear the players say things like "we'll go back to the tank with the graves and go down the other road".

Apart from that, there has to be a reason why the wreck/derelict is left alone. As such, apart from the standard "abandoned in forest/swamp" encounter, I thought I'd put up some interesting wrecks that might test the problem solving and resources management skills of the players.


- Collapsed Bridge.
As with the M4 Sherman in the image, a heavy vehicle has proven too much for a bridge. Depending on how long it's been there the bridge may have become progressively more unstable. While periscopes, MGs, ammo, fuel and radios are probably gone the actual vehicle's engine and transmission, tracks/wheels etc are still there if they can get it off to say nothing of the perfectly good hull.
There are many ways to get this fellow off the bridge depending on how much work the PCs are prepared to do and players with a week can simply rebuild the bridge right under it.

- Into the Basement.
You need some set up for this. You have to be both in a town and you need an explosion, an untended IED that the players blow in place could be a good one. This brings down an adjacent wall and shows the backside of a vehicle sticking straight out of a basement at an angle where the driver tried to go through the building and went in, bringing much of the building down on the vehicle. Sadly, this is a war grave and the trapped crew couldn't get out. This does mean that while external features such as pintle weapons, smoke launchers and radio antenna are toast the base vehicle is fine. You just have to get it out.
Really, serious earthworks are called for here and if the major structure is still looming over it that needs supporting too. Digging out the rubble, packing in a ramp and shoring up the ruins here are a possible way to retrieve the carcass.

- Glub Glub.
Swimming vehicles don't always make it across. This amphibian rolled over in the river, the crew bailed out and it was swept along until it came up against something. To be blunt, this is going to be a big job not just to recover but to get going again as vehicles detest being submerged. For a start the open vehicle is half filled with stinking mud. Secondly as it's not on its wheels/tracks it resists being extracted, the players have to get lines onto it in such a way that they can right the vehicle, orient it toward the bank and then try and pull it out. Long hours in the river, places open and with little cover, can be expected here. Even just digging the bastard out to where it can be pulled out will take days as even just it sitting flush on the mud makes it almost impossible to recover because of the suction on the hull. However it is totally intact but you can write off the fuel.

- That's Suspicious . . .
This light vehicle is just sitting there in the long grass, looking like it was parked up and the occupants walked away. Well, they did but very carefully. The whole area is simply soaked in aerial mines that have deployed tens of little trip wires in all directions. Demining is up there in the "least fun in the world" category and this roller might not be worth recovering due to the fact you might not be sure you got all of them.

-Yeah, Nah.
This is a variation on the above. This vehicle has been penetrated and the biggest piece of unexploded ordnance the players have ever seen is sticking out of it. Something like a 120mm mortar round minimum, up to a huge honking "Tulip's" 240mm round has landed right next to it and the vehicle is half over the crater with the UXO sticking out.

- I'm Going To Kill That Bastard
A wonderful looking light armoured vehicle is seriously bogged but it looks like a day of work will get it out. It even has all its periscopes and antennas, which is a good sign.
Unfortunately it's in a disputed area and a hostile Observation Post uses it as a benchmark and they dislike people messing with it. First off, the OP crew have a forward observer and the players can expect them to expend either light mortar in 60mm range or automatic grenades on people playing with "their" vehicle. Second off, some annoying bugger with a marksman's rifle takes pot-shots at you if you come close to it from very long range. He moves after a shot or two to avoid counterfire but sure enough he knows it'll take you hours to get it out so he can have another crack at you. All the while the FO is bracketing you with that light artillery. Once you get close to the OP they get serious and the people they are working for counter attack from the flank.

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"What's Got These Guys so Angry?!"

During the course of play the party manages to pick up a civilian specialist who has high levels of skill in some area they desire. This person isn't a particularly nice individual, they are fairly transactional in that they constantly demand high levels of remuneration in excess of what their skill is really worth. However they tend to blur into the background like many other NPCs.

This person has a past. Formerly they filled a similar role in a bandit group and during a raid on a regular Soviet military unit they managed to find something of a treasure, although how it is valuable they are not so sure. It is in fact the colours of a Soviet guard unit. The person was spotted by an observation post and marked but jumped ship from the bandits just before the Soviets caught and annihilated them in search of their banner.

Unfortunately, like most people who think they're quite clever the individual has made some fairly simple mistakes. Soviet scouts were tracking the person in addition to their usual duties and made yet another long distance observation when the person joined the player group. The Soviets now consider the player to be not only bandits but looters of war graves, far different from the universal looting that goes on in T2K. As such they have developed something of an obsession about their colours.

Of course, it's simply not true. However no one usually talks to the enemy especially when they're springing ambushes or hunting you through Poland. This individual with the banner has absolutely no loyalty to the group and if they get near a place like Kraków the person jumps ship again, stealing whatever they can from the players (especially a light vehicle) and heads there leaving the players to deal with the furious Soviets.

Once again, the person has no idea of how to cover their tracks. The players will see the Soviets suddenly disengage and head after the thief. It's at this point they might actually talk to the Soviets who, even though this is a loyalist unit and is fighting NATO, is quite prepared to pay in information to get their banner back. They know where a good condition NATO AFV is in bandit territory and if the players were to go into the city to get their flag back they might be willing to part with that information . . .

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"Ahh, the old "Medicine Wanted', that's #10".

T2K is an older game, having been around for decades. As such the players start to know what the tables are by heart and the rapidly get accustomed to the "Settlement Crisis" table.
This means they get complacent, and complacency is fun.

#1 "Food Shortage"
All lies, lies I tell you. The settlement is loaded with food, they're just uncomfortable with telling the players how they got it. Maybe it's because they raided a NATO rear area unit, killed everyone and took the food. Maybe they did something similar to a neighbour, or maybe they've taken up a nasty habit of cannibalism. In any case the settlement tries to fob the players off onto getting more food for them. They're adroit liars and skinny kids will be artly displayed all the while the leaders wring their hands about how they won't make it through the winter. If the players do fall for these con men make sure later they meet an aggrieved party who lost their food who can tell them the truth.

#2 "Engineer Needed"
Well, yes they are telling the truth here. Well, most of it.
That's not actually a fertilizer/pesticide factory they're building but a chemical weapons outfit, something the players might have strong views on - especially when the settlement uses it on some rather inoffensive neighbours. It's very easy to convert between the two.

#3 "Ammunition Shortage".
Alas, they're telling the whole truth here, these guys really need ammo and lots of it. However later on an OPFOR unit tells the players they've just armed a bandit group preying on the local people they protect and if they don't remedy their blunder they'll stomp them hard with their T-80s.

#4 "Impending Attack".
Once again, the literal truth except it's either a retaliation raid from people they've been persecuting or a police raid by a NATO unit for the crimes of banditry. It'd be embarrassing to lay mines and wire, set up fire lanes and organise training to then later get a call from a desperate group of friendlies who are getting cut up in the defences.

#5 "Internal Unrest"
Do the players unknowingly root out NATO sympathisers?

#5 "Rampant Corruption"
This actually happens in real life unfortunately. Friendly outside groups try and root out corruption only to realise they've blundered into a situation where groups of oligarchs are brutally vying for power, all the while hiding inside the government. However it can turn into a fun "Fistful of Dollars" scenario.

#7 "Citizens Kidnapped"
Dodgy elements have abducted poor starving civilians, punish them! Except they can range from star-crossed lovers absconding to desperate fugitives trying to tell local forces about the vicious repression in the settlement based on arbitrary grounds. Maybe it's simply someone skilled who's left a small town for a bigger one with more scope for their services and if they're returned the settlement hamstrings them right in front of the players to stop the absconder running off again.

#8 "Mechanic Needed"
What seems like a desperate call for help on closer inspection turns out to be the local petrol-heads want to soup up their Polski 125p Fiats so they can race laps around the settlement. Of course "we need to get as much speed as possible to evade the patrols" is the excuse given, but the players later on see them running a post apocalyptic derby without a care in the world.

#9 "Epidemic, Doctor Needed" and #10 "Medicine Wanted"
Really, it's because these people simply refuse to use good sanitation and when an outbreak occurs they send well-meaning players off to capture/liberate/steal a stronger medication than is needed. Later on the players find evidence they sold the stuff to the enemy for a nice profit. If the players then return and demand explanations these glib bastards state the enemy requisitioned it and could the players please go get some more?

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Kraka
(Kraftkarren "Faun" "Lkw 0.75 t gl Kraka Type 640")

Once again, the cute vehicles keep coming.

This little vehicle was in service with Bundeswehr airborne troops from the early 1960s to the 1990s, well within the "retention envelope" of the Twilight 2000 war.

Although it was originally a simple cargo carrier it was developed into a bewildering array of weapons carriers (Waffenträger) that mounted either an MK 20 Rh 202 20mm autocannon, a MILAN or TOW (6 missiles) ATGM, a 120mm mortar and even a ten barrelled MLRS I can't find any information on as Germany only had heavy MLRS systems at the time, perhaps someone can enlighten us or it was an prototype of some type.

There was also a two and a four (very cramped) cot medivac vehicle.

As usual, Paul Mulcahy has stats (Kraka 640) 🙂
http://www.pmulcahy.com/light_uv/german_luv.htm

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Ambush

Please note: this is a simplistic game style post on ambushes. Like most military activities this seems to be an incredibly complex activity.

Twilight 2000 has some very cheerful and optimistic ideas about travel movement. In reality it would be likely that survivors will make only a fraction, if any, of the stated possible movement due to the fact that they have to be constantly on the lookout for ambushes.

By the time the US 5th Infantry Division (Mech) and its added units are crushed at Kalisz both its members and its opponents are extremely competent (if tired) soldiers. Like NATO troops, Eastern Bloc soldiers are not orcs or morons and they will not mindlessly attack in a frontal fashion and line up to die. They do not advertise their existence until the time is right and just tooling along the roads keeping a lookout simply is not feasible. Sooner or later you will die.

The Ambush Commander.
If the ambushing unit has an officer he will assess the situation and first of all decide whether if it's worth engaging at all. Note that this can be worse than a hasty ambush, this individual simply sends some sort of message to a higher command who makes notes on the players and assigns the optimum sized force to deal with them. This means that when the ambush does occur it will be an order more complex and deadly.

The ambush commander needs good intelligence and this is supplied to him by his forward observation posts (OP). These small groups stay hidden at all costs and simply relay information. Note that if the ambush fails they probably will never even engage and this means that the failed ambush will become knowledge to enemy commands when they can contact them. If they are not equipped with radios then a runner is required. This means the OP must be closer to the ambush commander’s command post (CP) and lowers response time. Otherwise signals can be relayed via optical methods such as flags, lights or similar. The usual method used by most armies is known to NATO as “SALUTE” and is this format:

Size and/or strength of the enemy.
Actions or activity of the enemy.
Location of the enemy and direction of movement.
Unit identification. The designation of the enemy unit may be derived from unit markings, uniforms worn, or thorough information provided by enemy prisoners.
Time and date the enemy was observed.
Equipment and weapons observed.

It should be noted that Eastern Bloc troops are fully aware that NATO troops can inflict heavy casualties beyond what their numerical size might imply, just like they can. If the ambush commander is directed by higher command to engage or if they consider that they have adequate assets to deal with the players then the next step is undertaken. Note this means that players might get an encounter rolled and never even see it as the ambushers decide not to engage and simply let the players roll past.

With this knowledge in hand the ambush commander hands over the tactical implementation of the ambush to the senior NCO under a set of guidelines that lay out what the commander wants to achieve. There are several sorts of ambushes, the obvious first that comes to mind is the annihilation of the enemy force but others might a shoot-and-scoot ambush that degrades the enemy’s ability to move, degrades essential equipment, vehicles or weaponry, force the ambushees to flee in a specific direction (usually into a worse ambush) or simply a delaying attack that forces the ambushees to deploy and slow down.

Remember that the CP and the OPs do not engage, it is far more important that these units stay intact so that the result of the ambush is known to command. Communications and medical staff are with the CP. The CP supervises the ambush and monitors its progress. If the ambush commander decides to call off the attack then the command is passed to the senior NCO who pulls his people out while the security element covers their retreat.
Ambushes can happen in any area at any time and in any condition. Just because a choke point is there doesn’t mean the ambusher utilises it. In fact some ambushes take place just in front of choke points which force a unit to deploy to check it out.

The ambush should have two initial priorities:
- cause as many casualties as possible.
- significantly degrade the ambushed force’s mobility.

Other priorities such as the destruction of heavy weapons, command and control, communications and so on come immediately after. The first priority significantly affects the second; heavy casualties usually cause an ambushed unit to stall in place. The priority on the degradation of movement is because the primary defence of an ambushed unit is to utilise as much mobility as possible to escape the killing zone (KZ) where the ambushing group is oriented to maximise their firepower. Normally a unit that is ambushed will turn their weapons in all directions to suppress the ambushers and speed through the KZ and out.

Most actual targets are usually obvious. If the OPs have decided the composition and deployment of the ambushees the heavy weapons will be placed so they have flank shots into armoured vehicles. Exposed drivers and gunners can be ready to die first. Automatic weapons will generally be in positions to either engage unarmoured vehicles or the places where armoured vehicles deploy their dismounts.

Ambush Element
The ambush element usually takes the shape of two distinct groups;
-Assault Element
This is the largest group and they do the actual killing. Their deployment will be covered in the next section. The ambush element should always be sited in a position where each ambusher’s arc of fire overlaps and no safe zones can be created.
- Security Element
This group covers the KZ escape routes and also guards against enemy reinforcements.

Ambush Deployment
Each ambush is different. However there are three very common ambush deployment types:
-Linear Ambush
In this ambush the assault element is along the flank of the ambushed force’s line of march and the security element is at either end and behind the assault element. This is a weak ambush, the ambushees rear element can pivot and attack the security element and possibly roll up the assault element’s line. It is suitable for a hasty ambush where the ambush element can withdraw quickly.
- L-Shaped Ambush
A more dangerous proposition. The bulk of the assault element is once again parallel to one side of the ambushee’s line of march but another element closes off the front of the line. This sort of ambush can occur easily in a built up area where the ambushees head into a T Junction. As the ambushees deploy to face the flanking force they are taken again in the flank by the end element.
- V-Shaped Ambush
The worst of the ambushes in some ways as there is almost nowhere to go that is safe. In this situation the ambush element is set up in a “V” shape that envelops both sides of the ambushees. A high level of discipline is required as friendly fire among the ambushers is possible.

Explosive Devices.
While not a feature of all ambushes and rarely a feature of hasty ambushes explosive devices add a level of lethality and disruption to an ambush. Untended devices such as mines can block off the apparent exit to the KZ and stall if not actually destroy vehicles in a secondary KZ. Command operated explosives can decapitate command or destroy heavy units in a single strike. Command detonated explosives often but not always initiate the ambush, and some can be placed in areas that ambushed forces take cover or try to manouevre through to evade the KZ. Note that IEDs are not a 21st century phenomenon, they were used extensively during the Second World War and even more so during the US-Viet Nam War. Unused munitions will be collected after the attack and reused. Note that by the 1990s command/victim-activated detonation fuzes were supplied for the fuze wells of all mortar and artillery shells. Note that these things simply can’t appear anywhere and due to their nature might give away signs of their emplacement. A hasty ambush might have tell-tale command wires going into a nearby object. Small culverts under roads are extremely suspect and even rubble piles from collapsed walls that spill onto the street might need to be checked out.

A command detonated device needs an operator who usually oversees the location of the device. This can be well hidden, this individual doesn't even have to fire a weapon so they can be for instance deep in a building and just detonate the explosive when radioed or he observes his required target occupy the location of the explosive.

Artillery
For ambushes the automatic grenade launcher and the mortar are the artillery par excellence as they can rapidly saturate an area with explosives.
Poor Conditions.
Generally in most campaigns the Eastern Bloc forces do not have parity in night observation devices. They are well aware of this. If a night ambush is mounted and they feel they have insufficient NODs they’ll simply bathe the area in flares.

Leakers
Some of the ambushees will probably escape. The enemy don’t let these individuals disappear from their minds, they actually expect some to get away. They’ll be vigilant for their appearance. Survivors will be questioned for the composition of the force and the OPs will be on the lookout for the escapees.

Game Play.
As you can expect, this would be a slaughter of player characters.
First off, the players are probably going to want to avoid roads of any type if at all possible. I haven’t even mentioned the carnage that something like an ancient T-55M2 firing down a kilometre or two of open road from a hull-down, concealed position onto the ambush site can achieve. The best way to not get into these positions is to avoid them entirely. As such rigorous scouting is needed, the players are by definition in Indian Country and this sort of bloodbath can happen at any time.

Second off, the GM must understand that the enemy isn’t sitting around with their fingers on the trigger. The skill of the enemy cuts both ways; they won’t expend themselves stupidly and for no point on a risky and unworkable ambush most of the time. If the players appear suddenly, adroitly avoid the ambush site and motor off they’ll probably just swear at them and try and report the encounter. Sure, the higher command might make a note of the players but if there’s a lot of bandit activity they might well consider them a lesser threat.

Finally, if worse comes to worse pop smoke and bug out.
The ambushers can’t cover every option. Obscuration might limit the players ability to react but it does the same for the enemy. Find a weak point in the KZ and punch a hole in it. Yes, the players have to write off the fallen and wounded but that’s what happens in an ambush. Maybe they can scout them out and recover them later.

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Those odd Eastern Bloc camouflages.

Have you ever noticed how some of the mid-Cold War uniform camouflages seem to have little actual camouflage value?

It came out of a German, I don't know if it was Second World War or East German, study that showed that solid colours were better for moving troops. Evidently "busy" camouflages draw the eye if the soldier is actually moving.
The Germans thought that the individual soldier was more vulnerable when he was a fleeting target and quickly moving from position to position and as such created the various "rain drop" camouflages that they considered the best compromise. When the soldier was stationary they were to use fieldcraft to avoid detection.

As friends who served in Afghanistan have told me that people wearing literally black and white blocks of colour can disappear into the terrain it might have had some validity as a concept.

The Russians were never convinced though and adopted a variety of more conventional blocky style camouflages.

(East German and Polish uniforms for examples. Note that the Polish first echelon troops had a different colour camouflage in the T2K setting)