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.

[ChalkLine]

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.

[ChalkLine]

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.

[ChalkLine]

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.

[ChalkLine]

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