Australia Twilight War & After...

[RN7]

RN7 you have not read the entirer thread. Post N°9 has what is written in v2.2. I know what we all think of cannon but as there are 3 different cannons..., often crontadicting each other (sometimes within each other). Your point is right about GDW 2300 but I never played, don't want to play and don't feel like playing it (just don't like futuristic Earth settings).

Well I was just providing information that I read about Australia in the Twilight War, canon or not. You can feel free to contradict it anyway you like.

As a result, if you try to go by cannon the basic is simple: do as you want, like it is said on the back of the book: you are on your own.

I don't think that I'm alone in the view that Australia was damaged by Soviet nuclear strikes.

At least we have a nice exchange and plenty of good and constructive ideas as we didn't have in some times. I like when we are arguing but keep it civil.

Who's being uncivil?

The last counter-argument by Webstral was a good one. His point on the lone boomer is the best you can get. I'll disagree only with one thing, given the types available, there is a good chance that it will not conduct any more missions.

From what I've checked in the early to mid 1990s the USSR had 326 UR-100/SS-11 and 308 R-36/SS-18s. Darwin and northern Queensland seem to be well within the range of an UR-100/SS-11 launched from the Soviet Far Eastern bases of Svobodnyy, Gladkaya, Olavyannaya and Drovyanaya. While an R-36/SS-18 from Aleysk, Dombarovskiy, Imeni Gastello, Kartaly, Uzhur or Zhangiz Tobe could probably hit any location in Australia depending on the model, with the possible exception of Tasmania.

Would somebody with some more time on their hands than me at the moment like to verify the range of the Soviet SS-11 & SS-18 ICBM, and check the distances from Soviet silos in the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Central Asia to Australian cities and locations to confirm this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...e_Soviet_Union
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...a/icbm_fac.htm
http://www.mapcrow.info/cgi-bin/citi...sydney&cntry2=

[Mohoender]

I changed my text on Australia. I'll put the changes in Italic.

RN7 you took me wrong sorry about that.

[simonmark6]

English Teacher mediation here:

Mo does an excellent job in English, about a thousand times better than I could do in French.

What he said was: I like it when we argue but keep it civil.

Meaning: I like it when we can discuss issues in a civil manner.

Rather than: I like it when we argue, but keep it civil.

Which would suggest that he felt RAN was straying from the bounds of civil discussion.

As Mo has indicated, he was complimenting Ran on his ability to keep the arguement civil, not the opposite.

Please excuse me this intrusion, I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi or put down anybody's use of the language, I'm just hoping to clarify that Mo was applauding the quality of debate, not denigrating it.

Here endeth the lesson, homework will be issued in the next post...

[jester]

Targan, sorry if it left a bad taste, but it is kinda true if one wants to be realistic. Which I tend to be often.

Now, as for your idea of a Russian Speitzie force landing to carry out sabotage and commando operations, that is what they do. And they did have alot of stashes or caches placed in Europe and even a few spots in N. America. So, they probably had a few in Oz.

As I said it would be a cool campaign still! Actualy that was what I was trying to do with my Arctic Raiders game. Except the raiding comando force was going to be Americans and Canadians operating in Siberia.


Now back to the Spetzies. To make it more plausible.

The Ruskies shoot their load and they have fewer nukes to toss around. But up-oh! They forgot to target the land of Oz. OOPSIE! Someone is going on a winter vacation for that one.

But, they have a bunch of Spetzies laying around being lazy and irritating the comand with their wild ways. After all all play and no work makes a Speitzi a dull boy. Ivan has a couple old time diesel subs laying around one of the bases in their Far East Ports. So some commander comes up with this hairbrained idea. <A Russian version of Cockellshell Heroes.> They repair an old diesel electric submarine, making it seaworthy with the purpose of inserting comando forces and raiding partys.

The submarine has a full platoon consisting of 3 or 4 12 man teams. They are going to land them on the N. Coast of Oz, each having a zone of operation where they will be tasked with disrupting industry, transit and communication assets. Each has half a dozen small cashes <enough to reequip a full team with basic equipment, weapons, ammo, food, batteries, radios, demolitions the works. And a couple big caches with again enough to reequip the entire team plus alot more equipment for specialty and mission specific items as well as consumables in great quantity. They may even have a vehicle or two with additional fuel. >

The teams land, they make it to specific broadcast point and radio their message back to HQ. To their horror! <OH NO!> the submarine was lost! And only 1 other team was landed successfully, the others went down with the sub. <Life now sucks for the Speitzis who landed> Their mission has expanded, as has their operational area! <No good deed ever goes unpunished! Or were they just victims of their own success?> And to make things worse! <GASP!> those other teams were specialized for the missions they would be required to preform. The team that landed, well they have the basic skills, but they aren't the experts that the other teams were by a long shot! So now you have to accomplish the new mission the hard way, by going old school!

I don't know, but to me it sounds like a campaign I would love to conduct.

And the purpose of the operation?

Oz and NZ are floating aircraft cariers, have port and shipping facilities. And dry docks to repair the vessels that are supporting the Chinese who are tying half the Russian Army, and Korea which they never thought would be such a thorn in their side! They need to deal with Oz but they just don't have anymore nukes to spare. So in goes a platoon or two of Spetzis.

I mean, imagine what a team of SEAL type or SBS comandoes could do to a port filled with ships laden with arms, ammunition and fuel? As well as the transport networds that feed these shipping centers. And of course the comm centers a nice relay station, and a base for Orion flights to detect comerce raiders and submarines. And of course the other aircraft that fly and detect enemy communication.

So, when hightech hardward is no longer available old methods would be brought back. So, a Spetzi attack would be possible in a T2K world.

[Mohoender]

Thanks to the english teacher. I make a copy of the way you write it down.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by RN7

Would somebody with some more time on their hands than me at the moment like to verify the range of the Soviet SS-11 & SS-18 ICBM, and check the distances from Soviet silos in the Soviet Far East, Siberia and Central Asia to Australian cities and locations to confirm this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...e_Soviet_Union
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...a/icbm_fac.htm
http://www.mapcrow.info/cgi-bin/citi...sydney&cntry2=

Your numbers are accurate at least for the SS-18 (204 in Russia and 104 in Kazakhstan). SS-11 were being retired by 1986.

Replace the SS-11 by about 500 Topol (SS-25) that are mostly road mobile (MAZ-547) and regularly moving in Russia. These eventually located at fix bases are to be about 200. That makes them harder to hit and despite a slightly smaller range and single warhead they are much more threatening. SS-25 were designed to counter ABM systems. The ability to penetrate ABM systems should be true also of the R-36M2 (SS-18).

About the SS-18, they are to be R-36M2 (99) and R-36MU (209) as R-36M were retired by 1981. R-36M2 are the only one with enough range to hit any city in Australia (outside Alice Spring, Darwin, Norse West Cape and Perth) if they carry a single warhead of 20Mt. Out of the 99 (more or less) R-36M2 a question remain: how many are equipped with that 20Mt warhead? Don't expect to find this answer until 2020 as the missile will remain in service until at least 2014. Nevertheless they represent such a threat that the Start II treaty which didn't come into effect was specifically designed for them. One last thing about the R-36M2, IRL their number has possibly been reduced to about 2 dozens.

Here is a good site about missiles and the most reliable source on nukes today:
http://missile.index.ne.jp/en/
http://www.nti.org/b_aboutnti/b_index.html

Your research have been good but you should not rely on Globalsecurity (except as a starting point). As everyone I used them a lot until I got to the conlusion that they are among the worse source on the Web on military subjects.

[Webstral]

Mo, you’re probably right about the limited missiles on a boomer tasked to hit Australia. It's impossible to say which boomer gets tasked with the launch, but since we can't say for certain an older boat isn't the launch boat it's safest to assume the boomer in question expends his ammunition.

Another potential launch site for Soviet ballistic missiles is Vietnam. According to the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the USSR has several formations in Vietnam during the Twilight War. I don’t know if the presence of Soviet troops automatically means the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles, but there’s at least a chance that there are Soviet missiles in Vietnam in 1997. Vietnam is less than 3000 miles from Darwin.

Webstral

[Mohoender]

Web you can expect the formations in Vietnam to have a few nuclear device at hand but these would be carried by SCUDs or SS-21 with a maximum range of 300-400km.

Vietnam allows for another option, however: a Tu-95 Bear-H carrying 4 AS-15 Kent nuclear long range cruise missile (3000km range for the Bear and 3000km range for the AS-15).

Actually, the AS-15 could as well be used from a SSN (Victor III, Akula or Sierra). 6 to 8 were carried by each subs and IMO a SSN stands a much better chance to get within range unoticed as the priority would be to destroy the SSBN. The AS-15 carries only a single 200kt warhead but that's enough to do the job.

Anyway during the Twilight War the minimum number of nuclear warheads of the Soviets would be 35.000 (1990). The peak was at 45.000 in 1986. Depending on the timeline and the corresponding tensions this number as a good chance to be around 45.000 again and may be more if i was to follow v1.0.

That also makes the Exchange in T2K very limited indeed.