Olefin's Twilight 2000 Universe thread

[raketenjagdpanzer]

On the almost total destruction of the USN, I will say this: thanks to the Walker's treachery, the Soviets knew dangerous amounts of stuff about our Navy. Had there been a non-Nuclear (well, not immediately nuclear) shooting war we'd have been in for some horrible surprises vis-a-vis their defenses versus our technology. It isn't that they were technologically superior: they weren't. It's just that they knew so much about ours thanks to those pigs that they could have really crippled us out of the gate. That's one thing that I think needs to be taken into consideration.

We just didn't know until the KGB threw open their archives how badly we'd been compromised.

[HorseSoldier]

Couple thoughts on the game setting and how it interacts with the real world.

1) Twilight 2000 is predicated on the idea that the Soviets/Warsaw Pact were every bit as bad a threat as we believed they were in the depths of the Reagan-era Cold War.

So on issues like whether or not the real world Soviet Navy ever tracked an Ohio class boomer -- irrelevant. Apparently in the T2K universe they could, just like USN intelligence and planners were terrified that they could if the balloon went up.

2) Same sort of thing with New America -- ultra-Right Wing politics and nuke war survivalism were both on the map, in terms of public perception, in the 1980s. "New America" is just GDW repackaging William Pierce (aka author of the Turner Diaries) and his National Alliance political party, with a lot more money and success appealing to people than it enjoyed in real life.

Plausible? In a universe where Mexico can pull of the logistics of power projection outside its own borders and the Soviets can somehow drive armor/mech units from Nome to Fairbanks in Alaska -- we're way through the looking glass.

Of course, for campaign play, it's all down to what appeals/makes sense to the gaming group.

The GDW Drought is another one of them -- honestly it works for me on the (pseudo) scientific side of things that popping a bunch of nukes could result in unexpected climate outcomes. On the other hand, I think it dramatically has some problems -- basically I think it has some unsatisfying storytelling elements to follow the narrative arc from being dumped in the middle of Europe post-WWIII nuke, struggling all the way back to the US of A, only to find out that things aren't just bad, but they're about to get annihilated to a whole new degree.

[Olefin]

My thoughts on what happened to the troops who came home from Omega in my campaign universe - which by the way is where any sourcebooks (like East Africa) or others things I do submit here will be set

Hope you enjoy

US Army Reorganization after Omega in Olefin’s Twilight 2000 Universe

MilGov began segregation of the units that reported for Omega in Bremerhaven and elsewhere in Europe (Great Britain, Norway, etc.) where the units reported.

In addition to Army units there were Air Force, USN and USMC personnel involved in the evacuation as well.

Upon arrival in Norfolk the units that had maintained their unit cohesion were reassembled and readied for deployment in the US. Non-US citizens who had joined these units were offered US citizenship if they stayed with the units and almost all of the men and women took the offer.

In addition to these troops several formations had arrived as mobs of men, with almost no unit cohesion. These personnel were offered a chance to join CENTCOM prior to embarking and some 5000 Army personnel plus another 500 US Air Force and USN personnel and 500 USMC personnel volunteered for duty with CENTCOM.

One unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Armored volunteered as a unit for duty in Kenya. The remaining US Army units that had arrived with no unit cohesion were disbanded and their personnel made available for reinforcement of the units that remained. These units that were disbanded included the 44th Armored Division, the 1st, 35th and 36th Mechanized Divisions, the 2nd ACR, and the 1st Cavalry Division.

Upon arrival at Norfolk all soldiers and officers were informed that the US was still in a state of war with foreign soldiers still on US soil and that until the state of war was lifted they were in it for the duration and that desertion during time of war was a capital crime. While some men were allowed to leave the military due to wounds or disability, they represented only a small fraction of those that returned.

The following forces were stood to on December 1, 2000 at Norfolk ready for re-assignment in the US:

7th Army HQ
1st Corps HQ
• 3rd Mechanized Division – 5000 men
• 6th Infantry Division – 2000 men
• 38th Infantry Division – 3500 men
• 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment – 400 men

V Corps HQ
• 3rd Armored Division – 5000 men
• 28th Infantry Division – 1000 men
• 4th Mechanized Division – 1000 men

Unattached units
• 1st Armored Division – 4000 men
• 43rd Infantry Division – 1000 men
• 5th Mechanized Division – 400 men (grouping of all known survivors that made it back to Bremerhaven in time)

Reinforcement Pool:
• 9000 personnel of the disbanded units

Equipment

The units were reissued their personal weapons that they had turned in at Bremerhaven. In addition they were issued 50 caliber MG, mortars, light anti-aircraft missiles and artillery pieces that had been installed on the ships as defensive weapons in order to avoid turning them in to the Germans as well as anti-tank missiles, mortars and other equipment that was at Norfolk.

MilGov had also managed to obtain some transport and light vehicles as well, mostly Hummers and various armored cars, to equip the units as well as a small amount of LAV-25 and M113 vehicles.

The only armor available was culled from a variety of sources including reconditioned museum pieces, repaired vehicles from a shipment of recovered vehicles that had arrived in early 1999 and never gone further south after that as well as a small shipment of armor that arrived in the late summer of 1999 that sat in the Norfolk area due to a lack of shipping and a need to use them for local area defense. In addition a few armored vehicles had been loaded onto one ship at Bremerhaven that arrived there in the late summer of 2000 with a final shipment of ammunition and spare parts from MilGov and had fuel for a return trip already.

The following were available to be issued:

• 4 M1Abrams
• 3 M1A1 Abrams
• 3 M1A2 Abrams
• 4 M60A4
• 12 M551 Sheridan
• 18 M48A5 Patton
• 6 LAV-75
• 4 Stingray
• 4 M47 Chaffee

A total of 58 tanks as well as 7 SPG and 6 Bradleys were available in total.

Plan – to use the evacuated 7th Army to attack into Texas and restore the US position there and drive the Mexicans and Soviets out of the country in concert with MilGov forces already there and resistance forces as well as destroy the Texian Legion. If successful, to then restore the areas in Arizona and New Mexico to US control and finally California.

[HorseSoldier]

I don't think MilGov circa 2000 has the logistical capabilities to redeploy everyone coming off the Going Home convoy to Mexico, nor to effectively re-equip them as a fighting force except on the most minimal levels.

It is, however, pretty silly to think MilGov's leadership is going to be in favor of just discharging all those personnel in another "good luck, you're on your own" moment. All I can see that really accomplishing would be to destroy any remaining semblance of order in the Virginia area as some portion of that force have to turn to banditry and marauding to keep themselves fed.

Of the guys who come back, some portion will want to do nothing but return to their homes and see if anyone is still alive. A lot of these guys, after surviving years of war in Europe, aren't going to be slowed down by MilGov trying to enforce a death penalty for desertion. And MilGov isn't going to be terribly well equipped to carry out those threats if a deserter(s) can get more than a few klicks outside the wire.

The more effective reason guys will stay with the colors and not just take off is that, after seeing that the US isn't any better off than Europe, they'll realize that getting home may simply not be plausible (or survivable). That may or may not translate into any enthusiasm for continued soldiering and active campaigning.

My take on the influx of personnel into Norfolk is that MilGov first sifts the returnees for useful skills relating to reconstruction and sustainment efforts. These guys get pulled as wartime essential by the government, but also get some perks to keep them from potentially taking their valuable skills elsewhere. Most of the remainder get converted into a modern day equivalent of the Roman limitanei, and get some version of 40 acres, a mule, and an M16EZ with a requirement to do part time military service and part time reconstruction duties. These guys are organized into company and battalion sized elements and seeded in the Virginia and North Carolina region to provide some backbone to the local militia.

Operating forward of the limitanei screen (and inside it as needed), MilGov re-establishes the 6th Special Forces Group as a counter-insurgency and foreign internal defense force. ODAs augmented with mechanics, experienced farmers and ag-science guys, veterinarians, and other not-your-normal-military-types work on drawing more outlying communities into the MilGov network by helping them with subsistence and recovery on the one hand and bandit suppression/stability operations on the other. When a given community is settled down enough, limitanei units are moved in and the SF/CA guys leapfrog forward.

The main limitation on how effective the SF teams can be is that they have very, very limited air support for either logistics or CAS. Consequently, teams that get too far out on the edge are pretty much on their own. To help address this on a semi-local level, 6th SFG maintains several mike force companies for QRF if an ODA camp gets in over its head.

If a threat is bigger than the limitanei or SF mike force units can deal with, MilGov does recruits for volunteers coming out of Europe to form a couple conventional infantry brigades (as well as volunteers for 6th SFG). These two brigades are not the usual T2K "brigade = 500 guys and a tank" but actual attempts to rebuild actual brigade combat teams to a (modified) prewar table of organization and equipment. There are limitations and modifications -- tube artillery is pretty scarce, so fire support is all mortars (surviving tube artillery being in a separate unit under direct control of the commander of the Norfolk enclave), the units are motorized for mobility, but a lot of that motorization are civilian vehicles that picked up a coat of green paint along the way, that sort of thing.

The overall objective is to get the area the Norfolk enclave can effectively control back online with agriculture and light industry to provide a food surplus and manufacturing base. Once they're able to do that, they start expanding -- direction of travel being either towards other MilGov enclaves or resources that are still intact or can be put back on line with the resources available. Situation permitting, other MilGov enclaves are doing the same oil spot trick and spreading out towards Norfolk and other enclaves as well, though the manpower available to Norfolk makes it the centerpiece of the plan.

[Olefin]

I see them as bringing them back for a military reason. They could have left them in Europe and have them continue to fight with the Soviets.

However the problem is that MilGov has Mexican and Soviet forces in control of a lot of the American Southwest. The forces they have there can hold them but cant take anything back. And there isnt anything left in the US to reinforce them.

So where can they get troops? Not from CENTCOM - whats there is needed there to keep what little oil they are getting from overseas going. And not from Kenya - the small forces there are needed to keep the refinery going that is essential for CENTCOM.

And Korea is a long way off plus there isnt that much there.

But Europe has a lot of trained troops - in fact most of what is left of the pre-war Army is there. And really they dont need the tanks that they brought to Europe.

Mexico doesnt have much in the way of AFV's left and the Soviets are out of fuel. So even if all they bring home is the men and some limited weapons its enough to be able to get the advantage they need to retake Texas and the Southwest.

As for logistics - you arent talkign about moving a huge army of tanks, APC's, etc.. - you are talking about moving 23,000 men at most and a very small assortment of vehicles - which can be done with a few coal fired ships or a few coal fired trains. And they would want to move them out of VA anyway - thats a lot of new mouths to feed in one area. But spread over northern Texas and Louisiana and Oklahoma - not as much.

it would be one thing if they had to move all the stuff of a modern army - but in reality what they are moving is mostly men - and a lot of the movement will be by shoe leather or horse drawn cart.

As opposed to those who wrote the game I dont see the US military as being dumb or foolish - you dont give up hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles for no good reason when you have no way to replace them for years if not decades. Let alone all the planes, helos, artillery pieces, etc.. they abandoned.


They brought them home to use them as soldiers to fight the war at home and win it. And that is how in my universe they were used.

[HorseSoldier]

To be fair, MilGov has a pages long list of problems, only one of which is Mexicans and a token Soviet force in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. Whether the Mexicans and Soviets in the SW USA are the top of the list is debatable -- also whether it's one they can effectively influence with the tools available to them.

[Olefin]

if MilGov represents the US govt and they are supposed to defend against all enemies foreign or domestic then getting the Mexicans and Soviets out is definitely number one on their list (or at least shared with taking out New America)

and face it - without the oil from Texas they are screwed and they know it long term

And remember I dont recognize the uber drought from Howling Wildnerness and Kidnapped - as far as I am concerned those modules dont exist except for the historical data up to Omega as that is what my GM came up with to try to keep the game going after he and the players generally were disgusted by the way Kidnapped and HW in his words "hijacked our Saturday afternoons and took them to Mad Max's Australia instead of to WWIII"

so the events of 2001 in HW and Kidnapped arent used by me in my GM universe - which from many of the posts I have read here is a relatively common occurence among a significant minority of the players and GM's here

and as a GM that is my right within the game to do that - remember this my thread about my particular campaign only - not about the canon- i.e. this is how my game as played by my GM diverged from canon and how I am taking up that mantle of what he did from here

in the canon the Mexicans held onto Texas for a hundred years and still have CA - but not in my GM universe - as you will see - but again that is only in Olefin's universe -

however I think I am making a pretty valid point that MilGov wouldnt have wasted the organized divisions that reported to Bremerhaven by just letting them mill around in Norfolk till they starved or deserted

and love the discussion Horse Soldier - you make some very good points and I look forward to more