Olefin's Twilight 2000 Universe thread

[Olefin]

March 26, 2001

California

The 177th Brigade attacks Mexican marauder forces near Victorville as the 40th Infantry, after clearing out Lancaster, continues its attack into Palmdale. Mexican Regular Army troops in the area are giving ground, as they withdraw to positions in the mountains north of Los Angeles.

A reorganization of forces in California begins as the 89th Corps is folded into the 63rd Corps, with its supply and headquarters troops being integrated to free up men for frontline duty. The 91st Infantry Division is integrated into the 46th Infantry Division along with militia reinforcements to bring the 46th up to 2000 men. The 49th Military Police Brigade and the 221st Military Police Brigade are joined together into the new 106th Infantry Division, along with some 900 militia, to bring it up to 2500 men, with the two Brigades remaining as seperate parts of the new division. Large scale preparations are being made for an offensive against the Mexicans and recruitment and training efforts in California are beginning to pay dividends to bring US forces back to strenth.

Arizona/New Mexico

In Arizona and New Mexico, preparations have begun to retake the areas lost to the Mexicans.

In Arizona, the 158th Infantry Regiment is reactivated in Flagstaff, Arizona. Its 600 men include militia, Battery Yuma, a battery of three prototype 155mm howitzers that were at Yuma Proving Grounds and a sprinkling of police, National Guardsmen and Border Guards. Its only armored vehicles are four modified bank armored cars and a single M50 Ontos from a civilian collector with two 106mm recoilless rifles added to it. Two of its four infantry companies are horse soliders.

In New Mexico, the 200th Infantry Brigade has been formed from the surviving members of the National Guard, reinforced by some 500 militia from Santa Fe. It has 1500 men, along with the SCV Battery of the 202nd Field Artillery (three 105mm, one 155mm) and what is left of the 7-200 ADA Battalion (five Chaparral, eleven Duster). Four of its companies are cavalry.

It is deployed just north of what remains of Albuquerque, which was destroyed when Kirtland Air Force Base was hit by an 800 kiloton surface burst during the TDM. It ruins have since cooled down sufficiently to move thru its ruins.. That strike and its after effects served to help stop the Mexican invasion from getting to Santa Fe in 1998 as the prevailing winds dropped radiation south and southeast of Albuquerque, preventing the Mexicans from crossing that area due to the high residual radiation at the time.

Texas

The 43rd enters McAllen after dispersing a group of Constitucionales that had taken over the town from the 50 Brigada Tampica infantry that were left in town. The commander issues a proclamation that promises amnesty to any who worked for the Mexicans who were American citizens and that as long as they will not take up arms that any refugees can stay for now. In the north elements of the 1st encounter Bandera Rodriguez near Kingsville. They dig in and wait for the rest of the 1st to join them.

Nuclear attack on Romanian oil facilities (from the end of our Med Cruise campaign game)

Earlier in the war the US had used smaller nuclear air bursts to try to keep civilian casualties down among their allies, the Romanians, which had resulted in the survival of some of the Ploesti oilfields and refineries. This time MilGov isn’t concerned about civilian casualties, instead they want to knock Ploesti out once and for all.

The three Tomahawks launched by the Corpus Christi arrive on target, all detonating one after the other, spread out to achieve maximum destruction of the surviving refineries and oil fields around Ploesti, completely destroying them along with 42nd Guards Tank Division and the 97th Motorized Rifle Division. The only survivors of the two divisions are a detachment of some 180 men from the 42nd along with four tanks in Constanta.

The three 150 kiloton bursts, detonated only 100 feet off the ground, combined with the sustained winds of 20 mph from the north that day, send a huge cloud of debris, dirt and burning oil downwind, full of radioactive fallout. The fallout plumes from the three blasts extend into Bulgaria, with Bucharest covered in fallout of over 10 rads per hour.

Hundreds of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians die or are sickened by the fallout, which hits without warning due to the breakdown of communications in the area caused by the war. The attack devastates both countries, with large areas of the countryside poisoned by fallout for years to come.

For the Soviets the attack is a catastrophe. The destruction of the Ploesti oil fields means the end of any more gasoline, diesel or aviation gas for their forces in Eastern Europe, crippling any further operations there. For their forces in the path of the cloud, their filters for their NBC equipment either long ago used or sold on the black market, the effects are devastating.

Except for 80 men of the 32nd Air Assault Brigade, who escape in their helicopters, every man of the 14th Tank Division and the 32nd Air Assault Brigade sickens and dies from radiation poisoning over the next few days. The Soviet forces that remain are spread out, with several low on fuel. In the coming days Romanian partisans, reinforced by the weapons recently received from the Americans, begin to attack all those units in a bid to finally reclaim what is left of their country.

[Olefin]

by the way the attack on Ploesti and its after effects is what our GM gave us as our debriefing at the end of the mission - as he said if the US wants to win the war then you don't do it with just supplies to guerillas

[kato13]

Was there any thought as to how the Soviets might respond to these three warheads. I know the Soviet options are limited, but canon had the 3 SLBM surviving to this point and 13 small nukes in Spetsnaz hands so it is possible.

Given the tit for tat nature of prior nuclear exchanges I can see the soviets doing something in response. Hard to think of an equivalent target in ravaged Europe, but I am sure there is something they would want to remove from the table.

[Olefin]

The SLBM were part of the next module we played and were dealt with there. Plus remember that MilGov was going for a win here to knockout the Soviets in Eastern Europe totally - and the SLBM warheads werent known to them until after the papers were given to them by the Romanians

He had us play the game from Challenge magazine where the Soviets tried to use one of those nukes and will talk about that later. We rolled up some different characters and did Kings Ransom and its after effects and he included that in the campaign.

One problem would be is what to hit. There are very few targets they can get to with those small nukes. And communications within the Soviet Union are so bad that communicating what happened to Ploesti to the right people might take some time, let alone figuring out if there is any target left worth expending your few remaining nukes on.

As my GM looked at this is MilGov going for the ability to say they won the war. Nuking Ploesti, gutting two Soviet Armies, denying them the last gas station in Europe and helping the Romanians get back their country (even at the cost of nuking a lot of it) - thats how you win a war, not just arm a bunch of guerrillas and hope that somehow they can beat a bunch of Soviet divisions that have gasoline, diesel, aviation gas and working helos and planes.

[Olefin]

Sorry for the long delay - between losing a job and finding one and then looking for a new place to live and living in hotels I havent had much time lately for Twilight 2000 - but finally getting back into it

here we go again

March 28, 2001

Korea

The 8th Army receives orders from MilGov to prepare to embark the newly consolidated 4th Marine Division and the 5th Marine Division along with the remnants of the 1st Marine Air Group and their aircraft for movement to CENTCOM along with the 900 “boots” being trained as new Marines. Fuel for the shipping and escorts needed for the movement of the Marines has just arrived from CENTCOM, along with aviation fuel to allow the USAF forces in Korea to begin limited operations again.

In addition, in exchange for fuel delivered to Taiwan, the 8th Army receives 40 M41D light tanks, 10 M60A3 TTS tanks and 20 V-150S armored cars as reinforcements, along with some spares to get 10 M109 SPG’s operational again. The armored cars are split between the 26th Infantry Division and the 163rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, with the M41D tanks being split evenly between the 7th, 25th, 26th and 41st Infantry and the M60 tanks going to the 2nd Infantry Division, giving those units a much needed boost of armor to increase their combat effectiveness.

Yugoslavia

After a four day standoff, including a foiled attempted assassination by CIA advisers, the 80th Infantry Division changes its allegiance to MilGov. The 76th, for now, remains loyal to CivGov.

Maryland/PA/WV

The 3rd Mechanized and the 28th Infantry link up in Greencastle, PA destroying several small marauder and New American groups encountered in the area. In western PA a supply cache is found by a scout party dispatched by the 28th along with information on six other caches in PA, WV and NY. A large force with trucks escorted by two Bradley AFV's and several armed Hummers is dispatched to retrieve the material, which includes five fully armed and operational Bradley AFV and ten FAV's.

In York the first two vehicles come off the restarted assembly line and are ready for acceptance testing, two Bradley AFV’s, the first new military armored vehicles produced in the US since late 1998.

Norfolk/Colorado Springs

An urgent conference of the Chiefs of Staff on the information gathered from New America concludes after two days. The scale of New American operations in the US is immense and General Cummings has concluded that they represent as big a threat, if not more so, than the remaining Mexican and Soviet forces on US soil. Their operations in Florida and the Ozarks are especially of concern.

General Cummings immediately orders the arrest of some 500 New American operatives identified in the papers who are in MilGov units and organizations in the US and overseas. He also orders that an attempt must be made to warn CivGov of how badly penetrated their own units are, especially the 108th Infantry Division, and of the threat that New America constitutes.

California

The incorporation of Jacques Littlefield’s private museum and armored vehicle repair facility in order to provide armor for the 6th Army begins to bear fruit as a flow of fully operational vehicles begins to arrive to various units. Besides ones that were already operational, others that were previously demilitarized have been made operational using gun barrels, breeches and other parts salvaged from other non-operational or destroyed vehicles in California.

A composite mechanized battalion joins the new 106th Infantry Division, consisting of a scout company with six assorted armored cars, a tank company of five tanks (a Conqueror Heavy tank, a Centurion Mk13 tank, two ex-Israeli Sherman tanks and a Patton M47 tank), a mechanized infantry company with a M113A1 FSV and six assorted armored personnel carriers, a self propelled artillery company with a FV433 Abbot M105 SPG, a Sexton SPG armed with a 105mm howitzer and an M37 105mm Howitzer Motor Carriage, an engineering platoon with three assorted recovery vehicles, and an HQ section with a Saracen Command Post vehicle and an Israeli BTR 40. The addition of the battalion brings the 99th up to 2700 men total.


The 106th is preparing fuel and supplies to join the offensive that has begun north of Los Angeles against the Mexican occupation forces.

Two other tanks from the Collection, one M60A1 and one M60A2, are being sent on tank transporters to join the 40th. The skilled techs there are working on several other non-operational tanks and vehicles of various types, using the facility which is unique on the West Coast in its ability to repair and recondition tanks and armored vehicles.

Texas

The 1st Armored enters Kingsville after effectively destroying Bandera Rodriguez. In San Antonio the Russian commander of Division Cuba is fending off constant partisan attacks as word of the advance of the 1st reaches the area. The losses the division has taken to US forces in the last few weeks have stretched their remaining forces to the breaking point.

[.45cultist]

My old 1st Ed. campaign had a slow resurgence of airborne/ air assault using the airship plans from "Airlords", since most formations wound up light infantry anyway. Mortars were popular, their rounds could be dropped from the airships or supplied to the troops.

[Olefin]

In my campaign the GM had more armor - but no unit was armor rich to say the least - he used the forces that MilGov and CivGov had available to them and interpreted the canon data with some changes to make his own world - one where the troops brought home were used against both the domestic enemy - New America - and the remaining foreign threats on US soil. As well as used hints in the RDF and Kings Ransom as to what was about to happen in Iran as well in the spring and summer of 2001.

And you will see how Airlords factored in.

What I thought was interesting is that my GM when we were playing had us doing a group in Iran and CENTCOM got reinforced there from Korea which allowed us to bring in characters who had fought there. Then what do I find out looking thru the archive - that Frank Frey in his notes was saying that there was supposed to be an evacuation from Korea of US forces to CENTCOM that they never got to release. So my GM's guess at the future of the canon in Iran while we were playing was better than he thought.