Unrealistic/impossible/hard-to-believe aspects in the Twilight 2000 backstory

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

They've also got the US 7th Fleet being completely wiped out by the Italian Navy when CivGov tries to run a supply convoy to the noted Yugoslavian front.

Actually wasnt that the attempted supply run to the Turks?

Thats another reason - why send troops to Yugoslavia when you dont have a hope in heck of supplying them? Not when every ship you send has to run thru narrow waters off both Italy and Greece (both of whom are shooting at you). Only way it makes any sense is if both nations are still in NATO and still assisting you.

I cant see the commanders of those three divisions willingly getting on those ships knowing they were basically being thrown away to die with no hope of support - its one thing if they got sent off in July 1997 not expecting the US to get nuked. "Oh crap where are we going to get out supplies!"

They got sent over eight months later after it was pretty darn obvious that resupply was going to be nothing but fantasy.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Actually wasnt that the attempted supply run to the Turks?



Thats another reason - why send troops to Yugoslavia when you dont have a hope in heck of supplying them? Not when every ship you send has to run thru narrow waters off both Italy and Greece (both of whom are shooting at you). Only way it makes any sense is if both nations are still in NATO and still assisting you.

I cant see the commanders of those three divisions willingly getting on those ships knowing they were basically being thrown away to die with no hope of support - its one thing if they got sent off in July 1997 not expecting the US to get nuked. "Oh crap where are we going to get out supplies!"

They got sent over eight months later after it was pretty darn obvious that resupply was going to be nothing but fantasy.

I think what the 7th Fleet (um, isn't the 6th fleet the one in the Med, and the 7th is in the Pacific?) was doing depends entirely on which version of history you use.

I prefer the v1 history, written before Yugoslavia went to pieces; in that case, Yugo comes into the war on the side of NATO. Yugoslavia's resistance heartens Romania, and given them a non-invasive border.

V2 history includes Yugoslavia's (historic) break-up, so its not there as a single entity for the US to try to supply, I think. I'd have to check...

OTOH, how much does it matter?

Uncle Ted

[Olefin]

It only matters if you look at the logic of the game - and frankly a lot of US military and government officials had very little logic

if you want to design a game at least make it one where the US doesnt behave stupidly in order to have the scenario occur

i.e. throwing away three divisions uselesly to Yugoslavia when at the time they left the Mexicans were rampaging north thru the Southwest and then allowing a division that is supposed to go to Texas to stop said Mexicans not join the offensive thus dooming it tofailure

actually surprised that after seeing both those events that MilGov didnt do what probably would have been done in real life - declaring CivGov to be sabotaging the US war effort and allowing US citizens to be put under foreign rule by an enemy invader and taking out CivGov right there and then

and for the record I dont mind the US getting their butts kicked - hey it happens no matter how good you are - the guys on Wake were all professionals - and they lost - the USS Houston was a great ship and they went down anyway

what I do mind is acting stupidly in order to have the game work

having those divisions stop the Mexicans cold in order to show CivGov actually can protect the American people makes a hell of a lot more sense than sending them to Yugoslavia to somehow build up US morale while Texas and Los Angeles are falling to the Mexicans

[Adm.Lee]

I've always ignored the US divisions that went to Yugoslavia, myself.

The whole Italians-and-Greeks switching sides seemed farfetched to me, at least as much as the Mexican invasion of the USA. Maybe one of these events happening, but all three? Italy or Greece trying to sit the war out and joining France in a 3rd bloc seemed more like it to me. Actually attacking the NATO Med. Fleets seemed pretty dumb, but not as dumb as invading Austria and Southern Germany.

I was a college freshman in 1986-87, and there was a Greek kid in my dorm. He told me the Greeks were occasionally working up for a war with the Turks, with Constantinople as the objective. I played that with both Gulf Strike (VG) and Third World War: Southern Front (GDW), it was a fair match without NATO getting involved on either side.

(sidebar: Someday, in a WWII alternate game, I'd like to try a Greek-Italian alliance vs. Turkey someday. Say, in 1938 or '39 or even '40, instead of Italy attacking Greece. I have all of GDW's Europa series, so the OBs are available.)

[Olefin]

Italy would have been much better off saying she was invoking her treaty with Greece but instead doing it by pulling out of NATO and supply Greece with weapons - then they and France both end up coming out relatively intact (they still get nuked but not as bad like France)

Getting those three divisions to Yugoslavia wouldnt have made any sense by 1998 for another reason - by then that country had ceased to exist - frankly the only military reason you could see them being sent to the Med would have been either an operation to grab Sicily from Italy or to possibly land in Turkey to support the Turks against the Russians and Bulgarians - if Italy had even a small fleet and air force left they would have made those convoys pay so badly I doubt there would have been a viable force left to make the landing

Like that alternate WWII scenario with Italy and Greece teaming up against Turkey - or alternatively against Yugoslavia - especially since Italy could offer the Greeks a free hand to annex Macedonia in exchange for Italy taking over the Croatian and Slovenian areas of the country that were part of the old Roman Empire - and the Greeks werent exactly buddy buddy with the Brits prior to the Italian invasion of Greece

[Matt Wiser]

The Mexican invasion of the Southwest and the invasion of Alaska were too far, even for me. In one of the numerous threads discussing the former, I mentioned that General Cummings would have unleashed some SAC elements on Mexico's supply and transportation hubs in Mexico, with instant sunshine.

If you dig up the Naval stuff I did, that should tell you how much I thought of GDW's treatment of the USN. And those were the ships I listed as active. I didn't list ships that were in port somewhere, either needing fuel or repairs to get home, unless it was something like one of the battleships. I did list the fate of the carriers, though.

[Twilight2000v3MM]

Unrealistic? My two cents..... it's fiction guy. Enjoy it as is :-)

[Olefin]

And actually you are free to change the history of the game anyway you wish after the game start - and as has been stated before here character actions can change the game a lot.

And if you want to ignore certain parts of the back history and have a non-canon game - then if your GM is for it then go right ahead and do it.

It would be different if this was still a supported game with new modules being released and its history constantly being updated and any non-canon game would quickly run askew of what was being released.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Olefin

if you want to design a game at least make it one where the US doesnt behave stupidly in order to have the scenario occur

Because the US never behaves stupidly? Every country's government has behaved stupidly at one time or another, mine included.

[Rainbow Six]

Whilst I don't disagree that the US Divisions going to Yugoslavia doesn't appear to be a logical / sensible decision, I think it has been discussed on this forum before and a viewpoint was put forward that Civgov took the decision from a purely political point of view as a counter to Milgov, who at the time were sending reinforcements to Germany.

If I recall correctly, the proposed logic was that Civgov needed to show that it still had the capability to send troops to Europe as a way of scoring political points against Milgov as both are claiming to be the legitimate Government of the US and if one did send troops overseas and the other didn't, that would weaken the standing of the one that didn't.

That said, looking at this this morning, I'm not sure if there's an anomaly? I'm at work, so don't have access to any materials other than what I can source online, so am going off this timeline

http://www.d20.demon.nl/t2k/t2ktime.html

That states that the 76th and 80th Divisions are sent to Yugoslavia in October of 1998 (specifically late October inthe case of the 76th)

Same timeline then states that the split between US Governments took place on 19th April 1999, i.e. six months after those two Divisions were sent to Yugoslavia.

So if that's correct, it was only the 42nd Division that was specifically sent by Civgov - the other two Divisions were sent before the split, so presumably declared for Civgov at some point after 19th April 1999, at which point they were already in theatre. Or have I missed something (or is that timeline wrong)?

There are a whole host of things that if you study them in any sort of detail don't make sense, but they are what makes Twilight 2000 what it is. On this occasion I think it's simply a plot device to give those who might want to play a Balkans campaign with US player characters, in the same way that the RDF Sourcebook put Israeli units on the ground in Iran (which to me is about as plausible as Scotland winning the next World Cup) so that you could play Israeli PC's in an RDF campaign.

[Olefin]

Keep in mind that this Iranian goverment is a moderate goverment and not the Islamic government that we are familiar with. Iran and Israel have had a long relationship that goes back to the old Persian Empire days - its only recently that the "Death to Israel" relationship has occurred.

So given that kind of government you could have them there. However that doesnt mean that there arent people in Iran (Twilight 2000 version) from the old regime who are too happy about Israelis being there - could be an interesting way to make an Israeli player characters life a lot more interesting in Iran.

There might be an issue with his timeline there that you mentioned as to the Civgov break with MilGov

[raketenjagdpanzer]

If CivGov wanted to really score some points with the "Folks back home" they'd do their own "Going Home"/Operation: Omega and pull troops out of europe and redeploy them to the southwest and Alaska to fight the Mexicans and Russians, respectively, and as much as possible pull out as much heavy equipment as they could, then use it as a propaganda win.

"The illegal 'Military Government' is still sending troops to Europe - We're bringing our boys back to defend the homefront! Support the legally, democratically elected government of the United States of America! Reject the military junta that threatens the republic!"

If they did this as news of the "Final Offensive" of the 5th Division began to filter back they'd surely win big; CivGov troops come home, in good order, rolling tanks, APCs and other equipment off whatever ships, flags flapping in the breeze, units being prepared for redeployment, etc. etc.

Then three months later, a ragtag bunch of soldiers with nothing but the guns they're carrying come staggering off a bunch of ships and are then set loose...

It'd be a huge blow to MilGov on the public opinion front, and as strange as it might seem I would think public opinion would matter a great deal: what cantonment is Farmer brown taking his last functional tractor, three strong sons, and a couple tons of wheat to? The CivGov one or the MilGov one?

Of course all of that is predicated on the notion that CivGov could scrape together the sea-lift to do an "Operation: Omega" to begin with...

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Targan

Because the US never behaves stupidly? Every country's government has behaved stupidly at one time or another, mine included.

Oh and Targan I never said the US never behaves stupidly - but frankly the US leadership in the game, especially CivGov is close to treasonously stupid - MilGov sent a hell of a lot of troops to fight the Mexicans and Russians in the Southwest

CivGov didnt send anyone and talked one division out of joining the 5th Army when they tried to clear out Texas

Thats not stupid - thats STUPID

and no politician trying to score political points says "screw the citizens of CA, AZ, NM, LA, OK and TX - we got better things to do in Yugoslavia"

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Olefin

- but frankly the US leadership in the game, especially CivGov is close to treasonously stupid - MilGov sent a hell of a lot of troops to fight the Mexicans and Russians in the Southwest

CivGov didnt send anyone and talked one division out of joining the 5th Army when they tried to clear out Texas

Thats not stupid - thats STUPID

and no politician trying to score political points says "screw the citizens of CA, AZ, NM, LA, OK and TX - we got better things to do in Yugoslavia"

This rationale is probably why the US Military got fed up with how the US Government was running the war and set up a rival Military Government.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Olefin

and no politician trying to score political points says "screw the citizens of CA, AZ, NM, LA, OK and TX - we got better things to do in Yugoslavia"

While I do have serious problems with the "Why", I can actually see how a naive president could be convinced of this. Yugoslavia is the ONLY place where CIVGOV has any true foreign presence (CIA outposts aside). I can see where someone feels supporting this is important (perhaps they feel success will allow them, and not MILGOV, to negotiate the end of the war with the Soviets or to pickup defections overseas at the same rate they did at home). Colossally stupid yes, but at least stupid with a motivation.

The "How" is more of a mystery to me. Getting reinforcements past two enemy nations into very restricted waters, with at most a tiny fraction of what ever US assets are in the region seems like suicide. Not to mention the myriad of societal and logistical issues that you would see when trying to strip the US east coast of that volume of troops post TDM.

[Raellus]

I agree that the "why" is not as far-fetched as some of you think. For most of the last century, the U.S. has found itself in the position of being a world power. A huge part of that mantle is military power. In order to maintain that lofty position, one has to show the flag abroad, often attached to a rifle. If one is unwilling to walk the walk, they lose legitimacy at home and abroad. You just don't see any truly isolationist presidents since FDR took office. A lot of that has to do with the Cold War. No one wanted to be seen as soft on communism, or ceding world leadership to the Soviets. Entertaining such notions was political suicide. So, looking at it through that lens, it makes some sense.

In the v1.0 scenario, you have a president whose legitimacy is challenged openly by a competing faction. MilGov has a heavy presence in Europe. This gives them a degree of legitimacy, at home and abroad. The CivGov leader, seeing himself as the true head of the nation's federal government, wants the same sort of legitimacy, so he sends military forces to a region in Europe where they can fight the Soviets without much risk of a direct confrontation with MilGov forces. I agree that it's a rash, somewhat frivolous, wasteful move, but an American president has never used military forces in such a manner? It's a bad call, but people- yes, even presidents- do make bad calls.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Olefin

It only matters if you look at the logic of the game - and frankly a lot of US military and government officials had very little logic

if you want to design a game at least make it one where the US doesnt behave stupidly in order to have the scenario occur

Ah, I think you misunderstand me. The part that doesn't matter was whether the US 7th Fleet was on its way to the Adriatic or to Turkey when it was destroyed by the Italians.

In either case, sending a resupply through a small area (Tyrrhenian Sea/Sicily Strait) where an enemy has significant air and sea assets is idiotic.

The supply issue is another good case of stupidity. Since WW2, most modern militaries (including the US) has been well aware of the importance of logistics, especially for force projection. Troops that cannot be supplied with food, ammo, and fuel are wasted, as they will soon be unable to defend themselves. If they cannot be supported, the troops are NOT sent. At least in Germany, ammo is plentiful since NATO standardized ammo, and it was stockpiled. Not much NATO ammo available in Yugoslavia; deployment requires a supply route, and there is not a secure route available.

(But logistics also leads to my problems with the Mexican/Texican affair - after its initial attack, the Soviets will run low on ammo that cannot be supplied by the Mexicans or US sources.)

Similarly, the Soviet invasion of Alaska, while producing an interesting gaming environment (perhaps), is a pointless waste of Soviet strength. More sensible would have been to assault the North Slope (only) to seize the oil production facilities. Let the Americans stretch their logistics lines to counter attack. What else in Alaska has easily gathered resources immediately useful to the Soviet war effort?

Now, T2K reminds me of Game of Thrones. By the time I got halfway through the third book, I was getting a little annoyed of every character in a leadership position always selecting a path that would lead to the most self-destructive result!

Uncle Ted