Possible Module Followups

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by Olefin

One thing I am trying to remember - was the original 2300AD for Traveller done with the first edition of the game or the second

In the first edition Japan basically comes thru almost intact - where in the second edition they get nuked big time by the Soviets

First. T2K v1 came out in '84, T:2300 in '86, 2300 AD in '88, and T2K v2 in '90.


I've got two things I'd like to see: more about the Caribbean and Gulf (following on from Red Star, Urban Guerillas, and Spanish Main), and more off-beat adventures in the vein of Twilight Nightmares.

[mpipes]

It would be nice to have something setting out the conflict in Asia/China. Europe was almost paradise from how I interpreted the little bit of official information that came out.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by The Dark

First. T2K v1 came out in '84, T:2300 in '86, 2300 AD in '88, and T2K v2 in '90.


I've got two things I'd like to see: more about the Caribbean and Gulf (following on from Red Star, Urban Guerillas, and Spanish Main), and more off-beat adventures in the vein of Twilight Nightmares.

Frank Chadwick told me when I visited them that they were working on 2300 and T2K v2 at about the same time, but 2300 was nearly ready to go while v2 was in sort of an embryonic stage.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Frank Chadwick told me when I visited them that they were working on 2300 and T2K v2 at about the same time, but 2300 was nearly ready to go while v2 was in sort of an embryonic stage.

It sure seems like V2 never really got off the ground - except for the various sourcebooks it never really went anywhere - and always wondered how they were going to reconcile the differences - i.e. Japan in V1 pretty much being unhit versus V2 where it gets nuked after taking the Soviets on, Korea being unified in V2 versus non-unified in V1, etc..

[Olefin]

FYI one reason its hard to do module followups is the whole albatross around the neck of writers like me that is Howling Wilderness - after re-reading it again I am basically still standing by my statement that it painted GDW into a corner as to the future of the game - basically it kills off the US and makes campaigning in the US into nothing more than a game of Aftermath or Fallout.

Even if you accept the (completely unrealistic) drought as canon and its effects on the US and try go forward from there the simple fact is that the history of the American units in the US is frankly nonsensical - especially considering that it has multiple MilGov units basically melting away and disappearing between June 2000 and April 2001 - when if anything those units would be getting bigger either by adding reinforcements from Europe or by recruiting locally since the best way to stay alive in a low food environment would be to join the military similar to what happened in Krakow

Let alone events that make no sense - MilGov pulling the 40th out of Bakersfield and basically abandoning the last oil production area in CA when the rest of HW goes out of its way stating that MilGov is doing everything it can to hold onto areas that are still producing oil

And the wasting away of units is at a pace that its hard to believe there would be any intact military units left by the end of the summer

Two examples - the 40th goes from 24 tanks and 3000 men to 1200 men and 3 tanks (with 900 going to join the 46th) and the 46th goes from 1000 men to 1100 men - but only because 900 men join up from the 40th.

So that means the 46th has 800 of its 1000 men desert or get killed in 9 months and somehow the division is intact when the 900 men from the 40th arrive?

And what happens to the 78th is worse - it has 1000 soldiers in June 2000 but by December of 2000 only 100 are left when the 800 men show up from Norfolk to bring them up to 900? The division had 90 percent of their men desert or became casualties over six months and somehow it survived as a cohesive unit until the 800 new men show up?

Add in that MilGov lets the two biggest collections of AFV's in NA just waste away - 36 tanks in the 194th to 8 (when they have plenty of gas and if they did go to the tank plant in Lima a huge collection of M1 spare parts to keep them going) and the 24 tanks in the 40th go to 3 (again stationed in an area that is still producing oil) when there are no replacements since they abandoned everything in Europe?

It would be one thing if you saw this as a pattern elsewhere in other modules - but you dont see this pattern of units having huge changes in numbers of personnel or vehicles.

Example - Going Home - almost every US unit in November of 2000 have the same number of men and tanks they had in June of 2000 - i.e. 36th has 5000 men and 35 tanks in US Army Vehicle Guide on June 1 - and at Going Home it has 5000 men and 35 tanks - i.e. no loss of men or equipment at all in 5 months.

Yet in the US with a lot more access to manpower and spare parts and in many cases petroleum fuel the units are withering away, not recruiting new personnel and worse yet not even using the men who came home - many of whom are in units that arrived at Bremerhaven intact and still obeying orders - and thus could have been stood up at the pier in Norfolk as intact units to send out to help stabilize the country?

They had multiple divisions show up intact and fully functional with intact command structures at Bremerhaven - where did they go? A perfect example is the 28th - its the PA National Guard after all. The state is mostly in chaos, the western part is being preyed on by a homicidal marauder group and the eastern areas are out of control refugee camps - and five months after landing in Norfolk no one has sent the 28th to PA to try to bring some kind of order to the state?

[mpipes]

I think most of us all regarded HW as completely unworkable and unrealistic on a lot of levels. I basically ignored it for most part.

[Olefin]

definitely have ideas for followups - but I am in the dilemma where to be able to write something plausible and fun for players I may have to modify canon to do it - and I dont mean a simple mod like bringing the 2nd AD to Africa for Kenya but instead basically say "no the 40th didnt break up in CA" or "no MilGov wasnt stupid and wasted 43000 men they brought home at the cost of literally almost all the remaining US AFV's"

even something as simple as using bucket brigades and horses or people dragging carts with water tanks on them to bring water out of rivers for irrigation - which given the huge amount of people who knew that its either do this or starve would have done it - i.e. you dont need electricity and oil to irrigate fields - they have been doing it for over seven thousand years that we know of if not longer - and yes its backbreaking work and really labor intensive - but you dont starve to death - and thats exactly why the US military would be recruiting - to be able to guard those laborers and get their crops in and keep marauders away while they do it

[mpipes]

An idea----

Rework HW into something half way realistic. I just don't buy things getting so desperate in the US it ends up worse than Poland, which was badly depopulated by DOZENS of tactical nuclear weapons and constant war over 5 years.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Even if you accept the (completely unrealistic) drought as canon and its effects on the US and try go forward from there the simple fact is that the history of the American units in the US is frankly nonsensical - especially considering that it has multiple MilGov units basically melting away and disappearing between June 2000 and April 2001 - when if anything those units would be getting bigger either by adding reinforcements from Europe or by recruiting locally since the best way to stay alive in a low food environment would be to join the military similar to what happened in Krakow

Not unrealistic. Completely in line with military history right up to modern times. For America you can use the Revolution (Valley Forge) and The Civil War (Union Forces in the first two years, Confederate in the second).

When the soldiers are not paid or fed they desert. Some slip off with their equipment and become criminals. Some take their stuff and go home, like literally home, to be with and take care of their families. Some changes sides, since if the enemy is paying their troops and feeding their troops something must be right.

Your also not factoring in disease. By 98 large scale pharmaceutical manufacturing is lost and tender 20 century immune systems are not up to the challenges of dysentery, cholera, typhus, and other diseases. Even a small outbreak and a few rumors of disease would turn small desertion into large desertion with troops stealing vehicles plus supplies to get far away.

Last, racial tensions. Minorities are a larger percentage of Services than represented in the larger civil population.

Military history of every kind of campaign anywhere in the world shows us multiples examples of desertion fading armies into small pitiful war bands.

[Olefin]

Some desertion sure - 80 and 90 percent? No way - especially since staying together means you can protect the food you are growing and can beat off marauders and desperate people looking for food

and in this case they would be getting fed - i.e. they are in cantonments and getting fed thru that whole period - its not till after April that it becomes apparent there is going to be a big time problem with getting food -

look at A Rock in Troubled Waters - per that article there is no problem feeding the soldiers and civilians in southern NJ - and they have comparatively easy duty with the State Militia to back them up - and yet they desert in huge numbers compared to say the 43rd who was surrounded on all sides by marauders and hostile forces but still was in pretty good shape right up to the April 2001 mutiny

and if anything after it was known that food was going to be tight it would be a bigger incentive to hang together - good luck keeping any food you grow if its you and your M-16 at your family farm holding off thousands of hungry people

on the other hand 1000 massed M-16's protecting the fields and food supplies in your cantonment probably would do the job easily

[The Dark]

I can see both sides of the argument. On the pro-desertion side, when these guys hear things are going to hell in a handbasket, a lot of them are going to want to get back to their families, similar to how the rate of desertion of Georgian troops in the US Civil War spiked during and after Sherman's siege of Atlanta. In the Appalachians, there were instances of deserters from the Confederate Army forming their own units that fought off Confederate regulars. A historical study of the deserters found there were two common factors that led to desertion: hardship among their families and finding out their home district wasn't united in support of the effort. With the MilGov/CivGov split (and New America), there's likely to be wavering support in many districts, and severe hardship among soldiers' families, which will cause desertion higher than usual. I don't know if it would reach 80-90%, but given that the Soviet Border Troops had 60-80% desertion rates during the Afghanistan War, it's likely it would be much higher than most people would suspect.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Some desertion sure - 80 and 90 percent? No way - especially since staying together means you can protect the food you are growing and can beat off marauders and desperate people looking for food

Easily.. 90 percent... Napoleons campaign into Russia. These units your talking about as "Divisions" with that number are a Division on paper. A company is approximately 100 men. A Battalion is 3 to 5 companies (CA 3 and CS or CSS 5), a Brigade is 3 to five battalions..... These "Divisions" are below the operational strength of a Brigade. Their already broken, demoralized, under trained, under staffed, and without Corps or Army commands to make even the suggestion of Orders.

Why stay? These troops are in the Continental U.S. and probably desperate for news about family after the TDM and with the drought. A unit this size goes through tons (literal tons) of food and fuel per day. What ever rations they have are coming from somewhere else because in less than a month a unit that size will have consumed every scrap of food and eaten the livestock.

Grow food? Who is doing that for them? These guys grew up in NY, LA, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Nashville, etc, etc, etc... The 18 - 30 year olds have never ever grow anything let alone seen a garden. Before you think "Ah ha! Someone comes from somewhere food grows". The overwhelming majority of the services are low income urban kids. The small town kids you hope could grow something came from towns, not farms. Even the kids that grew up on farms joined the Army to get away from that. They can drive the tractor, but probably know little about seed, planting, maintaining, and harvest.

The only way anyone of these "Divisions" is growing food is to enslave the locals or barter for the locals to grow it (aka extortion).

Originally Posted by Olefin

"and in this case they would be getting fed - i.e. they are in cantonments and getting fed thru that whole period - its not till after April that it becomes apparent there is going to be a big time problem with getting food - "

Fed what? Three squares? There is being fed and then being fed.... For 54 days in 2003 I ate two MREs a day because the supply chain couldn't keep up and the trucks essentially mugged by units before they reached us. Is that fed? Yeah. I hate peanuts and peanut anything to this day.

Troops are getting fed and if you ask a Soldier anywhere, chow sucks. Food is probably the number one morale item. Lots of food and lots of variety prepared better than a 5 star steakhouse and don't skimp on any trimmings.

Now in this.. Boiled potatoes, soup, bread, and butter is fed. Troops down at the bottom, the Privates and Corporals have no idea and no thought to next month. Their immediate concerns are today and tomorrow (when do we quit, when do we eat, when can I drink, what time do I have to be back) not April, May, June or any other date.

Getting food is on the G3, and each layer of S3 below that guy. Those guys probably have to move about with bodyguards by this point.

Originally Posted by Olefin

look at A Rock in Troubled Waters - per that article there is no problem feeding the soldiers and civilians in southern NJ - and they have comparatively easy duty with the State Militia to back them up - and yet they desert in huge numbers compared to say the 43rd who was surrounded on all sides by marauders and hostile forces but still was in pretty good shape right up to the April 2001 mutiny

Being on the coast those troops are probably damned tired of cod, but love those virginia hams. NJ borders Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York city so benefits from the Pennsylvania Dutch, and trade still coming to the docks in NJ and NYC. Not being landlocked is probably the secret to that success.

Originally Posted by Olefin

and if anything after it was known that food was going to be tight it would be a bigger incentive to hang together - good luck keeping any food you grow if its you and your M-16 at your family farm holding off thousands of hungry people

6-8 people in a log stockade can hold off hundreds on foot. Even with bow saws and not chainsaws a frontier fort can go up quickly. Farm animals on the ground floor is free heat to the humans on the second and third floors. People have been doing this for centuries. More over those are people you know and can count on (mostly) who aren't going to desert you or throw you out.

Originally Posted by Olefin

on the other hand 1000 massed M-16's protecting the fields and food supplies in your cantonment probably would do the job easily

Oh yeah... 1000 rifles in the hands of 18 year olds with impulse control issues that hate being told what to do and hate their squad leader, platoon leader, and LT because he is white, black, hispanic, asian, northern, southern, red neck, cholo, ghetto, ignorant, too smart, etc, etc.

Doubt that. Snuffy is going to take his pack and his rifle and go home even if he has to walk there. That 1000 other guys isn't family and few of them friends.

The only thing keeping Pvt Snuffy from deserting really is the very real threat of death by hanging if he is caught after deserting.