The ANZACs in T2k

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Regarding the Collins class subs, they were never the problem the media made them out to be. A lot of the problems at the time were either teething troubles due to the class being the first modern subs built in Australia by a company that had never built submarines before or just dumb/stupid design decision because there were some idiots in charge and they really did seem to have very little idea on how to build a sub.

Some of the criticism was journalistic stupidity. If I was feeling kind, I would have called it ignorance but some of the news reports were beyond ignorant. For example, one newspaper article I read complained that everything about the design was too complicated. They claimed it was too complicated a procedure to even fire torpedoes. The Collins class required three (or it might have been more, I can't recall) crew to co-ordinate to fire a torpedo (and I am paraphrasing but the following is essentially the exact message), a task that can be done with the push of one button on the Playstation or Xbox.

Yes. You read it correctly, the journo writing the article decided that firing a torpedo/missile in a video game was the correct comparison to make when examining how such a weapon is fired in the real world. No mention of chains of custody, no mention of the basic security feature of having such weapons under the control of a team and not a single individual.
So yeah, I would not pay too much attention to the claims from the media that the Collins class were bad. One newspaper suggested they be canned and we buy boats from elsewhere.

The biggest problem they actually had was that the RAN could not raise the required number of submariners to man all six boats. At best they could man three. Aussie sailors at the time just did not want to serve in submarines.

It's interesting to note that when HMASubmarine Waller, during RIMPAC 2000, acting as an enemy vessel, was reported to have successfully engaged two US nuclear subs and then coming almost within attack range of a US carrier, a lot of media criticism of the class was dropped.

In regards to Indonesia and their invasion of Papua New Guinea.
Quick and dirty idea but based on some real world bits & pieces. However for a quick idea there's a bit of reading involved - sorry 'bout that.

Indonesia was an authoritarian dictatorship plaqued by corruption, collusion, sycophancy and nepotism until the resignation of President Suharto in 1998.
Suharto has been called the most corrupt leader of modern times, according to Transparency International, he reportedly embezzled US$15-35 bilion in the three decades of his rule.
When some of the politicians that owed loyalty to him came under criticism from some well known Indonesian magazines, Suharto had the magazine publishers closed down.

All the problems of the real world Indonesia can feed directly into any game world history regardless of what edition of Twilight is used.

Indonesia was heading for serious financial trouble and they got it during the 1997 Asian economic crisis - part of the reason for Suharto's resignation. However, during any T2k timeline, the economic crisis would not happen... other things happening in the world kind of stopped it
However, Indonesia was looking forward to the sort of crisis that Argentina was suffering when the Argies decided to invade the Falklands.
Keep in mind that the 1990s was also the period where East Timor was agitating for it's freedom from Indonesia and we know what the Indo's did there.

They had already invaded and taken control of part of Papua (known since the invasion in 1962 as Irian Jaya but now known as West Papua AKA Western New Guinea).
It was believed in the 1970s and 1980s by a number of people in the Australian government and military that Indonesia had designs on other lands outside it's borders. It's claimed that they wanted to get the rest of Papua New Guinea and they also apparently wanted Malaysia, Borneo & Singapore and parts of the Philippines.
They also made a number of statements that Australia rightly belonged to Asia and all the Europeans should go back to Europe and let the rightful owners have the land (and they were not talking about the Aboriginal peoples).

Personal anecdote:
My mother has some friends who sailed a yacht around that part of the world in the late 1980s. When they were ashore in some part of Indonesia, thieves stole their yacht and then when they reported it, the Indon police arrested them for selling their boat to pirates. Fortunately they were saved from the hassle by friends back home and the Australian embassy.
However, while under the "tender" ministrations of the Indon police, one of them claims he saw a signboard outside a police or military compound with a map of Greater Indonesia.
The map allegedly covered all of Papua New Guinea, Timor, Malaysia, Borneo and the top of Australia.

So... territorially expansionist, in financial trouble, having problems controlling the civilian populace. What the people need is a good distraction.
Hmm...
Let's liberate the rest of Papua New Guinea and gain some more "living room". The world's having a bit of a problem at the moment so the UN is too distracted to care and those white devil Australians won't do anything about it because they're too busy being good little capitalist running dogs and besides, this is a purely Asian affair, nothing at all to do with those transplanted Europeans who've stolen Asian land.

[Olefin]

Reference to Australian troops in canon

F4: Cougar of the Canadian detachment, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, Ceylon; 1996.

Canadian forces were sent to Ceylon in 1993 following the Tamil Insurrection of 1991 as part of a United Nations peacekeeping
force. Four companies of Canadian armored infantry joined troops from Greece, Finland, Australia, Sweden, and Italy on that island
in enforcing the shaky truce decreed by a United Nation's resolution of February 1993.

[Legbreaker]

Yes, Ceylon, not Cypress. My mistake.
My thoughts are the Australians would only amount to about a company (assigned to security of the medical teams, etc - roughly the same as the commitment to Ruwanda) which would stay when Korea kicked off, but withdrawn the moment it looked like there would be a shooting war with Indonesia. The Canadians would probably have already left though and the Greeks & Italians would be nothing but a memory. Finland and Sweden probably wouldn't have contributed more than a few dozen people (perhaps a medical team or something like that) and they'd be gone as soon as the security teams started making noise about leaving.

It's just possible these particular Canadians were the only ones who actually made it to Korea too - never made it all the way back to Canada perhaps. Four companies makes a reinforced battalion (would have to have a HQ plus admin/support elements as well, unless one of those companies were actually the HQ Coy...).

Hmm, thinking of using them plus a battalion of NZ troops, plus the Gurka's to form a Brigade, perhaps under NZ leadership (seems like they're the only nationality with the necessary officers, etc available for the job).

A third Brigade, mainly made up of British troops could round out the Division which would probably be under British command. This last brigade may be under strength right from the beginning, or keep the Gurkas with them and leave the Canadian/NZ brigade weaker. As the Korean front appears to be an extension of the 1950's war, it's highly likely to be a UN operation I think, so that final brigade could also be rounded out with the contributions of smaller nations (might even see companies from places like Samoa, South Africa, Philippines, even France might have a presence.

Just my rambling thoughts. Feel free to pull it apart.

[Rockwolf66]

I have a source on Indonesian Military equipment. Alas the source is politically biased and openly anti-American.

http://worldmilitaryintel.blogspot.c...post_2016.html

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Rockwolf66

I have a source on Indonesian Military equipment

Useful nonetheless.
Anyone got any info on their numbers and organisation in the 90's?
I don't want to go into great depth on them, but I do need to figure out what the Australians would have likely been up against and how effective they'd have been.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Don't forget that until 1999, the Indonesian National Police were administered/commanded by the military. They also had an over-abundance of militias
https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/militia.htm

No matter what I tried, I could not find any form of OrBat for Indonesia in the 1990s so hopefully you can drag something worthwhile out of the following links.

Global Security has a table of Indonesian army vehicles and aircraft in 5 year periods starting at 1990. Indonesia was severely lacking in modern equipment (compared to Australia) until the 2000s.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...-equipment.htm

This page "may" be useful, mostly because you can run a comparison between Australian and Indonesia by year (I saved the link on year 1995). Also be prepared for a hell of a lot of reading when you open up the definitions link.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-.../Military#1995

This document is dated 2002 but uses info gathered during the 1990s, it's the only doc I've found that has some info about the makeup of Indonesian land forces in the 1990s.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/ran...002/MR1599.pdf

Neil Baumgardner's now defunct OrBat website for T2k has some info on Australia (no Indonesia however) but some of the links are dead. The info is typically from the late 1990s so might prove useful: -
https://web.archive.org/web/20091019...Pentagon/9059/
But specifically this page: - https://web.archive.org/web/20090803.../9059/ADF.html

Further reading:
Indonesian military districts/commands
https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/adri.htm
World Factbook - Indonesia 1990
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_W...990)/Indonesia
Indonesian armed forces at military wiki
http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Indon...l_Armed_Forces
US Army foreign military studies report 1995
https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/indo-fmso.htm
Australian parliament - research paper: Indonesian Armed Forces
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliam.../rp9899/99rp23
The Indonesian Military in the Mid-1990s: Political Maneuvering or Structural Change?
https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstre...=1&isAllowed=y from this page: https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/54116

[Jason Weiser]

I do have a nuclear target list for Australia..I can refine it a bit, as Google Earth and Nukemap have made it possible to do some really advanced blast mapping.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

A third Brigade, mainly made up of British troops could round out the Division which would probably be under British command. This last brigade may be under strength right from the beginning, or keep the Gurkas with them and leave the Canadian/NZ brigade weaker. As the Korean front appears to be an extension of the 1950's war, it's highly likely to be a UN operation I think, so that final brigade could also be rounded out with the contributions of smaller nations (might even see companies from places like Samoa, South Africa, Philippines, even France might have a presence.

Just my rambling thoughts. Feel free to pull it apart.

A full British Brigade that's canon compliant is theoretically possible. Parking the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters to one side, the other Regular Infantry Battalions that are not included in the canon orbat per the NATO Vehicle Guide (V1) and the Survivor's Guide to the United Kingdom are all Guards Battalions.

• 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards
• 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards
• 1st Battalion, Scots Guards
• 2nd Battalion, Scots Guards
• 1st Battalion, Irish Guards

(That's based on the pre 1991 orbat - 2/Grenadiers and 2/Scots were both placed into suspended animation at the end of the Cold War)

I suppose you could use any of them. The canon orbat for the British Army is a mess that bears only the faintest resemblance to late 80's real life planning. Putting a couple of Guards Battalions into Korea, while not particularly realistic imho, isn't going to make it any worse than it already is.

The alternative would be to use the Territorial Army (the British equivalent of the Army Reserve / National Guard for those unfamiliar with the term). GDW completely ignored the TA (I refer to my comment above) so you'd have a free hand in which units to allocate (IRL all TA Infantry Battalions were assigned to either Home Defence or BAOR reinforcement roles - the 2nd UK Division should have been 1 x Regular Brigade and 2 x TA Brigades - but I think there could maybe be a case for a couple of Battalions being retasked to other operations, e.g. Korea).

[Legbreaker]

Thanks. All very useful input.

Just had a thought a moment ago that I'll probably need to include some basic information on the leadership, so with that in mind I'd love the Australian and New Zealander ex and currently serving soldiers, seamen and airmen to give me a few names of the officers they served under which might have come to prominence during the period.
For myself my old battalion commander and RSM spring to mind as people of importance, as well as the father of my company clerk - he was a recently retired DSM in 94 who could have been drawn back in.

[Targan]

I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the way of an ANZAC sourcebook for T2K, Leg. It might go some way to restoring my love for the game (which unfortunately has been largely gone for some time now).

[Olefin]

What I had for the Ceylon peacekeeping force was the following in the East African Sourcebook

A Company, 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment – Malindi
• Manpower: 105 men
• Vehicles: four Land Rovers, five Jeeps

Australia had sent troops to Ceylon in 1993 as part of the peace keeping mission there. By 1995 they had been reduced to two infantry companies who were then cut off there with the outbreak of hostilities. During the next four years they fought rebels and Italian and Greek soldiers who were there as part of the mission. Finally in 1999 the surviving troops left on several commandeered sailing dhows and tried to make it to friendly forces. After a long and arduous voyage they were spotted by a patrol craft and were brought to Mombasa.

The survivors were regrouped as a single company and were re-armed using captured Tanzanian small arms, machine guns and mortars. Now under British Army command, they have been tasked with supporting local Kenyan Police in Malindi and the area surrounding the city as well as the garrisoning of the San Marco Equatorial Range, which is an orbital launch platform previously used by Italy and is one of the few operational satellite communications stations still left in the world.