The ANZACs in T2k

[Legbreaker]

I've spent the last hour or so looking at maps of the border region and noted there's really only two border crossing points - the main point on the north coast on the Vanimo - Jayapura highway at Wutung, and another VERY secondary point about 75km north of the southern coastline and the small town of Botar.
As can be seen in the two photos, the southern route is FAR from suitable as an invasion route, and the northern one, well...it's got more than it's fair share of problems too. Clearly water-borne transport is going to be the preferred method of supplying troops where possible, but that's very vulnerable to sea and air attack.
The border itself is extremely porous, but that's largely offset by the total lack of other roads beyond these two. Some river traffic is possible, BUT the majority of the rivers in the region flow more north-south rather than the needed east-west - their usefulness is most likely restricted to local transportation of patrols and smaller units/supplies, and totally unsuited to carrying the logistical needs of the invasion forces (or the defenders for that matter too).
So, given the terrain is so damn hostile to a large, land based force, what causes Indonesia to risk absolutely everything on what appears to be a "bridge too far" scenario?
So far my thoughts are NBC attacks on more western areas of the country forcing them to find uncontaminated areas to move into, the discovery of badly needed minerals in the border regions, and perhaps even political stupidity.

Northern route
Attachment 4173

Southern route
Yes, it really is THAT bad!
Attachment 4174

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As we know, aside from nationalistic ambition where they had once decided that all of Borneo and PNG should be Indonesian you don't just launch an invasion without some sort of payoff.
There's plenty of mineral wealth in PNG and that would be an obvious temptation for Indonesia but the root cause still remains to be answered - what causes them to "need" whatever it is that can be found in PNG?

Is the need more ephemeral, a quick distraction for whatever problems they're having at home (and it provides an easy reason to conscript the "trouble-makers" and have them shipped off to the war)?
Is it something less materialistic, the need for more land for their own overpopulated islands for example?

Could it be the spectre of starvation? They can barely produce enough food for themselves (except for rice and even then, they were still importing rice until 2012 - they needed to grow at least 76 million tons of unhusked rice to enable them to cut back on rice imports). In 2012 they still needed to import 1.6 million tons of soyabeans, 2.3 million tons of sugar and 200,000 tons of beef.

Problems for agriculture include unpredictable weather (in particularl, heavy rains) and conversion of large amounts of land from ag use to industrial use.
All this has been going on for decades and includes millions of tonnes of material wastage due to corruption, inefficiency and neglect. Combine that with the rapid halt of much needed imports, it could be enough for a desperate government to try and grab some primary industry from PNG or to even try "pulling a Falklands" trick to distract the population from bigger problems.

Indonesia has relied heavily on imports from various Asian, North American and European countries, China being a big supplier. With what's happening between the Soviet Union and China, imports are going to dry up pretty damned quick.
Although this page is relevant for the current period, I think we could assume that Indonesia was building to this level of demand for a few decades before the late 2000s. It gives a good look at just what the Indos were wanting from other nations.
http://www.worldsrichestcountries.co...a_imports.html


As for the crude oil bit, yeah, just shows how little I know about it haha

[Legbreaker]

Yeah, all that's basically the way I'm thinking too, but given the poor nature of the only two roads, and the ease in which those roads, plus the sea routes could be interdicted (as little as a couple of men with a machinegun could cause everything to grind to a sudden halt, particularly along that southern land route) there's got to be a REALLY SOLID reason for them to risk it.
Part of it could be Australia's involvement in Korea giving them the impression they'd really only have the PNG defence forces to deal with - roughly a total strength of just 2,500 people spread across all areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_..._Defence_Force
Some Indonesian units will undoubtedly be sent to Australia's mainland for low level insurgency and sabotage (prime targets including oil refineries) which based on Australian military exercises in the 80's and 90's could tie up in excess of a brigade just in hunting them down (perhaps three times that many, or even more, providing security at expected targets).
That may just give the Indonesian offensive some small chance of success, or at least enough that they think it's worth trying...

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

As for the crude oil bit, yeah, just shows how little I know about it haha

Don't worry, a week ago I didn't know all that much either! This has been a VERY steep learning curve!