ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

This is probably irrelevant to most people, but a 44 gallon drum (UK)/55 gallon drum (US) holds 200 litres which roughly equals 200 kilograms of potatoes.

I'm a bit torn on the humble spud. They are extremely energy dense food and don't really deserve to be termed "wild food".
(An empty 44 weighs 20kg)

[ChalkLine]

Ahh, I should have added this:
Paul lists this:

Drum, 200-liter: Normal steel or aluminum drum, though plastic is becoming available. Weight: 10kg; Price: $30 (V/V)

I would add:
Rotary Oil Drum Pump: Pump for dispensing fluids from large drums. Weight: 2.0kg; Price $50 (V/V)

[ChalkLine]

Iso-Butanol, the fuel that acts like T2K "alcohol"

Iso-Butanol is a biofuel under study that is derived from agricultural waste. It has a whopping 98% efficiency of that of gasoline and it doesn't even use the high-sugar feedstock like sweet sorghum or beets that modern bio-fuels use. It needs a fermentation-distillation system that uses some odd microbes, the infamous E-Coli stomach bug is one, and it needs some finicky kit to make. It's still in the experimental phase (this is actually great news for the world, it doesn't even use the edible parts of the food).

Now, a few of us have never been comfortable with ethanol-methanol fuels for the simple reason is they don't work the way they do in the books. Ethanol has a very high burning temperature and needs to be mixed with other fuels to lower it. Methanol has, to use the Australian idiom, bugger-all energy. Neither fuel has nearly enough energy to run a vehicle or frankly you'd see everyone cooking fuel now.

So, for those OCD people such as myself you can consider that the iso-butanol revolution came early. As the war ground on the fuel crunch hit and one side or the other introduced the fuel and the other side quickly caught on and did likewise. Specialty brewing/distilling kits were issued to the troops and these are the "stills" we see in the game.

If you don't like having that sort of high-efficiency fuel around simply rule that the kits the troops make and the microbe stock they have access to is less efficient.

[ChalkLine]

A possible menace for the T2K battlefield.
Now illegal since 1995, blinding lasers were developed but not fielded by all the powers.
If you're feeling brutal here's some ways they work that are more involved than you might think.
There is no protection against blinding lasers that still allows you to see.

[ChalkLine]

Horses (yet again)

Many months ago a poster here brought up the brilliant point that there wouldn't be all that many horses in Poland and probably not enough for cavalry units. I did some "research" since then and found that Poland actually had several state horse studs and Polish race horses were an important vector of western funds. In The Second World War these studs were moved east and then south for safety to save them from the Germans. They did actually fall into their hands but it seems obvious to me that this would probably happen again. The obvious upshot of this is that horse units are raised in the east and sent west using Russian and Polish breed-stock. This saves them from the worst of the chemical warfare. Similarly cavalry units in NATO are raised from French and Spanish stocks (if you ignore the stupid French stab-in-the-back theory) and are moved east and this is where the horse studs are.

Now, this all might seem useless trivia but it does give us some useful information. Cavalry units after the general collapse might even furtively trade across enemy lines for instance. Also horse stocks are rife for raid-and-capture and a scenario of troops raiding across the Oder to grab mounts if your supply line to your mount resupply collapses.

As we've discussed earlier horses actually do not run on grass. If you want grass-fed horses you need something on the order of seven remounts per trooper as horses are rested. Cavalry work is hard going for horses and historically in pre-modern armies fodder took up the bulk of logistical space as horses need high energy feed. There's also the annoying thing that horses won't graze in strange territory after dark even if fodder is their supplement. This gives you in idea of why horses with their higher land speed don't cover as much ground as infantry; horses move more quickly but for a shorter time. Also if you're running a cavalry game then unlike in the infantry game clean water becomes an issue. Horses drink about 30 litres to 50 litres a day, we can say 30 litres if resting and 50 litres if working. This water has to be clean. So a careful scouting route has to be made and water sources reconnoitred.

Although we tend to think of cavalry as just a few guys on horseback and maybe a packhorse or two, in an actual unit this will be different. The best example of this is going to be European cavalry units serving in the Second World War. For scenario and campaign ideas here's a Lone Sentry article on soviet cavalry from the early 1940s.

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/cavalry/

[ChalkLine]

Group Morale

Panic in Twilight 2000 2.2 relates to wounds and incoming fire and this is an example of personal morale.

Group morale is the behaviour of groups to events and situations. Player characters are not effected by group morale in standard games but non player characters do not have this luxury.

Normally, a unit's morale is based heavily on its leadership. Well indoctrinated, well-rested and well-fed troops with good leaders are capable of surprising accomplishments. Unsure, tired and starving troops with poor leadership regularly break at first contact. They will flee if possible or surrender if it is not. Often they will not even fight at all. In their desire for self preservation they might discard their weapons and anything else that hinders their ability to run at top speed. Leadership also incorporates many other aspects of group character and leadership figures often help shape unit behaviour in many situations, but that's getting a bit complex for this post.

It would be onerous to have to roll for every individual NPC constantly during a fight. Instead GMs should think on the following aspects before the encounter to come up with a sort of unit character to understand how they will react during combat.

- Leadership (if any)
Troops under an effective leader have the morale rating their leader has and this is why leaders are primary targets. Leadership usually but not always is equivalent to rank, however actual leadership roles have been found in very low ranking members of units. This aspect is brittle, troops that have a significant difference in NPC quality such as Novice troops under a Veteran leader often break when they become aware the leader is out of action.
- Training.
The four NPC levels depict training and the acclimatisation of the individual to combat and campaigning. Very experienced troops might be reduced to Novice morale if they are ill, disillusioned or fearful. Training has a strong influence on reaction (see below)
- Condition.
Hunger, thirst, fatigue and similar conditions sap the individual of their will to fight. Sieges frequently are resolved when troops simply lose the will to continue fighting due to privation.
- Indoctrination.
The level of commitment to fighting comes from how the soldier sees the situation and the information they are given about the fighting. Many things influence this and these include exposure to formal and informal indoctrination such as political training or propaganda or rumours and biases. Fraternisation strongly effects the will to fight and soldiers who have had friendly relationships with the enemy frequently refuse to fight at all.
- Circumstances
A catch-all category that influences the group and individual. For instance troops that have traded with the enemy might assume they will be given good treatment if they surrender. Troops who have been engaged in atrocities might assume that surrender will mean abuse followed by execution (although even at the last moment troops often choose surrender knowing this will happen to put off death for a short time). If a strong position is to the rear troops might wish to fall back towards it or if reinforcements are nearby troops might fight on knowing help is at hand.

All these modify the following hard fact:

The vast majority of troops do not attack at 10% casualties, retreat at 25% casualties and flee at 50% casualties.

Humans are not D&D orcs and only very rarely fight to the death (this is really a player character thing). These events are so rare they are nearly always noted in the history accounts. When morale fails there are three major human reactions that follow in decreasing order: Flight, Freeze and Fight. These reactions become Retreat, Surrender or Last Stand. Highly trained individuals have this retrained to Fight and Retreat through various means. Anyway, this is very rarely group behaviour. Note that most military operations deliberately give equal size units escape avenues as last stands can cause significant friendly casualties out of proportion to their operational gains.

Morale Failure Reactions:
As there's little if any evidence for group minds morale tends to fail in a smaller section of the unit and rapidly spread. Isolated individuals under pressure, flanks struck from the side, lower quality troops witnessing a leader's fall or capture often break first and then other members of the unit become aware of it and lose morale as well. While some leaders or sub leaders can salvage the situation and rally the troops on the spot what usually happens is some sort of reduction in fighting capability is managed. This can happen over and over during combat. One flank can start to fall back which requires rallying and shoring up while another sector comes under pressure. Troops can press forward and then stall or fall back. This sort of behaviour brings realism to T2K fights that are often lacking.

Player Leaders.
Using all this lets the players take the roles of battlefield leaders in unit actions. GMs should consider the nature of the led troops, the behaviour of the player leader and situation. Some troops might respond well to a brutal player leader while others might not. All these factors should give dice modifiers to the Leadership skill roll. All-or-nothing rolls should be avoided (as in all things) and excellent rolls should give excellent results and only-just-failures should not mean the troops run for the hills. Careful managing of the Condition, Indoctrination and Circumstance aspects relating to the troops can give bonuses while neglecting them can give adverse results. Note that heavily indoctrinated troops might misbehave when not under a leader's immediate control.

[ChalkLine]

Does anyone use dirt bikes in the game?
I'm a motorbike rider myself and I have to say I'd rather not be riding a dirt-squirt around World War Three Poland. Not only are they pretty noisy but they have fairly limited carrying capacity. They don't even have the illusory armour of a humvee in which you can at least crouch down in the back and hope they don't see you. It also takes all your hands and feet to control the thing. Yes, I've seen people shooting things off bikes but let's be honest, you can't do it in life and death fighting. When people use them to kill people in cities the pillion passenger does the shooting.
The only use I can find for them would be for getting around inside the canton with and you can use a pushbike for that. If you scout with it you'd better make damn well sure you didn't miss an enemy on your next bound.