ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

Has anyone had a look at the Romanian Cold War military?

It's interesting because Romania wasn't really a very enthusiastic member of the Warsaw Pact and it's army wasn't all that thrilled by the way the country was going and with the Patriot Guards, Romania's territorial defence, even less so. In 1989 the Guards were turned out to repress the people and they promptly made the people's uprising an armed uprising.

The reason I go into this is that Romania had some really nifty kit. It was variants of the Soviet stuff but with a unique twist and some of this stuff actually suits T2K a little bit better in some respects because it's really functional yet robust even for Warsaw Pact standards.

The one I've really been enjoying reading is the ABC-79M, a little recon-APC. The Romanians were already making the BTR-80 and when they saw they needed something like a BDRM recon vehicle they simply cut the BTR-80 down into a four wheeler rather than get stuff from outside the country. These purpose-built variants had a short chassis and the BTR's turret. In retrospect it's amazing no one else thought of it (and it makes you wonder what other vehicles would be like if someone did that).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social...lic_of_Romania
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_People%27s_Army)
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Guards_(Romania))
(https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Equipment_of_the_Romanian...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Pu%C8%99c%C4%83_Automat%C4...
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC-79M)

[ChalkLine]

Tank Riding

Tank riding, or "Infantry Tank Desant" is the practice of riding atop a tank into combat rather than merely for transport. While on the surface this might seem stupid it actually has some slight advantages as it allows the tankers to have more eyes and weapons scanning for threats. However tanks draw fire and the practice of "scrubbing" infantry off tanks rapidly becomes standard.

Now, while most people assume this is purely an eastern Bloc practice this is not the case. The USA for instance has not totally disavowed the practice and reading some field manuals shows that there's actually instructions given on things to keep in mind when adopting this practice.
Of course with things like an M1 series MBT the gas turbine makes riding on the engine deck dangerous in the extreme however there are images of US vehicles carrying infantry on the turret and even the front deck (which doesn't seem wise). This must be either an emergency or a doctrinal shift because the M551 manual strictly bans infantry from riding forward of or in close proximity to the smoke/grenade launchers.

How many troops can you get on your ride?
Luckily, there's actually a table for this:

- Heavy tank, 10-12 soldiers
- Medium tank, 8-10 soldiers
- Light tank, 5-6 soldiers
It should be easy to extrapolate from this how many PCs you can get to cling onto a fast moving vehicle as it smashes through urban wreckage and trees that do their best to wipe them off.

[ChalkLine]

BMP-1M, probably the Twilight War standard.

During the 80s we thought the BMP-1 would stay as it is and would be thrown into depots before being issued to third-echelon troops. It seems the Russians, knowing they didn't have the rubles to make the BMP-3 in sufficient numbers, decided to have a hard look at the old war horse.

The big complaint among the many of the BMP-1 was that it was built with another role to the one it now occupies (although that role didn't exist when it was designed). It was only designed to stop shell fragments and rifle calibre rounds, not even having enough armour to defeat the 12.7mm on the sides. This is the vehicle in the rules.

Obviously, this had to change. I could go on about soviet battle concepts, they're quite different to what they led us to believe, but the main thing is that the soviets moved from a "well, we're going to lose men, let's make sure the objective is achieved so it doesn't turn into a slugging match where we'll lose lots of men" theory to a theory where they needed to stop attritional warfare grinding down their troops. This occurred during their Afghan commitment and went fairly unnoticed by the west.

Thus we get the first modernisation; the BMP-1 Afghanka package. This is a survivability package to minimise crew losses. It is a 6mm applique armour package that brings the sides of the vehicle up to a level where it's resistant to 12.7mm armour piercing rounds. They also developed a system where the troops could remove the ATGM from the roof (already upgraded to those used by the latest vehicles) and replace it with a carried Plamya 30mm AGL in a remote mount. If you really want the old 73mm-armed BMP in your game you should be using this one.

However after Chechnya, Afghanistan and watching the west in Iraq the Russians decided that the standard BMP-1 was going to be a rolling coffin in modern combat and embarked on a widespread upgrade to give these vehicles some effective firepower to hold western IFVs at bay.

Here we get the BMP-1M, a very different beast and probably quite a surprise to many people. They turfed out the old turret because they'd come to believe that IFVs were unavoidably going to be involved in urban combat. In its place was put a remote mount, here's the blurb:

"It is fitted with a TKB-799 "Kliver" one-man weapons station armed with a missile pod, a 30 mm 2A72 multipurpose autocannon (it can be used against both ground and air targets) and a 7.62 mm PKTM coaxial machine gun. The missile pod is mounted on the right side of the weapons station and normally holds four 9M133 Kornet (AT-14 Spriggan) or 9M133F "Kornet" ATGMs with a laser jam-resistant fire control system, but these can be removed and replaced by a pod of 9K38 Igla (SA-18 Grouse) surface-to-air missiles. It carries 300 rounds for the main gun, 2000 rounds for the machine gun and 4 ATGMs. It also has a modern computerized fire control system with a two-plane stabilizer and a 1K13-2 telescopic sight with distance measurement/thermal/laser channels and ballistic calculator with external sensors.
Computer simulations proved that the BMP-1M can outperform the American M2/M3 Bradley at firepower efficiency (the tested aspects included ATGM power, the effective range of the ATGM and the autocannon during day and night conditions and launching the ATGM while on the move). In these simulations the BMP-1M won a combat engagement with the M2 Bradley 1.3 times more often."

This beastie was available in 1998 but you can bet your bottom ruble it'd be turning up a lot earlier during the Twilight War.

[ChalkLine]

Do you still have East Germany in your campaign?

I've had reunification but before it was made the East Germans shifted stocks of all their gear to other communist nations. This leaves all sorts of NVA kit turning up in odd places.

This causes problems. Also in my game the Germans created several emergency units using residue NVA stocks for service elsewhere. Sometimes these units end up encountering units using old NVA equipment. However the Germans only use Bundeswehr body armour and webbing.

(I also ditched the "French Stab In The Back" gimmick as it's frankly offensive. Instead there's Warsaw pact troops all over Germany and in France)

[ChalkLine]

My players have just encountered this Twilight 2000 refugee vehicle

Goat Cart
Weight: 34kg (75lb)
Capacity: 227kg (500lb)
Uses one goat as a draught animal. Generally constructed from lightweight steel construction and wheelbarrow wheels. In T2K the operator usually walks alongside the vehicle.

This draught vehicle has surprising cross country mobility and is really only limited by the skill in which the load is secured and the balanced nature of the load itself. It generally moves at human walking speed.

[ChalkLine]

Denmark, a much-forgotten NATO member, actually fielded their version of the M41 Walker Bulldog right into the Twilight 2000 period.

Now, it's been covered in some source-books but the salient feature is that it was updated to mid-nineties grade while still keeping the venerable to impressive derivative of the late Second World War US M1 76mm cannon in its 76mm M32A1 form.

Now, this gun is absolutely perfect for Twilight 2000 and I don't use that lightly. The reason is that it's powerful but not too powerful. While powerful enough to see off anything below an MBT the M32A1 isn't so powerful that your players can tear a swathe right across Poland and Germany. If you come up against a T-62 or above you have to pull your head in and go around or become extremely creative in how you deal with it. This means a GM can give the players the effects of modern tank warfare but also have that moment where they look at the two T-80s nosing around the hill an decide that that direction is not worth investigating.

As the Danish M41, the M41DK, has only about 25mm of very well-sloped armour it can tussle with stuff that mounts KPVs but has to be an ambush predator for anything else. Thus the infantry players still have a role as they screen and protect the gun tank. They go in, clear out the RPG teams and look for mines/IEDs so the M41DK can get into position and then it does its job. This sort of combined arms warfare should be the meat and potatoes of T2K fighting.

For play I recommend one player be the TC and give the rest of the crew positions to NPCs. The TC controls the NPCs through his Leadership skill (or equivalent). Still, the GM should do the NPC's rolls or the TC suddenly gets a whole bunch of characters to play and that makes a power disparity for those players who elected to run a PBI out there in the mud. I recommend also a far larger diversity for crew personalities than the cards and training quality. I'd make entirely new characters and base them on someone. This makes the crews much more memorable and stops them being robots that one player controls.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M41_Walker_Bulldog)

[ChalkLine]

Well, last game the players were sneaking across the rainy, muddy Polish fields when they found one of these lying in the mud.

[ChalkLine]

BRDM-2M

What's not to love? It's a UAZ with (some) armour!

The BRDM-2M was pioneered by the, uh, "BRDM-2M" but not the Russian one but rather the Polish one.

The Poles noted that even though they loved this thing it had serious flaws. They especially didn't like the way you had to enter and exit the vehicle's deck hatches. The vehicle isn't short so it's a big drop to the ground and they wanted a way to get in and out quickly, it is a scout car after all. You need to get out and scout.

So the Poles had a long hard look at it and decided they didn't need the belly-wheels. Out they went and now not only could they put actual doors just aft of the forward wheels but there was room inside for two scouts as well.

The Russians looked at this and thought the Poles had totally missed the point. Until the Polish vehicles worked so well in actual combat. At that point the Russians also looked at ditching the belly-wheels and adding stuff including the doors and passenger positions. However when they switched to newer radios in the 1990s they noticed that there was now room in the turret due to the smaller systems. Rather than lavish stuff on crew comfort, Russian wars are supposed to be unpleasant, they managed to cram in a mount for the AGS-17 slaved to the main armament and now had something a bit like a M1117.

Okay, new stats:
Same speed stats except the vehicle doesn't have the same obstacle crossing ability the old one had which was remarkable. Now it's just "good".

+1 AGS-17, external mount but belt fed from internal stores. I can't tell you how much ammo it carries for this but I do know the other ammunition stowage is unchanged.
+2 passengers.

(While this might not be all that common, I would make it common though, all the Polish ones had the extra passengers during the period)

[ChalkLine]

Phases of the Twilight War

Note: This is my take and it's not the usual one. I'm not pushing my program but rather throwing this out here for anyone that might find it useful.

By definition the Twilight War is unlike any other. It goes from a state-of-the-art modern peer-to-peer conflict using all weapons possible and winds down to gangs of soldiers wandering around scavenging food and gear. There may well be phases beyond this that simply don't bear thinking about.

The reason this is important as not only will the whole concept of operations change but it will also strongly reflect the legacy equipment left around, something that impacts strongly on the game. In The Second World War Nazi Germany came up with a bewildering array of "Last Ditch" equipment that ranged from the technically advanced to the medieval. There may well be other things sometimes touched on in the game like the M16EZ, that are sprinkled in the campaign.

Some of these phases will not happen everywhere at the same time.

Note: This uses the 1st Edition timeline. (In this the Chinese start a war with the USSR and the West joins in later).

Phase One: Preceding 1995.
The March to War
This is just before the war and it's worth having because otherwise things get left out.
The history states "after a period of increasing tensions". In this stage every future belligerent nation takes stock of the unfolding situation. The USSR and the PRC have switched to full wartime economies. The West has several options but it's likely that every military of the time will defer destroying obsolescent equipment. I place this around 1987+. Plans will be created to have in place systems to rapidly restore "boneyard" and "mothball" equipment however the systems themselves will not be created but rather serious preparations for them. Military expenditure while be increased but not significantly. R&D projects will be increased. Observers will watch the fighting and note technical and doctrinal lessons being learned. Plans will be created for the TO&E of legacy units.

Game effects.
Larger numbers of pre-war equipment will be created. Some gear that is historically from post 1995 will be fast-tracked and will appear in the game earlier.

Phase Two: 1995
Eastern Engagement
The Warsaw Pact and the PRC are now serious and it's now that their modern equipment starts pouring out. The USSR starts creation in the large scale that post-Cold War history associates only with elite units: body armour, night vision gear, squad communications.
NATO starts creating large stocks of modern gear that will be shipped to the PRC next year.

Game Effects:
Apart from a higher level of equipment it is as can be expected.

Phase Three: 1996
The West gets involved.
At this point the West starts arming the PRC (who then shamelessly reverse-engineers most of it) and in a strange reversal of what has happened in the Middle East the Warsaw Pact encounters NATO equipment used by poorly-trained but enthusiastic troops. Large amounts of it are captured and shipped back for examination and the WarPact are appalled at the level of connectivity involved in these modern systems. Crash programs reverse-engineer these in an effort to incorporate them into Soviet equipment and doctrine and these are then tested against the Chinese. (Note that at this time Albania is a Chinese ally flanked by hostile nations. This does not bode well for their future in Europe)
NATO also gets direct doctrinal information on state-of-the-art WarPact gear and the rising level of experience in the Eastern European armies as they get blooded.
Game Effects:
Some late 1990s equipment is already in place due to the experience from the preceding year. I would go so far as to make gear from 2000 to 2005-ish available.

Phase Four: 1997
It All Goes South
In this part Germany partly reunifies and the Western Front opens up.
With the fighting in Germany and the US drive into Poland the fresh but un-blooded NATO troops meet Polish and Russian forces in Poland. These troops have been cycled through the Chinese Theatre and are hardened and experienced in manouevre to the extent NATO does not expect. At this point every nation on the planet starts rearming as fast as they can if they are not already well down that path. With two year's experience on the nature of the fighting advanced systems are created and shipped to the general conflict in Europe. I'm not averse to early 2000s gear appearing here, war is a huge accelerator of technology and this is largely ignored by the canon. Notably the city-fighting means you'll see things like TUSK upgrades for M1s and similar vehicles appear on all sides.
Those programs to rebuild and restore mothballed equipment swing into action. As it's bleedingly obvious that This Is It the West's total manufacturing starts churning out top-of-the-line munitions while also refurbishing everything and anything.

Game Effects:
Out-of-period equipment is put into production. Things such as weapon optics and rails become common. Legacy gear is rebuilt and upgraded to modern standards, if not for Western Theatre use then for holding the line elsewhere and to supply allied nations. All the peripheral builders of proposed but not accepted equipment also swing into action resulting in much of the small-scale stuff sold to minor countries appearing in larger quantities.

Phase Five: 1998
Is Everyone Having Fun?
This where we have a lot of to-and-froing and then it all happens as the nuclear strikes hit first tactically and strategically. Industry is smashed and if you were working in a tank factory you became reduced to hot plasma.
Only well-hidden, and rarely then, industry survives. Dispersed equipment stocks are used. The bulk of governmental effort goes into disaster relief.

Game Effects:
Production ceases. It's "make do with what you have".

Phase Five: 1999+
What Do We Do Now?
The war continues for some unknown reason, probably because no one tells everyone to stop. This is where the run-down of gear starts in earnest and quickly things like ATGMs start to dry up as they are used out-of-doctrine to hit anything that looks "blowupable". This phase I usually call "The Missile Drought" as the top of the line munitions are expended.
However, the military units are still in business and now the civilian sector (their reason for being) are ash they take over production. It's at this time we see things like rechargeable batteries and low-tech solutions being built in restored factories. The focus is on sustaining the gear they have and not creating new answers. Lower tech solutions are grafted onto high-tech equipment.

Game Effects:
It is here the GM gets a chance to shine. Repurposed and add-on equipment starts to diffuse out to the troops. Also, second-line gear kept in depots replace things like optics that are no longer produced so those Aimpoints start to disappear. Some vehicles are turned into Frankensteins as old systems are shoehorned in to replace newer, destroyed ones. We have to be careful here as older systems are invariably larger, bulkier and heavier and may not fit. It might be common to see armoured boxes welded onto the exteriors of vehicles to mount extraneous systems. Really, by the time the players get a hold of it nothing is standard. It will probably have been upgraded and then part of that in return downgraded, making for some truly unique kit.
Very advanced gear will tend to be more worn out usually as it served longer unless it's been lying under rubble for a few years. An M60A5 with a 120mm gun jammed in but all the MGs are Browning M37s isn't unusual. Maybe it only has a thermal camera for the TC but not the gunner.

Note that autocannon barrels get shot-out faster and it will be common to see worn-out cannons, especially on the more modern ones as they were in combat service longer.

Towed artillery might make a comeback. As the SPGs wear out their weapons might be removed and new mounts created or old mounts repurposed. This goes for any gun-carry vehicle.

Specialist vehicles are going to be repurposed as fighting vehicles. Having an armoured radar vehicle is pointless as is a command post vehicle if it can be used for other stuff. Some turrets can drop in on surprising vehicles or you can simply plonk a weapon on top as the much-loved ZSU-23mm gun has been everywhere. Divisional workshops are the focus of this but it gets steadily more dispersed as the units break up.

[ChalkLine]

Beutefahrzeug (Loot Vehicle)

This was a Second World War German term and these were very common as they were always under-stocked with native vehicles (they really liked Shermans). However, they usually did a few things to them to ease logistics problems.

First off, the replaced the radios if they could. When you think about it this is a no-brainer. Second off they'd usually try at least to replace the secondary weapons. German co-axial machine guns would be shoe-horned in unless it was one of the large amount of units that used captured weapons stocks. In the Cold War the PKM-Ts and the various MAG versions actually aren't that different in size. They'd also often change the cupolas on captured armoured vehicles so the TC had the same capabilities as that of their own vehicles.

In a Twilight 2000 sense all these apply. A T-80 in NATO service would have these modifications as well as the over-size identification markers and probably a large IR marker as well.

As I've mentioned earlier some of them will have retro-fits of NATO sensors to bring them up to standard. Some might even have engine swaps. Soviet engines are notorious for running dirty as they have huge tolerances to cope with massive temperature changes and it's a bit of a fuel waster in a logistical sense. NATO smoke launchers are another probable change (nearly no one uses these in their games).

UK-service vehicles would have had the large reel on the outside to connect vehicles in laager so they could maintain radio silence. There's probably no room for the water-boiler so it'd be a hardship post. Maybe they could mounted a liberated samovar on the outside.

[ChalkLine]

Twilight Smoke Launchers.

(No one uses these in their games)

The standard NATO vehicle smoke launcher is a 66mm grenade. The Warsaw Pact uses the 71mm "Tucha" launcher. Generally it produces a thick IR-defeating smoke and may or may not be based on white phosphorus. WP smoke grenades are simply WP grenades, there's no difference except they have about three to four times or more the payload of a 40mm WP grenade. As they have a very simple fuzing system they have a larger payload percentage.

However vehicles can also launch CS gas, but that's a niche munition.

Early on and its up to you if you want to reintroduce this but vehicles also had the option of fragmentation munitions for these installations. These were often used in urban fighting or other places where the vehicle might be overrun by hostile infantry. Note that the US M34 WP grenade had a fragmentation jacket.

As a rough guide the standard load for smoke grenades was 32 rounds with four to eight being on each side of the vehicle. Some vehicles expected to fight in urban terrain even had them facing in a 360º arc. These munitions are stored internally.

I'm not quite sure of the firing procedure. I know many installations allowed for single and barrage fire. I hope someone can enlighten us on this.

These little fellas go a long way. Here's a diagram from the M551 showing its arc. As is obvious these things present a very real risk to friendly personnel.

[ChalkLine]

This is a really long technical look at what survival would be like for one centre; Kraków. It is a model for the sort of capability that will be available to anywhere in the Twilight 2000 world. If this sort of boring navel-gazing makes your eyes cross it probably won’t be very interesting.

In a spare moment I gave some thought to The Free City of Kraków. To be precise how its economy works. This is pretty much going to be a critique and then I thought we could workshop an actual real, logical Kraków.
Note: I'm not disrespecting GDW here. They did a great job on extremely little information. Older posters here will remember just how little information came out of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War.

Now, disclaimer: I've never been quite sure why the Kraków authorities thought making a "free city" would be of any use. By definition in Twilight 2000 there's very little travel and what little there is can be handled by normal procedures. In effect they're saying to Lublin "NATO Welcome Here", and you can imagine how well that would go over. Secondly, no matter how well-disposed many people were towards the west before the war that's not going to be the case any more. The west was well-thought of in many places because they offered a lot and didn't do anything overly damaging to Poland, most of the western hatred was focused on Russia and East Germany. Since then in the game NATO has massively nuked Poland. Now, let that sink in. Not only did they invade but they also used nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. NATO has killed an enormous amount of Polish people. NATO PCs will not be viewed as "good guys" by many Poles, and also the activity of NATO marauders will be conflated with NATO troops. (This also goes for other nations, they're probably sick of Russia too, but at least Russia fought alongside the Poles). Now add in anti-NATO propaganda.

In my campaign Kraków is a very different place to what GDW envisaged. Anyway, that's just an aside.

Now, this might well be far too much detail and nitpicking, but I was wondering how they grow food, produce materials and so on. The reason I do this is because it puts stuff in the world. If there's an ammonium nitrate source it's not only extremely valuable to everyone, you can make fertiliser and explosives with it, but it's really something the players should bounce off. It makes the world real rather than an exercise in rolling on tables.
The first big problem with Kraków being that you simply can't run industry on a significant scale without significant power generation and the generator listed on page 17 of the source-book brings up a few problems. Firstly, yes you can move a boiler, although they are insanely technical and fragile things, but it also means you have to move the generators, the transformers, and then you have to rebuild the electrical infrastructure hooking it to the grid all while needing a food and security surplus to allow you to apply the personnel to the task.

Nowa Huta had a power plant but that's almost certainly bombed into oblivion (canonically it was vaporised in a triple nuclear strike) and also it ran on brown coal, and that would mean yet another industry required. Worse, the coal came originally from Silesia (it's complicated but Poland had a lot of odd inefficiencies due to Stalin-era requirements of industry going to certain places for political reasons and this meant long supply lines) and of course this isn't going to arrive, even if the plant is both reasonably intact and running at extremely low capacity. The problem with our steam-powered plant is we simply can’t fuel it. Wood does not produce enough calories when burnt and also you’re going to run out of wood in just a few months. In addition wood is difficult and costly to transport from it’s ever-moving harvesting areas.

So, big power is out. So that means small power, and of course you can distil fuel and run that but really it's both inefficient and insufficient to run things like lathes, industrial presses and so on for the likes of the Wojo Mortar Factory that is going to need at least those two pieces of industrial tools and many more.

[Edit: Since then I've researched the Dąbie Power Station, a small hydro-electric station on the barrage (weir) at Kraków.]

Secondly, it's stated that Kraków imports most of its food. From where? Now, as I said before I don't blame GDW for this but people familiar with modern farming know that there's a massive infrastructure associated with it so you can make a reasonable surplus.

In the 1950s to 1960s there was a thing called The Green Revolution (The Third Agricultural Revolution) when inefficient smaller farms switched over to agri-industry on a massive scale (the Soviets showed exactly how not to do this in the 1920s) and of course that infrastructure is gone in Twilight 2000. Fertiliser, pesticides, the systems for storing and applying those two, and especially the massive infrastructure that revolves around irrigation and its equipment (and the fuel required). Modern farming uses a large amount of fuel. This infrastructure came from central hubs that then went to transportation feeders, both military targets (although food production targeting is a war crime it's usually inevitable collateral damage).
Simply put there is no food for Kraków to import and there's no way the people nearby could get it there. While "sail it on a barge" is the canonical answer it doesn't really cover the logistics of getting the food from granaries, loading barges with heavy equipment and then fuelling them for the run downriver. Even if it was possible, would Kraków produce enough for it to be worth it when those people know that cyclical famine is now a thing they have to contend with?

So we have no food and no fuel. But that doesn't mean we can't have some sort of large unit in Kraków running a city.
So, we have to have Kraków produce enough food and also create a surplus. Luckily, there is a large amount of farmland to the north west of the city, however I can’t get a size on this to determine how many people it can support.

Unfortunately potassium and phosphorus do not occur naturally in Poland and along with nitrogen (which is not hard to get with ingenuity) you need all three for commercial surplus level farming. (The Polish government is probably getting all three from Russia which explains their ability to support troops and Germany has sources which explains NATO continuing on). This means the farming production is going to drop to pre-1870s levels.
Now, this was between 0.6 to 2.0 tonnes per hectare in optimum conditions, with the low numbers being for backwards areas with little mechanisation (what there was for the time) and the higher level for optimised areas in advanced countries. It took between 625 and 875 man-hours to produce that amount. Note these are when the mechanisation is gone. Tractors and farm gear will quickly wear out, especially when not lubricated or using poor quality fuel. Even so the immediate loss of fertilisers will be the main reducing factor in output.

Those numbers are only important if you want to go into eye-glazing detail, and that’s not even where I’m going and my reputation proceeds me. Instead the basic rule is that 80% of an established population will be engaged in food production. In transient or survival-level farming that number jumps to 95%. In areas that have access to modern farming level technology and infrastructure that plummets but I think only Lublin could manage that locally.

This means that the Kraków soldiery spends nearly all their time farming and only small patrols and checkpoints guard Kraków itself. It also means those patrols take away from those running the very inefficient post apocalypse industry and commercial activity. As can be seen almost no one lives in idleness and things like bars and shops will all be part time affairs. It also means the Kraków troops are going to be centred in the farming areas and more of a reaction force. The centre of Kraków is going to be a very dreary place as the focus of the city will be on the farming areas.

With food understood and the subsistence level of production worked out we now look at power production. As can be understood fuel is the primary problem. The only really available source is agricultural waste, however most of that is put back into the soil as fertiliser and only a tiny amount will be available to brew fuel. Forestry reduction is available in the short term, this might be where Kraków is now, but as mentioned above forestry is also a fuel-intensive industry. The two nearest coal deposits are the Lublin Basin, they’re not sharing with a rogue unit, and the Upper Silesia Basin which is too far away. However the canal between the two was used as a transport hub and is unlikely to have been directly targeted by anyone. GMs might want to have a resource war between Kraków and Silesia over the coal at some point.

It now appears that Kraków on the surface simply can’t get the power to run any industry on the scale of a factory capable of making mortar shells (the fuzes are totally impossible), which is rather sad. It is in fact unlikely they’ll be able to maintain their equipment and will eventually go under to someone with access to fuel unless the expand to absorb such a region.

[ChalkLine]

Component units in the Kraków Defence Forces.

(Following on the Kraków theme)

The unit controlling Kraków is listed as the "8th Motor Rifle Division", which is actually something of a misnomer. The Polish called those units "Mechanised Divisions"

By the way, I really don't think the 8th are going to disband the colours and call themselves an OTK unit if for no other reason that the local OTK unit was already in place.

Here's the official Order of Battle from 1985:

8th "Dresden" Mechanised Division
- 16th "Dnowsko-Łużycki" Tank Regiment
- 28th "Sudecki" Mechanised Regiment
- 32nd "Budziszyński" Mechanized Regiment
- 36th "Łużycki" Mechanised Regiment
- 4th Artillery Regiment
- 83rd Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment
- 47th Rocket Artillery Battalion
- 1st Tactical Missile Battalion
- 15th Division Artillery Commander Command Battery
- 5th Reconnaissance Battalion
- 19th Sapper Battalion
- 13th Signal Battalion
- 8th Supply Battalion
- 8th Maintenance Battalion
- 39th Medical Battalion
- 64th Chemical Defence Company

Also, the 8th will be associated with a few other units that would have been in Kraków. These are:

3rd "Carpathian" Brigade WOP ("Border Protection Troops")
- 264th WOP battalion
- 32nd WOP battalion
- 34th WOP battalion

5th Podhalańska Brygada WOW ("Internal Defence Forces"; "Wojsk Obrony Wewnętrznej")
- command and staff
- three motorized infantry regiments (each with three battalions, a - mortar battery and a battery of guns)
- tank battalion
- 122 mm cannon squadron
- 120 mm mortar squadron
- 57 mm AA cannon squadron
- reconnaissance company
- company of sappers
- chemical company
- communications company
- traffic regulation company
- medical company

Kraków Territorial Defence "Bartosz Głowacki" Regiment. ("OTK").
- command and staff [4] .
- 4-6 infantry companies each with 3 infantry platoons and a heavy machine gun platoon
- special company including sapper platoon, communications platoon and chemical platoon
- supply platoon
This is who we think the "ORMO" were. They are the local military defence unit.

Kraków Civil Defence Units ("OP") Obrona Cywilna PRL
Don't underestimate these people, this is what every civilian is more or less part of. As Poland was a communist country they subscribed to the "People's War" concept and everyone had a role to play in the conflict. If you had nothing else you could do the OP took you.

Kraków Militia ("MO") This was the pre-war police force. It must be remembered that Polish police were paramilitary.

One unit you'll notice that are not here is the local ORMO units. This is because the ORMO was an arm of the Polish communist party, the guys the 8th are rebelling against.

Also I should belabour the point that Polish society in the Cold War was more militarised than what we in the west (assuming the reader is western) are used to. Some sort of civil training was very common. Civil Defence was especially widespread. Note that "civil defence" meant just that; not only did they do disaster relief and medical services but the OP also did things like create strongpoints, assist AA weaponry and other military functions.

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Running Text-Based Twilight 2000 Games.

Many times we've all been stinging for a game but can't organise a tabletop campaign. T2K is by definition more of a campaign game due to its resources management and travel focus so one-off games usually don't do the trick. As such we often think "hey, I'll just run this online on RPOL or something". Lots of people have, and I encourage you to join one, but what makes it difficult to run in a one-off session is also what makes it very hard to play as a play-by-post or play-by-e mail game. This is because the medium is incredibly slow.

I mean *really* slow. It took me five years to run a very detailed game with two to three "Turn Posts" a week to get the players together, do a small investigation, clear a small group of marauders from the environs of a bridge and then deal with a counter attack. So this brings us to our first rule:

Keep It Small

You have to have small, compartmentalised adventures. They have to be easily resolvable because you will have players either go missing for a while or disappearing entirely. A long campaign is simply impossible given the level of detail that T2K involves unless you are going to gloss over much of the richness of the campaign.
So instead of a long adventure you instead have several small adventures that link to each other. The idea here is that if the thing goes on too long some players will simply become too fatigued to deal with it and drop out. This also gives the players a bit of autonomy; they finish up one area and then can choose the next direction from the choices you give them. Always keep in mind what the next scenario will be however, because here is where the next thing comes in:

Foreshadowing

This goes for any game but is vital for text games. "Foreshadowing" is a literary term for where the writer introduces a plot element early so the reader gets used to it and when it finally features in the script it seem natural that it should occur. If your next scenario features marauders then have survivors of one of their attacks be a feature of some of the NPCs. This links the scenarios together in more ways than just exploration. Foreshadowing is great for mysteries, introducing NPCs and laying the groundwork for large events. Due to its plt-setting nature it makes things seem like to campaign is "alive" and doesn't freeze when the players turn their back.

That leads to the next bit:

The Living Campaign

Because text-based games have to be very focused and you have to provide lots of information in an economical form that doesn't make the reader's eyes glaze over, the important work of giving the feeling that the world is alive and doing other things has to dealt with in most posts, it's not something you can forget and just dump on the players later. In a firefight they should hear artillery off in the distance. When travelling they might hear shooting in the hills or see tracers at night. This needs a bit of practice because it can also be distracting and confusing, the player suddenly doesn't know if a mortar duel twenty kilometres away is landing on their convoy or not. Have one of the last surviving helicopters fly across the far north, its rumbling rotors waking them from their sleep. In one game I had a trio of cruise missile flash over the brigade they were in and keep going. They were headed for France but the players never found that out.

Firm Rules.

Finally I'm going to post my two-decade old play-by-post rules here. Each has a little explanation of why the rule was needed that is usually omitted from the rules page when I play.

Jim's Play-By-Post Rules

1) Do Not Meta-Game
"Meta-Gaming" is where a player uses information or knowledge not available to their character.
This is not that much of a problem any more and usually is exhibited by excited and enthusiastic players. As text-based games are slow many players try and be in as much action as possible or access information (such as another player spotting a sniper but being unable to warn his companions) that is not available to them.

2) Do Not Lie to, Cheat or Steal From Other Characters.
The basic social agreement of gaming is that players will work together. The game is dangerous enough for the characters without their colleagues actively trying to get them killed. Also note that while this sort of behaviour might seem like fun role-playing many players approach this as a relaxation from such behaviour. Please be considerate.
This is a new rule because, hey, I'm 56 and what was cool and edgy when I was 20 is tedious and offensive now.

3) Be Aware Your Actions Have Reactions.
You are not an island, mistreating NPCs will eventually get out, you will find it difficult to interact peacefully with the world if you have a reputation for torture or murder. It's a tough world but there are obvious over-reactions that will impact negatively on your reputations, you have been warned.
I'm not a big believer in making examples of players but sometimes you have to show that the PCs are not always the biggest dog in town, and if they have a bad reputation those big powers will seek them out.

4) You may NOT kill or attack with intent to harm another PC without prior GM approval.
The GM reserves the right to make an empathy roll, if you fail this roll you cannot bring yourself to harm the other player, although you're more than welcome to be bitter and nasty! The GM may well re-roll this without your knowledge as time and the campaign goes on, so you may 'be pushed too far' and be told that you are ready for violent confrontation, but PCs aren't permitted to open up on other PCs willy-nilly.
I use the Cyberpunk 2020 rules (without classes) and one of the statistics is "Empathy". This statistic is you interpersonal stat and is quite important in play, and it's also the sort of "shield" the players has against becoming the evil they strive against. While I hate alignments I think we can all agree that evil really does exist in the world and generally the players are opposed to it. I had to boot a guy who just up and shot another PC during an argument over a triviality, and then another guy used the new 'no attack' rule as a way of sheltering his own poor interaction, thus it was modified again. I try and make it clear that while a player knows that a gun can only do so many "hit points damage" the *character* only sees a deadly weapon.

5) Turns: The GM posts Two times a week, Australian Tuesday and Friday
You must have your response in before then or you are NPC'd for that turn. If you miss three turns without telling anyone, your PC is 'walked offstage' and out of the game. If something catastrophic has occurred, your PC is then brought back on when you can play again.
Turn Posts are different to just posting. The Turn Post moves the action along and is exactly the same as ending a round of combat, and is used for just that during combat. This gives players a firm idea of when things have to be achieved by and how long they can discuss things. Also, people were dropping out without warning or not responding and holding up turns for weeks. I picked twice a week because I had those days off more than any other reason. We had a guy who had a house fire, so you could hardly blame him for not posting, but others just vaporised and I needed a system for everyone to know when they'd be cut out. After this I always was given good warning that a player would have to miss turns

6) Players MUST answer other players
You should always answer any speech directed at your character, even if it's to only post something like 'I ignore John.'
If this isn't instituted some players aren't answered and are stuck waiting for a response, missing turns and slowing everything down. Sometimes this turns into the dreaded 'talking to the air' where players address the air rather than be held up.

7) PCs must NOT 'think aloud' about other PCs. Never post 'Fred thinks John is a total jerk, his plan is stupid and will get them all killed.' etc. It's cowardly, the other player gets no right of response, role-play out your differences and resolve them on the board, that's the name of the game.
We had a rash of this; I had to stamp on it because I was getting a lot of off-list complaints. It's a pernicious thing that many players fall into, the other way of doing it is the PC speaks to an NPC while well away from everyone else, but it amounts to the same thing.
- When in combat, post a combat summary after your post.
The summary looks like:
Who you are,
Where you are,
What you're using,
What you're doing.

Such as:
Private John
In the ditch, crouching, by the wrecked BTR.
M16A2, 5 magazines
Covering Private Fred's advance to the gully.

9) A Rules-Speak Paragraph is A Good Idea.
If you post a long and descriptive turn, you may want to follow it by a 'rulespeak paragraph' after your turn - but before your summary - if you're concerned the GM may get it wrong. Don't skimp on your descriptions, they're the meat of the game, but sometimes a quick clarification of the 'round 1: run to barn, round 2: ready bow, round 3: shoot at brown-haired bandit’ makes things amazingly easier for me to GM out and I hate it when I make mistakes about your intentions.
I know it's hard to come up with thrilling narrative every turn, but please try and make longer posts of good descriptions of your actions for a few reasons. Firstly, they get me really enthused to write the story for you. Secondly, they add so much to the game. Thirdly, fifteen separate posts of "yes", "no", and "maybe" tends to "spam-out" people in different time zones, they get up and there's a hundred posts of drivel that they can hardly inject themselves into. It also is amazingly confusing to GM.

10) Trim your posts.
Only have in your post the text that you are responding to or relates to your post, and only respond AFTER the text and not before.

11) Colour Your Speech.
When your PC talks, the text of his comments should be enclosed within inverted commas and the text should be Blue, this is so other players can sort your conversation from your descriptions. However, if a character thinks something they are written the same way but they are in italics; "such as this."

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What sort of add-on units we could attach to the the 5th?

This wouldn't contradict canon at all, it would be an interesting addition and give players other choices when starting.

My first thought would be a unit do attach orphan NATO units to. Some sort of umbrella unit.

The next would be somewhere to put ex-Warsaw Pact troops in the same manner. Once again they'd have their own organisational charts. (In 1st Edition the East Germans might have an odd tension on who wants them)
Finally we can make up some purely T2K units that deal with farming, battlefield reclamation and fabrication.

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Polish Civil Defence, Air Raid Shelters and Disaster Relief.

The Cold War Polish people lived in a militarised society. They prepared for a conventional war on their territory, and in the T2K world this preparation will bear fruit.

It has to be remembered that in the People's Republic of Poland everyone had a job to do and if war erupted everyone had a job to do in that. Civilian training in disaster relief was on a level unequalled in the West. The civilians had shelters and were expected to use them. In devastated areas civilians were expect to fall back with the troops and not stay in place. Civilians will be active in the defence of their country and NATO is an invader.

Civilians were incorporated into the war effort under the umbrella of the Obrona Cywilna PRL (OP).
The OP was the primary civil defence organisation and a large proportion of the civilian population had a role in it. The OP as a civil defence unit is off limits to hostile forces and it is illegal to utilise their equipment. Civilian infrastructure such as school buses and bus shelters were designed to be quickly converted into ambulances and aid stations. This thinking permeated the Polish government and society. Firemen, police and medical staff all wore military uniforms. In fact nearly everyone in this situation wore uniforms, it would be rare to see civilian clothes after a while. Civilians had access to shelters and these were stocked with food, medicine and NBC equipment. Huge amounts of earthmoving gear was available to them to shift rubble and enter damaged buildings. The OP had comprehensive NBC detection and decontamination equipment that included decontaminating every facet of life right down to livestock.

Now, it's very hard for me to tell as I don't speak Polish but there was another organisation that has the acronym ZOS. They were either part of the OP, ran in parallel to them or were superseded by them. ZOS had fire, medical, sanitary, technical, social and specialist shelter staff all organised along military lines. ZOS seems to have worked alongside the MO (police) in rear area operations and go into action to mitigate the effects of the war on the population. Poland had the experience of the Nazi occupation to draw from and had no illusions as to how bad war could be and prepared accordingly.

Air Raid Shelters were short term shelters. They were located in a huge amount of places such as railway stations, hospitals, industrial plants and government buildings. These things were not small. They usually had double thick steel doors, a decontamination room, a generator/air filtration/water systems complex, medical centre, storage area for uniforms, helmets, medical equipment, tools, food, and other stores, a series of actual shelter areas, a commander's room and an array of escape tunnels. Most were buried well below ground with a concrete shield overhead and would have survived anything but a direct hit from a heavy bomb. In the twilight 2000 world these will form the nucleus of survivor enclaves. During the real world many of these shelters existed in structure only but during the drumbeat to war it is unlikely that Poland would have neglected these structures.

Note that Nowa Huta near Kraków had over 250 of these structures.

OP Guardsman

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Some very good bunker diagrams

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On my quest to make the perfect Twilight 2000 Sheridan I think I've finally found it.

Believe it or not but way back in 1967 there was already concerns that the M81 (as it was then) Gun/Launcher may not be a good idea. As such Rock Island Arsenal did a crash program of four other weapon systems to fit in the M551 turret should the M81 develop problems.

Of the four only two were recommended mainly due to space problems, although it was mentioned that if serious redesign work was done all four would fit in the turret. The two weapon systems were:

- M32 76mm Cannon, the same as was on the M41 Walker Bulldog
- XM180 105mm Gun/Howitzer from the XM104 super mobile lightweight howitzer (which really should have gone into service)

Of the two the XM180 was the preferred weapon system as it coupled low pressure and trunnion loading with high damage output and ammunition that was still largely in service.
This weapon fired much faster than the existing M81 because it didn't need a compressed air purge to blow out the bore so the combustible cartridge cases wouldn't ignite prematurely. It's likely that by the time of the Twilight War an A1 version of the gun/howitzer would have been developed with a bore evacuator for even faster firing. Notably the XM108 could fire any 105mm howitzer ammunition in US stocks and new racks for the vehicle gave a stowage of 50 Rounds. (I note the UK ammo has a squash head round)

If the M551A1 is the M81-armed standard version with vision upgrades and a minor modernisation package that would make the M32 76mm the M551A2A1 and the XM108 105mm the M551A3A1

Here's an image of the gun way back in 1967

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The Polish PT-91 Twardy MBT really should exist in the game, it's awesome.
Although prior to the dissolution there was a strong drive to keep military equipment the same across the board, invariably Russian equipment, it's obvious in hindsight this was impossible to maintain. I guess to ease the problems that might arise from this situation there'd be lots of cross-training with Russian kit so when they resupplied other national armies with gear in case of loss of industrial capacity due to strikes or being overrun there were fewer problems.
Of special interest is the PT-91EU which was an Urban Warfare variant. Although in real life this vehicle turns up way later in 2011 the exigencies of war would see it being developed far earlier. Due to its high survivability it's likely more of these would survive than the other variants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT-91_Twardy

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ZSU-23-4M2 "Afghan" version.

What, it gets worse?!

The deadly "Zoo" or "Shilka" evolved over its ongoing lifetime and the ZSU-23-4 in the books is not necessarily the ones your PCs will meet on the battlefield.

During the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989 the Soviets developed the M2 kit for their Shilkas. This was the following and converted the weapon from the anti-air role to the ground support role:

- Removed the Gun Dish J Band anti-air radar
- Installed enlarged ammunition bays doubling ammunition capacity from 2,000 to 4,000 rounds.
- Installed the TPNZ-49 tank night scope.
- Installed the PSNR-5 man-portable ground surveillance radar.
- Ammunition was a mixed belt of BZT API and OBZT HE-T ammunition to destroy by blast and penetration.


Now, it's important to note that these modification kits exist in the Twilight 2000 era. It just a job of dropping the beast back to a workshop and having them fitted. It's likely this will happen wholesale when the air threat diminishes.

However, what you can use against Afghan rebels and what you can use against NATO regulars are not the same thing. NATO troops can reach out and kill things at night time and the Shilka can only accurately hit targets at around 1,500m in the ground support role. It's going to need some sort of mix of Applique armour, ERA and bar armour.

I can't tell if the Shilkas in the book had the old, unmodified engine that was slow in the book and all the upgrades the vehicles had by the Twilight 2000 era M3 vehicle.

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I do love vehicles that, to put it bluntly, were no good.

If it was that they lost their raison d'être due to technological advances, if they were good ideas that were ahead of their time or in case of the vehicle coming up, they were simply a crap boondoggle, I do love my failures.
The M247 Sergeant York SPAAG could have been awesome. It's one of those vehicles that simply "looks right". It was an utter failure, but the failure was mainly due to its design criteria as much as dodgy corporate swindling and corruption.

What the US Army wanted: A ZSU-23-4 with bigger guns and a fast engine.
What the US Army asked for: an SPAAG using two heavy guns and a heavy radar on an out of date chassis that still had to keep up with the M1 Abrams, one of the world's fastest tanks.

They specified the M48A5 chassis because they had lots and they were very reliable. They also stated that it had to use off-the-shelf equipment so the radar was a repurposed air-to-air radar, not even a ground attack radar. Now, Ford Aerospace seemed to have been thinking if they got the contract the could simply deal with the issues later. Issues like making it work.
Really, the whole sorry tale is too long to go into here. I do recommend you look it up now that 35 years have passed.

What I want to do is suggest that the M247 didn't ignominiously end its days being blown to pieces on live-fire ranges but that the 50 that were made in our alternate universe languished in a boneyard simply because everyone was too embarrassed to talk about them. There they sat, essentially useless and incapable of even defending themselves until the final phase of resupply for the European campaign. By this time the Mil-24 Hinds were all gone and the USA is desperate to send its troops ground fighting vehicles. They looked at the M247s sitting there and gave them the ZSU-23-4M2 "Afghan" treatment.

The hypothetical M247A2 is purely a ground support vehicle. It has had its radar stripped out and the AN/PPS-15A(V)1 ground search radar (1,500m for personnel, 3,000m for vehicles) placed in the forward radar nacelle.
The ammunition is increased from 580 to 650 rounds.
The turret armour is given applique panels that bring it up from STANAG 4569 level 3 to level 4 armour protection, capable of resisting the KPV 14.5mm. A sliding mantlet is provided to protect the crew from direct fire of the same level. The rear of the turret is kept the same and the hull is of course the basic robust M48A5. In the European theatre ERA blocks and wire/bar armour were occasionally used by some units. This extra armour drops the road speed to a slow 40kmh, a speed demon it is not.
The turret had a large bustle rack at the rear and is still roomy after the removal of the large radar even when the extra ammunition is fitted.

The commander's cupola from the LAV-25 was fitted and has a NATO heavy mount capable of accepting the M240E1 GPMG (spade grip version), the M2HB HMG or the Mk19 AGL. Many were equipped with gunshields at various times.

The sights are upgraded. The optical sights are retained and light intensification added. The commander has no override for the gun. At least one of these vehicles was fitted with thermal sights during its war service.
Note that the 40mm twin autocannon are belt-fed, a huge improvement over the crew-intensive five round clips normally used. Its crew remains three with commander, gunner and driver, making it something of a bear for maintenance and an endurance test when keeping watch.

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The ubiquitous Polish FSC Żuk A-07

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One of the things that always irked me a tad is that GDW liked to resurrect ancient titles for modern commanders. It seems to have been based on some sort of "hey, it's Europe right? They'd love someone called "baron"!"

Looking at failed states, and everywhere in T2K is a failed state, tinpot dictators tend to give themselves military monikers, sometimes extremely grandiose ones (Idi Amin? "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular"), to legitimise themselves and to let their goons fool themselves into thinking they're part of a properly constituted and respectable force.

I think the players will meet a certain Marszałek ("Field Marshal") Czarny when they get to Warsawa

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Lublin and the Warsaw Pact in the Central Polish Corridor. The WarPact MSR.

Way over near the Ukrainian/Belarusian border of Poland is the large town of Lublin, seat of the Reserve Front Head Quarters.
Oddly enough most of the headquarters' actual units seem to be at least about two hundred and thirty kilometres west, the nearest being at Piotrków Trybunalski which is the base for the Fourth Soviet Guards Tank Army.
This implies there's an MSR (Main Supply Route) connecting the two. Now, it will probably eventually fail but when the 5th Infantry Division (US) gets nailed at Kalisz it's definitely still in operation.

The route crosses the Vistula/Wisła river at Pulawy, then heads due west to Piotrków Trybunalski and then heads north west to Łódź itself.
Now, it's written in the various sources that the Polish government and the Warsaw Pact command is having trouble with bandits in this area, so you can expect heavy contingents of anti-partisan elements from both Reserve Front HQ and its security elements in Lublin, the formidable Soviet 20th Tank Division and the 6th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Łódź and the nearby 11th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Lask. Not listed will be the various OTK local defence units, formations not to be discounted.

While the 11th are cavalry you can expect the 6th to be mounted in light vehicles with possible guntrucks, UAZ-469 and Tarpan Honker technicals if they send a rapid reaction force. The 20th Guards Tank Division however is a different proposition. They can send actual APCs, IFVs backed by their 8 remaining MBTs along the route and won't hesitate to do so. Players running into a patrol should think carefully about attacking as the situation will simply escalate until the 20th take a serious interest in eliminating the threat to its rear areas. Note that as these are all experienced Warsaw Pact units they won't be mindlessly attacking from the front but will hit hard and fast from all directions.

Along the MSR you'll find a series of fortified checkpoints possibly stiffened by dug-in light and heavy armour. It would not be unreasonable to find these checkpoints using hardened concrete bunkers and even with things like IFV or MBT turrets installed. At this point the supply routes are actually more important than combat capacity.
The checkpoints will send out patrols to dominate the area and fly the flag. Apart from fighting marauders and bouncing player characters they'll also do things like gather up Displaced Persons and then send them towards collection points and relief camps. They might reconnoitre interesting sites for salvage and collect intelligence on things too large to handle themselves.
Support for these units will be at a premium so they can't expect much, but they definitely will be able to call on mortar support if they're close to their base.


As movement is often restricted to infantry endurance there are large checkpoint/bases for platoon sized elements at Zwolen, on the outskirts of Radom, the Pillica river bridge at Inowłódz and at Tomaszow Mazowiecki (all available on Google Maps)

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Self Propelled Guns and why every party should have one.

Twilight 2000 is not actually a modern warfare game but a distinctly different creature, and in the context of the game vehicles often change roles and capabilities and there's no better example of this than SPGs.

Most of the game involves long distance slow movement using limited fuel. Combat is often meeting engagements involving lightly armed and unsupported infantry in a wide variety of situations. While the premier infantry support vehicle, the IFV, is capable in many regards the one thing it lacks is heavy payload direct fire high explosive capability.

There are two stand-out vehicles that vie for supremacy here and they are the British FV433 Abbot and the Soviet 2S1 Gvozdika (SO-122 in T2K terms). Both these vehicles are to be preferred over their heavier 150mm+ counterparts because they are much faster firing, have smaller crews, are amphibious (although this might well change, see the close support package below), carry more ammunition onboard, use less fuel and are more nimble vehicles.

However as standard they are not suitable. Their extremely light armour, just 12mm for the Abbot and 20mm for the Gvozdika, makes them vulnerable to even 12.7mm AP rounds [Edit: Gvoszdika is frontally proof against 12.7 SLAP it seems because like most Soviet light vehicles it has HHA composition steel for its armour] and HEDP rounds from the various grenade launchers commonly encountered in Twilight 2000 engagements. Of course dedicated anti-armour weapons are a threat unable to be countered.

A close support combat package is thus required, being:
- Applique armour to bring the vehicles up to 25mm to 30mm armour levels.
- Bar armour where possible.
- Close defence machineguns. A HMG/Grenade Launcher and and at least one GPMG.
- ERA if possible.
- Possibly even Shtora anti-ATGM dazzlers if these systems are able to be salvaged from BMP-3M, T-80 or T-90 vehicles.

It is unlikely that a vehicle would have all these upgrades. Bar armour tends to be destroyed by ERA detonation. ERA is heavy, reduces mobility, increases fuel consumption and is a danger to accompanying infantry.

Both vehicles have an onboard crew of four.

Finally the two vehicles each have an ammunition variant that the other does not have. The Abbot can fire the bunker-busting L42 Shell 105mm Field, HESH round that has a myriad of applications and is a good HE weapon as well. The Gvozdika has the SH-1 AP Flechette infantry killer as well as some dedicated HEAT rounds (BK-6M and BK-13). The Abbot is faster firing but the Gvozdika has a much larger payload.

Of course these are not main battle tanks or even assault guns, their armour is far too light on a battlefield where the RPG-7V and the AT-4 are common. The infantry has to first go in and clear out opposing infantry, then suppress anti-tank positions so the SPG can manoeuvre in to a firing position and destroy its target. At this point the vehicle should immediately retire. These vehicles are even capable of destroying dug-in or otherwise immobilised MBTs if handled well, although such missions might be considered "high risk" to say the least. Like SPAAGs the SPGs have high angle firing arcs and can engage enemies in elevated positions and this makes them suitable for urban combat.

One of the big drawbacks, and it's a huge one, is that these vehicles have terrible gun depression. The Abbot has an awful -5º depression and the Gvozdika has an abysmal -3º depression. This means the weapons have difficulty engaging close, low targets and can't fire from hull-down positions. While the Soviet vehicles always had the terrible gun depression, the T-72 had only a -5º and the early PT-76 couldn't depress its gun at all, this sort of drawback in Twilight 2000 is significant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV433_Abbot_SPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2S1_Gvozdika
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm...zer_2A18_(D-30)

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A few thoughts on adding the Gulf War to the game history.

Most people include the Soviet-Afghanistan War in their campaigns. However doing so means there's going to be some very skilled veteran Russian officers and senior NCOs getting around when the Twilight War starts. The same goes for the 1st Russian-Chechen War but for more ranks.

In a similar fashion people might be thinking of introducing the 1990–1991 Gulf War which also would be good experience for western troops. If you do so you should understand the massive influence this war had on Russian warfare concepts. According to a report for the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College "The Soviet Military Views Operation Desert Storm: A Preliminary Assessment" there was a lot of consternation about the outcome of this war and it's not an overstatement to say that this caused a revolution in Russian warfare so that the warfighting in the Twilight War would be significantly different.

The Russians deemed that their level of training was insufficient to deal with western armies and that the system for training conscripts would have to incorporate a new full time army of professional troops capable of being rapidly expanded. A quote from a Russian source is:
"It's simply impossible to continue to reject the idea of deep military reform from bottom to top. (The Gulf War) plays in our favor because it's absolutely clear that these sophisticated weapons can't be used with high efficiency without an adequate level of preparation of personnel, and also demand a new kind of commander."

They fully understood the difference of Iraq's rather unskilled (at all levels from trooper to generals), unmotivated and poorly/unevenly equipped army compared to theirs but also understood the West had actually only conservatively exerted themselves to deal with Saddam's forces compared to the level of exertion a war with Russia would involve. The major levels of concern were precision weapons, interconnectivity (the Interconnectivity Revolution was only just underway), and the acknowledged technology gap in some areas that had developed. Principle among these were computing power and night vision/sensing, not only in its capabilities but in its level of deployment through the forces. One level of concern was the way the West had deployed force with precision over mass, meaning that even though they 200,000 troops in-theatre they hadn't required that number to force a resolution. This implied that heavy blows could come from all directions, even from comparatively small and seemingly poorly-supported forces such as airborne or marine troops.

"Volouev asserts that the U.S. Army expects that confrontations in a TVD (the Theater of Strategic Military operations-a purely Soviet concept telling the reader that the argument also applies to the Soviet Army) will be highly mobile and aggressive. The front will be fragmented. Operations will occur along isolated, separate gaps in formations. PGMs will give combat operations the quality of tactical and operational focus that blurs distinctions between offense and defense, the front, flanks, and rear. Combat operations will become three-dimensional with width, depth, and height parameters. Strategic systems will perform tactical missions-something the VVS has been particularly keen on. Army aviation helicopters will repeatedly reduce by a factor of 8-10 the time needed to maneuver forces and assets on the battlefield. Air/Land Battle will become a means of destroying and defeating larger enemy formations in depth."

Note that the Russians and the Soviets before them weren't blind to these concepts, they fully understood the West had been developing them. However they were concerned at not only how pervasive the systems were but how quickly they had been developed. A lot of the Soviet planning had been not only out-fighting but also out-staying the enemy.
As can be understood this sort of thinking led to rapid and frank re-evaluation of how the whole concept of warfare was to be undertaken, and what strengths could be called upon and which strengths needed to be rapidly developed. The Russians had already moved away strongly from the early-mid Cold War thinking of costly breakthroughs that were designed to save lives in the long run after the Soviet-Afghanistan War. In that war they had met an enemy that could outstay even the Red Army, causing a revision of systems towards survivability that arguably has produced things like the T-14 Armata family and the crash program in body armour of the 1990s. Now the Russians were thinking along the lines of integrated systems that would produce the S-300/S-400 integrated air defence network and similar concepts, precision weapons and other concepts faster than the canonical campaign allows for.

In summary integrating the Gulf War into the campaign brings these things closer.

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Soviet Slat Armour
(You guys must be getting sick of all this Soviet stuff)

During the Soviet-Afghanistan War the threat from captured and Chinese-supplied RPG-7s proliferated and the close combat ranges made this threat a high priority. While the Soviets were looking into the ERA-technology that would emerge as the Kontakt-1 and Kontakt-5 ERA packages there was a protection gap that needed to be filled.

The Soviets had already developed the BDD composite armour turret package (not cast blocks as is listed in T2K) and this added a large amount of protection against both kinetic and chemical jet rounds, but it weighed in at 1.8 tonnes for the turret alone. Now their vehicles were being attacked from all sides and something needed to be done quickly.

The USA had developed slat armour during the American-Vietnam War for a variety of purposes including installations, boats and vehicles. The Soviets quickly developed a slat armour package for their deployed vehicles that covered the hull and turret sides and rear. The package weighed in at 0.55 tonnes and could be fitted at any workshop that had an arc welder (the same as the BDD armour package).

Here's a few images:

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M60/AX "Super 60"; the M60A3 for the Twilight War.

The M60A3 in US service was declared surplus to requirements in 1991. A steady wind-down of stocks occurred but by the time hostilities are discernable it's sensible that the Department of Defence would put the brakes on discarding these vehicles.

General Dynamics had put out a serious upgrade package for the M60 in 1985 that was turned down because the US was moving towards M1. However it is to be noted that this package was superior to pretty much every other package available and was a pretty much bolt-on upgrade. I'm just going to cut-and paste the wikipedia entry:

"The tank upgrade is based on the M60A1 RISE hull and the T95E7 turret as used on the M60A1 and A3 variants of the M60 series. Mobility was increased by 20% with a new engine and transmission. It featured the AVCR-1790-1B engine coupled to a Renk RK-304 transmission with 4 forward and 4 reverse gears. The torsion bar suspension system of the M60 was replaced with the National Waterlift hydropneumatic suspension system (HSS).[101] Survivability was enhanced with a layer of Chobham spaced applique armor built around the M60A1 turret, that noticeably changed its appearance. The hull armor is enhanced with a layer of laminated steel armor panels covering the frontal arc of the hull. A pair of steel track skirts were added as well as Kevlar spall liners for the fighting compartment. It has a crew of 4, the commander, loader and gunner are positioned in the turret and the driver in the front of the hull.
The weapons of the M60/AX are similar to those of the M60A3, but different models were used. The main gun is the rifled 105 mm/L55 M68A1E2 with a longer XM24 tube and a thermal sleeve, the same weapon used on the M1 and M1IP versions of the M1 Abrams MBT with 43 rounds.[102] The 7.62 mm M73 coaxial machine gun used on the M60A1 is replaced with a 7.62 mm M240C, with the same number of rounds. The M19 cupola was replaced with a low silhouette model with a pop-up hatch for the commander and a 12.7 mm M2HB machine gun on a pintle mount with 600 rounds. The Fire Control System (FCS) is essentially the same as used on the M60A3TTS consisting of an M21E1 solid-state ballistic computer, Raytheon AN/VSG2 Tank Thermal Sight (TTS) for the gunner, a Raytheon AN/VVS2 flash-lamp pumped ruby-laser based range finder, accurate up to 5000 meters, an M10A2E3 electro-mechanical ballistic drive and solid-state analog data card bus. The prototype built did not have an optical range finder but one could have been easily installed.
As one of the first upgrade packages offered for the M60 series, the M60/AX prototype demonstrated the potential for upgrading the M60A1/A3 and even the M48 series as well. Even though this update package offered M60 users an opportunity to dramatically increase the combat capabilities of their tank fleets, no country ever bought the update, and the program effectively ceased by the end of the Cold War. Only one prototype was built. The overall failure of the Super 60 Program was likely due to the lack of immediate necessity for such a vehicle."

While it's noted that this vehicle became the Israeli "Magach" it was actually a superior vehicle due to General Dynamic's superior manufacturing ability.
Note that the Super M60 as depicted is the "demonstrator model". Super M60s in the Twilight War would probably under go similar modifications the M1A1 underwent such as the TUSK program. Importantly there's no need for any design work to be done, the upgrade is ten years old at the start of the war. The sensors would probably be upgraded to M1A1 standards and incorporate other technology that had arisen during the time of its design and the start of the war.

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A bit of a sobering thought:
In 1989 the BMP-2 factory was making 1,800 vehicles a year

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One of the few problems I have with Twilight 2000 is the backstory is such a crock of horseshit.

Nearly every NATO nation decides to either stab NATO in the back or stay neutral?! Please, it's not just stupid but it's also offensive.

Every nation's behaviour, both Warsaw Pact and NATO, in the backstory is so incredibly stupid it totally destroys the "willing suspension of disbelief" for me.

Yes, yes, I know GDW was trying to create a world war fought everywhere but what they did make was a good game that is fun despite its backstory and not because of it. If they'd simply had a proper Cold War fight with the proper sides it'd stop punching you clean out of the immersion.

Grumble grumble get off my lawn.