The ANZACs in T2k

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

However, they do indicate France is also a member of that unofficial group, and it's my belief they would almost certainly have received at least a handful of nukes to ports near their borders. In that light it's just possible a small warhead or two may have been dropped on remote Australian targets, but certainly not on the major cities. Still, I want to do as much damage as possible using conventional means before applying nukes (if any).

Roger that.

I hesitate to bring this up, but is that "G'Day…" article part of the official T2K canon? If it is, then I think a compliant/compatible sourcebook should try to align as closely as possible. But if not, or you don't care about compliance/compatibility, then your hands aren't tied. Do whatever you think is best for your sourcebook.

Sabotage- especially that which would start fires- could definitely wreck a refinery for a good long time. No fuel, modern civilization starts grinding to a halt.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I hesitate to bring this up, but is that "G'Day…" article part of the official T2K canon?

Yes, absolutely. It's one of the scenarios from Twilight Encounters. It's certainly carrying more weight than any Challenge article I'd think.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As we know, the Twilight War is part of the backstory for the 2300AD setting. In 2300, Australia is a major player, in part because the nation did not suffer as much destruction as others during the Twilight War.
The point I'm trying to make with this is that it appears that canon very much subscribes to the idea that Australia was damaged but not "bombed back to the stone age" and was able to get back on its feet faster than many other nations and hence become a significant force in the galaxy.

So Australia probably does not get heavily nuked because the idea runs counter to what 2300AD canon has established. Now whether you want to include 2300 into the thought process or not is personal choice and most of us probably don't bother (simply because it takes place another 300 years down the track!)
But given that Twilight: 2000 was developed directly from it, 2300 canon played a big part in the development of Australia's situation in the T2k setting so for us to stick within GDW's ideas, some way needs to be found to knock down the country, but not something that is a TKO like heavy nuke strikes.

Edit: I was of the understanding that those Challenge articles were also considered canon material. I think this has been checked on by someone here, it was certainly discussed here some time ago and if I recall it was generally considered that they are part of canon.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Edit: I was of the understanding that those Challenge articles were also considered canon material.

I believe they are too and was just using that to reinforce the idea the "G'day" scenario is vital information which can't be just casually cast aside and ignored.

Australia is an interesting situation I think - you can't just throw a few nukes at the place and say "job done". The dismantling of it's capabilities needs to be a more piecemeal thing, lots of nibbles from lots of different directions to achieve the desired effect. Figuring out what those elements could be is proving somewhat challenging.

The list so far includes widespread bushfires, abnormal weather (possibly due to the effects of nukes elsewhere), cessation of international trade, sabotage and raiding on vital infrastructure, fuel shortages, disease, famine, and of course war in Korea and Indonesia / PNG. Once I've sufficiently devastated the country, I can begin building up the picture as it would be in 2000.

As always, more ideas are welcome, as are any comments on why certain things may not work as intended, or not to the extent desired.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Loss of electricity is going to be a massive impact but considering that we still had many coal-fired power stations and plenty of coal mines that doesn't appear to be a problem.
So we have to interrupt the transport of coal to the stations. The easiest way would be an automobile fuel crisis... ah look at that, right back to were we started!

Like you said, it's tricky. With so much of our infrastructure spread out over a massive continent, what happens in one part of the country often has no impact what-so-ever on other parts of the country. For example, disruptions to the electricity supply in Victoria won't make any impact on electricity for South Aus because our power grids aren't shared by multiple states like in Europe or North America.
But... disruption of electricity to those cities that have fuel refineries, that would be an impact on the rest of the nation. Hmm, coming full circle here...

Many years ago, a mate of mine worked for the State Energy Commission of Western Australia (SECWA was a government body that was later split into two corporations, one controls electricity, the other LPG).
Anyway, in the early 1990s he mentioned one time that the Perth electricity grid relied on four major transformers to distribute power. If one of them broke down the other three would handle things, if two broke down, there would be minor disruptions and some inconvenience to the public. If three went offline, major sections of the city would have to suffer rolling blackouts as they tried to share the power around and electricity would have to be sent from rural power stations via country power lines (which are mostly low capacity lines).

The kicker was that those transformers were made in Europe (France I think) and took approximately one year to build and transport to Australia. They are heavy duty and apparently consist of a lot of solid-state components so they aren't prone to breakdowns.
However, military sabotage would take them offline and probably quite easily.
With that in mind, when my battalion was doing LLOps, part of our training involved protection of power stations and transformers.

A successful sabotage campaign targetting the electrical system in those cities with fuel refineries along with hitting the refineries would be exceedingly difficult to cope with. No electricity and the average city dweller is screwed but no electricity for the refineries means no fuel. No fuel, no transport. No transport, no coal for the power stations, no food deliveries, no resupply for the military etc. etc. etc.
Throw in some bushfires and limited fuel for the fire service, some sabotage of the isolated sections of the railway network to disrupt other goods & services and we have a pretty good start to a Twilight-friendly scenario for a stuffed up Australia

[Legbreaker]

Fuel I think is the key here. Without fuel the trains don't run. Sure, there's a handful of steam locomotives still in running order, but we're talking a few dozen in total across the entire country, they're really not going to make any impact.
So, no fuel, no trains means no coal being transported even short distances to the electrical generation plants. Whoops, there goes electric trains and most of the public transportation networks in the cities.
No fuel getting out to the farms (which aren't exactly within walking distance of the cities)? Well, how's that harvest going then? What about planting for the following season? Yeah, that's a famine for you right there....
No fuel for aircraft, well fires aren't spotted as quickly, and without electricity, communications, especially via landline isn't happening so even when they are spotted, they can't be reported.
Realistically the only areas that would still have electricity are those with alternate generation capability - Tasmania relies almost entirely on hydro, so unless EMP or other actions renders that inoperable, the lights should stay on. Shame there's not a lot of heavy industry on the island state to take advantage of that, and there's no oil refinery either. Of course with the nearest oil fields in Bass Strait, and the pipelines all heading north it's sort of a moot point anyway. Oh well, that's Tasmanian's walking everywhere, but at least the street lights are still on....

[Olefin]

FYI part of what happens to Australia - and for that matter France - depends on what timeline you are using

V2 indicates that France got hit with several nukes that took out ports and refineries (and actually makes it surprising that they didnt join the war given that - but thats another discussion) and basically says Australia comes out damaged from the war but not nuked heavily

FYI per Marc Miller the Challenge articles may or may not be canon (depended on the author)- he told Raellus and I when we were writing to take them into account and if we wanted to include them we could or we could chose not to - however anything officially released - which includes by the way stuff like City of Angels - has to be seen as canon

he did say if we do include anything from the articles into an official release then it would make that article canon for sure

Also a factor for the G'Day encounter is how bad communications are in Twilight 2000 - maybe the group in Twilight Encounters is telling the truth as far as they know and Australia got hit after they left - keep in mind the Texas module where veterans from Europe dont find out the Mexicans are in Texas until they get home