Armouries and Bases

[kato13]

DeaconR 11-07-2005, 02:45 AM I'm kind of curious about how gms here handle the question of more remote or obscure bases and armouries, or even non-military government or corporate projects. I am thinking of the film "The Stand" where one of the characters loots a base that is by implication the one at White Sands, and therefore not readily accessible by TW2000 standards. I am also thinking of a Challenge article depicting Wright-Patterson AFB as still having personnel at it. Looking over lists of bases you see all these personnel and you wonder about what happened to the people and the resources.

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thefusilier 11-07-2005, 04:07 AM I've thought about this myself and while this is probably a weak answer, I usually have a different story for most of them. I have included many into my version of CONUS units locations/strengths orbats.


Some were used a refugee camps and eventually the civilians became part of the local populace/workforce organized by the military; some where abandoned (some mention of this such as Fort McLellan is in the US Vehicle Guide) either under pressure or due to better relocation; some like you mentioned as in Ohio are still operational usually delcaring loyalty to one side or another; some in Texas have mention of holding Mexican refugees and getting damage in the riots and also subsequently evacuated during the invasion, etc.


I guess for the most part they are still there in some form or another except for a small handful. One that comes to mind that I wish there was some info on was Fort Knox. I'm sure with all the gold and such the government/army would have held onto that one, but still wish I had something else besides my own opinions.

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DeaconR 11-07-2005, 10:06 AM I agree with you that it would have to be done on a case by case basis. For instance some of the other bases mentioned in the game are: Fort Stewart, Fort Benning, Camp Blanding, Fort Meade, Fort Bragg, Fort Devens and Fort Jackson. (there are others but I'll deal with these for now just for the sake of demonstrating variety)

Forts Benning and Steward along with Camp Blanding are depicted as part of the 'Iron Triangle' of defensive points formed by the 108th Infantry Division that straddles Georgia and northern Florida.

Fort Meade was apparently nuked.

Fort Bragg becomes the main base of the 184th Transport (later infantry) Brigade, which later on evacuates the area, so presumably the place is abandoned and probably looted in the anarchy following the evacuation of the enclave from North Carolina.

Fort Jackson is apparently the main base of the 30th Engineer Brigade.

Fort Devens is apparently abandoned following the mutiny of the 43rd MP Brigade.


Your idea about refugee camps is a good one, I hadn't thought of that.


Anyway, it's something for gms to think about. In "Lima Incident" a forgotten depot is the cause for the adventure, so in all the chaos and confusion it can be a useful addition to a game.


However I also wanted to point out that a number of the Forts and other military installations have more than just one unit on them. And this is to say nothing of areas like Naval Air Stations or Naval Bases or Coast Guard Stations and so on. Many of them would have for instance long range communications equipment, would have libraries of technical manuals, would have facilities that in and of themselves are important. Fort Detrick comes to mind in this instance.

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firewalker 11-07-2005, 09:31 PM what do ya'll think are the chances of having some of the smaller more isolated coast guard, air force base/stations being abandon but still having a decent amount of gear?


thinking of the wather watch stations, the one's that are going to be geographically isolated. say in the alutans or the extreme north of Alaska and Canada. Antarctica, what sort of bases are there and what do you think would be worth the effort to salvage.


assuming these are the sort of thing that would be closed up consolidated some were early enough in the war were thay wouldn't necessarily be completely striped as well.

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thefusilier 11-07-2005, 09:57 PM what do ya'll think are the chances of having some of the smaller more isolated coast guard, air force base/stations being abandon but still having a decent amount of gear?

thinking of the wather watch stations, the one's that are going to be geographically isolated. say in the alutans or the extreme north of Alaska and Canada. Antarctica, what sort of bases are there and what do you think would be worth the effort to salvage.

assuming these are the sort of thing that would be closed up consolidated some were early enough in the war were thay wouldn't necessarily be completely striped as well.


I think it is quite possible. However I think it would have to be something very very valauble to launch a effort to retrieve items in such isolated places. Especially when you won't be sure that what you are going to slavage is actually still there.


Probably Aluteuan facilities would have all ready got a run over by Soviet troops at one time or another, doing their own salvage ops or patrols. But yeah I guess the ones in northern Canada might have something. By the way Canadian Rangers routinely patrol and check them out including the DEW Line radars and similar early warning (part of the sovereignty missions Canada has to do on its own soil).


One base in northern Canada that might have something would be Alert. It is at the furtherst north point of land and is extremly isolated. No civies, only Canadian military on short term periods. Has a communications and SIGINT role, probably being so close to Siberia. However it is so isolated I dont think the Soviets would even bother with it. Without available C-130 flights to keep resupply after the nuke strikes, we definately would have evacuated all of the personel.


Also to back up the chance of this concept being possible. Years after WW2 some Canadian rangers or civies (I dont know) stumbled across an old Nazi weather station on the coast of Labrador. Back then weather prediction didnt have the luxury of satellites so to determine what the weather would be for the U-Boats in the Atlantic or for long term forcasting for Western Europe, the Germans would radio ahead of time what the weather is in Atlantic Canada (as we got it first).

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firewalker 11-08-2005, 09:25 AM so maybe not your standard PC shopping trip, innless you actually had a game taking place in that area.


so how about a retrieval mission for some other larger group (either of the two gov's, say) to recover some of the larger/technical equipment. the sort of stuff that would be of no use to your average PC group but could conceivably be used by somebody with national aspersions.


in other words computer equipment or parts', communications gear, even weather data (say some of the automated stuff has been left running).

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DeaconR 11-08-2005, 10:23 AM Just reading about Alert makes me shiver, btw. Desolate cold environment.


I think the recovery mission idea is a good one. When I decided to send my pcs to Plum Island it was sort of with that kind of thing in mind; I'd decided that the place had been hastily evacuated but that not everything could have been taken away. Among the problems with that are the fact that no livestock can leave the island; they would all have had to have been exterminated. Then too I believed that they would have made important vaccines a greater priority than say stuff like surgical instruments. So I did make some decisions to let the players find some valuable medical equipment there and a viable research station.


Also there are often depots that have out of date equipment. Would it not be possible following the aftermath of the Thanksgiving Day Massacre for some of it to have been lost when a lot of data was fried? Perhaps some clerk at one of the capitols finds out about it, relays the information up the chain of command, and from this a mission is born?

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firewalker 11-08-2005, 10:39 AM it's deferent times. when the bases were originally cleared all the stuff that "it wasn't worth the efret to hump out" was left behind. after all you probably had ton's of it in warehouses and you could always order more, but with no more manufacturing (well not any high volume or much in the way of precision work).



now that same stuff is worth it's weight in gold.

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ReHerakhte 11-09-2005, 02:13 AM Speaking of this "older" gear, most nations keep what are typically called 'War stores'. These stores are the older equipment that has been superseded by new gear so for example, when the British Army replaced their L1A1 SLRs with the L85A1, a large number of those L1A1s would have been placed into war stores.

The idea being that should something bad happen while they are equiping with the new gear, they still have all the old gear in storage and can reissue it pretty quick.


Many nations keep their war stores for anything up to 30 years and in the case of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and some other European countries, they include equipment from the 1940s.

Now something along this line was covered in a past thread and I can't remember specifically what the thread was but, the chances for finding a base with M16A1s in their crates, M1A1 Abrams parked in the yard and UH-60 BlackHawks in the hangars is pretty damned remote.

However, you might find a base in some remote area that still has some crates of M1 Garands (or maybe M14s if you're lucky!) or a shed full of M37 light trucks.


And, I think Grae will appreciate this, an M37 tricked up as a guntruck is certainly achievable (and a mini guntruck is just as sweet as the bigger ones, not as much firepower but a bit easier on the upkeep and storage!)


M37 picture http://www.g741.org/HistoricalPics1.html

M37 guntruck pics http://www.g741.org/GunTrucks1.html


Cheers,

Kevin

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thefusilier 11-09-2005, 03:11 AM Yeah, even Canada has war stores. Lots of sten guns, FN Fals, and a hanful or towed artillery. I only wish I knew if larger hardware like tanks, apc or armd recce was kept.

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DeaconR 11-09-2005, 08:11 AM fusilier, just have it moved somewhere if that works for you.


And thanks by the way ReHerakhte for posting those pictures.


In my game a group of pirates/marauders have gotten several WWII era machines to work that they got out of a collection from a museum that had been used in several movies. When I was watching "Band of Brothers" and later was reading about the different war museums in the area my game is set in I got the idea that it would be a novel thing to have in my game. I'm still figuring out which ones I want them to actually have operational, as well as a few I may have that they are still working on or have given up on, and if they left anything behind in the museum at all.


I believe in "Rock in Troubled Waters" that the 78th Infantry Division is shown to have discovered a lot of Garands in an armoury.

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thefusilier 11-09-2005, 08:25 AM The Garands were from the naval academy in Annapolis that was evacuated as a result of the fallout from Washington.

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graebardeII 11-09-2005, 08:38 AM GUN TRUCK!!!! Yep, a soft spot in my heart. I think they have 'rediscovered' them in Iraq too, if only on a limited basis.


As for older equipment. It depends on the timeline used. IF you don't have Billy Bob as president, and the wall never came down, I (in my world at least) have a supply of M14s, and Garands in stock. They were ear-marked for the Civilian Marksmanship Program, but that's what the troops filling the Training Divisions after November 97 will get.


As for vehicles, as the Guard units were upgraded to the M1/M2 systems, the M60/M113 systems were used to equip units that were not mechanized, there by having MORE mechanized divisions available. However, this program was curtailed as the mushrooms sprouted across the land.


IF you allow Billy Bob to be president, the M14s and Garands are melted down, and the older equipment becomes home for fish.

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Rainbow Six 11-09-2005, 03:36 PM An aspect of this topic I'd like to suggest is the demographics of the local communities living near these bases.


I live near what used to be one of the UK's largest Naval bases. So the town that I was brought up in had a lot of Navy families, primarily due to the amount of sailors that married local girls and settled down.


So...my train of thought is this...that active military bases might have a reasonably large number of veterans living nearby? Men who are too old for active service (even in the NG), but have combat experience, the sort of guys who would make a very effective militia. (I'm thinking especially places like Fort Bragg - are the militia men challenging the players a bunch of senior citizens who don't know one end of their weapon from the other, or are they veterans of the 82nd Airborne and the 5th Special Forces Group who have over 100 years on active duty between them?)

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firewalker 11-09-2005, 11:41 PM or possibly a hole bunch of old humong (spelling i have no idea) Vietcong hunters. humong are the hill people from Vietnam that sided with the US. there are sizable numbers of them that have made it over here (there is finally some movement on getting a proper air lift/evacuation going for there refuge camps in loso and Cambodia. number i saw was 3,000 give or take) and many of them settled around Bragg, reason being for a long time it was help form there US army friends that got most of them here.




to get political for just a minute. the fact that when we pulled out of Vietnam we left so many of are people behind, and that we have as a country been so unaware (it's not evan on the political radar really) that we had done it. well it is one of the few things i will say that i feel shamed by.

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Targan 11-09-2005, 11:48 PM It is spelled Hmong, and I agree with everything you said about them. I recently read a book about the SOG in Nam, and those little Hmong guys sounded pretty fearless. The numbers that have settled in the US is more than 300, I think. It may be 3000 around Bragg, but I think the total numbers in the US are 15,000 or more (I am a media monitor, so all I do at work all day is listen to the news).

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firewalker 11-10-2005, 12:00 AM the 3,000 (+-) are the one's in the refuge camps back in Asia. it was some time ago that i read about this and as i say out side of the activist's involved in it you don't really get much interest. but Cambodia (i think it was) had decided that thy were tired of having the camps and were, well basically planning to bulldoze the hole thing back into Vietnam. were the Hmong are still basically being hunted as a people by the communists government.


thy are considered culturally distinct from the true "Vietnamese". one strike

thy sided with the US in the war. two strike

thy are Christian. three strike (it is a atheist country after all)

and it turns out there are some nice mineral deposits in there ancestral lands. so strike your out.


well sorry about the off topic

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ReHerakhte 11-10-2005, 02:12 AM ...In my game a group of pirates/marauders have gotten several WWII era machines to work that they got out of a collection from a museum that had been used in several movies. When I was watching "Band of Brothers" and later was reading about the different war museums in the area my game is set in I got the idea that it would be a novel thing to have in my game. I'm still figuring out which ones I want them to actually have operational, as well as a few I may have that they are still working on or have given up on, and if they left anything behind in the museum at all...


Deacon, if you want any assistance with info on vehicles, I am an unrepentant military vehicle maniac and have a "few" books on the subject, the WW2 stuff is mostly German armour, US soft- & armour-skins and some British. I have a more varied collection on Cold War era stuff.


Grae, in case you haven't seen this one, Tankograd Publishing has put out Tankograd American Special Number 3002 "Armored/Gun Trucks of the US Army in Iraq" by Carl Schultze & Ralph Zwilling.

Details: - softback, 300mm x 210mm, 64 pages, colour photos throughout.

I have no info on US distribution but in the UK it is available through Bookworld Wholesale at http://www.bookworldws.co.uk at a price of 11.99 English Pounds (I saw it in a book review in one of my English military vehicle mags).


Cheers,

Kevin


P.S. I meant to say also that the Tankograd magazines are German text with English captions but for this particular one, they have full English text. A pic of the cover can be found here http://www.bookworldws.co.uk/TankgNo3002Big.jpg

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Abbott Shaull 11-12-2005, 08:25 AM Don't do that, please. We may not see Grae for a long time...lol


I think by 1999 some of these types of vehicles would be come common on both sides... Then more so by 2000 and as the war continues.


Abbott

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DeaconR 11-13-2005, 04:23 AM Thanks very much Kevin. I've gotten a fair bit already and some of the links others have provided have been very helpful.


One thing I do have a question about: ammunition. What do you think the likelihood would be of finding for instance 37mm ammunition, or 76mm?

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Blackrider 11-13-2005, 05:44 AM well in another thread i mentioned the Patton museum at fort Knox that has a large collection or WWII tanks, in front of the main building is the very first M1 Abrams, but im sure that would be gone in T2K, but it does have a large collection of German heavy tanks


just thought i woul throw more fuel on the fire errr add to the discussion

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ReHerakhte 11-13-2005, 06:07 AM One thing I do have a question about: ammunition. What do you think the likelihood would be of finding for instance 37mm ammunition, or 76mm?

I'll confine this to vehicles & weapons availabile in North America as it's unlikely the Players are going to get a resupply of 76mm ammo from Russia, even if they do have a working T-34 liberated from a museum!


37mm will be rarer than rocking horse droppings, from memory the last country to have functioning 37mm pieces in their vehicles was Mexico in their M8 Greyhound 6x6 recce cars and M3 & M5 light tanks. However, they removed them from about 40 of the Greyhounds sometime in the early or mid-1990s and replaced them with either a 7.62mmN MG, a 20mm autocannon or a 60mm mortar.

They did still have 37mm guns on some of their M3 & M5 light tanks into the 1990s although I did read somewhere where they were replacing some of the guns with .50 M2 machineguns. Notably, in the early 1990s the M3 light tanks were posted into the Chiapas trouble zone, not so much to control the Zapatista rebels but to dissuade Guatemala from taking advantage of the troubles and I believe some of these tanks still had 37mm guns (Guatemala has M41 Walker Bulldog tanks).


This does give rise to the implication that they still have the guns and some ammo for them before the Twilight War starts up, however in all likelyhood the reason they dumped them is because the supply of ammo cound not be maintained. By 1996 the point was proved moot as the Mexicans removed most of these older vehicles from service replacing them with newer types from France such as the Panhard VBL 4x4 fitted with Milan and with the Panhard ERC-90 Lynx 6x6 fitted with a 90mm gun.


The Greyhound is still a decent choice for a recce vehicle though, speed of 89kph, range of just over 500km, good cross-country abilities, a low silhouette and room for 4 crew. Apparently it got the nickname Greyhound, not just because it moved faster than most other vehicles of the day but because its armour was considered a little thin!


The 76mm of WW2 vintage is in a similar category although the 76mm gun held on a lot longer in such vehicles as the M41 Walker Bulldog (of which their were some 360 exported to South/Central American nations). This weapon will be harder to feed as the closest country to the US with suitable vehicles is... Guatemala! They still had these tanks as of 1996.


As more of a "what if" than based on hard data (I have very little info on WW2 37mm and 76mm ammunition), it might be possible to mate a modern 76mm projectile to the older 76mm case although you'd want someone with all the right knowledge to do it. Immediate problems I could think of are that modern 76mm (like in the British Scorpion light tank) have different velocities than those of WW2 era, so the modern 76mm projectile might not perform 'as advertised'. And of course, while you may have kept all the fired cases, you still have to get the projectiles from somewhere!


Your Player's prospects aren't automatically 'nil' but it's still going to be a hard task to get this ammo.

Cheers,

Kevin

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thefusilier 11-13-2005, 08:14 AM I'll confine this to vehicles & weapons availabile in North America as it's unlikely the Players are going to get a resupply of 76mm ammo from Russia, even if they do have a working T-34 liberated from a museum!


As more of a "what if" than based on hard data (I have very little info on WW2 37mm and 76mm ammunition), it might be possible to mate a modern 76mm projectile to the older 76mm case although you'd want someone with all the right knowledge to do it. Immediate problems I could think of are that modern 76mm (like in the British Scorpion light tank) have different velocities than those of WW2 era, so the modern 76mm projectile might not perform 'as advertised'. And of course, while you may have kept all the fired cases, you still have to get the projectiles from somewhere!


With the Cougar AFV still in use in Canada for Tw2000, you'd have a closer to home production of 76mm. I think its a low velocity round, so as mentioned, the performance might be quite different.

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DeaconR 11-13-2005, 10:14 PM Hm....thanks for the info guys. So basically short of settling for a very limited amount of ammunition my players may have to be prepared to do some modification, is what you are suggesting? I'm certainly up for that.


Sometimes it is the resolution of these little technical problems that make the game interesting; a few mini adventures can always be done simply on the basis of characters having to go look for or negotiate for or steal the right stuff to get their equipment or vehicles to work.

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DeaconR 11-13-2005, 10:38 PM BTW, one kind of base I'm interested in now in particular is West Point. I'm trying to figure out what would have happened to it. TW2000 canon states that the Air Force Academy cadets are incorporated into the Strategic Reserve Forces, while the USCG cadets are part of the forces commanded by the admiral in charge in Newport, and that Annapolis was evacuated. I haven't been able to find any information about West Point.


Which brings up other such places like VMI or the Citadel for instance. What about 'em?

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ChalkLine 11-13-2005, 10:41 PM Just remember, it's REALLY hard to get a turret to accept a new weapon without the services of a modern R&D facility. The centre of balance of the weapon effects inclined traverse, recoil on the bearing and a host of other stuff. It's best to get a new turret and weapon system and drop it in, the engineering is much easier.

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DeaconR 11-13-2005, 10:47 PM I seem to recall that some Greyhound type vehicles would have an open top with a ring mount or a pintel mount, or am I imagining that? Would it be possible do you think to simply remove the turret altogether and just use it with a .50 cal or something?

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ReHerakhte 11-14-2005, 05:59 AM Deacon, the vehicle you are thinking of is a derivitive of the M8 Greyhound, known as the M20 Armored Utility Car. Basically it is an M8 with no turret and a somewhat built up box-like structure in its place.

Not so much a recce vehicle, it was used as a command and/or radio vehicle and also as a cargo/personnel carrier (it could take a 4 passengers sitting on benchseats facing inwards, plus the two crew who sat forward of the passenger compartment).

Essentially all the same stats except for such things as combat weight which gave it a better mileage (about 570km) although only a 1km increase in speed.


The following pages are from a military models site: -

M8

http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH/AFV/GREYHOUND.ASP

http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH..._GREYHOUND.asp

M20

http://www.thetankmaster.com/ENGLISH...EYHOUND_01.asp


Small M20 webpage with thumbnail http://www.steelsoldiers.com/M20%20Armored%20Car.htm


Something that may interest you also, is that in the 1980s-1990s, a US company was offering upgrades of the M8 that removed the 37mm gun but left the turret. In place of the gun was a telescoping mount for a TOW launcher. They also provided a more modern engine.

I have more specific details in one of my books if you want the info.


And as an aside, if you want a good site for real world info and pics of WW2 vehicles, check out the following site. Even though it supports Advanced Squad Leader, all the vehicle info is real world stuff, not game stats as these are presented on seperate pages.

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/index.htm


Cheers,

Kevin

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DeaconR 11-14-2005, 08:17 AM Wow, thanks a lot Kevin. This is a huge help. I am becoming quite enamored of the possibilities of this particular vehicle, and I think my players will enjoy it too, having something that is rather unique.

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