The Mystery of Operation Omega

[kato13]

DeaconR 10-29-2005, 08:42 AM I brought this up before but didn't get much response. I'm still curious. What is supposed to have happened to all the people evacuated from Europe in Operation Omega? This is detailed in the module "Going Home" and clearly depicts several units that are fully operational, to the degree that they are coordinating the operation. Why is it that they entirely disappear?


The only details really that the game provides is that about 1400 personnel reinforce the 78th and the 85th Infantry Divisions. One of my players asked me why things are collapsing on the East Coast when supposedly all these troops were brought home. I replied (via the intelligence officer he was asking in character) that there was insufficient materiel and means to deploy them. Fortunately this explanation was accepted, but I am wondering about possible explanations in case my players find some means of pursuing the matter more closely.

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thefusilier 10-29-2005, 08:53 AM I read somewhere a number decided to go to Centcom (although this could have been someone here's invention). So would it be difficult to put a few thousand back on the ships and have them redeployed to other areas say to... 5th Army units via Gulf of Mexico ports. That might take a bite out of the 40,000.


Search further back, I believe this topic was greatly covered before.

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Blackrider 10-29-2005, 09:00 AM the RDF sourcebook states that it was 6000 there were deployed to CENTCOM. that still leaves more then a few for the CONUS

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DeaconR 11-02-2005, 05:19 AM Someone put together a fairly coherent idea of how the 7th Army units would be deployed on their arrival in CONUS. Essentially they replace the 5th Army which is depicted in "Howling Wilderness" as being quite worn down. I'm thinking this would work for me; they'd still have so much to do and have such a large area to cover that it would merely give the USA a decent chance, not change everything.


Out of curiousity, did people interpret 'heavy equipment' to mean armor only in Operation Omega? If so, do you imagine that they would still be mechanized units, those that were?

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Twilight2000V3 11-02-2005, 09:23 AM I figured many were lost at sea from bad ships, storms, rogue subs. Many probably said "screw this" and became AWOL once on US soil, some stayed.

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Grimace 11-02-2005, 04:02 PM The one time I actually played in the "Going Home" adventure, the GM that was running it explained it like this:


You had one of three options.

1. You re-upped in the military and (depending on your combat experience) were gathered to be shipped back over the Middle East in an effort to stabilize the situation and get the oil flowing again.


2. You re-upped in the military and were allocated to units whose job it was to secure and protect areas in the immediate vicinity and beyond. Basically, get the bases secured and re-established, and then move out to the civilian centers and start clearing out the "trash" that had taken root in there. I believe this was the method that he used to get us into the "Armies of the Night" adventure.


3. You opted out of the military, were given a meager pension for your service, you turned over nearly all your military gear but had the option of "buying back" some gear that could be used for survival. Rifles and other weapons were deemed "too necessary" for the military to allow people to just take off with their M-16s and other goodies. From there, you were "on your own" and having to survive as an ex-military in civilian life with a handful of worthless money that was only good in military controlled areas.


So, using that knowledge, I'd have to assume that you would have a small percentage opt out of the military, a small percentage would go AWOL, not wanting to give up their goodies acquired in combat, and the rest would stay in the military and either end up in the Eastern US or back overseas in the Middle East. I would also assume that it would probably take a year, if not longer, for the military to gain any sort of "secure" areas for civilians to live in...such as major cities. Martial law would undoubtedly be enforced in those areas.


Using those ideas, that's how I've always run my games if/when they ever get to America.

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DeaconR 11-03-2005, 01:56 AM Good explanation on the part of your GM. My players' arrival in CONUS was shall we say rather more circuitous and on arrival they simply attached themselves to the first friendly unit they found until they got other instructions. However what you suggested gives a lot of clarity.


This is an area, btw, where I feel the game designers did not do as well as they might have. I think they fell in love with the idea of a decaying USA and therefore did not concentrate much on the 7th Army units.


What I found as an idea for what these units would be up to in a previous forum thread was a link adding up to this: the following units are depicted as being full functional during the "Going Home" adventure and I have gone along with this in having them still in active service. I wish I knew who set up the idea for the deployment of the 7th Army units below so that I could thank him but anyway...


I Corps: (deployed in Louisiana)

3rd US MD

6th US MD

38th US ID

278th ACR


V Corps: (deployed in Utah)

3rd US AD

28th US ID

4th US MD


XV Corps: (deployed in Oklahoma)

1st US AD

44th US AD


There remain some 14,000 personnel who are described as travelling as a group or no longer in a coherent military formation. Also, such units as the 220th MP Brigade and the 3-52nd ADA are mentioned being attached to the V Army Corps.

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Targan 11-03-2005, 02:26 AM DeaconR, I thank you for that list of units and locations, and I thank whomever you gained them from. I think I shall integrate that info into my campaign after a suitable review.

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DeaconR 11-03-2005, 02:31 AM My pleasure. Here is the original link, and again, I'd like to shake the person's hand who wrote this.


http://www.physics.ucf.edu/~bar/t2kplan.html

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Targan 11-03-2005, 02:48 AM Better and better! Good one!

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graebardeII 11-03-2005, 10:18 AM Deacon.. the individual that has that webpage also has some more on T2K. Do you (or anyone) have them? I did before the last crash, but.........

Help is appreciated, and thanks for the link. I have about 30 sites and growing.


Grae

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DeaconR 11-03-2005, 12:37 PM It was Shrike6 who originally pointed me in the direction of the site, but I don't know what other material it is connected to. What other kind of stuff are you looking for?

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ChalkLine 11-03-2005, 02:05 PM Out of curiousity, did people interpret 'heavy equipment' to mean armor only in Operation Omega? If so, do you imagine that they would still be mechanized units, those that were?


I take it to mean that all motorised assets are left behind as vehicles are extremely space hungry, and that the Germans have the option of using these assets to rebuild existing units or creating new ones. In my game, the Germans opt for reinforcing existing units and adopting a policy of reorganisation during the winter.


US forces returning are leg mobile until light armour and IFVs are constructed for them, using a strange mixture of homebrew stopgap vehicles initially and proceeding to mor reglar military vehicles as the become available. This allows you to create whacko guntrucks and punknaughts for your PCs as a GM, but then logically proceed back to military vehicles.

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shrike6 11-03-2005, 05:45 PM Deacon.. the individual that has that webpage also has some more on T2K. Do you (or anyone) have them? I did before the last crash, but.........

Help is appreciated, and thanks for the link. I have about 30 sites and growing.


Grae


That page is an offshoot of the T2K Timeline page, Grae.


http://www.d20.demon.nl/t2k/t2ktime.html

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