A Looter's Guide to the US, 2005

[TKalbfus]

I don't support any specific timeline. My idea of World War III is the general case. The US and USSR go to war and some nuclear warheads fly. I don't care about the specific case of how Twilight 2000 got there. In my mind the USSR are the bad guys and the US is the good guys. Not that every Russian is evil, but they have an undemocratic form of government and live in a Empire that seeks to conquer others. The conflict of World War III is essentially the conflict of the Cold War but taken into another theater. The reasons for World War III are the same ideological ones the USSR had for supporting guerilla movements to topple democratic governments and autocratic ones alike so they fall under their control. The Soviets want to start a world revolution and build a world government which governs from Moscow, this ambition leads them to prepare for World War III, and to challenge the United States. What converts the Cold War into a World War with nuclear weapons is a miscalculation. The Soviets gambled and assumed the western democracies would back down in the face of a confrontation and they were wrong. The Soviets tried this during the Cuban missile crisis and they themselves backed down when it became apprent that the United States would not. Now suppose a similar situation were to occur in 1997 and the Soviets were never convinced that the US wouldn't back down until it was too late. I would say it would take a seemingly indecisive US President, (Whom I shall not name), that when push come to shove he would push back, but only at the last possible instant. This US President has a resolve of steel but it is buried under a seemingly weak and indecisive exterior, the Soviets only see this exterior and think that this president could easily be taken advantage of, but they find out this mistake when US missiles come flying.

The conventional wisdom of the military establishment at the time was that World War III would start out as a conventional war in Europe, one that if the NATO allies were sufficiently prepared would inflict tremendous losses on the invading Soviets.

If the Soviets still managed to push across Germany and into France, the US would have the option of using tactical Nukes to destroy soviet troop. There was a strategic level war game by GDW called "World War III" which follows this scenario.

If NATO inflicts sufficient losses, the Soviet invasion could be crushed and NATO would push the Soviets back, the only question is how far back to push the Soviets.

1) The Soviets could be pushed back to the East German Border and then NATO could call for an armistice.

2) The Soviets could be pushed to the border of Poland and then NATO would call for an armitice.

3) The Soviets could be pushed all the way to the Soviet border and then NATO would call for an armitice.

Presumably the Soviets would not use nuclear weapons in a conventional war the initiated unless it was in direct defense of their homeland and since Warsaw pact countries aren't considered part of their homeland then presumably the Soviets could be pushed out of non-Soviet Europe without the Soviets resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. The Soviets realize they would pay a terrible price if they started a nuclear war and would reluctantly do so, but if they felt their very existance as a nation was imperilled, they might be tempted to do so.

Now lets suppose the Soviets are unsuccessful in their bid to conquer Europe and that they lost so many forces in the attack that they can no longer hold even Eastern Europe. The Eastern European Satellite states kick the remaining Soviet forces out of their respective countries with NATO help. the Warsaw Pact now no longer exists. This is quite plausible.

Now it gets complicated. What if it doesn't stop with the Warsaw Pact Satellites. What if the Baltic countries also rebel, what if the Ukraine rebels and the "Stans" down south What if this defeat sparks a second Russian Revolution much like World War I did the first, and conventional Soviet forces are unable to deal with it? Perhaps they would blame the west for this turn of events and resolve therefore to take the West down with them. So they contact the remaining missile forces that are still loyal to them and order them to launch an attack upon North America and Europe, and perhaps even target Mexico so that its oil supplies would not be available to the US. This sort of scenario is what I have in mind if I wanted to play Twilight 2000.

Basically the bad old Soviets want to conquer another piece of the world, and they get trounced, much like Iraqi forces were due to the inferior quality of Soviet equipment and the poor morale of conscript Soviet soldiers, and tactics that empasized numbers over strategy. The Soviets pretty much blunder into prepared positions set up by NATO forces in West Germany, this is much like what happened in the book "Team Yankee" by Harold Coyle. The Soviet forces are cut to ribbons and the Soviet leadership resorts to nuclear weapons when it becomes apparent that they won't otherwise remain in power for much longer. NATO and the US responds and a limited nuclear war ensues.

 

[TKalbfus]

It doesn't really matter who started World War III as far as Twilight 2000 scenarios are concerned. And to Americans at home, the Russians are still bloody murderers for using nuclear weapons on them, the Mexicans are treasonous scum for invading the US, and I think they would want revenge on somebody for all the destruction in their country. Mexicans make nice convienant targets, they are close by and easy to reach and there are plenty of them. Alot of Mexicans and Hispanics who could be mistaken for Mexicans already reside in the US at the time of the Mexican invasion. Any Mexicans who are caught by an enraged mob of Anglo Americans will of course explain that they are not really Mexicans, but say, Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, etc. anything but a Mexican, and the enraged mob probably won't believe them either, even if they really are Puerto Ricans. Some people won't go this far, but then again some will, especially those who live in the back country. Many of the hispanics will be fleeing from the same American cities that are being target with nuclear weapons. Now if Mexicans were really concerned about the mistreatement of Mexican Refugees, they have made the plight of Mexican refugees much worse by invading Texas and Southern California, because those Mexicans living outside of these areas will not be helped by this and will be entirely at the mercy of enraged Anglo-American mobs.

 

[PBI]

I don't seem to remember things being so rosy in the assesment of who would win a ground war in Central Europe, Tom. The "Team Yankee" book is as much fiction as is the timeline GDW came up with.

I do agree with you that the important thing is to come up with a timeline that results in a WWIII that has the effect of hammering everyone so that we get that post-Apocalyptic feel.

I have serious disagreements with you on the details, however. In the end, though, I suppose it doesn't really matter, as those players who want a "US saves the world" timeline will play that and those that want something else will play that, too. There's no law that say we'll have to stick to the timeline as provided. I made a slight alteration in the 2.0 timeline for the last campaign I ran because I wanted the units in Poland to still be fighting the war. Minor change, but I the fighting to continue for a few more months before things began falling apart. I imagine many GMs will do the same to any new timneline if it's not something they'll want to play. As long as the official timeline is mostly solid, though, and mostly makes sense, that's the important thing, as having a solid base to modify will make it much easier to get campaigns off the ground.

 

[TKalbfus]

"Team Yankee" is based on the Book "The Third World War August 1985" by General Sir John Hackett & Other Top-Ranking NATO Generals & Advisors. Copyright 1978.

Early in 1977 a retired NATO general called together six of his colleagues-including an admiral, an airman, an economist and a diplomat-to write a dramatized game-plan for the next World War.

The result is a unique book that became a major news event in itself as it rocketed toward the top of the bestseller lists around the world, and was personally presented to the U.S. Chief of State by the British Prime Minister...as a warning.

The new Berkley edition of this startling and monumental work is a true collector's item, with a special 16-page photo-history illustrating the sophisticated weaponry and projected battle scenes in chronological order.

That is the blurb from that book which I also have.

Basically in that book World War III was a 2 week war that ends with the demise of the Soviet Union. Only two bombs go off, one in Minsk and one in Birmingham.

Team Yankee is based on that setting and focuses on a single armored division and the fictional characters therein and what happens to them. I think it would be fun to play out the conventional phase of the War rather than start the game after all the bombs have gone off.

Yeah its all fiction of course because World War III didn't really happen, but the above book was written by a real NATO General and his partners, so I think they must know what they were talking about. The General sweep of events could go the same as in the Book, but we could delay the War until 1997 or even 2004. Suppose the Cold War lasted until now and then it became hot. The PCs could play through the first 2 weeks of the war and through the nuclear exchanges, which we make much worse than the book stated. I think a properly executed World War III wouldn't go nuclear, it would be just a conventional flare up in Europe and end with either the USSR winning or NATO and neither one ever getting up the nerve to use nuclear weapons, instead the war ends at the negotioating table or as the book stated with the political collapse of the Soviet Union. When I first read the book I was at first skeptical that the Soviet Union could simply collapse without them resorting to the use of nuclear weapons but the Soviet Coup in 1991 proved me wrong. So I assume if the Soviet Union could collapse under those circumstance, it might also collapse as a result of a failure in the conventional theater of Western Europe, it seems perfectly reasonable now.

 

[getamungstit]

Hackett's "third world war" was severally criticised by people who knew more about the Soviet Union than he. For good reason, it’s mostly based on wishful thinking, much like most NATO strategy before the late 80s.

A good book for what a conventional war in West Germany would actually be like is Ralph Peters’s “Red Army”. The idea that the Soveits would happily march into the sights of the NATO armies in the mad Russian scenario is nonsense. The US Army in the south of Germany would be mostly bypassed and eventually trapped between Austria/Switzerland, the Rhine and the Soviet Army astride the North German plain.

Whilst a terribly unpopular viewpoint amongst the ostriches of the west I have little doubt that the Soviet Union could have trounced NATO, the US and just about everyone else up until about 1988. Why? Because they had the strategy, the plan and the Soviet Warfare State to back it all up and make it possible.

Western commentators focus on the superiority of the M1A1 to the Iraqi T-72 and talk about “low troop morale” in primitive conditions peacetime cantonments (like this ever counted in actual war) and many other examples as is if this is what would decide the war? Amateurs talk tactics, winners talk logistics. If the superiority of a type of MBT decided wars we would all be speaking German because how could the rough edged T-34 and the inferior Sherman ever defeat the super-dooper Panthers? Besides how would even a battalion of the best western tanks in prepared positions survive a Soviet attack when even hasty preparation fire nomographs provided for 1 12-cm+ shell or rocket for every 12 square meters (surface area of a MBT is about 20 square meters). 12-cm shell lands on your roof and that’s a dead M1. Even the special assault breaker (never actually entered service in time) weaponry relied on the idea of the Soviets actually attacking along predictable paths which never happens in war time.

Even worse is the pseudo-racist dismissal of all Soviet strategy as non-existent or meaningless. Modern US Army doctrine is based on Soviet doctrine since 1986 and even more so lately. Who do you think came up with the term “Shock and Awe?” This idea of the Soviets as bumbling idiots who relied exclusively on large numbers was mostly put about by ex-WW2 Germans who wanted a good excuse for the fact they were trounced.

The whole reason the Soviet Union collapsed was because they were to good at war. They had subverted the entire state to preparing for war and were effectively pre-mobilised. They had no resources left to meet consumer demand and ultimately collapsed as their leadership was unwilling to utilise the one thing that keeps the people inline in such a situation: brutal oppression.

Sorry if I sound a bit heated I really enjoy the discussion put forward especially by Tom K. Its just as a student of military theory I’ve been exposed to Soviet doctrine and find it particularly offensive that on one hand we have adopted it all but on the other persist in maintaining Cold War fantasies.

 

[getamungstit]

Its quite an interesting thing when you realise you missed a whole two pages of discussion and made a post as I did above (not that the above post doesn’t have relevance).

It terms of the war in central Europe I guess the key element is which edition one is referring to: Soviets or non-Soviets.

I also think it is too easy to take one view of a country say Poland and simplify it down to that: Poland is anti-communist, Catholic, Russian haters. Poland is more complex that that, if the above was the case why do they keep electing the Communists to power or at least minority opposition?

The world isn’t black and white it’s a rainbow and very hard to quantify. I don’t think the Poles in either T2K scenario would appreciate a Germanic only (where do you think those Anglos come from) NATO invading on mass hot on the heals of a Slavic army. Even in the Soviet timeline the people of Poland would have to contend with a fierce and unrestrained wartime security apparatus run by a leadership that would have the guts to gun down the Solidarity protesters unlike in the late 80s/early 90s. So Poland is fighting with the Soviets/Russians.

Sure not nice but there wouldn’t be much of a pro-NATO uprising. The same way that many Germans thought to the death for a Nazi regime they may have despised (and Shiites in Iraq for that matter as there are all sorts of complex motivations).

I’m not sure what bringing Switzerland into it achieves. The Swiss have a singularly most successful defence policy: avoiding war. In Twilight: 2000 they would probably close borders and send out civil aid columns when they could. Much like WW1 and WW2 (know where that Red Cross came from?).

Its one thing to talk fighting for freedom but a lot more if you are the one who has to die for it. Especially as most people just want to be left alone and get on with their lives. Freedom usually means only Liberty as we all have seemed to forget Fraternity and Equality. Without the later two the first ends up being the Liberty for some to rip off others.

One of the strengths of T2k is it really highlights the cost of survival and the meaningless of war.

 

[PBI]

I mostly agree with a lot of what you said, Gubler, but, contrary to what is an accepted axiom, I think the tactics-logistics thing is one where a lot of the experts will be given a rude awakening. I used to by into it, but the more I've studied history, the more I've come to believe that it isn't all just math. The battles actually have to be won. Or, to put it another way, if tactics represent the short-term, and logistics the long-term, I'm reminded of the saying that if you don't survive the short-term, the long-term is moot.

I do agree that folks have fixated too much on kit, though. Having a tank that's 4 times as better as the enemy does no good when the enemy has 10 or 20 times the tanks you do, especially if they also have the production capacity to replace their losses

Do be careful, though, about getting too enamoured over Soviet doctrine, because that would be making the same mistake in reverse. Nothing would work exactly as predicted, and the Red Army had a lot of problems that would only have come out in the wash. Still, the folks that say that NATO would have smashed the Sovs based on combat during the Gulf War fail to appreciate that the Iraqui Army was not using the exact same kit as the Red Army, nor was it of the same quality.

Otherwise, your post was avery good reminder about the other side of the equation.

 

[PBI]

One point on the timeline. I don't have 2.2, so I don't know if the timeline changed there, but there were always Soviets n both timelines, the major difference is that in one timeline the Warsaw Pact starts out fully intact and in the other it's a shadow of its former self.

 

[TKalbfus]

A. Gubler said,

A good book for what a conventional war in West Germany would actually be like is Ralph Peters’s “Red Army”. The idea that the Soveits would happily march into the sights of the NATO armies in the mad Russian scenario is nonsense. The US Army in the south of Germany would be mostly bypassed and eventually trapped between Austria/Switzerland, the Rhine and the Soviet Army astride the North German plain.

Why because the Soviets win?

Whilst a terribly unpopular viewpoint amongst the ostriches of the west I have little doubt that the Soviet Union could have trounced NATO, the US and just about everyone else up until about 1988. Why? Because they had the strategy, the plan and the Soviet Warfare State to back it all up and make it possible.

So why didn't they? You keep saying that the Soviets would have beaten them. Yet we defeated the Yugos, The Iraqis and so forth who used their equipment and followed Soviet Style tactics. Also if the Soviet commanders were so brilliant, then how come a smaller state like Germany was able to beat them back almost all the way to Moscow? I think the Soviet Generals had to learn on the battlefield from the Germans. If the Russian commanders knew what they were doing from the start, they wouldn't have let the Germans beat them back so far before turning the tide. I'm sure if it was the Soviet Union that started World War II with an Invasion of Western Europe, the Germans would have beaten them badly. You must know that with all else equal the attacker has a disadvantage in that the defender gets to prepare the battlefield in advance, he has time to place all his units, lay mines, and set up kill zones. The invader on the other hand has to move his troops into position while under fire, it is only when the defender is grossly underprepared that you can have things happen like the German invasion of France during World War II. Another major disadvantage is that Soviet doctrine discourages individual initiative. Soviet troops are trained for one specific task and don't switch jobs too easily. Also political orthidoxy determines who advances to high rank rather than military competance, and you know what happens to those military commanders who say no to Stalin or that it can't be done. The political leaders tend to override the General's judgement, saying things like, "Attack, attack, never retreat!" Sometimes holding ground under certain situations can cause an army to be captures where it otherwise might be saved, regroup and receive reinforcements.

I also think it is too easy to take one view of a country say Poland and simplify it down to that: Poland is anti-communist, Catholic, Russian haters. Poland is more complex that that, if the above was the case why do they keep electing the Communists to power or at least minority opposition?

They are not really communists! They have not enacted communist legislation. They may have been communist party members during the Warsaw Pact days, but that was because the Communist Party was the only game in town at that time if you wanted to be a public official. These communists you speak of are career communists, the join the communist party to advance their careers, it is not because they are true believers of Karl Marx and Engles. Most Poles make sure that ther communists they vote for aren't real communists, at most they are socialists, and their main selling point is their administrative experience they have accumulated under the previous communist government. I know many Polish people, they are not the Russian's Pavlov's dogs. Poles fighting to save the USSR are kind of like black slaves in the old south fighting to save the CSA. There were some slaves with such an enourmous slave mentality that they were willing to fight to the death to save their "Massah's" Plantation, but most black people were happy to be free, and it is insulting to most of the to suggest they enjoyed their servatude.

By the way Gubler, how many Poles did you really talk to? Did they express their undying devotion to the Soviet Union? Most Poles I met hated the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was just another name for the Russian Empire, and none of the romer Soviet Republics except perhaps the Belorussians and Russia itself actually misses it much. I know alot of the leftists during the cold war actually said the Poles actually loved being under Soviet domination, My history teacher in college was one of them, I believe I got a D in his class, but I tookthat class in 1988, the very next year, the communists were voted out of office in Poland and I got my revenge. He he

 

[Drakich]

Originally posted by A. Gubler in the 24th Century:
Whilst a terribly unpopular viewpoint amongst the ostriches of the west I have little doubt that the Soviet Union could have trounced NATO, the US and just about everyone else up until about 1988. Why? Because they had the strategy, the plan and the Soviet Warfare State to back it all up and make it possible.

Would not have happened unless the Soviets went nuclear right from the start. Which is of course exactly what their operational plans were. Denmark alone was slated for over 200 tactical nuclear strikes. NATO company sized resistance = tactical nuke.

And once it went nuclear, it would've gotten very ugly very fast. Forget 150 targets being hit in the US and USSR. You are talking more like 10,000 strategic warheads being launched by each side.

Western commentators focus on the superiority of the M1A1 to the Iraqi T-72 and talk about “low troop morale” in primitive conditions peacetime cantonments (like this ever counted in actual war) and many other examples as is if this is what would decide the war?

It certainly helped decide the war in Chechnya, at least the first time around. Low morale, poor supply, poor leadership saw the Russian soldiers selling their weapons to Chechen militants for vodka and food.

Amateurs talk tactics, winners talk logistics.

Curious why you bring this up, as the logistic situation would NOT favor the Soviets in an invasion scenario.

Even relatively optimistic predictions of a pure conventional Soviet invasion assumed that their 2nd and 3rd echelons would be more or less interdicted.

If the superiority of a type of MBT decided wars we would all be speaking German because how could the rough edged T-34 and the inferior Sherman ever defeat the super-dooper Panthers?

Training of the crew is much more important, but the technical abilities of the M1 series is far superior to that of the T72 series, and the crew survivability even greater. A hull penetration in a T72 results in a catastrophic loss of the T72 and it's crew. Their training, gone. A combat kill of an M1 usually results in some or all of the crew being alive to fight another day (unless they go off a bridge into a river).

M1 hit probability % against a moving target, while on the move is over 90%. The equipment edge + the training edge really is something that would go a long way to nullifying the WP numerical advantage.

Besides how would even a battalion of the best western tanks in prepared positions survive a Soviet attack when even hasty preparation fire nomographs provided for 1 12-cm+ shell or rocket for every 12 square meters (surface area of a MBT is about 20 square meters).

Sounds great on paper. But the battlefield is a two way shooting range, and the other side gets to vote as well. Remind me again exactly how many forward, fixed positions the NATO warplan relied on? I didn't realize Land-Air Battle 2000 was a reprise of the Maginot Line model of warfare.

Russian strategy and tactics is first rate. Their implementation during wartime has been horrible. They had their butts handed to them multiple times in Grozny, despite having ALL of the advantages (artillery, armor, complete air supremecy, 100 to 1 advantage in numbers). And substantial numbers of the troops involved in the Chechen campaign were elite FSB troops, not 3rd rate Cat III divisions like what was used in Afghanistan. Still made no difference.

Even worse is the pseudo-racist dismissal of all Soviet strategy as non-existent or meaningless. Modern US Army doctrine is based on Soviet doctrine since 1986 and even more so lately. Who do you think came up with the term “Shock and Awe?” This idea of the Soviets as bumbling idiots who relied exclusively on large numbers was mostly put about by ex-WW2 Germans who wanted a good excuse for the fact they were trounced.

Nice fantasy, but simply not true. I haven't read a single German memoir that says the Russians were bumbling idiots.

The whole reason the Soviet Union collapsed was because they were to good at war.

This makes absolutely no sense. This is like saying Zimbabwe is so poor because the people are so good at making money.

They had subverted the entire state to preparing for war and were effectively pre-mobilised.

No, they were having to support an empire, and were spending 1/3 of their GDP to do so, while competing with a US that was spending 4% of it's GDP. And even still, they were losing ground.

Sorry if I sound a bit heated I really enjoy the discussion put forward especially by Tom K. Its just as a student of military theory I’ve been exposed to Soviet doctrine and find it particularly offensive that on one hand we have adopted it all but on the other persist in maintaining Cold War fantasies.

I agree with you that's ironic that we have adopted their strategy (Air Land Battle is straight from the Soviet 1934 playbook). But, the devil is in the details. The US could probably do pretty good with the Italian WW2 strategy because of our superior equipment and training.

 

[Jame]

I hate to hijack the topic, but since the reprint doesn't really explain it (and just where in the reprints are the chargen, anyway?!?), how did the war start in the first place, and when?

 

[TKalbfus]

Anyway you like! It doesn't really matter. To me, I prefer to think of World War III as just like World War II except more destructive. There were good guys and bad guys, and the war probably shouldn't have been fought, but that wasn't our decision to make. We had to either stop the Soviets or lose Europe to totalitarianism. We chose to be good allies and we paid a horrible price for it. I don't particularly like the, "its all our fault" timeline, I'd rather make the assumption that the Soviets started it.

 

[PBI]

Jame, how the war started (starts?) depends on which version of the timeline you refer to. In 1.0, the war in Europe starts as a revolt in East germany, I believe. In 2.0, the war in Europe starts when a group of renegade German officers take advantage of circumstances and stage a few events designed to produce a pretext for war with Poland.

In both 1.0 and 2.0, the Soviets get involved in a war with China a year or so before the shooting starts in Europe, IIRC.

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Anyway you like! It doesn't really matter. To me, I prefer to think of World War III as just like World War II except more destructive. There were good guys and bad guys, and the war probably shouldn't have been fought, but that wasn't our decision to make. We had to either stop the Soviets or lose Europe to totalitarianism. We chose to be good allies and we paid a horrible price for it. I don't particularly like the, "its all our fault" timeline, I'd rather make the assumption that the Soviets started it.

There never was an "it's all our fault" timeline. I think the WWI-style of timeline (2.0) works better than the WWII (1.0); it takes out the blame factor (mostly) and, as important, infuses the game with a great deal more of the sad irony factor. There's a certain added level of hopelessness injected into the game when it's made clear that the war started because we forgot the lessons of the Great War (vast alliance blocks having two edges to their blades), and that makes it all the more satisfying when the players (if they do) start getting things back up and running.

 

[TKalbfus]

PBI said

I think the WWI-style of timeline (2.0) works better than the WWII (1.0); it takes out the blame factor (mostly) and, as important, infuses the game with a great deal more of the sad irony factor.

Aren't you going backwards from the effects of the nuclear war to determine the starting factors?

You first take in the scenes of destruction and from that you determine what kind of war it was. You then move backwards and conclude that it couldn't have been some dictator, bent on conquering the world, who starts World War III to fulfill his own aggressive purposes, and didn't think it would lead to general nuclear warfare?

Why not? We clearly have an aggressive and expansive Empire here that has in the past made no secret of its world wide ambition for global revolution on the communist model. Kruschev even slammed his shoe in the table at one UN meeting and said, "We will bury you!".

Instead you want to make it into two superpowers that "bump into each other in the middle of the night" and say, "terribly sorry for the nuclear war, now lets rebuild." The USA and the USSR aren't equals, they aren't the same type of country. If the USSR was just another version of the USA there would be no chance for a war between them. The problem is that for its entire history, the USSR was actively fomenting revolution in other countries, it was trying to overthrow both democracies and right wing dictatorships to replace it with a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship that was more suitable to itself.

The Warsaw pact on the otherhand is not a mirror image of NATO. The Eastern Bloc was created during World War II when the Soviets pushed out the German occupying forces and replaced it with their own. The Americans, in contrast, pushed out the Germans and restored government to the native peoples. The Americans then left all the countries except for Germany, which was occupied for 10 years. The Soviets annexed Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, occupied Poland, Czechslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Austria, and Bulgaria. There was no reason for the Soviets to occupy these countries, these countries did not attack them. The Soviets simply replaced the Nazi Empire with their own and there was no justification for this, it is this occupation that sets the stage for World War III. The governments established in the Eastern Block aren't legitimate, but Quisling puppet governments run for the Soviets by native representatives to supply a veneer of legitimacy for Soviet Rule. This was no accident or misunderstanding. Now if one of these Soviet block governments happens to be overthrown by its people, the Soviet Tanks roll right in and reestablish the puppet government by force, this has happened before in Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and presumable another situation like this in 1997 could have started World War III. I think Poland could have done this followed by East Germany. Perhaps at first the Soviets allow the Poles and the East Germans to overthrow their Communist governments, then the Soviet Coup happens and Mikail Gorbachev and company are replaced by Hard Line leaders who think that Poland and East Germany rightfully belong in the Soviet Sphere and so introduce military force to undo the changes wrought by these two East European countries. The two Germanies have already reunified at this time, and as Germany as a whole is a part of NATO, Soviet Tanks aren't accepted into East Germany with passivity. Instead World War III happens and since they are fighting anyway, the NATO troops push the Russians all the way out of Poland and then it goes nuclear. This was no misunderstanding, this was a deliberate attempt to reestablish Soviet Hegamony and the fact that this attempt is resisted is what causes World War III. In otherwords the Soviets started it since they were attacking independent countries, one of which happened to be a NATO member.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Jame:
I hate to hijack the topic, but since the reprint doesn't really explain it (and just where in the reprints are the chargen, anyway?!?), how did the war start in the first place, and when?

I don't recall how it starts, but it doesn't go nuclear for any particular reason, IIRC. People just started lobbing nukes around at some point, and then everyone was doing it.

Which I think is just plain silly, which is why I sold my copy of T2K.

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jame:
I hate to hijack the topic, but since the reprint doesn't really explain it (and just where in the reprints are the chargen, anyway?!?), how did the war start in the first place, and when?

I don't recall how it starts, but it doesn't go nuclear for any particular reason, IIRC. People just started lobbing nukes around at some point, and then everyone was doing it.

Which I think is just plain silly, which is why I sold my copy of T2K. </font>[/QUOTE]It may depend on what version of the timeline you're using but in version 2.0, there are two different wars, the war betwene the USSR and China and the war that that indierectly starts (in my opinion), the NATO-Warsaw Pact war.

In the case of the Sino-Soviet war, I think it's fairly widely accepted that a full-scale war between those two would see nukes and chemicals in use from fairly early on unless the Sovs defeated China with blinding speed, and that's what happened in the 2.0 timeline. The Soviets tried the conventional route, did well for a bit, then bogged down and rather quickly resorted to massive use of tactical nukes and a few strategic ones in that theatre.

In the case of the NATO-Warsaw Pact war (the one most PCs are reluctant participants in), the nukes started flying when the advance elements of the NATO counter attack reached Soviet soil (while the bulk of the Red Army was till fighting the Chinese); the Soviets initiated the use of tactical nukes, NATO retaliated warhead for warhead and pretty soon the big ones were flying, though in small amounts.

Sounds perfectly resonable to me.

 

[PBI]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
PBI said </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I think the WWI-style of timeline (2.0) works better than the WWII (1.0); it takes out the blame factor (mostly) and, as important, infuses the game with a great deal more of the sad irony factor.

Aren't you going backwards from the effects of the nuclear war to determine the starting factors?</font>[/QUOTE]Not really, Tom. I'm using the 2.0 timeline as a base coupled with my own interpretation of the situation that we actually faced in the Cold War. It's eerily similar to the conditions existing before the outbreak of the Great War, where there were two great alliances staring at each other. As in the run-up to the Great War, the Cold War held the very real possibility that we'd all be dragged into something we didn't want because an alliance member might forget itself and go hairing off after the someone and then call on it's allies.

I might ask you the same question you asked me, but with a twist; why do you persist in wanting a WWIII that's a good vs evil kind of war? I see your approach being just as invalid as you keep saying mine is. The kind of war you want might have been possible up until the early 80s, but it's still doubtful whether or not the Soviet Union was still the evil empire Reagan said it was by then. Maybe if the Twilight War started in the 50s or 60s, possibly even the 70s, then a cause for the war based on the 1.0 timeline would make more sense.

 

[TKalbfus]

You are forgetting the Coup that resulted in the Toppling of the Soviet Union. In a Twilight 2000 universe, that Coup could have been successful and had its intended effect of installing Hardliners to replace the Gorbachevites. Who really knows how far the hardliners would have been willing to go had they succeeded in seizing power for themselves. No doubt there would have been a period of consolodation afterwards, and a single leader would have emerged, perhaps another "Stalin". Meanwhile everything west of the Soviet border would have gone the same as it did in out timeline up until the point that the Soviet leader was secure enough in power to begin an Invasion of the former Warsaw pact so it could take those countries back. Herein lies the causeof World War III.

 

[PBI]

One question, Tom. Are you advocating a total alternate history approach or the slightly-altered recent history approach we saw in the first versions?