Operation Omega and MILGOV

[kalos72]

I was sitting here going over my storyline and making adjustments and tweaks and such and it occurred to me.

How the HELL would MILGOV feed 50000 extra troops landing in Norfolk in the dead of winter How could they deploy them all across the county Arm them This is where canon REALLY REALLY disappointed me...

Perhaps they would just let them retire

[Legbreaker]

Well, they have known they were coming for a few months....

It is however a good point. I think the implied situation is the majority of them were discharged. Some were sent to the middle east as reinforcements (individuals rather than whole units) and some were sent to units within the US for the same purpose.

A number, mainly MPs, were sure to have been used in and around Norfolk, at least for a month or two while things were sorted out. Some might even have found their way to Korea (how exactly I don't know, but something worth thinking about).

[Webstral]

Operation Omega may have been planned well in advance. Also, or alternatively, MilGov may never have intended to maintain the force at Norfolk for any length of time. The plan may have been to distribute available troops throughout the Atlantic/Gulf Coast region. We know from Howling Wilderness that 78th Infantry Division in New Jersey and an infantry unit in the Memphis area receive Operation Omega reinforcements. The original plan may have been to distribute troops across First and Fifth US Armies. A thousand riflemen here and there could have made a difference. Concentrated in priority areas, the Omega troops might have changed everything.

Webstral

[kalos72]

I understand where they might have been put to work. My concern is the logic behind the way canon describes the whole scenario.

They give multiple examples of how desperate MILGOV forces are on the East Coast, how MILGOV isnt able to resupply or give any support to those units.

But then they have the food and equipment to move 15000 men to Alabama, 15000 to Mass and another 15000 to Texas

I guess I am looking for other alternatives...

[Legbreaker]

Who's to say all ships ended up in Norfolk
It's quite probable that those slated (or volunteered) to go to the middle east went straight there either around the bottom of Africa or landing in Israel and marching across land.

Any units intended for the mid west may have landed somewhere on the Caribbean coastline - that's upwards of 5-6 thousand mouths (more or less) that don't even see Norfolk let alone land there.

I believe Howling Wilderness is written as of sometime in 2001, after the troops have landed (I'll need to check later). If so, then the numbers and situation described therein should include the Omega troops.

[kalos72]

Ok some going directly to the Middle East I can buy, makes sense.

A few thousand troops landing some place on the Gulf Coast without an established base to land at Not so much.

I guess I could buy say half going back out to support the Middle East units...a quarter being dismissed and the last 10k or so being reassigned to local units. Still seems very poorly thought out...

I am sure I am not the only one to thought this out, what have some of you come up with to explain this Perhaps even details on how you spread the troops or equipment out and such...

[Webstral]

Kalos, you may not be getting a lot of bites on this one because a) the Omega angle indeed has been considered in great detail by others and b) it's a sore spot on this forum still, I think. The DC Group did some extensive work on Operation Omega, and the reception of this work led to the largest blow-out in quite some time.

There are a few factors to consider before you completely dismiss Operation Omega, some of which you have mentioned.

1) Not everyone was supposed to go straight home. The RDF Sourcebook allows for Europe-based characters to get to the Gulf as a result of Operation Omega. How many were expected to go to the Gulf is a legitimate question.

2) Many troops were expected to leave the service. Personally, I think any who would trade a meal ticket for the uncertainties of post-Exchange America is out of his mind, but I'm not in the shoes of any of the troops returning from Europe.

3) Maintaining logistical support is a different matter than moving people once. The Marines and the Airborne forces face this problem without a nuclear exchange to gum up the works. Getting bodies to a locale requires far less effort than keeping those bodies supplied with all the necessities, even when those necessities are neatly stacked at the applicable rail head, runway, or pier. The inverse of this truism is that whereas MilGov in late 2000 may be unable to maintain a reliable distribution of supplies to its East Coast and Gulf Coast cantonments, moving people once requires far less than reliably delivering food, fuel, ammunition, etc.

4) Mindset matters. If MilGov is determined to go ahead with Omega, torpedoes be damned, then the orders are going to be issued. More than one campaign in the modern world has been conducted with terse instructions to the logisticians to "make it work." It's possible that SACLANT told Colorado Springs that they didn't have enough food in Norfolk for fifty thousand Omega troops, only to be told that the operation was going ahead anyway. The Joint Chiefs may have decided, with cold logic, that if moving fifty thousand Americans from Europe resulted in a few thousand casualties en route to the ports, a few thousand reinforcements for CENTCOM, ten thousand replacements for CONUS, and losses to mustering out, desertion, and starvation for the rest, then CONUS would be ten thousand troops stronger than before Omega started. It's not pretty, but then we do devote ourselves to a game in which half the global population is dead and most of the rest scratching for a living.

Webstral

[Legbreaker]

May 2001 - that's the date Howling Winderness brings the timeline up to.

Virgina: The eastern part of the state was hit fairly hard, but the damage was mostly restricted to the coastal areas. Despite severe damage to the port facilities at Norfolk and Newport News, the area around these communities currently supports a small (and shrinking) Milgov enclave, consisting mostly of troops brought back from Eruope in late 2000. In March of 2001, the enclave was ordered to evacuate and move to Fort Dix using all available transport. None have arrived as of 1 April 2001.

Refering back to Howling Wilderness again we can see that only the 78th infantry division is in the area and numbers just 900 men - 800 of which were European reinforcements.

We can also see that the Norfolk community consists of mostly European evacuees and has been shrinking for some time. We're also told desertion from the enclave is high and the communication with Milgov has been cut off for several weeks since being ordered to move to Fort Dix and reinforce the 78th.

From this we can assume the total military strength of ex-european troops remaining cannot be much more than a few thousand. Any more than that and the orders would probably have been along the lines of "move to Fort Dix and take command of" or "assimilate the 78th".

[kalos72]

Why would MILGOV give up Norfolk anyways There are a dozen or so military bases in that area...and the MAJOR section of the port seems intact if not relatively devoid of support buildings or personnel.

If they move out, I am moving in. Can you squat on a military reservation

[Legbreaker]

FOOD!!!

Or more accurately, the extreme lack of it. With the coming of Spring 2001 is was blindingly obvious that there simply wouldn't be the food stocks available to support the enclaves in the area. A few might stay on living on fish and whatever the parched soil produces, but the vast majority was forced to flee or starve.

[kalos72]

I understand where you are coming from Leg, I do. But if food was so scarce, what the hell did MILGOV expect to do with the returning soldiers

Giving that Schrike timeline, perhaps MILGOV was counting on the fall harvest in 2000 to cover the added strain of the returning soldiers. Once the truth was apparent, there wasnt enough of it to go around, they gave the order to move.

That makes sence...

Also supports the desertion/retired aspects people have posted here...

[Legbreaker]

You are absolutely correct. All plans would have been made based on expected climatic conditions. Nobody expected the drought and how it would impact obn the east coast.
One thuing to keep in mind is most cites today are only a few meals from starvation. Imagine how that applies in 2001.

[Cdnwolf]

Why Norfolk I mean it was hit by a few nukes and the port a melted pile of sludge I would think a more minor port advantageous to the Milgov...

Also there is no mention of the troops going to the Middle East or anywhere else... and once more the issue of fuel supplies rears its ugly head when the only fuel available is from a drifting tanker....

"Accordingly, SACEUR, the Supreme Allied Command, Europe
(or what"s left of it) has decided to evacuate all USAEUR (US
Army, Europe) forces from the continent and return them to
America."
The fleet consists
of a hodge-podge collection of container ships, general cargo
ships and tankers (converted to passenger service by rough
wooden constructions in their holds), excursion ships, and
smaller vessels (river boats and channel ferries) felt to be large
enough to be able to survive the crossing.
An oil tanker, found drifting at sea off Borkum Island in the
North Sea, is being tapped to provide the fuel for the crossing
(crude oil can be burned in diesel engines, but it doesn<oet do them
much good).

[pmulcahy11b]

My last game before I went on active duty, the GM offered me an out, Everyone was going for Op Omega; I chose to have my character go to the gulf. I gave my character sheet to the GM just in case the other PCs ran into my character in the Gulf or somewhere along the line, but I effectively and neatly took my character out of the game.

[Cdnwolf]

FYI What a 1M nuke bomb will do to Norfolk and the port facilities.