I.E.D's

[Gabe The Gun]

Just starting this thread to get everyone's ideas about I.E.D's ( Improvised Explosive Devices) in the game. If anyone has used them, what they were, r e c i p e s and components, and any ingenious plausible ideas there are out there. I think this will be a very useful thread to most players and G.M's

[kato13]

r e c i p e s and components, and any ingenious plausible ideas

Lets keep this very generic, ok. I know this info is out there, but I am not comfortable with anything remotely approaching accurate details on this subject being posted on my board.

I sense this is a little hypocritical as 26 years ago the first thing I ever downloaded off a BBS was the Anarchist's Cookbook, but having seen the results of these weapons recently in the disfigurement they have left on US Soldiers, I don't want to be a source of detailed information for anyone.

[Webstral]

I haven't given the idea much thought, really. I suppose I'd have to imagine the circumstances of use first.

Webstral

[Gabe The Gun]

Generic!

For sure! This is for IN GAME purposes ONLY! I guess what i'm trying to get to is the components that might be avail during the games timeline and resources. I dont want this thread to be taken the wrong way folks. IN GAME FOR ROLEPLAYING PURPOSES ONLY

[kato13]

For sure! This is for IN GAME purposes ONLY! I guess what i'm trying to get to is the components that might be avail during the games timeline and resources. I dont want this thread to be taken the wrong way folks. IN GAME FOR ROLEPLAYING PURPOSES ONLY

I think i got what you were going for but the word "r e c i p e s" just made me a little uncomfortable.

I am sure ingame lots of rusting ordinance would be available and therefore IEDs would be VERY common.

[kato13]

I changed the spacing of a particular word I was uncomfortable with so we would not show up in Google if that word was searched with IED.

Actually I think this is a very appropriate game topic.

The use of IEDs in Iraq has totally changed my perspective on what would cause causalities in the T2k world. Given there would be literally tons upon tons of rusting artillery shells and air ordinance available I imagine that IEDs would have a tremendous effect on travel.

Unfortunately IEDs game-wise are very annoying. If the enemy is competent (and if you survived til 2000 you must be), then boom party is dead (or bleeding out). Might be realistic but not much fun to game.

Of course it could lead to only part of a convoy being hit, or the PCs being tasked to guard commonly used roads, but in many cases it ends up like a sniper on steroids decimating a group without much chance for them detect that it is coming, or fight back after it happens. I guess that is why they are used in real life.

[HorseSoldier]

Pretty much what Kato13 said -- last time I ran a T2K game (which was some years ago) I was pretty liberal with non-Improvised Explosives, with various flavors of mines turning up. If I ran a game today, IEDs and crude post-nuke manufactured explosive devices from places like Wojo in Krakow would be very common. How to work them into the game without making it as boring and then tragic as really running roads infested with the things would take some work, though.

IEDs in T2K would be somewhat different than you see in real world Iraq, though -- on the one hand, a lot of the typical Middle Eastern components just aren't going to be common (or available at all) in places like Twilight Poland. No cell phones to initiate, that sort of thing. Having a guy standing there amid civilians watching a convoy go by ready to push a button is probably a sketchy idea, also, since I picture all surviving military units circa 2000 playing with a much more permissive set of ROEs, and civilians seem mostly inclined to make themselves prudently scarce when soldiers are around anyway.

On the other hand, surviving military organizations (and local insurgencies as well) are likely also in the IED business in a big way in the year 2000, and a lot of these things will be coming out of established workshops that don't have to worry about being compromised. Among other things, building IEDs with local government knowledge and cooperation would likely help guys R&D things and lead to some nicely refined ideas.

The last thing I can see is that the IED threat would be geared a lot more towards taking out people on foot rather than in vehicles. The typical target (especially for an IED with an automatic means of initiation) is probably people on foot -- and a lot of people would probably try to avoid at least arbitrarily destroying vehicles without first trying to figure out if there's a way to separate their enemies from working vehicles.

[Tegyrius]

The use of IEDs in Iraq has totally changed my perspective on what would cause causalities in the T2k world. Given there would be literally tons upon tons of rusting artillery shells and air ordinance available I imagine that IEDs would have a tremendous effect on travel.

Yes. This. In areas that saw extensive fighting, UXO could be more of a threat than IEDs, too.

Unfortunately IEDs game-wise are very annoying. If the enemy is competent (and if you survived til 2000 you must be), then boom party is dead (or bleeding out). Might be realistic but not much fun to game.

Yup. Totally in the spirit of the setting but not at all in the spirit of, well, gaming. I think the answer to this is to make them background and plot devices without using them to arbitrarily kill PCs. Wait until the characters put friendly NPCs on point, then let those guys trip the IED and let the PCs simultaneously handle trauma treatment and the follow-on ambush. As you say, assign the team to convoy escort and route clearance - or as handlers/bodyguards for an EOD team. Set them to work tracking the enemy unit that's mining the local supply routes. Hell, assign them to be the team setting the IEDs if their commanders need area denial done. There's plot to be had...

Of course, if the PCs are just stupid, the gloves can come off and you can go all Darwinian on 'em.

- C.

[Eddie]

IEDs in T2K would be somewhat different than you see in real world Iraq, though -- on the one hand, a lot of the typical Middle Eastern components just aren't going to be common (or available at all) in places like Twilight Poland. No cell phones to initiate, that sort of thing.

I disagree with this statement. In my experience in Iraq, cell phones were only one of about a half dozen common types of initiators, but the others were very basic and mechanical. Pressure plate, command-wire, crush-wire, even improvised fuzes, etc.

And then I'd argue that Europe would be an even larger supply depot for EFPs and the like due to all of the garage doors and automatic doors that are on businesses and such.

The beauty of the IED is that it's composition is fluid. Once you have it figured it out, they change something. In fact, our most effective one in my AO was flashlight IEDs. It got so bad that our SoI contractors wouldn't use flashlights at night at their checkpoints and thus gave the insurgents almost complete freedom of movement at night.

Having a guy standing there amid civilians watching a convoy go by ready to push a button is probably a sketchy idea, also, since I picture all surviving military units circa 2000 playing with a much more permissive set of ROEs, and civilians seem mostly inclined to make themselves prudently scarce when soldiers are around anyway.

I disagree with this comment as well. Without getting into tactics and techniques and sensitive information too much publicly, "button-pushers" were ever rarely standing around where you could see them. Even with command-wires. The guys standing around were the ones who would throw the grenades and then run into the crowd or the guy with the video camera a couple hundred meters away. Triggermen usually had a bit of standoff.

And I also want to address the soldiers+civilians=scarcity comment. My experience was the exact opposite. "Pan-sil, meesta! Give me pan-sil!" was an every block occurrence. We'd be mobbed by kids and usually teenage to early 20s men asking for us to take their photos, our pens/pencils, etc. I even had a couple walk up to me and ask in pretty good English where I was from, was I married, how many wives did I have, and all kinds of other things. According to one of my squad leaders, Kosovo was pretty similar when he was there.

I'd argue that relations with the locals would be based directly on your group's/unit's disposition toward them. If you roll around OIF 1-3 style blasting anything that moves, they're going to run away; but if you're part of a garrison or trying to stay in one spot and set up camp you're probably going to be more in the hearts and minds spectrum.

Yup. Totally in the spirit of the setting but not at all in the spirit of, well, gaming. I think the answer to this is to make them background and plot devices without using them to arbitrarily kill PCs. Wait until the characters put friendly NPCs on point, then let those guys trip the IED and let the PCs simultaneously handle trauma treatment and the follow-on ambush. As you say, assign the team to convoy escort and route clearance - or as handlers/bodyguards for an EOD team. Set them to work tracking the enemy unit that's mining the local supply routes. Hell, assign them to be the team setting the IEDs if their commanders need area denial done. There's plot to be had...

The last comment I want to make is about Teg's comment here. IEDs in game will be a much better GM tool than adversary. Some of the best relationships my company made in Iraq were because we dealt with unexploded IEDs and the consequence management of recently-exploded IEDs.

The previously mentioned flashlight IEDs One was brought up to our JSS by one of the local sheiks who was braver than he was smart and that allowed us to get biometrics off of it and actually track down and capture the builders. Another sheik had an IED placed under his fender and he came to us for help. A call to EOD, eight hours and a water impulse charge later, that guy was my buddy for the rest of the deployment and I got a Pepsi everytime he caught me out on patrol with my guys.

As a GM think about the secondary and tertiary effects of the IED. It doesn't even have to be an NPC Red Shirt that finds it. Maybe the group needs to establish contact with another village a couple miles down the road but Village A and Village B went to war with each other and mined the crap out of the only road leading directly between the two. Now that hostilities are worthless and survival in numbers is more important, they want it open. Here come the PCs to the rescue...

It's not got to be a head on collision between PCs and challenges, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Nor does it have to be a typical D&D, pillage-the-dead treasure hunt of rewards and benefits either. You know what I'm saying

[Sith]

And then I'd argue that Europe would be an even larger supply depot for EFPs and the like due to all of the garage doors and automatic doors that are on businesses and such.

Without going into detail, I agree that Europe would be a large depot for EFPs and other more sophisticated IEDs. But more due to skill sets and manufacturing equipment rather than remote door openers.

And I also want to address the soldiers+civilians=scarcity comment. My experience was the exact opposite. "Pan-sil, meesta! Give me pan-sil!" was an every block occurrence. We'd be mobbed by kids and usually teenage to early 20s men asking for us to take their photos, our pens/pencils, etc. I even had a couple walk up to me and ask in pretty good English where I was from, was I married, how many wives did I have, and all kinds of other things. According to one of my squad leaders, Kosovo was pretty similar when he was there.

This was the exact situation when I was in the Balkans.

[Eddie]

Without going into detail, I agree that Europe would be a large depot for EFPs and other more sophisticated IEDs. But more due to skill sets and manufacturing equipment rather than remote door openers.

I didn't want to get into a laundry list of items that could be used and just went for the most obvious population group. The point though, that it's not a land of mud huts and deserts through the majority of the landmass, remains the same.

Depending on the version you play would determine the IED Pucker Factor, in my opinion. The original V. 1-2.2 timelines, IED resources would be there, but the art and science of the IED would still be pretty scarce except for a few government types that had received that training and the errant criminal. In the Twilight 2013 timeline, after the last almost-decade of fighting (remember, the timeline we left unchanged up to 2007) would most definitely increase the knowledge base and the respect for their effectiveness amongst people.

[Targan]

Given the scarcity of diesel in the T2K environment, ANFO would probably be rarely used in IEDs, unlike in the real world where it is a commonly used explosive. I think that IEDs in the T2K environment would mostly use either UXO (rigged to blow in a variety of ways) or explosive materials recovered from UXO and turned into bombs.

[Sith]

I didn't want to get into a laundry list of items that could be used and just went for the most obvious population group. The point though, that it's not a land of mud huts and deserts through the majority of the landmass, remains the same.

Depending on the version you play would determine the IED Pucker Factor, in my opinion. The original V. 1-2.2 timelines, IED resources would be there, but the art and science of the IED would still be pretty scarce except for a few government types that had received that training and the errant criminal. In the Twilight 2013 timeline, after the last almost-decade of fighting (remember, the timeline we left unchanged up to 2007) would most definitely increase the knowledge base and the respect for their effectiveness amongst people.

rgr. still on the morning coffee.

[Eddie]

rgr. still on the morning coffee.

No worries. I just didn't want others to think that I was focusing on just that. I tend to get misunderstood a lot on this forum and try to clarify as much of what I mean as possible after I realize how others are reading what I wrote.

Of course, usually by that time someone has gotten offended and I'm embroiled in a defensive engagement of my thought process/opinion....

[Sith]

Given the scarcity of diesel in the T2K environment, ANFO would probably be rarely used in IEDs, unlike in the real world where it is a commonly used explosive. I think that IEDs in the T2K environment would mostly use either UXO (rigged to blow in a variety of ways) or explosive materials recovered from UXO and turned into bombs.

Agreed, UXO would dominate. However, Home Made Explosives come in different shapes and flavors that could easily be made in any Twilight environment. The GM can shape these things in any way he or she wants.