World War 2 era landing craft

[Blakrider]

well since my first ideas for additions to campaigns fell flat here are a few others.
some of the old WW2 ships have found new life. i know for a fact that a few of the Tour bouts used around New York are actually ww2 LCI's (2 have still have patched bullet holes from the war and were used evacuate people from Manhattan on 9/11)

[Blakrider]

alot of the landing craft ended up being used as car ferries for river barges and a few countries still use them as landing ships or replenishment ships

[kalos72]

Good stuff thanks. I wonder if the smaller ships could be made from scrapped tankers and such.

My players are caught between just moving back to sailing ships or try to take advantage of some of the technical benefits of the newer designs and such. Wind power is cheap and easy but you just cant move the volume.

[Targan]

Wind power is cheap and easy but you just cant move the volume.

Not that there would be many around post Twilight War but the bigger clipper ships at the end of the Age of Sail could move some pretty impressive tonnages, especially over longer distances where their lack of a fuel load requirement made them more economically efficient than steam powered vessels.

[kalos72]

Thats true...I wish someone had stats for ships like that.

[Blakrider]

car ferry

here is somthing you may enjoy the specs for a typical channel cat ferry, im sure they were pressed into service and LSD.

[kalos72]

Again, nice find.

[mikeo80]

Just wondering

I read somewhere on this site that the four Iowa class battleships had been activated just like IRL.

I was thinking about the USS Alabama, USS Massachussets, and the USS North Carolina.

IF things get really squirley, wouldn't the govt reach for ANYTHING that floats and has weapons If any of those ships needed something rebuilt, I think the Navy dept has all of the specs from WWII when these mighty ships were built.

Just my mind drifting down a different path.

[Dog 6]

hummm that gives me some good ideas. I'm thinking USS Texas..........

[mikeo80]

hummm that gives me some good ideas. I'm thinking USS Texas..........

IIRC, there was a book in the late 80's - early 90's that featured the USS Texas. I have no idea of the title. In that book the Texas had been refitted with partical accelorators as main weapons and incorporated some kind of shielding tech.

A little past the tech normally talked about in this forum

[Legbreaker]

Yes, once the majority of current naval shipping was on the bottom, the military would probably start scrounging around for whatever was available. However, with most of the older vessels being little more than rusted out hulks, it may not be worth the time and effort to conduct major works. It's likely that any modifications/upgrades would consist of little more than slapping a few anti-air guns and missiles onto existing civilian craft.

By Christmas 1997 the world is in bad shape. Nukes were first used by the Soviets on the 9th of July 1997 (in both China and Europe - both 1.0 and 2.0/2.2). This would undoubtedly have caused world wide panic as the reports of nuclear escalation rolled in across the news services. Many skilled workers, required to operate the shipyards, will have "run for the hills". Some would trickle back in the coming months, but never enough to satisfy demand and even keep up with repairs on existing warships.

And then there was the escalation.
Version 2.0/2.2 states:

In the west, NATO air units begin making deep nuclear strikes against communication hubs in Czechoslovakia and Poland in an attempt to slow the Warsaw Pad advance. The Pact responds with similar strikes against German industrial targets and major port cities. NATO's theater nuclear missiles are launched against an array of industrial targets and port cities in the western Soviet Union. Throughout October the exchanges continue, escalating gradually. Fearful of a general strategic exchange, neither side targets the landbased ICBMs of the other, or launches so many warheads at once as to risk convincing the other side that an all-out attack is in progress. Neither side wishes to cross the threshold to nuclear oblivion in one bold step, and so they inch across it, never quite knowing they have done so until after the fact.
First, military targets are hit (including the first decapitating strikes at US targets). Then Industrial targets clearly vital to the war effort, followed by economic targets of military importance (transportation and communication, oil fields and refineries). Then major industrial and oil centers in neutral nations are targeted, to prevent their possible use by the other side. Numerous warheads are aimed at logistical stockpiles and command-control centers of the armies in the field. The civilian political command structure is first decimated, then eliminated (almost by accident In some cases). The exchanges continue, fitfully and irregularly, through November and then gradually peter out.

Version 1.0 has:

In the west, NATO air units began making deep nuclear strikes against communication hubs in Czechoslovakia and Byelorussia in an attempt to slow the Warsaw Pact advance. The Pact responded with similar strikes against German industrial targets and major port cities. NATO's theater nuclear missiles were launched against an array of industrial targets and port cities in
the western Soviet Union. Throughout October the exchanges continued, escalating gradually. Fearful of a general strategic exchange, neither side targeted on the land-based ICBM's of the other, or launched so many warheads at once as to risk convincing the other side that an all-out attack was in progress. Neither side wished to cross the threshhold to nuclear oblivion in one bold step, and so they inched across it, never quite knowing they had done it until after the fact.
First, military targets were hit. Then industrial targets clearly vital to the war effort. Then economic targets of military importance. Then transportation and communication, oil fields and refineries. Then major industrial and oil centers in neutral nations, to prevent their possible use by the other side. Numerous warheads were aimed at logistical stockpiles and command control
centers of the armies in the field. Almost accidentally, the civilian political command structure was first decimated, then eliminated. The exchange continued, fitfully and irregularly, through November and early December, and then gradually petered out.

As we can see both are very similar. The only significant difference is that 2.0/2.2 specifically states attacks were made against US targets.
Howling Wilderness has this:

With the first use of tactical nuclear weapons in September...

This has to be a typo as BOTH histories state nukes were first used on the 9th of July. My suggestion is that this should have read "strategic" rather than "tactical" due to the information quoted above about the escalation. By reading over the preceding several paragraphs (see the books), it seems the first long range strikes began in September.

While not specifically stated anywhere in V1.0, it is therefore not unreasonable to assume some limited strikes were made against US soil prior to the 28th of November 1997. These limited, even surgical attacks would have inflicted damage far beyond their actual physical effects by driving away people from potential target areas and keeping them away.

Bear in mind too that the last fleet of US/NATO warships were not sunk until approximately 3 weeks (sometime in June 1997) before the first nuke was used anywhere in the world. It is doubtful, as mentioned here http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=2462 that there'd have been any significant headway made into even organising a search for potential warships to rebuild before the panic really set in.

One more thing. With no effective enemy naval forces anywhere in the world, what would be the driving force behind such a huge undertaking Where is the benefit versus cost

[Targan]

This has to be a typo as BOTH histories state nukes were first used on the 9th of July.

Probably but not necessarily. The first use of nukes may have been ICBM-launched or medium range missile launched, although I would tend to agree that it is a typo as you would expect the first use of nukes to have been "battlefield nukes" or bomber-deployed. But who knows Perhaps the first use of nukes was the Soviets launching MIRVs from ICBMs on massed PLA ground forces

[Blakrider]

your also forgetting Legbreaker that it wasnt the one large massive wave of missiles but a few here and a few there. as it states.

"fearful of a General (massive) strategic exchange, neither side launched so many warheads at once to risk of as convincing the other side that it was all-out attack. neither side wished to cross over Nuclear oblivion in one bold step threshold, so they inched across it, never quite realizing they had already done it till after the fact."
(page 28 Ref Manual V.1)

it goes on to state that the nukes fell from July till early December.

and there was a 2nd smaller exchange in fall/winter '98

this gives those that dont panic time... tiem to possible move resources and items to less tempting target areas, and to try to get head, even if doomed to failure...

ever wondered what both CivGov and MilGov use to more the trickle of troops to Europe in mid to late '99 my guess was alot of former rust buckets and anthing else that can float

[Raellus]

Someone brought the point up in the light carrier thread that a lack of fuel would be a serious issue post-TDM. Even if an old warship could be refurbished- an expensive and time-consuming process under the best of circumstances- finding enough fuel to give it any sort of mobility or operational freedom would be extremely difficult, at best.

I like the idea of bringing older ships back to action once the war starts, but as many have pointed out, there's really not that much time until the nuclear exchanges start. Once that happens, some of these old ships would be destroyed, some would remain unfinished as the workers flee (or die), and some would be left without any signicant fuels to get them moving again.

[Legbreaker]

Perhaps the first use of nukes was the Soviets launching MIRVs from ICBMs on massed PLA ground forces

The first nukes were used on BOTH fronts on the 9th of July.
In the east we had the absolute flattening of the Chinese with massive amounts of tactical nukes.
In the west they were limted in number and scale, at least in the beginning.

your also forgetting Legbreaker that it wasnt the one large massive wave of missiles but a few here and a few there. as it states.

Exactly! There were small numbers of nukes flying about almost on a daily basis. Most may have been falling in Europe and China, but it's possible, even probable that some fell on continental North America too. The nukes that fell within the US borders may not have inflicted the scale of damage they were elsewhere in the world, but they didn't need to. Even just one falling would have been enough to send the entire country into a panic - take a look at the reaction when two planes flew into the world trade centre, the country was effectively at a standstill for days with NO flights and heightened security everywhere. And that was relatively small scale compared to a nuke...

One nuke alone would be enough to ground all flights (EMP), bring public transport (trains, trucks, buses) to a grinding halt, and send anyone in the cities with a car, motorbike, bicycle, or strong legs into the hills. News reports of continuing strikes throughout the world would keep them there.

The exchange in 1998 is almost irrelevant - the damage had already been done.

So yes there may have been time to move some resources around, but the manpower is likely to have been lacking. Also, where are you going to move them to From one potential nuke site to another... Soviet spies and satellites are sure to have been providing updated target information.