USS Saratoga Fate

[schnickelfritz]

Can someone point me where I could get a rundown on the fate of the USS Saratoga Is there something that might show the fates of the various capital ships (aircraft carriers, Kirov and Iowa class, Des Moins class CA)

Thanks!
Dave

[Legbreaker]

Actual fate or game world fate

[RN7]

Can someone point me where I could get a rundown on the fate of the USS Saratoga Is there something that might show the fates of the various capital ships (aircraft carriers, Kirov and Iowa class, Des Moins class CA)

Thanks!
Dave

http://www.topbb.com/forum/viewtopic.phpt=83&mforum=twilight2000

[Rainbow Six]

Hi Dave,

With a few notable exceptions (the USS Corpus Christi obviously, the cruiser in Satellite Down - USS Virginia iirc), published material is fairly sparse on details of specific ships, although there are a few fairly sweeping generalisations (I don't have the exact quote but possibly the most well known one is the reference to the "last major fleet" being destroyed sometime in 1997).

Beyond that there's a few snippets here and there - the USS John Hancock is the flagship of the Omega fleet, the RDF sourcebook lists what's in the Gulf (at least for the US, can't recall for the others), the USS Tarawa is mentioned in the V2 aviation guide as still being afloat in 2000 (in the Baltic I think). The Last Sub trilogy has a few more references (istr a largish US warship is quoted as going down off Cyprus), and there are probably a few others here and there, but it is hunting needles in haystacks...

Cheers

Dave

[Legbreaker]

Besides those RS has mentioned, and those listed in the RDF Sourcebook as being in the middle east, there are no other ships anywhere in canon.
But the world's a big place. There might be one or two more in Virgina's conditon being used in a similar manner. It's extremely unlikely any would be undamaged though, or even have more than a skeleton crew and minimal ammunition.

[schnickelfritz]

USS Saratoga

In at least one thread, the USS Saratoga was stated as having been beached somewhere on the Flodida coast. Can anyone provide details on how she ended up in that state
Thanks!
Dave

[Legbreaker]

It's likely that is simply somebodies individual opinion - it's certainly not backed up by any of the canon material.
Chances are, if that is where you would like to place the vessel in your T2K world, it was heavily damaged by submarine or sea mines while close to the shore. Rather than have it sink to the bottom of the ocean, the captain may have chosen to beach and hope something could be salvaged.
It's also possible it (and other ships in the area) were subject to nuclear attack.

[helbent4]

In at least one thread, the USS Saratoga was stated as having been beached somewhere on the Flodida coast. Can anyone provide details on how she ended up in that state

Dave,

Yes, that was RaketenJagdpanzer's personal Florida campaign:

The strikes happen pretty much as in the 1.0 background. Kennedy gets spared slightly by its bursts hitting out to sea and going off underwater due to malfunction. Patrick AFB is unharmed and becomes the keys to recovery in the area.

The I-4 corridor is pretty hosed, but Tampa/CENTCOM fallout went more southeast than northwest. Orlando and locations north and northwest did "OK", with MCO and SFB being key points for relief (what little has come).

As explained in 1.0-relevant sourcebooks, though, the Sunshine State has given rise to a lot of separatist elements which will be a problem for years to come. As I pointed out, the USS Saratoga is grounded of Port Richie, in a "maybe-someday" recoverable state. The chief concern is whether or not her reactor is safe and stable.

FL ANG units out of Jacksonville and USMC Reserve, Army Reserve and NTSC Orlando trainees are the bulk of the military presence in Florida, totaling around 2800 personnel. The Transportatiton and Paymaster reservists based out of Orlando provide the bulk of the mobility to units in Central Florida with their small number of HEMTTs, and the link between Central Florida and other regions is tenuous at best. Some transport aircraft remain, bolstered by rotary-wing and prop a/c from the USS Saratoga, and 3 functional, stored F15Ds also remain (but essentially grounded since a mere few hours' flying time worth of JP-8 remain).

SFB (Sanford International Airport) and to a lesser degree MCO (Orlando International Airport) have taken the bulk of relief flights; the surrounding environs near both airports are heavily patrolled by local militia (consisting of a great number of retired middle-aged veterans of Vietnam and Korea) aligned with both MilGov and CivGov. Unlike other areas of the country these two groups conflicts rarely involve more than catcalls, showing the international bird of peace to one another, and so on.

St. Augustine's civil government relocated to the near-indestructible fortress located in the old town. Nothing short of a demolition nuclear charge could bring the complex down and it is now the nerve center for recovery and civil government on Florida's northeast coast.

The chief damage done to Florida has been the repeated "surprise" hurricanes, although the judicious use of E2C Hawkeyes from the beached Saratoga, combined with the meteorological skills of NASA and Patrick AFB personnel have gone a long, long way to mitigating the damage by warning the remaining population centers as best they can...

The post doesn't reference how it got there, you can PM RakJgpz on how it gets there in his opinion.

Tony

[Olefin]

Troubled Waters - John Hancock and three Forest Sherman DD

Frank Frey's Kenya module of which he has posted details here saying one CG and several destroyers and frigates

Tarawa as already mentioned

The RDF fleet including a Des Moines, an assault carrier and a missile

Assumptions from canon

1) At least some escorts for the 6000 men who transited the Med to get to the RDF in Dec of 2000- the Med is a very dangerous place as per Med Cruise - and there is no way else they got to Saudi from Europe on a collection of old ships in six weeks any other way than thru the Med (RDF module)

2) the guys in Korea didnt get there by swimming (general timeline, US Army Vehicle Guide)

3) Alaska - there were US troops in the Aleutians and who raided into Russia over the Bering Strait - again they didnt swim so that means a USN presence of some sort (same as 2)

4) Yugoslavia - most likely at least a minor USN presence there to support ops (same as 2)

[Targan]

4) Yugoslavia - most likely at least a minor USN presence there to support ops (same as 2)

Well, not strictly USN. USN assets under CivGov command maybe, and maybe they refer to themselves as USN but the bulk of the USN would view them as renegades. Remember, as far as US forces go the Yugoslavia AO is a CivGov show.

[Olefin]

Actually thats an interesting question as the USN doesnt take mutiny lightly. One thing that they might be would be USN ships that were in mothballs that were being put back into operation and then crewed by men loyal to Civ Gov - i.e. older DD's and possible even the Salem's sister cruiser or cruisers.

As such they may never have officially rejoined the official USN. Either that or MilGov is giving them naval support for the operation on the basis that even though those troops arent answering to them they would rather have them in Europe and not in the US where they could be used against them.

[Targan]

Olefin, thank you for instantly brightening my mood. That may be the first post of yours with which I fully agree on every point

[Olefin]

Always glad to be of service!

[Olefin]

Oh and since not everyone may be familiar with what Frank Frey posted on Kenya using his notes plus the notes of several people who communicated with him this is what the canon would have been for his module if he had finished it and published it - and again since he wrote many of the modules I think we can agree on this being "canon" since it was to be a GDW T2000 module

TF 212
CG 50 USS Valley Forge, one SH-2F Seasprite, (flagship)
DDG 996 USS Chandler, one SH-2F Seasprite
DDG 46 USS Preble
FF 1058 USS Meyerkord, one SH-2F Seasprite
DD 950 USS Richard S. Edwards

TF 212.1 Support Group
T-A0 146 Kawishiwi
AE 22 Mauna Kea
TF 212.2 Patrol Group
PC 11 Whirlwind
PC 12 Thunderbolt
MCM 7 Patriot
WMEC 725 USCGC Jarvis
USCGC WPB 1302 Manitou

Edwards is a Forrest Sherman class that in real life was expended in 1997 as a target - here she would have been part of the other Forrest Shermans that were put back in service as mentioned in Troubled Waters (Challenge Magazine article)

While the discussion changed the names of some of the ships for better candidates the composition as to numbers in general stayed the same.

And these ships would be operational ones, not stranded or out of fuel.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

EDIT: Fixed up the post to reflect that Saratoga is not in fact a CV-N. Can't believe I made that mistake. Anyway, fixes are bolded.

It's always nice to see one's name mentioned.

My thoughts on the Saratoga being where it is were based on the idea that she'd been working the southwest Atlantic, near Florida, and had been ordered to stop convoys of Division Cuba from reaching the coast of Texas. She got into a shooutout with Soviet and Cuban surface elements and while she broke the back of Soviet Naval operations in the region and virtually destroyed the last of the "official" Cuban navy, she absorbed at least a few cruise-missile hits and near misses and was badly crippled. Realizing a ship that could maybe someday be put back in action was preferable to a ship that was a natural reef her commander beached her in the shallows off of Port Ritchie, launching all remaining a/c as she went.

For my campaign purposes, the remaining crew did an able job of damage control, and there is a contingent of Marines and a skeleton crew of sailors on-board to maintain the ship. As the ships condensers are a source of fresh water and her sickbay facilities are (despite being mostly out of supplies) essentially a pre-war quality hospital, plus her considerable machine shop facilities the sparse civilian population near her beached location welcome her presence and trade food with the crew for use of her facilities. The locals also promulgate the story that the Saratoga is a ghost ship, abandoned due to unexploded ammunition and danger of internal collapse. The crew on board maintain this illusion by leaving the outer deck and hull in seemingly poor shape, however the below-deck spaces are maintained to the best possible standards.

For hostiles who refuse to turn back, the Marines on board have full control of the CIWS systems, .50 cal. machine guns, light arms and ad-hoc rocket launchers. How long they could hold out against a dedicated assault is anyone's guess though: the ship is too tempting a target for salvage for New America to just leave alone for too long.