USS Saratoga Fate

[Olefin]

And i dont think that they were referring to a Harrier air strike or helo air strike when they say carriers.

By the way thats one thing I have been saying about the so called last fleet in the world being shattered somehow meaning that the USN is finished

The Japanese fleet was shattered at Leyte Gulf - and they still had a bunch of destroyers, cruisers, battleships and yes even carriers in commission after that

Shattered doesnt mean destroyed or almost destroyed - it means that their effectiveness as a fleet has been seriously compromised to where another fleet battle isnt possible - but it leaves more than enough to still be dangerous

So two carriers still very much afloat post Kola disaster in the Med that can launch effective air strikes - not only is it canon (per Med Cruise) and defensible as canon (for the canon defenders) its also very probable based on how many carriers the US had in commission at the time of the Twilight War even if the last main fleet got shattered at Kola as a fleet


And saying we need to use canon for the navy has always been iffy

Look at Last Submarine - according to it only 4 US subs are left by the Kola disaster in June of 1997 - that is definitely not possible no matter what the timeline says and the canon says - if there is one thing GDW screwed up big time its that

I know they needed it for how the Last Submarine Trilogy was written for dramatic effect that this is all there is left of the USN nuke fleet - but there is no scenario where the USN, with all the subs that were in commission or able to be recommissioned back then would lose every nuke sub they had, including all the Ohios as well by mid 1997 - that means all the Ohios are gone BEFORE the war goes nuclear

and saying Soviet nuclear subs were hard to locate - I have a brother in law who was in attack boats for years - when I told him that that he started laughing

what he told me was that to have that many subs lost the Russians would have needed a fleet three to four times as big as what they had - and that to sink all the Ohios they would have needed a new tech that frankly to this day doesnt exist

and having only four NATO subs left operationally by the start of 1997 means that between Turkey, Great Britain, Germany and Norway - who had literally dozens of subs - all they have left after a war that is barely a few months old is four subs

and I know Leg that its a game - but it has to be a believeable one -

now having those kinds of losses happen by mid to late 2000 from multiple losses in nuked ports, breakdowns, etc.. where the boats are sitting in harbors or ports and cant sortie because of that - thats believeable

having the Corpus Christi be the only sub that is operational and that MilGov can get to in time because the others are out of fuel, have breakdowns, took hull damage and cant submerge, have damage to their weapons or sonar systems, are in long term refits in say San Francisco or in Australia and wont be available for months or they are in Korea and cant get home in time

now that is not only believeable but after a four year war - very very possible

so what did my GM do - he ignored canon and when we did the Med Cruise he had us taking spare parts to get a USN nuke sub stuck in Israel operational so she could get home again - and when we did Boomer we did the same - i.e. we didnt stop at some godforsaken beach we pulled into a UK sub base to get repaired and dropped off more parts for another USN sub stuck there as well (we were going there anyway and getting damaged by the French ship just made it more necessary)

heck we didnt even have to find Corpus Christi when we did Last Submarine -the whole module as we played it was to get those torpedoes (and spare parts) at Weymouth so she could sail (she was already in MilGov hands per our GM)

and with all those changes - we had a lot of fun on those three modules and still kept 90 percent or more of it canon as to how they were run

[Rainbow Six]

To be honest, I just picked the Saratoga 'cause I like the name and her history, I live in Florida hence her being run aground here, and the idea of something as big and looming as an aircraft carrier as an adventure locale is too neat to pass up. I could have just as easily made it a super-freighter full of vital war materiel, a different carrier, a Soviet carrier, a different location, etc. etc.

It'd probably be "cooler" if it was a CV-N, then there'd be power and a real rationale for people still living there, but that was already dealt with in Satellite Down, which was IMO not a great module. The premise is neat - multiple factions need that satellite data, and it's under the gun of a crazy guy with lots of weapons - but the execution leaves something to be desired.

Anyhow that's my two brass shells.

Mate, I think it's a good idea...and I actually think it's cooler using something that's got a bit of history attached.

My only very minor nit pick would be that I think (although I could be mistaken) that Cuba was officially neutral, so maybe keep the Cubans out of the naval battle that causes her to be run aground

On the subject of Cuba, according to the BYB Guantanamo Bay was evacuated by the US at some point in 1999...maybe try and work that in

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Mate, I think it's a good idea...and I actually think it's cooler using something that's got a bit of history attached.

My only very minor nit pick would be that I think (although I could be mistaken) that Cuba was officially neutral, so maybe keep the Cubans out of the naval battle that causes her to be run aground

On the subject of Cuba, according to the BYB Guantanamo Bay was evacuated by the US at some point in 1999...maybe try and work that in

That works; by '99 or so she's one of the last surviving big carriers in the world and she's providing CAP for the withdraw from Gitmo. As they're coming around the west end of Cuba she gets jumped by a Soviet TF and has a running battle with them. The CVBG soaks a lot of missiles intended for her, most of the boats get away, and her air wing prosecutes the shit out of the Soviets (who have no air cover to speak of), with Saratoga crippled by the aforementioned ASM strikes at the last, but her birds putting paid to the Soviet boats. She loses most of her a/c and many pilots, orders her birds to Key West and finally limps to the shallows off of Fort Jefferson*, offloads her wounded to picket boats and angel flights who then take 'em to NAS Key West or Homestead, and a rotating guard detail keeps her out of the hands of marauders/pirates or New America.

That last part kind of sticks with me a little bit though...It isn't like New America has a floating dry-dock they could put a CV into for the eight to ten years of repairs and rebuilding it'd take, etc. etc., and at best the ship is a wreck.

Maybe there are no guards on her and she was stripped of all weapons, supplies, etc. and it's just her hulk out there now.

Or alternately go back to my original thesis: it isn't Saratoga, but a nuclear carrier and is stranded off of Key West and providing the city with power, facilities, etc...

I dunno, it's more for community use.

[Rainbow Six]

That last part kind of sticks with me a little bit though...It isn't like New America has a floating dry-dock they could put a CV into for the eight to ten years of repairs and rebuilding it'd take, etc. etc., and at best the ship is a wreck.

NA might not be able to get the ship into a condition where they could make use of it, but what about all of the equipment / weapons / etc on board If they snagged themselves a single A6 or F18, some fuel, and some dumb bombs that probably still gives them way more firepower than anyone else in the area.

Granted, they don't need a carrier for that - they could take control of a Naval Air Station instead, but it's just a thought.

And who gets the job of taking out said aircraft - the PC's...

[Tegyrius]

Or alternately go back to my original thesis: it isn't Saratoga, but a nuclear carrier and is stranded off of Key West and providing the city with power, facilities, etc...

If you're looking at Key West, one of those "facilities" would need to be the ship's desalination plant. I looked at the area for a 2013 module that never happened, and IIRC, there are no natural sources of fresh water in the Keys.

- C.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

NA might not be able to get the ship into a condition where they could make use of it, but what about all of the equipment / weapons / etc on board Let's face it, if they snagged themselves a single A6 or F18, some fuel, and some dumb bombs that probably still gives them way more firepower than anyone else in the area.

probably vastly more likely they'd help themselves to the bombs and whatnot as a basis for explosives, plus whatever wasn't gathered up from the armory in terms of small weapons.

Assuming they absorbed some technicians from various air-forces, how feasible is it that they could wire up A2A missiles for surface-to-surface work

[raketenjagdpanzer]

If you're looking at Key West, one of those "facilities" would need to be the ship's desalination plant. I looked at the area for a 2013 module that never happened, and IIRC, there are no natural sources of fresh water in the Keys.

- C.

Actually, there's one: it's a Blue Hole in the middle of Big Torch Key. It is naturally filtered fresh water. I can picture that as being VERY hotly contested...

[Adm.Lee]

Aha! I was wondering if Key West NAS was viable as a MilGov outpost. I wanted something to serve as an initial base for a PC group to go out and survey the Gulf Coast. If there's nothing on the Florida peninsula, that would be a good a place as any.

OTOH, I like using a wrecked carrier as a base. She could still serve as a barracks. If at least one generator could be fueled, then there could be power for lights, radios, desalinization. What European veteran wouldn't volunteer for a billet that promised showers and clean sheets whenever they finished a mission!

There's over 5 thousand bunks there, plus tools and plenty of space (hangar & flight decks) for briefings, rehearsals, exercise, whatever. She could be the static mooring base for a cloud of smaller boats and even some light freighters.

EDIT: I just got off my Google-butt and looked up Fort Jefferson-- holy carp, that's a long way from land! 'Twould be really secure from those New America fellers, at least as long as they could get food & fuel from somewhere on the mainland. I'm seeing a flotilla of (ex-civilian) sailboats run by the USN and perhaps USCG, running about the Gulf, picking up and delivering supplies, messages and people. The faux-Constitution would be a real prize for that, given her relatively big size.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Aha! I was wondering if Key West NAS was viable as a MilGov outpost. I wanted something to serve as an initial base for a PC group to go out and survey the Gulf Coast. If there's nothing on the Florida peninsula, that would be a good a place as any.

OTOH, I like using a wrecked carrier as a base. She could still serve as a barracks. If at least one generator could be fueled, then there could be power for lights, radios, desalinization. What European veteran wouldn't volunteer for a billet that promised showers and clean sheets whenever they finished a mission!

There's over 5 thousand bunks there, plus tools and plenty of space (hangar & flight decks) for briefings, rehearsals, exercise, whatever. She could be the static mooring base for a cloud of smaller boats and even some light freighters.

EDIT: I just got off my Google-butt and looked up Fort Jefferson-- holy carp, that's a long way from land! 'Twould be really secure from those New America fellers, at least as long as they could get food & fuel from somewhere on the mainland. I'm seeing a flotilla of (ex-civilian) sailboats run by the USN and perhaps USCG, running about the Gulf, picking up and delivering supplies, messages and people. The faux-Constitution would be a real prize for that, given her relatively big size.

Putting a ship at Fort Jefferson would make Fort Jefferson a fort again, too...but the fuel issue is a HUGE problem. I would probably rework this and make it a CV-N or some other kind of nuclear vessel aground out there.

[Adm.Lee]

Re: fuel problem: yes, but I'm not talking about putting all the boilers on line to drive the ship, maybe just one (or two, running one at a time) of them, converted to alcohol, like everything else out there. Just enough to run some of the generators and distillers and the like. If we believe in the power of methanol, there's a whole lot of plants to get chopped up over on the Florida mainland!

EDIT: now that I'm positing a big ship as an instant barracks, did Mobile and the BB Alabama get hit That's a plenty stable place to live, too.

[Targan]

I wonder whether kelp beds and sea grass meadows could be a viable source of biomass for the production of alcohol fuels in coastal areas Or to kick it even more old school, could it be harvested and dried or even scavenged pre-dried from the shoreline and used as-is in wood and coal-fired boilers

Two-thirds of our planet is covered with water and in shallow coastal seas there are huge amounts of aquatic vegetation. In some parts of the world there are free-floating "islands" of kelp. The reason that the mention of Florida triggered this line of thinking for me is that I know that manatees are found around Florida's coast and manatees are "sea cows". Where you find manatees you will surely find sea grass meadows.

[Adm.Lee]

Well, as far as drying the kelp, the Sara's going to have a big ol' flight deck not doing anything else... It's either that or a big garden!

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I wonder whether kelp beds and sea grass meadows could be a viable source of biomass for the production of alcohol fuels in coastal areas Or to kick it even more old school, could it be harvested and dried or even scavenged pre-dried from the shoreline and used as-is in wood and coal-fired boilers

Two-thirds of our planet is covered with water and in shallow coastal seas there are huge amounts of aquatic vegetation. In some parts of the world there are free-floating "islands" of kelp. The reason that the mention of Florida triggered this line of thinking for me is that I know that manatees are found around Florida's coast and manatees are "sea cows". Where you find manatees you will surely find sea grass meadows.

Unfortunately, large kelp beds are not that prevalent down around the Keys; the water is too warm and shallow. The islands themselves can be harvested for distillation material but it's got to be taken like 80 miles to where our ship sits near the fort.