An Alternative Survivor's Guide to the United Kingdom

[mikeo80]

The Badass of the Week website (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/list.html) has some excellent Gurkha stories, including one from a few years ago about a Gurkha who had recently retired from Indian service when he single-handedly took on an entire gang of bandits who were robbing a train he was travelling on. He was going to play it safe until the bandits attempted to rape a young woman, then he pulled out his kukri and started hacking. Needless to say things went very badly for the bandits.

Edit: Here's the link to that story: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/shrestha.html

Notice in the article, This hero was a THIRTY FIVE YEAR veteran!!!!! And a Corporal at that!!! The Gurkha Battalion he had been with had to unretire him to promote and award him.

My $0.02

Mike

[Targan]

Notice in the article, This hero was a THIRTY FIVE YEAR veteran!!!!! And a Corporal at that!!! The Gurkha Battalion he had been with had to unretire him to promote and award him.

LOL. I think you'll find that the article described him as a 35 year old veteran, not a 35 year veteran.

[mikeo80]

LOL. I think you'll find that the article described him as a 35 year old veteran, not a 35 year veteran.

Amazing what happens when your fingers slip on the boardkey.

My Bad

My $0.02

Mike

[dude_uk]

Hey its just nice to be of help. I was worried for a while that I was just pinching all your top ideas and not giving any back. Your ideas are great as always.

Few minor points:

With regards to SIS, they moved into their present accommodation at Vauxhall Cross in 1994. Glad you increased the size, at the height of the cold war MI6 had more agents working the other side of the iron curtain than the CIA.

Mebyon Kernow, the newest draft has downgraded the size of the leadership. You originally had it being lead by I believe an ex Royal Marine Reason for the change

Got my current draft of the complete British Army ORBAT almost done for you to take a look at, if you have the time could I email a copy soon for your perusal

[Rainbow Six]

Cheers dude. Keeping Six at Century House was a slip up - I knew they'd moved to Vauxhall Cross, but thought it was later than that - I should have noticed it To be honest, I hadn't originally planned on covering Six (on the basis that the work was meant to cover the situation in the UK and by definition Six operate outside the UK) and I have been helluva short of time lately, so I may have rushed parts of that piece to try and get it out.

Crikey, that was a very early draft of Mebyon Kernow you're referring to! You're right, in that draft the group's leader - Geraint - was an ex Marine officer who had served in the Falklands and NI. Part of the reason for the change was that I was worried that in some ways the character of Geraint was not dissimilar to Marcus Rose himself - both were formerly Majors, both had served in NI, both had left the Armed Forces - so I went for a non military character in the end (I also had a draft where the leader was a bloke who was a self employed builder).

Apologies for not being in more regular contact re: your orbat...ping it through to me and I'll get back to you asap.

Cheers

Dave

[Rainbow Six]

Evening all,

Attached an updated timeline to my Alternative Survivor's Guide.

This update has one fairly substantial revision, which pertains to the situation in Ireland. When I wrote the initial timeline I deviated quite substantially from the canon material by not having the Irish Defence Force invading Northern Ireland and the subsequent conflict that followed. There were a number of reasons for that, however given that it is a part of the established T2k canon, with the benefit of hindsight I think I should have kept it in. So the attached timeline is an attempt at a "retcon" that includes the conflict in Ireland. This is a first draft – my intention is to try and create an atmosphere similar to that found in the Balkans following the break up of Yugoslavia

Also attached is my order of battle for British forces in Northern Ireland and The Irish Defence Force.

Thanks to several people who posted in a thread started by Canadian Army a couple of years ago about Ireland, which had a lot of useful information.

As always, comments / questions are most welcome (please remember this is set at the start of June 2000).

Cheers

Dave

[James Langham]

Evening all,

Attached an updated timeline to my Alternative Survivors Guide.

This update has one fairly substantial revision, which pertains to the situation in Ireland. When I wrote the initial timeline I deviated quite substantially from the canon material by not having the Irish Defence Force invading Northern Ireland and the subsequent conflict that followed. There were a number of reasons for that, however given that it is a part of the established T2k canon, with the benefit of hindsight I think I should have kept it in. So the attached timeline is an attempt at a oeretcon that includes the conflict in Ireland. This is a first draft my intention is to try and create an atmosphere similar to that found in the Balkans following the break up of Yugoslavia

Also attached is my order of battle for British forces in Northern Ireland and The Irish Defence Force.

Thanks to several people who posted in a thread started by Canadian Army a couple of years ago about Ireland, which had a lot of useful information.

As always, comments / questions are most welcome (please remember this is set at the start of June 2000).

Cheers

Dave

Dave,

great work as ever. Do you mind if I incorporate some of your work on the forces into my material on Ireland I am working on

James

[RN7]

Hi Dave more good stuff as usual.

About Ireland I have a few queries. I know that Bantry was mentioned as a nuclear target somewhere in Twilight 2000, but it may not be the prime or only target in southern Ireland.

Bantry Bay was an historical deep water anchorage for the Royal Navy. Bantry itself is a small town of less than 3,500 people with an economy based on fishing and tourism. A large oil terminal was constructed in the 1960s by Gulf Oil on the southwestern end of Whiddy Island which lies a few miles from Bantry. A major accident occurred in 1979 when a French oil tanker exploded killing 50 people. The terminal has never been fully repaired but was transferred to Irish government control and remains the main oil terminal for Ireland.

Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour is the main base and headquarters of the Irish Naval Service. But its nearly 10 miles from Cork City which is sheltered by a lot of islands and land as Cork Harbour is quite extensive. Haulbowline is not a very large base with an enclosed harbor and a few old docks and slipways. Some Irish ships are also moored adjacent Haulbowline Island on Great Island which also hosts the seaport town of Cobh and the now redundant but still existent dock and ship yard at Rushbrooke which has built ships for the Irish Naval Service in the past. A ferry port is also located on the mainland a few miles away to the south at Ringaskiddy with a deep water berth and ferry services to France. Irelands main oil refinery is also located about five miles southeast of from Haulbowline at Whitegate on the mainland and there is a diesel oil and gas burning electricity power station a few miles inland. Im not sure it would be worth the trouble of a nuclear strike as the Irish Navy is tiny but I suppose others could use the naval base. But I think you would need quite a big nuclear warhead to really damage the area.

Shannon Airport may be a more worthwhile target. Its 10,500 foot runway is the most western major airport in Europe, and the nearest large runway to North America and I believe it was a designated emergency landing site for the space shuttle. It also has an aircraft maintenance and major cargo handling facility, and a lot of American and European multinational companies have factories, depots and facilities in the adjacent Shannon Free Zone industrial park. Aeroflot used to use it as a stopover point between Russia and Cuba until the early 1990s before they got long ranged passenger jets. Despite Irelands neutrality I have seen USAF C-17s, C-141s, F-15s and F-16s lined up on the tarmac as well as Canadian and German military aircraft. I also saw three Russian Antonov An-124 cargo jets parked at the cargo facility well away from the main terminal ten years ago. There so big you just couldnt miss them.

Also Collins Barracks in Dublin is now part of the National Museum of Ireland. However it closed in 1997 so it could be still active in the Twilight War timeline.

There are also quite a few small airports or aerodromes along the northwest of Ireland that could be of use to Irish forces including Belmullet, Donegal, Knock, Letterkenny, Sligo and the military heliport at Finner Camp in Bundoran Co. Donegal.

[Rainbow Six]

Thanks guys.

James, please, help yourself to anything that you think is useful.

Bantry is listed as having been the target of a nuclear strike on pg 16 of the canon SGUK. Interestingly, Cork is not listed as a target, however the map does carry a disclaimer that data for Eire is incomplete (although it doesn't state whether the use of Eire in this instance refers only to the Republic or to the whole island of Ireland ). Going by the map on page 12, Belfast and Derry / Londonderry appear to be rubble, but are not listed as nuclear strikes, which is, I think reasonably consistent with what I've written.

Shannon isn't listed on the map at all, but that's a good point about the airport, which I hadn't thought about. I suppose whether it warranted a nuke or not might in part be determined by whether Ireland continued to allow its use on a regular basis by (presumably) US forces after the War started or whether they closed it to belligerents. Weighing everything up and looking at published nuclear targets in other countries , I'm inclined to think it may have dodged a nuke (although perhaps may have been a target for conventional air attack or Spetznaz action (which raises the possibility of a Spetznaz detachment roaming around Ireland!), particularly if it was being used as an airbridge to the US). Cork definitely seems like a likely target to me though, primarily because of the oil refinery (which, presumably is also why Bantry was hit). If I've got this right are you saying that a nuclear strike centred on the refinery in Cork could well have caused some damage to Haulbowline (but possibly not complete destruction) but not necessarily Cork City itself Will probably tinker with the Naval Service a bit...I think I'll change it to only one vessel definitely sunk by the RN with another sunk by powers unknown (maybe a Russian sub).

As time permits I do plan on working on a timeline / regional guide specifically for Ireland to accompany the UK guide which will try and get into more detail. I see Sligo as being the operational HQ for Irish operations against the British in Fermanagh and Tyrone plus Derry, whilst the events going on in Monaghan and Dundalk can be viewed as the lead up to the battle of Drogheda mentioned in the canon work. I thought about basing some Irish troops in Bundoran, but figured that with Ballyshannon changing hands a few times the UDR would have probably levelled the place at some point in time...totally forgotten about Knock airport (iirc Loganair used to fly in there from Scotland at one point - am guessing it's Ryanair now). Will have another look at air power...I am going on the basis that most of the Irish Air Corps has been lost in action, and what's left is grounded due to a lack of fuel. I'll probably also have the French lurking in the background doing a bit of meddling. And the Soviets will still have an Embassy in Dublin. so a few things to look at...there will definitely be an expanded and updated draft of this at some point in time, but I have a lot of stuff on at the minute, so six months seems a realistic timeframe!

[Targan]

Do the SGUK nuclear strike lists have the usual disclaimer of "only strike of 0.5mt or greater are shown" or are all nuke strikes covered

[RN7]

Destroying the third largest city in Ireland (including Northern Ireland) would not exactly be a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union. Attacking neutral Ireland with nuclear weapons would automaticaly turn it towards NATO, as despite its rigid political neutrality on everything (except Britain) its a Western country and has a lot of close cultural and historical links with America. Ireland's relative geographical position on the west coast of Europe and its deap sea ports, anchorages and airports would be of great use to NATO in any operations in the Atlantic or even Arctic Oceans.

I'd say an air strike or a sabotage raid would serve a better purpose against the Bantry Bay oil terminal and Whitegate oil refinery than a nuclear strike. A well planned Spetznaz raid on these targets which are not well defended in the first place would completely knock them out. Unless any Soviets were captured it could easily be blamed on the British who with trouble brewing in Northern Ireland would be seen as the natural culprits. The IRA are also very left wing leaning and would probably even even help the Soviets in return for supplies of modern and heavy weapons. Its not hard to land arms along the south or west coast of Ireland by submarine as Ireland's naval and air patrol resources are tiny. The Germans tried it in the First World War.

[Rainbow Six]

Do the SGUK nuclear strike lists have the usual disclaimer of "only strike of 0.5mt or greater are shown" or are all nuke strikes covered

I don't believe the SGUK does. I've just had a quick skim through my copy this morning and didn't see that disclaimer anywhere as far as I can see. It doesn't actually have a strike list in the sense that targets are written down in a list, it actually has two maps one map shows the strikes as dots on the map, the second had a notation that locations in parentheses were subjected to one or more nuclear attacks - there's no reference to megatonnage.

With regard to Ireland, the first map (the one with the dots denoting targets) says "strikes in Eire not shown" so makes no reference to any strikes in Ireland.

The second map (where targets are shown in parentheses) has a note stating "data for Eire is incomplete" and has Bantry Bay in parentheses (and uses the standard T2K may symbol to show the location as rubble). It doesn't have any other locations in parentheses - Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny, Waterford, Sligo, and Cork all appear to be intact, but as noted data is incomplete. Shannon isn't listed one way or the other, and as noted Belfast and Londonderry are both rubble (but not in parentheses).

However...there is a list in the BYB (pg 226 of V2.0) which appears to be exactly the same listing as the V1 SGUK and does carry the disclaimer that it only lists targets of 0.5 MT or greater (this list also lists Bantry Bay, although it is incorrectly listed as being British - no other targets in Ireland are listed anywhere as far as I can tell - in fact unless I'm missing it Ireland isn't mentioned at all anywhere in the BYB).

[Rainbow Six]

Destroying the third largest city in Ireland (including Northern Ireland) would not exactly be a propaganda coup for the Soviet Union. Attacking neutral Ireland with nuclear weapons would automaticaly turn it towards NATO, as despite its rigid political neutrality on everything (except Britain) its a Western country and has a lot of close cultural and historical links with America. Ireland's relative geographical position on the west coast of Europe and its deap sea ports, anchorages and airports would be of great use to NATO in any operations in the Atlantic or even Arctic Oceans.

I'd say an air strike or a sabotage raid would serve a better purpose against the Bantry Bay oil terminal and Whitegate oil refinery than a nuclear strike. A well planned Spetznaz raid on these targets which are not well defended in the first place would completely knock them out. Unless any Soviets were captured it could easily be blamed on the British who with trouble brewing in Northern Ireland would be seen as the natural culprits. The IRA are also very left wing leaning and would probably even even help the Soviets in return for supplies of modern and heavy weapons. Its not hard to land arms along the south or west coast of Ireland by submarine as Ireland's naval and air patrol resources are tiny. The Germans tried it in the First World War.

I think similar points tend to come up when discussing potential Soviet nuclear strikes on France and consensus on the board has tended to be that the strikes would happen anyway. By November 1997 I'm not sure propaganda would be a major concern, and the canon timeline would suggest that major Naval operations have wound down by then so not sure the Sovs would feel that the risk of bringing Ireland into the War as a belligerent would outweigh the benefits of destroying the oil facilities (particularly since one would imagine the only side likely to be benefit from those facilities would be the West. All in all, I think a nuclear strike on Bantry falls under the category of "Then major industrial and oil centres in neutral nations are targeted to prevent their use by the other side" (BYB V2.0, pg 12).

It could be argued that Cork dodged a nuclear bullet though, as it doesn't appear on any nuclear target lists for the British Isles (although there is a degree of vagueness about strikes on Ireland). To be fair, if the Cork refinery was still operational at the start of 1998, I think the nation the most likely to take action against it probably would be the British - I think we would have the most to lose if Irish forces invading Northern Ireland had access to a full range of POL. In my opinion the probability of the UK nuking Cork is astronomically low (we've all got to live together after the War), so I think most likely option would be some sort of conventional attack, either by the RAF or Special Forces. It's an interesting idea...

[RN7]

I think similar points tend to come up when discussing potential Soviet nuclear strikes on France and consensus on the board has tended to be that the strikes would happen anyway. By November 1997 I'm not sure propaganda would be a major concern, and the canon timeline would suggest that major Naval operations have wound down by then so not sure the Sovs would feel that the risk of bringing Ireland into the War as a belligerent would outweigh the benefits of destroying the oil facilities (particularly since one would imagine the only side likely to be benefit from those facilities would be the West. All in all, I think a nuclear strike on Bantry falls under the category of "Then major industrial and oil centres in neutral nations are targeted to prevent their use by the other side" (BYB V2.0, pg 12).

Bringing Ireland into the war as a belligerent is not going to make much difference as the Irish don't realy have much of an armed forces in the first place, other than as a source of well known belligerent recruits to other countries armies.

I don't see France been hit too hard if at all by nuclear weapons for many reasons but I don't want to start a heated discusion about that.

It could be argued that Cork dodged a nuclear bullet though, as it doesn't appear on any nuclear target lists for the British Isles (although there is a degree of vagueness about strikes on Ireland). To be fair, if the Cork refinery was still operational at the start of 1998, I think the nation the most likely to take action against it probably would be the British - I think we would have the most to lose if Irish forces invading Northern Ireland had access to a full range of POL. In my opinion the probability of the UK nuking Cork is astronomically low (we've all got to live together after the War), so I think most likely option would be some sort of conventional attack, either by the RAF or Special Forces. It's an interesting idea...

I think Shannon would be a more significant target as its logistical value is fairly significant. The Soviets could easily conventionally destroy the refinery and oil terminal without waisting a nuclear warhead on them. Shannon on the other hand would need a nuclear warhead to destroy it as the runway can be repaired if they hit with an airstrike and crater the runway.

[RN7]

I think the nation the most likely to take action against it probably would be the British - I think we would have the most to lose if Irish forces invading Northern Ireland had access to a full range of POL. In my opinion the probability of the UK nuking Cork is astronomically low (we've all got to live together after the War), so I think most likely option would be some sort of conventional attack, either by the RAF or Special Forces. It's an interesting idea...

Personally I think the Irish armed forces would be crazy taking on Britain in any circumstances as their forces are inferior in almost every category. There would be die hard Republican elements even within the armed forces who probably would attack the north before actually thinking of the consequences. Northern Ireland's paramilitary security forces alone are probably equal in strenghth to the Irish armed forces, and the Northern Protestant mentality has been preparing for a "Catholic" invasion since the 19th century.

However British forces could take out any military or civil target in Southern Ireland without to much trouble, and I would agree with you that the chances of a British nuclear strike on Ireland is as low as a strike on Washington DC.