Thinking a bit about the USN...

[Olefin]

Having Guam be intact actually makes sense in a lot of ways - there are a lot of USN bases that werent hit by nukes - the most glaring example is seen in Last Submarine. (i.e. the sub base in CT)

And a lot of targets that should have been vaporized werent in the game - for one San Antonio shouldnt have Russians sitting in it unless they are glowing. That ring of air bases and supply depots around it basically screams NUKE ME!! and yet the city is intact.

I totally buy into the breakdown of their C3 system leading to targets that either got overlooked or missed or the missile shot down not being engaged again.

With their satellites gone, most of their communications shot and Moscow gone they may have just had to rely on stuff like "Do we have a record of the sub acknowledging the attack order against Guam It did, well then it must have been destroyed. Confirmation of the launch and that we hit the target Heck I cant confirm anything past line of sight with how screwed up our communications are. if the sub got the message then its been taken care of. Ivan, mark Guam down as destroyed."

And thus Guam survives the war.

[Raellus]

And a lot of targets that should have been vaporized werent in the game - for one San Antonio shouldnt have Russians sitting in it unless they are glowing. That ring of air bases and supply depots around it basically screams NUKE ME!! and yet the city is intact.

I totally buy into the breakdown of their C3 system leading to targets that either got overlooked or missed or the missile shot down not being engaged again..

You don't even need to go that far. We're not talking about a general strategic exchange here. We're talking about a fairly selective tit-for-tat exchange starting with battlefield use of tactical nukes followed by a limited exchange of strategic nukes. This gives the creative GM a decent amount of leeway in deciding what gets hit, why, and how hard. I think the relatively spotty nature of the canonical target lists was probably intentional. Perhaps not, but either way, there's some creative leeway there.

As for San Antonio, if the Soviets (and Cubans) had designs on it, why would they nuke it first

[Olefin]

When the nuke exchange happened the Russians who now occupy it were still in Cuba - the Mexican invasion happened after the nuke exchange.

So with that why is San Antonio even still there You dont leave those air bases untouched if you nuke several others in Texas.

Again it goes to a total breakdown of the Soviet C3 capabilities and why Guam probably was never hit - i.e. some important bases never got nailed because of multiple events and with their satellites and communications wiped out they never knew they had missed

Most likely the first time the Soviets who invaded Texas knew that San Antonio and its surrounding air bases were still intact was when their attack helicopters scouting ahead during the invasion reported back that the city was still there.

[Raellus]

So with that why is San Antonio even still there You dont leave those air bases untouched if you nuke several others in Texas.

Because it's not a general exchange/global thermonuclear war. If the Soviets hit every American base, America would retaliate in kind, leading to general strategic nuclear exchange. T2K is quite clear that this did not happen. Instead, you had a ragged, piecemeal, ad-hoc exchange, leaving some strategic targets untouched while reducing others to ash. It's not terribly logical, but neither is MAD.

[Olefin]

Agree with you totally on the nature of the exchange - and thats why having Guam survive, with its depots of torpedoes and other parts, is not only logical but also very likely.

I think people have been too hung up on how some of the modules treated the USN to basically say it was destroyed or almost wiped out. The picture that Last Submarine and Satellite Down painted of a wiped out USN just doesnt hold up. And you can see that from articles in Challenge Magazine that showed that there were still four operational destroyers left between Cape May and Norfolk (counting the Hancock) along with other ships - i.e. later authors tried to correct the totally wiped out impression of some of the modules.

Frankly Last Submarine is not realistic as to what kind of sub losses the US would have taken - especially to where they couldnt even get a full crew for supposedly the last submarine they had left. With all the ex USN submariners out there and how important this mission is (remember they flew one guy out from Colorado Springs for it to tend the reactor) they would have been able to find a full crew - heck the Omega fleet had to have a lot of stranded USN crewmen in it - certainly some of them would have served in submarines. Even old diesel sub crewmen would have been used.

[Raellus]

Frankly Last Submarine is not realistic as to what kind of sub losses the US would have taken - especially to where they couldnt even get a full crew for supposedly the last submarine they had left. With all the ex USN submariners out there and how important this mission is (remember they flew one guy out from Colorado Springs for it to tend the reactor) they would have been able to find a full crew - heck the Omega fleet had to have a lot of stranded USN crewmen in it - certainly some of them would have served in submarines. Even old diesel sub crewmen would have been used.

I agree. I don't think the designers who wrote Las Sub really cared about any of that, though. They were trying to craft an adventure that would allow the gamers who played through it to be a part of something strategically important. If SSBNs were more common, the mission wouldn't feel so special. Also, the module, as it was designed, allows PCs to traverse great distances in the course of the adventure. It's less about coherent world building and more about setting and plot. I don't know Satellite Down very well but I reckon the same things hold true for that module too.

In the same vein, I don't know if most gaming groups playing through these modules knew or cared enough to question the modules' credibility. Most gaming groups focus on the small slice of the T2KU which they occupy while they're playing the game. To those folks, all this macro stuff is either irrelevant or moot.

As always, whether to follow the module to the letter or make changes, minor or significant, for their players, is entirely up to each individual GM.

[Legbreaker]

Something to keep in mind here is that subs are notoriously difficult to find in the first place, especially if the naval forces assigned to do so have already been decimated as is the case in T2K - Last major fleet destroyed in what, June 1997 Strategic exchanges occur in around October 1997....
Seems clear to me that no matter how great the US believes they were at tracking Soviet subs, by that point they'd be lucky to be using guesswork and blind luck.
Same goes for the Soviets.

[schnickelfritz]

So the Soviets wouldn't have assigned a follow up strike when the first failed
Seems a bit far fetched to me given the value of the target...

I have to ask...and not to be inflammatory/confrontational...is there anything mentioned in anything official enough in print to be considered "canon" that Guam was hit and to what extent

I agree that Andersen AFB most certainly would have had a target on it, but in my book, if it wasn't stated that it was hit, it wasn't hit. Any number of factors could have resulted in whatever subs or missiles not making it to Guam.

If there is some canon materal out there addressing Guam, could someone point me in the right direction

Vielen Dank!
Dave

[pmulcahy11b]

Despite the fact that San Antonio is my home, I agree that San Antonio would have been nuked (during the Cold war, San Antonio was in fact a secondary target). On the north side is Randolph AFB, which is where most USAF and several other countries' air forces do their initial jet and advanced jet training. In the T2K timeline, there was also a squadron of Air force Reserve F-15s.

On the east side, there was at the time Kelly AFB. (It's now been given over to San Antonio, and several airlines do maintenance and repair at "Kelly City Base.") In the T2K timeline, both Randolph and Kelly were dispersal bases for B-52s and B-1s. Kelly also had depot-level maintenance facilities for the USAF's largest aircraft, and it was a sort of way-station for various USAF aircraft. It also had two squadrons of Air National Guard F-16s.

Kind of on the line between the north side and northeast side is Ft Sam Houston. T2K-wise, it's 8th Army HQ and MEDDAC HQ, and almost all Army medical personnel will either train or or be stationed there at some point, including SF medics (who start their medical training there). It's also home to Brooke Army Medical Center, which was even then one the country's largest hospitals.

Lackland AFB, to the south of Kelly, is where all AF Basic Training starts. Training for CCTs and Pararescue begin there. Virtually all military handlers as well as their dogs are trained there. Again, T2K-wise, AF security police are trained at Lackland, and USMC MP training started there. USAF OTS was there until the early 2000s. There's a large detachment of AFOSI at Lackland. Lackland has always had a reputation for having a number of nondescript buildings on base that are more than what they seem.

Brooks AFB was home to a lot of the scientific end of being a pilot in the T2K timeline. (It belongs to UT Health Science Center.)

Going around Loop 410 from Lackland, you'll pass the South Texas Research Center. In the T2K there was a large habitat there for monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees; however, as long back as I can remember, there were rumors that biowarfare research was being done there. It definitely had at that time labs ranking just below the standards of the CDC's labs.

Go further around the Loop, get off at Babcock and head outside the Loop, and you will come to the Medical Center area, called that because the UT Health Science Center, Audie Murphy VMC, Methodist Regional Transplant Center, one branch of Santa Rosa Hospital, and a couple of hospitals which for the life of me I can't remember the name of right now are in that area. (Santa Rosa actually has five hospitals, each with a different specialty, in San Antonio.)

IIRC, during the T2K timeline, there were four AF Reserve and two ANG units, ten Army NG units, four Army Reserve units, a Navy Reserve unit, and even a reserve Marine Recon unit. Might be worth shooting at SA just for the blow to morale to US units.

Although when I used to run a campaign, San Antonio got totally missed (bad intelligence in Russia, bad launch computers, overshots, etc), it would in truth have been a very juicy target. Then again, an intact SA might make a good home base for invading Mexican and Russian units.

[stilleto69]

I've kept both Guam (the Soviet SSBN was sank shortly before the missile was ready to launch) and San Antonio (the sight of the 2nd Alamo in T2K). I always thought it would fun to leave San Antonio intact and run characters in it as sort of a Texas version of 'Red Dawn'.

[HorseSoldier]

Guam, I think, would have been hit -- unless, as noted, the missile missed.

San Antonio might have drawn a strike, if only to get at the army level HQ there in support of the Mexicans. But maybe by the time the Mexicans were across the border they were moving faster than expected or the Soviet command and control were too disrupted to get that order to a launching unit.

[Targan]

I have to ask...and not to be inflammatory/confrontational...is there anything mentioned in anything official enough in print to be considered "canon" that Guam was hit and to what extent

Guam isn't mentioned in any canon material that I'm aware of but even if that part of the world was covered in any of the canon strike lists and Guam wasn't mentioned, it still doesn't necessarily mean Guam wasn't nuked. It just means that it wasn't nuked by a strike of 500kt or bigger.

So Guam is an open slate for each individual GM. There are plausible reasons for and against it being nuked. Therein lies one of the great values of this forum, that it is an excellent place to read the opinions and rationales of a variety of T2Kers. Many of my preconceived views on the T2K universe have been modified in that way.

Is it possible that the Soviets made a conscious decision not to nuke Guam For instance, is it in any way plausible that the Soviets had a plan at some stage during the war to try and neutralise US forces there by some other means (non-persistant chemical weapons for instance) with the aim of securing materiel or assets there for their own use If such a plan existed but for whatever reason was never carried out, it might have been too late for the Soviets to fall back to plan B (a nuclear strike).

Perhaps Guam isn't a very plausible location for such a scenario but other isolated, high value targets that inexplicably avoided nuclear destruction could be.

[HorseSoldier]

Guam was probably logistically involved as a staging base for US/NATO aid going to China to some extent (how significant probably relating to what the US/Filipino relationship looked like in any given T2K timeline -- if Subic Bay and Clark AFB were still in operation it might change things).

Shutting it down to neutralize that aid (or at least complicate it) to the PRC would be a pretty big objective during the war, though once the war goes nuclear and the megatonnage lollapalooza starts erasing most of the Chinese Army, it may have dropped down in priority.

[Olefin]

"megatonnage lollapalooza"

Love that phrase!!

[Webstral]

Although when I used to run a campaign, San Antonio got totally missed (bad intelligence in Russia, bad launch computers, overshots, etc), it would in truth have been a very juicy target.

How about this: the first shot is a miss; the warhead fails to detonate. However, the American reply that goes up even while the Soviet ICBM is in flight is not a dud. 0-1. The Soviets decide that it's worthwhile to have another go at it. However, as fortune would have it the boomer that receives the orders is being stalked by a British attack boat. The Soviet boomer takes a torpedo after acknowledging receipt of orders but before launching. The third try has a technical failure coming out of the silo. The Soviets put San Antonio on the back burner to see if their luck will change a bit. Lo and behold, the invasion of the US starts, and their luck does change.