The 40th Infantry Division

[ArmySGT.]

I disagree. By 1999 or later, most units would be happy to have an armored vehicle -- any armored vehicle, even those a bit long in in the tooth. The trick would be to get these vehicles running reliably (you can't just order the parts on the internet, like today), and a bigger stunt would be to find the ammunition for the large caliber guns for the vehicles. Finding these would be right up the alley of a PC team.

How

Who maintains it in the field Where do they train gunnery Who trains them on gunnery for that matter Who has trak pad and pins every 500 miles

Running them is going to be a huge xhore. There are no radios in them that talk to modern radios, no main gun ammunition, 30.06 linked Where are you getting that Optical range finding equipment in daylight only, and severely degraded night fighting.

To put a Sherman in the field takes hundreds of man hours of resources to get it running, then hundreds of hours to train maintainers for engine, tranny, turret, and ordnance, then hundreds of hours in driving and gunnery to get a crew even familiar with it.

For a tank that won't last five minutes in a fight.

Better off going into the desert (Ft Irwin, Twenty Nine Palms) and hauling out the M47s and M48s used as targets. That way atleast you will find people with some of the knowledge to make them useful and survive for a bit.

[ArmySGT.]

Having Littlefield there would mean those vehicles have spare parts and are in good condition. He would be the difference between vehicles from there and ones that get pulled out of a museum or found in some collector's garage

No, it doesn't. There is a finite supply of parts and by no means something for every possible action or break down. Then, there are limits to what the people there (if their alive) are able to make on site. Some of that requires smelters, multi ton casting, and the machinery to work on something very large indeed, like a tanks road wheels or drive bogie. Given years, sure. In the need, right now, of active fighting something not in the supply chain is going to get abandoned or burned then abandoned. There is no way that Littlefield has an endless supply of parts, filters, belts, track pads, and all ephemera for sustained combat. Enough with months to prepare for a vanity lap outside, perhaps.

FYI there is definitely a canon reference to players finding an armored vehicle in a collectors garage - see the Gateway to the Spanish Main module - a fully functional M113 APC that only needs a battery and fuel (or conversion to alcohol from gas) and a machine gun to put on the pintle

An M113 is atleast current. Though M113 versus A2 or A3 and the engine parts would be a 350 gasoline motor. Just enough armor for big bullets and shrapnel to enter then bounce around inside shredding the passengers.

[ArmySGT.]

That is awesome. So a question: ammo A bit of research tells me that one would have to use cast bullets with blac powder. Is this true Would PCs if they found such a crate have to make their own rounds

There are specialty providers of ammunition a person could order correct ammunition from for these. Most people would still hesitate to fire live ammo through something like this. You never know the quality and doing so degrades the collectors value.

There is alot of bullet molds, cases, case shaping methods, and gun powders for this though.

[Olefin]

No, it doesn't. There is a finite supply of parts and by no means something for every possible action or break down. Then, there are limits to what the people there (if their alive) are able to make on site. Some of that requires smelters, multi ton casting, and the machinery to work on something very large indeed, like a tanks road wheels or drive bogie. Given years, sure. In the need, right now, of active fighting something not in the supply chain is going to get abandoned or burned then abandoned. There is no way that Littlefield has an endless supply of parts, filters, belts, track pads, and all ephemera for sustained combat. Enough with months to prepare for a vanity lap outside, perhaps.


An M113 is atleast current. Though M113 versus A2 or A3 and the engine parts would be a 350 gasoline motor. Just enough armor for big bullets and shrapnel to enter then bounce around inside shredding the passengers.

Sorry but in this case you are wrong - Littlefield literally had thousands of parts at his place - when they auctioned it all off even the people who worked there couldnt believe how much he had - every tank and armored vehicle he had was eventually supposed to be restored and he had the parts to do it. As for making parts - he literally brought tanks back to life that came in as wrecks - his guys werent just mechanics off the street - they were specialists in welding armored vehicles, making spare parts by hand you name it. Now does that mean those vehicles could be working for years - probably not - but a few months in order to give the 40th the added punch in kicking the Mexicans south to at least LA if not further south - yes they would last that long for sure.

Again this isnt your average collector we are talking about here - he had over 200 military vehicles in his collection. That what being a multi-millionaire (several times over) can get you

[Olefin]

How

Who maintains it in the field Where do they train gunnery Who trains them on gunnery for that matter Who has trak pad and pins every 500 miles

Running them is going to be a huge xhore. There are no radios in them that talk to modern radios, no main gun ammunition, 30.06 linked Where are you getting that Optical range finding equipment in daylight only, and severely degraded night fighting.

To put a Sherman in the field takes hundreds of man hours of resources to get it running, then hundreds of hours to train maintainers for engine, tranny, turret, and ordnance, then hundreds of hours in driving and gunnery to get a crew even familiar with it.

For a tank that won't last five minutes in a fight.

Better off going into the desert (Ft Irwin, Twenty Nine Palms) and hauling out the M47s and M48s used as targets. That way atleast you will find people with some of the knowledge to make them useful and survive for a bit.

Except for one little problem - the Mexican Army has both places - so you go with the next best thing. And those Shermans were in running condition with live barrels. As for ordnance - the Centurion Mk13 used the same shells that the M1 did that was part of the 40th - ditto the M60A1 and the M60's that they had - and the M60A2 used the same ordinance that the M551 used - which would have still been around and kicking - as for machine gun ammo - have a feeling the US Army had a lot of it still available

And the tanks had brand new track pads and pins on them - and 500 miles is more than enough to take those tanks to the Mexican border from where Littlefield's collection was

And against a bunch of Mexican infantry armed mostly with side arms and rifles a Sherman would do just fine

[Olefin]

Irrelevant... ATGMs are not necessary to kill tanks. ATGMs are a defensive system, tanks are primarily killed by artillery with other tanks being number two. A tank spotted by an FO gets gifted contact fused HE really, really fast.

The WW2 comparison is a non starter too. Training even for Support troops includes how to kill tanks. The oetank terror of the past is just that, in the past. A WW2 Sherman doesn't have enough armor in the hull sides to resist a 40mm HEDP round and those are used by both sides. Any infantryman is taught to make improvised explosives and Sappers even better. Saddle bag charges, satchel charges, and platter charges will do it and anyone is able to make thermite with brillo pads and aluminum powder from a paint supplier. A WW2 Sherman is up against 1990s Infantrymen with night vision, squad radios, and precise on call artillery support. Any 40mm HEDP or rifle grenade is going to punch right through the side armor of either the hull or turret. Once that happens the penetrating jet will slice right into the exposed ammunition, fuel cells, and crew in this tank with no spall liners or compartmentalized ammunition. Ronson, is the nickname, I believe.

That had more to do with the Arabs very poor training, lack of coordination, little or no Command and Control locally, and lack of concentration of effort. On the Israeli side very superior training and outstanding air ground operation.

Very Well Source Tank Encyclopedia. M50 "But the main test in large scale came with the Six-Day War in 1967. Virtually all M-50 and M-51 were thrown in action in Golan Heights and the West Bank and the Sinai peninsula, confronted with soviet WW2 era T-34/85s (Battle of Abu-Ageila) and SU-100 tanks. However, in 1973, these tanks were again committed in large numbers, despite their obsolescence and due to the desperate nature of the struggle. Losses were heavier since their opponents were better armed. however, it was shown that the 105 mm armed M51s were able to score kills on the T-54/55 and T-62s using HEAT ammunition."

The analogy boils down to ... Good troops with poor equipment will defeat poor troops with good equipment, all other considerations being equal, in any engagement.

- and Littlefield had a lot more than just old Shermans - he had armor from the 1950's and 60's - including two fully operational M60 tanks with live barrels, a Conqueror with a live barrel as well that was fully operational, a M50 modernized Israeli Sherman, one M47 Patton, and a Centurion Mk13 - again all fully operational and all with live barrels - by my count that's at least six tanks that would still be effective on a modern battlefield - especially against a Mexican Army whose best armored vehicles were from that same era - they werent taking on T-80's at the Fulda Gap [/QUOTE] The only ones worth a damn in that paragraph are the two M60s and the M47. Ship the Centurion to Canada in trade for something else. There is no ammo in the supply chain or spare parts for them. Most importantly there is no one trained to operate them or repair them. No place to train on them or instructors with knowledge on them. Give the Sherman to the California Highway Patrol to guard the Governors mansion or the State Treasury.

A tank with no ammunition, no radios, no spare parts, no one to operate it, no one to repair it, and no training available to fix that is a drain on scarce resources.


It is near enough the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard and the Stanford/Palo Alto/ Menlo park areas to not have faired well at all. Indeed, the people that work or volunteer at the plae are probably dead from strikes on the Naval, Marine, and Air Force facilities all around the Bay.

As to Canon game material, you don't follow all of it, picking and choosing what you agree with and using that.



Armor welding isn't magic. Thermite welding is used in Heavy Equipment too. There is nothing about the facility that isn't available 1000 times over spread out over the State wherever there is a Mine or earth moving contractor. The armor welding your alluding to special knowledge of, corresponds to welding composite armor, the layered steel, titanium, ceramic, depleted uranium, lead, and resins. Something that none of the tanks mentions has as part of its armor, hull, or chassis. Since all of these hull are Rolled Homogeneous Armor (RHA) the worst possible to be behind in modern times that doesn't matter.[/QUOTE]

Sorry but I am following canon - the city of San Francisco is still there per the canon (read Howling Wilderness) - that means that it didnt get nuked out of existence - and Littlefield's collection was a long way from there - there are NO nuke targets anywhere near by - as in NONE - and armor welding is specialized enough that it took welders at BAE quite a while to train and pass testing needed to weld together our M88's - I know - I was the Quality Lead for the M88A2 program for 5 years at York

As for the Centurion Mk13 - you might want to actually look up its specs - it had the same gun that was on the original M1 - meaning that all the ammo it needs is sitting with the 40th ready to go - no need to send it to Canada - all they had to do was load the ammo racks

And all the tanks he restored had working radios - he even bought them straight from the military

Not quite sure what the issue is but Littlefield's Collection is there - as are those mechanics and a huge haul of working armored and other military vehicles - more than enough to give the 40th what it needs to kick the Mexican Army at the least clear back to the mountains north of LA

[Raellus]

From the Mod

If you want to use the Littlefield collection in your campaign, use it. If you don't, don't. As a neutral observer, it seems like this argument has nowhere to go but ugly. I'd prefer not to have to lock this thread, so, everyone, please keep it civil and constructive.

If you're not sure what that means,

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=2961

Thanks.

[ArmySGT.]

Sorry but I am following canon - the city of San Francisco is still there per the canon (read Howling Wilderness) - that means that it didnt get nuked out of existence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Naval_Shipyard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Island_Naval_Shipyard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island,_San_Francisco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suisun_Bay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Molate_Naval_Fuel_Depot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_Reserve_Forces_Training_Area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Alameda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Air_Station_Oakland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Livermore_National_Laboratory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Naval_Weapons_Station

That is a short list of the things in or around San Francisco worth hitting with a nuke. There is no reason for the Soviets to have left them alone.

- and Littlefield's collection was a long way from there - there are NO nuke targets anywhere near by - as in NONE - and armor welding is specialized enough that it took welders at BAE quite a while to train and pass testing needed to weld together our M88's - I know - I was the Quality Lead for the M88A2 program for 5 years at York

Quite a few nukes if the Soviets are in anyway competent.

As for the Centurion Mk13 - you might want to actually look up its specs - it had the same gun that was on the original M1 - meaning that all the ammo it needs is sitting with the 40th ready to go - no need to send it to Canada - all they had to do was load the ammo racks

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/UK/FV-4200_Centurion

Yes, it has an L7. Who knows how to operate the sights Who is a British Master Gunner Not anyone in the 40th... Canada, yes.

It is a BRITISH tank. Meaning, NO Manuals and NO ONE that knows how to operate it. and NO one has any of the speialized metri tools for the engine or other parts. Give it to some one that would be able to use it.

And all the tanks he restored had working radios - he even bought them straight from the military

You do understand that radios have to be compatible to talk to each other. By the 90s voice and data encryption is standard across all Branches. Those WW2 radios and even the 50 and 60s radio have at best encrypted single channel, the easiest kind to interept, triangulate, and jam. Let alone their short operational range or that these antiques use vacuum tubes.

Not quite sure what the issue is but Littlefield's Collection is there - as are those mechanics and a huge haul of working armored and other military vehicles - more than enough to give the 40th what it needs to kick the Mexican Army at the least clear back to the mountains north of LA

I only have issue with the following things really.

One anything built before say 1965 isn't worth the effort to repair it and send into battled. If any of it was realistially useful in a military, that piee would not be sitting in a museum.

The point I am trying to drive home is LOGISTICS.

No one is taking the Shermans to war as there is no ammunition. No stored, none manufactured, the 75mm and 76mm are obsolete and retired from service. No Depot is going to trot out a crate the just happens to be there. Explosives are carefully maintained as these degrade in storage. After a time, the surplus is destroyed by incineration as the components are unstable.

No 30.06.... phased out in the 1950 and even the links are a different style.

the M60s, the M47, those work because in some fashion or another those are in the Supply. Parts are made for those. Usually for Allies, but the M60 AVLB is in use at the time. They work because they use current ammunition and current radios work in them on current mounts. Most importantly they work because there is trained people to use them and keep them running at the unit level.

You don't waste time and resources on things you cannot field and support at the user level. Who ares if some guy at Portola could fix the carburetor on the wonky Sherman.... the mechanic right there is L.A. cannot.

Lastly, my most important point... You don't send soldiers out to die. You send soldiers out to win those battles, not hamstringing them with obsolete machines that will get them killed. Those WW2 tanks don't have the armor to protect those men from the weakest of anti armor weapons or methods of the 1990s.

Take it from someone that has been shot at in an unarmored M1025 and had an uparmored M1114 blown out from under him by an IED. I appreciate the difference.

[Olefin]

the city is there ArmySgt whether you like it or not - the Soviets didnt hit every single target - thats why some areas got hit and others didnt - it wasnt an all out strike hitting every military target there was - and I dont think they would mention in Howling Wilderness how the city government was still in existence fi they city had been hit with a bunch of nukes

Plus look at where the Littlefield Collection is - i.e. its nowhere near San Francisco or any nuclear target - they could have hit San Francisco with a 25 megaton ground pounder and it would still be there

And Littlefield had the manuals for the tanks - so thus whoever gets the tanks gets the manuals - which since they are British and thus in English they can read pretty easily - so you get a tank with 105mm cannon with plentiful ammo since the 40th has it in stock - not a bad little pick up

[Olefin]

As for radios - well thats not a problem since they have tanks and other vehicles they can get them out of - and if it means that the US Army gets some new tanks I think they wouldnt have much trouble jury rigging a radio to get it to work inside their new tank - i.e. per canon the US Army is accepting anything with armor and a gun as a tank

I would say two Shermans, a Centurion Mk13, and a couple of M60's would definitely qualify as such

As for the specialized metric equipment - he was rebuilding British, German and other equipment - I have a feeling if he rebuilt them from the ground up that he has a full selection of metric tools and other items to support the tank - you really need to read up on what he had there - you keep equating this with a guy working on tanks in his spare time or some truck repair yard - not even close to the capabilities of what he had there - and he was a lot more than just some mechanic - he took tanks that were absolute wrecks and rebuilt them to as delivered condition - in some cases to better than new condition - and considering the state of equipment by early 2001 his tanks were probably in better condition than what the army had

As for ammo - you dont have tanks with live barrels and not have anything to fire out of them - most likely he had ammo on hand as well - he paid the fee for keeping the barrel live - not much use in that if you dont have anything to fire from it

And by the way the Collection was at least 40 miles away from any target you mentioned on your list - meaning that it wasnt nuked.

[mpipes]

Another canon vs non-canon thing.

Dudes, if you want things bad enough and the Mexicans so weak the Littleton collection can run roughshod over them, have at it. If you want things not quite so bad and the Mexicans so strong they can hand troops using Littletons collection their heads on a platter, then fine.

I dropped a whole battalion worth of WWII vintage vehicles in the SF area in my campaign. MGM had commissioned replicas and gathered original T34s, Panthers, Tigers, Shermans and a gaggle of light armor for a planned WWII epic, and they got put into service. Did they kick the Mexicans back to the border; no. But it added some fun flavor to the game.

As I have said before, use canon as a faithful Bible or as an inspirational guide. The central important thing....Littleton had an amazing collection of a battalion worth of armored vehicles and the expertise to keep them operational. The collection was far out of the way and WOULD have survived even the most full scale nuclear attack of the Soviets. There simply was nothing worth hitting using a nuke within 40 or so miles. If you are 10 miles from ground zero, unless its a 25-megaton, you're relatively safe. That's why, per canon, Barksdale AFB must be fully operational. Shreveport is simply too far away for a 250 kt detonation to damage the base. Contrary to popular belief, there NEVER were enough nukes to destroy everything. The world (even just the US) is simply too big for you to cover; no matter the size of the bomb, blast effects still have a finite reach. Fallout will be a problem, but even people at Hiroshima (16kt yield) survived within about 200 meters of ground zero and lived for years afterward.

And oh yes. they do keep obsolete stuff just lying around - the Springfield 1884s show that. Up till Clinton got a bug up his ass and started having the military scrapping things, there were thousands of M1 rifles and carbines in the warehouses. You can still get 30-06 ammo from CMP. We even had a couple of 105mm AAA guns from the 50s in a hanger in New Orleans with the 926th TFW as I recall, and their were M47s and M60A2s in the POMCUS warehouses in Europe in 1993.

[Olefin]

Another canon vs non-canon thing.

Dudes, if you want things bad enough and the Mexicans so weak the Littleton collection can run roughshod over them, have at it. If you want things not quite so bad and the Mexicans so strong they can hand troops using Littletons collection their heads on a platter, then fine.

I dropped a whole battalion worth of WWII vintage vehicles in the SF area in my campaign. MGM had commissioned replicas and gathered original T34s, Panthers, Tigers, Shermans and a gaggle of light armor for a planned WWII epic, and they got put into service. Did they kick the Mexicans back to the border; no. But it added some fun flavor to the game.

As I have said before, use canon as a faithful Bible or as an inspirational guide. The central important thing....Littleton had an amazing collection of a battalion worth of armored vehicles and the expertise to keep them operational. The collection was far out of the way and WOULD have survived even the most full scale nuclear attack of the Soviets. There simply was nothing worth hitting using a nuke within 40 or so miles. If you are 10 miles from ground zero, unless its a 25-megaton, you're relatively safe. That's why, per canon, Barksdale AFB must be fully operational. Shreveport is simply too far away for a 250 kt detonation to damage the base. Contrary to popular belief, there NEVER were enough nukes to destroy everything. The world (even just the US) is simply too big for you to cover; no matter the size of the bomb, blast effects still have a finite reach. Fallout will be a problem, but even people at Hiroshima (16kt yield) survived within about 200 meters of ground zero and lived for years afterward.

And oh yes. they do keep obsolete stuff just lying around - the Springfield 1884s show that. Up till Clinton got a bug up his ass and started having the military scrapping things, there were thousands of M1 rifles and carbines in the warehouses. You can still get 30-06 ammo from CMP. We even had a couple of 105mm AAA guns from the 50s in a hanger in New Orleans with the 926th TFW as I recall, and their were M47s and M60A2s in the POMCUS warehouses in Europe in 1993.

Always amazed me at stuff that was squirreled away here and there that had been forgotten - worked with people who told me stories about finding things all the times at Depots that were from WWII and the 50's that supposedly had all been scrapped or disposed of long before. We had companies that worked with us at BAE that specialized in getting us spare parts for the M109's and M88's that literally had been sitting in boxes for thirty and forty years.

As for ammo - well obviously someone is still making it or its still available- or you wouldnt have adds like this -

DriveTanks, located on the World Renowned Ox Ranch, is the only location in the world where you can drive and shoot fully functional tanks, artillery, machine guns, and other weapons of war. They have a fully functional Sherman tank that fires live rounds - meaning they had to get the ammo from somewhere.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'd like to add three things to think about, one that is very much "it all depends on where it was manufactured"-kind of thing, the second that is a little bit more relevant and the third is all about how you view the Littlefield collection in your own gameworld.

.30-06 Linked Ammunition:
There were still a number of countries using this on particular armoured vehicles. For example, the Australian M113 APCs were fitted with the Cadillac Gage T50 turret that typically housed either a combo of M2 and M1919 MGs or a pair of M1919 MGs. The M1919s were still .30-06 and are still being used on those M113 family vehicles that haven't been updated to the Australian AS4 standard.
The point being while we manufacture the majority of our own smallarms ammo, we still bought linked .30-06 from the US at times. The implication being that someone in the US is still making it however where that facility is, I have no idea. It could just as easily be in any city that was on the Soviet target list for all I know.

The Centurion Tank:
The "Cent" was built to Imperial measurements. I vaguely recall that the British didn't use the Metric system for armoured vehicles until the 1970s e.g. Scorpion family, AT105 Saxon and so on, although I am not actually certain of the exact timing although it was well after the building of the Centurion. I think the Chieftain was also built to Imperial measurements as well.

The Littlefield Collection:
Littlefield had a tendancy to collect anything that might be useful to refurbishing and rebuilding so even if the parts collection isn't worth the effort, the tools and sundry supplies (including the POL stores he had) would probably be very tempting and something I can imagine the military in the area would like to secure for their own use and/or to keep it out of anyone else's hands.

Olefin and I have had our disagreements about various things but in this instance I agree with him that the Littlefield Collection is worthwhile.
I very much understand the argument that pre-1970s vehicles are probably more trouble than they are worth and I do tend to agree with it and of course, everything depends on how the GM wants to build the gameworld.

However I do think that, even disregarding the vehicles, the ancillary items in Littlefield's museum would be worth recovering. The camouflage nets, jerrycans, vehicle carried tools (shovels, axes and so on), mechanics tools, basic items like nuts & bolts, steel etc. etc., paints and POL stores alone would be worth the effort of securing the facility.

[mpipes]

And don't forget...he is probably alive along with his mechanics.

[WallShadow]

And don't forget...he is probably alive along with his mechanics.

And rich enough to have made some provision for a potential outbreak of war.