Twilight 2025

[3catcircus]

Well, this spring had me in a family health crisis, Dad had a cancer induced stroke, Mom had a heart attack while I was away tending to Dad's business. I have been fooling around with another PA game: FGU's Aftermath!. One campaign world I did was "Blackout!" an exaggerated future world where EMP blasts cripple electronics and only a few remember the older ways. Part of that inspiration was complaints about the younger ones dependence on their smart phones, armor not knowing the early way to bore site and GPS vs. map and compass. Young soldiers were amazed you could pinpoint your location with a military protractor!

Reminds me of the TV show Revolution, where no electricity exists anymore...

I'm surprised people now even know what a standalone calculator is, let alone a slide rule or theodolite...

When I was in college, all of the civil engineers focusing on surveying were all about the calculator... As were all of us studying engineering regardless of which concentration. My kingdom for a worthy HP48GX successor!

[3catcircus]

Current events, discussion of V4 being published, and my work on cleaning/consolidating T:2013 rules has me wondering how the v1 timeline can be pushed to the right so that it results in Death of a Division happening in, say, 2025, rather than in 2000.

[.45cultist]

Look at the status of western armies today, there would have to be some major repair programs for weapon systems. I think the same holds true to Russian forces. That buys some time as everyone fights at reduced levels. Now you need to make plausible geopolitical filler, the most difficult part as T2K V3 showed us and V4 is showing us now.

[Rainbow Six]

A few years ago (2014 I think) Raellus and I tried to spin up a timeline for Twilight: 2030. Detailed notes (at least from my end - Rae may have more info) are on a now defunct laptop but from what I recall the bullet points were

1. The US gets involved in the Pacific with China. As I recall proposed flashpoints were Taiwan or the Spratlys. A general War breaks out in the Pacific that gradually draws various regional players into either the main US / PRC event or other more localised conflicts (e.g. Australia / Indonesia). I can't remember what we decided about Korea but some sort of War between North and South seems highly likely.

2. With a proportion of the US military deployed to the Pacific Theatre, the Russian Federation makes a land grab for the three Baltic States, on the expectation that NATO is not to go to War over them, particularly when its largest member is significantly committed elsewhere. This turns out to be a miscalculation as NATO does respond in accordance with its treaty obligations (or rather some of NATO does - the intent at the time was to try and mirror the V1 timeline as much as possible, so a fractured NATO was included as that was a thing in V1).

3. Iran and Saudi Arabia go to War. As I recall we posited Iraq as the main battleground.

The idea was to try and get to a situation in 2030 that was akin to the V1 timeline in 2000. It got as far as an Rpol game which basically was the death of the 5th Division (Rae posited that the 5th Division was reformed at some point after the start of hostilities) but in western Belarus in the summer of 2030 rather than central Poland in the summer of 2000. It was a good game while it lasted - had a good crew.

I've said this before, but I think Free League missed a monumental open goal trying to rework the V1 / V2 timeline. They would have been vastly better served if they'd pushed things forward to a Twilight 2025 or Twilight 2030.

[.45cultist]

With the knowledge and passion for T2K here, there's no reason not to have multiple variants or even different worlds like post plague or Rage Zombies, or enviromental collapses like Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. All get their preferences for a campaign.

Your quick synopsis is what we need more of til we have a reference the size of Paul Mulcahy's Pages!

[Raellus]

If You're Interested

I just posted the 12-page 2030 timeline (rough draft) that Rainbow Six mentioned here:

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpp=87960#post87960

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[3catcircus]

I just posted the 12-page 2030 timeline (rough draft) that Rainbow Six mentioned here:

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpp=87960#post87960

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All good stuff there.

Interestingly enough, I like going through the old timelines and comparing to actual events to see how close they came...

The challenge for me is trying to figure out how to apply old timelines to new dates to allow current era equipment.

[.45cultist]

All good stuff there.

Interestingly enough, I like going through the old timelines and comparing to actual events to see how close they came...

The challenge for me is trying to figure out how to apply old timelines to new dates to allow current era equipment.

use your year, then keep the month and day, alter the year. two years to catchup on maintainance, and folks fooling themselves that nukes won't be used.

[3catcircus]

use your year, then keep the month and day, alter the year. two years to catchup on maintainance, and folks fooling themselves that nukes won't be used.

It's not really that simple.

For example, the very first timeline item involving significant military action in both 1e and 2e is typically border clashes between Soviet and Chinese forces in 1995, five years before the "current" time of 2000. Canon sources indicate 17 Jun 1995.

Advance that for a TW:2025 setting, and we're talking right in the middle of 2020.

Fast-forward time to use that timeline in a future campaign, and one would reasonably decide that it should be China and India instead of Russia and China, considering that on 15-20 Jun of last year, 20+ Indian troops died in fighting with Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh region.

I think it only really works if you advance the fighting parts of the timeline ahead of current events. But what would be the impetus for former Pact countries and former Soviet states to get cozy, let alone east/west German sentiments

[swaghauler]

It's not really that simple.

For example, the very first timeline item involving significant military action in both 1e and 2e is typically border clashes between Soviet and Chinese forces in 1995, five years before the "current" time of 2000. Canon sources indicate 17 Jun 1995.

Advance that for a TW:2025 setting, and we're talking right in the middle of 2020.

Fast-forward time to use that timeline in a future campaign, and one would reasonably decide that it should be China and India instead of Russia and China, considering that on 15-20 Jun of last year, 20+ Indian troops died in fighting with Chinese soldiers in the Ladakh region.

I think it only really works if you advance the fighting parts of the timeline ahead of current events. But what would be the impetus for former Pact countries and former Soviet states to get cozy, let alone east/west German sentiments

You're right about India and China. The other "flashpoints" COULD be:
1) NK and SK... drawing China and Russia in on NK's side.
2) Iran and the US having China and Russia side with the Iranians and Saudi Arabia and The Emirates siding with the US.
3) Lebanon and Isreal with Syria and Iran drawing Russia and China into the conflict with the US.
4) Russia attacking The Ukraine with a delayed US intervention causing "the Bear" to decide it's ok to invade the Baltic states too and Belarus supporting operations on Polish soil.

I don't like the 4 or 5-year timeline for the war. Show me ONE conflict since the First Gulf War that didn't escalate and hit its peak in just MONTHS. True the War on Terror has been going on for a couple of decades AS AN OCCUPATION AND NATION BUILDING OPERATION but how long did the high-tempo military operations last Just a couple of months. This tells me that IF you had India and China or NK and SK at war, the war would escalate to tactical nukes before the first year is over.

For a Twilight scenario, this is a good thing. Why Because it justifies dusting off the older tech since nobody had time to build up their economy to a "wartime" production state. In essence, the war is a "come as you are war"... which favors Russia and China.

[3catcircus]

You're right about India and China. The other "flashpoints" COULD be:
1) NK and SK... drawing China and Russia in on NK's side.
2) Iran and the US having China and Russia side with the Iranians and Saudi Arabia and The Emirates siding with the US.
3) Lebanon and Isreal with Syria and Iran drawing Russia and China into the conflict with the US.
4) Russia attacking The Ukraine with a delayed US intervention causing "the Bear" to decide it's ok to invade the Baltic states too and Belarus supporting operations on Polish soil.

I don't like the 4 or 5-year timeline for the war. Show me ONE conflict since the First Gulf War that didn't escalate and hit its peak in just MONTHS. True the War on Terror has been going on for a couple of decades AS AN OCCUPATION AND NATION BUILDING OPERATION but how long did the high-tempo military operations last Just a couple of months. This tells me that IF you had India and China or NK and SK at war, the war would escalate to tactical nukes before the first year is over.

For a Twilight scenario, this is a good thing. Why Because it justifies dusting off the older tech since nobody had time to build up their economy to a "wartime" production state. In essence, the war is a "come as you are war"... which favors Russia and China.

There are a couple of others that come to mind.

China's ambitions in the S. China Sea involving Taiwan and Vietnam and their ambitions in Africa. Their saber-rattling with Australia.

That Mexican cartels effectively control the government and their interaction throughout central America.

India and Pakistan.

The various former Soviet 'stans that don't much love each other.

All of the various tribal disputes throughout Africa.

Iran and Saudi regarding Yemen.

All good things to explore, but the actual trend has been a lot more "slap-fighting" for a few weeks before coming to a peaceful stalemate amongst various regional belligerents.

[Raellus]

I don't like the 4 or 5-year timeline for the war. Show me ONE conflict since the First Gulf War that didn't escalate and hit its peak in just MONTHS. True the War on Terror has been going on for a couple of decades AS AN OCCUPATION AND NATION BUILDING OPERATION but how long did the high-tempo military operations last Just a couple of months. This tells me that IF you had India and China or NK and SK at war, the war would escalate to tactical nukes before the first year is over.

That's an interesting point, and I'm having a hard time of thinking of a slow-burn war post-Desert Storm. The only one that springs to mind is Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.

Before the Gulf War, 20th century wars usually took a while to spin up. One could argue WW2 started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, or German annexation of the Sudetenland in '38, or reoccupation of the Rhineland in '39 (or heck, with the Treaty of Versailles in 1918). I've seen a couple of historians claim that WW2 was simply a continuation of WWI. And the Vietnam War arguably begean with French recolonization in 1945, making it a nearly 30-year long conflict.

BTW, nearly all the flashpoints so far mentioned in this thread factor into Rainbow Six and my 2030 timeline (written back in 2014).

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=5514

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[3catcircus]

That's an interesting point, and I'm having a hard time of thinking of a slow-burn war post-Desert Storm. The only one that springs to mind is Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.

Before the Gulf War, 20th century wars usually took a while to spin up. One could argue WW2 started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, or German annexation of the Sudetenland in '38, or reoccupation of the Rhineland in '39 (or heck, with the Treaty of Versailles in 1918). I've seen a couple of historians claim that WW2 was simply a continuation of WWI. And the Vietnam War arguably begean with French recolonization in 1945, making it a nearly 30-year long conflict.

BTW, nearly all the flashpoints so far mentioned in this thread factor into Rainbow Six and my 2030 timeline (written back in 2014).

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=5514

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Sooo...

Nowadays it seems that flashpoints are trending to fizzle out or become just-less-than-hot-war.

Attached is a framework of a timeline from 2020 - 2025, drawing on real events up through this May (early) and on events scheduled for the future - I'm still piecing together the Belarus airline forced landing...

As you can see, the only *really* juicy pieces to look at are Belarus and Myanmar, and some Russia-Ukraine squabbling. Everything else is relatively minor. What might be of import would be how the world ends up viewing the COVID-19 situation - what-if scenarios of China having purposely released the virus could help make things turn hot, as could European responses to Belarus or Taliban actions after the US pulls the last of its troops from Afghanistan.

[pmulcahy11b]

Wars can go slow-fast-slow-fast- etc. World War 2 did that -- fast in Hitler's early "acquisitions," and the invasion of Poland to the "sitzkrieg" when it was a couple of more months before the Nazi's moved against France and the Low Countries and then Britain, slow again while Hitler massed his forces against Russia, etc.

Afghanistan has been on a slow burn since about 2005, but before that was a quick action.

I would think that the Twilight War would be fast action until about a year into the war, when production of ammunition became important. About 6-8 months later, it would be quick action again until the countries' leaders began to think more and more of nukes, and tried to save as many of their troops as possible until the nukes had already fallen -- then for 4-6 months, more hot action. Then we are at the rulebook timeline.

[unipus]

The T2K timeline has never really matched up all that well with what most people have speculated about modern war, it seems.

I agree that most any prolonged war is only going to be prolonged because of major periods of low-intensity fighting, and WW3 could certainly be no exception -- especially when it gets to the broken-back aspect that makes up the meat of the setting.

It's up until then that's the problem. Soviet plans relied on taking the Rhine within 2-3 weeks. If the war in the Atlantic went on for more than a month or two, they knew they would not win. T2K settings usually flip the script on this somewhat and aren't about the usual Fulda offensive setup... nonetheless, we know that attrition rates of men and materiel would be astronomically high. Even by 6 months in there's not likely to be many if any planes left flying and all the good mech divisions will already be seriously depleted if not outright invalidated. Fuel is probably short by then. The smart munitions are all gone. Lots of other ammo is probably in short supply.

So on the one hand, yeah, that gets you into your slow phase of the war, while you wait for T-55s to show up from Kazakhstan and put every M48 left around into service. On the other hand the hand-waiving of "the first year of the war" has always seemed pretty silly to me. Even before the nukes it starts seeming absurd. Domestically it would probably be impossible to sustain. Etc. etc.