The ANZACs in T2k

[Legbreaker]

Legbreaker, IF you end up working up a more accurate Australian OOB for your planned sourcebook, I would be happy to include a revised ANZUK Brigade OOB in an updated version of the KPSB. You would of course receive a credit in said version for your trouble. Let me know.

I was hoping you'd say that! :P
My plan is to send probably the 3rd Brigade (1st Div) perhaps with elements from the 6th Combat Support Brigade, 16th Aviation Brigade, and SpecOps Command to support them to Korea initially. When hostilities with Indonesia kick off, the 3rd would be pulled out and replaced with the 9th Brigade (a reserve formation from 2nd Div).

My reasoning is the regular army units are mainly trained for tropical warfare while the 9th comes from colder climates and so should be more adaptable to Korean conditions (after a good 6 months build up back in Australia). Also, I really like the idea of M113's with 76mm guns facing the Koreans.
They would likely be part of a combined Division along with Canadians, New Zealanders and perhaps British units (the Canadians and British both sharing the same 76mm ammo amongst others).

It's the 1990's organisation of the 3/9th SAMR (the unit with the above mentioned recon APCs) that's held everything up - they lost their armour in 2005 and now ride softskin Landrovers and the like with a corresponding massive reorganisation of their structure and role.

The majority of the remaining units would be deployed either against Indonesia or assigned internal civil defence duties.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australia_Land_Forces_2018.png#/media/File:Australia_Land_Forces_2018.png

[Olefin]

I would definitely do the same for the Australian unit that is in my East Africa Sourcebook - they were supposed to be from units sent there on peacekeeping duty that basically got stranded in Ceylon when the war blew up into a general war. Based that on an entry in one of the canon vehicle sourcebooks. I had to take my best guess at how big the units would have been

[Raellus]

I was hoping you'd say that! :P
My plan is to send probably the 3rd Brigade (1st Div) perhaps with elements from the 6th Combat Support Brigade, 16th Aviation Brigade, and SpecOps Command to support them to Korea initially. When hostilities with Indonesia kick off, the 3rd would be pulled out and replaced with the 9th Brigade (a reserve formation from 2nd Div).

My reasoning is the regular army units are mainly trained for tropical warfare while the 9th comes from colder climates and so should be more adaptable to Korean conditions (after a good 6 months build up back in Australia). Also, I really like the idea of M113's with 76mm guns facing the Koreans.
They would likely be part of a combined Division along with Canadians, New Zealanders and perhaps British units (the Canadians and British both sharing the same 76mm ammo amongst others).

Cool. So you're looking at a division, instead of a brigade I'm open to that. I like your idea of including a Canadian unit in the OOB. Any idea which one What do the Canadians on the board think about that

And I'm happy to include more vehicles. I'll have to add an entry on 76mm gun equipped M113s to the KPSB equipment tables and AFV list.

[Legbreaker]

No, just a Brigade to Korea which combined with New Zealanders (probably an artillery unit as in Vietnam, plus perhaps the bulk of their 26 Scorpions - also 76mm guns), and either British and/or Canadians would make up a composite Division.

In the early stages of the Korean campaign the Australians might be involved towards/at the front. When the regular professional soldiers are withdrawn for service against Indonesia and replaced with the part time reservists, I'm thinking they might be put into a more defensive role. This is due to their generally older equipment and relatively limited training and experience (which is actually still pretty high compared to most full time armies around the world).

Reservists units are also usually extremely adaptable due to most of it's personnel having civilian careers covering a multitude of areas Mechanics, builders, architects, engineers, paramedics, police, firefighters, farmers, truck and train drivers - all these and more were present in just my first under strength reservist platoon. It would be almost criminal for a commander not to take advantage of those skill sets by only using these units on the front line.

Anyway, please send me the bits you've got on Australians plus any working notes you may have to explain why you picked those units, sizes, etc. I'd like to wrap my head around your (and Olefin's) logic before I start making any alterations.

[Raellus]

Here's what I've got. I didn't keep notes. I confess that I leaned on Wikipedia quite a bit during my research. I also used some Osprey books on the British Army. I looked for/picked units that had a history in earlier IRL iterations of the ANZUK Brigade. Rainbow 6 suggested including an ANZUK Brigade and pointed me in the right direction, research-wise. But the available sources aren't great, and there were several areas where sources were conflicted regarding OOBs.

As far as my rationale for Aussie and Kiwi selections, I picked units that were relatively mobile- not in terms of motorization, but in terms of a relatively short logistical train, i.e. light infantry mostly. I figured they'd be slated for quick relative reaction type ops, without depriving their respective mother countries of the availability and services elsewhere of particularly elite (parachute units/SOF) or hard-hitting (armor) units.

And of course, Gurkhas- I had to include a Gurkha unit. I've had a fascination with Gurkhas ever since my dad shared stories from the [RL] Korean War (of which he was a veteran) and WWII (secondhand tales).

28th ANZUK Brigade (c.1997 OOB)
• Brigade HQ and Signal Squadron (multi national but primarily Australia)
• 1st Battalion, Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters (UK)
• 1st Bn, 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles (the Sirmoor Rifles) (UK)
• 1st Infantry Battalion, Royal Australia Regiment (Australia)
• 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (New Zealand)
• 1 x Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (L119 Field Gun)
• 1 x Field Engineer Regiment, Royal Australian Engineers
• 1 x Reconnaissance Squadron (Australia) (M113)
• Medical / Logistics (multi national but primarily Australia / NZ)

For character creation, these were my suggestions:

Australian Characters: Are likely from the 1st Battalion, Royal Australia Regiment, 28th ANZUK brigade. This is a light infantry unit. Australian personnel are often called "Aussies" by their fellow allies. For Australian military characters, use United Kingdom (Great Britain) basic training and appropriate United States Army career paths (Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Combat Engineer, Medical, and Logistics/Support- Officer and Enlisted- careers are available).

New Zealand Characters: Are likely from 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Regiment, 28th ANZUK brigade. This is a light infantry unit. New Zealand personnel are often called "Kiwis" by their fellow allies. For New Zealand military characters, use United Kingdom (Great Britain) basic training and United States Army Enlisted Infantry or Officer infantry career paths; medical careers are also available.

British Characters: Are likely from the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, 28th ANZUK Brigade. This is a light infantry unit. For British military characters, use United Kingdom (Great Britain) basic training and United States Army Enlisted Infantry or Officer infantry career paths.

Gurkha Characters: Gurkhas are Nepalese soldiers serving the British crown, a legacy of the British Empire. The Gurkhas have long been considered among the world's elite light infantry. 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles (formerly 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles [a.k.a. the Sirmoor Rifles]). The Gurkha's signature piece of equipment is the legendary Kukri fighting knife. For a Gurkha character, use United Kingdom (Great Britain) basic training, and the U.S. Ranger Enlisted or Officer career with the following revisions: remove the Parachute skill points and substitute equal points to Armed Martial Arts (Kukri fighting). Gurkha characters start with a Kukri fighting knife as part of the their personal equipment.

If you haven't picked up a copy of the KPSB yet (sounds like you haven't), it's only $2.99 on DriveThruRPG.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/233671/T2000-v1-Korean-Peninsula-Sourcebooksrc=fp_u5

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[Legbreaker]

And why wouldn't you

[StainlessSteelCynic]

In the 2.2 BYB it says that Australia fought a short war against Indonesia when Indonesia tried to invade Papua New Guinea and the Indon' campaign collapsed due to logistical problems as much as from combat. But in the process the majority of Australian and Indonesian modern aircraft and naval vessels where either destroyed or damaged.
Now I think we can be safe in assuming that that applies to combat capable aircraft and vessels so my thoughts run towards those vessels and aircraft that would not have been used on the frontline or in the case of some, quite sparingly.

I think for some aircraft/ships it will be a case of indvidual Referee choice. For example, in T2k 2nd/2.2, the war starts in 1996. By this time in the real world, the F/A-18 was already a decade in RAAF service.
Our former frontline fighter, the Mirage III was disposed of by then, with 50 examples sold and delivered to Pakistan in 1990. The deliveries were completed by late 1990 or very early 1991 from what I recall. If you're playing a 1st Ed. timeline, we would still have those aircraft in Australia (some of them were still being used by the Aircraft Research and Development Unit but most were in storage awaiting disposal). They would be available for re-entering RAAF service quite quickly as the flight & maintenance personnel were still in the air force at that time along with a very large spares list.

You'd have to really fudge it to have the Mirage III available for RAAF use in a 2nd Ed. timeline and the handful of Canberra bombers that were still in Australia (in museums or private hands) would all need major work to be combat worthy again so no replacements for the fighters or strike aircraft...
However, the following aircraft that we had at that time and probably would not have been committed to combat (given how short the war with Indonesia is implied to be), could be used for CAS and light attack: -
CA-25 Winjeel (originally a primary trainer, 14 used in the FAC role until 1995)
PAC CT/4B Airtrainer (primary trainer, at least 40 examples were still flying in the late 1990s)
MB.326 (jet trainer, by the mid-1990s there were still 60+ in service)
Pilatus PC-9 (lead-in trainer, 59 in service with 4 being used for FAC from 1995 on)

[Legbreaker]

All good thoughts there. I was going to basically eliminate most of the air power form the equation just to pull the region roughly into line with the rest of the planet. Even a couple of working F-111's or F/A-18s could really be a game changer in the early 2000s, so it's probably best to ground them in one way or another. Lack of parts as well as battle losses initially in Korea then against Indonesia is probably the best way to go I'm thinking.

With regard to naval assets, the frigates and subs are really the "biggest" assets the country had at the time, with the subs plagued with problems and about half (from memory) unseaworthy. Guessing they'd be patched up as well as possible and sent into action anyway though, with one or two perhaps lost due to mechanical problems rather than enemy action.

The frigates however generally worked pretty well I understand, so losing a few of them will probably have to be due to battle damage. Chances are high that with the lack of US assets, they'd be forced to provide protection and support to the troop transports, etc. Pretty easy for the Indonesians to work out where they are then and send a few explosive laden speed boats at them, or divers with limpet mines (they'd take some significant losses in the process though!).

I'd like to eliminate all heavy lift capacity and strand the 9th Brigade in Korea, perhaps troops in Indonesia, Timor, etc as well.

Actually, if somebody wants to come up why the Indo-Australian war happened and how, I'm all ears. What was the cause Who shot first What units would the Indonesians have throw at it

I'm thinking of extrapolating from the RL East Timor situation, making the Indonesians a lot more aggressive and generally hostile to the idea of losing the area. Throw a few commando raids at Australian mainland naval bases to ensure Australia would act and bam, you've got a war.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Regarding the Collins class subs, they were never the problem the media made them out to be. A lot of the problems at the time were either teething troubles due to the class being the first modern subs built in Australia by a company that had never built submarines before or just dumb/stupid design decision because there were some idiots in charge and they really did seem to have very little idea on how to build a sub.

Some of the criticism was journalistic stupidity. If I was feeling kind, I would have called it ignorance but some of the news reports were beyond ignorant. For example, one newspaper article I read complained that everything about the design was too complicated. They claimed it was too complicated a procedure to even fire torpedoes. The Collins class required three (or it might have been more, I can't recall) crew to co-ordinate to fire a torpedo (and I am paraphrasing but the following is essentially the exact message), a task that can be done with the push of one button on the Playstation or Xbox.

Yes. You read it correctly, the journo writing the article decided that firing a torpedo/missile in a video game was the correct comparison to make when examining how such a weapon is fired in the real world. No mention of chains of custody, no mention of the basic security feature of having such weapons under the control of a team and not a single individual.
So yeah, I would not pay too much attention to the claims from the media that the Collins class were bad. One newspaper suggested they be canned and we buy boats from elsewhere.

The biggest problem they actually had was that the RAN could not raise the required number of submariners to man all six boats. At best they could man three. Aussie sailors at the time just did not want to serve in submarines.

It's interesting to note that when HMASubmarine Waller, during RIMPAC 2000, acting as an enemy vessel, was reported to have successfully engaged two US nuclear subs and then coming almost within attack range of a US carrier, a lot of media criticism of the class was dropped.

In regards to Indonesia and their invasion of Papua New Guinea.
Quick and dirty idea but based on some real world bits & pieces. However for a quick idea there's a bit of reading involved - sorry 'bout that.

Indonesia was an authoritarian dictatorship plaqued by corruption, collusion, sycophancy and nepotism until the resignation of President Suharto in 1998.
Suharto has been called the most corrupt leader of modern times, according to Transparency International, he reportedly embezzled US$15-35 bilion in the three decades of his rule.
When some of the politicians that owed loyalty to him came under criticism from some well known Indonesian magazines, Suharto had the magazine publishers closed down.

All the problems of the real world Indonesia can feed directly into any game world history regardless of what edition of Twilight is used.

Indonesia was heading for serious financial trouble and they got it during the 1997 Asian economic crisis - part of the reason for Suharto's resignation. However, during any T2k timeline, the economic crisis would not happen... other things happening in the world kind of stopped it
However, Indonesia was looking forward to the sort of crisis that Argentina was suffering when the Argies decided to invade the Falklands.
Keep in mind that the 1990s was also the period where East Timor was agitating for it's freedom from Indonesia and we know what the Indo's did there.

They had already invaded and taken control of part of Papua (known since the invasion in 1962 as Irian Jaya but now known as West Papua AKA Western New Guinea).
It was believed in the 1970s and 1980s by a number of people in the Australian government and military that Indonesia had designs on other lands outside it's borders. It's claimed that they wanted to get the rest of Papua New Guinea and they also apparently wanted Malaysia, Borneo & Singapore and parts of the Philippines.
They also made a number of statements that Australia rightly belonged to Asia and all the Europeans should go back to Europe and let the rightful owners have the land (and they were not talking about the Aboriginal peoples).

Personal anecdote:
My mother has some friends who sailed a yacht around that part of the world in the late 1980s. When they were ashore in some part of Indonesia, thieves stole their yacht and then when they reported it, the Indon police arrested them for selling their boat to pirates. Fortunately they were saved from the hassle by friends back home and the Australian embassy.
However, while under the "tender" ministrations of the Indon police, one of them claims he saw a signboard outside a police or military compound with a map of Greater Indonesia.
The map allegedly covered all of Papua New Guinea, Timor, Malaysia, Borneo and the top of Australia.

So... territorially expansionist, in financial trouble, having problems controlling the civilian populace. What the people need is a good distraction.
Hmm...
Let's liberate the rest of Papua New Guinea and gain some more "living room". The world's having a bit of a problem at the moment so the UN is too distracted to care and those white devil Australians won't do anything about it because they're too busy being good little capitalist running dogs and besides, this is a purely Asian affair, nothing at all to do with those transplanted Europeans who've stolen Asian land.

[Olefin]

Reference to Australian troops in canon

F4: Cougar of the Canadian detachment, United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, Ceylon; 1996.

Canadian forces were sent to Ceylon in 1993 following the Tamil Insurrection of 1991 as part of a United Nations peacekeeping
force. Four companies of Canadian armored infantry joined troops from Greece, Finland, Australia, Sweden, and Italy on that island
in enforcing the shaky truce decreed by a United Nation's resolution of February 1993.

[Legbreaker]

Yes, Ceylon, not Cypress. My mistake.
My thoughts are the Australians would only amount to about a company (assigned to security of the medical teams, etc - roughly the same as the commitment to Ruwanda) which would stay when Korea kicked off, but withdrawn the moment it looked like there would be a shooting war with Indonesia. The Canadians would probably have already left though and the Greeks & Italians would be nothing but a memory. Finland and Sweden probably wouldn't have contributed more than a few dozen people (perhaps a medical team or something like that) and they'd be gone as soon as the security teams started making noise about leaving.

It's just possible these particular Canadians were the only ones who actually made it to Korea too - never made it all the way back to Canada perhaps. Four companies makes a reinforced battalion (would have to have a HQ plus admin/support elements as well, unless one of those companies were actually the HQ Coy...).

Hmm, thinking of using them plus a battalion of NZ troops, plus the Gurka's to form a Brigade, perhaps under NZ leadership (seems like they're the only nationality with the necessary officers, etc available for the job).

A third Brigade, mainly made up of British troops could round out the Division which would probably be under British command. This last brigade may be under strength right from the beginning, or keep the Gurkas with them and leave the Canadian/NZ brigade weaker. As the Korean front appears to be an extension of the 1950's war, it's highly likely to be a UN operation I think, so that final brigade could also be rounded out with the contributions of smaller nations (might even see companies from places like Samoa, South Africa, Philippines, even France might have a presence.

Just my rambling thoughts. Feel free to pull it apart.

[Rockwolf66]

I have a source on Indonesian Military equipment. Alas the source is politically biased and openly anti-American.

http://worldmilitaryintel.blogspot.com/2013/05/blog-post_2016.html

[Legbreaker]

I have a source on Indonesian Military equipment

Useful nonetheless.
Anyone got any info on their numbers and organisation in the 90's
I don't want to go into great depth on them, but I do need to figure out what the Australians would have likely been up against and how effective they'd have been.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Don't forget that until 1999, the Indonesian National Police were administered/commanded by the military. They also had an over-abundance of militias

https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/militia.htm

No matter what I tried, I could not find any form of OrBat for Indonesia in the 1990s so hopefully you can drag something worthwhile out of the following links.

Global Security has a table of Indonesian army vehicles and aircraft in 5 year periods starting at 1990. Indonesia was severely lacking in modern equipment (compared to Australia) until the 2000s.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/indonesia/adri-equipment.htm

This page "may" be useful, mostly because you can run a comparison between Australian and Indonesia by year (I saved the link on year 1995). Also be prepared for a hell of a lot of reading when you open up the definitions link.

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/Indonesia/Military#1995

This document is dated 2002 but uses info gathered during the 1990s, it's the only doc I've found that has some info about the makeup of Indonesian land forces in the 1990s.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2002/MR1599.pdf

Neil Baumgardner's now defunct OrBat website for T2k has some info on Australia (no Indonesia however) but some of the links are dead. The info is typically from the late 1990s so might prove useful: -

https://web.archive.org/web/20091019005428/http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/9059/

But specifically this page: - https://web.archive.org/web/20090803.../9059/ADF.html

Further reading:
Indonesian military districts/commands

https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/adri.htm

World Factbook - Indonesia 1990

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook_(1990)/Indonesia

Indonesian armed forces at military wiki

http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Indonesian_National_Armed_Forces

US Army foreign military studies report 1995

https://fas.org/irp/world/indonesia/indo-fmso.htm

Australian parliament - research paper: Indonesian Armed Forces

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp9899/99rp23

The Indonesian Military in the Mid-1990s: Political Maneuvering or Structural Change
https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstre...=1&isAllowed=y from this page: https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/54116

[Jason Weiser]

I do have a nuclear target list for Australia..I can refine it a bit, as Google Earth and Nukemap have made it possible to do some really advanced blast mapping.