The ANZACs in T2k

[StainlessSteelCynic]

But it's a bloody long way just to do a one-off demo job.

I'm inclined to think that a more expansive campaign of sabotage would be planned (and maybe they even have the ability to pull it off). I wouldn't be at all surprised given Indonesia's history of communism if they didn't recieve some encouragement and maybe even assistance from the Soviets. Particularly given that Garden Island and Fremantle harbour were significant for the US Navy at the time (and not simply for R&R, was also a major resupply point for food & fuel and even low level maintenance from what I understand). Plus we had Harry Holt running full bore along the same coast.


Personal anecdote.
Living in Perth during the 1980s, we could always tell a US carrier group was going to be visiting soon - we'd see the C-2 Greyhounds flying into Perth airport.

Another personal anecdote.
Way back when we were doing the LLOps training up north, during one of the Spiderman Exercises, one of the Pilbara Regt patrols picked up someone wandering around in the bush near the exercise area.
Apparently he claimed he was a tourist and was very lost. Turns out he was Indonesian. Turns out there was no record of him entering Australia by the normal accepted means.
Turns out about a week earlier, an unidentified low flying aircraft had been picked up by air traffic control as being in Australian airspace without logging a flight plan.
Further investigation supposedly identified him as an Indon army officer...

Now some of this was related to a group of us from our training WO because he was actually being posted to the Pilbara Regt as his next assignment and he was in touch with them regularly. All I know for certain is that someone was picked up and identified as Indonesian. The claims that he was an Indon army officer could have been soldier's stories. However I heard about the unidentified low flying aircraft from a second source many months after the Ex. (but that still could have been soldier's stories, just in this case it got picked up by civvies).
Still, it's one of those things that make you go "Hmm".

[Legbreaker]

I'm thinking given Australia's generally multicultural population, it would be fairly easy for Indonesian soldiers/saboteurs to hide in plain sight just by wearing civilian clothing and keeping their weaponry well hidden. If even just one got hired by a refinery, they could do some serious damage over a period of time just by "accidentally" setting a valve the wrong way, or hitting a switch at the wrong time. Add in a few explosive charges here and there and well....
Even a more overt attack such as a raid on a critical facility (power distribution, generation, etc) could do a lot to cripple the country, or at least the local area, and unless those involved were caught in the act, again it wouldn't be that hard to blend in with the rest of the population, especially if they'd been living in the area for a few months or more.

I started re-reading a book from my collection last night which I probably should have picked up weeks ago - "Australians at War - Modern Military Towards 2000" published in 1989. https://biblio.co.uk/book/australian...0/d/1032384970 The first chapter which was written by several retired senior Australian officers details a scenario in which raiders keep Australian forces occupied over in WA, while a landing takes place in far north Queensland. The opponent isn't named, but it's fairly clear who they were talking about....
The scenario (both parts) would work very nicely in tying up a large number of Australian troops and ships. A very nice diversion while the main Indonesian force moves into PNG.

[Raellus]

That one throwaway line in "What's Polish for G'day" is really screwing things up for me at the moment. Without nukes, just how do you damage a refinery to the point where it's production is seriously degraded for a period of at least a few years
The answer I think (and somebody PLEASE give me more options!) is sabotage and commando attacks.

IIRC, Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising starts with someone sabotaging an oil refinery. As a result, it basically self-destructs. I imagine that repairing the damage would take at least a year or two. It's been a while since I read that part (I skipped it on subsequent readings) so I might not be remembering it accurately.

Leg, are you trying to avoid nuking Australia That Garden Island/Kwinana refinery site that Targan mentioned would definitely be on the Soviet's list. Also, the prologue to Mad Max 2 (the Road Warrior, in the U.S.) strongly implies the use of nuclear weapons on oil refineries in Australia.

IMO, you can't really have a true T2K setting without at least a bit of nuke damage.

[Olefin]

I dont see every country as being nuked - you can have a lot of damage just from a country coming apart at the seams - for proof look at the rolling ball of fun that is today's Somalia for instance

just rioting and panic from the expectation of being nuked could be more than enough to really screw things up - and add in some fun things like major forest fires/crop failure/sabotage attacks and you could really not be in a good place very quickly

however there are definitely targets for nukes in Australia even if all you did was go after the US tracking stations that are in the country

[Legbreaker]

Leg, are you trying to avoid nuking Australia

Yes, because of that line in "What's Polish for G'day" where an Australian SAS trooper mentions Australia is a member of the "Organisation of Non-irradiated Nations."
However, they do indicate France is also a member of that unofficial group, and it's my belief they would almost certainly have received at least a handful of nukes to ports near their borders. In that light it's just possible a small warhead or two may have been dropped on remote Australian targets, but certainly not on the major cities. Still, I want to do as much damage as possible using conventional means before applying nukes (if any).

[Raellus]

However, they do indicate France is also a member of that unofficial group, and it's my belief they would almost certainly have received at least a handful of nukes to ports near their borders. In that light it's just possible a small warhead or two may have been dropped on remote Australian targets, but certainly not on the major cities. Still, I want to do as much damage as possible using conventional means before applying nukes (if any).

Roger that.

I hesitate to bring this up, but is that "G'Day" article part of the official T2K canon If it is, then I think a compliant/compatible sourcebook should try to align as closely as possible. But if not, or you don't care about compliance/compatibility, then your hands aren't tied. Do whatever you think is best for your sourcebook.

Sabotage- especially that which would start fires- could definitely wreck a refinery for a good long time. No fuel, modern civilization starts grinding to a halt.

[Legbreaker]

Hmm, I think I might have an idea on why Indonesia moves into PNG - nuclear fallout from the Pakistan/India war impacting the western reaches of Indonesia sometime in mid to late 1998...
With a little tweaking (probably due to the effect of the nukes themselves) the monsoon winds could just about carry radiation that far and leave both Thailand to the north, and Australia to the south largely untouched. Prevailing winds don't lend themselves naturally to it, but there have been some cyclones and other large storms which have bucked the general trend.

[Legbreaker]

I hesitate to bring this up, but is that "G'Day" article part of the official T2K canon

Yes, absolutely. It's one of the scenarios from Twilight Encounters. It's certainly carrying more weight than any Challenge article I'd think.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As we know, the Twilight War is part of the backstory for the 2300AD setting. In 2300, Australia is a major player, in part because the nation did not suffer as much destruction as others during the Twilight War.
The point I'm trying to make with this is that it appears that canon very much subscribes to the idea that Australia was damaged but not "bombed back to the stone age" and was able to get back on its feet faster than many other nations and hence become a significant force in the galaxy.

So Australia probably does not get heavily nuked because the idea runs counter to what 2300AD canon has established. Now whether you want to include 2300 into the thought process or not is personal choice and most of us probably don't bother (simply because it takes place another 300 years down the track!)
But given that Twilight: 2000 was developed directly from it, 2300 canon played a big part in the development of Australia's situation in the T2k setting so for us to stick within GDW's ideas, some way needs to be found to knock down the country, but not something that is a TKO like heavy nuke strikes.

Edit: I was of the understanding that those Challenge articles were also considered canon material. I think this has been checked on by someone here, it was certainly discussed here some time ago and if I recall it was generally considered that they are part of canon.

[Legbreaker]

Edit: I was of the understanding that those Challenge articles were also considered canon material.

I believe they are too and was just using that to reinforce the idea the "G'day" scenario is vital information which can't be just casually cast aside and ignored.

Australia is an interesting situation I think - you can't just throw a few nukes at the place and say "job done". The dismantling of it's capabilities needs to be a more piecemeal thing, lots of nibbles from lots of different directions to achieve the desired effect. Figuring out what those elements could be is proving somewhat challenging.

The list so far includes widespread bushfires, abnormal weather (possibly due to the effects of nukes elsewhere), cessation of international trade, sabotage and raiding on vital infrastructure, fuel shortages, disease, famine, and of course war in Korea and Indonesia / PNG. Once I've sufficiently devastated the country, I can begin building up the picture as it would be in 2000.

As always, more ideas are welcome, as are any comments on why certain things may not work as intended, or not to the extent desired.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Loss of electricity is going to be a massive impact but considering that we still had many coal-fired power stations and plenty of coal mines that doesn't appear to be a problem.
So we have to interrupt the transport of coal to the stations. The easiest way would be an automobile fuel crisis... ah look at that, right back to were we started!

Like you said, it's tricky. With so much of our infrastructure spread out over a massive continent, what happens in one part of the country often has no impact what-so-ever on other parts of the country. For example, disruptions to the electricity supply in Victoria won't make any impact on electricity for South Aus because our power grids aren't shared by multiple states like in Europe or North America.
But... disruption of electricity to those cities that have fuel refineries, that would be an impact on the rest of the nation. Hmm, coming full circle here...

Many years ago, a mate of mine worked for the State Energy Commission of Western Australia (SECWA was a government body that was later split into two corporations, one controls electricity, the other LPG).
Anyway, in the early 1990s he mentioned one time that the Perth electricity grid relied on four major transformers to distribute power. If one of them broke down the other three would handle things, if two broke down, there would be minor disruptions and some inconvenience to the public. If three went offline, major sections of the city would have to suffer rolling blackouts as they tried to share the power around and electricity would have to be sent from rural power stations via country power lines (which are mostly low capacity lines).

The kicker was that those transformers were made in Europe (France I think) and took approximately one year to build and transport to Australia. They are heavy duty and apparently consist of a lot of solid-state components so they aren't prone to breakdowns.
However, military sabotage would take them offline and probably quite easily.
With that in mind, when my battalion was doing LLOps, part of our training involved protection of power stations and transformers.

A successful sabotage campaign targetting the electrical system in those cities with fuel refineries along with hitting the refineries would be exceedingly difficult to cope with. No electricity and the average city dweller is screwed but no electricity for the refineries means no fuel. No fuel, no transport. No transport, no coal for the power stations, no food deliveries, no resupply for the military etc. etc. etc.
Throw in some bushfires and limited fuel for the fire service, some sabotage of the isolated sections of the railway network to disrupt other goods & services and we have a pretty good start to a Twilight-friendly scenario for a stuffed up Australia

[Legbreaker]

Fuel I think is the key here. Without fuel the trains don't run. Sure, there's a handful of steam locomotives still in running order, but we're talking a few dozen in total across the entire country, they're really not going to make any impact.
So, no fuel, no trains means no coal being transported even short distances to the electrical generation plants. Whoops, there goes electric trains and most of the public transportation networks in the cities.
No fuel getting out to the farms (which aren't exactly within walking distance of the cities) Well, how's that harvest going then What about planting for the following season Yeah, that's a famine for you right there....
No fuel for aircraft, well fires aren't spotted as quickly, and without electricity, communications, especially via landline isn't happening so even when they are spotted, they can't be reported.
Realistically the only areas that would still have electricity are those with alternate generation capability - Tasmania relies almost entirely on hydro, so unless EMP or other actions renders that inoperable, the lights should stay on. Shame there's not a lot of heavy industry on the island state to take advantage of that, and there's no oil refinery either. Of course with the nearest oil fields in Bass Strait, and the pipelines all heading north it's sort of a moot point anyway. Oh well, that's Tasmanian's walking everywhere, but at least the street lights are still on....

[Olefin]

FYI part of what happens to Australia - and for that matter France - depends on what timeline you are using

V2 indicates that France got hit with several nukes that took out ports and refineries (and actually makes it surprising that they didnt join the war given that - but thats another discussion) and basically says Australia comes out damaged from the war but not nuked heavily

FYI per Marc Miller the Challenge articles may or may not be canon (depended on the author)- he told Raellus and I when we were writing to take them into account and if we wanted to include them we could or we could chose not to - however anything officially released - which includes by the way stuff like City of Angels - has to be seen as canon

he did say if we do include anything from the articles into an official release then it would make that article canon for sure

Also a factor for the G'Day encounter is how bad communications are in Twilight 2000 - maybe the group in Twilight Encounters is telling the truth as far as they know and Australia got hit after they left - keep in mind the Texas module where veterans from Europe dont find out the Mexicans are in Texas until they get home

[Raellus]

Remember what Saddam's sabotaging of the Kuwaiti oil fields and refineries did to the regional environment Smoke/particulates, crude oil in the water. It was an environmental disaster. If your refinery sabotage involves fires, make sure to factor their knock-on effects when T2K'ing Australia.

P.S. IMHO, v2.0 is trash (timeline-wise).

[Legbreaker]

Also a factor for the G'Day encounter is how bad communications are in Twilight 2000 - maybe the group in Twilight Encounters is telling the truth as far as they know and Australia got hit after they left - keep in mind the Texas module where veterans from Europe dont find out the Mexicans are in Texas until they get home

That is certainly a consideration. It may well be that the troopers words lacked context, or they themselves simply didn't know the true state of the country - the SAS are based in the west and the other side of the country is several time zones away after all....
Nevertheless, my intention is to do as much damage as I can conventionally before applying any nukes. Hopefully none will be needed to finish the job so it can remain consistent with "G'day", but use of a few warheads certainly won't break canon either. To my mind though, nuking Australia is the lazy way out. Conventional methods make more logical sense, and should make for a better background story.

Remember what Saddam's sabotaging of the Kuwaiti oil fields and refineries did to the regional environment Smoke/particulates, crude oil in the water. It was an environmental disaster. If your refinery sabotage involves fires, make sure to factor their knock-on effects when T2K'ing Australia..

Indeed, although distances in Australia generally make smoke clouds a minor issue - they've usually dissipated to just a smell in the air and a few additional asthma attacks before reaching anywhere of note. It's the knock-on effects over the following weeks and months that will be a problem - bridges and railways fire damaged, displaced people, lack of food after the crops were burnt, etc.

Once I'm done Australia's going to be a basket case, BUT there'll still be loads of opportunities for PCs to participate in rebuilding. Plenty of factories, mines, etc still in decent condition for example, they just need power, fuel, raw materials, manpower and security. My vision is Australia should be well on the way to recovery by about 2010, and in a position to assist it's neighbours within a few years after that.