4th ed T2K

[Olefin]

My wonder about the UK invasion is What military end does it serve 1 Soviet airborne division isn't going to be able to subugate a nation of 55 million people, even if it's been reduced a bit by nuke strikes And how do they supply it if most Soviet shipping is artificial reefs No, when the Wehrmacht had upwards of 20+ divisions in 1940 and they didn't think they could pull it off I just cannot for the life of me figure this one out.

If its a raid that makes sense. Not an invasion. Have the invasion be Iceland and it makes sense - they have almost no weapons, no martial background and the island can be held with a single division. But not the UK

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I am not being political - the person who was one of the main writers is a pro-Soviet writer who on his FB page loves all things Soviet. So given that, this an accurate description of what we are seeing here in the background/timeline/war events - the Soviets act intelligently, the Americans act stupidly, the US govt acts even more stupidly and the Soviets somehow beat a coalition of the US, NATO and Warsaw Pact (with the French fighting in the war on the NATO side) and do it in a way that crushes basically half or more of NATO in Operation Reset - eight full Corps

Which designer was it The lead (Tomas H$renstam) hasn't used his Facebook page in like 9 years.

Not doubting you, but I am genuinely curious, and Mr. H$renstam is the only designer of T2k listed on Free League's webpage.

[Spartan-117]

Not all victories in war are about taking and holding substantial amounts of territory. Just putting your boots on the enemy's homeland would have major psychological effects and impact morale on both sides.

For example, the Doolittle Raid caused only minor physical damage and resulted in the loss of every aircraft. And yet...

[Rainbow Six]

My wonder about the UK invasion is What military end does it serve 1 Soviet airborne division isn't going to be able to subugate a nation of 55 million people, even if it's been reduced a bit by nuke strikes And how do they supply it if most Soviet shipping is artificial reefs No, when the Wehrmacht had upwards of 20+ divisions in 1940 and they didn't think they could pull it off I just cannot for the life of me figure this one out.

Agreed. What's their objective It feels to me like something that's been included to make the game World more 'interesting' by adding an unexpected element rather than something that has any plausible RL explanation.

I mean, I get the psychological effects, but is that worth throwing away an entire Division (That's if it was only one Division - there's only one mentioned in the UK Gazetteer section but the timeline is light on info about specific units so there may have been others, at least at the outset).

[FPSlover]

My wonder about the UK invasion is What military end does it serve 1 Soviet airborne division isn't going to be able to subugate a nation of 55 million people, even if it's been reduced a bit by nuke strikes And how do they supply it if most Soviet shipping is artificial reefs No, when the Wehrmacht had upwards of 20+ divisions in 1940 and they didn't think they could pull it off I just cannot for the life of me figure this one out.

Until it's explained, my take is that the division was sacrificed in an attempt to draw home British forces on the continent. Even if it was quickly destroyed, perhaps the Soviets hoped that civilians would panic enough to force at least some British units to be redeployed for home defense. Although even that is a stretch, given their absence would only make a dent in NATO forces there and not be a fatal pull-out. But that "hail-Mary" attempt makes a bit of sense, as otherwise, what is the point

[Lurken]

I mean, I get the psychological effects, but is that worth throwing away an entire Division (That's if it was only one Division - there's only one mentioned in the UK Gazetteer section but the timeline is light on info about specific units so there may have been others, at least at the outset).

Reading it closer, it was a much larger force than the Air Division, but it is the Air Division that is the last organized Soviet unit in UK.

[Raellus]

Semantic Panic

"In the end, the NATO divisions of Operation Reset are overrun, survivors fleeing into the woods. The final order from HQ is short and to the point: "Good luck. You're on your own now.""

p. 148 v4 Player's Manual (Alpha Version)

I still think this is vague enough to allow Ref's room for interpretation. It doesn't say "destroyed" or "annihilated" or "wiped out". "Overrun" doesn't necessarily mean any of these things. Several US divisions could be described as having been overrun during the Battle of the Bulge, but organized elements of said continued to fight on. German divisions on the eastern front during the later years of WWII were routinely overrun, but many broke out of Soviet pockets and fought their way back to German lines, sometimes over and over again.

As to the Soviet invasion of the UK, I agree that it doesn't make much sense either on either a strategic or operational level. Yes, it would be a morale blow to the Brits, and yes it might cause the UK to withdraw some of its forces from the continent, but is that worth the sacrificing of an elite division It's a pyrrhic victory at best. Once the Brits managed to wipe the lone, isolated Soviet division out, the morale effects would flip (better for NATO, worse for the Soviets). Even if the Soviets could get them there (which I find highly unlikely), keeping them supplied and fighting for more than a week or two is going to be nearly impossible without total control of the sea lanes and air corridors between Scandinavia and the UK. In the very next bit of the history, they have the USN wiping out the remains of the Red Fleet.

Iceland makes more sense, but I reckon Free League didn't want to rip off Red Storm Rising and risk a lawsuit from the Clancy estate and Larry Bond.

[Jason Weiser]

Not all victories in war are about taking and holding substantial amounts of territory. Just putting your boots on the enemy's homeland would have major psychological effects and impact morale on both sides.

For example, the Doolittle Raid caused only minor physical damage and resulted in the loss of every aircraft. And yet...

True, but the material and manpower costs of 30 B-25s is a lot less than a Soviet Airborne Division of thousands of men. I mean even in v1 canon we have elements like the Mexican and Alaskan operations...but even those had a lot more force behind it.

[Rainbow Six]

I've read it a few times now and I have no clue how strong the UK invasion force was. My best guess is that it may have been a larger force which was hit heavily by tactical nuclear strikes in the early stages of the invasion and the 7th GAAD is the only part of it that's still a cohesive unit.

[Raellus]

What's British for Red Dawn

I've read it a few times now and I have no clue how strong the UK invasion force was. My best guess is that it may have been a larger force which was hit heavily by tactical nuclear strikes in the early stages of the invasion and the 7th GAAD is the only part of it that's still a cohesive unit.

Wait, are you suggesting that the UK nuked its own territory (or allowed NATO to do so) to destroy the Soviet invasion force

[Rainbow Six]

Wait, are you suggesting that the UK nuked its own territory (or allowed NATO to do so) to destroy the Soviet invasion force

Well, per page 148 of the Player Manual, someone definitely did. Granted, it could have been part of the Soviets' invasion strategy but the reference to the use of tactical nukes comes right after a sentence about UK and US troops staging a desperate defence. Nuking UK territory sounds like a pretty desperate form of defence.

And somehow or other the invasion force has been reduced to a solitary Air Assault Division by 2000.

[Raellus]

Nuking UK territory sounds like a pretty desperate form of defence.

Indeed!

To our UK members, does v4 make the UK a more interesting potential campaign setting than earlier versions do

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[comped]

Indeed!

To our UK members, does v4 make the UK a more interesting potential campaign setting than earlier versions do

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Only when compared to the train-wreck that was the Survivor's Guide To The UK... Which is itself not as horrible as the UK Shadowrun supplements and books.

[Rainbow Six]

Indeed!

To our UK members, does v4 make the UK a more interesting potential campaign setting than earlier versions do

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Honestly, if you put the Soviet invasion to one side I don't see that much different from V1, it's just been presented in a better written format and got rid of some of the awful cliches (I do sometimes wonder if the writer of the canon Survivor's Guide to the UK based his work on the UK Section of EPCOT).

HMG controlling an area of southern England but out of touch with the rest of the country Check
Quasi independent Scotland Check
Quasi independent Wales Check

The situation in Northern Ireland is slightly different, but not in a good way - it's not plausible as presented without an armed intervention by the Republic of Ireland military

I'm puzzled by the reference to 'the ravages of war' being felt less keenly in the North. I find it hard to believe that the many of the big urban areas of the North - Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, etc - wouldn't be in various stages of anarchy. I'm going to presume that they mean the more rural parts like Cumbria, but that represents a relatively small part of 'the North'.

They give no clue where the British Army is based (other than to say where they're not, which is near the Government in Reading. Oh, and as far as I know the Region Six bunker moved from Reading to Maidenhead in the 60's) so that one is left up to the GM. Ditto the Soviets and the Americans. FWIW the most logical places for the Army would be Aldershot (20 miles from Reading) or Salisbury (60 miles from Reading) or Catterick (240 miles from Reading). So maybe they want the Army in Catterick.

EDIT. Thinking about it more, I'm puzzled as to how the 'King and his Ministers' (I presume they mean His Majesty's Government) can control their area if they're out of touch with the Army. And to be honest, if the Army know the King is in a bunker in Reading they're going to be doing everything they can to get him to safety.

There's also no specific detail at this stage on nuclear targets (or if there is I haven't found it yet) So they're leaving a lot to an individual GM to decide (or, as I said earlier, maybe there's a sourcebook in the pipeline). That's not necessarily a bad thing - V1 filled in much of these sorts of gaps but filled them in with rubbish) but really I don't see V4 bringing anything substantially new to the table, it's just a reboot of V1 with some minor tweaks - even the Russian invasion isn't really new - as I've already mentioned a few times V1 had the Group of Soviet Forces England. I haven't read anything yet which makes me think of the 7th Guards AAD any different (disclaimer - I've really only read Chapter Seven in depth).

So really, the answer to your question is that as far as I can tell, V4 doesn't really change anything unless I was planning to game in Northern Ireland. To be honest, if I was going to run a UK campaign set around the year 2000 I'd use my own background / timeline (which is basically a lightly tweaked V1 timeline).

Really, this is part of the reason why personally I think Free League missed a huge opportunity by trying to reboot the classic timeline. As I've said to you and others in the past, I think it would have been far smarter of them to have advanced the timeline ten years and given us Twilight 2030 rather than go backwards and try and reinvent the wheel.

As far as I can tell, all they've managed to do instead is play around with things to try and achieve the same end result as the original (5th US Division is overrun somewhere in eastern Europe thus creating the 'Good Luck You're On Your Own' scenario) while alienating some people in the process (I've just looked on their own forum and it is not receiving universal love there either). I think the phrase I'm looking for is 'if it's not broken don't fix it'.

[mpipes]

Guys,

Don't necessarily look at what the designers put out as gospel. You can scan it to pdf, convert to Word and then re-write it as you wish.

Essentially, that is what I did. I didn't like the second Dark Ages flavor GDW came up with and rewrote huge swaths of the background. While I did not invade the UK, Japan and Alaska were invaded. The Soviets actually penetrated all the way to Montana. The Airborne and Naval Infantry units in Japan were eventually captured, and the Soviet were so weakened in their Far Eastern forces that Japan backed by US Marines, ANZAC, Filipino, and S. Korean troops capture the Kuriles.

I could go on, but I hope everyone gets the point. If you don't like it, change it. After all, a zombie campaign might be fun.........