On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Homer]

What is SHAPE

It sits in Soignes, Belgium. Used to be Cateau. Mons is right down the way. Mind the slag heaps.

SHAPE is the military headquarters of NATO.

[ToughOmbres]

I always wondered how most of military infrastructure and support base managed to evaporate in a little under three years of broken backed warfare. Parts of Western Europe and Korea circa late 80s early 90s were almost carpeted with US combat support, combat service support, and headquarters units and installations. Thered be personnel losses due to the conflict, stripping of units for replacements, and physical destruction of facilities but youd have to have something left to support the fight. One of the best parts about Chicos work is the attention hes paying to the supporting and sustaining elements of each side.

My take-

In both real life and the world of Twilight:2000 the US military's grasp of logistics is incredibly good. Even the cavernous warehouses and igloos in the kasernes would be emptied relatively quickly once the "balloon went up" with the Warsaw Pact.
In real life (and I suspect in T2K) ordnance and fuel needs would quickly exhaust those pre-war stockpiles. There would be a ramp up of production at home (industries were already producing for China in their fight against the USSR) but even with increased output you would have:

1. Steady drain on supplies.
2. WP interdiction of logistics on their way to the front
3. Some pilferage and waste/spoilage.

Put another way, no matter what margin for "extra" is built in, armor, artillery and Infantry would probably expend it quickly. The old Quartermaster adage of "keep the best, issue the rest" would go out the window by, say, the second year of the war.

In purely game terms, once the first use of nuclear weapons takes place, you begin to see further supply disruptions (workers afraid of going to work, remaining with families). In addition the game doesn't work as well if PC's can always find FASCAM rounds and plenty of laser guided ordnance.

Just some thoughts.

[castlebravo92]

My take-

In both real life and the world of Twilight:2000 the US military's grasp of logistics is incredibly good. Even the cavernous warehouses and igloos in the kasernes would be emptied relatively quickly once the "balloon went up" with the Warsaw Pact.
In real life (and I suspect in T2K) ordnance and fuel needs would quickly exhaust those pre-war stockpiles. There would be a ramp up of production at home (industries were already producing for China in their fight against the USSR) but even with increased output you would have:

1. Steady drain on supplies.
2. WP interdiction of logistics on their way to the front
3. Some pilferage and waste/spoilage.

Put another way, no matter what margin for "extra" is built in, armor, artillery and Infantry would probably expend it quickly. The old Quartermaster adage of "keep the best, issue the rest" would go out the window by, say, the second year of the war.

In purely game terms, once the first use of nuclear weapons takes place, you begin to see further supply disruptions (workers afraid of going to work, remaining with families). In addition the game doesn't work as well if PC's can always find FASCAM rounds and plenty of laser guided ordnance.

Just some thoughts.

Yeah, the war in Ukraine is showing just how fast things would get destroyed in a high intensity war. Russia has lost over 3000 tanks and 100,000 men (dead, not including injured) in a year. Sounds like a lot, but doesn't sound like a lot when the USSR had around 60k tanks in 1989. But then again, the USSR was fighting China for a year and half then most of NATO for a year before things went nuclear. China would be a lot harder nut to crack than Ukraine, and Leopard 2s, Challengers, Abrams, + airpower would chew up a lot of vehicles really fast.

One of the stats that has came out of the Ukraine war (and about NATO being prepared for war) is that the UK had stocks on hand for about 2 days of warfare at the usage rate the Russians were using every day. Even assuming a post-Cold War draw down, the US was and is the only country in NATO with the logistical capacity to wage a high intensity conflict for any significant duration.

[Homer]

No doubt that the warstocks would go quickly and the exchange would handicap or prevent new production and distribution. This would make the sustainment effort all the more critical. USAREUR had a three star theater sustainment command (21st TAACOM) providing both materials management and DS/GS/Depot level maintenance and refurbishment. 19th TAACOM performed many of the same functions in Korea. One of the functions of both commands was battle damage repair and return to service of material.

Once the material flow from CONUS dries up, as Chico has shown, it looks like the maintenance organizations will be in greater demand to fix, fab, or cannibalize recovered systems and get them back in the fight. Likewise with material management and POL. Ammunition and other consumables have become a limited commodity, much more so than in the days of relative abundance pre-exchange; some structure would have to be established to manage material and ensure logistics prep for offensives. Husbanding high-end munitions like FASCAM, copperhead, TOW, etc would likely be one of their roles. If you want to play with organized forces (CENTCOM, Korea, etc) you can put a controlled supply rate on the high tech munitions.

By 98, the logistics effort may have expanded to include farming and ration production (salted, smoked, stc), reloading small arms ammo, distilling, clothing and personal equipment repair and reissue, salvage, etc. Centralizing production under a headquarters allows USAREUR to prioritize the logistics effort, even if it is carried out locally by every unit. Part of the preparations for an offensive might be the issue of preserved rations, refurbished material, distilled fuel, and what remains of prewar ammunition to high priority units. Likewise, units manning static defenses may be issued with few or no such munitions.

This doesn't mean a game would have to have the characters well resourced. 5th ID and the other US forces involved in Ancient Mariner may have been issued with the most complete available scales of equipment and supplies before jumping off, but by the time the end comes at Kalisz they're likely to have shot or consumed most of that stockpile in the offensive and the fighting detailed in "Death of a Division". The remnants left constitute the players' starting equipment. They may have a full load for their Bradley or Abrams, but there is nothing coming behind that. A few good fights and they may be looking for a less capable but easier to maintain ride and more sustainable weapons.

[Ursus Maior]

Yeah, the war in Ukraine is showing just how fast things would get destroyed in a high intensity war. Russia has lost over 3000 tanks and 100,000 men (dead, not including injured) in a year. Sounds like a lot, but doesn't sound like a lot when the USSR had around 60k tanks in 1989. But then again, the USSR was fighting China for a year and half then most of NATO for a year before things went nuclear. China would be a lot harder nut to crack than Ukraine, and Leopard 2s, Challengers, Abrams, + airpower would chew up a lot of vehicles really fast.

And then, remember that the Ukraine war isn't particularly "high intensity" when measured to a potential NATO vs. USSR (or Pact, depending on background) war as envisioned during the 1980s. It's probably hard to fathom for today's readers of news, but the ongoing war almost completely lacks two dimensions of warfare - naval and aerial - as envisioned for WW3 and it certainly lacks several orders of magnitude in land warfare.

WW3 would have seen not 150,000-200,000 Soviets invade a country of 40 million with a GDP less than Sweden or Belgium (in 2021). Instead, the two biggest power blocs in history, plus China (and a good deal of other countries) would go toe to toe with each other and grind their forces against each other. There's good reasons, why warplanners were looking at 10-30 days scenarios: not a lot would have been standing after that, yet only the second mobilization wave would have been concluded for NATO (the next would have been after 90 days and then after 6 months).

[chico20854]

By 98, the logistics effort may have expanded to include farming and ration production (salted, smoked, stc), reloading small arms ammo, distilling, clothing and personal equipment repair and reissue, salvage, etc. Centralizing production under a headquarters allows USAREUR to prioritize the logistics effort, even if it is carried out locally by every unit. Part of the preparations for an offensive might be the issue of preserved rations, refurbished material, distilled fuel, and what remains of prewar ammunition to high priority units. Likewise, units manning static defenses may be issued with few or no such munitions.

Thanks for this Homer! A question for the hive mind: how effective are breweries for producing alcohol for fuel, etither methanol or ethanol I'm aware of the vast numbers of breweries all throughout Germany, certainly many times more common than distilleries. While units would likely carry smaller stills (like the small and medium stills in the v1 equipment list), it seems likely that units in static positions would want to take advantage of industrial-scale alcohol production capability to build up those stocks.

[kato13]

Thanks for this Homer! A question for the hive mind: how effective are breweries for producing alcohol for fuel, etither methanol or ethanol I'm aware of the vast numbers of breweries all throughout Germany, certainly many times more common than distilleries. While units would likely carry smaller stills (like the small and medium stills in the v1 equipment list), it seems likely that units in static positions would want to take advantage of industrial-scale alcohol production capability to build up those stocks.

I spent A LOT of time on this in the past. Still weight seemed too high by nearly an order of magnitude for the production volumes. The exception to this is when the fermentation process is ongoing due to liquid weight (I suppose the large volume could be a factor in the "weight"). Therefore I see units needing to be static for the actual production (other reasons as well such as needing fires, having to preprocess the biomass, etc). I suppose reducing still weight by 90% reflects having perfect equipment and maybe 66% to 75% reduction due to ad hoc construction would fit the game better. With these numbers I can see more stills being in the field. The biggest issue in the field would be the refining of the alcohol to 100% as simple distillation only takes you to 95%.

When looking for realism related to alcohol production in game bumps up against a lot of real world problems (like not being able to make it from wood without genetically modified yeast or bacteria we are just now refining). Agricultural waste and things like sawgrass and switchgrass have tremendous potential to be used, but they require more preprocessing which makes the industrial production easier to explain. In the field you would probably need to use something you would much rather save for eating.

[castlebravo92]

I spent A LOT of time on this in the past. Still weight seemed too high by nearly an order of magnitude for the production volumes. The exception to this is when the fermentation process is ongoing due to liquid weight (I suppose the large volume could be a factor in the "weight"). Therefore I see units needing to be static for the actual production (other reasons as well such as needing fires, having to preprocess the biomass, etc). I suppose reducing still weight by 90% reflects having perfect equipment and maybe 66% to 75% reduction due to ad hoc construction would fit the game better. With these numbers I can see more stills being in the field. The biggest issue in the field would be the refining of the alcohol to 100% as simple distillation only takes you to 95%.

When looking for realism related to alcohol production in game bumps up against a lot of real world problems (like not being able to make it from wood without genetically modified yeast or bacteria we are just now refining). Agricultural waste and things like sawgrass and switchgrass have tremendous potential to be used, but they require more preprocessing which makes the industrial production easier to explain. In the field you would probably need to use something you would much rather save for eating.

Destructive distillation is the low-tech way to go with methanol production from wood. It's not horribly efficient, but it works, it's fast, and doesn't require yeast and fermentation for a couple of weeks, which is one of the fatal flaws with ethanol production. Likely doable for a character party on the move.

Another way apparently is to heat dry wood to generate wood gas, and use a catalytic process to generate methanol from the wood gas. Not very low tech, and probably not appropriate for a character party on the run.

On a the complex industrialization side of the fence, methanol to gasoline is a thing, and as I posted before, would be easier to get up and running than converting a bunch of 1996 manufactured cars to running on ethanol or methanol. Production wouldn't be enough to get us back to an urban commuter society, but might be enough for the military to keep some aircraft up in the area, generators running for critical activities, and some vehicles running, and given a large cantonment or organized area, accumulate reserves sufficient for things like the Summer 2000 offensive, except using gas instead of alcohol.

[kato13]

Destructive distillation is the low-tech way to go with methanol production from wood. It's not horribly efficient, but it works, it's fast, and doesn't require yeast and fermentation for a couple of weeks, which is one of the fatal flaws with ethanol production. Likely doable for a character party on the move.

Another way apparently is to heat dry wood to generate wood gas, and use a catalytic process to generate methanol from the wood gas. Not very low tech, and probably not appropriate for a character party on the run.

On a the complex industrialization side of the fence, methanol to gasoline is a thing, and as I posted before, would be easier to get up and running than converting a bunch of 1996 manufactured cars to running on ethanol or methanol. Production wouldn't be enough to get us back to an urban commuter society, but might be enough for the military to keep some aircraft up in the area, generators running for critical activities, and some vehicles running, and given a large cantonment or organized area, accumulate reserves sufficient for things like the Summer 2000 offensive, except using gas instead of alcohol.

We have discussed some of this before in my methanol thread

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpp=93932#post93932

Maybe we move discussion there to keep this thread on track.

[chico20854]

December 28, 1997

Vancouver and Chiliwack, British Columbia are struck by Soviet nuclear weapons.

The Bronx has suffered over 800,000 fatalities in December and afterwards. Queens suffers half again as many casualties in the food and race riots as Manhattan (over 1.2 million fatalities in Queens, as opposed to over 800,000 in Manhattan).

Unofficially,

RainbowSix notes that Edinburgh, Scotland's pre-war capital, is not directly targeted by the Soviets, but sufferes some loss of life and damage from the strikes on nearby Grangemouth and Rosyth, with fall out drifting over the western suburbs. Large numbers of people have fled the city in the last few months, with many heading for the perceived safety of the largely rural Border regions. Those who remain suffer from starvation, disease, and civil disorder.

Glasgow has been devastated by the Soviet nuclear attacks, with the death toll exceeding half a million people. Some refugees try to enter the area around Dumfries and Lockerbie in the aftermath of the nuclear strike on Glasgow, but most are turned back in a series of often deadly clashes with the locals.

French and Belgian military leaders work through the night on plans to halt the refugee flow using their nation's still largely intact military forces. They reach the conclusion that the only reasonable solution is to occupy German and Dutch territory, securing the Rhine as a hard barrier.

In northwestern Poland, the Polish 7th Marine Division is the last unit to evacuate the near-pocket between II MEF, V US Corps and the Baltic. The Polish marines take heavy losses from their advancing American, Dutch and German counterparts, leaving the Polish division a nearly empty shell.

In Bavaria, American GLCM cruise missiles are fired at Rome, Milan and Naples, Italy to eliminate Italy's ability to prosecute the war; the Italian III and IV Corps in southern Germany are already severly hampered by the closure of the mountain passes by weather and American nuclear strikes, forcing their supplies to be routed around the Alps through eastern Austria.

The carriers Roosevelt and Eisenhower, operating off the central Norwegian coast, launch one of their remaining few airstrikes before running out of aviation fuel and spare parts for the aircraft (nearly a quarter of their combined air groups have already been relegated to "hangar queen" status, serving as parts donors as maintenance crews are forced to cannibalize to keep airplanes operational). The strikes, using conventional munitions, knock out the transformer yard and ancillary facilities at the Kola nuclear power plant near Murmansk, disconnecting it from the power grid and allowing the operators to shut it down safely rather than induce a nuclear disaster that would contaminate the Arctic for centuries.

The American light frigate USS Marchand, on patrol in the North Atlantic, nearly capsizes after being struck by a wave coming from the aft quarter. The ship, built as a war emergency measure despite the Bear/Famous-class Coast Guard cutters it shares a design with's reputation as poor sea boats, loses its CIWS mount and its HU-65 helicopter, shaken about in its hangar, is a total loss. The captain orders a return to the nearest port for emergency repairs. Its sister the USS Petit is dispatched from the North Sea at 16 knots to Portsmouth, England to escort two ships on a special mission.

In central Dezful, the remaining Soviet troops (with a few Tudeh diehards fighting alongside) continue to put up fierce resistance to surrounding Iranian and American troops despite dwindling reserves of food, water and ammunition.

USANVCENT/Fifth Fleet dispatches the former Coast Guard Cutter USCG Thetis (newly arrived with the last supply convoy from home) to Diego Garcia, where it is to land a team (by one of the ship's small boats or its helicopter) to identify what facilities remain intact, what the repair effort required may be and what resources can be salvaged. The ship's complement includes a team of engineer planners from the 416th Engineer Command to assist with the effort.

An American B-2 bomber loitering over the Urals (an increasingly uncommon occurrence as fuel shortages cut back the number of sorties) catches a rare prize - a rail-mobile SS-24 missile train emerging from a tunnel, where it has been hiding between launches. It is quickly dispatched by a lone B61 nuclear bomb; it has never been determined what targets were spared by the attack, or, indeed, whether it was emerging to attack or simply to reposition.

[Ewan]

December 28, 1997

Glasgow has been devastated by the Soviet nuclear attacks, with the death toll exceeding half a million people.

Well this is where I die in the T2K universe

[chico20854]

December 29, 1997

Nothing official for today!

The last known commmunication is transmitted by Secretary General Sauronski from the safety of his bunker complex under Zhiguli, which was severely damaged when by an American 9-megaton bomb struck the fortress on November 30. His ultimate fate has never been determined, despite decades of speculation, rumors and inquiries.

An alliance of two Canadian biker gangs, the Stone Machine and the Bandits, cross the border into North Dakota and raid the Cobray firearms plant six miles south of the border. They overwhelm the security force and make away with hundreds of MAC-10 SMGs and Street Sweeper shotguns.

A tragedy occurs on the Ohio River, when the dinner cruise boat Belle of the Ohio catches fire and burns to the waterline. The boat, only certified by he Coast Guard to carry passengers for a maximum of four hours, had been pressed into service to evacuate residents of Cincinnati, Ohio to rural communities in northwestern Kentucky. Fue was in short supply, and survivors indicate that the crew was unable to run the heating system on the boat and that some evacuees on the top deck (the ship was carrying over 1500 passengers, despite being rated for 400) lit fires to try to keep warm. A precise death toll was never compiled as no passenger manifest had been prepared and many bodies washed downstream in the icy river.

RainbowSix notes that the nuclear strikes see waves of refugees flee the cities of Yorkshire, leading to often deadly clashes with communities who have not been directly targeted. In some cases refugees take over a community, then start fighting amongst themselves, and a number of towns and villages are now little more than burned out shells occupied (and fought over) by several different groups, whilst others have become fortified enclaves, where strangers are unwelcome and will be turned away, by force if necessary. Tyneside and Wearside both escape nuclear attack (quite how this happened remained a mystery to most people in the region). Northampton is ravaged by riots that started off over food but ended up in wanton destruction and looting. Twenty miles to the north of Northampton, the town of Corby, home to a plant that manufactured steel tubes and a nuclear power station before the war, suceeds in shutting down both facilities.

The 221st Military Police Brigade (US Army Reserve) arrives at the military port facility at Port Hueneme, California (secured by Navy Seebees) (officially) to assume internal security duties in Southern Califonia. (Unofficially, it is tasked with bringing the near-renegade 5th California Brigade to heel).

Shortly before midnight, several small teams from the French 1st Marine Infantry Paratroopers Regiment and 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment slip over the border into the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany west of the Rhine. They are tasked to determine the conditions on the ground, including surviving military units and facilities, concentrations of refugees and the condition of transportaion routes and chokepoints.

The Armee d'laire (French Air Force) issues a desperate call for all flightworthy transports overseas (throughout Africa and the Middle East, plus a lone C-130H in Frencch Guyana) to immediately return to Metropolitan France.

The Bundeswehr command begins preparations for an attack in Czechoslovakia in hopes of forcing the Czechs to withdraw their forces from southern Germany, clearing the way for the reconquest of the occupied areas. Supplies and reinforcements are brought forward; many of both have been stripped from terriorial units, especially those west of the Rhine, which are unlikely to see combat in the medium term and which are nearly entirely devoted to managing refugees and deserters.

King Haakon of Norway makes his first official public appearance when the "Arctic Fox" visits with refugees in the countryside outside Oslo.

The light frigate USS Petit meets up with its charges, a freighter and a large, aged troop transport, off Portsmouth and proceeds southwest, making sure to stay clear of French territorial waters, where a squadron of surface combatants has sortied from the French naval base of Lorient.

The US Navy's Sixth Fleet, facing the collapse of its logistic and repair infrastructuer and extensive damage to Gibraltar and Norfolk, makes the difficult decision to abandon the damaged USS America, which has been anchored in Sigonella, Sicily since it was damaged by mines and torpedoes in early October. The remaining crew (many have been transferred to other units or reassigned to shoreside security duties) work on transferring valuable materiel to the other American carrier in the Mediterranean, the USS John F. Kennedy. Three civilian cargo ships (the Berlin Freedom, the Cape Archway and the Panamanian Amer Asha) are also in port, ready to take on additional supplies and to transfer excess crewmembers to other locations, as Sixth Fleet has made the decision to abandon Sigonella as well.

[chico20854]

December 30, 1997

Dutch units on internal security duties suffer from desertions and poor morale as the nation suffers in the chaotic aftermath of Soviet nuclear strikes.

Unofficially,

The Freedom-class cargo ship El Paso Freedom is delivered in Portland, Oregon. The shipyard will struggle to complete another ship, but it is never delivered.

The Soviets launch what will turn out to be their last strategic nuclear attack on the US, with SS-N-18 missiles from the Delta III-class SSBN K-424 striking targets in the southeast. Dobbins Air Force Base, home of the US Air Force Reserve Command and the C-130 production line northwest of Atlanta, is hit with a 450-kiloton warhead (from a single-warhead SS-N-18), while Warner Robbins Air Force Base to the southeast is plastered by three 100-kiloton warheads from a SS-N-18, neutralizing the PAVE PAWS SLBM-detection radar. Fort Gillem and Fort Gordon are each hit by two 100-kiloton warheads from the same missile, ccausing heavy losses to the troops there.

RainbowSix reports that large numbers of people flee the cities of the West Midlands. This leads to a number of violent clashes between locals and refugees. Birmingham, the largest city in the UK outside London, suffers a complete collapse of law and order when the authorities, hopelessly outnumbered and having already lost large swathes of the city to the mobs, decide to withdraw all troops and police to prevent them from being overrun. (Whilst most Army units obey and pull out, a number of police officers, most of whom live in the same communities that are being abandoned, disobey the order and stay put).

Though not targeted by the Soviets, rioting and looting takes its toll on Birmingham, and much of the city is reduced to burned out ruins. Much of the southern part of Staffordshire descends into chaos as waves of refugees enter the area following the destruction of Wolverhampton and Coventry. Warwickshire also suffers due to its proximity to the West Midlands conurbation, with large numbers of refugees entering the northern part of the county from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Coventry. Several towns are effectively taken over by refugees, who force out the former occupants, and violent clashes between different groups are commonplace, particularly in the area bordering what remains of Coventry.

French and Belgian military authorities implement a nationwide civilian communications blackout - the telephone system is turned off for civilians, as are telegraph and postal services. The high-speed TGV rail network is shut down as well (the airlines and civil aviation having been grounded following the nuclear strikes on French refineries earlier in the month), and a curfew imposed within 100 km of the border. This lockdown succeeds in cleariing the transportation routes and preventing word from slipping out of the massive troop movements towards the nations broders.

American missile squadrons in Europe launch another round of strikes on Warsaw Pact capitals as SACEUR, largely out of communication with President Munson and other NATO heads of state, is determined to eliminate Warsaw Pact allies' ability to continue waging the war. Prague, Budapest and Sofia are all struck by cruise missiles. killing additional hundreds of thousands of people. SACEUR is forced to use cruise missiles for the strikes by the dire state of his tactical air fleet, which has been ravaged by over a year of action, nuclear and conventional attacks on air bases and a near-collapse of the supply situation as desperate refugees look to the military to provide relief in the harsh winter conditions.

A French squadron sallies from the Channel Fleet's base in Cherbourg, preceded by minesweepers and operating under the cover of Atlantique patrol aircraft and Mirage interceptors to ward off any observers.

The Soviet 7th Army begins to crumble as it comes under fierce Allied attack from both north and south. Air operations over the front have largely halted as shortages of fuel, spare parts and muniions, not to mention replacement aircraft and pilots, all mount.

[Homer]

NSA is taking a beating. The HQs at Fort Meade is gone, as is the regional center (RSOC) at Gordon. The regional site at Kunia is probably compromised by the situation on Oahu, and the site at Augsburg probably destroyed in conventional fighting. That leaves the regional site at Medina Annex in San Antonio and the complex at Buckley.

Theres still collectors out there as long as satellites stay up, ships are still at sea, and aircraft fly, but the ability to process and correlate the data has been greatly reduced.

[Claidheamh]

Who does NSA side with

NSA is taking a beating. The HQs at Fort Meade is gone, as is the regional center (RSOC) at Gordon. The regional site at Kunia is probably compromised by the situation on Oahu, and the site at Augsburg probably destroyed in conventional fighting. That leaves the regional site at Medina Annex in San Antonio and the complex at Buckley.

I don't remember if there's a canon ruling on who the NSA sides with (MILGOV or CIVGOV) I assume that by the end of '98-'99, there's so little left of their equipment, networks, and resources that it hardly matters.