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WRT the Soviet invasion and the sea-faring stuff, it boils down to who has what still intact at the time the invasion is staged. Even if the RN, for example, had little to do WRT to mobilising for the war effort (aside from it's submarines), it's likely that they would've been subject to nuclear attack whilst in port or at sea by various conventional elements of the VVS. I also wonder why this same thing hasn't happened to the Soviet navy. Even if various navies had survived as elements between Scandinavia and the UK, the Soviet ships would - as has been pointed out - have to run the gauntlet. Not only that, but they'd have a pretty difficult time not being blown up by various mines.

WRT an amphibious capability, IIRC the Soviets did have that in various forms so it could be part of any flotilla. At a stretch I guess VDV aircraft might possibly get from Murmansk to perhaps Scotland if they were careful and had enough support. But I don't see what they'd be attacking or hoping to achieve. I don't know why they would be in what used to London, fighting a 'home guard'.

As I've said before, previous treatments in T2K WRT the UK are, I'm guessing, written from an American perspective and so in that sense the UK is seen as a relatively small place. However, even if you managed to somehow get a whole VDV division into the UK, it would be swallowed up fairly quickly just by the general post-war terrain and other factors. And sooner or later they'd simply run out of supplies.

Well, navy things are part of my 'daytime' stuff...

there are some issues (British understatement, like saying the Titanic is just running a bit late... ). Now first thing first. The Soviet Frontal Aviation could not reach Britain, and having fuel for a fight. The Long Range aviation might... as the Naval Aviation but... they will do that like the German planes from Norway in 1940, without escorts. Also the Naval Aviation primary tasks are naval strikes and defense of the Naval Bastions. Using Backfire and Badger in ship strikes in the first phase of the war would be costly. Remember the soviet missiles had to lock before launch in the period. This meant they bombers had to fly inside Standard SAM range, not to mention F-14 and F-18. The Northern Fleet would also have to keep some in reserve to counter a Carrier foray in the Bastion itself (something that the USN Doctrine clearly stated). So beside some pinprick raids, something that even Lighting and Phantoms, not to mention Tornado F-3 could deal with quite easily, no battle of Britain.



As massive invasion armada... again something that is clearly impossible. It is something that seems straight from Mark Walker's massive world war three imagination... The soviet navy did not have sufficient lift for a blue water operation like that. First mission of the Northern Fleet was... surprise surprise... defending the SSBN Bastion, second mission was to support a limited amphibious strike on Norway. Third mission would be support of submarine penetration across the GIUK Gap. The Tom Clancy idea was not so fantasy... it was gamed during NATO TEWTs and the Soviet themselves give it some consideration, but was considered too risky.

Mission two and three would suffer losses. Ad mission 3 would be necessary before invading UK... all this in face of a massive NATO naval supremacy. The Nuclear strike is not coming on day one, so the RN would be mobilized and already operating...

it's likely that they would've been subject to nuclear attack whilst in port or at sea by various conventional elements of the VVS

The VVS was not really trained or equipped for anti ship strikes (they even lacked over the water navigation skills) it was the role of the Naval Aviation, and read what I say earlier. YEs the battle for the North Sea and the Atlantic would be attritional in nature, but numbers in this area favor clearly NATO. Also plenty of vessels in a soviet Fleet would be coastal ones, like Petya and Grisha corvettes.

By the way the USN in the Baltic is also a tad stupid... it is not the kind of place where you want to put a CVBG... and there were no real plan to do it, if not because it was covered by the FRG, Danish navies and air forces, plus the Swedish with much more tailored platforms.

I am afraid Fria Ligan should have a look at Harpoon, especially High Tide... or even some od the 3rd (GDW) Edition supplements.

I am afraid the military background of the new edition is a tad... flimsy...

Yes, my apologies, when referring to the VVS I actually thinking of Naval Aviation. Whether they would face a great deal of opposition from the RAF or the FAA or whoever else might be in the UK is probably decided by what has survived up or redeployed to any given point. It also depends on when and where any sea/air operations took place from either side.

I am still wondering why Fria Ligan didn't just use the timeline from 1E T:2K rather than try to redo things in a different timeline. It could just be an alternative history that branched off from ours in, say, 1985. It's a history, but not our current history. I don't think this would any more difficult to conceive than any other RPG setting thematically. Okay, you might have to spend a bit of time explaining the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact, MAD and a few other things but that's not more difficult than learning the setting for any other RPG, be it scifi, fantasy or whatever.

Hi all,
I’m the writer of the UK part of the book. Really interesting to see all the comments on here - thanks. First things first, please bear in mind the space available in the book for this is very limited so necessarily it is trying to evoke a feeling rather than give chapter and verse, and had to try and give a flavour of what the UK might look like. There is a lot more detail behind that. It’s trying to set out at a headline level what might be playable in a campaign sense, and give plenty of opportunities that might interest players and for GMs to craft their campaigns.
There will always be plenty of debate about exactly what capabilities might be available at any one time, and which troops or assets would do what under any given circumstance. This is an alternate timeline, so inevitably there will be points where views diverge.
It is clear that in the building story on the Continent the UK would not be unaffected. The driver for the Soviet invasion was certainly in part a gaming one: to make the UK a more interesting location to play in the post-war apocalyptic setting of the year 2000. But in the wider unfolding story the USSR had taken Norway out of the war, and the obvious next target was the UK, as the UK was supporting the US / NATO’s efforts in the Baltic and extending the war in Scandinavia. And don't forget that Cold War Soviet doctrine was all about the advance of communism.
Other points it’s worth addressing:
- on the Trafalgar Square fighting, there was a need for a trigger event to keep the Brits fighting when all was lost, but it could more have been a last ditch ambush. And yes, in my timeline London would have been nuked in the second wave of strikes, so there would have been little other than symbolic value
- the fighting would have included those professional troops left in the UK and not just the Home Guard / unprofessional militias. But given the fighting on the Continent vast swathes of the Territorials would have gone into battle there.
- the intention in the piece isn’t for King Charles III to be anything other than a figurehead for people to rally round. I’m certainly NOT saying that the UK becomes a new divine monarchy, but inevitably many would rally round the monarchy as something familiar in a time when half the population is dead. But I do mention some government ministers who are with him – I think my turn of phrase has made it appear to some that Charles is now in charge, which isn’t the case.
- I didn’t specifically refer to MPs or local councillors surviving as I had no space to include it, and the sense I wanted to give was that usual government is not functioning. In the devastation that we see in the UK the idea of a working national government that actually influences the lives of many people, at that point, is a bit fanciful. But the re-building of the UK and a re-emerging government structure in 2000 and beyond is an interesting campaign backdrop, if not the focus of a campaign in itself.
- Also, it was mentioned that anyone could call themselves King Jerry or Queen Matilda. Yes! Of course they can, and that’s a good thing, if the GM wants that to happen in their game. And I think in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is on their own many with power or control would do exactly that!
- In Northern Ireland, I didn’t bother calling the IRA the Provisionals because there was no need to confuse the various Irish Republican movements at that time (INLA, the Continuity IRA, Real IRA, Oglaigh nah Eireann, Clann na Gael etc) when most readers get what we mean by the IRA (and in fact PIRA had two ceasefires and the Good Friday Agreement in that time so arguably either CIRA or RIRA could have taken advantage and led the Irish Republican movement in that moment (accepting that the GFA probably didn’t happen in this timeline, but PIRA was still on ceasefire). In a longer piece, with the space to expand, it would be potentially interesting to delve more deeply into this, but for this short piece there just wasn’t the space.
- As for the Republic of Ireland immediately annexing the North, that idea too is fanciful in the 1999/2000 timeline in this scenario. They would have plenty of their own problems and there isn’t a huge upswell of public opinion in the south desperate for unification, and certainly not at the point of a gun. Again, that's another story that would be more fun to play out in 2000 and beyond, as part of the game, rather than telling the players what happened before they started.
- finally on Cornwall. Yes this is a bit out there but that what predictions do – predict things that might or might not come true. There is definitely a strong sense of “Cornishness” and representations were made by Cornwall in recent years when the idea of English regional devolution was mooted. So not such a stretch to suggest they may try to manage their own affairs once everywhere else has gone badly wrong.
I hope that’s cast some light on the thinking behind the piece.
Dave

Dave,

I think you have to re-check your sources. I understand the idea behind, but it has to be in the realm of possible. Even considering the deployment of reinforcements to BAOR there were sufficient units in the UK to outnumber a soviet invasion force, that by nature of the Soviet Navy would have been neither large of heavily equipped. Also taking out Norway from the war was a major endeavor... that probably was a bit out of the Soviet peak capability. For what we know of their plan, they merely planned to secure norther Norway to deny it to the US Navy and NATO at large, but even doing that would have cost them a significant chunk of their forces.

Also their ability to strike so deep in NATO airspace, without the rest of the Warsaw pact, was negligible. IT was basically just the Long Range Aviation, flying unescorted strikes against the whole NATO air defense, both the SAM Belt, and the interceptors.

Also Soviet doctrine was not the spread of Communism. Soviet Military Doctrine was the preservation of the Soviet Union from an onslaught comparable to that the Germans did in 1941.

Sorry to sound annoying, but at this point in time, while the game system looks promising, the whole premise is laughable to anyone with a bit of familiarity with the cold war correlation of forces. I would have to throw it out of the window and rewrite it to be anything close to usable for me.

The thing here is that it's not just a question of differing viewpoints or opinions. It's also a question of suspension of disbelief — consider for instance; what would, with a reasonable level of credibility, lie within the scope of capabilities of an otherwise isolated Soviet Union?

The way it's currently written, it is mostly suggestive of that someone in the Kremlin has found a horn of plenty that spews dragon's teeth...

Twilight 2000 1e's background was believable right up to the moment (1989-1991 or so) that it wasn't.

TW:2000 2e (both) was less than believable, and downright silly in spots as it assumed behaviour that was way out on the fringes of reality to anyone with a basic understanding of European (and world) history.

Twilight: 2013 ... the best thing one can do regarding the background of this iteration of the game is to ignore it completely, as it actively required people to not only be completely ignorant of basic history, but also basic politics, basic geography, basic science and, like the Mad Hatter (?) believe three impossible things before breakfast.

I think the problem with the background for this version is that it is trying to shoe-horn completely unrealistic (and, in many cases impossible) events into an alternate history background for 'interest' ... and I am not sure that it is needed. I agree with the poster who commented that simply using the 1e background more or less unchanged would be more believable.

This is a perennial problem with writing alternate history -- the author glossing over reality in quite major ways simply because they want their stories to be 'kewl'.

The better alt-hist stories are like the 1632 series where, generally speaking, the changes are done based on something resembling realism while the worst are those where wishful thinking prevails (like all the Germany victory in WW2 stories).

Use the original 1e history would be my preference (my .02c worth). YMMV.

Phil McGregor
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Author: Space Opera (FGU); Rigger Black Book #1 (FASA); Orbis Mundi 2, The Marketplace, Ithura & Porthaven, Fantasy Europe (PGD); Road to Armageddon & Supplements, Displaced, Audace ad Gloriam, Farm, Forge & Steam (PGD).

I totally get your points of view, and really appreciate your comments. I’m really enjoying this conversation! I do wonder if you’re basing your assessments on the USSR military capabilities at end of the Soviet era (1989-91) or real world Russian capabilities in 1999, neither of which are necessarily immediately relevant to the situation in the predicted timeline world of 1998-9. Please bear with me and bear in mind a few things:
- our timeline diverges from the real one in 1991. None of us knows for sure what capabilities the USSR would have had in 1999 had the collapse been halted. The preservation of the Soviet Union by the Eight might well have seen an enhancement / increase in military capacity and capability. I expect you could extrapolate from 1991 USSR capabilities and track a steady line that would give some suggestion, but that wouldn’t take into account the impact of a new ruling body that watched the USSR teeter on the brink of extinction, only to rescue it at the last moment. They might see a huge increase in military spending as an essential for their future survival, in which case capability and capacity could be much greater than that which we saw for real.
- I’d suggest that striking deep into NATO airspace could be achieved by forward positions in newly occupied Norway
- also the UK has suffered a devastating nuclear strike, the first wave of which is focused on knocking out command and control and the ability to strike back, the second about crippling the country as a whole. UK defences will have been seriously depleted by this, if not brought to their knees.
- and I agree that Soviet military doctrine wasn’t about imperial conquest, but Soviet policy was about the advancement of communism, through proletarian internationalism. Now admittedly, invading the UK doesn’t really fall under that heading, but helping the suppressed masses shake off their capitalist masters is defo something the USSR was all in favour of.
Thanks!

Dave:

The problem with Charles emerging from a bunker and having the backing of various figures as a figurehead is still largely meaningless. Okay, some people might rally to what they see as a cause, but by and large it's nothing more than a PR exercise. Many people survivors would be saying 'Ok, but what does that actually for us in practical terms?'. My point about 'King Jerry' was that anyone, including Charles, emerging from somewhere and proclaiming themselves king would be completely meaningless in real terms. IMHO it does need to be mentioned that there is a form of government intact, but that it's dispersed and is trying to carry out is tasks as designed within the emergency system. Otherwise what we have thus far in the alpha reads that Charles is in charge instead and that nothing else has in terms of government etc and that there's a power vacuum. This would not be the case.

The idea of a home guard is also not particularly convincing because it'd be much simpler to hand that capability over to the police, especially as certain sections have firearms training. Emergency measures for the UK in times of war would make that change happen rather quickly, in order to curb looting and lawlessness. It also doesn't eat up any military personnel and resources, and the emergency system is already geared to include the police, and includes extra powers for them. A home guard would just be an extra expense accompanied by the thorny issue, as was the case in WWII, about whether the HG would have any police powers. The Trafalgar Square event still seems unconvincing, especially as one would have to wonder why any Soviet troops would even bother with London at all. By and large, 'symbolic' gestures in a post-WWIII environment would go pretty much unheard as there'd be little chance of anyone hearing about it.

I think it's great that you've embellished here what is included in the alpha, but I would say that perhaps as it's written right now it comes across as not completely serious, and I think that's why some doubts have been raised (and is why I chucked some ideas into a thread in the first place ). If there's still wiggle room for a bit of a rewrite, I think that would be constructive. Otherwise it's not clear what could be done with the UK in terms of playing the rpg in that setting.