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Yeah, I was speaking mostly of civilian aircraft, or logistics aircraft in general. For obvious reasons which you mostly listed, most combat aircraft and jets are probably gone or grounded for the most part. But do those same reasons keep a fleet of Cessna Caravans on the ground? Not really. Unless you want them to, somehow.

Again, immersion. If nobody at your table knows or cares about these details, you could simply lie and say that alcohol fuels don't produce enough power for aircraft and that's why they never fly anymore. You could bomb most airfields into oblivion, which is plausible enough for military fields. (PS - there's a pretty significant one just south of Łask, seems like it ought to be at least mentioned somewhere.) But these are all again justifications you need to make for the world as it is to feel fully coherent.

And this leads us back to world building.

https://generalaviationnews.com/2011/05 ... -stored-2/

In the real world there was a period in the late 70s early 80s where, due to the oil shocks, alternative fuels received a lot of attention. The military looked into using multifuel engines, and the civillian market also invested in tech like LPG conversions - very popular in Australia at the time - hydrogen, ethanol and electric powerplants.

But in our world the price of oil plunged and has remained relatively low in historical terms, so the need for change faded only to be revived by climate change.

So what happened in Twilight's alternate timeline? If oil had remained above $100 USD per barrel, and if conflict or other problems threatened supplies, then you'd see far more research into alternatives. So rather than it requiring 30 hours to reset an Abram's turbine to a new fuel maybe it would have been as simple as turning a dial.

Today, given that the oil supply chain is so robust, strategic reserves are kept as crude oil not distillates. It is possible to add chemical additives to fuel to extend its shelf-life but in our world you just use it up and get new deliveries from the refinery in a just-in-time system.

So if you keep what happen in reality right up till 1991 or even to 1997 then using alternative fuels without having properly engineered and manufactured kits being provided for conversions then you'll see jury-rigged field conversions that will be unreliable and probably detrimental to performance and longevity of engines.

However if you instead go back to the late 70s early 80s then you could have 20 years of investment into a more robust fuel supply chain and engines that have kits designed to change fuel types or functional multi-fuel engines in service by 1997.

What would that gain this world? Seems like it would only make fuel more ubiquitous and reliable, which I don't think is the answer to a problem anyone is trying to solve.

It is just a general discussion on how things could have been.

Most people will go with the rules as is, that alcohol will power any remaining vehicles, and leave it at that.

A few may be interested in using energy and fuel as part of the game story, particularly once base-building is added in.

Everyone is free to play the game as they wish. Atm given the lack of discussion it is just a way of filling in time.

You could bomb most airfields into oblivion, which is plausible enough for military fields. (PS - there's a pretty significant one just south of Łask, seems like it ought to be at least mentioned somewhere.)

I already dropped a nuke on that one.

By the way, completely off-topic, here's a list of Cold War military airfields in Poland, including highway strips. Many of the former Soviet fields would have been abandoned in the game timeline, but would still be in good enough shape to be brought into service as secondary fields in a pinch.
https://www.mil-airfields.de/pl/list.htm

And more on-topic, this is a handy site to look for coal-fired and hydroelectric generating plants in Poland. Also, refineries:
http://globalenergyobservatory.org/index.php

Cool, thanks. Good resources!

For civilian prop planes, or even things like C-130s, there are plenty of places in Poland that would make for just fine improvised fields, let alone however many actual grass strips are out there or would have been hastily engineered by forces.

One of my players found this air quality map, after our talk about Belchatow. Poland: truly the coal capitol of Europe. The EU is not a fan.

The abundance of coal in Poland will certainly have a large local impact. Power stations will probably be abandoned due to the breakdown in the electrical transmission system.

However coal is great for heating houses and provides fuel for working metal and other tasks.

It makes the use of steam locomotives a possibility although damage to the rail network and bridges will make movement difficult.

Holy smokes!

One thing I've noted in poking around Poland on Google maps has been a larger than expected number of hospitals for lung patients, by the way....

The big plants like Belchatow and the Adamov/Patkow plants at Konin would certainly be abandoned because the transmission system would be wrecked, but I note a lot of smaller plants exist which are not found on various lists. These seem in many cases to be supplying only local industry and there is some potential to get limited local production if (a) coal supply can be restored, (b) the plants themselves which are almost certainly damaged can be repaired, and (c) something can be done about transmission to a (d) local restored industry that requires it ... which should make it clear than restoring coal-fired electric plants will be a long-term project.

I am also finding some small-scale hydroelectric generation which does not appear on the lists of Polish hydro plants. For example, there is a small dam on the Prosna downstream of Kalisz which is identified as "elektrownia" by Google maps. Also, the large reservoir on the Warta downstream of Sieradz. Again, repairing damage and restoring the transmission infrastructure will be major roadblocks to using this power.

On other news fronts, I note that lignite, that nasty brown coal from those open pit mines, is the favored fuel in coal gasification, which is a much more feasible power source in the short term.

If I am the Soviets, I want to concentrate on controlling those lignite mines.

In a classic case of players not taking the bait, at the end of last session they ended up in a situation where a couple of them were going to have to split off and trek back to Belchatow on foot, from the southwest! That got me licking my lips for a nice little adventure site. I had already declared that the tall smoke stacks of the power station were at one point visible. Shortly after I realized this meant: guess it didn't get nuked. Fair enough. But it's a pretty good target. So I decided instead it was probably hit by one and then maybe also the other side with persistent chem/bio agents. With a possible future subplot that the mines are being reopened and worked by a very disgruntled force of mostly indentured/slave/prison labor. Lots of places to go with it that could help flesh out the local situation and world background!

Anyway the chars did exactly what I thought they would, so I had them stumble on the mysteriously giant earthworks (which are the lip of the massive open-pit mines -- fewer in number 20 years ago but still just as huge). Unfortunately they immediately rejected this whole premise and were like "nah we'll happily go a full day out of our way to avoid all that if we have to!" So they didn't even get to the summit of the earthworks where they would have seen the abandoned pit that stretches miles... I had all sorts of good juicy descriptive language and a semi-horror setting of this huge plant that is, for mysterious (but mostly not-super-lethal) reasons a ghost town. And now they just won't go anywhere near the place at all. I even had an NPC give a very suspicious, vague sounding "my friends, please stay away from the power plant" which I thought would at least merit a conversation or an inquiry -- but instead they just said "Yeah no problem!" and are off on their way.