Forum

So...the sheridan, i know it was taken out of service by 97 but well over 80k produced and used even in desert storm. One would abolutly asume that i would have stayed in service given the cirumstances, especially with ammo and trained crews at hand.

By the start of the war, they would have probably all been converted to OPFOR vehicles, especially if the LAV-75 or M8 Buford were adopted to replace them. As it happened, only 6 M8s were produced (and are all still in service) and the M551 was removed from combat service with no replacement. Basically, if you want the 3/143d Main Body, there are no Sheridans.

Something else that occurred to me today: improvised mortars. We have zip guns and improvised grenades, but as far as heavier weapons go the first thing to be improvised is the mortar.

What about other improvised munitions, such as rockets?

Not only marauders but also organized military forces would likely have switched to extensive use of improvised munitions in the Twilight War. When cavalry are switching back to horses then it would make sense also to see improvised rocket batteries, mortars, pickup trucks with welded on steel plates used for recce, and so on. I hope some more improvised weapons can find their way into the rules.

Here's a goldmine of ideas for your improvising pleasure:
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/ ... ls/100461/

I'm particularly partial to the shotgun converted into a grenade launcher.

M2A2 and M3A2, they were the uparmoured version of the Bradley, (more armor in exchange for the firing ports) and they were predominant by 1990.

Because I missed this, the A1 variants are the first uparmored/no side gun port version of the Bradley. The A2 variant is a very late addition for the war, likely only fielded to places like Fort Hood or piecemealed in elsewhere as A1s are destroyed. I was gunning an M3A1 in Germany until I left in '98 and never saw an A2 until several years later when RIPing with a heavy unit in Iraq.

For der Heer, if the G11 comes in, another 5.56 assault rifle, the G41 needs to be there, too. If my research and interviews are right, the G11 was never really meant to have survived this far into the war, all of its users and ammo expended. The BOIP was only to first echelon mech infantry, everyone else (who was expected to survive the initial push by the Soviets) would be issued G41s and be able to suck off draw supplies, to include magazines, from the giant American supply system. Otherwise, I was shooting a G36 for a not-Schützenschnur range day with our sister-unit in '97 or so (and a G3 with my buddy's wife's father's reserve unit.) Likewise, the actual changeover was from P1 (8-shot Beretta) to P8 (Beretta stats) but I'm cool with that or the P7 (for tradition).

BMD: It's never been a core vehicle and I've always used BMP stats when I felt the need to make the distinction. (I never had the Soviet vehicle books until well after I stopped playing.)

Zip guns: Conversely, they've been a core weapon since 2e, so they need to stay for tradition's sake. But we don't need more than one.

Because I missed this, the A1 variants are the first uparmored/no side gun port version of the Bradley. The A2 variant is a very late addition for the war, likely only fielded to places like Fort Hood or piecemealed in elsewhere as A1s are destroyed. I was gunning an M3A1 in Germany until I left in '98 and never saw an A2 until several years later when RIPing with a heavy unit in Iraq.

What? Half of the Bradleys that went to Iraq in 1991 were M2A2s. The continued use of old equipment doesn't necessarily mean much other than, I guess, it still works.

It means the fielding plan didn't support remounting everyone at the same time. There were National Guard units in M113s until the late '90s, I didn't trade in my M60 until a few months before I got out the first time in '99, and when I was in Germany, I got familiarization training on an M40 recoilless rifle because we had a metric f*ck-ton (that's a totally precise unit of measure, BTW) in pre-po'd in Europe along with years' worth of ammo. The boss figured it was maybe 30/70 we'd still be around after we'd shot all the TOWs, but we still needed to know what we were doing if it came to that. And this was 1996, in a division cavalry squadron.

Sure, but it also doesn't mean M2A2s would be anything like rare in 1997

For der Heer, if the G11 comes in, another 5.56 assault rifle, the G41 needs to be there, too. If my research and interviews are right, the G11 was never really meant to have survived this far into the war, all of its users and ammo expended.

That's a really difficult one, more than is usually understood. The G11 was ready for production in 1990. Then the CFE treaty and the German re-unification came into effect and that meant three things: Budget cuts across the board, disposal of heaps of new and old weapons, not only from the East German army (NVA), but also the Bundeswehr, and finally: no chance of standardization for small calibre caseless ammunition. Effectively, the G11 was dead at that point. In January 1992 procurement was canceled for the Bundeswehr and in 1993 the whole project was completely off the table.

The G41 was a design by H&K and they wanted it to become Germany's second-line rifle. But the Bundeswehr never ordered it or even accepted it. So it's very unlikely it would have been bought in the T2K 1990s, especially if the G11 would have been sacked in this timeline, too.

And I think, if T2K politicians look at the successful August Coup at around Christmas 1991 and go "okay, the USSR is stable now" and then deduce "let's continue building trust and mothballing parts of our forces to free money for social welfare and transforming our economies from the totally dying coal and steel towards something else" then the G11 is as dead as it was in real history as well. By 1993 around 1,000 G11 had been produced. Those would be given to special forces or stashed in a warehouse and that's it.

Good question — would Western politicians have chosen to be just as naïve in the face of a Soviet Union that just had forcibly quelled internal dissent as they were in the face of one that was breaking apart?

I would hope they wouldn't have...


As for the G11 — there was another factor in the equation: the ACR programme. The Bundestag was gambling on that the 4.73x33mm cartridge would become a NATO standard. Had the "HK ACR" candidate won the evaluation — as all indications were showing would indeed be the case — the US would with great likelihood have adopted it as its new standard rifle, which would have cemented the place for the whole 4.73mm "ecosystem".
The Bundeswehr adopting it would then have been assured, budget cuts or no.

However, when it was becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet Union's iron grip of the Communist Bloc was rapidly becoming unglued, and they weren't going to do anything about it — as demonstrated by incidents like the Baltic Way manifestation and DDR's secession — the ACR programme started to be questioned, especially as it was becoming clearer that the contract would go to a foreign supplier. Colt in particular had a huge vested interest in ensuring that the programme is canned. The argument presented basically being "why invest all this money in a project that will only cost American jobs now, when it's clear the whole thing is becoming redundant ... after all, none of the candidates represent any huge quantum leaps from what we've already got?" "What we've already got" of course being Colt's own products.
And a strong lobby drive later, the ACR programme of course got cancelled just before the finish line, with the result that the Bundestag became that much less keen on the G11.

One reason why I think the game's alternate timeline should start before August 1991. Taking into account the smaller changes before that date can make the world just a bit more interesting...

If the G11 development had been a few years quicker (it started in the late 60's so it's not implausible), it could have been fielded by the Bundeswehr. E.g. field trials and acceptance completed about 1986.

Making it a winner in the trials in the 70's and having NATO standardise on 4,7x33 caseless instead of 5,56x45 in 1980 would take some more imagination. But not totally impossible.

That's all fair game. But I personally would not bend the whole background around having the G11 featured in the core rules. I mean, I love 'Kraut Space Magic' as much as every other grognard, but that might be too much.