Thoughts on Twilight 2000

[Timerover51]

You could. You also could be less 'prickly' when people speculate and arrive at different conclusions than your own. We have already established that Twilight is a rough estimate, not a close model, of the real world as it was.

As for being "prickly", that is my personality. I also have some health issues, so decided that my energy and time could best be used elsewhere.

For what it is worth, the current situation in Venezuela could be used to explain why some long-standing Third World refineries are out of operation or only producing a trickle. Humans cannot eat or drink oil.

Plus, both USSR and NATO would react badly if/when they found out about a third party selling lots of oil to the other combatant. They might lob a 'don't do that again' warning warhead on an offender who cannot do anything to retaliate. As noted above, the rulebooks are silent on conditions in much of the world, so you can decide what sounds reasonable to you and work from there.

After talking with Marc, I pretty much dropped the whole idea.

 

[vegascat]

I remember running a game with airmen on an airbase in Germany in the 80s and early 90s. I run the game using 1st edition rules playing the basic scenario of cut off behind the Soviet spring offensive.
The main problem I encountered was Rambo syndrome. Characters could get hit multiple times and not be killed, or seriously wounded.
The one thing they did was fire LAW rockets into several fuel tankers from a deep ditch about 10 feet away. They didn’t realize that the burning fuel from the ruptured tankers would flood the ditch they were taking cover in. The ditches in Germany were 2 to 3 meters deep everywhere. The next week we started a new game, WEG Star Wars RPG.

 

[Timerover51]

I remember running a game with airmen on an airbase in Germany in the 80s and early 90s. I run the game using 1st edition rules playing the basic scenario of cut off behind the Soviet spring offensive.
The main problem I encountered was Rambo syndrome. Characters could get hit multiple times and not be killed, or seriously wounded.

That is one reason why I use the combat system in Don Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming. Rambos die very quickly in that. It focuses the players on not getting hit to begin with.

The one thing they did was fire LAW rockets into several fuel tankers from a deep ditch about 10 feet away. They didn’t realize that the burning fuel from the ruptured tankers would flood the ditch they were taking cover in. The ditches in Germany were 2 to 3 meters deep everywhere. The next week we started a new game, WEG Star Wars RPG.

I am not sure if LAW rockets would arm at that short a distance. I would have to check on that. They probably would punch through the tank steel on the tankers, and be hot enough to ignite any fuel carried. If they did go off, you have the fragments of the rocket to deal with, some of which are going right back in the direction from which they were fired. Then, the burning fuel, which might come out more in a stream that goes right into the ditch. I hope that you thoroughly roasted the idiots doing this.

EDIT NOTE: I checked, and the arming range for the LAW is 9 meters or about 10 yards. The hot rocket would likely end up inside the tank, which a stream of burning fuel jetting out into the ditch. No explosion, but toasted firers.

 

[vegascat]

Diego Garcia

I spent a summer of 2002 in Diego Garcia, feeding hundreds of tons of bombs to the build pads every day, end users were Mujahedeen on the ground in Afghanistan. I would be very surprised if the Soviets of the 1990s would not expend a glow in the dark warhead on that US Naval base.
The base on Diego Garcia was a major reason the Japanese Navy did not go past the midpoint of the Indian Ocean. A little known story of WWII is the attempted landing by the Jap Navy on that island. A few highly motivated naval gun crews using the shore guns turned the invasion ships away with bloody noses. It seems that the IJN intel was incorrect about island defenses.
This is a very important base for the US in that area in the world.

 

[vegascat]

Law rockets hitting fuel tankers from a range of 10 foot would not detonate as they would not be armed yet, but the warhead could still put a hole in the tanker and the burning exhaust of the rocket would ignite the fuel exiting the hole widening the hole quickly causing in a very short time a flashover in the tank as fuel and oxygen mixed with a flame in contact with the mix.