[WWII/TS/Covert Ops/Weird War II] Götterdämmerung on Walpurgisnacht - Page 9

johndallman · 05-03-2015, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Or build duplicates of the DFS 230.

That would have required quite a bit of advance planning. I'm doubtful that any in good condition would have been captured: the Germans hadn't done a glider operation for quite a while and their airborne troops had been being used as elite infantry.

Polydamas · 05-03-2015, 01:09 PM

Berlin had an awful lot of Flakkannonen firing at anything which moved, and Anglo and Soviet fighters flying over it looking for anything with swatzikas on the wings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander

[A] Weisthor; Das Licht der Schwarzen Sonne (the Light of the Black Sun), der Geheimnis König (the Secret King): Karl Maria Wiligut.

Das Geheimnis is a noun, so I think you want der geheime König. Of course, what 70 years and occult craziness can do to German spelling I can't say.

fredtheobviouspseudonym · 05-03-2015, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adm

Thank you, Randyman.

Fred;
I will note that there was more in the Pacific Theater of Operations than the South West part of the Pacific MacArthur controlled. The Central Pacific was Admiral Nimitz's responsibility, and China, Burma, and India was Lord Mountbatten's area.

Quite correct. Hit "send" in haste, repent at leisure.

IIRC Mountbatten's area had a branch of the SOE for special ops (and there was an Australian unit, I forget the name, doing special ops in Timor/Malaya/Indonesia.

I think Nimitz & his people used variants of the UDTs and Marine elements for same.

fredtheobviouspseudonym · 05-03-2015, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander

What would be the most effective infantry rifle for close-combat and bayonet-fighting?

My personal ideal (not that I have any real experience thereof) would be a Mk III* SMLE with a short (c. 10") Indian pattern bayonet.

Why?

10 shot magazine and fast bolt action.

Adequate battlefield accuracy. [Not in the Springfield class but fine for government work.]

The bayonet fixes on a special cap that distributes the shock over the front of the stock, rather than concentrate it on the rifle barrel. More durable.

10 shot magazine moves the center of gravity of the weapon closer to the back end. Would make faster movement of the business end possible.

Or, an M1 Garand with a cut down bayonet. The longer one is more intimidating but the shorter one is quicker -- hence the progression of bayonet length from 1917 (16" long blade) to 1942 (10") to 1965 (6").

[Okay -- too late. Note however that between Dunkirk, various victories in Africa, and the Operation Nordpol fiasco the Germans were in possession of tens of thousands of SMLEs.]

Quote:

What would be a typical small truck, carrying munitions or reinforcements to a spot in the city?

What would be the vehicle of choice for ferrying a bunch of jack-booted thugs of the SS?

Krupp Boxer was a standard light truck; probably with a trailer for additional load. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp_Protze ; note in GURPS Iron Cross stats available for this & for Blitz truck following.

Opel Blitz for large hauling (say for a full boat of jackbooted thugs).

And as a thought -- work in an event at the reconstructed Ishtar Gate in Berlin. Suitable for a gate to more than the next city from Babylon . . . (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate ; apparently some of the bas-reliefs from the real gate, including dragons & other fantastic beasts, were worked in . . . )

Icelander · 05-03-2015, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johndallman

Not plausibly, no. The Tiergarten is a possible drop zone if you're using Ju52s and German paratrooper 'chutes and the dropped force can seem plausibly German to people they meet on the ground.

Ah. That might be a possibility. It's also super-cool.

But wouldn't the Soviets nearly certainly massacre any such force before any of them landed on the ground?

They are within 300-500 yards of the target, after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johndallman

If not, you're going to have to go outside the city, which may make it easier to avoid being shot down by the Soviets. You don't want to tell the Soviets that you're putting troops in, in case Stalin gets a paranoia attack that you're trying to get Hitler out.

Of course we don't tell the Soviets! They are after the Amber Room for themselves and have sent evil SMERSH operatives for that purpose, complete with unlimited supplies of haughty sneers at English spies.

Icelander · 05-03-2015, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Why not ? Use gliders. The tiergarten has open spaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...litary_gliders

http://www.berlin.de/geschichte/hist...+Berlin&page=2

http://www.berlin.de/geschichte/hist...+Berlin&page=1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Or build duplicates of the DFS 230.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DFS_230

Quote:

Originally Posted by johndallman

That would have required quite a bit of advance planning. I'm doubtful that any in good condition would have been captured: the Germans hadn't done a glider operation for quite a while and their airborne troops had been being used as elite infantry.

A glider landing in the Tiergarten is such a cool concept that I want to use it if I possibly can.

Could a captured airfield somewhere have gifted the Allies with a DFS 230 that hasn't been used in combat? Perhaps a prototype or a forgotten training vehicle got left behind?

johndallman · 05-03-2015, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander

Could a captured airfield somewhere have gifted the Allies with a DFS 230 that hasn't been used in combat? Perhaps a prototype or a forgotten training vehicle got left behind?

Aha... Wikipedia claims that although production ended in 1941, they carried on being used until the end of the war, being used for supply drops into Berlin as late as May 1945.

It only carries 10 men including the pilot, but if you get your pilots from the British Glider Pilot Regiment, they're experienced infantry NCOs who have been taught gliding.

The construction is mixed wood and metal, so there's some risk if the aircraft hasn't been properly maintained. It looks like the DFS Institute itself in Darmstadt had been taken by 15th April. That's a good place to get ones that have been used, but maintained.

Icelander · 05-03-2015, 04:55 PM

Obviously, the PCs are only in their current position because of visits from Mr. Murphy. That is to say, before the start of play, there had been persistent failures to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the Nazi traitor Hermann Fegelein, with several rendervouzes failing to work.

In addition, while scouting the target area on the 24th of April, one of the SOE agents on the advance team (disguised as a Waffen-SS man, having attached himself to the Volkssturm defenders in the area) suddenly abandoned cover in the Tiergarten and walked slowly in the direction of the Reichkanzlei. He proved unable to explain himself and was captured by SS security troops, but was able to commit suicide by hand grenade before being further questioned. This led to the SOE advance team adopting more stringest security measures and moving the insertion of the Gurkha witch-finder Kharuk Bahadur Rai forward, as they suspected that the lost agent had been influenced by some sort of occult energies.

Plan A of a massive bombardment of the Weltmittelpunktbunker had, according to Fegelein, not been successful. The bunker was too well protected from bomb blasts for that method to be reliable.

Plan B was to insert the assault unit by glider or parachute in a safe landing zone established by a team of SAS men either outside the city or in a suburb where there was light fighting, and then use the authority of Fegelein and disguised SOE agents provided with papers by him to get them to the attack area without fighting through German defences by pretending to be an elite Waffen-SS unit with secret orders from the Fuhrer (and/or Himmler).

The complete encirclement of Berlin by the Soviet forces after the 24th of April made landing outside the city impossible. That, as well as Fegelein being declared a deserter, perhaps even traitor, and him being wanted by the RSD combine to make this plan both impractical from a logistical point of view and too risky from an operational point of view. Aside from the problems of any potential landing zone being overrun by Soviets or being the scene of pitched fighting, the odds are that any German troops within practical message distance from the Fuhrerbunker might have been instructed to arrest Fegelein on sight.

It is therefore time for Plan C, or Operation Brünnhilde, which calls for the PCs, and the four SAS men who've been receiving resupply drops, to covertly infiltrate the Tiergarten and establish an emergency landing zone right there. Four DFS 230 gliders will then land there in darkness and the surviving men of the assault element will move quickly into positon to storm Himmler's bunker. They'll then doff their German uniform disguises before attacking in their own American uniforms*, so as to not violate any laws of war.**

No one really expects them to succeed***, but if they do, they will ideally rendervouz with a convoy disguised as Swedish soldiers removing diplomats from Berlin, which will extract any survivors as well as the Amber Room, before the Russians arrive.

*They'll be wearing Airborne kit, but belong to an OSS Operational Group.
**The PCs are much more relaxed about that sort of thing, however, as many experienced SOE agents tended to be.
***But those who believe in the signs and portents which lead to them considering this mission at all, i.e. that Himmler and his inner circle will somehow manage to use the Amber Room as a weapon of occult mass destruction once all hope is gone for the Third Reich, perhaps even ending all life on Earth, are unwilling to allow such an ending without at least attempting something. Hence, the last ditch attempt to let the fat lady sing. Unknown to the PCs, the very few people in the world privy to certain knowledge are, perhaps, praying that there will be time to counter any Nazi superweapon by letting a Fat Man sing instead.

Þorkell · 05-03-2015, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Icelander

I am not very familiar with classic German car brands.

Classic German car brands. How about Auto Union? It's a union of four automakers that at the time sell and make cars under their own names (DKW, Audi, Horch, Wanderer). Incidentally now you know why the Audi badge has four rings.

Wikipedia has a long list of defunct motorcar manufacturers in Germany.

Icelander · 05-04-2015, 03:57 AM

The apartment that the PCs used to rendervouz with Hermann Fegelein was on Bleibtreustraße 10, which is near the Kurfürstendamm (just north of it) and about a kilometer west of the Berlin Zoo.

The safehouse that they reached at the end of the session was established as being fairly close to that, but intentionally left geographically ambigious, as I had not found a good map for the bombed out ruins of central Berlin at the end of April 1945. In any event, it is a shell of a house with a solid cellar and the PCs' vehicle could be driven into partial shelter there.*

I'm considering locating it in the north-south area between what are now the Shöneberger Ufer and the Kleiststraße/Bülowstraße. That would be in one of the side streets around Kurfürstenstraße. Does this sound like an inherently implausible place to find a nice bombed-out house in April 1945?

I'm primarly concerned that I want a single-family house with a garden, not an apartment building and not government buildings, storefronts, hotels or restaurants. I'm looking for something in the style of the villas that used to adjoin the Tiergarten, on the Tiergartenstraße, albeit slightly more modest and located in an area which can be reached from the Kurfürstendamm by vehicle** without crossing a bridge (more or less all destroyed at time).

The exit from the escape tunnel running from the fictional Weltmittelpunktbunker I've decided to locate in the closed Potsdamer Bahnhof. Does that sound right for something built in the latter part of 1944?

*The vehicle is 'disguised' as a ruined truck, with considerable ingenuity on the part of the PCs' mechanic having gone into making it look defunct and shot-to-pieces, but actually working quite well.
**Albeit necessiating fancy driving just to avoid significant damage or getting the car stuck in a bomb crater as well as several alternate routes to get around rubble.

05-03-2015, 04:55 PM	#88
Icelander Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Iceland*	Operation Brünnhilde Obviously, the PCs are only in their current position because of visits from Mr. Murphy. That is to say, before the start of play, there had been persistent failures to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the Nazi traitor Hermann Fegelein, with several rendervouzes failing to work. In addition, while scouting the target area on the 24th of April, one of the SOE agents on the advance team (disguised as a Waffen-SS man, having attached himself to the Volkssturm defenders in the area) suddenly abandoned cover in the Tiergarten and walked slowly in the direction of the Reichkanzlei. He proved unable to explain himself and was captured by SS security troops, but was able to commit suicide by hand grenade before being further questioned. This led to the SOE advance team adopting more stringest security measures and moving the insertion of the Gurkha witch-finder Kharuk Bahadur Rai forward, as they suspected that the lost agent had been influenced by some sort of occult energies. Plan A of a massive bombardment of the Weltmittelpunktbunker had, according to Fegelein, not been successful. The bunker was too well protected from bomb blasts for that method to be reliable. Plan B was to insert the assault unit by glider or parachute in a safe landing zone established by a team of SAS men either outside the city or in a suburb where there was light fighting, and then use the authority of Fegelein and disguised SOE agents provided with papers by him to get them to the attack area without fighting through German defences by pretending to be an elite Waffen-SS unit with secret orders from the Fuhrer (and/or Himmler). The complete encirclement of Berlin by the Soviet forces after the 24th of April made landing outside the city impossible. That, as well as Fegelein being declared a deserter, perhaps even traitor, and him being wanted by the RSD combine to make this plan both impractical from a logistical point of view and too risky from an operational point of view. Aside from the problems of any potential landing zone being overrun by Soviets or being the scene of pitched fighting, the odds are that any German troops within practical message distance from the Fuhrerbunker might have been instructed to arrest Fegelein on sight. It is therefore time for Plan C, or Operation Brünnhilde, which calls for the PCs, and the four SAS men who've been receiving resupply drops, to covertly infiltrate the Tiergarten and establish an emergency landing zone right there. Four DFS 230 gliders will then land there in darkness and the surviving men of the assault element will move quickly into positon to storm Himmler's bunker. They'll then doff their German uniform disguises before attacking in their own American uniforms, so as to not violate any laws of war.* No one really expects them to succeed**, but if they do, they will ideally rendervouz with a convoy disguised as Swedish soldiers removing diplomats from Berlin, which will extract any survivors as well as the Amber Room, before the Russians arrive. They'll be wearing Airborne kit, but belong to an OSS Operational Group. The PCs are much more relaxed about that sort of thing, however, as many experienced SOE agents tended to be. But those who believe in the signs and portents which lead to them considering this mission at all, i.e. that Himmler and his inner circle will somehow manage to use the Amber Room as a weapon of occult mass destruction once all hope is gone for the Third Reich, perhaps even ending all life on Earth, are unwilling to allow such an ending without at least attempting something. Hence, the last ditch attempt to let the fat lady sing. Unknown to the PCs, the very few people in the world privy to certain knowledge are, perhaps, praying that there will be time to counter any Nazi superweapon by letting a Fat Man sing instead. __________________ Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! Last edited by Icelander; 05-04-2015 at 04:55 AM.*

05-04-2015, 03:57 AM	#90
Icelander Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Iceland*	Locations The apartment that the PCs used to rendervouz with Hermann Fegelein was on Bleibtreustraße 10, which is near the Kurfürstendamm (just north of it) and about a kilometer west of the Berlin Zoo. The safehouse that they reached at the end of the session was established as being fairly close to that, but intentionally left geographically ambigious, as I had not found a good map for the bombed out ruins of central Berlin at the end of April 1945. In any event, it is a shell of a house with a solid cellar and the PCs' vehicle could be driven into partial shelter there.* I'm considering locating it in the north-south area between what are now the Shöneberger Ufer and the Kleiststraße/Bülowstraße. That would be in one of the side streets around Kurfürstenstraße. Does this sound like an inherently implausible place to find a nice bombed-out house in April 1945? I'm primarly concerned that I want a single-family house with a garden, not an apartment building and not government buildings, storefronts, hotels or restaurants. I'm looking for something in the style of the villas that used to adjoin the Tiergarten, on the Tiergartenstraße, albeit slightly more modest and located in an area which can be reached from the Kurfürstendamm by vehicle** without crossing a bridge (more or less all destroyed at time). The exit from the escape tunnel running from the fictional Weltmittelpunktbunker I've decided to locate in the closed Potsdamer Bahnhof. Does that sound right for something built in the latter part of 1944? The vehicle is 'disguised' as a ruined truck, with considerable ingenuity on the part of the PCs' mechanic having gone into making it look defunct and shot-to-pieces, but actually working quite well. *Albeit necessiating fancy driving just to avoid significant damage or getting the car stuck in a bomb crater as well as several alternate routes to get around rubble. __________________ Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!