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

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by scc

What's so special about that day?

Because Icelander said:

Originally Posted by Icelander

For years, I've wanted to run a one-shot scenario or a short campaign between the 20th and 30th of April,

This could mean that day is the only day it can be activated, or its power peaks, or it reveals its identity.

Or maybe easier if they want out.

You mean easier to escape, if the Descendant wants out? Maybe, but why would you make things easy for the PCs?

The target may want to escape, but could be very obvious- the team would have to explain why they have a pregnant woman, a suckling baby, or an octogenarian with them. Perhaps he's even manifesting stigmata.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Would these sorts of problems have been foreseeable beforehand though? Were the Allies expecting a lot of trouble from the Soviets?

Churchill certainly was.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

This could mean that day is the only day it can be activated, or its power peaks, or it reveals its identity.

I'll aim to run the game tomorrow and set most of the action on Walpurgisnacht, as well.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

You mean easier to escape, if the Descendant wants out? Maybe, but why would you make things easy for the PCs?

Well, in a one-shot game, some aspects of a longer story need to be dealt with via a short description. It's not as if we'll have enough time to play out a detailed insertion, days of tense intelligence work arranging to meet the Nazi traitor who'll lead them to the target, the action sequences of securing the McGuffin and an extraction requiring several more tense days.

[Icelander]

Given the wide variety of weapons that the Germans are equipping their last-ditch defence forces with, usually under an umbrella term such as Volkssturmgewehr or similar, there is considerable leeway for allowing the PCs each a choice of iconic weapons.

Germans were issuing captured Polish, Czech, French, Romanian, Russian, British and American weapons, and/or copies of the same, not to mention a constantly changing array of redesigns of their own for the purposes of economy and efficiency, so one might expect that pretty much any weapon would pass muster.

That being said, I know that the MP 3008/Volksmaschinenpistole was a copy of the Sten designed to use MP 40 magazines.

What I want to know is if the redesign for a vertical magazine is a necessary part of that modification or if a Sten MkIIs could be designed to take MP 40 with fairly minimal modifications?

Also, how difficult would it be to exchange the typical Sten wire stock for an MP 40 folding wire stock?

Most players will probably clamour for automatic firearms, with MP 40s and even StG44s being fairly easy to justify and being very useful for the sort of close combat they expect. I imagine there will be a light machine gun as well and at least one Gewehr 43. Nevertheless, I want to offer at least one traditional old-school infantryman PC, with a rifle in a battle rifle caliber and mounted bayonet that he is expert with.

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

Bonus points if it is likely to pass unremarked in the hands of a German soldier. I'm leaning toward a Tokarev SVT-40, as Germans re-issued thousands of captured ones, but I don't know how robust it was for use with a bayonet.

Captured Polish licence-made BARs in 7.92×57mm Mauser, i.e. Browning wz. 1928, were issued to German troops as lMG 28 (p).

Does anyone see a plausibility problem with an SOE agent impersonating a German soldier in Berlin carrying such a Browning rifle (or a copy of one)?

[Icelander]

I'm fieldings suggestions for names of those pre-generated PCs who do not have them.

I'll put down the working titles for each character, please comment if you have a better one.

I'm looking for names for:

[Alexander Reed-Thornton] One male British officer in his 40s; college-educated, decent-to-good family, long history of military service by ancestors, some connection to the German language, either through education or family.

[Herr Professor Siegfried Rosen] One male German professor in his 50s; of Jewish ancestry, but converted to Protestanism for professional reasons, emigrated to the USA in the early 1930s.

[Jan Wójcik] One male Polish commando age 28; aspiring electrical engineer at the beginning of war, comes from a part of Poland close to Germany.

[Elizabeth Victoria Felicity St. Clair] One female British aristocrat in her late 20s; close relative to one or more peers, college-educated, some background reason to speak good German.

[Jock Sweeney] One male Glaswegian in his late 20s or early 30s; background of teenage hooliganism, ran away to sea, served as mechanic/engineer on ships out of Hamburg.

[Kharak Bahadur Rai] One male Nepalese Gurkha in his 30s; from an old witch-finding family in Nepal, lover of music and song, uncannily quick at picking up speech patterns and mimicking any accent.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Most players will probably clamour for automatic firearms, with MP 40s and even StG44s being fairly easy to justify and being very useful for the sort of close combat they expect. I imagine there will be a light machine gun as well and at least one Gewehr 43. Nevertheless, I want to offer at least one traditional old-school infantryman PC, with a rifle in a battle rifle caliber and mounted bayonet that he is expert with.

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


Bonus points if it is likely to pass unremarked in the hands of a German soldier. I'm leaning toward a Tokarev SVT-40, as Germans re-issued thousands of captured ones, but I don't know how robust it was for use with a bayonet.

If the point of the SVT-40 is to have its semi-auto fire capability, as opposed to bolt action, then I don't see why the guy shouldn't just get a Gewehr 43.

If the point is having the ideal rifle for bayonet fighting, then I doubt the SVT-40 is the one. First, it was less rugged than the Mosin-Nagant, thus less able to withstand use as a hand weapon.
Second, for close combat in close quarters, you prefer something shorter, handier, like a carbine. If you think carbine, there are these two candidates:
A Czech Gewehr 33/40 (t) would be not conspicuous at all, and way shorter.
An Italian Moschetto Mod. 91 would be as short and also way lighter - but it lightens significantly the use as a long firearm, too, with its 6.5mm round. The Moschetto would also be in use with German troops and not an eyebrow-raiser.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Michele

If the point of the SVT-40 is to have its semi-auto fire capability, as opposed to bolt action, then I don't see why the guy shouldn't just get a Gewehr 43.

As I understand it, the Gewehr 43 didn't come with a bayonet mount. The SVT-40, as with pretty much all Soviet weapons, did.

Originally Posted by Michele

If the point is having the ideal rifle for bayonet fighting, then I doubt the SVT-40 is the one. First, it was less rugged than the Mosin-Nagant, thus less able to withstand use as a hand weapon.

This weapon is for someone used to the SMLE and very good at bayonet-fighting as well as rapid sighted shooting at ranges up to 300 meters or so.

I want a weapon that can be used to batter, slash and stab all sorts of terrible foes that happen to have a resistance to pi damage, as well as packing a round that does 6d+2 pi or more for those who can be shot. Being able to fire deliver a follow-up shot within the same second against someone who does not go down when shot once* would be a welcome bonus.

*I.e. someone who turns out to be already dead and thus pretty hard to kill.

Originally Posted by Michele

Second, for close combat in close quarters, you prefer something shorter, handier, like a carbine. If you think carbine, there are these two candidates:
A Czech Gewehr 33/40 (t) would be not conspicuous at all, and way shorter.
An Italian Moschetto Mod. 91 would be as short and also way lighter - but it lightens significantly the use as a long firearm, too, with its 6.5mm round. The Moschetto would also be in use with German troops and not an eyebrow-raiser.

Most of the strike team will have sub-machine guns or carbines. There will also be a light machine gun or two for firepower.

I expect at least one rifle used by a dedicated sharpshooter, but this will probably be a Gewehr 43 without a bayonet mount.

It just seems wrong not to have at least one traditional rifle with bayonet.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Icelander

As I understand it, the Gewehr 43 didn't come with a bayonet mount. The SVT-40, as with pretty much all Soviet weapons, did.

You're right. My recollection was wrong, I should have double checked.

[Icelander]

What should the British aristocratic college-girl have studied that turns out to have applications in occult covert operations?

And what abilities ought that translate into in game terms?

Similarly, what would be a good way to give Herr Professor Rosen some runic magic? Something from Thaumatology is no doubt a perfect fit, but what would be both simple and evocative?

I want the occult to have been low-key for most of the war, a strange sideshow to the fighting with men questing after artifacts in neutral countries, but around the bunker in Berlin when the game is set, magic is suddenly much more effective and overt.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Icelander

What should the British aristocratic college-girl have studied that turns out to have applications in occult covert operations?

Anthropology? Classics? Archaeology? Linguistics? Pure Mathematics? Anglo-Saxon Literature (provides her reason to speak German)?

Anything that gives her a grasp of ancient languages, non-euclidean geometries, ancient Tibetan funerary rites, etc...depending on how occultism functions in this game.