Bucha, Ukraine - 27 Feb 2022 - 15mm
Panzer Leader in the world of Twilight 2000
Join community members Damon and Oriskany Jim as they try an experimental game of Panzer Leader set in the grim “future” of Twilight 2000. In the setting of this RPG, a fictional World War III in the late 1990s has crippled global civilization to the point of slow, unraveling collapse. Soldiers in the various armies all around the world just … stop getting orders from command structures and governments that no longer exist.
Can we use tabletop wargames to play larger-scale battles in this setting? Perhaps we can imagine clashes between post-apocalypse warlords, the last futile military campaigns before the final collapse, or maybe the first struggles of some restored local government and militia?
Sunday, 2PM ET / 7PM UK
Using material from the old sourcebooks and campaign supplements, I tried to plot out some approximate positions for the "standard" first campaign in Twilight 2000 - where characters start off with the 5th US Infantry Division (Mechanized) in central Poland. They have just failed to mount an eastward push on Lodz, and are now cut off and counterattacked by Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces. As divisional headquarters is overrun, the radio message comes down from the commanding general. "Good luck. You're on your own." Civilization has collapsed and your division is gone. What do you do? 
Here is the map for today's game. We'll be imagining some of the very last battles of 5th US Infantry (remnants) before its final disintegration, south-southeast of Kalisz (the usual beginning point of many Twilight 2000 campaigns) - July, 2000. 
The US and NATO sourcebooks (at least in the original 1980s editions of the RPG) give great data on what units and equipment was on hand when the final collapse came. Of course these units are long gone by the time a Twilight 2000 campaign typically starts. But the game lists 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group as being attached to 5th US Mechanized (XI Corps, subordinated to Third West German Army). Of course, we're looking at older versions of the M1A1 (shorter L44 gun), and the strange "M1A2" the original game writers imagined might be in service in the "distant future" of the year 2000.
5th US Infantry's final death blow is actually delivered largely by Warsaw Pact Polish units, coordinating with Soviets. Most of the equipment and units here is pretty familiar. Just note the odd "T-90" tank (in the 1980s they had some strange ideas on where tank design would go). Also note the conscripts, the shattered absence of any kind of standard OOB, the use of civilian vehicles for transport, and yes ... even cavalry scouts. Twilight 2000 is basically "Team Yankee" crossed with "Mad Max," the world has been nuked six ways from Sunday and the armies of the world (what's left of them) must now make their own way in the ruins of a new Dark Age.
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