Adventure: Hitler Must Die!

[Space Cadet]

What if a group of strange Aliens approached a Mercenary Company. They have this giant star ship of unrecognizable configuration, and they hire a PC Mercenary company to do a hit job on a political leader, they unroll out a poster of Adolf Hitler, and they say, "We want you to kill this man. We will provide transportation of your Mercenary Cruiser to the edge of the system, and you have one week to accomplish this task, at the end of which you will be picked up at the same location and paid a sum of 800 million credits and your ship will be returned to this location."

If the PCs accept the giant alien ship transports their Mercenary Cruiser along with as many mercenaries as the PCs will take along to the edge of the 100 diameter limit out beyond the far side of the Moon at midnight January 1, 1944, and they have to accomplish this task and return to the same position on midnight January 8, 1944.

So can a group of PCs from the traveller setting witha group of hired mercenaries accomplish this mission, and how many experience points should they get for killing Hitler?

What would your reaction be if you were playing one of those PCs?

 

[Supplement Four]

Just FYI,

There's two old adventures in White Dwarf that were kinda like this. One was set in Nazi Germany. The other took the players back in time to London in the 1800's, involving werewolves and Jack the Ripper, IIRC.

I'll have to dig those out and revisit the details, because they're hazy.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Most Characters in Traveller wouldn't recognize the significance of Hitler, or if from the 1100's even be likely to recognize Terra in the 1940's.

It may or may not be a difficult task, but one that could easily alter the shape of the Third Imperium. I mean you locate Mr. Hitler, who didn't move around nearly as much as modern despots do. The most difficult part of the mission would be to locate and identify the target. Your Electronic Intelligence capability should make location of the target fairly simple, but it might not. (If he makes a speech during the time allotted, then you don't even have to land troops, if you are willing to accept some collateral damage. You can drop a Thor Shot or a missile on him. Or you can drop a pair of assault boats on his position, send in combat armor troops with Gauss Rifles and PGMP-12s and it is over before anyone knew what happened. From the time the target is located until the mission is complete should take less than a couple of hours and that includes traveling to and from orbit.

Unless the Referee throws in quite a few twists to slow things down, there is little a TL6 military can do to slow down a TL12 Mercenary Unit that has surprise on its side and orbital fire support.

The more important question is what does this do to the Traveller Timeline. In January 1944, the Soviet Army is slowly taking ground but the US and the British aren't in France yet. A competent leader could keep the US bottled up in Italy, deny the Normandy landings and then put a stop to the Soviet advance. If the landings at Normandy are stopped it would take at least two more years for the US and British to rebuild sufficient force to make another landing in France.

I don't think the Soviet Red Army could actually advance the way they did without the US and British opening up the second front. If the Germans are not hamstrung by Hitler, you get full implementation of the MP43 program. You get more Panther Tanks (and improvements to those instead of time wasted on things like the Maus, you get a useful supply of Jet fighters (Instead of the insistence that the fighters be damned, build Jet Bombers!). The Allies are not able to overrun the Rocket launching facilities on the North Sea. And the German Airforce would be conducting air raids against Allied Airfields and not as concerned about bombing London. Enough delay and the Germans might have come up with the Atomic Bomb first.

Then what happens to the 3rd Imperium? Are we now playing in a "Mirror, Mirror" Universe?

 

[Plankowner]

Might explain the "Terran Commonwealth" though. Imagine that the Commonwealth was really a Nazi-style dictatorship with only the trappings of a democratic government. Terrans are the aggressor against the Vilani, this might explain WHY. Also after the fall of the ROM, things could pretty much proceed as normal, the fall of the ROM also destroys the Nazi party on Earth and old rivalries come out and keep Earth from rebuilding into a major power during the Long Night...

 

[Supplement Four]

Space Cadet,

Are you familiar with the Argonaut adventure for CT? This is a fan made CT adventure that has characters from earth end up adventuring centuries later in the "future", with the future being the OTU. There's a link to download the adventure in the Adventure Index thread in the CT forum.

I always thought it would be a neat idea to start a campaign with--especially if the players were new to Traveller. That way, the GM can use the game to introduce certain aspects of the TU, and it is not expected that the characters already know anything about the universe they're in.

S4

 

[Supplement Four]

I found the Germany adventure in White Dwarf. It's called Green Horizon, written by Marcus Rowland. The premise is the starship GREEN HORIZON experiences a jump drive malfunction. Yep, you guessed it. They re-enter normal space, but close to earth in the 1940's.

The other White Dwarf adventure I mentioned above is called An Alien Wereworlf in London. I thought this one had a neat plot. On terra, the Solomani are experimenting with found Ancient technology. This has a very "Area 51" feel to it, except with a Traveller slant to it. Turns out, the Ancient device is a teleporter, but unlike the one detailed in Adventure 12: Secret of the Ancients, this one transports through time too.

As the adventure progresses, a Vargr uses the device, ending up in London at the time of Jack The Ripper's killings.

Pretty interesting plot for a Traveller adventure.

S4

 

[Spinward Scout]

Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...

 

[mbrinkhues]

The difficulty depends on the access to history material. If they have the stuff it should be quite easy to pinpoint the Austrian Painter leaving the problem how to kill him.Around that time he is quite likely in the Wolfsschanze and that complex is difficult to break in, even for TL12 mercenaries. 75L70 will punch through quite a few Grav vehicles just fine as will HEAT-based AT weapons.

Nuking the thing from orbit will require a VERY large warhead since we are talking massiv bunkers here that can withstand airbursts from tactical warheads quite easily. KE harpoons will likely fail just as well.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
The difficulty depends on the access to history material. If they have the stuff it should be quite easy to pinpoint the Austrian Painter leaving the problem how to kill him.Around that time he is quite likely in the Wolfsschanze and that complex is difficult to break in, even for TL12 mercenaries. 75L70 will punch through quite a few Grav vehicles just fine as will HEAT-based AT weapons.

Nuking the thing from orbit will require a VERY large warhead since we are talking massiv bunkers here that can withstand airbursts from tactical warheads quite easily. KE harpoons will likely fail just as well.

One minor issue with Nuke resistance in the bunkers. They still have to breathe. You burn up all the atmosphere (TL6 life support in those bunkers is nil.) and everyone inside dies anyway. However, I am less in favor of a Nuke than orbital TOT suppressive fire combined with a meteoric assault in assault boats. There is no way a TL6 military, can even slow that down much. And you can be sure you actually got the target. You aren't crossing large amounts of territory to get to the target, you are dropping straight down on top of it with surprise and superior firepower. Shaped charge demolition charges, sleepy gas, flash bangs, gauss pistols/Rifles/light machine guns and combat armor
on an unprepared enemy that doesn't even have body armor, it is a joke. Hell just fill the place with VX gas and it is over before anyone can even call that Panzer Division down the road.

I have seen the bunkers under Berchtesgaden and there is probably a 50% chance that is where he is during this week. Are the rest of the bunker systems very different?

Speaking of the complex under Berchtesgaden, while impressive looking, modern infantry would roll it up rather quickly. It would be messy but not that difficult. It lacked sufficient grenade sumps, had no air filtration system worth talking about and would be a death trap if someone dropped an FAE or two above it, or hit the tunnel system with VX gas. (It isn't deep enough to keep out the current generation of conventional bunker buster bombs either.)

It wasn't even designed with doors that would handle the overpressure of a near miss by a nuke.

But in this scenario, we are going beyond TL8 infantry. TL12 Combat armor, in most versions of Traveller, offers almost as much protection as a Panther tank. (And you can't maneuver Panther tanks in those tunnels.) If you drop right on the entrances you aren't giving the troops in the area a chance to react. When they do react they come under the guns of the orbiting Mercenary Cruiser, which has no worries about defending itself, surviving those you have to then deal with the weapons on the assault boats, before you can even get to the point where you can move to reinforce the troops that are in the bunkers and under fire.

By WWII standards it was impressive. By TL8 standards, it isn't much more capable than the Maginot Line was in 1939. By TL12 standards it is nothing more than a death trap to the occupants.

 

[Space Cadet]

I am assuming the mercenaries don't have access to nuclear weapons. The main limiting factor for them is what they can fit into their star ship.

They may have an inkling that they have been delivered to Earth's past. If they do a stellar survey of nearby stars, they could probably pin poin the year. Terra is in old space after all so it should be on their charts. Their historical records are likely to be sketchy as they are Mercenaries not historians, they won't be able to pin point Hitler by their historical records alone, but chances are at least few hired soldiers may have taken a few history classes in high school, he would have studied World War II like we would have studied the Greeks and the Romans in ancient history. Just as we might know about Alexander the Great, someone here might be familiar with Adolf Hitler and make the connection with Germany, he probably would have known the dates of the War (1939 to 1945) and the fact that Germany lost, but he may begine to wonder why the aliens are so interested in taking out Hitler at the beginning of 1944.

One possibility is eliminating Hitler in 1944 might save the Third Reich, not the one Hitler planned to build, but perhaps the new leader of Germany would be more conservative and risk adverse, more inclined to keep what the Third Reich as got rather than roll the dice for further expansion as Hitler has done. I believe Herman Goering was next in line and would be the new leader of the Third Reich. If Germany can stabilize its borders and perhaps arrange an armistice with one of the allies, it might be able to keep what it has in Europe, this means that in the post War era we have a third superpower along with the Soviet Union and the United States.

 

[mbrinkhues]

BTL: The two set's are different beasts. The Wolfsschanze bunkers are newer and they do have stuff like NBC protection (Filter/Overpressure) IIRC. After all the original three (Tabun/Sarin/Soman) where developed in Germany so they knew a tad more about the stuff than one might expect

I won't under-value late TL-6 security either. This is not Feldwebel Schulz with his Mauser 98K, this is Oberfeld Steiner with his MPi43/StuG44. And a Panzerfaust will punch a nice clean hole through battledress and user. Given the Germans experience with commando raids and Hitlers paranoia I assume they are on high alert. And they will fight from entrenched positions and MG cupolas, not like the braindead hordes in Shaving Privat Ryan.

Btw: The Berghof is more likely his weekend domizil than his normal residence.

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[Space Cadet]

I think two modular cutters landing in Berlin among a hail of antiaircraft fire is likely to cause a stir, and then when the Mercs come out in their battledress, the initial assumption will be that an alien invasion is taking place. the headlines may read, "Invaders from Mars Attack Berghof, and set fires in Berlin!" Word of the invasion will probably leak to the offices of the OSS, and the British Secret Service. In later editions of the newspapers, they's say, "Only two aline spaceships spotted. Witnesses describe them as roughly cylindrical."

 

[BetterThanLife]

Well first, any position that opens fire catches either a kinetic strike or a Laser. The kind of flack supression that a single Broadsword or even Javelin is capable of dealing, against TL6 AAA is extremely effective. TL6 AAA is unlikely to be able to get a clean shot at a pair of assault boats on meteoric approach anyway. Panzerfausts don't work within bunker systems. (Backblast is a bitch.) In most versions of Traveller TL12 combat armor is very effective at stopping SMG fire. (While the MP43 is technically the world's first assault rifle, I doubt it would qualify as one under the Traveller rule system.) Also remember that without good Night Vision Equipment, you are using the blind fire modifiers. (Because you certainly aren't going to have any light.) There is little chance of bringing enough together fast enough to stop the Mercs from breaching the entrances of the complex. (And with orbital firesupport and assault boat covering fire anything opposing the Mercs before they breach the Bunkers is likely to get splattered. If the sensors on the Mercenary Cruiser can identify the entrances, (Shouldn't be very difficult given the sensors on typical Merc Cruisers.) they can seal the entrances the Mercs aren't using. (Again Kinetic Strikes are ideal for this.)

Given better sensors, cameoline, combat armor, gauss rifles, PGMP-12s, RAM grenades and the ability to see in the dark, killing the power in the Bunker complex would be an obvious first choice. Conducting the strike at night, and remember that the area is under blackout conditions, the TL-6 defenders don't even have a chance of doing much before the Mercs make their entrance breaches. Disrupting power in the bunker complex puts the defenders at an extreme disadvantage (And you can strike the power supply because a TL 6 generator needs both fresh air and an exhaust, which is easily identifiable, with TL8 tech, from orbit.)

As for nukes, do you have any idea what happens when you take an I-Beam, stick a 6G rocket engine on it and put it into the gravity well from 28,000 meters? You don't even need a warhead.

TL6 NBC protection won't save people from VX. (Or anything higher tech.)

The Mercs don't need to use Nukes. (The Kinetic strikes should be enough, but they could always improvise an FAE, even using on board fuel from the Cruiser.) And if you really want to use a large nuke remember a typical Mercenary Cruiser has at least three aboard. (Though they won't use the big one.) You don't think you can remove the safety aspects of a Fusion plant for an instant Hydrogen Bomb?)

As for seeing the Cylindrical Assault boats, with adaptive camouflage, you won't see much. (Cameoline) and TL6 radar won't see them either. You are dealing strictly with only one sensor. Mark 1 Eyeball and probasbly at night. At those speeds you won't see them until they touch down. (In a cleared LZ.)

 

[mbrinkhues]

And there we are back at the "What does a Merc Unit own" problem. Mainly wether or not they have Battledress/Combat armor. My stance on this has always been: Only Huscarls / semi-Huscarl units have them, the rest uses Combat Environment Suit at best.

As for the Stug44 it uses 7.92x33 similar in power to the 7.62Block used in the AK47 (that in turn borrows heavily from the Stug) and compares quite nicely with 5.56N in muzzle energy. So if the Mattel Toy is an assault rifle, the Stug sure is.

The 7.92x57 with the standard AP ammo comming in from the MG42s will have a nice effect also.

As for Kinetic strikes: Have fun with those. Depending on the exact bunker layout they may be as tough as the U-Boat Bunkers (I'd have to dig deeper into the exact bunker layout for that) and those took quite a beating.

Judging from the Maginot bunkers (That are far more impressiv than you think) finding the diesel exhausts/intakes won't be that easy either. For sound-dampening purposes (Sound-tracking was common pre WWII) the exhausts are actually hidden from overhead view and all.

And finally a 37mm AA gun manually filling the air with lead might be a rude suprise for Mr. Assault Cutter. And the Mercs better look out for the airforce if they want to come back otherwise their cutters might die on the ground