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Old 05-19-2016, 12:15 AM
Olefin Olefin is offline
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as for maintaining the oil wells - most of the oil wells in Illinois are old fashioned wells that are on individual people's property - wells based on old technology that don't break down that often, run in many places by small companies - we aren't talking nuclear reactors here or computerized pumping systems - many of them are using tech straight out of the 1940's to run

now the refinery is different - but again you can refine gas and oil with teapot refineries in small quantities - and since you mention canon, per canon that is exactly what the Libyans are doing - so if they can do it so can the good people of Illinois - you dont need skilled techs for that

and no matter how much fuel the refinery there is processing - that mechanized and mobile army that uses it to drive out every invader doesn't exist anymore - and if it did exist you would need a hell of a lot more than just Robinson to provide fuel to it - not when that oil its processing needs to make jet fuel, diesel fuel, lubricants (which per canon is what most refineries still in production are making so that the vehicles that burn alcohol can keep running - no matter how much ethanol you make you still need oil for the engine), gasoline, etc.. - so its not all going into the fuel tanks of MilGov

and the other thing that HW gets wrong - and thats where it contradicts earlier canon statements - is that it seems that MilGov isnt fighting very hard to keep the areas that are still producing fuel protected and going concerns - pulling out of Bakersfield, letting the Oklahoma wells and refineries get overrun, letting the 194th waste away and not reinforce it with everything they had to protect Robinson and the oil wells in Illinois when they had tens of thousands of newly arrived troops in VA

and how does it contradict it - because there are multiple statements in different modules that state where there is oil you will find the war still going on and that is where you will find operating aircraft and tanks and vehicles - which is why the US is fighting so hard in Iran still when they left Europe to its own devices - because that is where the oil is

yet in the US, MilGov, with enemy forces still sitting in Alaska and the Southwest and New America on the rise, doesnt put everything it has into guarding whats left of that fuel and the refineries - and with the food situation in the US what they are doing is especially dumb because oil means you can run tractors and plant seed and harvest crops and you can do it without starving your people by having to do it with ethanol

so you bring home 43,000 men and dont send a bunch of them to make sure that no matter what you hold onto those remaining oil fields and refineries and keep them going when doing so is probably the best bet you have to be able to get in a decent crop and also get the Southwest back in the process? Let alone why waste your men on an offensive to kick New America out of the Ozarks and then not send reinforcements for the two most important oil producing areas you have left and one of the biggest refineries you have left? I would think that making sure you can still operate aircraft and be able to plant crops a lot more efficiently is worth at least a couple of thousand men at least.

This is a game about what was then a plausible possible future when it was originally written - and if you so then you really need to have military commanders not make completely implausible decisions. Especially when you have MilGov which is not under civilian command and thus can ignore political needs for purely strategic ones. Like being able to keep its few remaining tanks and armored vehicles in the field and to be able to plant crops to feed those 43,000 men it just brought home by protecting the oil that can do that. That's a decision a military chief would make - abandoning it is not.

Last edited by Olefin; 05-19-2016 at 06:51 AM.
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