Oil in T2k

[Raellus]

The subject of refinery production figures in the Middle East v. Olefin's Kenya came up in another thread but I think the wider topic of oil deserves its own thread.

The idea of exploiting oil shale on the Baltic shelf has been brought up elsewhere.

Where is being produced, refined? Who has access to it? Who controls it? What is its importance in the year 2000?

[Spartan-117]

First, let's hop in the way back machine. Oil is not new. One does not need a 50 million dollar refinery in order to use it.

Here's the Wiki Data:

The Chinese were among the first civilizations to refine oil.[6] As early as the first century, the Chinese were refining crude oil for use as an energy source.[7][6] Between 512 and 518, in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, the Chinese geographer, writer and politician Li Daoyuan introduced the process of refining oil into various lubricants in his famous work Commentary on the Water Classic.[8][7][6]

Crude oil was often distilled by Arab chemists, with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (854–925).[9] The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads.[10] Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century.[11]

In the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), a workshop called the "Fierce Oil Workshop", was established in the city of Kaifeng to produce refined oil for the Song military as a weapon. The troops would then fill iron cans with refined oil and throw them toward the enemy troops, causing a fire – effectively the world's first "fire bomb". The workshop was one of the world's earliest oil refining factories where thousands of people worked to produce Chinese oil powered weaponry.[12]

Prior to the nineteenth century, petroleum was known and utilized in various fashions in Babylon, Egypt, China, Philippines, Rome and Azerbaijan. However, the modern history of the petroleum industry is said to have begun in 1846 when Abraham Gessner of Nova Scotia, Canada devised a process to produce kerosene from coal. Shortly thereafter, in 1854, Ignacy Łukasiewicz began producing kerosene from hand-dug oil wells near the town of Krosno, Poland.

The world's first systematic petroleum refinery was built in Ploiești, Romania in 1856 using the abundant oil available in Romania.

===

The first car was:

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885, is widely regarded as the world's first production automobile,[1] that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine.

After developing a successful gasoline-powered two-stroke piston engine in 1873, Benz focused on developing a motorized vehicle while maintaining a career as a designer and manufacturer of stationary engines and their associated parts.

===
So with that as the baseline - oil, refined petroleum, and the combustion engine have been around for more than 115 years - we're probably set to move forward to talk about fields, oil wells, refining the amounts needed to supply a modern society, and what happens when you decrease demand by few billion people or so.

[Rainbow Six]

I think there’s a challenge in that canon is vague about what got targeted and what didn’t. That’s understandable as it clearly isn’t practical to list the fate of every single refinery on the planet but it does leave things open to a subjective interpretation.

Venezuela springs immediately to mind. From memory I think it has the second largest reserves in the World. I have vague recollections of reading something about Venezuelan facilities being nuked, but I can’t be certain (and it could have been something someone posted here rather than something that’s canon).

Dependent on what’s happened in Gabon (fairly sure it’s unmentioned in V1) they could be supplying the Franco Belgian Union with oil. Chad could also be involved in that. Although that maybe starts leading into the bigger picture that is the Franco Belgian Union (once upon a time I had a notion to create an FBU sourcebook as a companion to my UK work). I think there’s an inference in Going Home that the French are getting oil from somewhere…

Malaysia could be producing / refining / selling oil and gas. Maybe the Malaysians could carve themselves out a niche as a local power bloc, not sure. Our Australian contingent probably know that part of the World better in terms of whether Malaysia might have got involved in any local conflicts (e.g. a possible Australian / Indonesian War). Indonesia is also a big producer but I think it’s more or less a given that they would be in a shooting war with Indonesia.

[Legbreaker]

Re Malaysia, it's outside the scope of my current research.

I can say that in T2K Australia is producing some oil for domestic and local allied use, the biggest problem being Australian refineries are located on the other side of the continent for the most part and set up to use a completely different grade of crude. They can process Australian oil, but it's very inefficient with lots of waste, and then there's the small problem of transporting the crude to the refineries in the first place (there's no major pipelines such as from Alaska).

One small note from Mediterranean Cruise is Libya is producing a trickle of oil, but the only refining is letting it settle in barrels before scooping the top layer off to burn in diesels.

[Olefin]

The subject of refinery production figures in the Middle East v. Olefin's Kenya came up in another thread but I think the wider topic of oil deserves its own thread.

The idea of exploiting oil shale on the Baltic shelf has been brought up elsewhere.

Where is being produced, refined? Who has access to it? Who controls it? What is its importance in the year 2000?

The French would be putting a lot of effort into getting refineries up and running in countries that were part of their old colonial system - given some of the dispositions of their military forces pre-war they would be in able to move troops to secure working refineries or get the ones that were damaged back up and running. That is something that wasnt in the canon specifically prior to the Kenya module but is now - and given the French interest in spreading their influence is a pretty logical assumption - i.e. controlling what oil is left is one reason they deployed into the Middle East in the RDF after all

[Rainbow Six]

That is something that wasnt in the canon specifically prior to the Kenya module but is now.
Just to be clear, that's the V2.2 canon only, correct?

[Olefin]

Just to be clear, that's the V2.2 canon only, correct?

Rainbow why dont you and your buddy Spartan go take a nice long walk somewhere else. Frankly its getting old.

Its released for V2.2 canon because thats what Marc wanted. It was originally written for V1 but he requested it specifically be written to conform to the V2.2 timeline and rules as he wasnt interested in releasing new canon material for the V1 timeline.

However as per multiple posts here by you and others comparing the two canon timelines once the war started the V1 and V2.2 canons are just about identical. Thus the events of 1997-2001 pretty much follow the same pattern irregardless of the canon.

So the events described in Africa can apply for both timelines after the war start just as easily. And the French moves into Africa including in Djibouti and elsewhere come from the information in the RDF V1 module - thus I conformed to both timelines with what I wrote.

You can see - if you had ever actually read it - that the character generation, animal descriptions, etc. all conform to V2.2. rules as per Marc. However there are V1 RDF characters and events mentioned in the timeline and in other areas of the book - i.e. once the war starts the two timelines are basically identical.

Thus to answer you - the events in Africa about the French trying to get oil refineries working again (and the damage that happened in the first place including the nuke attacks) is all after the war start and can apply to both timelines.

[Rainbow Six]

Rainbow why dont you and your buddy Spartan go take a nice long walk somewhere else. Frankly its getting old.
That's not very civil or constructive Olefin, I was just asking a question for clarification as your original post was a little unclear.

Its released for V2.2 canon
So the answer to my question is yes. Thanks for clarifying.

[Olefin]

Actually it was very civil and constructive - thank you for giving me the information that I needed Rainbow.

And yes as I have said on several threads it was released - per Marc Miller's request who owns the game or did at the time it was released - as V2.2.

And again as has been discussed ad nausem here once the war gets going the V1 and V2.2 events are almost completely the same events - thus the two timelines differ before the war but then gel once the war goes general.

[wolffhound79]

Dont forget natural gas , in places where natural gas wells exist, a small community with the right equipment could keep warm thru the winter, cook food, run a blacksmith shop. I work as a production technologist tester in northern canada, many times if we needed too we could bleed gas off our gas separators to supply gas for our glycol heaters to run if we were out of propane for our P-tanks. Im talking about sweet wells as sour wells have the potential to kill you if you have a gas leak in your lines.

The bonus is sometimes you have produced oil or condi (as we called it) which is a greenish fluid with a high flamability. One of our former bosses blew up his office shack heating it up a cup of condi in the microwave.

Pump jacks are also useful, supplying fuel to the generator for a pump jack can get the pumping process started for lifting the oil to the surface. Im not sure about the US but we have field operators that drive around topping off fuel tanks and checking equipment and there are usually tons of manuals in field offices and certain field structures for not only operating but fixing dam near every small part. I still have a big binder of specific parts and instruments incase I ever neaded to fix or replace parts.

Many oil field site are great sources for finding many useful things, intrinsically safe heaters for the winter, parts, pipe, connectors, valves, gauges, sometimes large pigs of propane, random tools. Some companies go out of business, or just abandoned the site and sometimes they leave behind lots of useful material.

[Lurken]

The idea of exploiting oil shale on the Baltic shelf has been brought up elsewhere.


I planned to have Sweden to move in on Estonia to claim the oil and have them play cat and mouse with pirates based in Bornholm.

Then I read the East European Sourcebook. Under the Estonia chapter it written that Estonia trades with Helsinki and Königsberg. From how the wording is, it is implied that Estonia ships of crude oil for motor oil to Helsinki and Königsberg and in return they receive materials for the other Estonian industries. Heck, they even import the odd vehicle from Königsberg.

[Olefin]

"Many oil field site are great sources for finding many useful things, intrinsically safe heaters for the winter, parts, pipe, connectors, valves, gauges, sometimes large pigs of propane, random tools. Some companies go out of business, or just abandoned the site and sometimes they leave behind lots of useful material."

sounds like the start of a very good adventure thread

[wolffhound79]

Man you dont know how many times I would be on site sitting in the tank or my shack thinking about what I would do if the end of the world came what I could do with this kind of equipment to keep me alive, there was even an old abandoned well head just on the edge of my neighborhood.

[Spartan-117]

One small note from Mediterranean Cruise is Libya is producing a trickle of oil, but the only refining is letting it settle in barrels before scooping the top layer off to burn in diesels.

This is good to know! I like that improvised distillation method.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia would be quite interesting I think. Both nations have Islam as their primary religion but Malaysia still has a relationship with the British Commonwealth and various nations that were part of it. Despite their shared religion, I would think that the Malaysians would lean more towards those nations than they would towards Indonesia particularly as the Malaysia-Indonesia conflict is still within living memory of the older population.
For those who don't know of this particular war, a very rough description: - Indonesia actively sought to prevent the creation of the nation of Malaysia in the 1960s and various British Commonwealth nations fought in the war to allow Malaysia to come into existence.

Regardless of what infrastructure Malaysia might possess for refining oil, it should be remembered that the Malaysian region on the island of Borneo, surrounds the nation of Brunei.
And Brunei has oil.
The other nations in the region have oil but Brunei is basically a country that revolves around oil & natural gas - 90% of it's GDP was derived from crude oil and natural gas through the 1990s into the 2000s. It's built upon the back of oil & gas exports. A tempting target for Indonesia, they only have to hack their way through no more than 50-100 km (31-62 miles) of Malaysian territory to get to Brunei.

A big question would be, would Australia aid Malaysia if Indonesia decided to either attack Malaysia directly or tried to force their way through Malaysian territory to get Brunei?

[Legbreaker]

A big question would be, would Australia aid Malaysia if Indonesia decided to either attack Malaysia directly or tried to force their way through Malaysian territory to get Brunei?

In T2K? Not likely!
The will would be there, but the ability is sorely lacking. There's not even enough troops including New Zealand and most of the south pacific island nations to hold the Indonesians in PNG let alone open a second front.
And that's AFTER a massive increase in military forces by the defenders.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It's certainly possible that a confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia could be the beginning of any Indonesian campaign to capture Papua New Guinea. The Indonesians have long had territorial ambitions that cover Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Timor and Papua New Guinea.
There's so little information in canon that we can have it play out in whatever way we want.
It's also possible that Australian aid to Malaysia might be in other forms, e.g. intelligence, training, small arms ammo and so on.

[Legbreaker]

Intelligence I can see, but anything else, even training, is not going to be possible I'm afraid - every instructor, every rifle, every bullet is needed for Australia as they're basically having to double the size of the army alone almost overnight just to turn into a credible speed bump for the prewar Indonesian military strength.

[RN7]

I don't know what conditions are like in Venezuela in T2K but I would say they aren't very good. France could get involved in Venezuela because of its oil. There are active and quite large French military bases in French Guiana and in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe that are near Venezuela. France could send forces to bolster whoever is running Venezuela to secure oil supplies.

[Raellus]

Here's an oil-related question for y'all. IIRC, Mediterranean Cruise identifies Ploesti, Romania as the source of the gasoline that fuels Soviet 4th Guards Tank Army's Summer 2000 counteroffensive (you know, the one that kills US 5th ID).

How did the Soviets get the gasoline from Romania to Poland?

Romanian partisans are very active in the Transylvania region. Much of Ukraine is in active rebellion. I don't think v1 canon mentions Moldavia, but I reckon it too is, at the very least, restive, given its ethnic connection to neighboring Romania (IRL many Moldavians wanted their country to be annexed by Romania after the fall of the Iron Curtain and dissolution of the USSR). Many regional transportation hubs have been damaged or destroyed by nuclear strikes. I imagine that the railroads are in very bad shape.

Has this question been addressed in a canonical source that I am not aware of?

I have a theory, but I'm interested in what y'all come up with.

[Legbreaker]

The 4th Guards didn't start in Poland, that's where they ended up. They carried their fuel with them.
They started (according to NATO intel) in the Ukraine, but it's not known exactly where. Getting the fuel from the refineries to the units was likely done by truck, rail and possibly ship as well. Plenty of options available and plenty of time to do it in to - we don't know which month's production was given to the 4th.....

[bash]

The Soviets getting fuel for their summer 2000 offensive is something they really only need to do once. So they could bum rush Romania with mechanized infantry, with minimal armor, followed by a fleet of trucks. The combat vehicles and trucks refuel and load fuel onto the trucks in barrels, tanks, and whatever.

The fuel force then rendezvous with the main body of armor. The armor could be loaded on trailers with APCs and gun trucks acting as convoy escorts. They can move along roads so long as they can minimally repair damaged sections. Partisans in Romania and elsewhere could inflict some damage but if the ROE is "shoot anyone approaching" they'll just wait for them to pass through.

Since this is one big move against forces they're reasonably sure they can rout they can just drop stragglers and broken down transports. The 5 ID's intelligence isn't likely much faster than the 4th Guard convoy. So they get the intel right before the shooting starts.

So...that's my theory.

[ChalkLine]

Currently my PCs are roving the Kraków trying to salvage bunker fuel to power the tug.

[Legbreaker]

Exactly. It's basically what happens with Division Cuba in 2001.
The 4th however have many more options available, plus other units in the area able to support them during the build up.

[swaghauler]

Dont forget natural gas , in places where natural gas wells exist, a small community with the right equipment could keep warm thru the winter, cook food, run a blacksmith shop. I work as a production technologist tester in northern canada, many times if we needed too we could bleed gas off our gas separators to supply gas for our glycol heaters to run if we were out of propane for our P-tanks. Im talking about sweet wells as sour wells have the potential to kill you if you have a gas leak in your lines.

The bonus is sometimes you have produced oil or condi (as we called it) which is a greenish fluid with a high flamability. One of our former bosses blew up his office shack heating it up a cup of condi in the microwave.

Pump jacks are also useful, supplying fuel to the generator for a pump jack can get the pumping process started for lifting the oil to the surface. Im not sure about the US but we have field operators that drive around topping off fuel tanks and checking equipment and there are usually tons of manuals in field offices and certain field structures for not only operating but fixing dam near every small part. I still have a big binder of specific parts and instruments incase I ever neaded to fix or replace parts.

Many oil field site are great sources for finding many useful things, intrinsically safe heaters for the winter, parts, pipe, connectors, valves, gauges, sometimes large pigs of propane, random tools. Some companies go out of business, or just abandoned the site and sometimes they leave behind lots of useful material.

This. And your typical "roughneck" is basically a "jack-of-all-trades" being able to Weld, do Carpentry, Electrical, Mechanical, and Hydraulic work. I have witnessed this first-hand hauling pipe to the oilfields in the Allegheny National Forest.

[wolffhound79]

This. And your typical "roughneck" is basically a "jack-of-all-trades" being able to Weld, do Carpentry, Electrical, Mechanical, and Hydraulic work. I have witnessed this first-hand hauling pipe to the oilfields in the Allegheny National Forest.

yes whole drilling crews usually have a wide range of skills and tricks of the trade to fix equipment and problems in the field as we rarely get the luxury of a shop day in the middle of a busy season. Ive frozen myself many times fixing broken parts in the field, or nursing a generator along with a leaky oil pan all night to keep from freezing, cold weather an prolong use is tough on equipment.

Im interested in that area as I have a group going into that region and it looks like there is a lot of battery operations in northern Pennsylvania right near a refinery in Bradford. I've also seen a lot of what looks like oil and gas services (storage tanks, equipment , facility's, manufacturing, service rigs, drilling rigs, wireline etc... ) I know in Alberta there is general oil and gas service companies all over the province.

[Raellus]

The Soviets getting fuel for their summer 2000 offensive is something they really only need to do once.

Good point, but we're talking a lot of fuel.

So they could bum rush Romania with mechanized infantry, with minimal armor, followed by a fleet of trucks. The combat vehicles and trucks refuel and load fuel onto the trucks in barrels, tanks, and whatever.

The fuel force then rendezvous with the main body of armor. The armor could be loaded on trailers with APCs and gun trucks acting as convoy escorts. They can move along roads so long as they can minimally repair damaged sections. Partisans in Romania and elsewhere could inflict some damage but if the ROE is "shoot anyone approaching" they'll just wait for them to pass through.

The Carpathians are no joke- narrow, winding valley roads, passing through elevated terrain covered in thick forest, lots of passes. It's prime ambush country from Ploesti to Moldavia/Ukraine. If combat operations in Afghanistan from 1979 to the present are any indicator, even heavily defended convoys are extremely vulnerable to attack. And fuel trucks are essentially rolling fire bombs just waiting to be ignited. Blow just one in some kind of natural chokepoint, and the vehicles behind it aren't going anywhere for a while.

And the Romanians are no joke either. If the Soviet, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies aren't able to pacify central Romania between 12/20/96 and whenever the fuel is shipped out (according to Med Cruise and the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the Romanians are still fighting in late 2000), even the most heavily armed Soviet fuel convoy isn't going to be able to brush the Romanians.

I think it's more likely that most of the fuel is shipped to Ukraine (good point about not having to transport the fuel all the way to Poland, Leg) via the Black Sea, then over land through Ukraine in trucks and/or on trains. By late 1999/early 2000, I doubt that there'd be much left of the Turkish Navy in Black Sea.

The 5 ID's intelligence isn't likely much faster than the 4th Guard convoy. So they get the intel right before the shooting starts.

True.

[Legbreaker]

This has a lot of good info on the refinery https://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/petrobrazi-refinery/
Looks like there's a pipeline to the coast for the importation of crude from Kazakhstan, as well as a pipeline from local oil wells.
Page 7 of this http://www.world-petroleum.org/docs/docs/pdf/romania.pdf shows the pipelines and page 8 indicates there's two pipelines across the Blacksea (the aforementioned crude imports).

The pipeline label codes for this map are coloured green for oil, red for gas and blue for products, such as gasoline and ethylene.

https://theodora.com/pipelines/balkan_area_southeast_europe_pipelines_map.jpg

Some interesting associated links:
https://furcuta.blogspot.com/2009/10/romanian-petroleum-history.html
http://research.seenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Oil-Refineries-in-Romania.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705814003257

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Worth mentioning too that Romania has large lignite (AKA brown coal) and bituminous coal reserves.

[ChalkLine]

And the Romanians are no joke either. If the Soviet, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies aren't able to pacify central Romania between 12/20/96 and whenever the fuel is shipped out (according to Med Cruise and the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the Romanians are still fighting in late 2000), even the most heavily armed Soviet fuel convoy isn't going to be able to brush the Romanians.

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

After the austerity measures of the 1980s though, I think the Romanians were pretty much at the breaking point in regards to their government. Those same austerity measures lead the Romanian people to rebel against their government and hunt down & execute the leader Ceaușescu. Switching sides to NATO isn't as far fetched as it sounds at first glance.

[Raellus]

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

I used to think that too. Here's what changed my mind.

According to Osprey's Warsaw Pact Ground Forces (copyright 1987), Romania was the most recalcitrant of the WP nations. It would not allow any foreign troops on its soil, nor would it send troops to conduct WP exercises outside its own borders (except a few observers). It publicly condemned Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in '68 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in '89. It maintained close cooperation with non-WP Yugoslavia, including jointly developing a few weapon systems. Romania had major territorial disputes with Hungary and Bulgaria, alternately gaining land from, and losing it to, both neighboring nations (Hungary, in particular).

Since Romania proved so difficult, the Soviets wouldn't sell its military the best available weapons and equipment. For example, the Soviets didn't sell the Romanians any T-72s. Bucharest acquired its thirty T-72s from Israel in 1986-'87! (no doubt captured from Syria in Lebanon, '82) Romania also secured the rights to license-build Puma transport helies from France. Romania apparently had most favored nation trading status with the USA, and growing commercial ties to Israel & China, but still boasted one of the weakest economies in the WP.

The Romanian military was designated as a purely defensive force by the WP. At it's height, the army consisted of 8 MRDs and two TDs, with some border troop formations, two mountain infantry brigades, a parachute regiment, and a battalion of naval infantry (read coastal defense infantry). Up to three infantry divisions could be created by calling up reserves, but their quality (weapons, training, and leadership) would have been especially poor. Romania produced much of its own small arms (and exported heaps of AKs) yet due to Soviet policy, remained the least well-equipped and offensive-capable of the WP militaries.

Add to that how unpopular Ceaușescu regime was IRL, and it makes almost perfect sense that Romania would refuse to send troops to China, and would fight back when invaded by the USSR, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

[Olefin]

I don't know what conditions are like in Venezuela in T2K but I would say they aren't very good. France could get involved in Venezuela because of its oil. There are active and quite large French military bases in French Guiana and in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe that are near Venezuela. France could send forces to bolster whoever is running Venezuela to secure oil supplies.

Based on the V2.2 edition I would say Venezuela got nailed pretty badly - and the fact that Gateway to the Spanish Main only mentions Aruba and there is no mention of Curacao or Trinidad I have a feeling they got hit bad too.

From the V2.2.

Central And South America

The oil-producing areas of the Caribbean were severely damaged by nuclear and/or conventional attacks, largely in an effort to deny them to the enemy

[ChalkLine]

I used to think that too. Here's what changed my mind. [snip]

Yeah, however the Osprey book severely cuts out context for the Ceausescu regime, how it started and the changes it went through.


Initially Ceausescu was a reformer and the darling of the West in the Soviet Bloc. He was a popular leader who frequently bucked the Soviet line for domestic political and very real, practical economic reasons. However that changed. His domestic economic program failed miserably and was badly thought out. Like Stalin he had a habit of plonking down industrial complexes in places economics didn't suit but where he wanted a communist counter-balance to nationalist and intelligentsia forces (this would be his undoing when the workers came after him too). As he'd screwed over his relationship with the Soviets (under Brezhnev you can hardly blame him at this point) he went off looking to the Chinese for support.

Ceausescu became a big fan of Maoism and the Korean Juche system (which I've recently found out massively predates Korean communism which surprised me). It was his affiliation with Mao that the Soviets, especially Brezhnev, disliked (for good reason as Mao was white-anting the USSR). This is when he transitioned from popular but frankly stupid reformer to President-For-Life.

However Mao died. Things changed. Both Albania and Romania started to realise that the PRC weren't the cornucopia of responsibility-free goodies they could be. Albania went its own way into a sort of hermit-kingdom but Romania had no options. The USSR could simply not buy Romanian oil during the oil glut. As a result Romania had a rapprochement with the USSR. Osprey ignores this.

Note also that a lot of people still remembered the "Old Ceausescu" and often gave him the benefit of the doubt. Like all revolutions if you ask anyone afterwards they'll all tell you they were opponents of the regime and it's frankly bollocks. The vast majority of populations simply try and sit out revolutions or only participate to a minor degree when everyone else is doing it.

The big problem in the T2K context is the background.
The West actually is invading. Romanians are going to be isolated if they buck the Soviet line. They simply aren't going to rise up during an existential war, and most importantly they are going to do nothing if the army doesn't help. It was the army and not the people that overthrew Ceausescu when it was so obvious that he's so alienated the people he was a severe liability. The three generals who did him in went on to be the first leaders of the republic. In this situation the army is either going to follow the USSR's lead or they're going to have an angry Red Army in Romania again and they simply aren't going to do that. In real history the USSR had already collapsed and had also shown in true Glasnost style it wasn't going to intervene in dissolutions (okay, Moldavia, but that was an actual literal rogue division).

However GDW wanted warfare everywhere for practical gaming reasons and thus had to have fighting everywhere. We can accept that and stick with it or go with a more practical what-if.

I think Romania would disintegrate but only to the degree Poland disintegrates; still Soviet but with tons of splinter factions and some foreign busybodies who rapidly become loathed by the locals.

[Raellus]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with your assessment. Even in the mid-to-late 1980s (IRL), Romania was the red-headed stepchild of the WTO. I mentioned it before, but even non-aligned Yugoslavia got Soviet-made T-72s and MiG-29s before Romania did (in the case of the T-72, Romania didn't get them from the Soviets at all).

I think the Romanian military, built specifically for defense and not at all accustomed to operating alongside the other WTO militaries- would balk at being shipped off to war against the PRC. The gov't too, with close economic ties to [post-Mao] China, and growing civil unrest at home (if it didn't happen in '89 in the v1.0 timeline, it seems perfectly reasonable that it would begin around the time of the Sino-Soviet War, or the Soviets' demands for troops), wouldn't want to push its luck with its own military and citizenry both screaming "Hell No, We Won't Go!". Or maybe Ceausescu was about to cave in to the USSR's demands for fresh troops for the Far East Meat Grinder.

In either case, the Romanian army misjudges the Soviet gov't, believing it too preoccupied with China and the exploding crisis in the DDR, to do anything concrete about its refusal to send troops, or even regime change.

In my T2kU (which aligns closely to what's described in the official v1 history), the Romanian army launches a coup and removes Ceausescu from power in December, 1996. The Soviets were already planning an invasion of Romania to show the entirety of the WTO what the cost of disloyalty is, so the coup becomes fait accompli.

[ChalkLine]

Yeah, that's the best thing about this sort of alt-history is that it can play out in a myriad of ways.

NATO could make a drive through Bulgaria to relieve the Romanians (assuming Greece and Italy are still in NATO) which make for serious Balkan hell.

[Legbreaker]

The beauty of T2K is it's an alternate reality. Who says the world has to be the same as ours up until some arbitrary event or date? Nothing wrong with having a few minor tweaks in the proceeding few decades to allow the game situation to make more logical sense.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'm going to disagree as well, I think people severely underestimate the impact of the Romanian austerity measures of the 1980s. Not only did the austerity measures drastically lower the quality of life for many Romanians, it involved severe cuts to healthcare that increased the infant mortality rate and failed to implement measures to restrict the spread of AIDS. A food rationing system was put in place and electricity was restricted to such an extent that even hospitals went without power.
On top of all that, dissent was met with political and civil repression.

It's worth remembering that the execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the collapse of the Romanian Communist Party happened in 1989. These things don't just happen "overnight", they take months and often times years to build up. In the context of the Twilight: 2000 setting, this is happening either contemporaneously or even before the Twilight War gets into full swing.
A change was going to come no matter what but it was unlikely to have a favourable treatment of the ruling regime.

[Raellus]

The beauty of T2K is it's an alternate reality. Who says the world has to be the same as ours up until some arbitrary event or date? Nothing wrong with having a few minor tweaks in the proceeding few decades to allow the game situation to make more logical sense.

Agreed. I'm not trying to push my version of events on anyone. It's just an option. But, at the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it pretty seamlessly reconciles RL events (Romania's strained relationship with the rest of the WTO, its economic links to China and the west, and the domestic unpopularity of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the Romanian Communist Party) with the v1 timeline, which culminates in the Soviet invasion of Romania, just 6-7 years after the RL Romanian Revolution. In any case, it seems a lot more plausible than Italy and Greece turning against NATO.

But then, I fall into the Reconcile with Canon camp. If there's a way to rationalize the unlikely so that it makes more sense, change implausible to slightly-less-implausible, then that's what I try to do.

[Legbreaker]

But then, I fall into the Reconcile with Canon camp. If there's a way to rationalize the unlikely so that it makes more sense, change implausible to slightly-less-implausible, then that's what I try to do.

As a group, that approach makes the most sense to me. Individually do whatever the hell you want, it's YOUR game world, but don't try ramming your opinion down other peoples throats and call it fact. That was the whole point of the "What is canon?" thread from about a decade ago that developed into a whole lot of butthurt.

[Raellus]

Who nuked the oil fields/refineries of Ploesti, Romania? Does canon specify?

The Soviets are cited as using tactical nukes in Romania first, to break Romanian resistance in September, 1997. However, it doesn't make a lot of sense to nuke a strategic objective that you have every intention, and realistic chances, of capturing.

I think it makes the most sense that the US did it. With Romania's organized resistance crumbling in the summer of 1997, and no realistic prospects of NATO forces recapturing Ploesti, NATO would be eager to deny its use to the Soviets.

But from Med Cruise, we know that oil production at Ploesti resumed some time prior to summer, 2000. That suggests tactical nuclear weapons were used, rather than strategic, and airbursts instead of ground strikes.

-

[Targan]

France? Deny the resource to everybody?

[Raellus]

France? Deny the resource to everybody?

Now that is a very interesting idea. I was so intrigued by it that I jsut double-checked the v1 history to see if the timing would line up. Unfortunately, I don't think it does. The Ploesti oil fields would have been under Soviet control when France enters the war in 1998. A French nuclear strike on Soviet-controlled territory (and Soviet troops in the area) wouldn't be taken too kindly.

Bummer. I wanted it to work.

[Legbreaker]

France wouldn't be about to publicise their involvement, and would anyone else really be in a condition to determine where the strike came from, especially if fired from a sub?
France's move into the middle east and Africa wouldn't have happened on the spur of the moment either. They've clearly had time to observe what's going on around the world and make plans. Very likely any overt move on their part would have been preceded by months of build up and covert action.

That said, I doubt it was them. More likely in my opinion the Soviets used low yield tac nukes on Romanian troop concentrations rather than infrastructure. We know that the Romanians took out at least one Soviet Division (the 280th) by ambush (albeit one wracked by desertions, etc). What better way to neutralise them than by making them glow in the dark? A handful of nukes is also a lot quicker than moving other units into the area for conventional operations and would be able to be carried out before the Romanians could disburse.

Hmm, evil thought - what if the Soviets used the 280th as bait? It was a mobilisation only unit and not exactly effective anyway.... Timeline probably doesn't work too well, but...
:firedevil

[Raellus]

France wouldn't be about to publicise their involvement, and would anyone else really be in a condition to determine where the strike came from, especially if fired from a sub?
France's move into the middle east and Africa wouldn't have happened on the spur of the moment either. They've clearly had time to observe what's going on around the world and make plans. Very likely any overt move on their part would have been preceded by months of build up and covert action.

That could work. I suppose an SLBM could be impossible to source, unless you had a unit tracking it (and then why would you let it launch, right?). Hm. Maybe it was the French... :confused:

That said, I doubt it was them. More likely in my opinion the Soviets used low yield tac nukes on Romanian troop concentrations rather than infrastructure. We know that the Romanians took out at least one Soviet Division (the 280th) by ambush (albeit one wracked by desertions, etc). What better way to neutralise them than by making them glow in the dark? A handful of nukes is also a lot quicker than moving other units into the area for conventional operations and would be able to be carried out before the Romanians could disburse.

Yes, the Soviets could have done it, but it seems like the work required to repair the Ploesti refineries and restore them to production after a nuking wouldn't be worth the satisfaction of instantly wiping out the Romanian division defending the facilities. Canon, isn't specific on this point, though, so it's not out of the question. Here's what the v1 history has to say:

In September of 1997, “Limited use of tactical nuclear weapons, the increasing numbers of Soviet reserves, and the withdrawal of the Yugoslavians caused the Romanian front to collapse. As Warsaw Pact columns swept through both countries, isolated military units withdrew into the mountains and began to wage a guerilla war.” V1 Ref’s manual, pp. 25-26

So yeah, the Soviets could have nuked the oil fields, but that still seems really counterproductive, considering the prize. I bet it was the Americans. The SVG mentions that, "the 321st [MRD] was hit by a nuclear strike on its way to Romania," so clearly someone else- probably the Americans- was slinging tac-nukes in Romania too.

Hmm, evil thought - what if the Soviets used the 280th as bait? It was a mobilisation only unit and not exactly effective anyway.... Timeline probably doesn't work too well, but...

Devious! I think you're right about the timeline not cooperating, though. The SVG says the 280th MRD was destroyed in the spring of 2018, almost a year after the tactical nuclear strikes mentioned in the v1 history quoted above.

[Legbreaker]

Well you've got most of the nukes happening in the second half of 1997 with another weaker exchange around Autumn 1998. Nothing to say there weren't a few small tac nukes used in the meantime though especially since the timelines are primarily referring to strategic level strikes.
We do know the Romanians were reforming regular combat units in early 98 and so would be a very tempting target, especially with NATO attempting to push into Czechoslovakia around this time and forcing the PACT to relocate units to counter them.

Of course there's nothing in canon about any of this, but it is an interesting and plausible idea nonetheless.

[chico20854]

Dragging this zombie thread back to its original topic, I just came across this article on (very!) makeshift oil refineries in Syria. I can certainly see something similar happening in the T2k context for areas that have oil wells, or even a loaded crude oil tanker, pipeline or tank farm to salvage from.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/in-depth/features/life-inside-syrias-makeshift-oil-refineries-617075533

And the description in the article of what RL conditions are for the unfortunate folks that are working them would probably be similar in the T2kU.

[castlebravo92]

On a related technical note, given the ubiquitousness of methanol as a transportation fuel in T2K, it's probably worth pointing out that getting ethanes (aka gasoline length hydrocarbons) from methanol to gas conversion is probably less technologically challenging than getting gasoline from sour crude.

https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/methanol-to-gasoline

Probably not exactly great in terms of net return on energy, but it's one of the processes used to create gasoline from natural gas (which is mostly methane).

Methane -> methanol -> ethanes.

[Green Monkey]

Dragging this zombie thread back to its original topic, I just came across this article on (very!) makeshift oil refineries in Syria. I can certainly see something similar happening in the T2k context for areas that have oil wells, or even a loaded crude oil tanker, pipeline or tank farm to salvage from.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/in-depth/features/life-inside-syrias-makeshift-oil-refineries-617075533

And the description in the article of what RL conditions are for the unfortunate folks that are working them would probably be similar in the T2kU.

I've always been interested in these types of improvised refineries in a T2K context. They exist throughout the world ranging from this type of primitive facility in war-torn places like Syria and Chechnya to fairly standardised low complexity "teapot" refineries throughout China.

I think that the availability of basic refined products would be higher than it's presented to be in the world (certainly 1st edition) and I think every faction would be trying to develop this type of thing.

[Ursus Maior]

After the austerity measures of the 1980s though, I think the Romanians were pretty much at the breaking point in regards to their government. Those same austerity measures lead the Romanian people to rebel against their government and hunt down & execute the leader Ceaușescu. Switching sides to NATO isn't as far fetched as it sounds at first glance.

Even more so: Ceaușescu'S Romania had left the Warsaw Pact in all but name, which they figured was the red line for the Soviets. Socialist Romania didn't allow for Soviet troops within its borders and it had its own defense industry producing upgrades for T-55s (still in service today) and knock-ofs of stuff like the BTR-70 and the BMP-1.

I wrote this somewhere on the board a while back: By the 1980s, the Warsaw Pact was a scam. The only true ally the Soviets could count on was the East German GDR, and that only for the facts that the Soviets had so many divisions in country and Premier Honecker was a staunch believer. The ČSSR was economically least dependent on the Soviets and had a good army, but their leadership lacked the blind belief of the GDR. The Polish hatred towards the Russians made them an ally the Soviets didn't trust. Hungary had no army to fool anybody - the officer's corps never recovered from the aftermath of the 1956 revolution and the beating they took from the Soviets.

Bulgaria, last but not least, had an army honest to God still fielding T-34s in active divisions with the rest of the equipment barely better. They never made it out of the 1960s and that only with the airforce (MiG-21, Su-22, MiG-23MF as mainstay). The army did receive some 300 T-72s late in the Cold War, but a good chunk still was T-34s, SU-100s and a lot of towed WW2 vintage artillery.

Ceaușescu absurdly overspent on the military, but more out of fear of the Soviets than the West. It cost him everything in the end, since he starved his people to death, sometimes literally. He was one of the most brutal dictators in Europe after World War Two, which is saying something. However, economically, Romania was outpacing other Eastern Bloc countries by far during the 1980s, thanks to heavy investments from Western nations since the 1960s and many economic ties: the Canadians even built a nuclear power plant, which still produces around 20 % of Romanian electric power (however, a second reactor block was added in 2007). Ceaușescu certainly did his part to make the Romanians suffer under his austerity, though.

[Bestbrian]

I've always been interested in these types of improvised refineries in a T2K context. They exist throughout the world ranging from this type of primitive facility in war-torn places like Syria and Chechnya to fairly standardised low complexity "teapot" refineries throughout China.

I think that the availability of basic refined products would be higher than it's presented to be in the world (certainly 1st edition) and I think every faction would be trying to develop this type of thing.

I think there would be a lot of local refining and inventiveness, but I wonder if what was produced would be too valuable to burn in light of the need for lubricants and its value as a trade good. How tough is it to refine motor oil and axle grease?

[castlebravo92]

I think there would be a lot of local refining and inventiveness, but I wonder if what was produced would be too valuable to burn in light of the need for lubricants and its value as a trade good. How tough is it to refine motor oil and axle grease?

Doubt it would be too valuable to burn. Mechanization for a lot of people would be the difference between life and death. A farmer with a tractor can plow a lot of land. Plowing even 40 acres with animal labor isn't easy or fast, and without animal labor...you are looking at maybe a few acres, per person.

So, it doesn't take a petrochemical engineer to get low molecular weight hydrocarbons (eg, ethanes) out of oil, which are the primary energetic component in gasoline. A lot of wells will produce "drip gas" as well, which is considered "natural" gasoline. The problem is, these low molecular weight hydrocarbons have an octane rating of around 50. It works fine in low compression, long stroke piston engines, but does not work (really at all) in modern high compression engines.

A big part of the modern gasoline / diesel refining process is not so much in the fractional distillation of oil into liquids but in the additives downstream of the raw refinery process. The easiest/cheapest way to boost the octane is to use TEL or tetra ethyl lead. This has other downsides, like lowering IQ in children. MBTE is another additive they used to use to boost octane before it started showing up in ground water and reservoirs. You can use ethanol also, but it's not nearly as helpful in ratio terms. In any event, the big challenge for producing gasoline would be getting the right additive chemicals added in, almost all of which are downstream from an intact oil industry (and the chemical plants are usually located in close physical proximity to existing refineries). These are the things that would require a petrochemical engineer and some chemists to get going starting from the ground up. Not impossible, especially in university towns near oil fields (e.g., Texas Tech in Lubbock probably has the brain power to stand something up more or less from scratch).