[Olefin]

Originally Posted by RN7

Canon is what was published by GDW. Everything else is alternative fan fiction no matter how much you like or dislike canon or fan created alternative versions of Twilight 2000.

There are five main issues with the Mexican invasion of the American southwest.

1) Real world Mexican forces in the 1990's are not well armed enough to be capable of successfully invading and holding American territory, or defeating U.S. forces in the southwest even in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. I think everyone agrees with this.

2) The GDW sourcebooks do have large amount of information about the invasion, battles and conditions in the American southwest. However the sourcebooks do not give enough information about the combatants, particularly the Mexicans, to make it believable.

Red Star-Lone Star sourcebook has a Mexican orbat on page 12-13, but it's too vague in regards to the type of vehicles they are operating. There is a more information on pages 29-44 about the Soviets and the marauder groups in Texas.

City of Angels sourcebook goes into more detail on page 9 about Mexican forces in Los Angeles. There is more information on page 33-36 and on page 43. The Mexicans are exclusively armed with Soviet arms which has caused some debate about why the Mexicans are using Soviet equipment when they didn't in real life.

Soviet Combat Vehicle Handbook (2nd edition is better) gives an orbat for Soviet Division Cuba. There is also some related information in the Satellite Down sourcebook

3) GDW gives more detail about U.S. forces in the southwest. American Combat Vehicle Handbook (US Army Vehicle Guide for 1st edition) are particularly useful for the southwest. But obviously there is not enough information. There is information about U.S. tanks and light tanks, and the pages on organisation and composition do list other vehicles such as IFV's, APC's, artillery, AD systems and light armed vehicles. But this does not show up in the unit history and current status, with maybe the exception of the Cadet Brigade and some unit descriptions for U.S. forces in other theatres in V2.

4) GDW wrote Twilight 2000 in the 1980's from the source material they had available. They did a very good job, but without access to the internet they obviously missed a lot of information. It's enjoyable to fill the gaps.

5) The Twilight War is the Cold War turned into a hot war and then into a nuclear war. To fill in the gaps it's best to keep Twilight 2000 to Cold War history and developments as closely as reasonably possible.


The main fan fiction alternative versions of the Twilight War related to the Mexican invasion of the American southwest are...

Mexican Army 1998-2000 by Frank Chadwick in Challenge Magazine
Mexican Army Sourcebook by Paul Mulcahy
California Dreaming by Orrin J. Ladd
South America Order of Battle posted on Chris Callaghan's Twilight 2000 page by unknown
US Order of Battle for 2003 by Steve Charlton

I don't have the Mexican Army 1998-2000 from Challenge Magazine. If anyone has it could they post it up.

FYI - if there ever was a post that basically complained about the canon or presented personal opinions as fact I think this one would qualify for that designation for sure.