[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Southernap

See page 26 and 27 of the V1.0 book. It lays out the actions of the CENTAG that would had US forces land in Jugoslavia/Yugoslavia. NATO was driving into southern Germany to seize the industrial region that borders along the Czech border region. While the Romanians and Jugoslaivians army was driving north to try and assist and break any lines of communication between the PACT and the Italian/Greek army that had occupied Jugoslavia. The offensive was wasted by the end of the year. It says that the Jugoslavian drive was held up at Lake Balaton, which is located in Hungary. So assume that the Jugoslavians, Romanians, and US forces were driving north up to Hungary and meet up with the German IV and V corps which were in Southern Germany (see the W. German OOB in NATO vehicle guide) that were driving south to meet up.

So more than likely those units from the US were sent to try and help bolster the Jugoslavian push against Italians and make the meet up with the CENTAG and capture those industrial zones not damaged in 1997 of Southern Germany, Northern Italy, and Czech region. The move was probably made before the actions of Mexico and the Soviet forces in Mexico invaded the southern states. At which probably when the ships were at sea that the Mexicans came across and well past the point of radio communication to come back.

Even money guessing the total collapse of all command and control as well as the governmental split in 1997-98, that the JCS only knew what the DIA could tell them from what limited human intelligence could gather and report back via long communications (there manual makes references that even radios are heavily damaged due to EMP effects and and limited to LOS [both due to radiation in the air and real world applications] so you have to daisy-chain radio data back to someplace and hope the message stays together correctly). In my mind then it makes it reasonable that forces were already in transit to their ports of embarking or were embarking when the Mexican's cross the Rio Grande, again if not already at sea. So trying to turn them around to respond to the newest threat wasn't considered until those ships were past a point of no return compared to the fuel already expended.

Thanks. You're right, the timing of the two US light divisions' arrival in Yugoslavia does fit with the Yugoslav's offensive into Hungary, so it stands to reason that they were sent to assist in said. The problematic bit, though, is that in April, the Italians partitioned Yugoslavia into Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia, and the Greeks annexed Macedonia. It seems odd that there's still an intact, unified Yugoslavian army after that, let alone one that would launch a major drive into Hungary.

Also, the Romanians aren't mentioned as being involved at all. According to the v.1 history, the Romanian military was shattered in September of 1997 and the survivors were fighting as partisans in the Carpathians- they would have had their hands full. At no point after 9/15/97 were there less than 7 Soviet divisions in Romania so I just don't see the Romanians participating in a major offensive anywhere other than on home soil.

CivGov sending 42nd ID in late '99 still doesn't make sense, though. Even with fried long-distance coms, by then, CivGov would have to know that turning things around in Yugoslavia was nothing more than a forlorn hope. And by then, Mexico and New America are firmly established as major threats to home soil (not to mention the potential of fighting MilGov forces). The only thing I can think of is that Romania declared its allegiance to CivGov in the spring of 1999, so perhaps sending 42nd ID was a show of solidarity by CivGov. If so, it was a very expensive- wasteful, even- symbolic gesture.

Originally Posted by Southernap

The answer to this would be MOUT, Military Operations in Urban Terran, all the tactics manuals says to keep heavy armor out of major cities. The threats from above to armor is just too dangerous as well as hostile forces making easy tank traps of all manner that keeps armor moving to specific kill zones. See some of the photos from the Russian experiences in Chechnya with their armor being massacred. That is why in the real world, the Russians started to develop armor that basically vaporized whole buildings with a metric butt ton of guns and rockets. If not having heavy bombers come over and raining theater ballistic missiles into an area and level whole city block. Which would allow for their armored forces to move thru a city.

Strong point. Tanks and IFVs might be useful in the suburbs, but in the built-up areas of the city, they'd be extremely vulnerable to Molotovs tossed from upper floors. If the OPFOR has access to LAW-type weapons, fahgettaboudit!