[Olefin]

Went out and downloaded Challenge 56 and the Lima Incident article

interesting in many ways:

it says that three M1 tanks are operational but only one has its full main armament - however you cant have a tank operational without mounting the turret and the cannon - not sure on the assembly process there and when the barrel goes on and where the boresighting process occurs - you can actually do it on the line - we bore sighted M109's at York on the production line and then did a second check after final assembly

it mentions Marysville but not the Honda plant there - which would be a huge asset for anyone trying to rebuild - lots of equipment there and they made motorcyles and cars there

it has a detachment of the 194th in Defiance Ohio - that unit is at Robinson and Cairo IL - both of which are a long long way from Defiance - basically you have to cross all of Indiana to get there - that implies that the unit is much bigger than mentioned in Howling Wildnerness to be nosing around in Ohio -i.e. they would have to be doing patrols all thru IL and IN just to get there

as the crow flies Cairo to Robinson is 159 miles and Robinson to Defiance is 238 miles - so thats an awfully big patrol area - could see why the Fort Defiance guys have been waiting

oh and one other observation - even if you take HW as canon the 194th would have a hell of a lot of gas to use for their vehicles

Robinson Refinery had a production cap of 212,000 barrels of oil per day - even at 1% they could produce 88,266 liters of gasoline per day (2120 barrels per day x 11 gallons of gas per barrel x 3.785 liters per gallon)

if the cracker is still on line, even at 1% you are talking about 168508 liters per day - thats a heck of a lot of gasoline for their vehicles even if they only make gas one or two days a week and make lube oil or diesel the rest

and if the cracker is online then you are talking avgas as well - so possibly helos for them in operation or aircraft