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Old 04-29-2013, 08:36 PM
Olefin Olefin is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Greencastle, PA
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A very good work - but keep in mind that in reality the Mexican Army only operated M3 and M5 Stuarts and the M8 75mm Howitzer Motor Carriage based on the Stuart for tanks. The only three Shermans they ever had were ARV's.

Actually always thought that the Mexicans didnt have to have tanks to have done the invasion. They had lots of light armored vehicles that were armed with a variety of guns and missiles that would have been very dangerous against their opponents in the US even without tanks to back them up.

Basically you had several US training divisions, who had almost no armor and several other infantry, National Guard, and MP formations that at best were armed with M113APC's and maybe a sprinkling of old reserve tanks pulled out of depots.

With the fact that their invasion occured after the loss of most petroleum sources the fact that their army used lighter vehicles was probably its biggest asset - i.e. even if they were faced with Abrams tanks, those tanks were facing a lack of fuel to be able to operate properly

Now could they have bought Shermans from the Israelis and tanks from the French - the Shermans are certiainly possible and the French vehicles were confirmed by Red Star Lone Star. However considering the opposition that they faced and their general lack of heavy armor, if the Mexicans had been as well equipped with tanks as the Sourcebook indicates there is a good chance the only way they would have been stopped would have been by using nukes. So I would think they had them but that instead they relied more on the APC's and AC to do the dirty work of the invasion with the tanks only being called up when a very hard nut had to be cracked to conserve them as much as possible.

As for the one Armored Division the US did have that was used to oppose the invasion - that single Division would have been opposed by both the Soviet Divison Cuba, with its heavy tanks, and also by overwhelming numbers of Mexican light armored vehicles armed with recoilless rifles, ATGM's and cannons, not to mention infantry using anti-tank rockets and recoilless rifles of their own.

You could see the 49th being overwhelmed much the way the Germans were overwhelmed in WWII - trying to stop large numbers of inferior vehicles that one on one an Abrams could deal with easily - but ten or twelve to one they couldnt. (especially once the Soviets showed up to aid the Mexicans with modern MBT's)

Keep in mind that given the timing of the invasion the most probable tanks they faced were M60's/M48's/Stingrays/Sheridans and not many of them no matter what the type (in formations outside of the 49th that is).
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