1998 European Campaign

[chico20854]

Keeping up with the effort that produced last year's Advent Crown history, I have prepared the attached history of the 1998 European campaign. Since many of us are cooped up at home, I thought it might make a good read to pull you away from Netflix for a while!

It'll be on my website (https://sites.google.com/site/chico20854/) shortly.

Enjoy!

[Raellus]

Thanks for this, Chico. Capital stuff, as always.

[Lurken]

Amazing work!

Really helps to flesh out what happened during the war years in Europe! You are amazing!

[Olefin]

Chico would you think that the various militaries would be starting the large scale switchover to alcohol fuels in late 1998 or is that more a 1999 event?

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Chico would you think that the various militaries would be starting the large scale switchover to alcohol fuels in late 1998 or is that more a 1999 event?

I think it would probably start in the spring of 1998, as logisticians realized that the stocks of petroleum they had were not being refilled from their national economies, or at least in sufficient volume to sustain mobile operations and support the civil population. I think it would start in lower priority units or sectors, like the Polish Army and units that were far from oil producing areas or ports, since a not insignificant amount of fuel would be burned just moving it.

As 1998 goes on into 1999 what began as an expedient for those units gradually becomes the only way for most units to retain mobility. I'm not sure how to address the concept of reserving what oil is produced for lubricants, since the large refineries are out of commission and hardly responsive to distant customers who are unable to communicate!

[Olefin]

I can see the conversion starting probably by the later part of 1998 as the US attempts to recover their economy start to falter - and accelerating with the last of the nuclear strikes in 1998 probably taking out what infrastructure was left in Great Britain to get fuel from the North Sea for NATO. It also depends on how long was Ploesti knocked out - we know it was back in operation by early 2000 to get the oil the Soviets needed for their last great offensive which destroyed the 5th. There probably was still a lot of fuel and oil available well into the middle of 1998 (keep in mind just how much fuel there would be to scrounge at least at first) - and then as infrastructure repair efforts didnt achieve results in the US and the Middle East it rapidly began to dwindle as the switchover to using what was left for lubricants and to keep ships operating to bring what supplies could be produced over to Europe and Iran and Korea and Kenya.