Mexican Army Equipment 1995

[Olefin]

I see the Mexican invasion as one that wasnt that well thought out by GDW much as the CivGov effort in Yugoslavia wasnt thought out

its almost like an afterthought - how do we get to do Red Dawn in the game - hey I got it lets have Mexico invade the US with the Russians sending a divsion along for the ride!

and if you are discussing the Mexicans - why did the Texian Legion, who wants independence for Texas, spend so much time fighting US units and not Mexican ones? If they are strong enough to wipe out a US Reserve Infantry Division (which for all we know may have had as few as 3000 men in it) then why the heck havent they driven the Mexicans out of most of Texas?

its not like the current Mexican Army could do much to stop them

[Webstral]

If memory serves, US Army Vehicle Guide lists 40th ID as being in central California in July 2000. They are controlling an area centered on a Sacramento-Oakland corridor. I’m not certain about this without checking my reference material, though. There is an MP brigade at Bakersfield. I agree that it’s odd that the Bakersfield oil is not being more heavily guarded. What are the possible explanations for this? Having driven the Grapevine (I-5 between the southern end of the Central Valley and the SoCal conurb), I can say that the road network offers few bypasses. Destruction of the road in a few places would effectively isolate the Central Valley from the south. There are a few smaller roads, but these are even more vulnerable to destruction.

The best I can come up with for the 40th not being at Bakersfield or at San Luis Obispo is that the security situation in the central Central Valley requires that AFV be present. This isn’t very satisfactory. There aren’t any enemy tanks around. It’s hard to imagine a civil unrest situation that can’t be handled by M2 or M113 with a cupola. Perhaps the Sixth US Army CG just can’t bear to have his most potent force far from his headquarters.

Regarding the Texian Legion, if memory serves they beat up a light infantry division engaged in clearing eastern Texas of hostile armed bands. The Mexicans may never have reached Texian Legion territory in any strength or at all. The Legion may have spent its strength in fighting federal forces. Afterwards, they may not have been in a position to try to expand their holdings. It’s hard to say.

[Olefin]

The US Army Guide reads as follows for the 40th

In May the division arrived at Camp Roberts, California.
After being reinforced by a variety of armored vehicles the
division was again redesignated as 40th Infantry Division
(Mechanized) and committed to combat against elements of the
Mexican Army and assorted armed bands.

Howling Wilderness has them in Lompac Tulare Monterrey Bakersfield - so they may be in the Bakersfield area after all

And the Texian Legion engaged the 85th Infantry and the 95th Infantry Division in January of 1999, with the 85th being surrounded and almost annihilated - meaning the Legion had enough combat power to take on two US light divisions (one of which had tank support) and emerge victorious - and this only a few months after they were defeated soundly by the 197th Infantry Brigade in October of 1998 (The brigade arrived in Louisiana in October and conducted a successful offensive against the Texian National Legion, breaking its grip on east Texas per the US Army Vehicle Guide)

So it seems the Legion must be quite a large force to be able to do all that

[Webstral]

That'll teach me for trying to have a discourse without checking my reference materials first.

Okay, so now I have my materials in front of me and can make better sense of things.

In California, we don’t have much to work with aside from a few mileposts. We know that 40th ID was reformed in Oregon in early 1998 and arrived at Camp Roberts, CA in May that same year. We know the division subsequently was committed to action against the Mexican Army and various armed bands. We know that in late 1999 the division nominally controls a huge swath of territory with corners at Bakersfield, Lompoc (next to Vandenberg AFB), Monterey (only 1 r), and Tulare. We know that in July 2000 the division left Milgov service on sufficiently favorable terms for 900 personnel to relocate to Sacramento.

We know 46th ID moved by road from Ft. Carson, CO to central California in the last quarter of 1998 after being rebuilt at Carson. In late 1999 the division occupied defensive positions in the southeastern portion of the Central Valley. In July 2000, the division relocated north to Sacramento.

We know 49th MP Brigade fought Mexican forces in 1998 and was forced back to Camp Roberts by the end of the year. We know that at the end of 2000, the brigade moved to Stockton—a useful position if barge traffic is still functioning.

We know that at some point in 2000 the 221st MP Brigade was disbanded and used to reinforce other Milgov units in Sixth US Army.

We don’t know much else. The Mexican Army article in Challenge doesn’t give specific locations for the units of the former Second Mexican Army. We know from City of Angels that some Mexican troops are located in and around Los Angeles. I honestly can’t imagine what they are doing there.

It seems most likely to me that most surviving Mexican units in California will be located in and around the Imperial Valley. This is where the food is, provided the water has been kept flowing. I have long suspected that the Constitucionales (EMC) would have pushed their control east to Yuma and ejected any Nationalists who remained there after the split. The real prize would be the Imperial Diversion Dam, if it is intact in July 2000. If so, then I suspect the Army of California is focused on the Imperial Valley for its food, the nearby Desert Cities for any surviving industry, and the Imperial Dam-Yuma area for control of the water for the Imperial Valley. Taken together, the units of the Army of California dispose 3,500 troops and 16 AFV in July 2000. It seems unlikely to me that with a civil war ramping up in Mexico they would have any interest in Los Angeles, to say nothing of tangling with the Americans in the Central Valley or along the coast. I think that by 2001 the Second Mexican-American War has gone into remission in California.

There has been some work done to fill in some of the gaps in California from June 1998 through July 2000. I’ve done some of it, and some others have completed some very good work.

Texas is another issue deserving attention on another day.

[Olefin]

In my T2KU the Howling Wildnerness changes never happened and the US is about to go over to the offensive finally in 2001 in CA to eject the Mexicans. I dont agree with the movement of the 40th out of its original cantonment for one big reason - OIL. Thats why the MilGov move makes no sense and again makes me think the authors didnt know the state very well - you dont have your units in OK basically fight to death to guard it and then walk away from a huge oil field in Bakersfield and wells and small refineries that werent hit in the exchange.

So that part of HW, even more so than other parts, makes no sense whatsoever - the 40th isnt going to walk away from that much oil.

And the Challenge article does give the locations - you just have to work out the latitude and longitude positions -but you are right - most of them are right along the border - but there are units deployed in the Los Angeles area but not in the city itself

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Webstral

We know from City of Angels that some Mexican troops are located in and around Los Angeles. I honestly can’t imagine what they are doing there.

Organized looting? Lot of territory to cover, and lots of it will have been churned through once or twice before.

Uncle Ted

[Olefin]

considering the sheer size of LA plus the cities in the basin there is a big chance there is a LOT of stuff left to find there - and keep in mind that some of the others that were previously too radioactive to look at may have now cooled down


the other thing is to look at the placement of the nuke strikes - many of them would have left a lot of LA intact

always wondered why the authors didnt have the Russians try to set off the San Andreas with nuke strikes on the fault line

[Webstral]

The 40th doesn't walk away from the oil. Sixth US Army does, it seems, but 40th ID does not. I’m also inclined to dismiss both the severe drought and the very high attrition rate of military units that are not generally in high-tempo combat, as we have all discussed at great length. Once the population and food supplies balance out, which they seem to have done in most places by the time the Fall harvest of 2000 comes in, recruitment should be able to keep pace with losses fairly easily.

It is hard to understand why things develop the way the authors describe in California. The Bakersfield oil would be a major factor in the thinking of the senior leadership in the region. One possibility is that the supply of oil or refined products becomes so small that it is not as big a deal as we might otherwise expect. Accidents or sabotage might be responsible for a refinery bottleneck. It’s hard to say. I do note that the parting of company between 63rd Corps and 40th ID seems amicable. Nine hundred troops from 40th ID leave the division and go north, which strongly suggests that some sort of modus vivendi has been worked out between Sixth US Army CG and the commander of 40th ID. Perhaps some sort of trade agreement has been put into place whereby Sixth US Army provides 40th ID with something they need in return for crude oil or refined products. While this sort of dealing seems counterintuitive on the surface, perhaps a few very level-headed people realized that blue-on-blue violence as a solution to their differences was going to weaken everybody and perhaps destroy some of the critical remaining infrastructure.

Originally Posted by Olefin

And the Challenge article does give the locations - you just have to work out the latitude and longitude positions -but you are right - most of them are right along the border - but there are units deployed in the Los Angeles area but not in the city itself

Interesting! I have a download that doesn’t have locations more specific than “California” or “South Texas”. I’d be curious to see the locations given in your resource on a map.

I really do wonder why the Army of California is putting manpower into patrolling/occupying Los Angeles. Most of us here understand what four nuclear strikes on the LA basin is going to do to LA County. The whole basin ought to look more-or-less like Tokyo after the last big firebombing raid before the attack on Hiroshima. I haven’t read City of Angels extensively, so I’m not familiar with the rationale given for the presence of Mexican Army units. It seems to me like a needless diversion of resources.

When I was still putting time into Thunder Empire, I gave some thought to the fate of the Army of California. It seems to me that the Second Mexican Civil War offers the Americans an opportunity, though not without cost. We know that there are two main factions fighting for control of Mexico: the Nationalists (ENM? Really, the PRI) and the Constitutionalists (EMC). There are several smaller groups, and they are not without their importance. What matters is that the EMC is the main rival to the PRI throughout most of Mexico in 2000.

Milgov is going to want to see regime change in Mexico, if at all possible. If this isn’t possible, then Milgov would like to see an independent Republica del Norte or Aztlan Republic in northern Mexico to be a buffer between the US and the main body of Mexico. This amounts to supporting the EMC. EMC control over the Imperial Valley and the Imperial Dam gives them an important base of supply upon which an offensive to capture the rest of Baja California and/or Sonora might be based. The Americans want to regain control over this resource, but taking this resource from the EMC would deprive them of a crucial resource for their own efforts even if forces available to Milgov in the American Southwest were up to the task and could get it done without major losses. It’s a challenge.

Los Angeles is going to be reduced to ashes and rubble by firestorm. The thermal pulses from four separate nuclear explosions within the basin will create a firestorm that will dwarf anything seen in WW2. Greater Los Angeles is noteworthy for being wall-to-wall development. Obviously, not everything will be completely destroyed. But the level of destruction will be spectacular--comparable to Warsaw only even more widespread.

[Olefin]

I lived in LA and there are areas that are natural fire breaks (the freeways for instance, the LA River, the Hollywood Hills, Griffith Park, etc..) that could stop the whole basin from going up - and remember you have places like Glendale, the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena that are a long way from where the nukes hit.

One big question would be the winds that day - thats a big factor in fires in LA - depending on how they were blowing you could have had the fires move quickly or not - so I dont see LA as being a sea of ruins a la Tokyo in its entirety

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Webstral

The 40th doesn't walk away from the oil. Sixth US Army does, it seems, but 40th ID does not. I’m also inclined to dismiss both the severe drought and the very high attrition rate of military units that are not generally in high-tempo combat, as we have all discussed at great length. Once the population and food supplies balance out, which they seem to have done in most places by the time the Fall harvest of 2000 comes in, recruitment should be able to keep pace with losses fairly easily.

It is hard to understand why things develop the way the authors describe in California. The Bakersfield oil would be a major factor in the thinking of the senior leadership in the region. One possibility is that the supply of oil or refined products becomes so small that it is not as big a deal as we might otherwise expect. Accidents or sabotage might be responsible for a refinery bottleneck. It’s hard to say. I do note that the parting of company between 63rd Corps and 40th ID seems amicable. Nine hundred troops from 40th ID leave the division and go north, which strongly suggests that some sort of modus vivendi has been worked out between Sixth US Army CG and the commander of 40th ID. Perhaps some sort of trade agreement has been put into place whereby Sixth US Army provides 40th ID with something they need in return for crude oil or refined products. While this sort of dealing seems counterintuitive on the surface, perhaps a few very level-headed people realized that blue-on-blue violence as a solution to their differences was going to weaken everybody and perhaps destroy some of the critical remaining infrastructure.



Interesting! I have a download that doesn’t have locations more specific than “California” or “South Texas”. I’d be curious to see the locations given in your resource on a map.

I really do wonder why the Army of California is putting manpower into patrolling/occupying Los Angeles. Most of us here understand what four nuclear strikes on the LA basin is going to do to LA County. The whole basin ought to look more-or-less like Tokyo after the last big firebombing raid before the attack on Hiroshima. I haven’t read City of Angels extensively, so I’m not familiar with the rationale given for the presence of Mexican Army units. It seems to me like a needless diversion of resources.

When I was still putting time into Thunder Empire, I gave some thought to the fate of the Army of California. It seems to me that the Second Mexican Civil War offers the Americans an opportunity, though not without cost. We know that there are two main factions fighting for control of Mexico: the Nationalists (ENM? Really, the PRI) and the Constitutionalists (EMC). There are several smaller groups, and they are not without their importance. What matters is that the EMC is the main rival to the PRI throughout most of Mexico in 2000.

Milgov is going to want to see regime change in Mexico, if at all possible. If this isn’t possible, then Milgov would like to see an independent Republica del Norte or Aztlan Republic in northern Mexico to be a buffer between the US and the main body of Mexico. This amounts to supporting the EMC. EMC control over the Imperial Valley and the Imperial Dam gives them an important base of supply upon which an offensive to capture the rest of Baja California and/or Sonora might be based. The Americans want to regain control over this resource, but taking this resource from the EMC would deprive them of a crucial resource for their own efforts even if forces available to Milgov in the American Southwest were up to the task and could get it done without major losses. It’s a challenge.

Los Angeles is going to be reduced to ashes and rubble by firestorm. The thermal pulses from four separate nuclear explosions within the basin will create a firestorm that will dwarf anything seen in WW2. Greater Los Angeles is noteworthy for being wall-to-wall development. Obviously, not everything will be completely destroyed. But the level of destruction will be spectacular--comparable to Warsaw only even more widespread.

And by the way I agree totally with you that having US units continue to shrink and lose manpower in the US makes no sense at all- you have a population that is looking to get fed - well the quickest way to get fed is to join the US Army - if anything those units should be growing in size, using recruits to bring back their service units and letting combat soldiers concentrate on being infantrymen again

i.e. "Ok Sonny, looks like you passed the test" says the Sergeant tasting his rabbit stew. "You are now in the US Army. Report to the mess sergeant tomorrow!" - which now lets the trained infantryman who got drafted into being a cook because they were so short on manpower go back to being an infantryman

[Webstral]

I agree that the Valley and some other places a bit removed from Los Angeles probably will be spared. I also agree that which way the wind is blowing will matter a great deal, since the refineries are all fairly close to the shoreline.

A factor I didn’t think of until just now is moisture. 1997-1998 is [was] an El Nino winter. Recently, I’ve been told that El Nino affects SoCal more than the SF Bay Area. Thanksgiving is well into the rainy season. I’d have to look at what actually happened that season in terms of rainfall in Los Angeles, but very wet ground will inhibit the spread of fires. How much I can’t say. Still, I’d be willing revise my estimate of the level of destruction downward based on an exceptional rainy season, other factors aside.

If we are willing to accept that the entire LA basin hasn't been reduced to cinders, then organized looting is not an unreasonable proposition. It would not be uncommon for gangs of professional salvagers to operate in unoccupied areas. They would be desirous of security so that people who are good at salvaging could focus on that mission instead of providing their own security. There is a logic to assuming that if there are areas that aren’t charred ruin that a combat unit would provide security for a large-scale salvage operation for a fee. If the salvage operation is big enough, then a combat unit with hundreds of troops and operational AFV might find security ops profitable or even run the show.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Webstral

A factor I didn’t think of until just now is moisture. 1997-1998 is [was] an El Nino winter. Recently, I’ve been told that El Nino affects SoCal more than the SF Bay Area. Thanksgiving is well into the rainy season. I’d have to look at what actually happened that season in terms of rainfall in Los Angeles, but very wet ground will inhibit the spread of fires. How much I can’t say. Still, I’d be willing revise my estimate of the level of destruction downward based on an exceptional rainy season, other factors aside.

I know from bitter experience here in Australia that a wetter than normal year inhibits fires while the rain is around, but the following dry season is invariably MUCH worse for fires because of the explosion in vegetation growth due to all that moisture.

So even if the fires resulting from the destruction of the refineries aren't as bad due to wetter ground, the following year when there's not much in the way of organized firefighting crews around anymore, fires that start by other means are going to run completely out of control, with that much more dry vegetation to feed them.

[Olefin]

i would think that any forest fire issues in CA wont be a factor in Los Angeles for quite a while - LA's city areas outside of a few parks isnt exactly a place of lush growth - but I can see fires devastating places like Malibu for instance as happened when I was there in the 90's - so areas like that in the basin may be almost as burned out as the areas hit by the nukes

LA is just too big an area to properly ever say its been picked over totally - which is not to say its going to be easy looting by 2001 - but it wont be a picked clean skeleton either

[rcaf_777]

The Imperial Valley would be a key area for any army to control as it has canals and other key water reseources for Calforina and Arizona. It also has Interstate 8 running thru it which contects Calforina and Arizona. The Morelos Dam would also be a key item to control

I wonder is Naval Air Facility El Centro would be spared as it would a logical place for Military Forces to Operate out off

[Olefin]

Just as an exercise I plotted out the attack on LA using the excellent resource http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ - and I wonder why the game designers had the Soviets attack as they did - for one the amount of destruction is way past the point of a "limited attack on oil facilities only" - for another its definitely overkill

The Nuke attacks are as follows:

Torrance, CA: Oil refining and storage facilities (.5 Mt).
Wilmington, CA: Oil refining and storage facilities (1.25 Mt).
El Segundo, CA: Oil refining and storage facilities (1.75 Mt).
Carson, CA: Oil refining and storage facilities (.75 Kt).

Plus the attack on March Air Force Base

Ok first question - if you are going after refineries why are they using 1.75 megatons? Thats a city buster not a refinery buster.

Second - look at a map of LA and the whole attack makes no sense to use that many nukes. The Torrance and Carson strikes are basically overlapping - either the Torrance or Carson strike, all by itself would have taken out both facilities quite handily, as the air blast radius overlaps each other - and you don't need the fireball to take out an oil storage facility. In other words the Soviets weren't taking out oil facilities - they were specifically taking out the city of Los Angeles

When you add it all up it takes out basically the area from the 10 to the 5 to the 605 and hits LA with 4.25 Megatons - again a hell of a lot more than just "the oil facilities were hit"

Given that level of attack I definitely now agree with those talking about the firestorm destroying LA - Glendale, Burbank, the Valley, Pasadena and Orange County would survive but in the basin itself anything south of the Hollywood Hills and west of the San Gabriel River would have been one huge firestorm and nothing but ruins - i.e. what you see in the Terminator movies

One interesting thing - even with that devastating a pattern, due to its location there is every chance the Inglewood Oil Field would have survived both the attack and the resulting fires

[mpipes]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Ok first question - if you are going after refineries why are they using 1.75 megatons?

Simple answer....deliverable warheads. In the 1990s, most Soviet ICBM and SLBM warheads were at least 500kt yield, even on their MIRVs. Here are some stats for 1990s:

SS-17 4X400kt MIRV 1X3.4mt
SS-18 1X18-25mt 1X20mt 8-10X.5-1.5mt MIRV 10X.75-1.0mt MIRV
SS-19 6X400kt MIRV 1X5mt
SS-24 10X550kt MIRV (36 of 92 missile located in Ukraine before breakup)
SS-25 1X800kt
SS-27 1X800kt
SS-N-8 1X1.5mt
SS-N-18 3X500kt MIRV 7X100kt MIRV 1X450kt
SS-N-20 10X100-200kt MIRV
SS-N-23 4X100kt MIRV

Note that the SS-18 (Mod 6) carrying a single 20mt warhead was intended for high altitude detonation to generate EMP.

Moreover, no one is really sure how well their ICBMs or SLBMs will actually perform, so in real life multiple missiles would likely target some targets. For example, 3 or 4 MIRV missiles (maybe as many as 16 warheads or more) would likely be allocated to the DC area to make absolutely sure of the destruction of the White House and Pentagon bunkers, Washington Naval Yard, CIA, NSA, State Dept, Congress, and Andrews AFB. I would not be surprised at all at the number of missiles targeting the LA area, especially since the B-2 production line was in the vicinity as well as high tech defense companies and manufacturing. If memory serves me right, the main Raytheon ECM and radar production facilities were in LA as one example.

[Olefin]

Oh I am not doubting that they couldnt lay on that attack - but thats a lot of overkill to use that many warheads when two of the attack pts are overlapping - in fact if they came in close to each other in time the detonation of one warhead might have taken out the other one before it detonated.

Using the two 1 MT plus warheads as they did though - that's a city killer mission, not the "we are trying to avoid an all-out exchange" mission

Its one thing to use the big ones on ICBM fields or isolated targets - its another to have it basically go off right in the center of a major population area.

Remember the whole purpose was to avoid escalation to an all out exchange by not busting cities (with DC and Moscow being the big exceptions) - that kind of nuke used on LA would have been about the dumbest move possible in that situation.