YaATW2KT: The Second Mexican-American War

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Olefin

"It has always been about the belligerent & insulting manner in which the original authors have been criticized for being unrealistic when the person supplying that criticism is himself making some claims that fall into that category."

Sorry but no one is being either belligerent or insulting of the original authors.

And the claims that I am making are totally realistic

Fact - the Belgians were in the process of replacing their old APC's with new ones, many of them built in Belguim

Fact - the Mexican Army was operating a lot of French equipment as was trying to get more to modernize their army - and was buying mostly from the French so that it wouldnt strain their logistics system which already sucked

Fact - the Belgians would have most likely wanted to get rid of their older APC's now that they had new ones - which is indicated by the real world draw down in the 1990's

and also the canon - the three day stand in Texas by a bunch of military cadets, the fact that the School Brigade - with basically anti-aircraft weapons used against armor and the very nature of the Mexican Army who had never bought main battle tanks previously in the history of their armed forces except a few Stuarts that were used as recon armor and not tanks all add up to a Mexican military that would not have suddenly bought hundreds of tanks

and canon - the forces that were left in the US could not have stopped a Mexican Army as depicted in the fan canon sourcebook backed up by a Soviet Motor Rifle Division from taking a hell of a lot more territory unless every unit left in the US went to engage them - which THEY DID NOT - especially two armored brigades that for sure would have engaged them -
that alone shows that they could not have had that much heavy armor

in fact the canon saying that when the 197th did enter Texas it only did so to fight the Texian Legion and marauders tells you that the Mexicans didnt have any heavy armor of their own along for the ride

and my objection to canon comes down to the Mexicans being able to hold what they took for any length of time past 2000 considering the amount of new veteran US troops brought back to the country, considering that many of the areas they held would have had almost no water when the US cut off the supplies and that they were fighting a Civil War and had almost no logistical support of any kind

So am I objecting to the invasion itself - no - what I am objecting to is a very obviously flawed fan canon sourcebook that adds so much in the way of overall TOE to the Mexican Army that you would have to not just rewrite canon you would have to literally tear it up and ignore it - including Frank Chadwick's Mexican Army post in Challenge, the US Army Vehicle Guide and its dispositions of US forces after the invasion and Red Star Lone Star - in fact the only Mexican force with tanks is in City of Angels and its considered apocrypha mainly because of the sudden appearance of so much Russian equipment and almost no Mexican

if the Mexicans had built up a force with that many tanks the US would have only had one way to stop it - and basically that would have meant multiple nukes on both the US and Mexico in places like Texas, California, AZ and NM - and again thats a big time rewrite of canon history

You are looking at a Mexican Army with literally almost 1500 tanks plus Division Cuba against one armored division, one reforming mech division fitted with whatever tanks they could grab and two tank brigades that never even engaged the invasion - all low on gas and ammo - good luck stopping that short of Kansas or Oregon

"Fact - the Belgians were in the process of replacing their old APC's with new ones, many of them built in Belguim"

Belgium had a small defence budget and a small army that was committed to NATO. In fact almost the entire Belgian regular army was committed to NATO and its main function was to commit the I Belgian Corps to CENTAG in West Germany. Belgium had two reserve mechanised brigades to reinforce the I Belgian Corps and defend Belgian territory, and both brigades were equipped with the AMX VCI. Belgium shares a land border with Germany and if I Belgian Corps failed to whole the line then the Soviets would be marching on Belgium, and all the Belgian Army would have to defend Belgium would be the two reserve mechanised brigades and some territorial infantry battalions. But you believe Belgium would ignore its own very real defence needs and strip its army of over 500 APC's (AMX VCI and BDX) and sell them to Mexico for the price of second hand surplus.

Fact - the Mexican Army was operating a lot of French equipment as was trying to get more to modernize their army - and was buying mostly from the French so that it wouldnt strain their logistics system which already sucked.

This is basically what Paul Mulcahy proposed in his Mexican Army Sourcebook, but you dismissed it out of hand. You may not agree with the level of equipment that Mexico bought or licence built from France, but he was certainly on the right path and Mexico would need to beef up its army with tanks to take on U.S. forces. A few battalions of AMX-30's plus some Soviet tanks from Division Cuba would at least give the Mexicans a fighting chance against U.S. forces, and explain why they were able to defeat better armed U.S. forces and hold American territory for longer than they would be expected to do so once U.S. forces come after them.

In the 1980's Mexico bought the following from France. 120 ERC-90, 48 VCR-TT, 40 VBL including 8 with Milan anti-tank missiles, 32 MO-120 RT 120mm Mortars and 80 MILAN anti-tank missile. They also bought 6 FIROS -51 Self propelled MRL from Italy. This is a fairly moderate arms purchase but nonetheless upgraded Mexican forces, and all of these arms were bought new.

In the 1990's Mexico bought 401 Belgian AMX VCI including mortar carriers and ARV's that were modified as the DNC-1 in Mexico, 95 BDX that were designated as DNC-2 in Mexico, and also bought 28 Commando V-150 from the U.S. All of these were bought after the end of the Cold War and were bought second hand from surplus Belgian and U.S. stocks.

The rest.

GDW didn't write a perfect Orbat or history for the Twilight War, but it's still damn good considering the source material they had available in the 1980's. GDW listed U.S. divisions, brigades and armoured cavalry regiments only. There were some omissions in U.S. Army forces regards to brigades and battalions that were not roundout's, and this has been pointed out many times. Also GDW only lists tanks, there is little or no reference to the number of lighter armoured vehicles and artillery of all types, and there must have been a lot operated by U.S. forces.

If you don't like canon go and type up your own alternative version and post it up, but I like canon and will stick with it.

[Rainbow Six]

My issue here - which others have already mentioned - is the way that one person's opinions are being presented as facts.

Also if you have issues with something that another fan has put together (and, as far as I know has never claimed to be any sort of canon, fan or otherwise) I think there are far more constructive ways to do so than referring to it as 'very obviously flawed' (which again is an opinion, not a fact - other opinions may vary).

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

My issue here - which others have already mentioned - is the way that one person's opinions are being presented as facts.

Also if you have issues with something that another fan has put together (and, as far as I know has never claimed to be any sort of canon, fan or otherwise) I think there are far more constructive ways to do so than referring to it as 'very obviously flawed' (which again is an opinion, not a fact - other opinions may vary).

Ok flawed by my meaning is so overpowering that there is no way the US forces in the canon could have stopped them with what they had and with the deployments in the canon - and if they had all those tanks where did they all go to? There is a very detailed order of battle for the Mexican forces in Texas in Red Star Lone Star - and not one single Mexican tank to be found anywhere - and GDW was very good at making sure that vehicles like tanks were accounted for as they were so rare.

If they had been there in their formations there would have been some survivors for sure- and would have been very easy for GDW to say "the Mexican unit in Laredo has two of the last surviving AMX-30 tanks from those they bought from France".

They werent there because the only tanks they ever operated were Stuarts because they never needed tanks.

And they werent plotting for years to invade the US - it happened almost on the spur of the moment per the canon. And given the very bad nature of the roads and rail system in Mexico in the mid-1990s' and how tight their military budget was if anything they would have spent the money on vehicles their army was built around - i.e. APC's and light armored cars which by the way their defense industry was ready to support and maintain

By the time they knew they were going to do it there was no time to prepare to fight the US by getting a lot of tanks and other vehicles - it was a come as you are kind of war - per the canon

If you want the Mexican Army Sourcebook then the canon would need some serious rewriting (moving the 194th and 197th to stop that huge amount of Mexican armor let alone Civgov having to cooperate with Milgov for sure to stop that kind of armored force instead of Civgov trying to not get units sent to the 5th Army) - versus not having it and it reads pretty well even given just the DNC-1 and DNC-2 additions to their army

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

My issue here - which others have already mentioned - is the way that one person's opinions are being presented as facts.

Also if you have issues with something that another fan has put together (and, as far as I know has never claimed to be any sort of canon, fan or otherwise) I think there are far more constructive ways to do so than referring to it as 'very obviously flawed' (which again is an opinion, not a fact - other opinions may vary).

and one last point - I am only saying its flawed as a way to say how canonically the Mexican Army was equipped - It does not agree with what Red Star Lone Star or Frank Chadwick's Challenge article have - which are the canon sources we have (and if you come up with a good reason for the Soviet armor the only other canon source being City of Angels)

[Rainbow Six]

I have no particular opinion on the fan produced Mexican Army sourcebook. I don't think I've ever done any more than skim through it and I certainly don't regard it as canon - quite the opposite, as I said, it's fan produced material, so is strictly non canon as far as I'm concerned. So as it's not canon in my opinion I really don't care if it contradicts Red Star, Lone Star or the Challenge article on the Mexican Army.

[Olefin]

keep in mind that my statements on the Mexican Army Sourcebook, as it currently stands, is only as a response to those who would use it to try to represent the canon status of the Mexican Army and the canon response of the US Army to the invasion

So let me state for the record as to what I think of it as a piece of stand alone fan canon and how you could extract info from it to support a canon campaign

As a piece of fan canon, that provides an alternate to the canon or canon material, it as an excellent piece of writing that can easily be used by those who want to have an alternate version of the canon Mexican invasion to both bring in many new vehicles and units for their campaign. One where the Mexican Army is much better equipped than it would have been per the canon dispositions as to size of the Army and what vehicles it was equipped with.

It also provides detailed information on both the history of the Mexican Army for those looking for a very good read on that history and also detailed information on small arms and other things you could encounter from a canonical Mexican unit.

Also in my opinion it adds an impressive amount of information on real life Mexican Army vehicles that were not presented in the canonical material but definitely would have been encountered in the US or Mexico by players using it to support the canon. As such it could easily be used to support and expand a canonical campaign if you ignore the anti-canonical vehicles and expansion to the Mexican Army TOE and units

And with rewriting to have it match the current released canon as to the size of the Mexican Army and what vehicles it would have had in the canon releases like Red Star Lone Star (i.e. where the Mexican Army lacked main battle tanks and thus had to bring in Soviet Division Cuba to be able to support them), in my opinion, it would be an excellent new canon release if the author wanted to go thru the effort and time to edit it as such and also corrected for photos and such that are not ok for releases for profit (versus fan canon) as I had to do with the original fan canon release for Africa

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

My issue here - which others have already mentioned - is the way that one person's opinions are being presented as facts.

This. Very much this.

Let's face it, guys. Like it or not, we're a small community. Schisms are particularly damaging. A lot of people who used to be fixtures here now show up here seldom or never. Have they just lost interest or have they been repulsed by the tone of some of the discussion here? It's hard to say, but I suspect a good proportion of our "lost" members fall into the latter category.

One person's T2KU need not be everyone's. Hubris is a big turn-off. Slagging someone else's work (canon or not) because you see things differently is not cool.

From our very own forum guidelines.

Originally Posted by Raellus

Keep It Civil

We can all agree to disagree but let's make sure to do so respectfully. No name-calling, sarcasm, or other childishness is appropriate or welcome here. If you are upset with someone and want them to know about it, send them a PM and try to work it out privately. If another member is really getting on your nerves, you can use the forum tools to place that person on your ignore list. We don't tolerate flame wars here.

Please don't attempt to incite internecine forum conflict with deliberately provocative and/or inflammatory posts. In interweb parlance, please don't be a troll.

Keep It Constructive

Folks post a lot of original T2K material here, most of it of the highest quality. Many contributors invite and welcome constructive criticism. If, however, they do not solicit feedback, then it's poor form to pipe in give it anyway. And please, don't post just to tear down the hard work of others. If you really don't like something that someone else has posted, and can't express this respectfully and with the intention of creating a constructive dialogue with the poster, then you should probably just keep it to yourself.

Thanks, and enjoy!

[Olefin]

Heard what you said Raellus and noted

as for those who arent posting here anymore - sorry but please dont make it sound like that is my responsibility - frankly if anyone loves and encourages discussion its me - as long as it discussion - however posts like this I dont see as as meeting the decorum of the board either

"Whoa whoa whoa... so let me get this right. Someone complains about the lack of proper research done by the original authors and then uses poor research himself to "correct" somebody's inventory for Mexico?"

That sort of violates both the Keep it Civil and Keep it Constructive precepts of the board.

and FYI the AMX-VCI that I was saying was in the Mexican Army inventory that I was getting hammered for - its also in the Mexican Sourcebook as them having it as well - i.e. I was agreeing there with what was in the Sourcebook as being accurate for what they actually had for the canon invasion

I love this board and the freedom of discussion it has - and if anyone really doesnt want it to descend into "in your face" facebook style comments its me - and if I made those then I apologize big time

[RN7]

Canon is what was published by GDW. Everything else is alternative fan fiction no matter how much you like or dislike canon or fan created alternative versions of Twilight 2000.

There are five main issues with the Mexican invasion of the American southwest.

1) Real world Mexican forces in the 1990's are not well armed enough to be capable of successfully invading and holding American territory, or defeating U.S. forces in the southwest even in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. I think everyone agrees with this.

2) The GDW sourcebooks do have large amount of information about the invasion, battles and conditions in the American southwest. However the sourcebooks do not give enough information about the combatants, particularly the Mexicans, to make it believable.

Red Star-Lone Star sourcebook has a Mexican orbat on page 12-13, but it's too vague in regards to the type of vehicles they are operating. There is a more information on pages 29-44 about the Soviets and the marauder groups in Texas.

City of Angels sourcebook goes into more detail on page 9 about Mexican forces in Los Angeles. There is more information on page 33-36 and on page 43. The Mexicans are exclusively armed with Soviet arms which has caused some debate about why the Mexicans are using Soviet equipment when they didn't in real life.

Soviet Combat Vehicle Handbook (2nd edition is better) gives an orbat for Soviet Division Cuba. There is also some related information in the Satellite Down sourcebook

3) GDW gives more detail about U.S. forces in the southwest. American Combat Vehicle Handbook (US Army Vehicle Guide for 1st edition) are particularly useful for the southwest. But obviously there is not enough information. There is information about U.S. tanks and light tanks, and the pages on organisation and composition do list other vehicles such as IFV's, APC's, artillery, AD systems and light armed vehicles. But this does not show up in the unit history and current status, with maybe the exception of the Cadet Brigade and some unit descriptions for U.S. forces in other theatres in V2.

4) GDW wrote Twilight 2000 in the 1980's from the source material they had available. They did a very good job, but without access to the internet they obviously missed a lot of information. It's enjoyable to fill the gaps.

5) The Twilight War is the Cold War turned into a hot war and then into a nuclear war. To fill in the gaps it's best to keep Twilight 2000 to Cold War history and developments as closely as reasonably possible.


The main fan fiction alternative versions of the Twilight War related to the Mexican invasion of the American southwest are...

Mexican Army 1998-2000 by Frank Chadwick in Challenge Magazine
Mexican Army Sourcebook by Paul Mulcahy
California Dreaming by Orrin J. Ladd
South America Order of Battle posted on Chris Callaghan's Twilight 2000 page by unknown
US Order of Battle for 2003 by Steve Charlton

I don't have the Mexican Army 1998-2000 from Challenge Magazine. If anyone has it could they post it up.

[Olefin]

I have it -and there arent any tanks - ERC90 armored cars and VAB APC just like Lone Star Red Star

Before the war, the Mexican Army consisted
of 100,000 active troops and 60,000
reservists. Active forces comprised a
Presidential Guard Brigade, two
mechanized brigades, three armored
cavalry regiments and 36 regional
brigades.

The Presidential Guard Brigade
consisted of three infantry regiments.
Each mechanized brigade consisted of
two mechanized infantry regiments, one
armored recon regiment, and one selfpropelled
artillery grupo (battalion). The
armored cavalry regiments were
battalion-sized groups of armored cars
and infantry carried in wheeled armored
personnel carriers.

The 36 regional
brigades varied in strength, but their
average strength was one motorized
cavalry regiment, two infantry regiments,
and one battery of artillery. The
mechanized brigades and armored
cavalry regiments were numbered. (All
regiments were organized as a single battalion.)
The artillery for the regional
brigades were provided by detached batteries
of three numbered artillery
regiments.

Regional brigades themselves
were designated by the city or town that
constituted their peacetime station, and
their component regiments also carried
a variation of that as a designation. (For
example, the Monclova Brigade consisted
of the Monclova Cavalry, the 1st
and 2nd Monclova Infantry, and the 6th
Battery of the 2nd Artillery.)
Reservists were intended to bring
prewar units up to full strength and to
provide replacements. In actuality, they
were used to form additional infantry
regiments.

These regiments were referred
to as Activo regiments and
generally carried the designation of the
city or state from which they were
recruited. In many cases, these were
recruited from the same cities as the
peacetime stations of regional brigades,
in which case they assumed the next
available number for infantry regiments
from that region. For example, Brigada
Mexicali had two infantry regiments
before the war. An additional regiment
of reservists was raised from Mexicali
and designated the 30 Regimento Infanteria
Activo Mexicali. One additional
light artillery battalion of three batteries
was formed from reservists as well.

EQUIPMENT
Artillery: Each mechanized brigade had
6 MI09 SP 155mm howitzers and 12 MI08
105mm SP howitzers. All artillery batteries
in the regional brigades were
equipped with 105mm howitzers.
Mobilized reservists manned three batteries
of antique 75mm pack howitzers
that had seen duty with the 4th Army in
southeastern Texas.

Armored Vehicles: Armored cavalry
regiments and armored recon battalions
included a squadron of seventeen
ERC-90 armored cars and two squadrons
of infantry in VAB armored personnel
carriers (both of French manufacture).

Some motorized cavalry regiments included
a mixed squadron of VABs and
ERC90s (trucks and jeeps carried the
other squadrons of the regiment).
Mechanized infantry regimeqts included
forty VAB APCs.

Support Weapons: Each regiment included
eighteen 60mm mortars (6 per
company) and six jeep-mounted TOW
systems. However, many regiments of
regional brigades had not received TOW
by the outbreak of hostilities. A variety
of obsolete light antitank systems were
also in use, the most common being the
2.75" M9 Bazooka of World War I1 vintage.

A small quantity of modern light
AAA guns were also received prior to the
war, and 8 such guns were attached to
each of the three regular brigades. In the
Presidential Guard these were twin
30mm guns, while in the l a and 2a
brigades these were twin 20mm guns. In
all cases the guns were towed.

You want the rest - I have it - details the invasion forces and where they went and gives ORBAT - and again no tanks

And RN - frankly you can keep your opinions of whether or not I like fan canon or canon to yourself.

As for your post - you are the one calling canon into question - not me.

I could go thru your post and argue the details with you - but frankly its not worth the effort to do so.

I have better things to do with my time and my talents than waste it on this subject.

I was planning on writing at least one if not several modules on that area - but now not sure frankly that its worth one more minute of my time.

Have a good evening.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I And RN - frankly you can keep your opinions of whether or not I like fan canon or canon to yourself.

As for your post - you are the one calling canon into question - not me.

I could go thru your post and argue the details with you - but frankly its not worth the effort to do so.

I have better things to do with my time and my talents than waste it on this subject.

I was planning on writing at least one if not several modules on that area - but now not sure frankly that its worth one more minute of my time.

Have a good evening.

Olefin I wasn't directing any criticism at you whatsoever, if I was I would have named or quoted you. I was trying to make the issues on this thread clearer to stop further bickering, and I wasn't criticising anyone.

I stated that "Canon is what was published by GDW. Everything else is alternative fan fiction no matter how much you like or dislike canon or fan created alternative versions of Twilight 2000" because that is what it is. It wasn't a jibe directed at you. If you dislike canon go and post an alternative version like I asked you in an earlier post.

I like debating canon not trying to change it, and if I didn't like debating it I wouldn't respond to your posts. In fact if you have read what I have said on many earlier posts on this thread you will find that I am in agreement with you on a number of things.

I think you probably took more than your fair share of criticism today on this topic, but then you do like to argue things don't you?

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by RN7

Canon is what was published by GDW. Everything else is alternative fan fiction no matter how much you like or dislike canon or fan created alternative versions of Twilight 2000.

There are five main issues with the Mexican invasion of the American southwest.

1) Real world Mexican forces in the 1990's are not well armed enough to be capable of successfully invading and holding American territory, or defeating U.S. forces in the southwest even in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. I think everyone agrees with this.

2) The GDW sourcebooks do have large amount of information about the invasion, battles and conditions in the American southwest. However the sourcebooks do not give enough information about the combatants, particularly the Mexicans, to make it believable.

Red Star-Lone Star sourcebook has a Mexican orbat on page 12-13, but it's too vague in regards to the type of vehicles they are operating. There is a more information on pages 29-44 about the Soviets and the marauder groups in Texas.

City of Angels sourcebook goes into more detail on page 9 about Mexican forces in Los Angeles. There is more information on page 33-36 and on page 43. The Mexicans are exclusively armed with Soviet arms which has caused some debate about why the Mexicans are using Soviet equipment when they didn't in real life.

Soviet Combat Vehicle Handbook (2nd edition is better) gives an orbat for Soviet Division Cuba. There is also some related information in the Satellite Down sourcebook

3) GDW gives more detail about U.S. forces in the southwest. American Combat Vehicle Handbook (US Army Vehicle Guide for 1st edition) are particularly useful for the southwest. But obviously there is not enough information. There is information about U.S. tanks and light tanks, and the pages on organisation and composition do list other vehicles such as IFV's, APC's, artillery, AD systems and light armed vehicles. But this does not show up in the unit history and current status, with maybe the exception of the Cadet Brigade and some unit descriptions for U.S. forces in other theatres in V2.

4) GDW wrote Twilight 2000 in the 1980's from the source material they had available. They did a very good job, but without access to the internet they obviously missed a lot of information. It's enjoyable to fill the gaps.

5) The Twilight War is the Cold War turned into a hot war and then into a nuclear war. To fill in the gaps it's best to keep Twilight 2000 to Cold War history and developments as closely as reasonably possible.


The main fan fiction alternative versions of the Twilight War related to the Mexican invasion of the American southwest are...

Mexican Army 1998-2000 by Frank Chadwick in Challenge Magazine
Mexican Army Sourcebook by Paul Mulcahy
California Dreaming by Orrin J. Ladd
South America Order of Battle posted on Chris Callaghan's Twilight 2000 page by unknown
US Order of Battle for 2003 by Steve Charlton

I don't have the Mexican Army 1998-2000 from Challenge Magazine. If anyone has it could they post it up.

FYI - if there ever was a post that basically complained about the canon or presented personal opinions as fact I think this one would qualify for that designation for sure.

[Olefin]

The Mexican Army Sourcebook had a lot more than just a few battalions of AMX-30 tanks added to their TOE - sorry but it would have given them an overwhelming force that was way way above anything Mexico could have ever fielded and supported.

As for the 401 Belgian AMX VCI including mortar carriers and ARV's that were modified as the DNC-1 in Mexico and the 95 BDX that were designated as DNC-2 in Mexico were actually in their inventory for the canon - I definitely think very much that Belgium, who was modernizing with new APC's at the time, would have definitely sold a bunch of older APC's that didnt have a hope in hell to face top of the line Warsaw Pact armor to Mexico so that they could buy a lot more newer APC's that could - instead of them just sitting around depots gathering rust and not getting any more money for them to use for their defense budget

And that gives Mexico a heck of a lot of French APC's that support the canon as to what they were equipped with per canon - its not the right vehicle (Red Star Lone Star mentions the VAB instead of the AMX-VCI) but its definitely the right country for the source of those APC's

and if it would make everyone feel better they also could easily have gotten them from France instead - who still had a lot of them sitting around as well

And GDW actually does mention how well equipped the US units were with stuff other than tanks - you can see it in the US Army Vehicle Guide as to what the units were equipped with

For many of the US training divisions it shows what they would have had to face the Mexicans with - and frankly they had very little to stop any kind of armored attack, no matter how old the vehicles were

As for the canon - past mid-April of 2001 (i.e. HW timing) Marc is open to changes and improvements upon his approval- and there is where I plan to release new canon material as I already have done so for Africa - i.e. for events in May -September 2001 in California and elsewhere

so to answer your last point- yes I do plan on creating and releasing new canon material that hopefully will show a more logical approach to what would have really happened with the aftermath of the canon Mexican invasion - and i hope you do enjoy the new canon material when its released