Oil in T2k

[RN7]

I don't know what conditions are like in Venezuela in T2K but I would say they aren't very good. France could get involved in Venezuela because of its oil. There are active and quite large French military bases in French Guiana and in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe that are near Venezuela. France could send forces to bolster whoever is running Venezuela to secure oil supplies.

[Raellus]

Here's an oil-related question for y'all. IIRC, Mediterranean Cruise identifies Ploesti, Romania as the source of the gasoline that fuels Soviet 4th Guards Tank Army's Summer 2000 counteroffensive (you know, the one that kills US 5th ID).

How did the Soviets get the gasoline from Romania to Poland?

Romanian partisans are very active in the Transylvania region. Much of Ukraine is in active rebellion. I don't think v1 canon mentions Moldavia, but I reckon it too is, at the very least, restive, given its ethnic connection to neighboring Romania (IRL many Moldavians wanted their country to be annexed by Romania after the fall of the Iron Curtain and dissolution of the USSR). Many regional transportation hubs have been damaged or destroyed by nuclear strikes. I imagine that the railroads are in very bad shape.

Has this question been addressed in a canonical source that I am not aware of?

I have a theory, but I'm interested in what y'all come up with.

[Legbreaker]

The 4th Guards didn't start in Poland, that's where they ended up. They carried their fuel with them.
They started (according to NATO intel) in the Ukraine, but it's not known exactly where. Getting the fuel from the refineries to the units was likely done by truck, rail and possibly ship as well. Plenty of options available and plenty of time to do it in to - we don't know which month's production was given to the 4th.....

[bash]

The Soviets getting fuel for their summer 2000 offensive is something they really only need to do once. So they could bum rush Romania with mechanized infantry, with minimal armor, followed by a fleet of trucks. The combat vehicles and trucks refuel and load fuel onto the trucks in barrels, tanks, and whatever.

The fuel force then rendezvous with the main body of armor. The armor could be loaded on trailers with APCs and gun trucks acting as convoy escorts. They can move along roads so long as they can minimally repair damaged sections. Partisans in Romania and elsewhere could inflict some damage but if the ROE is "shoot anyone approaching" they'll just wait for them to pass through.

Since this is one big move against forces they're reasonably sure they can rout they can just drop stragglers and broken down transports. The 5 ID's intelligence isn't likely much faster than the 4th Guard convoy. So they get the intel right before the shooting starts.

So...that's my theory.

[ChalkLine]

Currently my PCs are roving the Kraków trying to salvage bunker fuel to power the tug.

[Legbreaker]

Exactly. It's basically what happens with Division Cuba in 2001.
The 4th however have many more options available, plus other units in the area able to support them during the build up.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by bash

The Soviets getting fuel for their summer 2000 offensive is something they really only need to do once.

Good point, but we're talking a lot of fuel.

Originally Posted by bash

So they could bum rush Romania with mechanized infantry, with minimal armor, followed by a fleet of trucks. The combat vehicles and trucks refuel and load fuel onto the trucks in barrels, tanks, and whatever.

The fuel force then rendezvous with the main body of armor. The armor could be loaded on trailers with APCs and gun trucks acting as convoy escorts. They can move along roads so long as they can minimally repair damaged sections. Partisans in Romania and elsewhere could inflict some damage but if the ROE is "shoot anyone approaching" they'll just wait for them to pass through.

The Carpathians are no joke- narrow, winding valley roads, passing through elevated terrain covered in thick forest, lots of passes. It's prime ambush country from Ploesti to Moldavia/Ukraine. If combat operations in Afghanistan from 1979 to the present are any indicator, even heavily defended convoys are extremely vulnerable to attack. And fuel trucks are essentially rolling fire bombs just waiting to be ignited. Blow just one in some kind of natural chokepoint, and the vehicles behind it aren't going anywhere for a while.

And the Romanians are no joke either. If the Soviet, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies aren't able to pacify central Romania between 12/20/96 and whenever the fuel is shipped out (according to Med Cruise and the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the Romanians are still fighting in late 2000), even the most heavily armed Soviet fuel convoy isn't going to be able to brush the Romanians.

I think it's more likely that most of the fuel is shipped to Ukraine (good point about not having to transport the fuel all the way to Poland, Leg) via the Black Sea, then over land through Ukraine in trucks and/or on trains. By late 1999/early 2000, I doubt that there'd be much left of the Turkish Navy in Black Sea.

Originally Posted by bash

The 5 ID's intelligence isn't likely much faster than the 4th Guard convoy. So they get the intel right before the shooting starts.

True.

[Legbreaker]

This has a lot of good info on the refinery https://www.hydrocarbons-technology....razi-refinery/
Looks like there's a pipeline to the coast for the importation of crude from Kazakhstan, as well as a pipeline from local oil wells.
Page 7 of this http://www.world-petroleum.org/docs/...df/romania.pdf shows the pipelines and page 8 indicates there's two pipelines across the Blacksea (the aforementioned crude imports).

The pipeline label codes for this map are coloured green for oil, red for gas and blue for products, such as gasoline and ethylene.



Some interesting associated links:
https://furcuta.blogspot.com/2009/10...m-history.html
http://research.seenews.com/wp-conte...in-Romania.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...77705814003257

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Worth mentioning too that Romania has large lignite (AKA brown coal) and bituminous coal reserves.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Raellus

And the Romanians are no joke either. If the Soviet, Hungarian, and Bulgarian armies aren't able to pacify central Romania between 12/20/96 and whenever the fuel is shipped out (according to Med Cruise and the Soviet Vehicle Guide, the Romanians are still fighting in late 2000), even the most heavily armed Soviet fuel convoy isn't going to be able to brush the Romanians.

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

After the austerity measures of the 1980s though, I think the Romanians were pretty much at the breaking point in regards to their government. Those same austerity measures lead the Romanian people to rebel against their government and hunt down & execute the leader Ceaușescu. Switching sides to NATO isn't as far fetched as it sounds at first glance.

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

After the austerity measures of the 1980s though, I think the Romanians were pretty much at the breaking point in regards to their government. Those same austerity measures lead the Romanian people to rebel against their government and hunt down & execute the leader Ceaușescu. Switching sides to NATO isn't as far fetched as it sounds at first glance.

Even more so: Ceaușescu'S Romania had left the Warsaw Pact in all but name, which they figured was the red line for the Soviets. Socialist Romania didn't allow for Soviet troops within its borders and it had its own defense industry producing upgrades for T-55s (still in service today) and knock-ofs of stuff like the BTR-70 and the BMP-1.

I wrote this somewhere on the board a while back: By the 1980s, the Warsaw Pact was a scam. The only true ally the Soviets could count on was the East German GDR, and that only for the facts that the Soviets had so many divisions in country and Premier Honecker was a staunch believer. The ČSSR was economically least dependent on the Soviets and had a good army, but their leadership lacked the blind belief of the GDR. The Polish hatred towards the Russians made them an ally the Soviets didn't trust. Hungary had no army to fool anybody - the officer's corps never recovered from the aftermath of the 1956 revolution and the beating they took from the Soviets.

Bulgaria, last but not least, had an army honest to God still fielding T-34s in active divisions with the rest of the equipment barely better. They never made it out of the 1960s and that only with the airforce (MiG-21, Su-22, MiG-23MF as mainstay). The army did receive some 300 T-72s late in the Cold War, but a good chunk still was T-34s, SU-100s and a lot of towed WW2 vintage artillery.

Ceaușescu absurdly overspent on the military, but more out of fear of the Soviets than the West. It cost him everything in the end, since he starved his people to death, sometimes literally. He was one of the most brutal dictators in Europe after World War Two, which is saying something. However, economically, Romania was outpacing other Eastern Bloc countries by far during the 1980s, thanks to heavy investments from Western nations since the 1960s and many economic ties: the Canadians even built a nuclear power plant, which still produces around 20 % of Romanian electric power (however, a second reactor block was added in 2007). Ceaușescu certainly did his part to make the Romanians suffer under his austerity, though.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

That the Romanians go over to NATO when they had an actual real, live Stalinist government is to me one of the funniest parts of the T2K canon.

I used to think that too. Here's what changed my mind.

According to Osprey's Warsaw Pact Ground Forces (copyright 1987), Romania was the most recalcitrant of the WP nations. It would not allow any foreign troops on its soil, nor would it send troops to conduct WP exercises outside its own borders (except a few observers). It publicly condemned Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in '68 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in '89. It maintained close cooperation with non-WP Yugoslavia, including jointly developing a few weapon systems. Romania had major territorial disputes with Hungary and Bulgaria, alternately gaining land from, and losing it to, both neighboring nations (Hungary, in particular).

Since Romania proved so difficult, the Soviets wouldn't sell its military the best available weapons and equipment. For example, the Soviets didn't sell the Romanians any T-72s. Bucharest acquired its thirty T-72s from Israel in 1986-'87! (no doubt captured from Syria in Lebanon, '82) Romania also secured the rights to license-build Puma transport helies from France. Romania apparently had most favored nation trading status with the USA, and growing commercial ties to Israel & China, but still boasted one of the weakest economies in the WP.

The Romanian military was designated as a purely defensive force by the WP. At it's height, the army consisted of 8 MRDs and two TDs, with some border troop formations, two mountain infantry brigades, a parachute regiment, and a battalion of naval infantry (read coastal defense infantry). Up to three infantry divisions could be created by calling up reserves, but their quality (weapons, training, and leadership) would have been especially poor. Romania produced much of its own small arms (and exported heaps of AKs) yet due to Soviet policy, remained the least well-equipped and offensive-capable of the WP militaries.

Add to that how unpopular Ceaușescu regime was IRL, and it makes almost perfect sense that Romania would refuse to send troops to China, and would fight back when invaded by the USSR, Hungary, and Bulgaria.

[ChalkLine]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I used to think that too. Here's what changed my mind. [snip]

Yeah, however the Osprey book severely cuts out context for the Ceausescu regime, how it started and the changes it went through.


Initially Ceausescu was a reformer and the darling of the West in the Soviet Bloc. He was a popular leader who frequently bucked the Soviet line for domestic political and very real, practical economic reasons. However that changed. His domestic economic program failed miserably and was badly thought out. Like Stalin he had a habit of plonking down industrial complexes in places economics didn't suit but where he wanted a communist counter-balance to nationalist and intelligentsia forces (this would be his undoing when the workers came after him too). As he'd screwed over his relationship with the Soviets (under Brezhnev you can hardly blame him at this point) he went off looking to the Chinese for support.

Ceausescu became a big fan of Maoism and the Korean Juche system (which I've recently found out massively predates Korean communism which surprised me). It was his affiliation with Mao that the Soviets, especially Brezhnev, disliked (for good reason as Mao was white-anting the USSR). This is when he transitioned from popular but frankly stupid reformer to President-For-Life.

However Mao died. Things changed. Both Albania and Romania started to realise that the PRC weren't the cornucopia of responsibility-free goodies they could be. Albania went its own way into a sort of hermit-kingdom but Romania had no options. The USSR could simply not buy Romanian oil during the oil glut. As a result Romania had a rapprochement with the USSR. Osprey ignores this.

Note also that a lot of people still remembered the "Old Ceausescu" and often gave him the benefit of the doubt. Like all revolutions if you ask anyone afterwards they'll all tell you they were opponents of the regime and it's frankly bollocks. The vast majority of populations simply try and sit out revolutions or only participate to a minor degree when everyone else is doing it.

The big problem in the T2K context is the background.
The West actually is invading. Romanians are going to be isolated if they buck the Soviet line. They simply aren't going to rise up during an existential war, and most importantly they are going to do nothing if the army doesn't help. It was the army and not the people that overthrew Ceausescu when it was so obvious that he's so alienated the people he was a severe liability. The three generals who did him in went on to be the first leaders of the republic. In this situation the army is either going to follow the USSR's lead or they're going to have an angry Red Army in Romania again and they simply aren't going to do that. In real history the USSR had already collapsed and had also shown in true Glasnost style it wasn't going to intervene in dissolutions (okay, Moldavia, but that was an actual literal rogue division).

However GDW wanted warfare everywhere for practical gaming reasons and thus had to have fighting everywhere. We can accept that and stick with it or go with a more practical what-if.

I think Romania would disintegrate but only to the degree Poland disintegrates; still Soviet but with tons of splinter factions and some foreign busybodies who rapidly become loathed by the locals.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by RN7

I don't know what conditions are like in Venezuela in T2K but I would say they aren't very good. France could get involved in Venezuela because of its oil. There are active and quite large French military bases in French Guiana and in the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe that are near Venezuela. France could send forces to bolster whoever is running Venezuela to secure oil supplies.

Based on the V2.2 edition I would say Venezuela got nailed pretty badly - and the fact that Gateway to the Spanish Main only mentions Aruba and there is no mention of Curacao or Trinidad I have a feeling they got hit bad too.

From the V2.2.

Central And South America

The oil-producing areas of the Caribbean were severely damaged by nuclear and/or conventional attacks, largely in an effort to deny them to the enemy