YaATW2KT: The Second Mexican-American War

[Olefin]

Actually you left out the 409 AMX-VCI APC's that were converted to DNC-1 and armed with a 20mm cannon - and which would been much more than a match for the M113's the Army light divisions were equipped with

and the Mexican Army Sourcebook is a fan canon piece not official - I tend to go with actual equipment - and like I said against what the US had left the Mexicans would have been able to do a lot of damage - this isnt a well equipped US Army that they were facing - you are looking at units short on fuel, with almost all their modern missiles and ammo sent overseas and low on spare parts and replacement vehicles

whereas the Mexican Army hadnt done any fighting as of yet - and keep in mind that the units taking on the Soviets in Alaska probably sucked up most of what there was in the US as to anti-tank and anti-air missiles and modern artillery ammo

you dont need an uber Mexican Army to do what they did in the canon as far as the initial invasion

because if you do make them that well equipped then they end up occupying half the US based on what was left here by mid 1998

and much of the fighting in places like California would have been done initially in built up areas - i.e. perfect places to ambush a modern tank with infantry - and except for the cadre they brought home for the 40th there were almost no combat vets in the US - a lot of the troops fighting them were training troops thrust into combat against armor - and even old armor can be damn impressive if you dont have any armor backing you up

Give the Mexicans whats in the fan canon sourcebook and they end up washing the dirt off their tanks using water from the Mississippi River and San Francisco Bay

[RN7]

Actually you left out the 409 AMX-VCI APC's that were converted to DNC-1 and armed with a 20mm cannon - and which would been much more than a match for the M113's the Army light divisions were equipped with

And were these in service during the Twilight War period

From what I've seen Mexico bought the AMX-VCI after the end of the Cold War and they bought them from Belgium. In 1992 the Belgian Army has 510 AMX-VCI listed under its army, and with the Cold War in full swing I couldn't see them selling any to Mexico until they had started building a replacement.

and the Mexican Army Sourcebook is a fan canon piece not official - I tend to go with actual equipment - and like I said against what the US had left the Mexicans would have been able to do a lot of damage - this isnt a well equipped US Army that they were facing - you are looking at units short on fuel, with almost all their modern missiles and ammo sent overseas and low on spare parts and replacement vehicles

whereas the Mexican Army hadnt done any fighting as of yet - and keep in mind that the units taking on the Soviets in Alaska probably sucked up most of what there was in the US as to anti-tank and anti-air missiles and modern artillery ammo

you dont need an uber Mexican Army to do what they did in the canon as far as the initial invasion

because if you do make them that well equipped then they end up occupying half the US based on what was left here by mid 1998

and much of the fighting in places like California would have been done initially in built up areas - i.e. perfect places to ambush a modern tank with infantry - and except for the cadre they brought home for the 40th there were almost no combat vets in the US - a lot of the troops fighting them were training troops thrust into combat against armor - and even old armor can be damn impressive if you dont have any armor backing you up

Give the Mexicans whats in the fan canon sourcebook and they end up washing the dirt off their tanks using water from the Mississippi River and San Francisco Bay

Its the only extra material available relating to Mexican forces in the Twilight War. You can disagree or agree with it, but Mexican forces in real life were woefully outgunned by even the U.S. National Guard. They would need to upgrade their army to some degree to even have half a chance of invading American territory.

[The Dark]

And were these in service during the Twilight War period

From what I've seen Mexico bought the AMX-VCI after the end of the Cold War and they bought them from Belgium. In 1992 the Belgian Army has 510 AMX-VCI listed under its army, and with the Cold War in full swing I couldn't see them selling any to Mexico until they had started building a replacement.

According to Jane's, the first delivery of the DNC-1 was in 1993, the same year as the DNC-2/BDX. They're vulnerable to M2 bullets everywhere except possibly the glacis (the AMX-13 that the DNC-1 is based on is proof against 12.7mm on the front, but the DNC-1's armor is only 30mm instead of the AMX's 40mm).

[RN7]

According to Jane's, the first delivery of the DNC-1 was in 1993, the same year as the DNC-2/BDX. They're vulnerable to M2 bullets everywhere except possibly the glacis (the AMX-13 that the DNC-1 is based on is proof against 12.7mm on the front, but the DNC-1's armor is only 30mm instead of the AMX's 40mm).

Deliveries of AMX-VCI started in 1994 when 33 were registered as sold to Mexico. This was followed by 18 in 1995 and 22 in 1996. After that Belgium sold no more to Mexico, and other AMX-VCI's were later obtained from France.

However this in real life not the Twilight War. The AMX-VCI constituted one third of the Belgian Army's stock of tracked armoured personnel carriers. The rest were M113's, Spartans and AIFV-B's, and all the French Army's stocks of tracked armoured personnel carriers were AMX-10P's or AMX-VCI's. In the Twilight War timeline the Cold War is at 1980's levels and the Soviets are belligerent to the West. Belgian and French companies might be willing to sell new armoured vehicles to Mexico, but I cannot see Belgium of France transferring any armoured vehicles from their own armies to Mexico.

[Rainbow Six]

In the Twilight War timeline the Cold War is at 1980's levels and the Soviets are belligerent to the West. Belgian and French companies might be willing to sell new armoured vehicles to Mexico, but I cannot see Belgium of France transferring any armoured vehicles from their own armies to Mexico.

Agreed. You can't use a V1 timeline and real life inventories from the mid 1990's - the two are mutually exclusive. As an example, the British Army in the mid 1990's was around 18% smaller than it was in 1989 as a result of post Cold War cuts, with armoured Regiments particularly hard hit - halved from sixteen to eight. There is no way that it could have fielded the five Divisions that are listed in the v1 NATO Vehicle Guide / SGUK - a number of the Regiments listed no longer existed in real life.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

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
Like it's been pointed out already, using the post-Cold War inventory is bad, it screws up the inventories of other nations etc. etc. and for a Cold War game scenario, you can't get away with robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[.45cultist]

The implosion of the Mexican coalition could pull more units back home for a civil war. A campaign to offer the Soviets their own Omega could change things and stay close to canon.

[dragoon500ly]

If you look at what engaged them when they invaded there wasnt much in the way of armor

49th Armored - biggest armored division that directly engaged the Mexicans - they never sent the two training brigades which to me makes no sense - they did well against the Mexicans and then ran into Soviet Division Cuba and got their butts handed to them

40th Mech - a new unit that had a grab bag of armor attached to it - meaning that they never had their full complement or even close to it - which can be seen by how many engineering "tanks" they used

46th Infantry - got overrun when stretched out badly and wasnt exactly a armor heavy unit to begin with

then you have two MP formations in CA and light infantry divisions that basically had no armor except M113's

and remember Mexico started the war with 500 or so APC's, many of them armed with 20mm cannons, as well as a good amount of armored cars that had a 90mm anti-tank gun - so against most of those units I just described they actually were close to one on one or better - and with the numbers involved they had numerical superiority as well - and most likely had gas and diesel when a lot of US units had already converted over to alcohol

and the date of the invasion - June of 1998- means that what was left of the US Air Force in the states was probably very limited indeed

49th Armored Division is problematic at best, they did have the NATO reinforcement mission so why are they still in the U.S. It would have been more likely that the 50th Armored Division would be sent south, while they did have the NATO reinforcement mission as well, they were always regarded as the weaker of the two NG armored divisions.

Another big question is why the 194th Armored and 197th Mechanized Brigades were left stateside, again both are NATO reinforcements with POMCUS sites.

The 40th Mechanized Infantry Division was one of the Guards better divisions, true they were in search of a mission, being either a NATO reinforcement, a Korea reinforcement or a CENTCOM reinforcement. Of the three, it would have been more likely that they went CENTCOM, at least in the mid 1980s.

[Olefin]

Certain arms transfers would most likely have taken place irregardless of the timelines

For instance the Mexican BDX (4 -- 4) APC, which they designated the DNC-2. The BDX (95 of them) were all delivered to Mexico between 1993 and 1994 and most likely would have been supplied irregardless of timeline as they really werent front line vehicles for the Belgians.

As for how the Mexicans go the AMX from the Belgians - keep in mind that the Belgians did have an option to replace the AMX in their inventories, which was the real life and canon AIFV-B and M113 (improved version) - given the fact that the AIFV is much newer and more capable (as was the improved M113) over the AMX vehicles given the V1 timeline (where its still the Cold War and fighting the Russians is a huge concern) they would have continued to procure them and thus taken the much older AMX out of service (assuming that they increase their army size in any way to make use of the older vehicles once they had sufficient numbers of the new ones) - and selling them to Mexico gives the Mexicans the APC's they needed to make the invasion a success without giving the Mexicans a huge amount of new armor, that frankly the units still in the US wouldnt have been able to stop given the dispositions that were in canon

i.e. the 194th and 198th sure as hell would have been needed to stop them and would be in California and Texas and not in Cairo and Memphis if the Mexicans had had a large amount of main battle tanks and not just whatever the Soviets brought with Division Cuba

As for my research and your comments about it - frankly I wont even dignify that by responding

As for the choice of units I have - keep in mind that list is from canon - I personally dont agree with the canon reasoning about the two training armored units never going to Europe - if anything they should have went in 1998 when MilGov was trying to make it look like they could still support the war effort

and given the balance of forces in Europe by 1998 those two training units could have possibly given NATO a decisive advantage if they had shown up intact

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Olefin, you make some mighty big assumptions that cannot be claimed as fact, they are supposition based upon your opinion. You cannot claim that anything is "most likely would have been" when you base your information on the real world situation after the Cold War was officially ended. If you could produce legitimate sources from before 1990 (i.e. before the end of the Cold War and the start of the "Peace Dividend") that back up your claim that these transfers would "most likely have happened", then I'll happily stop arguing your claim.
Until such time as you can produce those sources, all you have is wishful thinking and that ain't research.

[mpipes]

Olefin is certainly more on base than GDW ever was. The discussions on the board have highlighted quite accurately on various problems with canon. I have never accepted as gospel numerous items in canon as accurate or believable. In GDW's defense, there was no Internet and the designers were, in my opinion, more interested in providing a gaming world where a small group of adventurers could be a significant military force than an accurate reflection of realistic events. The designers were more interested in creating a "workable" atmosphere, and in this I think they did masterful.

I've always regarded GDW's, and other RPG, products as providing a base to be tweaked, modified, ignored, and incorporated. I've never accepted a historical Mexico as having a chance in hell of overrunning the southwestern US without having a lot more military power. The returnees from Operation Omega would never have been discharged; they would have gone south and north to clean the invaders out.

In short, there are a lot of problems with canon. We all have our views and ways we addressed it. I for one greatly appreciate the comments of Olefin and others on their thoughts and views on the problems with canon and things to "fix" the problems.

[Olefin]

Olefin, you make some mighty big assumptions that cannot be claimed as fact, they are supposition based upon your opinion. You cannot claim that anything is "most likely would have been" when you base your information on the real world situation after the Cold War was officially ended. If you could produce legitimate sources from before 1990 (i.e. before the end of the Cold War and the start of the "Peace Dividend") that back up your claim that these transfers would "most likely have happened", then I'll happily stop arguing your claim.
Until such time as you can produce those sources, all you have is wishful thinking and that ain't research.

Sorry but the canon as a whole is all about might have beens. My suppositions are based on real world events. The Belgians were in the process of adding new vehicles to replace the old AMX vehicles when the Cold War came to an end. Those old AMX vehicles would have been surplus to their needs and thus would have been transferred. The new APC's they were getting were much more modern and thus effective.

Mexico was in the market for new APC's and thus the transfer that occurred in the 90's of the old AMX vehicles is a very likely occurence whatever the timeline. Especially given the fact that the Mexican Army was already operating French equipment and lots of it

Including 120 ERC-90 armored cars that arrived in the 1980's (i.e. during the Cold War) as well as Milan missiles (also during the Cold War), as well as 40 VBL (Cold War in the 80's), and 48 VCR-TT APC - thus given that level of equipment already from France getting even more French designed APC's would be of great interest to Mexico

Thus my supposition is based on real world facts - and I have legitimate sources from before 1990 - which by the way are the same ones the canon authors had that the Mexican Army would be operating French equipment - to back up the sale of those ex-Belgian Army APC's to Mexico - ones that they would have no longer needed once they had the more modern equipment to replace them

And also backed up by the canon writers who said specifically that the Mexican Army had no main battle tanks - that what they had were French armored cars and French APC's - which is exactly what I am saying was sufficient enough for the canon invasion to have occurred

especially against a US Army that by mid 1998 was low on fuel, low on spares and had most of its armor overseas and no easy way to get it back home

[RN7]

Certain arms transfers would most likely have taken place irregardless of the timelines

For instance the Mexican BDX (4 -- 4) APC, which they designated the DNC-2. The BDX (95 of them) were all delivered to Mexico between 1993 and 1994 and most likely would have been supplied irregardless of timeline as they really werent front line vehicles for the Belgians.

The BDX is an Irish design wheeled APC built under license by Beherman Demoen. A total of 148 were built in Belgium but none were supplied to the Belgian Army, 63 went to the Belgian Air Force, 80 to the Belgian Gendarmerie and 5 to Argentina. The transfer of the Belgian BDX to Mexico occurred after the end of the Cold War. 95 were transferred between 1994 and 1995.

As for how the Mexicans go the AMX from the Belgians - keep in mind that the Belgians did have an option to replace the AMX in their inventories, which was the real life and canon AIFV-B and M113 (improved version) - given the fact that the AIFV is much newer and more capable (as was the improved M113) over the AMX vehicles given the V1 timeline (where its still the Cold War and fighting the Russians is a huge concern) they would have continued to procure them and thus taken the much older AMX out of service (assuming that they increase their army size in any way to make use of the older vehicles once they had sufficient numbers of the new ones) - and selling them to Mexico gives the Mexicans the APC's they needed to make the invasion a success without giving the Mexicans a huge amount of new armor, that frankly the units still in the US wouldnt have been able to stop given the dispositions that were in canon.

The AMX-VCI was an older vehicles, but it's highly unlikely that Belgium transferred any to Mexico in the Twilight War timeline. The Belgian Army was considered the weakest of the NATO European armies that formed the component corps of CENTAG and NORTHAG in West Germany before the war, and the Belgians needed all the equipment they had.

The regular Belgian Army was I Corps of 1 armoured brigade, 3 mechanised brigades plus 1 para-commando regiment, 3 combat battalions and 15 artillery and support battalions. The Belgian Army reserve included 2 mechanised brigades and 17 infantry battalions. Both Belgian reserve mechanised brigades were outfitted with AMX-VCI and the Belgians had ittle else.

i.e. the 194th and 198th sure as hell would have been needed to stop them and would be in California and Texas and not in Cairo and Memphis if the Mexicans had had a large amount of main battle tanks and not just whatever the Soviets brought with Division Cuba

As for my research and your comments about it - frankly I wont even dignify that by responding

As for the choice of units I have - keep in mind that list is from canon - I personally dont agree with the canon reasoning about the two training armored units never going to Europe - if anything they should have went in 1998 when MilGov was trying to make it look like they could still support the war effort

and given the balance of forces in Europe by 1998 those two training units could have possibly given NATO a decisive advantage if they had shown up intact

Olefin if you don't agree with canon that is your own choice. But canon does state that the 194th and 197th brigades are in CONUS, and I am happy to stick with canon.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

And again you make suppositions without anything other than what you think would have happened. Where is the proof that the Belgians would have sold those vehicles rather than put them into war-stores

My argument here is not about how correct or how wrong the original material is, it isn't about how overwhelmingly unrealistic some of it is, it is not even about what fixes Olefin, Buddha, little green men from Mars or anyone else in the universe chooses to apply to the game.

It has always been about the belligerant & 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.

For instance, the BDX vehicles belonged to the Belgian gendarmerie (aside from about 60 or so used by the air force for airfield defence units) and not the army. The gendarmerie was a paramiltary police force with some military duties. The BDXs were for rear area defence and internal security, they were not subject to the same use or replacement policies as the army's APCs.
The claim that they "most likely would have been sold to Mexico regardless of T2k timeline" based upon the post-Cold War reality that they were sold in the real world is entirely speculative and not supported by any official Belgian source from before the 1990s (i.e. the period of time before the Peace Dividend was in effect and the vehicles were declared surplus to requirements).

[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