New Product Release: Tara Romaneasca (Romania)

[shrike6]

Thanks for the support, Shrike. May I ask which elements made you twitch This hopefully isnt my last project for this game line, nor Raes, so constructive feedback will make our future projects even better.

You'd think it would be the 173rd being used. While I am in the camp that the Herd is roaming the African Savanna that really doesnt bother me all that much. What does bother me is the history of one of its subunits the 2-555th. Seemed to me anyways, that it was not well thought out so you could make a cheap easy joke on politicians that seemed out of place. While I get your precedent on it would be the ship naming process in the US Navy in the present day. It is much easier to put a politically favorable name on a nameless ship then it is to replace a regiment with a long history with the state and 100s of veterans associated with that regiment for a more politically in vogue one. While it may be possible I can't see doing that as tenable if that politician wants another term. Let's face it to make the Airborne battalion to work numbers wise in a small state like WV you would have had to reorganize one of the combat arms battalions (1/150th Cav or 1/201st FA). I also get the meta joke that goes beyond the surface with using the WV NG given that one of the former IRL US Senators for WV during the 90s was a former Klansman.
What I would have done is place the battalion in IL with their historic African American regiment the 370th Infantry Regiment and changed that to Airborne. the IL NG is bigger and much more able to absorb an additional battalion. The 370th has a great history going back to the Spanish American War compared with the 555th which has no combat history at all. The Germans called the 370th die Schwarzen Teufel. Let's face it Black Devils sounds like the nickname of an Airborne regiment anyways.Call the battalion either the 2-370th Airborne to still honor the 2nd Ranger Company or 555-370th Airborne like the 100th-442nd to honor the 555th and that way you get your NG Airborne battalion and honor African Americans at the same time with an actual attachment to the state it is placed in and a combat history to be proud of in that way it would have been far less cringe worthy for me. In the end its author's choice and I enjoyed the rest of the module.

The price point for this (and Pacific Northwest) was my request. In terms of word count and page count, both books surpass the size of the original 2e sourcebooks whose PDFs now sell for the same price. Folks are free to disagree but I like to think Rae and I have given good value for the money.

- C.

That was a self deprecating joke wasn't meant as a comment on your price point. For example I dont buy video games when they first come out I will wait until the prices fall. Why Because I am a cheap ass bastard who can wait six months for the prices to fall 50%. I usually dont need to be on the cutting edge of retail. Think of it as an honor that I bought it in the first week at all.

[pmulcahy11b]

I'm glad that all these books (and some magazines and other books) are coming out in PDF format. My house is only 1250 square feet, and even the master bedroom (which is my bedroom -- it's my house!) is crammed full of stuff. I don't even buy books or magazines if they don't come in PDF format. I just don't have the room.

[shrike6]

I'm glad that all these books (and some magazines and other books) are coming out in PDF format. My house is only 1250 square feet, and even the master bedroom (which is my bedroom -- it's my house!) is crammed full of stuff. I don't even buy books or magazines if they don't come in PDF format. I just don't have the room.

Ain't that the truth

[Tegyrius]

You'd think it would be the 173rd being used. While I am in the camp that the Herd is roaming the African Savanna that really doesnt bother me all that much.

Enh. User preference is user preference. For whatever it may be worth, we had some discussion on the 173rd in Romania a couple of years ago. You can see some of the seeds of this sourcebook in that conversation.

What does bother me is the history of one of its subunits the 2-555th. Seemed to me anyways, that it was not well thought out so you could make a cheap easy joke on politicians that seemed out of place. While I get your precedent on it would be the ship naming process in the US Navy in the present day. It is much easier to put a politically favorable name on a nameless ship then it is to replace a regiment with a long history with the state and 100s of veterans associated with that regiment for a more politically in vogue one. While it may be possible I can't see doing that as tenable if that politician wants another term. Let's face it to make the Airborne battalion to work numbers wise in a small state like WV you would have had to reorganize one of the combat arms battalions (1/150th Cav or 1/201st FA). I also get the meta joke that goes beyond the surface with using the WV NG given that one of the former IRL US Senators for WV during the 90s was a former Klansman.
What I would have done is place the battalion in IL with their historic African American regiment the 370th Infantry Regiment and changed that to Airborne. the IL NG is bigger and much more able to absorb an additional battalion. The 370th has a great history going back to the Spanish American War compared with the 555th which has no combat history at all. The Germans called the 370th die Schwarzen Teufel. Let's face it Black Devils sounds like the nickname of an Airborne regiment anyways.Call the battalion either the 2-370th Airborne to still honor the 2nd Ranger Company or 555-370th Airborne like the 100th-442nd to honor the 555th and that way you get your NG Airborne battalion and honor African Americans at the same time with an actual attachment to the state it is placed in and a combat history to be proud of in that way it would have been far less cringe worthy for me. In the end its author's choice and I enjoyed the rest of the module.

So... fair comments. I will say up front that I am not as up on Army heraldry and unit lineages as you are. This is one of the hazards of this line of work... there's always gonna be a SME out there, and I'm never gonna find a SME to consult with on every detail of a book.

It's a bit late and I'm a bit fried to reconstruct my precise reasoning, but my recollection is that we selected the 555th as a nod to its use in Frank Frey's original notes for the unpublished (and perhaps unwritten beyond notes/outline stage) Lions of Twilight.

Working from there, I needed to find a state in which to place our round-out battalion. My original thinking was Texas because of the ridiculous size of its National Guard component and because of its current real-world 1-143 Infantry. However, a couple of factors drove me away from that, chief among which was the desire to leave Texas alone in case another future author needs to reconstitute the 36th or 71st Airborne Brigade for another locale. I did leave myself an out for that in the writeup for 2-555, as well. I mentioned that three other states also received National Guard airborne battalions... so there's room for another author to use 1-555, 3-555, or 4-555.

(At any rate, I wouldn't have picked on the Illinois National Guard because someone might think I had it in for them. I already did a bunch of damage to their 66th Infantry Brigade as part of the 47th ID in Pacific Northwest.)

West Virginia appealed to me for a couple of reasons. First, because of its mountainous terrain, I felt like a unit coming from there would be vaguely suited to fighting a mountain insurgency in Romania. Second, when I was a kid, I read a factoid that West Virginia historically is the state with the highest per-capita rates of military volunteerism and Medal of Honor awards. I don't know if it's true, but that has always stuck with me.

The backhanded swipe at their congresscritter wasn't actually intentional, but I'll take it as a fortuitous coincidence because I'm snarky like that.

I agree with you 100% about the force strength of other WV NG components being affected by this, and I did note in 2-555's profile that it received a number of transfers from 1-150 Cav and 2-19 SFG. In an early draft, I did mention that those units had not yet recovered full manning and combat effectiveness by the time of the war, but I cut that during development. I trimmed a lot of unnecessary words to make the layout look good, and it wasn't really relevant to this sourcebook because they weren't in Romania.

It also was my intent - albeit never actually written down - that 2-555 was headquartered in WV but not 100% staffed by West Virginians. Again, that drew from real-world precedent (at least according to Wikipedia, which shows D Troop of 1-150 Cav based in North Carolina). As a Kentucky native, it was in the back of my head that 2-555 had one company drawn from the Ashland area, including some guys whose civilian jobs were at the Catlettsburg refinery, but that also was a level of minutiae that didn't make it into the manuscript.

Having said all of that, I like your analysis and selection, too. If I were going in that direction, I might go with the 369th because of Michael Longcor's Ballad of Esau's Sons, in which case I'd've made the battalion a NY NG unit headquartered somewhere in the Catskills.

- C.

[shrike6]

I'll keep this part short. I can't argue with most of it although could come with better examples. The 369th has a fine history but I dismissed them because the NY NG was stretched putting 4 bdes together IRL. Also I go back and forth about using them as an ADA battalion for the 42nd ID since they also have a CA/AAA history as well.

It's a bit late and I'm a bit fried to reconstruct my precise reasoning, but my recollection is that we selected the 555th as a nod to its use in Frank Frey's original notes for the unpublished (and perhaps unwritten beyond notes/outline stage) Lions of Twilight.

Just as a point of fact, Frank Frey posted two orbats for the 173rd Airborne. The first in a series of posts in 2000/2001, the second in 2003 which that link has.

2000

Subject: The Lions of Twilight: T2K in Africa

Posted by Frank Frey

Date: 07/05/2000 08:07


Greetings,


While going through some old T2K notes, I found a hand drawn AO map for western Kenya. I used this map in a Merc: 2000 campaign and was going to use it for a T2K campaign. Here are some of the main concepts for the T2K campaign.

1.) The main American unit in Kenya is the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It was reactivated in 1996 (oob available). It was originally tasked as CentComm's mobile reserve force but wound in Kenya protecting the oil refineries there.

2.) The Kenyan military in T2K is still a very potent force. They work with the American paratroopers in keeping things relatively orderly.

3.) The two main enemy organizations are the PARA (Pan African Revolutionary Army) a loose amalgamation of various tribal militias and warlord armies and Junudullah (Soldiers of God), a radical Muslim group that wants to establish a Islamic theocracy in East Africa.


Anyway those are the basics. I didn't really get much else done.


Frank Frey

********************

Posted by: Frank Frey

Date: 07/05/2000 14:30


Greetings,


As best as I can reconstruct it the, the 173rd AB deployed the following assets in Kenya.

HHC 173rd Abn Bde

173rd Recon Company (Airborne)(LRRP)

173rd Intelligence Company (Airborne)

173rd Engineer TF (Airborne)

1 Bn/ 503rd Parachute Infantry

2 Bn/ 503rd Parachute Infantry

3 Bn/ 503rd Parachute Infantry (Lt. Motorized)

4 Bn/ 503rd Parachute Infantry (Airmobile)

173rd Aviation Company

173rd Artillery Battalion (Airborne)(105mm)


There were units that were attached to the 173rd. IIRC, one of them was the 228th Aviation Battalion.


Frank Frey


xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Subject: 228th Aviation Battalion/173rd Abn Bde

Posted by: Frank Frey


Date: 10/04/2001 13:56
Greetings,
From my notes and such, here is the oob for the 228th Aviation
Battalion such as it is.
228th Aviation Battalion
HHC Company
2 x O/AH-6 Defenders
A Company (Transport)
4 x UH-60
B Company (Transport)
6 x UH-1J
C Company (Gunship)
3 x AH-1V
D Company (Fixed Wing)
2 x OV-10 Broncos
4 x A-1J Skyraiders
This is what I have. FYI, the Skyraiders had been purchased by the
Confederate Airforce from the government of Chad. They were
awaiting shipment out of Mombasa when the war broke out. There
were 7 of them originally. They are used for close air support. They
have USAAF(United States Army Air Force) on them and are flown
by Army fixed wing pilots.
Hope this helps

[Spartan-117]

An Open Letter to Frank Frey.

Either cede the field or put out a sourcebook on this topic. Some half-considered notes are worth exactly what I can pay for them: nothing.

In the meantime, I have purchased two copies of TR, one for myself, and one for a friend in Poland. $9.99 each.

PS: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, AND 4th, BN of any single Regiment end up in the same Brigade Really

[Ckosacranoid]

Bought the book and took a few days to read. The were wolves are funny also to add in to the Vampires.....just as long as the bastards do not sparkle....

[Tegyrius]

This book's vampires only sparkle if you use sufficient white phosphorus.

- C.

[Spartan-117]

The ongoing illegal and unprovoked Russian attack against Ukraine is giving me a ton of ideas on how to structure Romanian resistance, tips tactics and techniques that defending forces might employee against Soviet occupiers, and how deadly a similar TW2K era incursion might be to invading forces.

Really enjoying this one!

[pmulcahy11b]

PS: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, AND 4th, BN of any single Regiment end up in the same Brigade Really

This is common in Airborne units, but I've never seen it in any other division except the 82nd Airborne.

[Homer]

There were serial regiment battalions in some Army National Guard brigades as well. For instance, 39th Infantry Brigade (AR ARNG) had 1st, 2d, 3d battalions 153rd IN. That was a function of states frequently having single oebranch regiments under CARS.