Tag: Essay

Uniforms and Equipment of the Soviet-Romanian War

On By coilerxiiIn Art, Essay, Weird WargamingLeave a comment

An excerpt from an in-universe book by “Kestrel Publishing” (any military history fan will know who this is a reference to) on the gear of the Soviet-Romanian War in All Union. I spent way too much time and had way too much fun making this.

From “Uniforms and Equipment of the Soviet-Romanian War” by Kestrel Publishing

Fig 1. Yefreiter (Corporal), 17th Mobile Corps, Dniester Front

-This representative mechanized infantryman wears uniforms and gear typical of the most advanced mobile corps. He has a low visibility unit patch depicting the phoenix/”Huma Bird” that served as the 17th’s symbol over his PKU-94 army uniform set, which served as the newest uniform set in the army. He also wears a heavy (over 30 pounds) 6B4 ballistic armor vest and the newest UBS-1 helmet.

Gear:

The man depicted in figure 1 is representative of most mobile corps BMP/BMPM infantryman. As a result, he carries a 5.45mm AK-74, still the standard infantry weapon among mobile corps as it would cost too much to fix what wasn’t broken. The soldier also has several grenades, a medical kit, and a pair of NPDS-‘YUKON’ night vision devices (helmet mounted and rifle-mountable handheld). Also of note is the MV-9 rifle grenade in a leg pouch. Similar to the Spanish FTV series, these rifle grenades use a “bullet trap” system where a live round can be fired to trigger them without issue. With a theoretical 150 meter range.

Camouflage:

The 6B4 vest is plain green, while the PKU-94 uniform is colored in the large-spotted “Gumdrop” camouflage worn by mobile corps soldiers.

Notes: 6B4 vests were available in large numbers and were proven to be durable, but were also very heavy. They were the most common mobile corps infantry outfits among BMP troops who spent most of their time in vehicles. MV-9 rifle grenades were an awkward experiment, many viewing them as more trouble than worth given that proper underbarrel launchers, LAWs, and full-size RPGs (to say nothing of vehicles and artillery) were not in short supply. More modern and efficient armored vests were used by mobile corps, but were more limited in supply.

Fig 2. Junior Sergeant, Tank Crewman, 64th Mobile Corps, Dniester Front

-This representative mobile corps tank crewman wears a coverall in “Gumdrop” camo and an internal microphone variant of the UBS-1 helmet (which was meant to be usable by infantry, law enforcement, and vehicle crews alike, starting off as one of the famous ‘face shield helmets’ similar to the Altyn/K63 before being adapted).

Gear: The figure depicted carries an A-91 bullpup PDW in a slung scabbard, a weapon commonly issued to mobile corps vehicle crews. He also has a classic Makarov pistol in a shoulder holster.

Fig 3: Spetsnaz recon troop, 48th SPF Brigade

-This spetsnaz operator is dressed in a “Gorka” canvas suit popularized in Afghanistan, and wearing a similar chest rig. He notably does not have a helmet, instead wearing a bandana/durag and night vision goggle rig.

Gear:

The man in Figure 3 carries a suppressed AK-74 along with the gear for a long-range recon patrol mission (which explains the lack of armor). He wears a Taiwanese-made version of the American PVS-7 night vision goggle system. These more advanced night vision devices (either imported or domestically built) were reserved for the likes of recon, special forces, lighter infantry, and anyone not bound to operate in close proximity to a vehicluar sight. Even in mobiles, regular infantrymen usually kept only the Gen I “YUKON”.

Camouflage:

The Gorka Suit and bandana is in KLMK-Berezka, an existing minimalist but effective camo pattern used for decades in the USSR.

Fig 4: Motor Rifleman, 87th Motor Rifle Division

-This man from a legacy division wears the classic plain khaki Obr88 “Afghanka” and a similarly Cold War vintage SSh-68 helmet. His load bearing equipment is a belt and “Chicom” chest rig, a classic easy to build or obtain type.

Gear: The man in Figure 4 is equipped almost identically to the average man on the eastern side of the Fulda Gap. An AK-74 5.45mm rifle, a basic steel helmet, and nothing an American of the 80s wouldn’t find familiar.

Camouflage: Legacy divisions had not (yet) adopted camouflage as standard issue. However, helmet covers from large fabric tarpaulins and the like were frequently made, as is the case here.

Fig 5: Infantryman, Bulgarian 1st MRD

-One of the higher-equipped Bulgarian formations. He is dressed similarly to a man from a legacy motor rifle division, but his items are of a particularly Bulgarian quality.

Gear: The man has a Bulgarian Arsenal AR, a locally built version of the 7.62x39mm AK-47 which was the general Bulgarian standard issue item. He wears a large “slick” plate carrier (Bulgaria’s prewar army had adopted such things) and has a more modern-looking “Mayflower” chest rig over it, both licensed for production in Bulgaria starting in the late 1980s. His helmet is the slightly different shaped Bulgarian M51/73.

Camouflage: Bulgaria, unlike the USSR, had by this time had a splinter-type camouflage pattern as standard issue for its standing army, and it is shown in the gear depicted in the picture.

Fig 6: Infantryman, Bulgarian 10th Infantry Division (Mobilization)

-This older man stuck in a ‘deep mobilization’ infantry unit is a double anachronism. His uniform is an M15 Bulgarian uniform from World War ONE, along with the green-with-red-stripe peaked cap from the time period and a set of civilian shoes he provided himself. A Bulgarian Chicom-style chest rig serves as the only sign from a distance this is not a reenactor.

Gear: The infantryman has an old surplus AK-47 as his main armament and little else. Most is personally obtained and inadequate. Bulgarian low-tier mobilized infantry like this would have a ratio of around 7 AKs, 2 SKSes, and one Nagant per ten soldiers, varying up and down a little. The smarter officers would give long rifles as designated marksman weapons to their best shots.

Fig 7: Soldier, Romanian Army, 2nd MRD

-The average Romanian soldier was dressed like a Soviet soldier from thirty years earlier and armed like one, and this representative man from the prewar standing 2nd MRD shows it clearly.

-Gear: This man wields an AK with the famous Romanian wood foregrip. His Romanian M73 helmet ironically was introduced in the 1970s to distinguish Romanians from other Warsaw Pact armies.

Fig 8: Mechanized infantryman, Romanian Army, 5th TD

-This Romanian infantryman wore what was called the “Persian Outfit”, a reference to gear made in one of its few remaining allies, Iran, and given to a luckier few Romanian units. His outfit looks more western, a reference to their continued production of American-style equipment first imported in the shah era.

-Gear: This man in a ‘Persian battalion’ carries an Iranian-made AR-15 platform rifle in 7.62x39mm, and wears a helmet with the outer shell of a WW2 American M1 yet with kevlar inserts to add to it. His load bearing equipment could have been straight from the Iran-Iraq War.

Camouflage: The camo is a brushstroke pattern with red, black, and green stripes on a tan backdrop, used frequently by Iran and with a similar color to various Swiss and German patterns. Similarly better-equipped “Chinese battalions” had MAK-90 AKs with distinctive large wooden stocks, Chinese GK80 helmets, and camo in the green-dominant pattern of that country (which was frequently more suited to Southeast Asian jungles than Europe in early autumn).

Fig 9: Romanian Patriotic Guards, Independent Brigade

-The Patriotic Guards were the mass mobilized, bottom-barrel desperation Romanian infantry. They had a distinct uniform built up over decades that meant it could satisfy even the large call-up. A soft blue harking back to the World Wars, this color makes the Soviet-Romanian War the final war as of this book with a mass-produced, standard issue blue uniform for ground troops.

-Gear: This Patriotic Guardsman carries a World War II surplus VZ-24 Mauser Rifle and gear of similar standards. Such desperation measures were not uncommon, as were the effectively homemade grenades and explosive charges. He wears a blue cap. Often such formations would have something like a similar vintage and same caliber ZB-53 tripod machine gun as their primarily (or, to be blunt, often only) heavy weapon.

The Betting Machine

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There’s a great Youtube documentary out on so-called “sports farms”

These are those bizarre table tennis and truncated other sports leagues that appeared in public consciousness in 2020 when everything else except a few Y-tier soccer leagues shut down. The video is great and shows OSINT geolocation coupled with a knowledge of how offshore books love to sponsor big-name teams for the sake of advertising.

The Animal Farm Movie Is (Probably) Even Worse Than It Looks

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So a trailer for an “adaptation” of George Orwell’s Animal Farm directed by Andy Serkis and starring Seth Rogen as Napoleon the Pig has been released, with predictable reception.

So the main antagonist, judging by the trailer and gossip, goes from being Pig Stalin himself to a human named…. Pilkington. Using that name makes it all look even worse. Because first off, in the book Mr. Pilkington and his Pinchfield Farm represent the West in general (and Churchill’s Britain more specifically). But even beyond that, the name is obscure, meaning that yes, you’d needed to look at the book and not just grab the rights like what seemingly happened with Starship Troopers.

It gets even worse as one realizes the name is extra-unsuitable given that here Animalism apparently works perfectly until Napoleon is tempted by an Evil Capitalist human. Because in the book, Napoleon actually is tempted with his “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” by agreeing to sell timber to Mr. Frederick of Foxwood, who naturally stiffs him and invades anyway.

Yes, Glenn Close’s villainess being named “Pilkington” instead of “Frederick” means that the filmmakers looked at someone who was literally based on Hitler and said “let’s use the stand-in for the west instead because Evil Capitalist Elon Musk Cybertruck Lol.”

What really brought down general aviation

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I was looking at histories and such concerning the post-WW2 decline of general aviation in America. Most of the stated reasons center around costs, regulation, lawsuits, and changing demographics. None of these I’m denying were factors, even major ones. But I came across something that was very eye-opening and was not mentioned in most of the usual ones.

That was the decline in its practicality. One amusing side-part of the “flying car” discourse is that in a way, in the early postwar period, flying cars in the way we think of them kind of existed. See, in the early postwar period, as long as you could afford something that still always cost at least the equivalent of six figures today just for the airframe (ie you were a rich professional), flying in your own aircraft over the Depression-adjacent countryside was frequently the quickest and most convenient way to get from point A to point B. Whether it was for the luxury of a getaway or the necessity of business travel, there was a practical use.

Later on this eroded with two big things, which I shall provide graphical illustrations of.

Yep, better roads and better, cheaper, and more accessible commercial air travel. Which meant a lesser actual need for private planes, which naturally had giant ripple effects. At the very least it’s an underappreciated piece of the pie.

The A Button Challenge

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Mario was originally known as “Jumpman” in the first releases of Donkey Kong. Super Mario Bros. defined the platformer. What I’m trying to say is that Mario jumps. Until now.

For 20+ years, an array of gamers dug deep into the code of Super Mario 64 to see in how few A presses (jumping) they could beat the game. Last year, a successful run with zero presses was finally accomplished.

Numerous stars and even entire levels had to be skipped entirely as they required jumping. The centerpiece that enabled the final “A”-less run to be performed involved playing on Wii Virtual Console and using an emulator/porting glitch that had platforms in the Bowser in the Fire Sea stage moving sloooooowly upwards over time. The game had to be run for three real-time days to let them get into place.

Yet in the greatest human accomplishment since the moon landing, the A Button Challenge was finally completed.

Donks

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There is a type of car called the “Donk”. Usually but not always a large vintage car in its base, anything with four wheels can theoretically be “donkified”. It apparently started with hip-hop musicians in the American South, but the concept is universal.

A donk can be considered the inverse of a lowrider, in that it’s a “high-rider”. The car, usually ornate, is given very large wheels with thin tires and has its suspension raised as high as possible, the springs stiffened both for prestige and to ensure the chassis doesn’t bump the wheels.

Donks look good. But don’t expect them to handle like a formula one racer.

Console Pokemon Returns

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With the release and controversy of Pokemon Legends ZA, it’s time to once again return to the Console Pokemon fantasy that was popped for good in Sword/Shield.

What is “Console Pokemon”? It’s something us 90s/00s kids had in our minds as we moved pocket monsters around our pocket gameboys. Basically, without severe hardware limitations, a Pokemon that would burst out into a paradigm shifting masterpiece.

Was this naive gamer fantasy? Probably. But it was something that had indeed happened with Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time (or GTA III, or Halo, or Final Fantasy VII…) We kept getting hints-a Snap here, a Stadium or Colosseum there. And then the 3DS (probably the first real big “Console Game”) and finally the Switch gave us… unoptimized 3d games with similar mechanics that looked worse than ones twenty years prior.

Of course, now I know that rather than being made by a mega-publisher as its flagship title, it’s actually developed by small Game Freak, whose lack of programming chops was evident in some ways from the get-go. Now I know that the business model is basically that of a yearly sports game, being critic proof in that regard. Now I know that with the franchise so lucrative, the games themselves matter as much as Half Life currently does to Valve.

So yeah, Console Pokemon isn’t coming.

Gaming’s Ford Edsel

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Looking at retrospectives for the infamously legendary recent video game bust Concord , I thought a lot of “wow, this really is the Ford Edsel of video games.” And I mean that specifically.

This video is as good as any for explaining in short terms what Concord was. That said:

  • It wasn’t actually that bad mechanically
    The Edsel was no worse in performance or safety than any other car of its era. Whatever issues it did have could be understood as it being brand new and not ‘broken in’. Likewise, Concord wasn’t a Memetic Bethesda Launch glitchfest with a lot of its immediate issues being… brand new and not ‘broken in’.
  • The timing was terrible
    The Edsel launched in a recession where the cars in its market segment were the hardest hit. Concord launched when hero shooters had gone from “hot” to “disco in 1982.”
  • The visual design was bad
    I don’t think I really have to elaborate here.
  • Expectations were far too high
    Concord was supposed to be a big merchandising and spinoff paradise as well as a tentpole franchise. The Edsel was supposed to be an entire division like Lincoln, the slightly above average in the brand ladder.

    Amazing how history can rhyme.

The Italian Lesson

On By coilerxiiIn Essay2 Comments

What has been said, and said accurately is that drones and tactics surrounding them are advancing and moving extra-fast in Ukraine. Yet counter-intuitively, this is a case for not rushing forward with swarms. Note: It is still important, and rapidly getting C-UAS, especially hard-kill weapons and proper training, is high priority.

Because this isn’t the first time this happened. And the (often unfairly) scorned Italian military of World War II is a stark example why.

So in the 1930s, automotive and aircraft technology was indeed roaring forward at a “Moores Law For Tanks and Propeller Planes” rate. Now I’m oversimplifying, but here’s what happened: Italy didn’t have the economy or resources for multiple huge waves, so they “modernized” too early , and were left with tons of biplanes and tiny tankettes .

I remember seeing a lecture on US interwar armor where even though he didn’t mention Italy or anything similar, he did use that as a reasonable answer for why America was slow in the same period. Now I mentioned the defensive priority being higher. Anti-tank guns and AA guns even if underpowered are still going to be useful in ways strictly worse tanks are not.

The UAV Illusion

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So RUSI fellow Justin Bronk has given focus to what I’ve kind of grasped but struggled to articulate myself: Small UAVs are not a panacea.

A smaller piece by the same author.

The short version is:

  • The weirdest analogy I have but one I believe is comparing FPV/etc… drones to B-17s and the like. There’s been a giant debate about the effectiveness of WW2 strategic bombing. The Western Allies had less a choice in it than one might think. Until 1944 it was the only direct offensive ability they had, and being shielded by water made it viable. Similarly, Ukraine’s use of drones, as Bronk explains, is a necessary one, just like that a result of desperate circumstance. But it’s not the circumstance and abilities that others, just like how no one had the WAllies circumstances there, will have.
  • Practical effects, which very few people are mentioning- namely, relying on drones against a force that’s spent three years optimizing against them is like relying on deep pass plays against the Lawrence Taylor Giants (ask yourself how the Joe Gibbs teams behaved offensively most of the time).
  • Finally and most crucially, Bronk brings up it’s the Walter Payton in Super Bowl XX / SA-2 not scoring that many direct kills in Vietnam problem. Which is that what’s causing drones to be effective is massive amounts of traditional weapons: Normal artillery, mines, missiles, and backed by UAVs in the traditional spotter role.

A very good splash of cold water. This isn’t to say these aren’t dangerous and won’t get better, but it helps to have perspective beyond highlight reels. Speaking of which, here’s a veteran talking about the side you didn’t see.