Tag: Infantry

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.

Technically Adept

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

Probably the most iconic weapon associated with technical trucks is the Zu-23 double barrel 23mm AA gun. What I’ve found fascinating is the basic reason why.

There’s an interesting convergence here. First off, yes, it’s a very good medium autocannon that’s cheap and common enough that even the poorest can get them en masse. Its use in battle is obvious. Yet its its dimensions more than anything else that puts it in the goldilocks sweet spot.

On one hand, its big and heavy enough that it needs to be mounted on a vehicle to move quickly. But it’s light enough that it can be effectively operated from the back of a pickup truck. Function followed form.

Paradrops

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

The problem with large parachute drops, especially post-World War II, is that you need to be able to get a bunch of large transport planes to the DZ. However, if you are able to do that, chances are you won’t need to do something as risky as a parachute landing anyway.

Then you run into the issue of whether or not the resources spent on guarding the paradrop are worth it or not. There’s a reason why large operational/strategic paradrops are more in the theoretical than real. However, even theoretical offers an advantage. The force in being strategy means that a defender must prepare for the possibility that a paradrop could happen.

Another Operator-Ette

On By coilerxiiIn ArtLeave a comment
Image made in Stable Diffusion

One of the things I love doing in Stable Diffusion is adding in a bunch of stylistic prompts and applying it to someone in a military uniform. This young lady here is one of my favorite recent generations.

A Thousand Words: Chains of Freedom

On By coilerxiiIn A Thousand Words, ReviewLeave a comment

Chains of Freedom

the XCOM-esque game Chains of Freedom is a new turn-based strategy game that I’ve just completed. It’s well, uh, something. So I wouldn’t have finished the game if it was bad , but man is there so much that drags it and keeps it from being what could have been. A lot of it.

The first issue is the story and setting. Do you want Brown Age throwback graphics of one Cyrillic wasteland after another? Do you want a plot and setting that’s what you’d get if you prompted an AI to go “Make me a science fiction setting based on Command and Conquer, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Metro, and throw in a couple of general cliches for good measure”? Do you want characters who are either dull or who you’ll hate from the start?

Then there’s the gameplay. Probably the most distinct thing about it compared to other XCOM-likes is that you have to scrounge and craft for items between battles. This is one of those things that’s a lot better in theory than in practice. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard “cover turn based strategy.” Which is a problem when you get into the final act and the game throws monotonous giant swarm after monotonous giant swarm at you. As if to compensate, the last few encounters and the final boss are anticlimactically easy.

This is a 49% game. And as the last couple of Super Bowls have shown for the team that bears that name, close doesn’t let you win. (Hey, gotta drop a football reference on NFL Draft day!)

Review: Alamo on the Rhine

On By coilerxiiIn Review1 Comment

Alamo on the Rhine

For the first World War III review of the new year, I turn to T. K. Blackwood’s Alamo on the Rhine, a spinoff/side story of the Iron Crucible 1990s World War III. It’s about a daring strike on a vital air base at the start of the war. Told with the same effectiveness as the other entries, I greatly enjoyed it.

I couldn’t help but see the parallels to Market Garden, Kitona, and Hostomel and wonder what role those historical battles played in the crafting of this book, similar to how I wanted a “Soviet Gulf War” in All Union but not an exact one. It’s to Blackwood’s credit that the excellent story does not come across as a simple historical copy-paste.
This is a very fun book of the kind I haven’t read in a while. Nice job.

Review: Battledrills for Chinese Mobile Warfare

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Battledrills for Chinese Mobile Warfare

Against my better judgement, I got another H. John Poole book. The title made me naively think “oh, this could be a set of practical drills approached from a different perspective.” So like any H. John Poole book, this is about 5% reasonable well-thought out arguments (in this case: Formations should be simpler and grenade skill should be focused and emphasized) mixed with 95% incoherent rambling about how artillery is useless.

The “logic” is a classic all or nothing where if the artillery fails to destroy everything in its path and close combat is still necessary, therefore artillery is useless and only suitable for clunky western armies and not cunning subtle ‘eastern’ ones. He even argues that artillery and aid of artillery has not been useful in the contemporary war in Ukraine, which is… something. But not something good.

By this point Poole has lost most of what teaching value his books had, and I recommend avoiding them.

Review: Kill Kill

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Kill Kill: Battle of Fallujah

One of the recent very pleasant surprises for me was Chance Nix‘s Kill Kill, a historical cheap thriller (yes it makes sense in context) set in the titular battle of Fallujah. Rest assured that this is a book rather different in tone from the last such novel I reviewed, Dodgebomb. However, I feel comfortable saying that a veteran of the actual war with a purple heart is welcome to write however he pleases.

This has the tone of a cheap thriller, but there’s just enough “aha, a veteran would know this” detail (especially the dialogue) to make it feel grounded, and more importantly it comes across as reaching the tone it aimed for. While the character archetypes are the kind that were old when Homer was young, they also fit their role and I can’t complain about them.

Also realistically and somewhat daringly for a cheap thriller, Nix is not afraid to kill off his protagonists. In fact, he actually kills too many, with the number of character deaths in that one segmented viewer totaling around 15-25% of the actual American KIA in the historical battle. Which is… uh, a plausibility critique I never thought I’d be making about a cheap thriller.

Anyway, while this book is rough around the edges, it’s a good read and I eagerly recommend it.

The Amphibious Hook

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

The Amphibious Hook is a type of theoretical maneuver that allows for a naval support of a land offensive. It is either an operational or tactical offensive, with the Heavy OPFOR Operational noting that such ones would never be done outside of extensive air support. The document also argues that it generally would take the form of an amphibious regiment/brigade in the first wave and then normal mechanized troops unloading on the shore after the beach was cleared to continue the push. But of course, depending on shipping, it could easily be more.

(Brief note: Strategic amphibious operations are D-Day and even Inchon. Tactical ones are things like doing a boat raid. Operational ones are, fitting that level, more vague and mean things like ‘land a big enough force to divert their reserves so that the main land push can run more freely’).

The section on amphibious landings (Heavy OPFOR Operational sec. 2-13 to 2-15) also speaks of naval units being an easy way to reinforce airborne ones, assuming the geography works. There’s also, as happened in the Gulf War, the threat of an amphibious hook.

Ironically, one of the best ways for a defender to counter an amphibious hook is to ignore it. Or if not ignore it, recognize that it’s going to have trouble moving inland and can be contained with second-line forces and not divert too much to stop it, leaving the opponent with a small toehold always at risk of being cut off.

Review: Defence of Villages and Small Towns

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Defence of Villages and Small Towns

It was 1940 and Britain stood alone. Colonel G. A. Wade published the pamphlet/book Defence of Villages and Small Towns to give the massively mobilizing Home Guard a rapid lesson. It’s worth the cost and as more than a historical curiosity. In fact, a lot of its lessons would applicable in contemporary Ukraine or similar (like defending a theoretical desert village in the NTC from the Donovian hordes).

Basically it’s intended to be a casual plain-text tome with as little field-manualese as possible about area defense. It’s about using terrain and available resources, the importance of time, and other crucial things like coordinating unit boundaries to avoid friendly fire. Useful in both historical and understanding terms.