Tank Pioneer

Ludwig von Eimannsberger was an Austrian military officer and armored theorist whose 1934 book “Der Kampfwagenkrieg” proved prescient (though as with everything else, there’s argument about just how influential he truly was).

Regular infantry divisions for the grinding, independent tank brigades designed to be attached to the infantry units for support, and a pair of specialized exploitation forces-divisions with hundreds of tanks to spearhead the exploitation and motorized infantry divisions with massive amounts of antitank artillery to guard the flanks of the tanks. The heavier artillery (Eimannsberger was an artillery officer) was intended to be multipurpose, able to be used for anti-tank, anti-air, and both direct and indirect support fire.

His armored division is a little (forgivably) tank-heavy and infantry light. The formations overall are, with hindsight a little too pure and over-specialized. More interestingly, Eimannsberger was a World War I artillery commander who still thought like a World War I artillery commander in terms of command and control. It’s an open question as to whether a more modest and stiff but doable system like his or a shoot-for-the-moon deep attack that the Soviets proposed at the same time, but were unable to meaningfully do in practice until after years of war and hard lessons was “better”.

Still, it’s an interesting historical footnote.

Reviewing Two Books With The Same Title

It’s finally happened and it’s a little (but not too) surprising that I’ve finally reviewed two books with the same title on Fuldapocalypse.

The two “Hard Targets” are the more recent OPSIG Team Black: Hard Target   and the earlier The Zone: Hard Target.

 

The Circle Trigon Light Division

I’ve been reexamining the Circle Trigon Aggressors lately, and their 1947 rendition, before they quickly turned into a telephone-game version of the Soviets, is a little strange(r).

They range from “normal” formations like conventional triangular infantry divisions (three regiments, three battalions per regiment) to “I see what you’re doing” small, tank-heavy armored divisions that resemble Soviet tank corps/divisions from the time period to slightly offbeat ones like their motorized/mechanized divisions with somewhat odd mixes of organic infantry and tanks , to their specialized airborne and cavalry divisions to, finally, the light division.

Light divisions are divided into two brigades of four battalions each. The division and even brigade headquarters have very little in the way of support or weapons, being mostly there as administrative/command formations. The eight battalions are very large (consisting of five companies of infantry with the usual company-level support weapons) and contain an organic battery of four 75mm field guns.

The light division was not meant for high-intensity warfare and, in the “storyline” was disbanded after the first failed Circle Trigon campaigns. Given my liking of “strange” unit formations, I found the light division somewhat interesting.

The World War III Blog On Red Dawn

The World War III 1987 Blog has been doing a series on Red Dawn, the classic 1980s invasion movie.

The three entries (to date) are available here (part 1), here (part 2), and here (part 3).

Naturally, it’s making me want to do a Fuldapocalypse piece on the movie specifically and/or “invasion fiction” in general.

CMO IS OUT!

Command: Modern Operations, the sequel to Command: Modern Air Naval Operations, is out now. And I wasn’t a bystander or even just a beta tester-I wrote the manual for it in all its 353-page glory.

I’m very, very excited for this, and I hope you are too.

Get it at its official page here.

The Most Strangely Prominent Book

David Alexander’s Marine Force One is not prominent or popular by any standard. The best you can say is that it led to a few more book in its series. It has its quirks, but it’s a very middling novel. That’s the reason why I cite it so much in later Fuldapocalypse reviews.

Like the elusive “replacement-level player” in sports analysis, the “51% book” is a term I use a lot, used to describe something that’s merely adequate in all forms. And this was one of the most 51% books imaginable. It’s so middling it somehow stands out as something that is the perfect example of a decent book.

Fuldapocalypse Presents: A Thousand Words

So I’ve decided to expand Fuldapocalypse into occasional reviews of visual media (movies, games, etc..) So what better topic for the first installment than Dr. Strangelove?

Black Cats, The Symbol of -Tanks?

It’s apparently National Black Cat Day. Black cats are associated with many things, and one of them is tanks, as this World War I poster shows.

 

How Many World War IIIs?

My latest Fuldapocalypse post asks the question of how many “World War III” novels there even are. This has been a tricky question, but the answer is “not really that many”. Having to move past that original narrow genre has even affected the Creative Corner, causing a reduction in posts, post length, and, more importantly, my focus.

It’s gone like this: Fuldapocalypse is conceived of as a place to slide in the World War III reviews. Fuldapocalypse quickly (and rightfully) shifts to fiction in general, which takes up a giant chunk of this blog’s “jurisdiction” and a lot of my posting energy. What started as a niche side project to avoid clogging the general blog turned into something bigger and more involved.  But there’s trade offs, and, especially when busy elsewhere, I’ve been prioritizing the book reviews over the “miscellaneous miscellany”.

The Inter-Korean Military Balance

I’ve been, partially for one of my million plot ideas and partially just for fun, taking a look at the Cold War inter-Korean military balance from various old documents. So the picture forming is…

• From 1953 to the 1970s, the two armies are basically just infantry blobs with superpower hand-me-downs. The south has the bigger blob, so it has a decisive advantage.
• The late 70s-through 80s are when the north has its biggest advantage, but the south’s military is still strong enough that it would never be a 1950-level pushover.
• Weirdly enough, in the mid-70s, the biggest single on-paper advantage the north has over the south is its air force. Not often you see that in a Soviet client vs. a western one.