Now In: Lost Battalion Games : News : Cher Ami 2008 Newsletters - January

In This Issue

The first in a series of articles supporting our new game, Tyrants of Rome!

A Mystery Called History

"Old Juley", the First Missouri Brigade's most celebrated member.

The Armor Pages

The Soviet Union's most famous tank, the T-34.

Convention Season

Where are we going? Meet us at these great events! Convention List

Troops Ribbon Tap Tap Tap, is this thing on? Squelch!!.... Yeah, I know, I used that joke before in September 2006's Cher Ami. Well, it seems I am going to be the new Editor in Chief of Cher Ami. Before, I did all the web work but avoided the preamble like the plague. It is really hard to come up with 500 words of text that has some relevance to Lost Battalion, or this specific Cher Ami. I can say, "READ THIS, We have a new article on the T-34!" But that is why I have that menu positioned to the left of here. I can try to be folksy, like DL Stewart, or even Dave Barry, but it would fall flat. If you wanted to read about the life and times of my kid, you wouldn't want to read it here.

I can drop hints on upcoming products, but it was decided that that was a bad policy. When priorities change and the product goes to the back burner it is our customers that suffer. Policy aside, as a sneak peak, we have an article supporting our new project-in-the-works, Tyrants of Rome, which is also mentioned on the menu to the left.

Battlelines® Kursk is going forward. And in support of that, I am working up a new Formation Focus Article on the 1st SS, Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler Division. It should be ready by next month's edition.

The problem is that I am not a writer. I want to be a writer, and there are lots of things I like to pontificate on. But as anyone who has read the first drafts of my Formation Focus, Coldwar Stories, or The Armor Pages, knows the truth. James Joyce and I are contenders for the run-on sentence. I have even worn out my comma key, from all the sentence continuances. From a writing analysis tool I have used, my vocabulary is on the 14th grade level, and my sentence structure is on the 5th. The problem is obvious.

One of my favorite writers, David Eddings, advised new writers, "Write one million words and then burn them. You are now ready to start writing."

Welcome to my first million.

Tyrants of Rome

John Caskey

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The action in the game Tyrants of Rome begins at a turbulent time in Roman history and represents a crucial crossroad in the history of western civilization as a whole. Upon the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus the empire passed into the hands of Valerian with his son Gallienus as junior emperor (sometimes referred to the Caesar while the "senior" emperor was the Augustus). The Persians took the change of leadership as an opportunity to seize Roman territory in the east. Valerian promptly embarked on a military campaign to rectify the situation. Unfortunately he was captured and Gallienus soon found himself sole emperor, a job for which, some would say, he, was by very his nature, was ill-suited to acquit himself in well.

This was the beginning of what modern historians refer to as "The Crisis of the Third Century." For the next hundred years plus, the empire would be rocked by barbarian invasions. As a result, various usurpers to the throne would arise attempting to consolidate parts of the empire under their personal control. Some provinces would even go so far as to attempt to secede from the empire. These "mini-empires" were mostly short lived but the chaos of the period led to lasting changes in the organization of Roman state.

The crisis ended with the rise to power of the Emperor Diocletian and, no doubt, his memory of the events of recent years prompted him to divide command of the empire into a "Tetrachry" of junior and senior emperors. He implements this system during his reign, chooses the Eastern half of the divided empire for himself and gives the Western half to Maximian. Both then picked junior rulers as Caesars to the complete their Augustus and the four ruled the empire together with the apparent assurance of a peaceful succession until Diocletian and Maximian retired in 305 AD. For better or worse, the western Caesar, Constantine started a civil war a year later and reunited the empire, but the momentum and reality of history had already shift and by 395 AD the division of the empire into eastern and western halves was permanent.

The era of the Gallienus and his successors itself is known primarily from a single chapter (book) of one source the Historia Augusta, written (allegedly) at the beginning of the 4th Century AD by a team of six scholars known collectively as the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. The work begins with the rule of the Emperor Hadrian and concludes with a chapter on the lives of Emperors Carus, Carinus and Numerian. However, the period which is of most interest to players of Tyrants of Rome, is the chapter which describes the men, women, and children who aspired to wear the purple robes reserved for the emperor during the reign of Gallienus and Valerian. It’s very clear that the author has an axe to grind regarding Gallienus as illustrated by his introductions below:

"After having written many books in the style of neither an historian nor a scholar but only that of a layman, we have now reached the series of years in which the thirty pretenders arose -- the years when the Empire was ruled by Gallienus and Valerian, when Valerian was busied with the great demands of the Persian War and Gallienus, as will be shown in the proper place, was held in contempt not only by men but by women as well. But since so obscure were these men, who flocked in from divers parts of the world to seize the imperial power, that not much concerning them can be either related by scholars or demanded of them, and since all those historians who have written in Greek or in Latin have passed over some of them without dwelling even on their names, and, finally, since certain details related about them by many have varied so widely, I have therefore gathered them all into a single book, and that a short one, especially as it is evident that much concerning them has already been told in the Lives of Valerian and Gallienus and need not be repeated here."

In the section regarding Gallienus, the author(s) tells of his intention to write a "book" (which we would call a chapter today) about the TWENTY usurpers during that emperors reign. He later ends up writing a book entitled Tryrani Triginta (Thirty Pretenders or Tyrants). It is likely that the number of tyrants was later intentionally inflated to parallel the famous Thirty Tyrants of Athens who were installed as rulers of the city by Sparta after Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War. The author actually lists 32 names, the last two are admitted by him of not belong to the period of Gallienus. The list includes two women and six children who never actually assumed imperial power along with seven men of whom no other historical record or coinage indicates that they claimed 'the purple.' Three others are listed (Saturninus, Trebellianus and Celsus) who are likely to be entirely fictional -inventions of the author. Another three on the list existed, but not during the reign of Gallienus. Nevertheless, NINE tyrants don’t make a very good story (or a very good case for the ineptitude of Gallienus) and they don’t make a very good game either. Modern (well if you call late 1960s modern) research has shown the book was most likely authored almost 100 years later and that it’s true purpose may have been to help legitimize the Constantinian dynasty.

Although not all of the thirty tyrants appear in the game, the following summary of their names and exploits in illustrative of the period. Well, illustrative, at least, of the period as portrayed by the writer(s) of Historia Augusta. I have include brief quotes from the author(s) about certain of the characters and grouped them into factions to help the reader easily make sense of the complex political situation which Gallienus found thrust upon him, for good or ill. Consider the following .

The scene is set: Valerian has been captured in battle by the Persians, Odaenathus has seized power in the East, and Gallienus is "rejoicing in the news of his father's captivity." The armies begin to range about, and the generals and governors in all the provinces begin to murmur…

Next Installment: Tyrants of Rome: A partial Dramatis Personae for the period.

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A MULE'S TALE

By S. Craig Taylor, Jr.

Here, I will delve into a bit of obscure Confederate lore with the Disneyesque story of "Old Juley". "Old Juley" was a member of the First Missouri Brigade, which was arguably the best infantry brigade in Dixie’s western armies. As members of the Missouri militia, many of the brigade’s members fought at Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge before they were formally organized and mustered into the Confederate service and then they were in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Corinth, the Vicksburg campaign, the Atlanta campaign and the disastrous Franklin/Nashville campaign. The last few hundred members of the brigade ran into some very tough and determined black Union troops near Mobile, Alabama in April 1865 and only a few of the Missourians ever made it back to the "Show Me" state.

"Old Juley" was the most celebrated member of the First Missouri Brigade but was not, as you may have guessed, one of its hard-fighting and/or hard-drinking officers. Instead, "Old Juley" had four legs and was an amazingly beloved mule. Robert J. Williams (1825 – 1902), who had served with Alexander Doniphan"s legendary 1st Missouri Mounted Volunteers (the equally legendary Doniphan was offered a general"s star by both the North and the South but chose to remain a civilian in the Civil War) during the Mexican War, was a major in the brigade's 3rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment and owned the mule, who was originally used to haul around the major's personal belongings. "Old Juley" was a sweet-tempered animal and soon became the regimental mascot. The beast was so popular that, amazingly, he survived the siege of Vicksburg, where the soldiers were reduced to eating rats and a meal of fresh mule meat must have looked mighty good, indeed. "Old Juley" returned to Missouri with Williams after the war, where he was a minor celebrity wherever he appeared. The major obviously thought well of his mule and was, at his request, eventually buried in the family cemetery plot right next to "Old Juley."

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The Armor Pages

By Phil Gardocki

The T-34

T34/76

T34/76

As photographed by the author.
Used with permission from the US Army Ordnance Museum.

The T-34 was the Soviet Union's most famous tank. Its basic design was born of the practical experiences in Spain and Mongolia. Soviet planners realized that the tanks of the 1930's were too vulnerable to antitank guns of the day. Indeed, some of the tanks were even vulnerable to heavy machine guns. Another lesson learned was to switch from gasoline to a diesel, this required a larger engine to gain the same horsepower, but the trade off of being less flammable was regarded as worth it. Also, any tank design also had to be agile enough to deal with the harsh weather and roadless conditions of Mother Russia.

Its 4.5 cm of sloping armor proved to be just that. The 7.6 cm/L30 gun could penetrate 5.8 cm of armor at 500 meters; putting its penetration on par with the German 3.7/L45, but it did a better job of removing obstacles. The V-12 diesel engine could generate 500 hp giving it a power to weight ratio superior to any tank in the field. It was only bureaucratic infighting between the competing tank designs delayed the T-34 from going into high production.

The main problems with the T-34 were mechanical in nature. The turret traverse was turned by hand, giving it a slow response time. The V-12 engines had production problems, and were in short supply. Radios if they existed at all, only existed in command tanks. All T-34's had short lived engines and transmissions. The Model 'A' would often lose the driver's hatch to small caliber AT fire. The tracks were prone to being thrown. This coupled with a shortage of mechanics made for a horrific breakdown attrition rate in any operation. As one Soviet General observed, "A tank that wasn't burning after 10 days of an operation was a wasted tank."

The name T34/85 implies this was an upgrade to the T34, but it was actually a total redesign of the old workhorse. The need for an up gun was made apparent by the capture of a Tiger tank in late 1942. There was a need to counter these 55 ton monsters.

Firing range tests on the captured Tiger showed that the 7.6cm gun would not be effective. Like the Germans with the 8.8cm, and the Americans with the 9 cm, the Soviets turned to an existing antiaircraft gun, the 8.5 cm/51 to arm the new tank. To add this gun required expanding the turret ring and upping the overall size of the tank. Even so, this gun’s penetration was only 11.2 cm at 500 meters, less powerful than the German 7.5 cm/L48, and barely able to penetrate the hull of a Tiger or Panther.

The chassis of the T-34 was used for a number of self-propelled guns, including the SU-85, SU-100, and the SU-122.

T-34/76 A,C Specification T-34/85 Specification SU-100 Specification

Gun 7.62cm L30
7.62cm L42 Gun 8.5cm L53 Gun 10cm L53

Weight 26, 30 tonnes Weight 32 tonnes Weight 32 tonnes

Max Hull Armor 4.5 cm,6.5 cm Max Hull Armor 9 cm Max Hull Armor 7.5 cm

Fuel diesel Fuel diesel Fuel diesel

Horsepower 500hp Horsepower 500hp Horsepower 500hp

Top Speed 53 kph Top Speed 55 kph Top Speed 48 kph

Crew 4 Crew 4 Crew 4

SU-100

Developed in 1944, the SU-100 was used extensively in the last year of the war. Models continued to be in use by Soviet client states until the end of the century.

As photographed by the author.
Used with permission from the US Army Ordnance Museum.

T34/ 85.

Developed in late 1943, Over 22,000 were built before the war's end.

As photographed by the author.
Used with permission from the US Army Ordnance Museum.

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