Illinois National Guard


Newly elected Illinois Governor Henry Horner (the first Jewish Governor of Illinois) barely made it home to Chicago from Springfield at the start of the VACW. There he called out the Illinois National Guard, but only those units based in and around Chicago. The other Guard units were eventually called out by Supreme Commander General MacArthur. With two notable exceptions, the Guard units didn't completely show up. Many members decided they didn't want anything to do with the upcoming Civil War, for reasons ranging from not wanting to shoot their fellow Guardsmen to their unit being under control of someone they opposed. In most cases the Guard who didn't show up were allowed to stay home (most leaders didn't  want soldiers who weren't interested in fighting). As time passed, many of the Guard who sat out the early battles found themselves convinced to join up or in some cases were in drafted.


Governor Horner called out the following units.

33rd Division Headquarters (which since every National Guard Division was suppose to have a company of tanks, would have included a number of M1917 Tanks (30% strength)

131st Illinois National Guard Infantry Regiment (60% strength)

132nd Illinois National Guard Infantry Regiment (50% strength)

The 2nd Squadron of the 106th Cavalry, including the famous Chicago Black Horse Squadron (Troops E and F- 40% strength). 

The 122nd and 124th Field Artillery (75mm guns). They were combined together to give one full strength unit and an extra battery. 

Company A of the 108th Engineers (70% strength)

The 8th Illinois National Guard (it must have had a proper number but I couldn't find one in my resources). This was one of the few all negro National Guard units in the country and had served with the French Army in WWI. They were at 110% strength, as former members and combat veterans turned out in droves,  after refugees reported what the Black Legion had done in Detroit (while the Jews had been beaten and driven out, at least 100 Negros had been lynched in Detroit, their bodies left hanging for over a week). They are far more motivated than the average National Guard unit, and with so many combat veterans they are one of the best in the region (though white people, even those on their side, are loath to admit that).

108th Observation Squadron (equipped with PT-1 airplanes- 70% strength).

202d Coast Artillery (while I cannot prove it I believe they were an AA unit). 60% strength until the first bombing raid by Ford's Air Force, then 95% strength.

The 131st, the 132nd, the 106th Cavalry Squadron  and the Field Artillery (except for the extra battery that was left to protect Chicago from an attack from the east) moved toward Rock Island in order to seize the Arsenal there. On the way this force picked up scattered soldiers and two full companies from the 129th National Guard Infantry Regiment. Other units of the 129th that sought to stay out of the conflict were left to protect their home towns.

When this force (now known as the Western Chicago Army-WCA) reached Rock Island (which took the better part of two weeks) they found themselves up against some daunting defenses. Besides facing a 155mm battery, two 75mm batteries, and eight very assorted tanks (various prototypes that had been built at the Arsenal during the 20's) they found that the Arsenal soldiers had dug  a series of entrenchments containing more machineguns per yard than any place on the Western Front in WWI every had. The soldiers at the Arsenal had drug out and emplaced every automatic weapon they could find. There were Lewises, BARS, Brownings (.30 and .50 caliber), old Colt "Potato Digger" machineguns, pre-war Maxims chambered for .30-06, Benet-Mercie light machineguns, and some of the WCA soldiers even claimed they were fired upon by a Gatling. The first assault on this fortified line was thrown back with such heavy losses that WCA was forced to dig in, and form their own lines of trenches. This ended up being one of the few true cases of trench warfare in the whole of VACW. As time passed the Regular Army managed to feed a few more troops in from the west, while the Western Chicago Army was joined by Wisconsin Guard units as well as most of the tanks that had been initially left behind in Chicago.

I don't plan on doing this battle. It is too large for 28mm (except maybe as the occasional trench raid) and trench warfare doesn't appeal to me.

In addition to the one battery of 75mm Field Guns, the eastern approaches were defended by the Illinois 8th, and various independent armies. The units formed by the Unions (more on those in a later blog) were placed on the eastern approaches and intentionally kept away from the white National Guard Units (too much bad blood between them from the Guard having been used to bust  up strikes in the teens and twenties).  Since no one had ever used the Black Guard to bust up strikes, they were not seen as the enemy by the Union units.

The downstate units formed up (130th Infantry (50% strength) and 123rd Field Artillery (40% strength))  but  mainly stayed in company or battery sized units to deal with local problems. They found themselves battling local coal miner unions, which was made harder by the miners having successfully captured and looted the Mt. Vernon Armory. In the middle of the state the Union forces (who faced nothing more dangerous than the 130th Infantry Headquarter unit) took over Decatur and waged a sporadic battle with the various forces holding the state capital Springfield. 

THE JEWISH DEFENSE FORCE

After gaining the backing of Ford the Black Legion drove the Jews out of the Detroit area (much to Ford's dismay). There were beatings, the Temples were closed, property and money was seized (which helped fund the Black Legion as much as the money from Ford did). Some fled to Canada, others to Chicago. From these refugees and the Jewish population of Chicago the Jewish Defense Force was created. It was the creation of a group of respectable Jewish leaders, and some very un-respectable Jewish gangsters. Detroit had been the  home of the Purple Gang, a group of Jewish American gangsters who were involved in bootlegging, gambling, the protection racket, and other types of organized crime. When the Purple Gang showed up in Chicago Capone's outfit (which had  previously gotten along with the Purple Gang) grew concerned about them muscling in on their territory. To skim off the younger hotheads from the Purple Gang, Capone funded  and supplied arms to the newly formed JDF. Suddenly, guys who had been looked down on as hoodlums found themselves cheered as champions against anti-Semitism.


Unlike many other newly formed "armies" (such as the Unionmen or the Negro Defense Force) the JDF is well equipped with automatic weapons. Every "squad" has at least two Tommyguns and frequently a BAR. They were the first of the irregular "armies" in the region to carry grenades, and their grenades were regular issue ones (the other irregular armies of the region had to make do with homemade grenades and bombs that often didn't work right). They lacked much in the way of heavy weapons, but were well supplied with cars and trucks. This mobility caused them to be regularly used as a fire-brigade, to reinforce threatened positions. With so many of the members having suffered at the hands of the Black Legion they were very dedicated, if not all that well trained or competent.  No actual uniforms at first, just regular clothes  and armbands (the former members of the Purple Gang going in for fine suits when work clothes would have made more sense).

My  VACW  Campaign

I've decided to set my campaign in Northern Illinois and Indiana, southern Michigan and Wisconsin. You'd have Chicago, and the Progressives and Socialists of Wisconsin, hemmed in by the Army in the west at Rock Island Armory (which could make tanks and artillery) and Henry Ford on the east. Both sides would have plenty of people and industry.

I could do land battles of all sizes (for our European friends the territory this area covers is about the size of France), air battles (Navy fighters vs. Ford Tri-Motor Bombers escorted by Army Fighters), even small sea battles in Lake Michigan (motorboats and armed merchant ships). Land, sea, and air the region has it all. Don't forget the winters that can be as bad as Russia. OK maybe not that bad but plenty of opportunity for ski troops and aerosans (I've been looking for an excuse to buy some of those from Warlord anyway).

A VERY AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Terrain
FARMS AND FARM COMMUNITIES


We'll start this section with a story about my Dad,who was  born in 1930.


In the 1940 he, his Dad, and my two Uncles still plowed the land with teams of draft horses (Percherons). One year after plowing all morning with two teams, the salesman brought out their new tractor (an International H) at lunchtime. Now this wasn't a huge modern tractor but a smaller one just a bit higher than one of the horses (which considering the size of those draft horses was still pretty big). After lunch, my granddad started plowing with the tractor. In one hour he had plowed more land with the tractor that they had all morning with two teams. He told my dad to go ahead and take the horses back to the barn, they weren't going to be used for plowing anymore.


The point of this story is, that in 1933 a lot of people still used horses and mules to plow with, and there are limits on how much you can plow with horses (you may have heard the term 40 acres and mule, 40 acres is all you could take care of with just a mule to plow with). This means more farms because each farm was fewer acres. In addition, farms were the old fashioned kind (not the mono-culture ones we have today where all a wheat farm raises is wheat and all a cattle farm raises is cattle). Again, using my grandfather as an example, yes he was mainly a grain farmer (which meant a corn crib), but he also had chickens (henhouse), pigs (pigsty), cattle and horses (barn and a milk house to keep the milk cool), a woodshed to keep firewood dry in, a smokehouse, and (being a well off farmer) he even had a scale shed to weigh grain and livestock before sending them to market. Then there was the outhouse and, of course, a big stack of firewood for the stove. Like I said he was a successful farmer, so he probably had more out buildings than most, still all farms at the time will have an assortment of outbuildings. This means lots of cover for skirmish games.

Finally, you also need to keep in mind that farming with horses means smaller fields (not as small a British or European ones, but smaller than today). Since crop yields were lower it didn't pay to plow property line to property line, like they do today. Fields were separated by fence rows (usually single strand barbed wire fences about 4 foot high) and had brush and trees growing alongside them. These weren't as thick as a British or European hedgerow, but still good cover andoften an obstacle for vehicle movement. 

I'd also like to mention something I ran into while hunting as a lad in the 70's, Osage Orange. Osage Orange is a kind of a tree valued by farmers in the 30's for fence posts (they didn't rot like most wood-remember this is before treated lumber). On the other hand they were  covered in inch long thorns. My dad told me a story about a guy who tried to clear a fence-row of them. He got four flat tires for his trouble and ended up
having to use a bulldozer to clear that fence-row. I wouldn't use them everyplace, but they'd make a nice rude surprise for trucks and other wheeled vehicles.

In addition, the roads in the 30s were not that great. A lot were just dirt, and most of the rest gravel. Not everyone had a car or truck, plenty of people still got around by horse-drawn wagon. No getting in a car and driving 30 minutes to a Walmart 30 miles away. You picked up most of your goods at local general stores, usually within a couple miles. There were also a lot of small "towns". Really more places than towns (village
is a bit too European of a word to use,  considering that many of them disappeared after WWII). I remember, as a kid, driving along a road with Dad. We'd turn at a crossroad and he'd say "I remember when there was two stores and a blacksmith shop here" (and there was nothing there). We'd go past a couple houses and a falling down store and he'd talk about the two story school, the Doctor's office, and two stores that used to be there. Also, you need to allow for one-room schools (the 30s were the end of the era for those), lots of  churches (this America the religious after all),  grist mills and sorghum mills (my Dad remembers taking sorghum to a horse powered sorghum mill so it could be squeezed for syrup, which was then used an
everyday sweetener).  My mom grew up in a little town called Lancaster. It had two stores, two gas stations, a two story school, a post office/barbershop and a garage for car repair. I vaguely remember them tearing down one of the stores in the 1960s (my grandparents owned one of the stations, which also sold groceries). Now, all that's left is a restaurant in what used to be my grandparents gas station, and a post-office that isn't even open full time.  

In AVACW the roads are often bad and there are plenty of buildings, houses and fence rows in the countryside. The New Deal and the post-War boom dramatically changed the landscape and you should allow
for it when setting up a gaming table.

The Six Ton M1917 Light Tank

Basically a near copy of the French Renault FT-17 thousands were ordered by the US Army, but only about 950 were delivered after the war was over. 374 had cannons, 526 had machine guns, and 50 were signal (wireless) tanks. These were complemented about 200 Renault FTs brought back from France. 
 
Weight: 6.4 Tons
Length: 5 m
Width: 1.9m
Height: 2.3 m
Crew: 2
Armor: 17mm
Armament: 37mm cannon or .30 Browning (remember that is that low velocity 37mm trench gun,
not a 37mm AT gun)
Range: 30 miles
Speed: 5.5 MPH

With so many  out there almost any faction could have access to these. About 500 where still in running condition in 1940 and were supplied to the Canadians as training vehicles, so they had to have been somewhat reliable. 

I also found the following picture showing the size difference between these tanks.

The Browning Automatic Rifle (aka the BAR)

No VACW battle is complete without at least a couple of BARs in the hands of the troops. 
 
The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is an automatic rifle (or machine rifle)/light machinegun used by the United State. The initial variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge. It was designed by John Browning in 1917 for the U.S. Expeditionary Corps in Europe as a replacement for the French-made Chauchat machine gun (a favorite entry in the worst machinegun in the world contest). The BAR was designed to be carried by advancing infantrymen, slung over the shoulder or fired from the hip, a concept called "walking fire"—thought to be necessary for the individual soldier during trench warfare.  However in practice, it was most often used as a light machine gun and fired from a bipod. The problem was it really wasn't a light machine gun. Between the limited magazine (only 20 rounds) and a non-detachable thin barrel, it really didn't compare to a true light machinegun like a Bren or even a Lewis. However, with over 100,000 available (plus the Colt Monitor version, which lacked a bipod, which was used by the FBI, prison guards, police, etc.) in the early 30s in the United States they will be a common item in VACW battles. Every armory would have them in it, even major warships had up to 200 per ship for issue to naval landing forces. The version (M1918) available for VACW is capable of full- and semi-auto fire, and can be shoulder fired (don't try that with a regular light machinegun).

Depending on the system you use, you'll have to modify it down from a regular Light Machinegun.

A VERY AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
History Lesson 1

The Reality of 1930's National Politics.

The following is a simplification. I'm sorry, I don't  feel like writing a 100 page essay on the way politics used to be. While gamers might know their history, I think it is better if I state the obvious for those younger people who don't know what things used to be like, and for foreigners might not know this stuff  about the United States to begin with. Hell, I wasn't born until 1959, and things just started to change in the
60's

In the 21st Century saying Republican is like saying Conservative.

 In the 21st Century saying Democrat is like saying Liberal.

That was not at all the case in the 1930s.

 In the south, most white people were conservative and Democrats. They were referred to as Yellow Dog Democrats (they'd vote for a Yellow Dog before voting for a Republican). The solid South was solidly for the Democrats (not like now when it is solidly for the Republicans). Roosevelt didn't get a majority of black votes (where blacks could vote) until 1940. Though from a later time period Robert Byrd (who served as a Democratic U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a Democratic U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010) had been a Klansman.  Yes,  white Southerners  were conservative, but it was an anti-banker/Wall Street kind of conservatism that didn't keep them from accepting government help. Given the economic state of the Old South during the Depression (remember most poor sharecroppers were white) it was help they needed.

Also there was a strong stream of liberalism in the Republican Party. Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts. Western Republicans like  Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and his sons in Wisconsin (from about 1900 to 1946), and western leaders such as Senator Hiram Johnson in California, Senator George W. Norris in Nebraska, Senator Bronson M. Cutting in New Mexico, Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin in Montana, and Senator William Borah in Idaho supported the New Deal and Unions.  Starting in the 1930s a number of Northeastern Republicans took liberal positions regarding labor unions, spending and New Deal policies. They included Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in New York City, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, Governor Earl Warren of California, Senator Clifford P. Case of New Jersey, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of Massachusetts, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut (father of George H. W. Bush), Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York, Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania, and Governor George Romney of Michigan.

And needless to say moderates abounded in both parties at the time, but what fun are those in a Civil War.