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Alex Kernel

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Hello dear fans of HOI3,

Last year I started playing the game, hating the highly steep learning curve, but loving this historical reenacting of WWII. After a short and disappointing interlude with HOI4, I returned to HOI3, which is by far a better reflection of the World War. Until now I did play with Germany, Romania, and France (painful defeat with the latter) and learned the land and air combat. My intention is to report live my war experience with different powers at normal difficulty level, without the possibility to go back in time whenever things turn bad. Like in real history, the played country will have to live with its losses and blunders when they happen. My first DAR (instead of AAR) will be Romania, followed by France, and Japan (naval battles are not my specialty, so there will be a tough time ahead).

Now, from my limited game experience minor powers are exaggeratedly nerfed, while a moderately well prepared gamer can win easily with the land Major Powers. In order to make a country like Romania playable, I did modify some of its stats to a limited extent. In terms of manpower, military scientists and resources Romania was the forth Axis Power after Germany, Italy, and Japan. A solid part of the country's officers were competent, graduating in the highest military academies in France and Germany in the interwar period. However the country lacked a powerful heavy industry and no major power of the time wanted to sell licences for modern weaponry and industrial know-how for different reasons. Germany and Italy did not trust Romania, because the country was largely democratic, a long time ally of France and a supporter of the League of Nations. France and Czechoslovakia (the latter inheriting a heavy industrial basis from the former multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire) didn't want industrial competition from Eastern Europe, hoping instead to export their products. Soviet Union was out of question because of the unresolved Bessarabia issue (The Russian Empire annexed through war half of the Romanian principality of Moldova in 1812. In 1859 emerged the state of Romania following the victory of the idea of Nationalism in Europe and claimed ever since the Russian occupied half of Moldova - Bessarabia. In 1918 Bessarabia asked to reunify with Romania, which happened after the Bolshevik revolution and the Russian civil war) and the Communist ideological threat to the liberal and monarchical national order.

Up to 1934 Romania had to recover from the horrific destruction brought by the First World War, to surpass the Great Depression which lasted from 1929 to 1933), and to pay the economic costs of unification with its historical provinces where Romanians where a majority: Transylvania and Bessarabia. Only after 1935 did the country have to its disposal financial resources to invest in modernising its military. After failed negotiations with the European Majors to buy licences, the Romanian Government decided to place huge orders in France, England, Italy, and Czechoslovakia for everything from planes, naval ships, artillery, to tanks and motorised vehicles. Nonetheless, in a heating political climate, with all these countries engaging in a new arms race, many of these orders were cancelled or the deliveries reduced by the sellers, with the weapons already produced for Romania being often called into requisition...

Being left alone by its friends, Romania started a modernization program with its own scientists and limited industrial capacity. (Soon to follow!)
 
This could be very interesting! Romania holds a special place in my heart as my first real minor campaign in HoI3. It's an interesting country to play really, big enough to make an impact but small enough that you still live or die on the whims of your major allies and their always-unreliable AI. It's certainly a challenge to carve out your place in the world.

Will you be playing a fairly historical route, or using the neutrality-reducing decision to go on an early conquering spree to acquire additions IC, MP, and so on?

Now, from my limited game experience minor powers are exaggeratedly nerfed, while a moderately well prepared gamer can win easily with the land Major Powers. In order to make a country like Romania playable, I did modify some of its stats to a limited extent.

If you're not opposed to mods, I can highly recommend the Historical Plausibility Project (HPP) mod as one which (among numerous other changes) helps make the minors more playable compared to vanilla HoI3. You do lose the option to take the neutrality reduction decision, but the improved realism is worth it IMO.
 
Good luck with this - a new HOI3 A(D)AR and playing a minor as well! Huzzah!

I look forward to seeing how you approach the challenge, with similar questions to @nuclearslurpee but happy to wait for your opening chapter to find out, if you don’t want to answer in advance. :)
 
Long time since I've seen a Romanian tale attempted, there is potential to do many things and I look forward to seeing which path you take.

If Romania is modernising will we see more aerial efforts from IAR instead of the fairly bad Polish licence builds of OTL? Vickers were happy to sell licences for guns to Romania, so maybe more from them and less time chasing after the French and Czcechs? Lots of possibilities.
 
@ Nuclearslurpee, as @ Bullfilter suggests, let's wait and see! After a path is taken I will gladly explain the rationale behind that decision from a historical and gameplay point of view. The aim is to create a plausible alternative outcome to the Second World War. Technical details will be marked as parenthesis inbetween the story.
[Before beginning the 1936 historical scenario, let's see which stats I did modify to make Romania closer to reality. The numbers are base values, and the benchmarks for my calculations are the weakest Major Power, i.e. Italy, the neighbours Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, and for Oil - Russia.
Manpower:
Romania had in 1936 20 Million citizens, Hungary 9 Million, Bulgaria 7, Italy 43, and the USSR 160.
In game's terms this means: Hungary - 79,625, Bulgaria - 78,000, Italy - 242,177 and the USSR 1010,39 Manpower. So, historically Romania had more than twice of Hungary, almost three times the population of Bulgaria and almost one eighth of the Soviet Union. Weighting these numbers for Romania is not simple. Comparing Romania to its neighbours would mean a value of roughly 160-230 MP, with Italy 120 MP, and with the Soviets 126,30 MP. In the end I opted for 150,116 MP for Romania, which amounts to 2,3 MP/month in 1936. I don't remember the default value but supposedly was around 130 MP (can someone check this?). Moreover, the soviets get two events related huge bonuses in absolute MP numbers (3.000 + 1.500 if I'm not mistaken) at the beginning of and during the war, which causes huge difficulties for the Axis.
IC
After comparing in a similar way the values across Majors and neighbouring Minors, Romania got 38 IC instead of the original 35 (Poland has 47 IC, Czechoslovakia 36, Italy 69),
Natural resources
Romania was rich in natural resources, especially oil, coal, energy from hidropowerplants and some types rare materials and that is not reflected at all in the game. Energy went from 70 to 115, Metal from 26 to 53, Rares from 13 to 31, and Oil from 40 to 69 (benchmark SU with 80)
Leadership
In this category the developers made injustice to many minors in the game including Hungary, Yugoslavia, Netherland, Czechoslovakia, Canada and Australia. Ingame Leadership is a weighted value of a country's diplomatic clout, scientific pool, and Intelligence capabilities. Before and during the WWII, Romania had an excellent diplomacy, a very capable Intelligence network (much better than the one of Germany on the Southern frontline for example), and good military scientists, whose efforts where hampered by the lacking industrial capacity, e.g. for mass production of tanks) and the opacity of Nazi Germany to share some of its know-how with all its Minor allies (until late 1943 when it was too late). Besides After considering what would Romania need to keep it's Infantry up to date as well as keeping its fighters to some extent competitive along with the Light Tanks after 1941, I opted for a base value of 7.6 instead of 1.9. To compensate for this steep increase, Romania will respect the historical course of investing heavily in diplomacy points and Intelligence, resulting in a moderating effect on Research capability. Hereby we will be able to discuss about the often neglected policies under the Intelligence tab, where I've got some interesting insights. Along the evolving historical scenario we could exchange knowledge about every technical aspects of the gameplay.
Military Leaders
The country had a very large pool of officers in its army, a sizeable part capable commanders. Among historians there was a debate if the Romanian officers were well prepared or not. A few years ago I read accounts of both sides of what happened, as well as historians' assessments. To make things short, as in every army there were incompetent officers, probably in higher percentages than in the German army, but other aspects mattered more. First of all, by December 1941 Germany has reached the outskirts of Moscow, but failed to take the city. Stalin was ready to capitulate if Moscow would have been taken, but the Red Army helped by the general Winter and the catastrophic infrastructure managed in extremis to turn the tide of defeats. So Germany moved its already weakened forces to the Southern Front hoping to cut Russia from the Caucasian Oil, which would have paralyzed the Russian armour divisions. However this strategic indecision has given the Soviets time to regroup and stem the German offensive completely. Whenever German divisions were defeated, the German officers tended to move the blame on the shoulders of others: the Romanians, the Italians or the Hungarians. Sometimes they were right, sometimes not. On the other side, the Romanian and the Hungarian armies did not get significant scientific military help from Germany until late 1943, when the German High Command recognized the reality that the Romanian forces could not effectively keep the frontlines against the Soviet T34 armored divisions without comparable armour forces. Instead Germany promised to deliver 1941-43 modern PZIII Medium Tanks, which they failed to do. The've sent to Romania limited numbers of severely damaged and partly outdated PZIIIs, a fair part of which the country managed to repair against the odds. To the Romanian army's surprise the German instructors requisitioned most of these tanks for the needs of the German forces. This behaviour along with the unequal treatment of the Romanian high command has poisoned the relations between the two officer corps and led to dysfunctional cooperation on the frontline. Besides many soldiers and officers alike did question the rationale of Romanian involvement way beyond the Bessarabian borders. In absence of allied help, the Romanian scientists retrofitted the many hundreds of captured Russian tanks with up to date turrets, better motors and stronger armor, and sent them back to the front along with modernised own Czech /French models (R35, TACAM T60, TACAM R2). These were good weapons overall, but still no match for the medium tank T34, which proliferated beginning with 1942. Romania badly needed a medium Armour as well. In the summer of 1944 Romanians had tested their own Antitank Armour design M05 and M06, which the Germans appreciated and used as inspiration for their Hetzer. In August 1944 M06 (a light to medium tank category) was ready for mass production, but the Soviets had just broken through the last frontline in central Moldova after 5 months of fearsome resistance. Romania was facing the prospect of total destruction of its urban and industrial centers, while Germany was not able anymore to deliver reinforcements to its own divisions on the common defense lines. Back to the numbers of Military Leaders, the game is totally unbalanced. Hungary got 172 land leaders, more than France (!!!) with 153, and Romania with an army more than double, only 102. For comparison, to Germany were assigned 738, USSR 617, and UK 335. Thus I looked through lists of Romanian Generals serving during WWII, and supplemented the numbers by approx. 100. Also were supplemented the numbers of Air and Naval Leaders, by ca. 20 each.]
 
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Long time since I've seen a Romanian tale attempted, there is potential to do many things and I look forward to seeing which path you take.

If Romania is modernising will we see more aerial efforts from IAR instead of the fairly bad Polish licence builds of OTL? Vickers were happy to sell licences for guns to Romania, so maybe more from them and less time chasing after the French and Czcechs? Lots of possibilities.

Yes, they will definitely work at their model IAR 80, which was historically on par with any other fighter from between 1838 and 1942. You're right about Vickers. Wait and see what my limited production capabilities will prioritise during 1936. My intro was long, but it's closing to an end, and this week I'll start the scenario.
 
@ Nuclearslurpee, as @ Bullfilter suggests, let's wait and see! After a path is taken I will gladly explain the rationale behind that decision from a historical and gameplay point of view. The aim is to create a plausible alternative outcome to the Second World War. Technical details will be marked as parenthesis inbetween the story.
[Before beginning the 1936 historical scenario, let's see which stats I did modify to make Romania closer to reality. The numbers are base values, and the benchmarks for my calculations are the weakest Major Power, i.e. Italy, the neighbours Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland, and for Oil - Russia.
Manpower:
Romania had in 1936 20 Million citizens, Hungary 9 Million, Bulgaria 7, Italy 43, and the USSR 160.
In game's terms this means: Hungary - 79,625, Bulgaria - 78,000, Italy - 242,177 and the USSR 1010,39 Manpower. So, historically Romania had more than twice of Hungary, almost three times the population of Bulgaria and almost one eighth of the Soviet Union. Weighting these numbers for Romania is not simple. Comparing Romania to its neighbours would mean a value of roughly 160-230 MP, with Italy 120 MP, and with the Soviets 126,30 MP. In the end I opted for 150,116 MP for Romania, which amounts to 2,3 MP/month in 1936. I don't remember the default value but supposedly was around 130 MP (can someone check this?). Moreover, the soviets get two events related huge bonuses in absolute MP numbers (3.000 + 1.500 if I'm not mistaken) at the beginning of and during the war, which causes huge difficulties for the Axis.
IC
After comparing in a similar way the values across Majors and neighbouring Minors, Romania got 38 IC instead of the original 35 (Poland has 47 IC, Czechoslovakia 36, Italy 69),
Natural resources
Romania was rich in natural resources, especially oil, coal, energy from hidropowerplants and some types rare materials and that is not reflected at all in the game. Energy went from 70 to 115, Metal from 26 to 53, Rares from 13 to 31, and Oil from 40 to 69 (benchmark SU with 80)
Leadership
In this category the developers made injustice to many minors in the game including Hungary, Yugoslavia, Netherland, Czechoslovakia, Canada and Australia. Ingame Leadership is a weighted value of a country's diplomatic clout, scientific pool, and Intelligence capabilities. Before and during the WWII, Romania had an excellent diplomacy, a very capable Intelligence network (much better than the one of Germany on the Southern frontline for example), and good military scientists, whose efforts where hampered by the lacking industrial capacity, e.g. for mass production of tanks) and the opacity of Nazi Germany to share some of its know-how with all its Minor allies (until late 1943 when it was too late). Besides After considering what would Romania need to keep it's Infantry up to date as well as keeping its fighters to some extent competitive along with the Light Tanks after 1941, I opted for a base value of 7.6 instead of 1.9. To compensate for this steep increase, Romania will respect the historical course of investing heavily in diplomacy points and Intelligence, resulting in a moderating effect on Research capability. Hereby we will be able to discuss about the often neglected policies under the Intelligence tab, where I've got some interesting insights. Along the evolving historical scenario we could exchange knowledge about every technical aspects of the gameplay.
Military Leaders
The country had a very large pool of officers in its army, a sizeable part capable commanders. Among historians there was a debate if the Romanian officers were well prepared or not. A few years ago I read accounts of both of what happened as well as historians assessments. To make things short, as in every army there were incompetent officers, probably in higher percentages than in the German army, but other aspects mattered more. First of all, by December 1941 Germany has reached the outskirts of Moscow, but failed to take the city. Stalin was ready to capitulate if Moscow would have been taken, but the Red Army helped by the general Winter and the catastrophic infrastructure managed in extremis to turn the tide of defeats. So Germany moved its already weakened forces to the Southern Front hoping to cut Russia from the Caucasian Oil, which would have paralyzed the Russian armour divisions. However this strategic indecision has given the Soviets time to regroup and stem the German offensive completely. Whenever German divisions were defeated they the German officers tended to move the blame on the shoulders of others: the Romanians, the Italians or the Hungarians. Sometimes they were right, sometimes not. On the other side, the Romanian and the Hungarian armies did not get significant scientific military help from Germany until late 1943, when the German High Command recognized the reality that the Romanian forces could not effectively keep the frontlines against the Soviet T34 armored divisions without comparable armour forces. Instead Germany promised to deliver 1941-43 modern PZIII Medium Tanks, which they failed to do. The've sent to Romania limited numbers of severely damaged and partly outdated PZIIIs, which the country managed to repair. To the Romanian army's surprise the German instructions requisitioned most of these tanks for the needs of the German forces. This behaviour along with the unequal treatment of the Romanian high command has poisoned the relations between the two officer corps and led to dysfunctional cooperation on the frontline. Besides many soldiers and officers alike did question the rationale of Romanian involvement way beyond the Bessarabian borders. In absence of allied help, the Romanian scientists retrofitted the many hundreds of captured Russian tanks with up to date turrets, better motors and stronger armor, and sent them back to the Front along with modernised own Czech models (R35, TACAM T60, TACAM R2). In the summer of 1944 they had tested their own Tank design M05 and M06, which the Germans appreciated and used as inspiration for their Hetzer. In August 1944 M06 (a light to medium tank category) was ready for mass production, but the Soviets had just broken through the last frontline in central Moldova after 5 months of fears resistance. Romania was facing total destruction of its urban and industrial centers. Back to the numbers of Military Leaders, the game is totally unbalanced. Hungary got 172 land leaders, more than France (!!!) with 153, and Romania with an army more than double, only 102. For comparison, to Germany were assigned 738, USSR 617, and UK 335. Thus I looked through lists of Romanian Generals serving during WWII, and supplemented the numbers by approx. 100. Also were supplemented the numbers of Air and Naval Leaders, by ca. 20 each.]

These seem to be excellent changes all around. Fairly minor improvements to the IC and MP, which sounds about right to me as Romania unlike most minors is not too badly off there. The boost to leadership and officer corps is very much needed, and I certainly can appreciate the focus on diplomacy and espionage for RP purposes to make things a little more interesting. :D
 
These seem to be excellent changes all around. Fairly minor improvements to the IC and MP, which sounds about right to me as Romania unlike most minors is not too badly off there. The boost to leadership and officer corps is very much needed, and I certainly can appreciate the focus on diplomacy and espionage for RP purposes to make things a little more interesting. :D
Thanks for your appreciation ;). Indeed, compared to its neighbours - except Poland - Romania fields a very large infantry army, alas badly in need of being brought up to date. Poland on the other hand has some better stats, but it is in such a perilous geopolitical position between two dictatorial and expansionist behemoths that I don't have any idea how that country could survive even in an alternate reality in HOI3.
 
This is looking great. I like the tweaks to the country's stats. I agree with @nuclearslurpee that there is nothing game-breaking or outrageous in there. I'm wondering about Ministers, many HOI3 minors tend to get weird and anachronistic politicians. See @El Pip 's interludes on Minor cabinets in his HOI3 Slovakia AAR... I'm sure there must be quite a few things wrong with the Ministers Romania gets in the base game, and if you feel so inclined, I look forward to you rectifying any errors in this domain, just as you rectified the blatant injustice that was the limited number of officers. Of course, I expect Romania's choice of faction to remain a closely guarded secret, at least until Romania manages to make it's mind up...
In my own game, I keep wondering where Romania is going to go. As the Soviet Union, I didn't take Bessarabia, to try and keep Romania out of the Axis, and now Romania keeps moving back and forth between the Axis and the Allies, seemingly unable to make up it's mind, save for the fact that they aren't about to join the Comintern, ever. Bulgaria did take some of their territory, so it's somewhat unlikely that they'll end up in the Axis, and the Germans keep influencing them whenever they get to close to the Allies. They're going to be in limbo forever, or until the Red Army comes to 'liberate' the Romanian proletariat...
 
On 1. of January 1936 King Carol II of Romania summoned the Crown Council, consisting of parliamentary party leaders, military, economic and diplomatic advisors to reassess the geopolitical security threats to Romania and the appropriate policy response.
In 1926 France signed a defence treaty with Romania, a long standing Francophile state, along with Poland and Czechoslovakia, in order to create a Cordon sanitaire in Eastern Europe that would keep in check the two dictatorial expansionist powers excluded by the collective security system under the League of Nations, namely Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Moreover in 1920 and 1921 Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia signed the Little Entente, was an alliance with the purpose of common defense against Hungarian revanchism and the prospect of a Habsburg restoration. In 1934, the Country's chief diplomat Titulescu, played a leading role in creating the Balkan Entente which brought together Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey in an alliance intended to counter Bulgarian revanchism.
Despite this complex security guarantee also endorsed by Great Britain, a series of recent worrying developments has made the Romanian elites doubt the Allied security architecture.
Since 1930 France began working at the Maginot Line, signalling that France might not intervene into the Third Reich, should it breach international norms. The two regional Alliances coordinated by Romania were an effective tool for checking revisionist minor powers like Hungary and Bulgaria, but no match for an eventual Russian-German great power competition in the absence of French and British intervention. On the economic level, badly hurt by the protectionist war between Europe and the US following the Great Depression, Romanians asked the French 1934 to inject millions of Francs into Romanian treasury and to lower their tariffs on Romanian goods. France rejected their plea for help, creating a bitter disappointment within the Romanian establishment.
Meanwhile, Hungary became ever more vocal in claiming lost territories from all its neighbouring national states after the collapse of the Austrian Empire, and had just signed an economic treaty with Germany, officially entering the German sphere of influence. To make things worse, Hungary asked Hitler to support its claims on Transylvania.
Germany sensed the opportunity to bring Romania under its clout in exchange for economic support, hoping to get access to Romanian Oil, essential for German economic and military development. Soviet Union engaged in interminable negotiations for the recognition of Bessarabia as Romanian territory within a Peace Treaty, and the Romanian Intelligence found out that the Nazis and the Bolsheviks were secretly cooperating to develop weapons like tanks far away from the eyes of the League of Nations.
Another thorny issue was the wrong started Armament Programme the previous year, because the majority of the licences and industrial know-how that the Romanian envoys were sent to obtain from the advanced Major Powers could not be bought given contrary high level political decisions.
Given these serious circumstances, after serious debates which lasted several days, the Crown Council decided:
1. Romania must start its own military modernization programme and industrial growth plan. As such, a cabinet shuffle was immediately put in practice, together with the decision to prepare the army for a possible war in the next decade.
2. Germany's offer for economic support will be considered seriously given the internal economic difficulties.
3. Romania will embark on significantly improving the political and diplomatic relations with Berlin, to prevent any German support for the territorial revanchism of Hungary. Diplomatic relations with the Allied states won't be neglected either.
5. The military modernization will concentrate in the first phase on bringing infantry artillery to date. Next on the list is the modernisation of the air defence, side by side with increasing industrial capacity. Antitank brigades are not yet necessary, since none of our neighbouring Minor Powers commands Armour.
6. Since Soviet spies with the complicity of some local communist leaders and Hungarian support are trying to spread the Theory that Romania is a multinational empire that should disintegrate, replaced by communist revolution, one will strengthen the Intelligence Networks in their counter-espionage and espionage missions. Also a central external goal of our Intelligence will be to expose Hungarian (and to a certain extent Bulgarian) revisionism in its true light: a major threat to the peace and security in Europe, not only regionally for states like Romania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia .
7. The Romanian Government will observe closely future developments in International Politics and take at a later point, if necessary, a decision regarding the nation's Alliance arrangements, should France not be willing or able to intervene to defend the post-war order in Europe.
Romania 1.1.1936.png
ROM Prepare for war!.png
ROM Align to Axis.png
ROM 1.1.1936 Industry Tab.png
ROM 1.1.1936 Production Tab.png
ROM 1.1.1936 Cabinet Reshuffle.png
ROM 2.1.1936 Minimal Training Law.png
ROM 3.1.1936 Intelligence Tab.png
 
Interesting first post! Personally, I've always found the pre-war diplomatic and geopolitical maneuvering to be absolutely fascinating, so I appreciate the look into these events from the Romanian perspective. Worsening of relations with the French is certainly new for me to learn about - I'd call them foolish, but they're already French and I wouldn't want to be redundant. :p

If I might make a couple of suggestions: it would help make the text more readable if you double-spaced between each paragraph, just to break up the wall of text a bit. You may also want to consider interspersing the images with the text instead of attaching them all at the end. What you have works well enough now, but later on with complicated battle reports and military operations an alternative format may be more readable.

Looking forward to seeing how events proceed for little ol' Romania! :D
 
Agree with everything @nuclearslurpee said re simple presentation tweaks. Interesting pre-war period begins - so alignment to the Axis: will it go all the way? I think the only reliable way to be able to get decent licenses from any Major is to have aligned to their faction.
 
Yes, they will definitely work at their model IAR 80, which was historically on par with any other fighter from between 1838 and 1942. You're right about Vickers. Wait and see what my limited production capabilities will prioritise during 1936. My intro was long, but it's closing to an end, and this week I'll start the scenario.
With the best will in the world the IAR80 was not on par with other frontline fighters. The Fw190 had it's first flight only a couple of months after the IAR80 and entered service at about the same time, but was faster, better armed more manoeuvrable and could reach a higher altitude. The Mk.V Spitfire was somewhere in the middle, but it would only be a couple of months till the Mk.IX came out and leapt ahead again.

The IAR80 wasn't a particularly bad plane, just half a generation out of date. If it had entered service in 1939 it would have been sort of comparable to the early Bf-109s and Spitfires of the time, sadly it's first flight was 1939 so when it emerged it was behind the times. That said, for shooting down unescorted US bombers it would do the job and of course it was more than good enough for the Eastern Front.

The main issue is the engine, the Mistral Major 14K was not a great engine even in domestic spec and the export versions were worse. I suspect the Romanian's knew this, given the OTL programme to improve it, but it was one of the few engines available for licencing at the time so they didn't have much choice. Given that Germany is an even worse supply choice (the engines are technically better, but you will never get any until it is far too late) I would suggest asking France for the much improved 14N engine. Similar size and weight, but more reliable and more power. Or just cutting out the middle man and going to Bristol Engines directly. ;)
 
@roverS3 You're right the Romanian Ministers received false attributes, and generally weaker traits. An outrageous example is Nicolae Titulescu, at various times government minister, finance and foreign minister, and for two terms President of the General Assembly of the League of Nations. He was a staunch defender of the international order resulted from the WWI and was very respected even by the Soviets. On the ideological level he was pro-French and had moderate left-wing convictions, even though he was a member of the Conservative Democrat Party (conservative-liberal). Despite historical reality, the HOI3 developers had no qualms giving him the Great Compromiser trait (Susceptibility to Axis!)... Mihail Moruzov was an excellent Intelligence organizer, who uncovered numerous foreign espionage agents working for Germany, USSR and Bulgaria and transformed external espionage. What thait did he receive? Technical Specialist (espionage bonus)? No way, he got Research Specialist (land intel). And the list of wrong traits is awfully long. Indeed I did rectify some mistakes which were obvious to me, and even added a few names of Ministers serving before and during the WWII. I did forget to mention this because I operated the change one year ago after I started to play and understand a bit better the mechanics.

Since the 1812 invasion of Bessarabia Russia never stopped to claim the Romanian territory, which alienated (and insulated) Romania for ever from Russian Influence. The USSR, a reenacting of Russian imperialism under the coat of Communism, continued to claim Bessarabia in the name of the secular occupation of that territory by the Tsarist Empire between 1812-1918. The Romanian population was mainly conservative, pro-Monachy, pro-Allies, anticommunist and conscious of the Russian threat to Romania's existence as a state. Therefore it makes sense for Romania to stay away from the Soviet Union, irrespective how friendly the Soviets behave. At the same time only a minority was pro-German, since Romania lost 880.000 men in the WWI against Austria-Hungary and Germany and suffered enormous material losses as a result of war destructions.

@El Pip, I am no specialist on the military details of WWII. The scarce English, German and Romanian literature I read about IAR 80 generally accepts that IAR was a very competitive airplane between 1939 and the beginning of 1942, on par with most models of the time, including Spitfire V, Geman, French, and Soviet models, except Fw190 which was the undisputed leader. That largely comes in line with your assessment. It might very well be that MK IX was better, but again, I cannot engage in any meaningful debate on the issue since lacking the necessary background.

Historically, Romania hoped til the last moment that France and England will act in time to stop the Nazi German expansionist drive. Therefore it changed the foreign policy course only after the catastrophic territorial losses in 1940 and the fall of France the same year. Guys, you can bet this scenario will be full of surprises. :)
 
As 1936 draws to and end historians have much to write about such eventful year. His Majesty's Government tried to implement the foreign policy decisions taken by the King's Council and the directions of national policy suggested by the national Parliament in January, all with mixed results.

Three Economic Laws were implemented were introduced from February to April under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister Gheorghe Tatarescu. As a result of these and other concerted efforts by the authorities the economic expansion of our Industry has grown significantly from 20 IC to 54 IC until the end of the year, surpassing the Hungarian economy, which stayed stable at around 36-7 IC during the whole year. Unfortunately the military production costs have doubled during the first half of the year, due to an unexpected bout of inflation. The world markets stay highly volatile, while global protectionism stymies economic growth everywhere.

Economic Law. Basic Mobilisation.png Ec. L. Full Mobilisation 20.03.1936.png EC. L. War Economy 13.04.1936.png

On 26.02.1936 the Intelligence Minister Moruzov reported to King Carol II that 13 highly trained spies where ready to be deployed. The question remained which goals were more important, Counterespionage objectives or foreign missions. After hours of deliberations it has been concluded that the Hungarian sabotage of Romanian administration in Transylvania via secret agents and the adversarial Hungarian foreign policy ever closer to Nazi Germany were an absolute immediate threat. More than that Hungary is leading an intense propaganda capaign against Romania and the Versailles/Trianon peace arrangements after the First World War. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia expressed recently their own concerns about Hungarian revanchism. As such, ten agents were sent immediately. Their first assignment will be to paralyse the Hungarian Counterespionage.
Bildschirmfoto 2019-08-20 um 14.26.52.png


It turned out Hungary had 3 Active agents involved in Counterespionage, and it took a few months to thwart their activity. The most important unexpected outcome though was that our agents have found documents revealing the identity of several Hungarian spies on the Romanian Territory. They were caught and executed or exchanged in a rapid series.
Hostile HUN Spy Detected 27.02.1936.png
Hostile HUN and ITA Spies Detected 1.03.1936.png
Hostile GER Spy Detected.png


The more worrying discovery though is that Italy and Germany are also intensely spying in Romania. An Italian agent was caught cooperating with a Hungarian one, and a German one while trying to steal secret documents about our long term foreign policy intentions. Is this a sign of far right regimes coming together in International Politics? Are they in the process of building coalitions? These dangerous developments convinced the Government to act against Hungary before it convinces Germany to underpin its outrageous territorial claims. Once the enemy counterespionage has been weakened enough, the Romanian spies received the mission to expose to the world the rogue activities of Budapest and its threat to the security architecture of Europe (Increase Threat decision).

HUN Increase Threat 3.03.1936.png

Soon to continue with the review of the year 1936!
 
If this portends an invasion of Hungary in the near future (perhaps mid-1937?), I'm all for it! They've certainly got it coming, and early war is always interesting to see.

Once upon a time in a very old campaign as Romania, I invaded and annexed Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Albania, and eventually Turkey for some reason. Of course this requires quite some efficiency and diplomatic balancing. One thing to keep in mind is that if you invade Hungary, you will lose any threat they generate for you once they are defeated, which may or may not inhibit your ability to declare war on other neighbors if you're looking to do so.
 
So Hungary will most likely get its just desserts. Still planning to join the Axis, after maybe ‘consolidating’ other potential Axis countries under the Romanian banner?
 
Army Reforms

The Defence Minister Marin Ceausu proposed to Transform the conscription model as in the Western Armies, from Volunteer Army to universal conscription. After tumultuous debates the Parliament voted the One-Year Conscription Law on the 26 of February. The upper chamber, the Senate, extended the universal Conscription to 3 Years, and the King finally signed it into law on the 27 April 1936. This should compensate for the summary training of troops (Minimal training laws), which is unavoidable when increasing at a fast pace the numbers of military units. Also the manpower available for the Army should more than double in size, whenever necessary.

Conscription L. 1 Year Draft 26.02.1936.png 3Year Draft 27.04.1936.png

On a positive note the Romanian defence industry exported this year licences for 4 Interceptor squadrons and 1 Delfinul Class Submarine to Uruguay, Persia and Brazil, bringing over 100 Money to the national budget.

Selling 4 INT Prod Licence 11.04.1936.png Sub Licence BRA Delfinul 29.08.1936.png

Military Production
Following the Government's instructions, the military industry concentrated on building up the artillery support for the numerous infantry divisions, and on adding new Interceptors to our modest Aviation forces. Until January 1937 the army received 13 fully equipped Artillery divisions, for the time being at the technological level of 1932, and the aviation is on its way to add a new squadron of Interceptors by the end of February 1937. The misterious inflation bout inn the middle of the year has slowed down to a certain degree our rearmament effort.
Aviation production 19.10.1936.png

Research and Industrialization

Most of 1936 was spent of our scientist to boost our industrial capacity and natural resources exploitation. Unfortunately, the extraordinary effort to modernize the national economy has left, very much like in the past 15 years, very few research reserves for military purposes. Only towards the end of the year could we move to military projects, first on the list being upgrading the infantry units, while trying to offer them the necessary artillery support. Second priority will have upgrading the Interceptors to protect our troops from air bombardment. Alas, tank production, the pride of advanced armies is several years away, given the dire situation we're starting with.
Industrial Advance Tech 17.07.1936.png

Counterespionage

Once the Espionage direction was up and running, Mr. Moruzov proceeded (end of March 1936) to counter the foreign espionage and anti-Romanian hostile propaganda inside our own borders.
ROM Intel RNU 29.03.1936.png

The strengthened counterespionage was very effective flushing out one month after the other scores of foreign agents, the majority of them being from... Hungary, Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Foreign Policy
Romanian foreign policy was marked by a strategic effort to improve diplomatic relations with the Heads of Alliance Majors: UK, SOV, GER plus USA, especially via trade.
Romania and Germany initiated a cautious rapprochement sourced from Romania's need of geopolitical stability and Germany's need of oil and other raw materials. Trade between the two powers expanded steadily. The first shipment of oil to Germany happened on 17 August 1936.
First Oil Trade Agreement GER 17.08.1936.png
We have reached maximum diplomatic relations with the UK in August and with the Soviets in November 1936. Next year we should achieve this with Germany as well. This balancing act is expected to offer Romania more freedom of action, should the international situation become explosive. The goal is to preserve our independence and territorial integrity, at any costs.

UK Diplo 200 22.08.1936.png Diplo Rel. SOV 11.1936.png

One event - Italy transforming Ethiopia into a Puppet state by force, has created a crisis in the bilateral relations. Nicolae Titulescu went to the League of Nations, where he commands an enormous respect, and with the underpinning of King Carol II, convinced France and England together with Romania to condemn the Italian breach of international norms. Benito Mussoline, the fascist leader of Italy was furious and summoned our Ambassador in Rome, promising that Romania's behaviour will not be without consequences... Surprisingly, Germany didn't say much despite the common ideological background with Italy.

Italy enforced Puppet on Ethiopia 16.03.1936.png

The Spanish Civil War erupted in november 1936, and all the Great Powers decided to intervene. With both sides supported military and financially from outside, an unseen carnage since the WWI ensued, this time amidst the Spanish people. Is this a reenacting of the Great Power competition as before the Great World War? The Romanian decision makers are unsettled about how sensitive the international politics has become, again.

National Politics

National politics has also been marked by increasing instability, despite the efforts of the state. But about this last chapter of the year 1936, I will write sometime during the next days.
 

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@Alex Kernel FYI for me all of the images in that last post and a few in the previous one came up as tiny little thumbnails. :confused: