1950s Banana Republic ImagiNations

[gharak]

Hi All,

So following a a break from historical/quasi historical gaming I chanced upon an old friend a couple of weeks ago and we got into a conversation about Peter Pigs AK47 rules and the politics charts and world building aspect, combined with my fondness for games such as Tropico have led me down a path to wanting to run some games the center around El Presedente and his fight to remain in power, set in 1950s South America, very much tongue in cheek.

Our preferred ruleset would be Chain of Command and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work for this period so we'll likely start with that but rework the force selections rules a little to reflect the slightly more adhoc nature of the games we're planning on playing.

The problem is I've found it rather difficult to find anyone else doing something similar. most people seem to opt for 1980s onwards for a lot of it.

I've ordered some bolt action WW2 American Marines and have my eyes on some WW2 vehicles as I understand the South Americas used a lot of WW2 period vehicles for quite some time after 45.

Now I'm just looking for more inspiration, people who've already done this, informaiton on South American militaties post ww2 etc, any help would be much appreciated.

I'll be sure to post pictures as the project progresses

G

[grant]

When I think of Banana Republic Imaginations, I would think a lot of khakis and sensible no-iron shirts are the uniform of the day.

[gharak]

I had some time at lunch so I built a random background generator, it's not perfect yet but it spits out things like:

The Independent Republic of Chiumdi has enjoyed a number of years of peace and growth based on foreign trade in manufactured goods and precious gems, however in recent months it has been troubled by a local rebellion caused by a country wide depression.                                             
                                             
El Presidente's regime has been built on widespread electoral fraud and is being investigated by the international courts, in response to this threat they have  cracked down on known disidents and have deployed trained military units to help restore order.                                              
                                             
or

The Democratic Province of Chiunle has enjoyed a number of years of peace and growth based on foreign trade in sugar and tobacco, however in recent months it has been troubled by a local rebellion caused by dissatisfaction with the regime.                                             
                                             
El Presidente's regime has been built on funding from the upper classes and is generally accepted by the people, in response to this threat they have  taken control of large areas of land and have deployed trained military units to help restore order.                                              
                                             

Going to play with it a little more but the general idea is that certain key words will create a framework for the forces to be built from, a military coup would obviously pit the countries own army against itself where as a revolt by the people may contain guerrilla forces supported by armed civilians, rioters etc and would be unlikely to be able to field things such as field artillery or armoured support.

[Cory]

I have done late 50's/early 60's Central America twice, once in 15mm and once in 28mm. Both times I used generic WWII American infantry for the base.

In 28mm I went with plastics and swapped a few of the rifles out for M-16's on the "foreign advisors". Lots of 1/56 scale matchbox jeeps with stowage and .50 cals from Company B, and Brigade Game's Caribbean rebels for the peasantry.

[Arlequín]

A fair number of Caribbean, Central and South American militaries, gained aid through the U.S. Mutual Defence programme. In essence this involved offloading a large amount of U.S. WWII surplus equipment, dispatching guys to train folk in how it should be used and how to organise their manpower. As a broad rule of thumb the U.S. organisational patterns of 1944-45 were tied to U.S. equipment types from 1942-44 (so Chaffees and Pershings were not for supply, but M3/5 Stuarts and all the Shermans barring the 'Easy 8' were up for grabs, along with the 37mm and 57mm AT Guns).

There were of course exceptions, Argentina for example had a very Wehrmacht-looking uniform for some time after WWII and bought a load of British Crusader artillery tractors and Universal Carriers. While Shermans and the usual array of U.S. vehicles formed the bulk of combat vehicles, they converted the Crusaders into a self-propelled gun and a mobile AA platform. Argentina even produced a short run of a native design, based on the Sherman.

After the U.S. cut off the drip to Batista in 1958 (?), Cuba turned to the open market and ended up with British Comet tanks and Staghound armoured cars before the fall. They also bought a pile of FN-FAL and FN-MAG weapons from Belgium, which arrived just in time to equip the new Revolutionary Army. While Batista's Army possessed Garand rifles, he was reluctant to issue these until late in the war and the Cuban Army fought the revolution with Springfields, BARs and Browning MGs in the main.

Italy had quite a market for its vehicles and aircraft before WWII and I wouldn't be surprised to find some CV-33/35 tankettes still knocking around Post-WWII either.

Airpower was almost wholly prop-driven, with the P-51 Mustang, the P-47 Thunderbolt and the DC-3/C-47 being the most common types.

A Grant says, 'chinos', tan shirts and black ties were very common across the board as 'day dress', especially with the police and paramilitary forces. Cuba had the 'Montana' hat for its Guardia Rural, but otherwise the tan peaked cap was worn when the M1 helmet was not. For actual operations the armies had the usual U.S. OG fatigues.

The only real restriction I would expect was that Soviet equipment did not begin to appear until after the Cuban Revolution and Cuba's subsequent support of other revolutionary movements. As you move into the '60s French exports like the AML armoured car start to become very common, while some opt for British designs like the Ferret, Saracen and Saladin.

It could be a lot of fun to game this period and all of the basic types of vehicles and troops are readily available; WWII U.S. Infantry, complete with spats were in vogue up to the '60s too, although the 'cream' began to favour Combat and Jump Boots very early on.  

For revolutionaries, some (but not all) of the militia figures from Empress's SCW range will pass close inspection.

[mikedemana]

The campaign was never finished, but here is my Chaos in Kammebalango link. Each of my friends created their own faction battling for control of a fictional African nation. It was meant to be set in the 1960s, when most of the subSaharan nations were gaining their independence. It is set for most recent post first, so you may want to start at the end and read forward, if you're interested...
http://kammebalango.blogspot.com/

Mike Demana
www.firstcommandwargames.com
http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/

[carlos marighela]

The Democratic Province of Chiunle has enjoyed a number of years of peace and growth based on foreign trade in sugar and tobacco, however in recent months it has been troubled by a local rebellion caused by dissatisfaction with the regime.                                            
                                            
El Presidente's regime has been built on funding from the upper classes and is generally accepted by the people, in response to this threat they have  taken control of large areas of land and have deployed trained military units to help restore order.      

Save for the coffee and sugar bit it sounds depressingly like Brazil in 2016, except the coup has taken place and was backed by the elites.  

Pretty much anyone who signed the Rio treaty of 1947 was the recipient of varying amounts of  US military largesse.  It did vary considerably but there were some standard items of kit. It's also worth noting that after the war there was quite a lot of surplus equipment available at bargain basement prices and many countries bought on the open market.

If you are talking South America as opposed to Central America (which is the actual location of the so called 'banana republics') then small arms tended to never really supplant but merely augment stocks of what was held locally and those were almost invariably iterations of Mauser bolt action rifles. In South American armies in the 1950s. BARs, in their US configuration were relatively rare although a few nations like Venezuela did have the FN version. Madsens were probably the most common LMG.

Arms upgrades in South America tended to be from Europe rather than the Estados Unidos. In the late 1940s a number of countries bought SAFN self loading rifles, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. By the late 1950s early 1960s these and the exsiting local and US kit were being replaced by FALS and German G-3s often locally manufactured.

Central America and the Caribbean is a different story altogether, being far more within the sphere of the US. US small arms predominate, although in the 1950sthe rifles are as likely to be bolt action Springfields as  M-1 Garands.

Not much was delivered in the way of armour. The most common tank delivered by the US was always early versions of the M-3 light tank. A few nations, like Brazil, Chile and Peru received Shermans, mostly M-4 A1 types. Argentina famously bought hundreds of ex-British Sherman Fireflies and Cuba had seven M-4-A3 76mm gunned Shermans at the time of the revolution. They almost had Comet tanks as well but they didn't arrive until after the revolution.  Venezuela bought French AMX-13s in the mid/late 1950s and a few other countries followed suit. Domican Republic had a number that may have seen action in the 1965 US invasion. Apart from Chile and Uruguay nobody else on the continent or hemisphere for that matter received M-24 Chaffees.

Probably the most ubiquitous armoured vehicle was the M-8 Greyhound. These pop everywhere, with the possible exception of Argentina. Cuba and Nicaragua both had Staghounds, Cuba purchasing theirs from Somoza's Nicaragua.

Artillery in the 1950s is a very eclectic mix but youcan get by using US 101mm howitzers or 75mm pack howitzers, which were common exports.

Arlequin is broadly correct about most air arms being kitted out with ex-US prop driven aircraft. Mustangs saw quite a bit of service in central America and the Caribbean as did to a lesser extent P-47 Thunderbolts and F4 Corsairs. A number of countries received T-33 and P-80 Shooting Stars. The larger, more developed nations were also early buyers of British jets. Argentina was the first country outside Britain to buy Gloster Meteors. Brazil also purchased them. The Argentine Meteors (early F-4 versions) even saw action in a couple of military revolts.

Venezuela was an early buyer of Vampires and Venoms and by the mid 1950s held a reasonably large number of F-86 Sabres. They also picked up a few Canberra bombers. Peru also purchased Sabres in the mid 1950s. In the Caribbean the Dominican Republic had the largest regional air force and they had a number of Vampires in the mid 1950s as well as a large force of ex-Swedish P-51 Mustangs. The Dominican Republic is an interesting case as they also had Swedish tanks in their arsenal.

Uniform wise, well it's a mix but it's hard to go wrong with either US style khaki chinos or variants of the US OG-107 style uniform, copies of which became quite popular in the region.

Your best source for information in English is Adrian English's Armed Forces of Latin America. It's long out of print,  contains a few errors and some odd observations but it's a mine of information and gives you an overview of when stuff was introduced.

Hope that helps.

[georgec]

Lots of opportunity in your setting for mixing up post-war and war surplus equipment.  No reason why a nation with predominantly British equipment can't be in conflict against one with Amererican.  The Czechs were happy to sell a lot of locally-manufactured (to high standards) equipment of Soviet and German design.  No particular reason a nation couldn't buy ex-French Army Panthers along with AMX13s or emulate (or just buy in)  Israeli  armour upgrade for the M4 etc.  There is even precedent for brigades or regiments within an army being equipped and trained by different nations.

[gharak]

Thanks guys this is really useful stuff.

I'm a big fan of plastics to allow for easy conversions so I'll be picking up a load of warlord games ww2 boxes to begin with and they seem to have a good array of vehicles too.