Month: August 2012

The Rockwell Family – Gypsy Truckers

This is a family group of Gypsy Truckers. Like the original Romany, they have a specific niche in the local economy and society.

Demographics:
104 family members (48 adults). The largest ethnic group is Caucasian (approximately 50%) closely followed by Hispanic and Romany.

Origin
Robert Rockwell was a Romany Gypsy as well as a master mechanic. He owned a Ford Dealership and gas station.   When civilization collapsed, he soon recognized that a return to his heritage would enable the survival of his family and his employees

Over the years, the Rockwells became almost nomadic. The clan is still based at the original location but some members travel for most of the year.  These Gypsy Truckers only return to “the dealership” in Winter (when maintenance is carried out on all the family’s vehicles).

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EZOCORP – the KFS support service

Background: The KFS military appears to consist of purely combat units; they don’t have any support troops or the equivalent of a Logistics Corps (aka Quartermaster, Transport and Ordnance).   If so, this would be unique in modern military history

Proposal: The Rich 5 has a “non-military” way of supporting the KFS armed forces. They use a commercial/civilian company to do all the non-combat tasks that a military requires. [Real-world examples might be the operations of Dyncorp and KBR]. This enterprise is named EzoCorp.

EzoCorp is owned by the Rich 5 families (equal shares) and receives vast sums of money from the KFS treasury. Much of this money is given to the shareholders, but sometimes it is spent on things that the military wants and needs

The current EzoCorp CEO (Nichole Bentley) is from an Old Two Thousand Family and she has been trying to improve its public profile during the KFS expansion campaigns

“We don’t carry the guns, but we repair them,  we support the logistics supply chain, we fuel base camps, we build roads, we run telecommunications, we provide laundry and entertainment facilities. The whole 9 yards”

But EzoCorp people do carry guns. When the Army has secured an area, the company runs what it calls “Security and Stability” initiatives  to maintain order, recruit/train local security personnel and ensure that the supply convoys are running safely. In short, it operates in a role that would be assigned to the Military Police of most armies.

As one might expect, EzoCorp has a reputation for inefficiency, and corruption.  Also, it is generally regarded as a sleazy operation (even by KFS standards): the company runs brothels and finances Slaver operations to obtain “entertainment personnel”.

Senior and mid-ranking EzoCorp personnel are often veterans of the military or Secret Police (Border  Guards are often recruited).   The company likes to employ ex-officers who have “good connections” but it also finds roles for competent NCOs to manage the activities of low-level employees

Kentucky Border Guard Service

The “Bullets and Bluegrass” module mentions that the KFS Secret Police operate armored cars, aircraft and consider themselves “elite” military troops?   Has anyone ever wondered why?   Well, the answer is that one of their subordinate agencies is responsible for patrolling the KFS border (which is approximately 1700 kilometres in length).

The KFS Border Guard Service is a lightly-armed paramilitary/law-enforcement organization

There are 2 administrative units: the  “Northern” and “Southern” Border Guard Regiments (each of about 2500 men) and a River Patrol Force of about 1000.

Each Regiment has 2 Battalions. Each Battalion is divided into the HQ/Support Company and 20 “Patrol Teams”. Each of the Patrol Teams has 25 men, three pickup trucks and one (lightly armoured) command truck. A mobile reserve, equipped with sixteen V-300’s, is based at each Battalion’s HQ. Each Regiment also operates 8 light aircraft (6 fixed wing “utility” and 2 light helicopters)

Other transportation assets includes horses (which are provided for patrolling in difficult terrain) and motorcycles (issued for recon, courier and traffic control duties).

Border Guard Duties

  • interdicting illegal goods entering or leaving the country (the KFS does not allow the export of certain technologies)
  • collecting duties and taxes on imported goods (lots of room for bribery and corruption)
  • liaising with Army and KFS bases (the Border Guards are not equipped to deal with large, well-armed opposition

Border Guard Command Truck