Turn 22(1938 2nd Half): Luxury is the Opposite of the Naturally Necessity Results
Resources per turn 695+5+10+5+20+ULAG=735+ULAG with 5 in storage.
Party Support 45-5+5+10+5-10-15=35
Current Status of ULAG:
Population: 1,104,000 (I'll round to the nearest 100k)
Attitude: Stable
Food State: Hearty Meals, -82.5 Resources Per Turn
Guard State: Intensive Monitoring, -27.5 Resources Per Turn
Resource Income: Construction focused, 165 Resources Per Turn, Additional Actions
Infrastructure
Angara River Systems: An expensive and labor-intensive proposal for utilizing the deep Siberian river for additional power generation and motive capacity. While the local region is under-developed, the construction of multiple new hydroelectric systems will allow significant improvements in the transportation of goods and improve the power available in the Union's deep Siberian regions. Such efforts, however, will be challenging due to the inhospitable terrain and lacking infrastructure in the region. (5 Party Influence) (441/400) (Completed) (+5 Resources Per Turn)
The construction of the massive river system sees a large-scale buildup of infrastructure throughout the entire region. As there is currently a shortage of infrastructure around Irkutsk, the first steps of the effort see a massive buildup of rail lines along the river system to deliver concrete and material to the dam's systems under construction. The rail lines themselves are finished in only a month with pre-manufactured material laid down in mass. The dams themselves start construction soon after, focusing on securing a good amount of power in the region. Many small side-canal systems are also constructed to allow for easy commerce around lake Baikal, making the designation far easier to navigate and opening up many industrial opportunities.
Heavy Industry
Magnitogorsk Planned City(Stage 5): The further expansion of the planned city will be one of the largest efforts undertaken by the Union. The complex will nearly double in size and become the premier steel production installation in the world. The alloying vats will be further expanded with more steel blends tested out to improve quality, and another metallurgical university will be constructed. The goal of this final level of expansion would be to create an industrial complex nearly half a million strong focused on the production of steel for the Union, creating a true paragon city for industrialization. (10 Party Influence) (1169/1200) (Close enough, Completed) (+10 Resources Per Turn)
With the goal in everyone's minds to finish out the rest of the city over the next six months, thousands of engineers set to work. After a few months of construction, the delays keep piling up and causing issue after issue with the plant's construction. Fortunately, many innovative engineers have managed to make considerable cost savings by utilizing the old workers' tents for the bulk of the population's housing. Thus allowing the plant's steel output to reach the required number, causing Stalin himself to congratulate the plant's work crews. The production itself will probably have some problems as the winter comes about as a significant portion of the work crews are exposed to reasonably cold conditions in their tends, necessary to keep production up.
Kuznetsk Basin Mine Expansion(Stage 4): With the current mining expansion stage, a further ramp-up of open-pit mines is necessary to significantly increase the amount of coal pulled from the earth. While such an expansion will only take a bit more labor, it will substantially increase diesel use in the coal mines due to heavy transportation and mining equipment. Still, progress must be made, and with the constant mechanization effort, far more coal can be extracted per worker. (15 Resources per dice (324/500))
The pit-mining systems' expansions go well and proceed quickly. A massive quantity of equipment is transported to the site to dig out enough coal to feed the ever-growing Magnitogorsk metallurgical plant. While the bulk of the cost of the effort is spent on the machines, local workers and hired work-crews manage to dig massive holes in the earth and set up large scale coal and aggregate processing. The effort's primary focus is the high-quality coal set to be utilized in other industrial projects, but the Aggregate is not put to waste. It is promptly shipped off to cement plants all over the Union. Still, far more prime sites can be tapped with large mechanized open-pit mines to extract hundreds of thousands of tons more coal.
Light and Chemical Industry
High Octane Experiments: The current fuel production in the Union is of a decidedly lower octane than fuel made from other sources. While there is currently a lack of specific industrial and chemical processes to improve the octane beyond adding tetraethyl lead, there have to be other additives capable of enhancing the anti-knocking effect of fuel. While the results from such an attempt are unlikely to be dramatic, it should allow an increase in engine compression ratios. (20 Resources Per dice (84/100))
Current experimental efforts have started at multiple petrochemical plants and universities to develop higher octane fuels with only a few results. So far, large-scale utilization of tetraethyl lead has increased the octane of fuel samples to almost 90, but far greater octanes can be reached with other additives. Methanol shows a great deal of promise due to its naturally high octane but has difficulties mixing into gasoline. At the same time, benzene is promising, but its production has many issues and is costly. More development work and funding is needed for actual results.
Bakelite Production(Army): The army has a desperate need to produce more resin for various applications. With the construction of an additional number of bakelite plants, this need can be easily met. While no concrete applications for light plastic have yet made themselves evident, some engineers are already suggesting using it heavily in aircraft and personnel army devices. However, the quantity of the material needed has caused some delays as the future needs seem to be quite massive. (25 Resources per dice (279/300))
The construction of hundreds of more improved bakelizers is happily fulfilled by multiple branches of the Gorky plant. The designs are on hand and have a multitude of improvements added to them. New large scale production of the resin starts up rapidly, focusing on making more of it for simple military goods. So far, the bulk of the buttons on uniforms are already being made out of the new plastic, along with some small parts of personal equipment for soldiers. The greatest gains with its products have so far been using the resin in aircraft dashboards and furnishings. By replacing a multitude of steel parts needing machining with a simple resin sheet, a considerable weight and cost saving can be achieved.
Agriculture
New Socialist Towns(Stage 5): The further expansion of the last stage of the new towns will be the triumphant moment of the Union, as the conversion will indicate that all planned agricultural and rural communities have adopted the new model. While some have fought, the prices have broken most of their will to fight back, and just the last holdouts need to be converted. Over time, these towns may shift over into far larger installations, but this step has allowed a clean break with old peasants. (5 Party Influence) (Think Moshav with more propaganda) (502/500) (Completed) (+5 Resources Per Turn)
The final step of fully filling out the vast agricultural terrain of the Union with new models of towns has finally been completed. Now, no longer are there peasants in the fields toiling inefficiently as subsistence farmers. All agriculture is now mechanized, and slowly, new trucks are being issued out for faster transport of grain into the cities. As far as the eye can see, there are fields managed by single central re-organized villages, ensuring that a steady increase in the grain crop can be delivered to the Union. The new workers for these fields have been hired from the cities, from the peasant families still wishing something similar to their old way of life, but there are far more volunteers than opportunities. With this construction, though, the Union has finally made a clean break with its agricultural past and can now look together as a proletarian alliance to a new bright future.
Expand Factory Farms: Given the demand for meat products and the current surplus of fodder crops that can be used in animal farming, it would make perfect sense to authorize the construction of more factory farming complexes. These would primarily be focused on milk and beef production, but smaller, more local installations will be made for the mass production of chickens. (234/200) (Completed) (Nat 100) (+20 Resources per Turn)
A new revolutionary technological development has occurred in the farming of animals, using sulfa antibiotics through injection into livestock. With these injections, the density at which all livestock types can be cultivated is expanded massively, allowing a far greater caloric efficiency to be achieved. As the animals can now be densely packed enough to ensure that food is not wasted on excessive movement or heating, yields per ton of grain of meat have never been higher. Simultaneously, a new massive number of facilities have been constructed near combined meat processing plants. Allowing masses of canned and dried meats to become familiar and cheap items on store shelves. A new cookbook has also been made with a wide catalog of new sausage and preserved meat recipes for the people to prove that the proletariat can make finer preserved meat than the fascists.
Services
Nursing Academies: With the current need for nurses all over the Union and in the army, a new cadre of Nurses needs to be trained far faster to allow for them to fill the roles needed. Despite the far shorter training time than full doctors, there is still an inadequate supply of trained nurses, necessitating a large scale program to improve personnel supply. The majority of these nurses will likely need multiple years to gain experience in the field under more senior practitioners, but they should provide decent care for most. (10 Resources per dice (207/250))
With the use of available NKPS labor, many new academies have been constructed for those graduating from the lower schooling system. Most of these new large school buildings are built with updated copies of specialized medical literature, creating reference collections available to nearby workers. While the majority of the schools' primary goal is to train new high-quality nurses, they also offer small scale preparatory classes towards getting under-performing doctors willing to study overtime to the goal of re-testing into a full-scale medical university. Still, any results of this program will take years to appear, as the classes will take a considerable amount of time to be thoroughly trained and graduate as experienced nurses.
Military
(Authors note: Most military efforts will have quality dice rolled after they are completed, which will affect the quality of the buildup/equipment/information)
Trial New Long-Range Guns: Given the age of the old extreme range artillery pieces, the time has come to make a new heavy long-range gun. Such a weapon will need dedicated artillery tractors and fire at a glacial pace, but its range should allow for the neutralization of enemy batteries with ease. Still, shells will be heavy, and guns will be costly, but hopefully, each army will soon have dedicated assets to suppress possible enemy long-range guns. (29/40) (Rush Completed) (Military Dice: 76)
Despite the rush in producing a new heavy gun for dedicated counter-battery fire, multiple highly promising guns are submitted for trials. The most promising of these designs is a 152mm gun utilizing a tracked carriage and a novel recoil system to ensure accuracy at long ranges. While the gun may not be as long-ranged as its even heavier contemporaries, using a smaller caliber allows for a faster rate of fire and a lighter gun. The new long gun does have some minor issues with barrel ware when testing, but with the steady improvements to steel quality, these should sort themselves out in mass production models.
New Actions:
Barricade Arms Plant Expansion(Stalingrad) (30 Resources per Dice 0/100)
Trial New Light AA Guns: With the new air-support aircraft coming into service, the old light machine gun anti-aircraft mounts have been proven to be insufficient. Instead, new heavier mountings are needed in larger calibers. While these guns will be a new entry to the forces, their introduction should greatly help defend against enemy air-support assets. It may also provide some more broadly applicable autocannon designs. (51/40) (Completed) (Military Dice: 48)
With the steady proliferation of ground attack aircraft and their effectiveness for both sides in the Spanish civil war, the trials for a new class of anti-aircraft guns are rapidly undertaken. Most of the entrants to the trials themselves are entirely focused on creating guns capable of a moderate cyclic rate and the use of a new type of autocannon shell. Due to the need to make a CAS aircraft incapable of flight with a single shot, at the end of the trial, the 37mm gun is chosen. This reasonably simple repeating gun is loaded with five round clips from the top and overall passes the requirements set out for it, causing it to be moved into mass production.
Trial New AT Guns: With the constant declarations of the capabilities of the German heavy tank that is constantly parading down the streets, it would be prudent to further improve anti-tank capabilities. While such a gun may be considerably heavier and more expensive than the old 45mm gun, it should allow a reasonable degree of improvement in penetration. Simultaneously, the gun may be viable for future armored applications, allowing an expansion of capability. (56/40) (Completed) (Military Dice: 47)
With the large scale expansion of the army, the anti-tank guns' trial is entirely focused on what can quickly be moved into production and updated. Thus, the new design is focused on a 45mm gun with the same ammo system but a larger barrel. Many improvements are also integrated into the chassis and gun design to allow it to maintain its weight despite having a longer barrel. Another upgrade to the gun is the inclusion of a higher zoom optical sight, allowing for targets to be engaged at more than a kilometer out. While the dropoff in penetration at such a range is considerable, the gun can at least deal with lighter targets out to the range.
Modernizations of the Gorky and Moscow Plants: A simple update to the plants currently producing the I-16 will allow the new fighter's rapid production. These conversions will not create dedicated plants for more advanced development but will enable mass production of new airframes towards the field, providing a considerable jump forward in capability. (120/100) (Completed) (Military Dice: 41)
While there are some delays in the modernization of the plants in charge of the production of the I-16 due to the age of the machinery, a similar engine and airframe allow for a rapid conversion to take place. The new fuselages in production do see some minor defects, but they are of acceptable quality as a bulk sample. Still, the flaws lower the maximum speeds of the early planes a small amount, but the newly made M-64 engine that is better tuned than the previous M-63 more than compensates for such problems.
Moscow Tank Plant: The new scouting tank's production is a relatively cheap endeavor as the chassis is light and small. While the tank itself is just an over-glorified armored car, it does maneuver well and has adequate armament for dealing with other light tanks. Simultaneously, it is light enough to perform well in inadequate terrain, with multiple military units wanting it for testing in Spain. (106/100) (Completed) (Military Dice: 1)
During the tank plant construction, many incidents and problems occur around the plant, with the tanks themselves continually failing to be produced. When under investigation, a large number of workers and designers have confessed to sabotaging the design. Despite the arrests and confessions, the construction still is experiencing heavy delays despite the new crews' political reliability. Due to these delays and the political problems involved in the tank, the military found that the production of light tanks was a practical dead-end. It was also found that it is not-viable to design a tank that small and make it at all combat effective.
Expand Degtyaryov Arms Plant: With the need for the SMG expressed by a multitude of light infantry and sapper units, it would be prudent to produce a good quantity to equip them. While the general army does not necessitate a large number of these guns, there are multiple proposals to supply entire companies with SMGs for assault duty. For all of these, though, the production of thousands of guns will be necessary. (15 Resources per Dice 61/100)
Despite a considerable amount of resources committed to constructing the new sub-machinegun plant, only moderate amounts of progress have actually been made. The first samples of the weapons have been relatively well-liked by the troops and have performed well. While the guns themselves are slightly tricky to load as the drums need to be loaded with the rounds set vertically, their massive capacity easily makes up for it. Still, as long as the magazines are loaded ahead of combat, such a loading system will be acceptable.
Bureaucracy
Introduce Statistical Planning: The massive policy change that Bazarov has been advocating for all of this time. With the use of statistics and means in planning, a fair amount more progress could be made. While cooking the books will become far harder, this should allow for greater coordination and action through the plan, at the minor cost of necessitating an education to really get into planning aspects. (-10 Party Support if Attempted, DC 60/44) (Failed)
With the large scale political turmoil in the department and the desperate need to maintain the proverbial production of many goods, the statistical methods are put aside for a bit. Despite loud and notable protests from Bazarov, the program is moved to the back-burner as it is just impractical to do currently. Still, it is a possible proposal that can be pushed through, even if the current incarnation has been set aside by political reality.
Back Beria: Despite the use of previous connections to secure a considerable amount of advantages, it is now time to abandon Yezhov. His faction is now falling apart, with many personnel associated with him disappearing into the state apparatus. Thus, to ferment loyalty to the party, Beria's new rising star needs to be backed in politburo meetings to ensure that the previous association with Yezhov does not cause issues. (-15 Party Influence) (DC 40/80 (Roll 42)) (Needle Threaded)
Looking out amongst the department and the politburo, the proverbial wind of change flowing through is almost palpable. While the previous association with Yezhov has brought a good quantity of rivals in the military command low, now is the time to quickly make a break with the man. Thus, through a simple visit to Stalin and frank discussion on the matters of Yezhov, a simple reassurance is given by the steely man, he will not be a problem for much longer. With a small nod of the head in appreciation, and some far more friendly discussion over drinks, all goes reasonably well, and by nighttime, the winds have changed yet again. Thus, so does Yezhov die in the system of trials he helped to create, and when he begs you for some form of aid as he is rounded up, you simply have the secretary state that you are at your datcha.
Current Economic Issues:
Rail: Minor Surplus
Coal: Minor Shortage
Aluminum: Major Surplus
Steel: Massive Surplus
Energy: Meeting Demand (Large Surplus on the Angara)
Food: Major Surplus
Labor: Minor Surplus
