Quote:
Originally Posted by mpipes
Keep in mind that the National Guard would not deploy every member. Probably 10% of Guardsmen don't fill deployable personnel slots and would stay in the states. A number would have also not been able to deploy for health reasons of one sort or the other (e.g., recuperating from injury, surgery, active infections like flu, not qualified in their MOS, training school attendance, etc). So you'ld probably end up with upwards of 1000 to 1500 members missing deployment out of every division. Plus, active duty troops would be in the same situation; a number of troops non-deployable. You simply will not have 100% of the military packing up and heading overseas and military bases turned into abandoned ghost towns and instead will retain a significant number of troops. Every base will still have several hundred remaining at least.
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If anything, you may be understating the numbers of undeployable troops! A more realistic number may be as high as 15-20% of the division, due to age and medical conditions.
In addition (from Armies of NATO 's Central Front), you also have the following issues:
Unit quality and training vary. Individual and small unit training can surpass that of Regular Army units. But battalion, brigade and division level training is normally limited to command post exercises.
Past experience shows that Guard formations are not fit for combat until 10-12 months after moving mobilization. Planning since the 1970s has assumed that the Guard could be in Europe within 30-days. The Guard's readiness does not justify such optimism.
There are five key shortcomings that have to be addressed.
1) Much of the Guard's equipment is non-deployable, unsupportable and non-compatible for joint combat operations.
2) Communications equipment is old,unreliable, incompatible and not secure.
3) When Guard units deploy to Europe, USAREUR cannot support many of their weapons systems. There is no pre-positioned equipment groUndout units.
4) Guard units are not authorized to hold combat-level parts stock. Spare parts are based on limited peacetime use levels.
5) Ammunition shortages and inadequate range facilities limit gunnery proficiency.
With the Guard's current status and equipment, to quote a Congressional report, the Guard "would fight with only limited possibilities of success or even survival."