Australia in T2K (Long)

[mpipes]

I think everyone is being far too pessimistic and conservative on what FULL mobilization of any country would look like. In the US Civil War, the Confederates essentially built a competent field army from scratch in six months. The US raised about 50 divisions in the first two years of WWII, and Russia was churning out a division in about 12 weeks in 1940-1941 and the Germans a division in roughly 8 weeks in 1944. In short, when you have to, you can churn out a division in just weeks; it may not be the best trained but all they really need to know is how to shoot and maneuver and men can be taught that in just weeks if need be.

If your just trying to get leg infantry, you can essentially build 12 divisions from 200K personnel in about 18 months easily as well as a good chunk of the vehicles to move them. That is from recruitment to a trained and functional division. A trained Airborne division takes about two years and a commando the same period of time. As for training facilities, well that's where the good old fashion tent comes in. After all, the training camps the US Marines established in New Zealand in WWII consisted of hundreds of tents.

For Australia and New Zealand the limiting factor is equipment. A draft will get the manpower fairly quickly. In 1990, Australia had a population of 17 million. A mobilization and draft to provide say 250,000 recruits to raise 15-20 divisions would hardly make a dent in the overall population. Additionally, every army in 1990 had mountains of equipment just waiting for an emergency. The AUG is far from a complicated weapon and its largely plastic components can be churned out by injection molding very rapidly and in great quantities. Furthermore with a major war going on in their backyard, New Zealand and Australia would have started mobilizing in 1995 almost as soon as the Soviets crossed the border into China with over a year of time to get a few divisions operational before the war started in earnest. Same for the US, England, and the rest of Europe. In my take on the situation, you had almost a full corps of Australian and New Zealand troops in Europe, at least two divisions in each of the middle East and China. Another 2-3 divisions available to deploy into Indonesian and/or the Philippines, and at least another two to keep at home.