US Army Recruitment?

[rcaf_777]

According to this article during fiscal year 2017, the US Army recruited almost 69,000 soldiers for active duty.

http://www.businessinsider.com/army-changing-recruiting-standards-to-attract-more-soldiers-2017-10

So my question is how many soldiers would the US Army need to recruit during twilight?

I am guessing initially Guardsmen and USAR, and recalled members would used to fill critical positions need to deploy regular army divisions. While some new personnel with key cadre members would

A. Roundout National Guard/USAR Units
B. Establish new units

Other newly recruited personnel would thrown into the replacement system and assigned to existing units

am I out to lunch

[dragoon500ly]

How many people would need to be drafted?

The easy answer is a lot! With the need to recruit service members to bring units up to TO&E strength, among all five branches, then you are looking at hundreds of thousands. Toss in the Reseve and Guard units, and you are looking at potentially a million or more.

The best example is World War Two, many people don't realize that the US military started ramping up for the war almost two years in advance, bringing Regular units to full strength, building/expanding training and support facilities, registration for the draft and then calling up the first draftees.

It is generally considered that roughly 17 weeks is needed to take a civilian, complete basic training and then push the new soldier through AIT, in the end, you have an individual that has a basic idea of their job, but is sorely lacking in experience. It takes roughly a year, in a peacetime Army, to get that new soldier sufficient experience for them to be an useful part of the unit. In wartime, running 7-days a week training schedules and exercises, you can get this done to roughly 6 months.

And by this time, you have a shooting war on three continents, with modern weapons being employed, casualties will be brutal. There will be demands to get these new recruits to the fighting units to bring battered divisions back up to effective strength. Give these new recruits experience? Again, the WWII experience gives us a horrific view of what happens next, green 18-year olds reporting to their new unit, just in time for tomorrow's offensive, their squad leaders not even able to learn their names before they become casualties. Toss in the "joys" of a chemical attack and those new recruits are decimated, time for the G-1 to scream for more replacements.

By time the strategic nukes start getting tossed, I would expect that the replacement pipeline would be drying up, unable to sustain the heavy demands. This is why I can see divisions shrinking down to only a few thousand soldiers. Senior commanders would have no choice but to ruthlessly comb through support units in order to scrap up enough soldiers to reinforce the front. Air Force and Navy units, there are no aircraft or ships left! Welcome to the PBI!!

[Ancestor]

"The easy answer is a lot! With the need to recruit service members to bring units up to TO&E strength, among all five branches, then you are looking at hundreds of thousands. Toss in the Reseve and Guard units, and you are looking at potentially a million or more.

The best example is World War Two, many people don't realize that the US military started ramping up for the war almost two years in advance, bringing Regular units to full strength, building/expanding training and support facilities, registration for the draft and then calling up the first draftees."

Great point. A quick search turned up this resource from the US Army Historian:

https://history.army.mil/documents/WWII/ww2mob.htm

I always feel terrible for those poor souls from the NG who were mobilized for a year in 1940 IOT to provide a stop-gap to grow the force. Some were nearing the end of their mob when Pearl Harbor happened.

[dragoon500ly]

One of the greatest problems of the pre-War mobilization was leadership. The Army had its small pool of Regular officers, another small of Reserve officers (these were regulars who had resigned their commissions in order to get jobs that would allow them to support their families), ROTC cadets, and the graduating class from West Point. These were used to bring units up to strength.

One of the other problems was the miserable state of the NG units. Since these were state-controlled, their officers were riddled with over-age or political appointees. This resulted in a need to replace these officers as well. So West Point cut its classes from 4 years to 3 years and sending NCOs and promising EMs to OCS, turning out "90 Day Wonders" to fill in platoon leader slots, and, needless to say, promotions rained down like manna from heaven! One NCO, E-7, was promoted to 2LT, then to Captain, given a company, then was promoted to Major and made Operations Officer for his battalion, and all within the space of ten days! He wound up getting into a fight on post, was court-martialed, and reduced back to Captain, with the proviso that he would keep his officers rank, provided he transferred to a newly formed division (he finished the war as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a infantry battalion).

But one of the critical impacts of this leadership shortfall, was the promotion of barely trained "NCOs". In many cases, there would be, perhaps one experienced NCO in a company. The British were certainly right in complaining that American leadership didn't know how to lead. It would take the campaigns in North Africa and New Guinea to start the brutal process of instilling discipline teaching the hard lessons of combat, each year saw a more careful selection for OCS/NCOs. But there were still problems that were never successfully resolved. And these same problems returned with a vengeance during the Korean War.

[Adm.Lee]

Per Wikipedia:
"In WWII, males between 18 and 64 were required to register, but the selections were limited by executive order on December 5, 1942 from from 21–45 to 18–38. Assuming the citation (George Q. Flynn, The Draft, 1940–1973) is correct, 50 million men from 18 to 45 were registered. The Selective Service statistics page gives the total inductions during WWII as 10,110,104, which would indicate that the percentage would be somewhere around 20% were drafted based on registration.

By the Vietnam war, the draft age had changed to 18-26 by the Selective Service Act. The draft pool was around 27 million (apparently lifted verbatim from a paragraph from this paper), and per the Selective Service page linked above, there were 1,857,304 inductions during Vietnam. Note that Morris gives the number as 2,215,000 - this may reflect a difference in start and end dates used but they are fairly close. This would indicate that roughly 7-9% of the draft pool was conscripted."

So, 2 million per year in a serious emergency, to bring the combined US armed forces to around 13 million at war's end. In a not-so-serious emergency, an average of 200,000 to maintain a force of over a million.

If I had to guess, the Twilight-era US forces would want to draft at least a million per year, but probably don't achieve that. Say they start in late 1996, once shooting starts, ramp up in 1997 to fill up some of the units that need to be created or filled from cadre, such as the dozen training divisions that have to become light infantry/security formations after the TDM instead of maintaining the replacement stream to the battlefronts. Assume new formations try to resume that role in 1998, but disorganization keeps things breaking down.

[Tegyrius]

If the lessons Dragonfly mentions were learned, I can see there being a targeted call-up of retired field-grade officers and SNCOs who'd previously seen combat in Korea or Vietnam as company officers or JNCOs. They'd serve as cadre for training units (and an expanded OCS program) initially, but some of them might find their way into the fight. There's an argument to be made for the remaining CONUS units having a bunch of those dudes among their leadership, too, once the training pipeline becomes the direct-to-combat-unit replacement pipeline.

For another spin on it, some of them might have avoided the call-up but later spontaneously volunteered - or were "drafted" - as local militia commanders or trainers.

- C.

[dragoon500ly]

Per Wikipedia:

If I had to guess, the Twilight-era US forces would want to draft at least a million per year, but probably don't achieve that. Say they start in late 1996, once shooting starts, ramp up in 1997 to fill up some of the units that need to be created or filled from cadre, such as the dozen training divisions that have to become light infantry/security formations after the TDM instead of maintaining the replacement stream to the battlefronts. Assume new formations try to resume that role in 1998, but disorganization keeps things breaking down.

IMHO, with the increasing tension between the USSR and the PRC, one could reasonably expect a closer scrutiny of the region by the various intelligence agencies. One would also expect that the Selective Service people will start airing their PSAs advising the public that it is the law to register, and advising on the various ways to register.

Using the WWII example, a call-up of the Individual Ready Reserve (recently discharged personnel), as well as recently retired personnel would take place. As the Sino-Soviet War kicks off, the Naval Reserve and the Air National Guard will start being called up, first with fighter squadrons (for national defends), then as military aid starts towards the Chinese, with Naval Reserve warships being recalled to.replace regular warships that are conveying aid to the Chinese.

Sometime during the process, the Soviets will start objecting to our "interference" in a local matter", followed by Soviet backed efforts in the UN to "prevent mercenaries from interfering."

With increasing tempos the war, as the Soviets withdraw units from Western Europe, NATO would increase its alert status.

Stateside, I regard it as highly possible, that the President would order the activation of the Army Reserve, starting with the training divisions, bringing these units up to speed on the latest equipment and procedures. Within 2-3 months, the President will ask Congress to approve the restarting of the draft.

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

Thoughts?

[Cdnwolf]

One ... Chuck Norris

[Ancestor]

"Stateside, I regard it as highly possible, that the President would order the activation of the Army Reserve, starting with the training divisions, bringing these units up to speed on the latest equipment and procedures. Within 2-3 months, the President will ask Congress to approve the restarting of the draft.

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

Thoughts?"

I think you've got the jist of it! I don't see a big move towards national mobilization until 1996 (almost like what occurred in the US between 1939 and 1940). I still see a movement to "stay out of the war" competing with an opportunity to stick it to the commies in both Congress and public opinion. As things start to ramp up and the nation realizes the danger inherent in the situation (May-June 1990, maybe?), you start to see many of the things that you've ably described above.

With respect to the NG, I think you'd start to see the same debate that occurred IRL in late 2005-early 2006 after Katrina, that is, the Guard's warfighting mission as a reserve of the Active Army versus the state mission for Homeland Response. Only this time on steroids, given that the threat to the homeland aren't just natural but potentially nuclear weapons! I think you'd see not only increased training and resourcing but also some type of agreement between the Governors' allied with the Guard's powerful congressional lobby and DoD to arrive at some sort of gentlemen's baseline for the percentage of Guard resources (men and materiel) that would remain CONUS at the Governor's disposal. From my experience IRL in the late "oughts" that baseline was 50%. However, I see it being weighed more heavily toward the Warfighting mission in the T2K universe (maybe 75-80% OCONUS and 20-25% CONUS) but with some additional emergency response/state civil defense bones being tossed towards the Governors in the form of federal dollars to fund, equip, and train State Guards as well as resourcing state emergency management agencies with civil defense materiel (MRE, water, tentage, medical supplies, etc.).

Still, I see enough political pressure to keep at least a portion of Guard capabilities available for state use. The active duty's resulting gap between requirements and capabilities must be filled somehow, hence, you have call-ups to form the cadre of USAR training divisions and an expansion of the training infrastructure so that it can handle inductees once the draft starts.

I agree that the Selective Service machine would slowly grind into action. I also see a sort of societal pressure giving rise a national conversation about conscription. I don't want to get into a generational debate but I can see both sides of US political aisle as well as the late Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation and especially the Boomer Generation American public getting behind a draft for various reasons so long as Gen X are the ones doing the fighting.

"Those damn slackers need to put down their Nirvana (or, more appropriately, Dain Dangerous) records, stop smoking pot, quit whining, and get a job!"

[Ancestor]

One ... Chuck Norris

No, they kept him at home. He stopped both the invasion from Alaska and the invasion from Mexico...simultaneously.

:cool: Lone Wolf McQuade meets Invasion USA - the Greatest Chuck Norris film never made :cool:

[rcaf_777]

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

I guess many national guard units would being would going through the combat readiness exercises and you see the National Guard Roud-out units federalized

[Louied]

Hey guys,

I posted this on another forum, first two PDFs are entitled

The Cadre Division Concept June 1992 (two separate papers)

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251307.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a250990.pdf


Army Force Structure (November 1990)

https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/142720

Since the earlier document referenced the 26 ID as being 100% converted to AOE (and also because it apparently had a European/NATO mission)

Readiness of the Army National Guard: A case study of the 26th infantry division

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a266901.pdf

Louie

[dragoon500ly]

I guess many national guard units would being would going through the combat readiness exercises and you see the National Guard Roud-out units federalized

The National Guard activation would have been the round out brigades, scheduled for deployment within 30-45 days after activation. Then the NG Armored, mechanized and "selected" infantry divisions, to be ready for deployment within 60-90 days. The remaining infantry divisions were scheduled for deployment within 90-120 days.

The selected infantry divisions are quite a bit harder to pin down. I've got some six different sources, all listing different divisions. But my observation is that they were selecting units to reinforce Alaska and Hawaii (when their RA garrisons deployed), possible reinforcement for VII Corps in Germany and possible deployments to the Pacific.

[Ancestor]

The National Guard activation would have been the round out brigades, scheduled for deployment within 30-45 days after activation. Then the NG Armored, mechanized and "selected" infantry divisions, to be ready for deployment within 60-90 days. The remaining infantry divisions were scheduled for deployment within 90-120 days.

The selected infantry divisions are quite a bit harder to pin down. I've got some six different sources, all listing different divisions. But my observation is that they were selecting units to reinforce Alaska and Hawaii (when their RA garrisons deployed), possible reinforcement for VII Corps in Germany and possible deployments to the Pacific.

I agree 100% with that course of action. Another source (from canon) that might shed some light on what the GDW folks were thinking are the MTOE listings in the US Army Vehicle Guide. I was reviewing those and I noticed that some NG Divisions were equipped with M1/Bradleys while others still deployed with the older M60A4/M113 vehicles. The reason I say canon is that I'm basing my observation on the unit that I'm very familiar with IRL, 35ID.
While I was in middle school when the V.1 Guide was published in 1986, my own experience later in life serving in the 35 ID HQ as well as with one of the subordinate maneuver units during a GWOT deployment was that the Santa Fe Division and the units that were subordinate to it in the T2k Universe were not fielded IRL with the M1/M2 until much later than 1986, the year that the V.1 Guide was published.

While the designers may have been looking ahead to projected Army fielding schedules, I'm more inclined to believe that the MTOE tables showing 35ID with the M1/M2 series were a "game universe" reflection of the fact that 35ID was one of the first NG formations to mobilize and deploy in the T2K universe. It stands to reason that the unit would have spent 1996 (or sooner) taking part in NET fielding, then perhaps utilizing extended AT time or several of the dreaded MUTA 6 (or worse, the demonic MUTA 12) drills leading up to potential pre-conflict Presidential Call-Ups that we've discussed above.

Conjecture on my part but it fits with the "Wartrace" model that Dragonfly has outlined which allocated certain NG formations to deploy to specific COCOMs in response to contingency operations, so I think it could serve helpful for those of us trying to reverse engineer the road to the Twilight War.

[Ancestor]

Hey guys,

I posted this on another forum, first two PDFs are entitled

The Cadre Division Concept June 1992 (two separate papers)

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251307.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a250990.pdf


Army Force Structure (November 1990)

https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/142720

Since the earlier document referenced the 26 ID as being 100% converted to AOE (and also because it apparently had a European/NATO mission)

Readiness of the Army National Guard: A case study of the 26th infantry division

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a266901.pdf

Louie

Those are awesome links, Louie, thank you for posting them. The 26 ID case study cracked me up. My how times have changed for the Guard!

[dragoon500ly]

The Round out NG brigades, during our timeframe, would consist of:

25th Infantry Division (Light) 29th Infantry Brigade, HI NG

9th Infantry Division (Motorized), had 3 RA brigades but would be augmented with 81st IB (Mech) WA NG. This was due to concerns that the FAV/HMMWV TOE of the 9th, would leave it a little too light for its RDF role. But not to worry! Within two years, the 81st would be in search of a mission!!

7th ID(L), it's round out would be the 41st IB OR NG

1st Cavalry Division, round out is the 155th Armored Brigade, MS NG

5th ID(M) gets the 256th IB(Mech) LA NG

101st Airborne Division has the 39th IB AR NG "affiliated" with it. Now the 39th is a traditional infantry brigade, but there was always talk that they would deploy if the 101st went to war. But then was also talk that the 39th would remain stateside...

24th ID(M) round out was the 48th IB (M) GA MY. There were always reports that the 48th was not combat ready during this time, which explains why the RA's 197th IB(M) deployed to Desert Storm with the 24th.

Of the National Guards major units;

26th ID was a NATO reinforcement
28th ID was a NATO reinforcement
29th ID(L) was in search of a mission, RED didn't want another light division, and deploying a LID into Central Europe?

35th ID(M) was NATO reinforcement
38th ID was a stay at home
40th ID(M) was either a NATO or an RDF reinforcement
42nd ID was a stay at home
47th ID was a stay at home or an Alaska reinforcement
49th AD was a NATO reinforcement
50th AD was a NATO reinforcement, but of the NG Armored divisions, they were considered to be the least ready for deployment

The NG brigades, NOT including the round outs include
33rd IB IL NG
45th IB OK NG
53rd IB FL NG
73rd IB OH NG
92nd IB PR NG
207th Infantry Group AK NG
Of these, the 92nd and 207th would most likely have remained in their home areas. Of the remaining infantry brigades, there were some write ups in the Infantry Journal about possible deployments to Korea or to NATO as rear area protection.

The NG Mech and Armored brigades all had NATO reinforcement missions. Here I part ways with canon, these units were intended to be corps level attachments and NOT as elements of new divisions. Their primary missions would have been rear area security, screening roles with their corps, corps reserve and as augmentation for divisions in the attack. Sorry, but the Army doctrine of that period called for these independent brigades to be used in these roles. It is far more likely that the Guard independent battalions would have been used as cadre for new formed divisions.

[mpipes]

In my modified v2.2 timeline, arms production started ramping up markedly after the Sino-Soviet war started. It had already started even before that after the 1991 Coup to modernize US forces with the latest M1, M2, M3 and some new aircraft (F-20A and F-16F) as the draw down began.

Beginning in late 1995, with the Sino-Soviet War, US arms production kicked into high gear, and with the German-Polish war start, recruitment and drafts began. Congress authorized new divisions after the start of the German-Polish war as well. However, most NATO countries started modest mobilization and modernization after the war started in China, including France and Belgium. Germany's buildup started in 1991 after the coup.

[CDAT]

...
9th Infantry Division (Motorized), had 3 RA brigades but would be augmented with 81st IB (Mech) WA NG. This was due to concerns that the FAV/HMMWV TOE of the 9th, would leave it a little too light for its RDF role. But not to worry! Within two years, the 81st would be in search of a mission!!

...


Just a side note, talking with my brother and some of his buddies who spent there entire career in the 81st (joined early 1990's) it went from round out to enhanced readiness with a war mission in Korea. What they were told was the brigade (at the time two armor battalions, two-three infantry battalions, engineer battalion, FA battalion, MASH, support battalion, and more almost 8000 strong) was expected to be in combat within 30 day of the north crossing the DMZ. One of the guys was a tech (full time working for the guard but as a civilian) who said part of his job was to go to the two ships that were pre-loaded with equipment and pull maintenance on them every month. According to them, the plan was when the war broke out the ships would sail and the troops would fall in on their training equipment, when the ships were just about to arrive they would fly the troops over and hook up with the equipment. Now this is all hearsay but I have heared it from LTC and CWO-4's as well as senior NCO's. Would it have worked? I do not know I can see some issues, but that is my understanding what the plan became for the 81st when the got rid of the 9th ID.

[Louied]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ‘Heavy’, III, V & VII with two ‘Light’ I & XVIII) to fight a “ two & a half war” contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I haven’t found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and it’s Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ‘Rear Battle’ Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Div’s RO.

To be continued....

[mpipes]

Yep. That was the plan for the round-out brigades till 1990 - and then "Desert Storm" - and the whole round-out concept fell flat on its face.

I was a logistics readiness officer in the 8th TFW in 1987 - 1989. I still shudder at how unrealistic some of the assumptions were for wartime build-up. My big wakeup was the TOTALLY bogus assumptions that were at play at evacuating US nationals during the 1988 Olympics if anything broke out. The base planned for only about 400 - the average number of visiting US citizens in the local area. State, on the other hand, said to expect 50,000!!!! After all, the airport in Seoul was within artillery range and would immediately shutdown. And 50,000 did not cover the allied civilians to expect. After discussing the entire situation with State, I ended up advising to be ready for at least 100,000 evacuees showing up within a week. I thought the base commander was going to have a stroke!!

[Ancestor]

Dragonfly: that is great information, thank you for sharing!

I am curious as to what was the mission assigned to the "stay at home" Divisions and BDEs, if any? Was it to form a strategic reserve, remain available for support to civil authorities, or just a recognition that there was only so much mobilization support (mob stations, money, materiel, transportation) to go around and that these units weren't going to get to play with the others?

In my timeline I kept 42ID at home to remain in support of civil authorities. I had them placed Title 32 service in support of the NY Governor to respond to the summer 1997 NYC unrest described in Armies of the Night. They were federalized after TDM and then I had them replaced in NYC by the Reserve Division (70th I think, going by memory) as stated in canon. But instead of deploying to the Balkans (what I believe to be the most absurd and inexplicable part of canon) I had the 42ID moved upstate to secure West Point and Albany.

Louie: Thanks. That might explain why the 35ID was fielded the M1/M2 series prior to other Guard formations. I'm looking forward to the continuation!

Mpipes: That is an amusing but not surprising story. After two deployments I am still often amazed by the vastness of the gap between how both State and DoD can view the exact same factual situation and come away with two diametrically opposite visions. We had an example of this actually occur today in theater. Confirmation bias is real!

[Louied]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ‘Heavy’, III, V & VII with two ‘Light’ I & XVIII) to fight a “ two & a half war” contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I haven’t found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and it’s Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ‘Rear Battle’ Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Div’s RO.

To be continued....

Now as for the ‘Rear Battle’ Inf Bdes.....
45 IB was slotted for III Corps
73 IB has a European Mission but still haven’t found out which Corps.
33 IB has a mission to support the Infantry School but it looks to be the only remaining Bde the could be allotted to the V or VII Corps.

As for the Arm/Mech Bdes, your guess is as good as mine about assignments.
Now we do have the following Bdes with a European Mission:
30 IB (M)
30 AB
31 AB
32 IB (M) (the whole Bde did a REFORGER but I have also read it was slated to support Alaska)
Now that leaves us two short unless we want to throw in the AC 194 AB & 197 IB (M). BTW if anyone has info on the USAR 157 IB (M) please share, I have found nothing in regards !

Getting back for a moment to the ARNG Inf Divs.....it looks like 26 ID was heading toward an AOE config especially after it picked up 86 Bde and it’s two VT Arm Bns. Likewise 42 ID was up to three Arm Bns by 1989. Now I have read that 47 ID would go to Alaska to releave 6 ID (if it went to ROK) while 38 ID would be Reserve for SOUTHCOM (along with 53 IB & 92 IB). 28 ID was apparently under command of I Corps from 1985-88 and then XVIII Corps from 1988.

To be continued.....

[dragoon500ly]

Just a side note, talking with my brother and some of his buddies who spent there entire career in the 81st (joined early 1990's) it went from round out to enhanced readiness with a war mission in Korea. What they were told was the brigade (at the time two armor battalions, two-three infantry battalions, engineer battalion, FA battalion, MASH, support battalion, and more almost 8000 strong) was expected to be in combat within 30 day of the north crossing the DMZ. One of the guys was a tech (full time working for the guard but as a civilian) who said part of his job was to go to the two ships that were pre-loaded with equipment and pull maintenance on them every month. According to them, the plan was when the war broke out the ships would sail and the troops would fall in on their training equipment, when the ships were just about to arrive they would fly the troops over and hook up with the equipment. Now this is all hearsay but I have heared it from LTC and CWO-4's as well as senior NCO's. Would it have worked? I do not know I can see some issues, but that is my understanding what the plan became for the 81st when the got rid of the 9th ID.

Running joke when I was active duty was that the 81st was always in search of a mission. They were slotted for NATO, then Korea, then RDF back to NATO, reinforcement to 9th MID, then Korea. My own take is that they would have wound up in the Middle East.

[dragoon500ly]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ‘Heavy’, III, V & VII with two ‘Light’ I & XVIII) to fight a “ two & a half war” contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I haven’t found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and it’s Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ‘Rear Battle’ Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps
. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Div’s RO.

To be continued....

AOE called for corps to be either two Armored/one Mech or one Armored/two Mech divisions, separate Arms and Mech brigades, an ACT and from 2-4 Field Artillery Brigades. But AOE was always being tinkered with!

As for the IX Corps, it was slatted to reinforce Eighth Army in Korea, or as controlling headquarters for Taiwan if the decision was made to reinforce them.

[dragoon500ly]

Dragonfly: that is great information, thank you for sharing!

I am curious as to what was the mission assigned to the "stay at home" Divisions and BDEs, if any? Was it to form a strategic reserve, remain available for support to civil authorities, or just a recognition that there was only so much mobilization support (mob stations, money, materiel, transportation) to go around and that these units weren't going to get to play with the others?

In my timeline I kept 42ID at home to remain in support of civil authorities. I had them placed Title 32 service in support of the NY Governor to respond to the summer 1997 NYC unrest described in Armies of the Night. They were federalized after TDM and then I had them replaced in NYC by the Reserve Division (70th I think, going by memory) as stated in canon. But instead of deploying to the Balkans (what I believe to be the most absurd and inexplicable part of canon) I had the 42ID moved upstate to secure West Point and Albany. !

I have seen several possible reasons for keeping NG divisions stateside, but the most likely use would be safeguarding critical government sites, in other words the COG backups.

[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.

[dragoon500ly]

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.

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."

[mpipes]

These are aggregate unit issue, much of which is quite true but other aspects were/are overblown. I know that the "poor training" brush painted was overstated to a point for the Desert Storm deployments.

After the fact, it was finally conceded that much of the training that needed to be accomplished could have been done in country. During real deployments post-9/11, Guard units have performed more than adequately. Not sure what the changes were.

During Desert Storm, many of the 256th were frustrated by all the red tape blocking their deployment. Much of it was a need to "check off" the appropriate training block, where they had to be requalified and the appropriate training record entry checked off, even though the troops were perfecting capable of doing the task. Case in point, most of the brigade had to requalify on the M-16, M-60, M2...what have you...because their qualification was expired. Did not matter if they had shot expert every time for years, they were deemed non-deployable because their qualification expired two weeks ago.

[pmulcahy11b]

In Desert Shield, we got about a week to set up camp, a day or so to get acquainted with the unit area -- and then training came fast and hard. It started out mornings only after PT to get us used to the climate, but then, we were training harder than we ever did, harder than any unit I've been in. By Desert Storm, we were strong, hard, lean, and chomping at the bit.

[mpipes]

Paul,

What unit were you with?

Do you know what concrete changes, if any, were made after Desert Storm so the units could deploy?

I was good friends with a Captain, and was practically reduced to tears with the frustration. According to him, active duty Army kept moving the bar, seemingly so that they would never reach the almost mythical status of "deployable." They had some troops they had to requalify on every infantry weapon to deploy, some of which they didn't have. Case in point, as I recall, they had to have everyone qualified on the M249 and M240, even though they still had M60s. And how dumb is it to absolutely insist someone requalify yet again who had annually qualified on the same weapon system every previous year for 10 years!! Also, I believe they had just received the M1A1s and M2s, and the active Army was requiring each and every MOS to get all the training redone on the new equipment. As he said, if you can drive one you can drive the other; you don't need the full week of programed training that the Army made them accomplish. All in all, the Army just heaped hoop after hoop on them that they had to jump through.

They pretty much got there after busting their asses for months, and then Army still did not deploy them. A lot of pissed off troops quit, and they were still rebuilding when 9/11 happened.