After rereading some of Harold Coyle's novels and RDF sourcebook as well; the impression you get is that the push to hold onto Iran was a desire to have as much strategic depth as possible in order to protect the Saudi/Gulf oil fields. Okay, makes sense...but the force commitment is what is so screwed. A single heavy division, no matter the size its commander's balls is going to be able to push against 1 or more Soviet armies. Even dropping the 82nd behind the lines to break the LOC would run into serious trouble from the 2nd & 3rd echlon divisions. And while the ole maroon beret may make its wearer semi-bulletproof....it doesn't have any effect when the enemy switchs from 7.62mm to 152mm...(now if the 82nd pulled a Chuck Norris and ripped off their BDU shirts and exposed their heroic manly chests....and a salute to Steve Jackson and his Heroic Hollywood Nudity stat!). Nope CENTCOM doesn't have the force structure to do half of what the canon material says they did.

My own feelings is that in order to pull off the "canon" material, CENTCOM had to have some form of additional force. My approach is to add two heavy divisions, an ACR, an LCR as well as some additional Iranian forces. I also debate about some kind of NATO force, most likely a British/Commonwealth Brigade....and yes I do add an Aussie battalion to the mix. Yes, it draws units from the CENTAG/NORTHAG mix...but I've always had issues with what GDW "sent" in that front.

And just for arguments sake...what in the world were they thinking when they decided to ship MILGOV/CIVGOV forces to Yugoslavia? Got tired of fighting against overwhelming odds and decided to enter Europe's free-fire zone?

Iranian forces
 

Don't forget the Iranian Army - these play quite a large part in the war.

GDW forget the Iranian Army. I've always felt that a lot more than 5 divisions survived. My own game has between 12-15 divisions surviving and help holding the line.

I'm not sure they did, I assume that they disperse and act as guerrillas or bandits, tying down a lot of Soviet troops.

Well the current 10th Mountain Division is much like the 101st an Airborne Division. True that Fort Drum is close to the mountains in up state New York, but it was basically Light Infantry unit. Much like the 101st is organized along similar lines of the 82nd Airborne Division, the Division is trained in Air Assault and Airmobile operations.

Even in WWII their was a couple Divisions trained in the US that were called Mountain Divisions, I believe only the 10th made it to Italy...

Yeah I have to agree there would of had sent more to hold. Look back at the first PG1 they had nearly half of the Regular US Army sitting in the Desert.

Then we have current operation in Iraq of the last 8 or so year that throw things askew. Granted their isn't a fighting Soviet Front thrown into the match. Yet, GDW has sent only 1 Airborne, 1 Air Assault, 1 Mechanized, 1 Light Motorized (Test-Bed) and 2 Marine Divisions with 1 Air Combat Cavalry Brigade does seem too light. I agree that couple more Heavy Divisions and ACR or two wouldn't hurt.

As for the 82nd being sent to cut the LOC of the advance Soviet unit that were engaged with the 3rd US Army and its allied forces.

What I do see even with the 82nd and 101st Division is that they would cross-attach a Brigade with other US Army Division to balance out the forces. In the resource book GDW stated that each Division was regular pulled from the fronts lines and shipped to Saudi for rest and refit.

Another thing I am sure the British would have sent more in the lines of Commonwealth Division in which HQ, support units, and one or more combat Brigade from the UK and the rest from whatever they could scrounge up from Commonwealth members.

Yeah their would be some units who would support the US, others would support the Soviets. While many probably would be good Iranians and fight whatever satan who happen to currently 'own' the local area at the time.

Well, the GDW Iran had a moderate and pro-western sort of government. Some Iranians might take up arms against everyone, but I'd think the Soviet invaders would be seen as a bigger threat than the western support (especially since in the T2K timeline the Soviets were still "waging war against Islam" in Afghanistan, if I remember right).

The other thing to remember in the T2K timeline is that Israel and the Palestinians reached some sort of amicable settlement. I'd guess that at the peak of the conventional war, a larger IDF expeditionary than is shown in theater circa 2000 was on the scene, after they settled their slugging match with Syria.

On the Soviet side, the units available are apparently less than reliable with a number of units only held in check by the KGB units shoving them forward. In that environment, I don't see a huge need for a strong western presence to create the situation we're presented with.

The whole region though is a bit of a mess with what appears to be several different factions within the same nationality (looking predominately at the locals here). We've also got the French in the background too which can only help the western cause (because they're mostly unaffected by the greater world war). Might not have a lot of troops on the ground and in the front lines, but just the threat of them post winter 97-98 is likely to put a check on Pact offensive intentions (or at least make the commanders think twice about it).

Guess it all boils down to what the GM feels most comfortable with. I perfer to go with a reinforced CENTCOM and a larger Iranian Army. I also go with a more even mix as far as the Soviets go. Wargaming it out allows for a more balanced fight. Roleplaying it allows for more options for the players.

But I still question the DoDs choice of units for the RDF. It always stank too much of "we have all of these Light Divisions, now how can we publicize them?"

I think the problem with sending additional British forces is simply where would these forces come from? It's not impossible, however the overwhelming majority of the British Army would already be committed elsewhere, so unless one advocates increasing the British Army's strength to more than it was in real life, any additional troops sent to the Gulf would have to mean less troops available for other roles (imho probably BAOR reinforcements or UK Home Defence).

Also, with regards to the Commonwealth, whilst it's possible that Commonwealth members would send troops to the Middle East (or Korea and Hong Kong for that matter), I think it's important to note that the Commonwealth now is completely different to what it was at the start of the Second World War when the UK declared War on Germany and various Commonwealth members duly followed suit in line with the Mother Country.

Commonwealth members now are all independent states (I think their only tie is that they retain the Queen as their Head of State), so would be under no obligation to enter WW3 as a belligerent on the Allied side (Canada is an obvious exception as it is also a member of NATO). I'm not saying that it wouldn't happen and the Commonwealth nations wouldn't answer the mother country's call, just it's not something that I would take for granted.

As ever, my comments based primarily on a V1 timeline, although whilst canon mentions various Commonwealth members fighting "local" Wars, e.g. India fighting Pakistan and (I think) Australia fighting Indonesia I don't believe there's anything in canon for either version to confirm one way or the other whether any of them - other than Canada - were active participants in the "Global" War?

To be honest, given the efforts made to keep the IDF out of the first Gulf War (which I realise came after the RDF sourcebook was published), the presence of an IDF contingent always struck me as one of the more "out there" parts of the sourcebook. The cynic in me always thought it was done purely as a mechanism to allow players to play IDF characters.

Granted, I am probably biased here - I much preferred the sort of scenario put forward in Harold Coyle's Sword Point to the one portrayed in the RDF Sourcebook.

The most likely reinforcement for the MEFF might be a recon regiment with Scorpions/Scimitars, possibly a Australian battalion group and, at most, a company from New Zealand. Anything more than that is really stretching the force mix. I've also pulled the Paras out of the Middle East, with an entire Airborne Division available, there would be little need for more paratroopers, IMHO.

Always had problems with the IDF/Jordanian mix itself, especially with the Israelis stationed in Iraqi, they would spend more times fighting the locals than the Soviet-backed locals.

My MEFF has a recon Squadron drawn from 1st Mech Bde's recon Regiment, but that's as far as I've gone in terms of changes.

Mind you, you could perhaps stretch British deployments slightly if you didn't have two Battalions sitting in Canada...

I've always felt that with the example of the Sino-Soviet War, that NATO would have, at the very least, increased its readiness levels, reactivated some units, brought Reserve units up to a higher level of training. So I can see the two battalions maining the training area, but I can also see at least a handful of regiments being reactivated (no more than 4-7), that's where my extra forces come from.

Yes, I think that's a relatively common theme...I've done it myself and I've seen several other British Orders of Battle that have a modest number of reactivated Battalions.

The trick, of course, is to not go stark raving mad about it!

You can forget about Australian troops being involved in the Middle East with a war raging with Indonesian, and a potential UN involvement in Korea. Same for New Zealand - local needs come well before foreign deployment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Australia import a sizable percentage of oil from the Persian Gulf? With a local war threating/halting oil production from the Indonesian fields, would not the Australian government seriously consider commiting a battalion group, if only to acquire badly need oil?

The arguement can be made either way, it all boils down to how much crude oil is available, and how much refinery capacity survived any Soviet nukes. I'm just advancing a theory that the Australian government may see the need to secure both, a product that CENTCOM seems to have enough of.

Have to admit though, I neglected to consider any Australian commitment to Korea; but just how much would Australia send? I can see a battalion group, possibly two, but would a brigade be sent? Or would Australia decide a division would have to be committed?

LOL, this is where the lack of canon material on Korea inserts a monkey wrench!

Well, until the French/Africans showed up, there were hardly any Allied mountain troops. The US was still training the 10th division (1 regiment went to the Aleutians for a while), the Indian 4th division had had some mountain training, but had been fighting in the Desert for a while. Other than the aforementioned 52nd, that was about it.

I doubt they'd send anyone. Probably helping back stop the UK division in Hong Kong, rather than sending troops to Korea. The ROK Army in 1996/7 isn't going to need international bailing out at anything remotely approximating the level seen in the 1950s.

Australia can barely scrape together a single Division on anything less than about 12 months notice. Any more and reservists have to be called up and trained.
Australia also has it's own oil reserves. It may not be massively productive Fields like Texas or the North Sea, but there should be enough production post nuke to support the country's vital needs (especially if a couple of the cities got hit).
Regarding China vs Korea, Korea would get the troops without a doubt. Korea is essentially a UN operation (regardless of who's actually commanding), while China is basically a fight between two sovereign nations - the USSR (plus allies) and China (plus whoever was in the area and got caught up in it).
North Korea has long been seen as the BIG EVIL in the area, much more than the Soviets. North Korea also has no/less nukes (depending on how you want to look at it), which means less likelihood of Australians being irradiated.

Regardless of where the troops went, the moment hostilities broke out with Indonesia they would be recalled - Australia simply doesn't have the manpower to hold off such a huge military (even a poorly trained, led and equipped military as Indonesia at the time). Same thing happened in WWII when the Japanese were coming across Papua New Guinea - the Divisions in the middle east (mainly northern Africa) were recalled immediately and sent from the deserts to the mountainous jungles.

Ouch! Another good idea meets up with cold reality! :p

Thanks for the info!

The reality is for many nation this would be the case, due to the fact had all made deep cuts even before the end of the cold war.

The issue remains just what kind of response would NATO have made, especially with the Sino-Soviet War starting to kick off, not to mention intelligence that something was brewing inbetween the Germanies.

At the very least we have more weapons rolling from the production lines, there should have been some call-up of selected Reserves. And if the intelligence people were really on the ball, there could have have been re-activation of units....even call up of the Individual Ready Reserve, its happened before with a lot less provocation, with a major shooting war in the Far East this could easily happen.

This is also the time period of Reagan-Bush and Maggie Thatcher...two Presidents and a Prime Minister that didn't have a lot of back-up when the Soviets were concerned. I can especially see Reagan pushing an even larger increase of the military...

So we can argue the point back and forth....my own view is that NATO would have done something to be a bit more prepared....

Just going on memory, didn't the middle east flare up after Europe? Therefore it's no surprise that the middle east received what is essentially the dregs of the various nations militaries (in as far as they were the only units not already deployed).
In that case it doesn't matter what the best mix of units might be - the only mix is what little is available and hope to hell that it's able to do the job.

By canon, yes. Ironically the entire chain of events goes with Soviet-Sino War. Then Soviets getting their arse handed to them on gold plate. Soviet pull units from Europe and activating their units in the Soviet Union. Then someone in Moscow gets the bright idea to request "Volunteers" to help out in China, from their Pact Allies. The Pact with mix feeling sent units to the East and started to call up and build up troops. The meat grinder was so bad there was second and third call for help.

Sometime after the second call, somewhere in the Military Leadership of the East German Armed Forces starts to have high level talks with their counter-parts in West Germany. They didn't mind losing people if they were fight the evil west, but they were balking at the loses that their units were taking in China. Somewhere the West German Army moves into East Germany and about couple months later you have WWIII.

Somewhere along the way the US and UK started their build up. Some 6 weeks to 3 months later they enter the war to help reinforce the German Army. Leaving NATO torn up and some countries out right siding with the Pact. While other members of the Pact effective breakaway to only get hammered themselves by the newest members of the Pact.

Some time too Korea takes off in effort to draw US Troops from reinforcing Europe.

Then Soviet get the bright idea to take Iran and to cut oil supplies to West Europe, China and Japan. US and UK decide to send units to the Middle East to prevent the Soviet from reaching the Persian Gulf Coast and closing the straits that the oil tankers have to travel through. For some strange reason Pakistan and India start shooting each other, especially when the Soviet move one Army from Afghanistan into Iran to help that Front out from that direction with the hopes of getting to the location to close the straits. In effect drawing weapons supplies that were coming into Afghanistan over land from Pakistan off.

Along the way several other localized wars start. In many cases, these are started at the urging of the Soviets to keep non-Soviet Allies from reinforcing any of the fronts that they were currently fighting and introduction of Nukes did take much longer.

So yeah to answer you question, yeah as per canon the Middle East was largely an afterthought for the US and UK and other allies. Another thing is the allies of Iraq and Syria seem to being a whole lot of nothing. They may have made token attacks towards Turkey, but they did nothing to help the Soviets on their conquest of Iran. Again the Syrian and Iraq had Jordan border and Syrian had the Isreal Border to keep troops at.

What is more interesting there really isn't much reason for the Saudi or the other City-States of the Persian Gulf to play host to the US Central Command and British forces there. As for sending more heavy units, the ones that have been suggested were from the east Coast. Maybe they were going to Korea to help reinforce the 8th US Army and UN commitment there, and got diverted. The 9th Motorized Division, 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions with their bases along the Pacific would be perfect example of unit being diverted to give the US Central Command more punch.

Also diverting the 40th Mechanized wouldn't be too bad, they were from California and probably would of been sent to Korea as reinforcement first off. The 24th Mechanized Division as it stands probably had it two active duty Brigade diverted to Europe at the start of the fighting to bring up III Corps units. The 24th Mechanized that was sent Iraq only when it new troops had been trained and were ready to ship out to Europe, but then sent to Iraq to reinforce Central Command.

With 1st Mechanized, 4th Mechanized, 5th Mechanized, 1st Cavalry, and 2nd Armor Divisions as well as the 3rd ARC, 194th Armor Brigade, and 197th Mechanized Brigade sending their troops that were on active duty still in the States over to take over Preposition equipment. Each of the Division had left their equipment at their state side bases, so 5 Divisional HQ, Support, 2 out three Combat, and Aviation Brigades could be reformed with 1 ACR, and 2 other Brigade to boot. I am sure one could organize an additional Armor and Mechanized Divisions for the Middle East at the cost of reinforcing Europe with fresh troops and slightly used equipment.

Canon says this equipment was being used to refit National Guard units, but in real life many of the units that were refitted already had been refitted with the equipment, so there was still equipment to spare. The only problem would have been getting new recruits trained and ready, then ship them off to a front they weren't quite expecting to fight in. Kinda like 1st Mechanized Division going to the Desert fighting in their Woodland Camos during the 1st PGW. Not to far of stretch if things are written up correctly.

Just some thoughts.

According to the RDF sourcebook, the Soviets invade Iran in 1995, CENTCOM is delayed by lack of shipping until 1996 and go right into Saudi Arabia with CENTCOM/Transcaucasus Front crossing barrels towards the end of 1996/97

When you start talking India/Pakistan, only the intervention by the superpowers keeps things quiet....otherwise, India would dearly love to knock off Pakistan, once and for all.

[QUOTE]So yeah to answer you question, yeah as per canon the Middle East was largely an afterthought for the US and UK and other allies. Another thing is the allies of Iraq and Syria seem to being a whole lot of nothing. They may have made token attacks towards Turkey, but they did nothing to help the Soviets on their conquest of Iran. Again the Syrian and Iraq had Jordan border and Syrian had the Isreal Border to keep troops at.
What is more interesting there really isn't much reason for the Saudi or the other City-States of the Persian Gulf to play host to the US Central Command and British forces there. As for sending more heavy units, the ones that have been suggested were from the east Coast. Maybe they were going to Korea to help reinforce the 8th US Army and UN commitment there, and got diverted. The 9th Motorized Division, 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions with their bases along the Pacific would be perfect example of unit being diverted to give the US Central Command more punch.
Also diverting the 40th Mechanized wouldn't be too bad, they were from California and probably would of been sent to Korea as reinforcement first off. The 24th Mechanized Division as it stands probably had it two active duty Brigade diverted to Europe at the start of the fighting to bring up III Corps units. The 24th Mechanized that was sent Iraq only when it new troops had been trained and were ready to ship out to Europe, but then sent to Iraq to reinforce Central Command.[\QUOTE]

There was always a lot of doubt as to the 40th MID going to Korea, during the period covered by T2K, it was always Middle East/Korea/NATO...by the end of the '80s, early '90s, the talk was NATO reinforcement with a Middle East deployment possible. One of the reasons that I feel fry to post them into the Gulf.

There are two possible ways to reinforce CENTCOM, either slide 1-2 heavy divisions over as reinforcements or deploy 3-4 of the NG armored/mechanized brigades to reinforce...but that kills the idea of the 44th Armored.

I'd doubt that. The situation in Europe isn't so critical that it would justify pulling the only heavy unit slated to help defend Middle Eastern oil supplies out of the mix. I'm actually not certain what level of badness would justify cutting 24th ID out of CENTCOM's force mix -- even if they're Dunkirking the remnants of USAREUR off the beaches, you've still got to hold the oil supply in the Middle East or face the possibility of defeat on a global, not theater, level. The thing I am skeptical about is that XVIII Airborne would collectively be held in reserve and out of theater until March of 97 -- more likely, I'd think, would be surging them into the region as soon as the shooting war starts in Europe.

Realistically, XVIII Abn probably gets punched up with the addition of the 197th and 194th brigades (which is what GDW shows in the Middle East portion of their WW III wargame). An ACR would be nice to have also, but realistically the 9th Lt Mot guys in T2K are filling that role for XVIII and given the distances and low troop density of the theater are probably doing it better than a heavy cavalry regiment could.

In the T2K alternate universe by the time the war kicked off the National Guard had punched up their readiness to the point where the round out brigades worked -- not an entirely unreasonable idea given that the Sino-Soviet War would have potentially provided serious motivation to get the NG and USAR ready to go to war. So 24th ID going downrange with 48th Mech Bde in tow is probably reasonable.

Add in the 194th and 197th, with their strategic reserve role being taken over by two or all three brigades from 44th Armored (which I agree, is kind of a silly unit, insofar as that's not how the NG Separate Armored and Infantry Brigades were supposed to be employed -- though to be fair I think it and a couple other divisions like 43rd were depicted as an editorial decision to keep overall length of USAVG down).

Adjusting for the situation, it probably yields something like:

194th Arm'd Brigade -- XVIII Airborne
197th Arm'd Brigade -- XVIII Airborne

157th Mech Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- To III Corps in USAREUR
187th Inf Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- Iceland Defense Force
205th Inf Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- To 6th ID(L) (their actual round out unit)

30th SIB (from 44th AD) -- Strat Reserve @ Benning
31st SAB (from 44th AD) -- Strat Reserve @ Knox
218th SIB (from 44th AD) -- to III Corps in USAREUR

Or something like that. Putting 30th and 31st brigades at Knox and Benning allows them to pretty directly cover down on the 194th/197th storylines in the T2K timeline, though I suppose by the time XVIII punches out for the desert they could have just taken 30th/31st with them and left 194th/197th in place, though it seems like the combat power of the regular army units would be preferable in a low density theater.

As far as I am aware, Iran and the west didn't have a lot of love for each other in the early to mid 90's. My guess is the late deployment to the area wasn't just due to lack of transportation, but also political manoeuvring - lots of background diplomacy/espionage/assassinations to ensure the government(s) of the day was friendly before putting boots on the ground.