I can see them being a huge hinderance too if the military unit relies on them too much. If the unit has to move, they'll need to either find transport for their support network, or try to sustain themselves for a while until the followers can either catch up, or a new group is established. Using the 5th and their relatively long and fast movement as an example, this could be quite some distance and for a very long time.

Great work with the updated version, Raellus. Easy to read and with all the needed points to introduce the players in the "Twilight Way of Life". It will keep it in hand for my future sessions. Thanks.

I would just like to offer a couple of things on the subject of desertion.

First, I imagine that the desertion among US Armed Forces over seas would be a lot lower than the rate among forces in the Continental United States. Here are my reasons:

The primary motive for desertion, in my humble opinion, is to get away from the dangers, terrors and discomforts of military duty in the time of war. But with the entire world reduced to chaos following three years of war and a limited nuclear exchange, leaving the armed forces is actually going to make the individual less safe, more uncertain and less comfortable. Being in the armed forces of the remnant of a national government means that there is a remote possibility of resupply or other forms of outside assistance. Safety in numbers and all that. So there is more motive for staying with the organized unit.

The second most compelling reason to desert is, IMHO, a desire to reunite with friends and family outside the military. This desire is going to be a stronger motivator for desertion than the desire for a life of ease, since frankly, there is no life of easy anywhere. To truly find such a life of relative safety and security, a deserter would have to try and reach France or Sweden or Australia or South America. None of that is very likely for US forces deployed over seas. Not the least of which because many of these places may have policies in place hostile to refugees. Think "Children of Men" for how the Union Frances probably treats refugees.

So being stationed in Europe, the Middle East or Korea places the US serviceman so far from home and (in the case of the Middle East and Korea) in such xenophobic and hostile terrain that sticking with their unit may be the only way to survive. Deserters would get a pretty hostile reception from the locals and might have to come crawling back to their unit for food and protection.

Deserters who return on their own might make excellent deterrents for other deserters. Rather than court martial and execute or flog the deserter, the unit commander might make him available to tell everyone how bad it sucks out there in the world all by your lonesome surrounded by Poles, Muslims and Koreans all giving you the stink eye and trying to figure out whether you're worth the trouble to rob.

In fact, the only chance of getting home is to stick with your unit and pray for an evacuation. In fact, after Operation Omega, I imagine that any deserters in the Perisan Gulf or Korean Peninsula might return to their units because they want to be sure they don't miss their only ticket home. I'm sure that when they return they will bring some very interesting stories to cover their absence.

Just to throw in some useless statistics I got off wikipedia... the Pentagon reported just under 8,000 desertions between the start of the Iraq war and 2006. Of those, only one desertion occurred overseas. Take those stats with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't be surprised by them at all.

US Forces stationed in the United States would therefore, I believe, have a much higher desertion rate due to soldiers wanting to return to their home communities (presuming they are not known to have been nuked) and ascertain the welfare of family and friends. After all, they can just start walking and eventually they can get there. With little except official communications crossing the country, many service men are going to walk away from their posts and try and check on their families.

However, these desertions would not have to be permanent. Once servicemen and women have either determined the fate or condition of their home town, neighborhood and loved ones, they might realize that they want to resume their duty and return to the military. (This presumes that their family isn't in a situation where they need every trained, experienced soldier they can get their hands on in order to make it through the week alive.)

Going back to federal service might be as easy as just strolling into the nearest CivGov or Milgov outpost and reporting for duty. Of course a unit commander may have very reasonable suspicions about taking on a probable deserter. Is this man working for marauders? Are they a spy for one of the other Governments? Is he going to sap morale or discipline and try and recruit others to desert with them next time? Even with those valid concerns, it seems unlikely that a deserter would be turned down if they wanted to rejoin... even if they admitted to having walked away from their previous post rather than maintain the fiction that they are just "separated from their unit."

As to punishment, sure you could flog them, like it's the Napoleonic Age, but after that the punishment better be pretty light. You could shoot them like some Communist commissar, but that's hardly the American way of war and it's likely to ensure that those that desert never try to rejoin your unit. Likely as not there would instead be some pretty grueling punishment details, but nothing that would be the equivalent of a suicide mission. Just all the dirty jobs that no one wants to do in the army. Digging Latrines. Providing the muscle digging entrenchments and filling sandbags. Digging. Digging. Digging.

Soldiers probably fear their Sergeant coming at them with a shovel more than they fear a punch in the guts or a boot to the head.

Mind you, I'm talking about soldiers who volunteer to rejoin a unit, not deserters who got caught sneaking out of the perimeter or who got caught napping in a deserted house by a patrol. The ones who are brought back at the point of a bayonet would be far more likely to face corporal or even capital punishment.

Just some thoughts.

Should we create a separate thread to discuss the way other countries address their desertion and recruitment problems?

And what do you call it when deserters/stragglers attempt to rejoin friendly forces? What is the term for that?


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

I agree wholeheartedly about the desertion issue as described by sglancy. I'd even go so far as to extend the arguement to cover Soviet troops in Poland - Home is a VERY long walk away through terrain absolutely crawling with marauders and rear eschelon units just waiting to pounce upon deserters.
At least staying with the military gives strength in numbers and the probability of food in the belly for the forseeable future.

I'll agree with SGlancy here. When you are a part of a military unit, they become your family in a big way -- that unit becomes your home with an extended family (albeit, often dysfunctional) in it. In the face of World War 3, the survivors of that unit will draw even closer together when they are far away from the US and there's no immediate prospect of going home in sight.

In combat, your fellow soldiers' safety also often becomes more important to you than your own safety. Even in peacetime, letting your fellow soldiers down is really considered low. That too will draw the surviving troops closer together. It may even be what holds together units composed of different nationalities.

Even conscripts are going to feel the sense of family. It might only be a sense all conscripts are in the same boat, but they will still feel it. This may go some way towards explaining why individual desertions from the PACT forces were fairly minimal while whole units disobeyed higher command and stuck together (at least initially until the supplies on hand ran out).

A very nice piece of work, Raellus. I agree with others that this would make a very good, very tidy introduction to Twilight: 2000 for new players.


Webstral

Good call on that one. Wherever on e wishes to set the bar for desertions, CONUS is going to have it worse than the ETO, the Middle East, or Korea.

Webstral

A PDF of the article.

The article translated into Catalan and illustrated by our very own Marc. Thanks, mate!

https://sites.google.com/site/elrefu...-del-conflicte

Thanks to you, Raellus. :)

After reading your Ok, I’ve added the link to access the page from our Twilight:2000 section of L’Argonauta. I’m sure our visitors will enjoy the overall result.

Really nice writeup :)

Shows that there are a lot of good information that I still haven't found at this forum.

@ Raellus: Excellent write-up, good info, consider it "stolen" :)
@Marc: I cant read it, but the illustrations seem very fitting!

Thanks, guys. I'm currently working on a "chapter" on cantonments. I'll post a draft for review as soon as its finished.

An excellent article, I've included it in my 'introduction' folder. A small compilation of things that form a comprehensive summary of the setting for v1 t2k, without having to sort through the books.

Thanks, Draq. I'm pleased that you found it helpful.

This is a good article. Just one point I'd like to make. While aircraft and helicopter use was still viable, rear-area troops could find themselves fighting special ops, airborne, and air assault troops on a regular basis -- Soviet OPLANs called for huge drops to capture certain supplies such as CEOIs, KYK modules, POL -- and places like B/D/G/JTACS and B/D/G/JTOCS practice sudden mass relocations (sudden for them, still takes about an hour for everyone to get going). They will also find themselves plastered by artillery, rockets, missiles, and air strikes, more than a soldier at the front might see.

I didn't mean to imply that rear-area/support troops didn't see any combat prior to the manpower shortages that necessitated their conversion to line infantry. You're absolutely right about shelling and Soviet raiders. I just meant that they wouldn't have a lot of firsthand experience in conducting basic infantry tactics- much less, at least, than front-line troops.

Nice post man.