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Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull
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.
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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?
Quote:
Originally Posted by HorseSoldier
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.
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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.