Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
For my part I don't see civilisation, or at least attempts at organisation slipping away all that easily. Yes there will certainly be instances of barbarism and chaos, but humans as a whole prefer order.
Where there is a working command structure, whether that be civilian or military, Division sized or platoon, you'll see attempts to follow pre-war rules. In fact I see an increase in discipline being vital to survival. If you have individuals doing their own thing, breaking the laws, traditions, habits, etc then the whole unit is weakened. A good commander/politician will see that right from the beginning and take the necessary steps.
This may be the implementation of a democratic system where everyone gets a say and vote thereby instilling a sense of community and individual worth, or raising of a brutal police force with no qualms about beating the populace down and into line, or something in between. In military units I can see MPs being very busy, and senior NCOs having a number of "quiet talks around back" with the less cooperative soldiers in their unit.
Without discipline and order a unit is sure to fall apart and become either marauders of their prey. Without unit cohesion that unit is in serious danger of being wiped out by other units with perhaps less resources, but better command and control.
The same ideas apply to such things as marking minefields. If a unit fails to mark them, especially around their cantonment, or located within their area of support (ie the farmland that feeds them), they'll very quickly find themselves at odds with the civilian population. Without that population chances are the unit will starve, have great difficulty acquiring necessary raw materials, parts etc and suffer continuous sabotage attempts from the disaffected locals.
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The cantonment system wouldn't go into effect till the later half of the conflict. Before that you would see some pretty desperate battles before lack of resources and broken chains of command mean that units have to base themselves around a wider community. Sldiers would still be expecting ultimate victory before being sent back home so nobody would care too much about the piece of foreighn turf they are fighting over, I would imagine Russian, American and British soldiers would care the least while Plish, Czech and German soldiers would probably be more mindful.
I'm sure many would come to regret their actions in seeding vast areas of central and eastern Europe with munitions and when the cantonment system goes into effect everyone would be VERY careful to police their areas of control and mark mine fields.
We need to remember that the Twilight conflict has 3 very distincy stages. First it would be a convetional, fluid campaign. Secondly things would become more desperate, nukes and chemical weapons start flying and the focus is on destroying or blunting enemy capabilities. only in the last phase of the war when soldiers begin to realise they are stuck in theatre for the long haul and require the co-operation of locals will hey be more area of the need to mark thins properly and use caution with area denial munitions.