Quote:
Originally Posted by natehale1971
Thank you for all the info! it's helping alot.
Australians and New Zealand troops taking over the majority of the positions in the Far East and Near East formations would be possible then... While their special operations and other specialists COULD provide support for the British Forces Europe. My original idea was that Austrialians had provided peace keeping troops in Cyprus... and when the Greeks launched an attack on them. Thus triggering their declaration of war, and being part of the British Army of the Danube (the force enaged against the Med Alliance in the Balkans).
The Australians and New Zealand troops in Africa was going to have been Peacekeepers trying to help with the situation in Botswana (sp) where the Congo Pact was sponsoring a rebellion that really distablized the country. And deal with the large numbers of Africans of European descent fleeing from Congo Pact countries.
With the recruitment of Gurkhas would allow for a quick influx of personnel.. and with the fact that post-Black Winter there was a growing fear of the Soviets for several years among the population. Especial when pundits were talking about the fact that NATO just didn't have the manpower to have interviened on short notice.
The US Army built up as well... the addition of the 11th (Air Assault) Infantry Division and 17th (Airborne) Infantry Division are examples of rapid response forces.
|
Even factoring these possibilities in - and they are only possibilities - remember the Australians are going to want to retain some (probably the majority) of their troops for home defence and the entire regular New Zealand Army is currently a reinforced Brigade Group (it may have been larger in 1990) - I still think finding the numbers that you're looking for to meet all of those deployments would be a big challenge. Whether we like it or not, the UK is not a Global Superpower and hasn't been for a number of years.