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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
(Bolding mine) Going off on a slight tangent here, that suggests to me that the French Government is still located in Paris in 1998, which is after the first wave of nuclear exchanges.
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That makes sense since France was technically and practically a neutral. Attacking the capital is IMO an outright and unmistakable declaration of WAR!! (as if nuking anything else wasn't...?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
Perhaps some of the troops missing from the FAR were transferred from their parent units to reinforce units assigned to the Dead Zone?
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That's pretty much what I was saying a few days back in another thread. The "missing" troops may either have never left France, or were withdrawn to the battered homeland to provide replacements/assistance on the borders and internal civil duties.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
It seems to me that the most likely areas for the French to have suffered significant casualties are either the invasion of West Germany / the Netherlands (and subsequent actions) where they were in combat against the Dutch and (presumably) German Armies (iirc published material is a little light on details of what German units might have been involved) or losses incurred as a result of the nuclear attacks on France (of which we know there were some, just not the details).
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France may have lost a disproportionate number of troops from nukes due to them being stationed to defend vital facilities and infrastructure from saboteurs. It is possible the French believed that as they were neutral, they would not be targeted by nukes, and so were caught napping without their units being disbursed as were the actual belligerents.
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Originally Posted by Olefin
Actually the FAR deployed to Africa starting in 1995 according to the RDF
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In at least 2.x, France (and others) had at least some indications of the coming conflict.
Quote:
1994
As Europe shows signs of increasing instability, Germany begins quietly increasing its force structure. In January of 1994, the nine understrength divisions which had been maintained as a token army are brought up to full strength and each is given a territorial (reserve) brigade.
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It's quite possible the French would have also "quietly" responded, strengthening their borders, particularly that with Germany, a traditional enemy and the most likely direction the Pact would attack from if/when things spiralled completely out of control. This could also explain why the numbers in Africa don't quite add up to your expectations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
Sept 1995
Not to be outdone, the French activated the Foreign Legion Operational Group (GOLE) and deployed them to Djibouti. The US government committed the rest of the 7th Special Forces Group and a ranger battalion for anti-terrorist duties.
That means all the French Legion units in the RDF are there in 1995 long before WWIII starts in Europe or any action against Germany.
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True, this was before war actually broke out, but we already know tensions had increased dramatically. No competent government would ever even consider reducing security at home in those circumstances unless they felt what was left was sufficient.
Additionally, what I'm seeing is not the entire Foreign Legion being deployed, but rather one, unspecified
component of it - GOLE.
As for the missing units in the vehicle books, the game was written by Americans and aimed at mainly American players. Great focus has been given to US units, dispositions and conditions at home with only enough attention to other nationalities to provide a little "flavour".