I don't think MilGov circa 2000 has the logistical capabilities to redeploy everyone coming off the Going Home convoy to Mexico, nor to effectively re-equip them as a fighting force except on the most minimal levels.
It is, however, pretty silly to think MilGov's leadership is going to be in favor of just discharging all those personnel in another "good luck, you're on your own" moment. All I can see that really accomplishing would be to destroy any remaining semblance of order in the Virginia area as some portion of that force have to turn to banditry and marauding to keep themselves fed.
Of the guys who come back, some portion will want to do nothing but return to their homes and see if anyone is still alive. A lot of these guys, after surviving years of war in Europe, aren't going to be slowed down by MilGov trying to enforce a death penalty for desertion. And MilGov isn't going to be terribly well equipped to carry out those threats if a deserter(s) can get more than a few klicks outside the wire.
The more effective reason guys will stay with the colors and not just take off is that, after seeing that the US isn't any better off than Europe, they'll realize that getting home may simply not be plausible (or survivable). That may or may not translate into any enthusiasm for continued soldiering and active campaigning.
My take on the influx of personnel into Norfolk is that MilGov first sifts the returnees for useful skills relating to reconstruction and sustainment efforts. These guys get pulled as wartime essential by the government, but also get some perks to keep them from potentially taking their valuable skills elsewhere. Most of the remainder get converted into a modern day equivalent of the Roman limitanei, and get some version of 40 acres, a mule, and an M16EZ with a requirement to do part time military service and part time reconstruction duties. These guys are organized into company and battalion sized elements and seeded in the Virginia and North Carolina region to provide some backbone to the local militia.
Operating forward of the limitanei screen (and inside it as needed), MilGov re-establishes the 6th Special Forces Group as a counter-insurgency and foreign internal defense force. ODAs augmented with mechanics, experienced farmers and ag-science guys, veterinarians, and other not-your-normal-military-types work on drawing more outlying communities into the MilGov network by helping them with subsistence and recovery on the one hand and bandit suppression/stability operations on the other. When a given community is settled down enough, limitanei units are moved in and the SF/CA guys leapfrog forward.
The main limitation on how effective the SF teams can be is that they have very, very limited air support for either logistics or CAS. Consequently, teams that get too far out on the edge are pretty much on their own. To help address this on a semi-local level, 6th SFG maintains several mike force companies for QRF if an ODA camp gets in over its head.
If a threat is bigger than the limitanei or SF mike force units can deal with, MilGov does recruits for volunteers coming out of Europe to form a couple conventional infantry brigades (as well as volunteers for 6th SFG). These two brigades are not the usual T2K "brigade = 500 guys and a tank" but actual attempts to rebuild actual brigade combat teams to a (modified) prewar table of organization and equipment. There are limitations and modifications -- tube artillery is pretty scarce, so fire support is all mortars (surviving tube artillery being in a separate unit under direct control of the commander of the Norfolk enclave), the units are motorized for mobility, but a lot of that motorization are civilian vehicles that picked up a coat of green paint along the way, that sort of thing.
The overall objective is to get the area the Norfolk enclave can effectively control back online with agriculture and light industry to provide a food surplus and manufacturing base. Once they're able to do that, they start expanding -- direction of travel being either towards other MilGov enclaves or resources that are still intact or can be put back on line with the resources available. Situation permitting, other MilGov enclaves are doing the same oil spot trick and spreading out towards Norfolk and other enclaves as well, though the manpower available to Norfolk makes it the centerpiece of the plan.
|