Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Don't count on any armoured vehicles being with the home guard. We already know there's been a huge attrition of vehicles in Europe with airfields, nuclear power stations, etc stripped of their armoured assets and sent to the front as battle replacements.
At best an occasional group may have a 50 year old vehicle one of their members happened to have laying about and restored.
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Actually, no, this is not accurate becuase you are not taking National Guard / Active army politics into account.
The active army allots each National Guard unit (be battalion, company, brigade) the exact same equipment that its active duty peer gets. When the units are "called to federal service" all of this gear goes with them and becomes the active army's responsibility.
However, this authozirized equiptment is always the active army's hand-me-downs. When the National Guard gets "new" used gear from the army, then then most of its left overs get disposed off... in different ways. For example, most of the tanks are returned to depots and then sold to other countries. Trucks however aren't worth as much and tend to be sold at local auction. Other items that are considered "wore out" like generators, tents, stoves, trailers, camo nets (to name a few) are often abandoned. When I moved my company from our old armory (built in 1903) to a brand new one, we discovered parts to vehicles, tools, radios, tents... all the way back to the 50s.
Where the politics come into play is that this is each STATE's gear. They pretty much do whatever they want. At state level, we still have an old boneyard that has a few M-1s and M60s that are supposed to become memorials; I've seen an M42 duster and some captured Iraqi armor too. I know they are fully functional as the mechanics from the state level shops get in them and move them around from time to time to keep them running. The state determines where all this stuff is going to end up and there is so much of it the active army can't keep up. As a rough guess, I'd say there are about two dozen Vermont National Guard tanks scattered around the state on lawns, everything from M1s, M60s, M48s and even an M4 and M113s. I also know there are spares laying around in warehouses for them.
Politics. Do you think that the big army is going to track down an M60A3 in West Rutland, Vermont in front of the armory when they are in the middle of world war 3? No, actually I know first hand the active army has NO CLUE that these tanks are there. Do you think that with all the disturbances at home, Vermont is going to volunteer its reasources to go to Yugoslavia or Poland when they have a maurader problem in their own back yard? You're darn right they aren't going to give up their assets.
As soon as all the deployable national guard units are gone, the state guard moves into the vacant armories and takes over the local "state" mission. Thats disaster relief, riot control, so on. Its hit or miss what gear is at the armory, so at state level they will send down what's needed. As I say before, most of the state guard is retired national guard, so they typicall have some rank and expereince. Lots of Colonels, Majors, Sergeant Majors and Master Sergeants are quite active. They now the local citizens, government, the unit, the gear, procedures and so on. Where they are hurting is young, able bodied men.
Then you've also got all those non-deployable units and they have some manpower too. Its really all hit or miss depending on the local leadership, how the politics play out, if the state was home to an armor brigade or an infantry brigade.... or even USED to have an armored brigade..... could be anything.