Quote:
Originally Posted by Desert Mariner
What is the possibility that people would revert to a Civil War style of recruitment? Companies raised at the local level, which are then absorbed into State level regiments and finally into the Army.
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That system was dropped during the Great War, because it meant that single communities suffered horrendously, whenever large losses were inflicted upon small bodies of troops within a small amount of time: e. g. a single attack that was broken by superior defenders would mean a county, town or even a city would loose disproportionately many men. In a time, when war was solely men's business and these men were already dearly missed as bread winners and household leaders (in public discourse at least), that was a huge problem, especially since only men could vote back then, so the local elected representative would not only face huge social and economical problems in his electoral district, but also loose his voters.
This system works better to some degree, if the socio-economical elite is not drafted or can buy its son's (and daughters?) out of the draft, e. g. by paying a fee or nominating a willing replacement candidate. In these cases, only the lower classes will get drafted (or serve as replacements for the elite) and likely will be denied voting rights anyway. But this is not a system that will be in place in the US during the Twilight War.
Where I could see your system work is for State Militia, which might serve as light infantry and constabulary, e. g. highway patrol, counter insurrection, roaming the wilderness between towns, in addition to supporting National Guard and (the few) remaining US Army units in any military region. These militias need to know their turfs, will only be available part-time, since their personnel would still be needed to work in their communities, have families etc. In such a three tier system, local troops might only theoretically be assigned to state-wide regiments, but would de facto serve in companies per county or (larger) towns to keep everything quite, under control and running. The light infantry role would be third in line, probably, after disaster relief, emergency construction duties, deputy policing and general security services.
That would be my take on this.
