Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Back in the early 90's, it was said that for every soldier in a combat role, there were 10 soldiers in supporting roles.
I think there'd be plenty of positions available for non combat officers what with the extra supply needs for a division in 2000 - food collection/production, fuel distilation, ammo reloading, vehicle (and resource) recovery and repair, training of new recruits, retraining of other non combat soldiers (or combat soldiers too wounded to continue in their previous carreer) etc, etc, etc.
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I think that, by 2000, the ratios would be reversed to closer to 10 combat soldiers for every one soldier in a purely supporting role. IMO, a lot of the non-combat roles that you mentioned would be handled, wherever and whenever possible, by local civilians or maybe even EPWs. The exceptions would be vehicle recovery and repair and troop training. Outside of "Campaign Season", combat soldiers would be helping with or responsible for most of those things themselves.
I wonder if divisions on the move during campaign would have civilian camp followers ([local] wives, children, laundresses, cooks- sometimes all of the above), much as armies right up until the 20th century had...