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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
Sorry, I don't agree about the 42nd. I'm convinced it's a typo.
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That's cool. I'm just trying to reconcile canon.
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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
So there's a contradiction there already. It cannot have arrived in Yugoslavia in the autumn of 1999 and gone into action against Croat units in October 1998. One of those dates is wrong.
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Yep, and the date that's wrong could be the 1998 one. 42nd ID could have arrived in Autumn of '99 and gone into action against Croat units in October 1999. That's entirely plausible.
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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
As for IV Corps, it's stated in the write ups for the 76th and 80th Divisions as already being in country in 1998.
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That's not in dispute.
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Originally Posted by Rainbow Six
The only way that's consistent with the HQ element of IV Corps arriving in 1999 is if the rest of IV Corps deployed in 1998 without its HQ element (and then waited for a year for its HQ element to arrive).
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Not necessarily. Two light infantry divisions does not a corps make. If they were sent to support the Yugoslavian army's drive into Hungary in mid-1998, it's entirely possible that intention was to place the two US divisions under Yugoslavian command for the duration of the offensive. As it turned out, they couldn't link up with the Yugoslavs. There's really no reason that they couldn't still operate for a year or so without a dedicated corps HQ.
My reasoning is that, after the Yugoslavian gov't recognizes CivGov's legitimacy in the Spring of 1999 (as per the v.1 history), CivGov decides to lay claim to the two US divisions stuck in Yugoslavia, thus solidifying CivGov's presence in SE Europe, so it sends along a Corps HQ when it dispatches 42nd ID to Europe as reinforcements in the autumn of '99.
The v.1 history states, "In the autumn [of 1999], the dispatch of troops to Europe resumed, although only as a trickle. Initiated by the civilian government... the call-ups affected only the Atlantic coast..."
The 42nd ID checks off all of those boxes. Atlantic Coast- check; deployed by CivGov- check; arrived Autumn '99- check. AFAIK, it's the only US division in the US Army Vehicle Guide mentioned as being deployed to Europe, by CivGov, in late 1999. It all fits, but for that one typo. It's all circumstantial, but the majority of the evidence supports 1999 as being the correct date.
It may not be pretty, but it all lines up.
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