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Old 03-21-2016, 11:03 PM
RN7 RN7 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan View Post
Completely and utterly insane. I mean maybe given 10 years of build-up, but forming multiple new armoured and infantry divisions essentially out of nothing? In the space of a couple of years? Where would all the equipment come from?

Australia's Regular Army, even today, is pretty modest in size but reasonably well equipped and extremely well trained. A major component of Australia's on-paper Army are reserve units that are just shells with a few companies actually operating in peacetime. Australia, particularly the Australia of the mid-1990s, might seem rich and it is big geographically, but the population was only about 18 million in 1995.

There is no way that Australia would suddenly triple or quadruple the size of its army in the space of a couple of years and then send the bulk of it to the Middle East. Pure fantasy.

I'd have to totally agree.

Britain which was one of the major powers in the Twilight War could only manage to field six divisions, plus a number of brigades and regiments after full mobilisation. Australia with about one third of the population of Britain and a considerably smaller arms industry has an army close to three times the size.

The Australian Army does have a useful air mobility capability and its special forces component is quite large for the relative size of its army. But the modern Australian Army (2016) is not that much different in size to what it was in the 1990's, and is basically the equivalent of one US infantry division plus some regiments of various types. Add the reserves and you have another light infantry division which would likely be organised into a few light infantry brigades and the odd regiment. So two divisions plus some independent regiments after mobilisation at most

So if we say that Australia introduces conscription to raise an army of that size, which incidentally the US, Britain and other Western countries never did in Twilight 2000, Australia might be able to raise an army as big as this. But arming and equipping it and then sending entire divisions overseas and supporting them? I don't think so.
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