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Old 03-26-2016, 02:53 PM
mpipes mpipes is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainbow Six View Post
Have you given any thought as to who would a) train and b) provide a leadership cadre (primarily junior officers / NCO's) for these quarter of a million conscripts?


You mean the United Kingdom, of which England is just one constituent part, not the only constituent part. It is a source of annoyance to some of us who live in parts of the UK other than England when England is used to refer to the whole country.

In case my view isn't clear, I think the Australian orbat in the opening past is far too big. I seem to recall a similar conversation taking place about the British Army some years ago and the same arguments applied.
Same as in WWII, the top 5% and oldest of the graduating group stays behind to train the next. Most of the US pilot trainers in WWII were the top students from the previous batch. In Russia, for example, new trainee tank drivers were mated up with an experienced ones. After a week, you had a new trained tank driver going into battle.

You don't worry about the small stuff; you churn out guys with basic skills and that is good enough. As I said, Germany found it could churn out an infantry division in about 8 weeks in 1944. That division was not as well trained as a 1940 division, but they could man defensive position and effectively engage a veteran Allied division.

You are fundamentally missing the point. When a nation has to churn out an army, generally it rises to the occasion and does so. They don't care if he can fold his underwear the army way, they care if he can shoot his gun and keep it functioning. Why do you think the Russian's came up with the idiot-proof AK-47? So they did not have to spend two weeks training him how to shoot it and maintain it. True, todays armies are more technical, but in the end, all they really need to know is how to shoot. Its not a particularly elegant way to run a war, but the reality in a T2k world is to churn out replacements. You eliminate as much of the training syllabus as you can and get that warm body into the replacement pool.

Australia would be no different in 1990. Want oil? You damn well better get troops to the middle East to keep it flowing. China and Russia going at it, you better get troops to Korea and Hong Kong to hopefully keep the war contained.

Australia's war plans had troops deploying for a Pacific war involving China or the USSR in 1990. That is simply reality (I know cause I was in on some of the transportation plans for USAF C-141s). You can find unclassified info if you look hard enough, but I can tell you that a 10 division contribution from ANZAC was not an unrealistic expectation. The UK mobilization plans were actually larger than what was listed in the game as were Germany's. Germany expected to have well over 20 divisions at the six month point and I do know that the UK was expected to double the size of the army as well. Remember, for all of NATO, everyone discharged/retired within the previous seven years was being recalled to active duty. That generally gives you a 50% increase in the size of your military right there....fully trained too. Or more accurately in many cases, your training contingent.

Last edited by mpipes; 03-26-2016 at 03:49 PM.
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