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Old 04-07-2012, 07:48 AM
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Panther Al Panther Al is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker View Post
The US units which stayed in Europe either didn't have a choice (the cut off XI Corps) or essentially muntinied and refused to obey orders. Some smaller units did stay with official sanction, but the withdrawal order was essentially all encompassing.

The Tarawa declaring for Civgov? Very unlikely since floating it's such a huge resource, deep in a Milgov area in mid 2000. You can bet Milgov would do EVERYTHING in it's power to prevent such an occurrence. As far as I'm aware, the ship supports the US Marines - no US marines declared for Civgov. It's very likely that even after delivering troops a decent complement of Marines stayed aboard.

As it's conventionally fueled, it's not about to join the Yugoslavian units either - it would be left all alone in the middle of a hostile situation. There's almost no possibility of fuel being available from any source.

Additionally, even if it was to mutiny and somehow get to Yugoslavia, it still has to face the "might" of the remaining Italian and Greek navies. Obviously Civgov had some naval assets when it deployed units there, but how effective are they by late 2000? Could they really have the necessary fuel, ammunition and surviving crew to sortie out to escort the Tarawa all the way, or even part of the way?

No, to me the by far most logical fate of the Tarawa is either sunk, beached or critically damaged somewhere in the Baltic as a result of Pact resistance to the Spring Offensive.

Others are entitled to have a different view, however careful examination of the published materials appears to support this assessment.
Um, On the top bit I disagree with you on this.


I broke out going home, and started up with the pencil and paper to run the numbers.

The units that basically said to hell with it, and went off on their own amounts to only 2700 troops and 14 AFV's, in three units. The largest being made up of 2000/6 setting up a little pocket duchy in the Austrian Alps.

The units that remained in the chain of command, that elected to stay behind - and considering where over half of them are, (We are not talking about 11th Corp here, this is 4th Army, 3 Corp, and 13th Corp) Germany Proper, with the largest single unit being 1Cav with 2400/43 located right in the middle of organised (Well, TW2k sense of organised) Germany. Admittedly, a small portion of 1600 men and 14 AFV's fall under German Command being that they are co-located and assigned as a NATO unit to a German Higher Headquarters. Those two units could be argued either way as if they are running from the Chain of Command, or abiding by it since technically, they don't fall under the Omega Authority. The total staying behind in the chain amounts to 13,000 Men, and 121 AFV's. This amounts to roughly a third of US forces in Europe - and that many wouldn't stay behind without Official Sanction. Now those in my first Para - yeah. They fall into what you said about mutinous units and all.

Of course, that leaves 37,300 men heading out, and 231 AFV's being handed over to the German Army (Which I can just see the German High Command jumping for joy over - thats enough AFV's to bring a Panzer Division up from nothing to full strength and then some!). Which brings up a interesting point: If you have to choose who your guys belonged to that headed to the RDF, 5 Corp is the way to go. According to Going Home 5 Corp not only seems to have its shit together much better than a lot of the others, they do amount to a total of 7000 troops. Subtract those that are in no condition to stay in the army, this is a perfect formation to get seconded to the middle east.
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Last edited by Panther Al; 04-07-2012 at 07:53 AM.
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