Overseas Units and Family

[kalos72]

So after posting my article, or whatever you call it, and discussing it some with a few people, the question came up about family ties.

If I unit is stationed in an area for a long time, how much would that affect its loyalty to its government or command?

After reading the Kenya Orbit, what would that unit do if a freighter pulled into port and said "we are here to bring back to the US now, hop on"? Assuming of course it was legitimate, could be trusted or proven as direct orders and they fit.

[kalos72]

Anything thoughts on this?

[headquarters]

In our campaign we had a faction called MilGov ASIA - in lack of a better name for it - it was the remnants of all the overseas personell and their families/campfollowers from the multitude of postings overseas that had some of them - come together in sort of an umbrellla unit that coordinated a push to evacuate to the west coast -and the invasion of said coast .

In this campaign , interamarriage with the local population and the sheer power of the US military presence had made strange constallations politically , with some US troops as second generation exiles now fighting for a land they had never put foot on .

Also local govs were to some extent reliant on the power of the Yanks to uphold the balance of power in the specific region.

Specifically the Koreans and parts of Japan were aligned with the MilGov faction and supplied them with commodities in exchange for continued military support .

Some units were hodgepodges of nationalities that had sworn allegiance and signed the articles to join.

The relatively sudden mass exodus was not appreciated by all , and in some cases units chose to stay in cantonment and carry on as more or less a colony or a Diadochtian fief you might say ,like Ptolomayan Egypt .
( a powerful faction or elite of foreigners that impose their rule on the native population with a distinct cultural difference -and then over time slowly melding to something inbetween the two ).

[pmulcahy11b]

I think people would find it disturbing how little attention is given to getting the families of servicemen/women, or noncombatants in general, out of the way. I've been out of the loop at that level for a while, so I don't know how they handle it now, but it used to be a sort of "jam them on whatever plane or ship is available," approach, and every family has a bug-out bag ready.

You might also have a situation like Saigon in 1975 -- you have to fight off civilians who you don't intend to evacuate (or even allied personnel). Families might have a really hard time trying to get to evac points. And remember, airfields are major targets in the opening hours of just about every World War 3 scenario. In Sir John Hackett's The Third World War, there is a very ugly scene about a plane full of evacuating families going down at an airfield in Germany (IIRC, after a nearby MRL rocket hit while the plane was taking off -- been a while since I read it). That's bound to have a major effect on morale.

One player I in a game I GMed once played a 20-year-old girl (by 2000) who was a US dependent at the beginning of the Twilight War. The player had the PC driven by a determination to find her father -- she already seen the rest of her family in Germany die. Interesting character workup process there...

[Abbott Shaull]

In the book "Team Yankee" here was a part about getting dependents out of Germany and how some almost didn't make it.

[Legbreaker]

Seems to me that there's more info on how little effort is given on getting dependants out than on anything else. It's therefore logical (although maybe not correct) to assume most would stay where they are, at least in the early stages of the war when the front is a long way off (the Nato drive in 96-97 for example where western forces made it all the way to Russia).

Once the tide turned, it may still have been some time before anyone thought they could be in danger. Tac nuke use may have caused a few to flee, but again, in the early stages this was restricted to pretty much just the front lines.

In my view, wholesale fleeing probably wouldn't have been a priority until the first long range strikes on non-military targets. Panic may have set in a lot earlier, but as the time from first nuke to long range strikes was in the order of months rather than days or weeks, many who previously fled probably had returned home, just to flee again at the next scare....

By the time the front in Europe had been pushed back across most of Poland and Germany was under threat, chances are it was too late to go much further than the nearest hills. Fleeing back to the US at that stage was probably about as possible as going to the moon.

Until Omega and TF 34 came along...

How many civilians, not directly associated with the military or either US government would be trying to get on board? I'm thinking of the evacuation of Saigon in the last days of Us involvement and the seens of complete chaos we've all seen.

It is my view the perimeter troops would be holding back hordes of refugees all looking for a space on board a rusty old ship. Probably not too much of an issue while there were thousands of troops still there, but I wouldn't want to be amongst the final handful!

[kalos72]

Thats some great insight there Jester thanks. I might be able to use that as a whole new plot line.

Family gets shipped back to the US...lands in Mayport Naval base...a nuke just misses Mayport. Road trip to Mayport it is.