29th Infantry Division

[dragoon500ly]

Believe me James, tracking down TO&Es and when a certain piece of equipment reached the troops is enough to drive one gray-headed (or watching reruns of Charmed!).

My own take on the 29th was it going to the Persian Gulf and getting creamed in the fighting following Operation Pegasus II, it was then pulling rear area security and LOC security duties.

[James1978]

The 29th was formed as a Light division when it was reformed in the 1980s and as of 1989, it was the only Light division on the National Guard. So shouldn't any armor battalion have been equipped with the M8/LAV75/whatever? Or is the M48/M60 a plus up to the division to give it some more firepower/staying power?

I'm enjoying your work, so please keep them coming.

[Legbreaker]

Perhaps the newer vehicles were allocated to the "professional" military units first and only the older vehicles were available?

[James1978]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Perhaps the newer vehicles were allocated to the "professional" military units first and only the older vehicles were available?

That's an explanation I can easily buy.

I guess my issue/question comes from the fact as a Light division, why did it have an M60 battalion in the first place?

[HorseSoldier]

The division isn't really missing from the T2K order of battle. It's component units are just under different flags, so adding it to the order of battle is double-dipping units in the 26th and 46th IDs in the T2K order of battle.

Unless the colors for 29th are posited as being attached to a unit mobilized after the war begins, as was suggested up thread, then it seems to me that it can only exist at the expense of 26th or 46th IDs in the order of battle, and would most likely just take their place in Korea or California. Excess brigades from whichever of those units gets the axe could be posited as filling in for the 6th and 10th ID(L) round out brigades and the brigade for the Iceland Defense Force, all of which are also missing from the order of battle (or, more precisely, slated in other units as well -- 42nd and 43rd ID).

[kota1342000]

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

The division isn't really missing from the T2K order of battle. It's component units are just under different flags, so adding it to the order of battle is double-dipping units in the 26th and 46th IDs in the T2K order of battle.

Absolutely true Horse, and Im terrible about double dipping for additional order of battle stuff. But I try to make up for it by either explaining what had happened to the original parent units of the component brigades, or building new formations out of the pool of inactive colors.

[pmulcahy11b]

One thing I do every so often when I come up with the "Twilight 2000 Notes" part of my descriptions on my site is incorporate a little story about how some unit got some equipment it shouldn't have had, or just say that a certain vehicle "somehow" ended up at a certain unit (I assign a lot of unusual vehicles to the TX ARNG's 49th AD that way -- as much as I love the Army, I had a good time in the Guard and learned a lot of valuable stuff from those old veterans that came in handy the whole time I was in the Army). Or the little story, I think it's under the SAR-80 in Singaporean Assault Rifles, about the mysterious raid on Soviet submarine pens at Cam Ranh Bay early in the war. Sometimes, you can just through some unusual equipment, weapons, or vehicles at a unit, and when necessary, figure out later where they came from. Too much winging is bad, but a little bit of winging it doesn't really hurt, and can be used to throw a little mystery at the players.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by James1978

The 29th was formed as a Light division when it was reformed in the 1980s and as of 1989, it was the only Light division on the National Guard. So shouldn't any armor battalion have been equipped with the M8/LAV75/whatever? Or is the M48/M60 a plus up to the division to give it some more firepower/staying power?

I'm enjoying your work, so please keep them coming.

To be accurate a Light Infantry Division in the '80s would not have any armor assigned at all. Their only antitank systems would be the Dragons of the line companies, the Hummer/TOWs of the nine Combat Support Companies and the attack helicopters in their air cav sqn and attack helicopter battalion.

The concept of a LID at the time, was to be very mobile in a strategic sense, everything it had could be airlifted via C-5/C-141. The proud boost was on the ground anywhere in the world in 72 hours. And to be fair, they could it.

It was intended for the LID to be used only in circumstances when a heavy division could not be employed, i.e. urban/jungle/mountain warfare. They would be reinforced, if necessary, by various NG infantry divisions. And initial plans were to form only 2 and perhaps 3 LIDs in addition to the 82nd/101st or 5 lights out of 17 divisions.

So why did the AUS form the 6th, 7th, 10th and 25th LIDs, not to mention the 9th Motorized? Congress can be thanked for that. It was cheaper to field a light fighter than it was to field heavy troops. They didn't require the support structure as well. A real cheap way to field large numbers of soldiers and free up money for the various social programs......

This ignored the fact that LIDs, while strategically far more mobile than the heavies, have the tactical mobility of a World War One doughboy, you can only march so far and so fast on foot. And in every single exercise in which the lights went up against heavies in which the lights did not have a terrain advantage....the lights had their arses handed to them. And even some of the exercises where the lights had the terrain advantage, it was umpire decisions that gave them the victory (COMEON! A Dragon will not knock out a M-1 at 2,500 meters!!!!).

It was at this point that the great LAV-75/RDF Light Tank/M-8 AGS started. The intent was to introduce a good light tank/mobile gun system and equip each LID with 1-2 battalions to give them more firepower. With the end of these programs, that gave the push to go Stryker. And so the Light Fighter experiment ended.

[HorseSoldier]

And, to be fair, in the 80s you had a lot of people prepping to refight Vietnam in Central America on the one hand, and the Reagan administration pushing for specific end state goals in the force structure. Back in those days, the targets were X number of divisions and Y number of ships in the navy, etc.

[James Langham]

Rewritten version incorporating a lot of Kota's history. As ever comments welcome.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

This thread has given me another couple of quotes

[schnickelfritz]

I might suggest the substitution of the M4A3E8 for the listed M4A4E8. The M4A4 was the version powered by the Chrysler Multibank engine...essentially 5 Chrysler car V-8's harnessed together. This was done due to the shortage of engines for the Sherman tank. Most were "given" to our Allies under Lend-Lease. There is one intrepid soul in the UK that has restored one to working order.

They were a maintenance nightmare, for obvious reasons.

I am unaware of the M4A4 used to make an E8 model, although the British did use them to make Firefly Shermans, from what I've seen.

The M4A3 series were powered by the same Ford V-8 used in the M-26 Pershing.

A suggestion might be to use M-46 or M-47 Patton tanks...I see a lot of them at local (Chicago, IL) area veterans halls (VFW, etc) that have armor on display. I believe the 90mm on the M-46/M-47 is ballistically similar to the 90mm in the earlier versions of the M-48, simplifying the supply chain. To be honest, I cannot envision a scenario where 76mm ammo for a M4A3E8 would still exist in the US and not be past the rated shelf life.

Also demilitarized M26/46/47 tanks could (especially a company or two, maybe a battalion) be restored to working order with a variety of parts from the M48A3 and M48A5 (power plant, armament/fire control/commo, etc).

Another thought might be to include some "Duster" 40mm AA vehicles as NG leftovers. I know those appear in some of the Challenge Magazine material.

Just a thought-
Dave