Conscript Armies

[HorseSoldier]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

I'd like to mount a small historical defense of the oft-maligned Army replacement system. In WW2, the individual replacements often were casualties within 24 hours of arriving, often after spending many boring days or weeks in a replacement depot with little or no training. The defense of the system is that the US Army was able to keep its divisions in the line constantly at an effective (not full) strength, hardly ever having to withdraw them for replenishment. [Which was good, since Ike almost never had any reserve divisions to replace shot-out ones on the line.]

The system used in Vietnam is usually critiqued even more vigorously -- the individual replacement system on 12 month rotations undermined unit cohesion, fostered an every man for himself angle, and so on and so forth.

I recently reread The 13th Valley by John DelVecchio which, though fiction, is based on his service with the 101st late in the war (70 or 71). One of the characters in the book talks or thinks about the strength of the Vietnam era system, since cherries coming into a unit are always guaranteed to be surrounded by experienced guys, and get the benefit of in country finishing school sort of training programs run by their divisions. Same character contrasts this with units that deployed in country as new units and collectively suffered higher casualties because so few knew the basics of survival on the battlefield in SVN.

Anyway, interesting different point of view to encounter compared to the conventional wisdom all of us got fed during the volunteer army era. Makes me wonder if a bigger issue weren't other aspects of military personnel policy back then that undermined small unit leadership (shake and bake NCO academies, rotating officers from the line to staff jobs halfway through their tours).

[Adm.Lee]

I forgot: I recommend The GI Offensive by Col. Peter Mansoor to look at how under-rated the US infantry may have been in the ETO.

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

The system used in Vietnam is usually critiqued even more vigorously -- the individual replacement system on 12 month rotations undermined unit cohesion, fostered an every man for himself angle, and so on and so forth.
...

Anyway, interesting different point of view to encounter compared to the conventional wisdom all of us got fed during the volunteer army era. Makes me wonder if a bigger issue weren't other aspects of military personnel policy back then that undermined small unit leadership (shake and bake NCO academies, rotating officers from the line to staff jobs halfway through their tours).

Again, we're talking late-war vs. early-war situations. As I said earlier, in the WW2 ETO, most divisions and regiments learned that they had to acclimate their replacements themselves, and were doing so after the winter of 1944-45. In Vietnam, this was done regularly, but by late in the war, the leadership cadre was exhausted, and reduced to undertrained and underexperienced leaders. I recommend Death of an American Army by Shelby Stanton, to address this.

Both of which have led to the current system, which tries to keep whole units together for a rotation. That, of course, brings up its own criticisms, which I'm going to avoid.

While the Army Air Forces were able to rotate bomber crews home after 25 missions,

Which was raised to 35, and then 50 missions in 1944, BTW. And it wasn't whole crews, it was done on an individual basis, too. The crew of the "Memphis Belle" was celebrated because they were the first complete crew to finish a 25-mission tour. And those crewmen, once returned, often were given a training tour, followed by a second combat tour.

That the US Army used the replacement system in the manner that they did, was a utter disgrace. And nothing was learned. The same system was used again in Korea and again in Vietnam.

I contend that things were learned, and elements of the system that did not work were addressed for 1945, as well as during Korea and Vietnam. There were processes to integrate replacements into platoons and companies during time off the line, unless there was some emergency.

Going back to the original issue, I suspect the US (as well as the Germanies and many others) started conscription to generate replacements in the winter of '96-97, and continued into '98. After that, replacements for the NATO front line would have to come from comb-outs of the rear. IMC, I think there should be a major "Blue to Green" initiative, drafting or asking for volunteers from the Navy and AF to support the Army.

[Canadian Army]

Here is what I came up with:

Canadian Zombies during the Twilight War

ZOM·BIE; A derogatory nickname used by Canadian volunteers during the Twilight War to describe Conscripts.

When Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced on October 10, 1996, that Canada had declared war on USSR, he also took care to say, “The government did not believe conscription (a draft of men and woman) for the Canadian Armed Forces would not be necessary. No such conscription or draft will be enacted by this government.”

There was an initial surge of volunteers; within six months, over 20,000 men and women had joined the Canadian Armed Forces, and the 1st Canadian Division [Mechanized] embarked for West Germany to aid its defence. One month later, in November, 1996, the Warsaw Pact forces counterattack against Germany, and there was a real possibility Netherlands would also be overwhelmed. NATO demanded that Ottawa should demonstrate a fuller wartime commitment. But imposing military conscription would create serious domestic problems for the Liberal Party. It had been elected in 1993 and election time was fast approaching. Any conscription laws could hamper the re-election of the Liberal Party. After NATO’s General mobilization was declared, Canada was the only country in NATO that did not enact conscript laws, and relied solely on volunteers. The same policy had built an army during World War I, World War II, and the Korea War; while violent opposition to conscription had created a huge political problem during World War I and World War II for the Liberal Party. Chrétien knew something had to be devised that would both address the concerns of NATO and mollify Canadians reluctance to be conscription into Military Service.

As an experience parliamentarian, Chrétien help drafted the National Mobilization Act which gave the government “special emergency powers to mobilize all human resources for the defence of Canada”. He made a dramatic speech to the Commons when introducing the bill on 18 December, 1996 during a special session, saying, "The National Mobilization Act will relate solely and exclusively to the defence of Canada on our own soil and in our own territorial waters” Chrétien added that national service registration would be held and that this registration will have nothing to do with recruiting citizens for overseas service.” About 100,000 draftees were summoned for training in camps all across the country.

In 1997, after North Korea invaded South Korea, PM Chrétien called a special House of Commons vote on whether to amend the NMA in order to send NMA men overseas. The House of Commons voted 235 in favour, with 65 against. Though this majority vote gave Chrétien clear permission to order “Zombies” off to join the fighting, Chrétien like his predecessors was still reluctant to alienate Quebec voters, and simply shelved issue until the next session.

In 1997, United States forces began engaging Soviet forces in the Bering Straits of Alaska. As the territory was part of North America, within the designated "home defence area," a two divisions of NMA soldiers were directed to support ‘Operation Artic Thunder’ – US X Corps in Alaska. Though there were scores of temporary desertions, most NMA troops embarked to CFB Chilliwhack without incident in August, 1997, bound for a combat zone after all. The Canadians suffered over 15,000 dead during the fight for Alaska, and later British Columbia, before Soviet forces were contained.

By 1997, during final stages of the war, Canadians fighting in Europe felt a severe lack of trained replacements for their heavy casualties. Complaints by NATO mounted, increasing demands that “Zombies” be sent into combat. Jean Chrétien at long last reluctantly decided to order 5,000 NMA conscripts overseas. The first conscript infantrymen sent overseas arrived in Europe on February 23, 2000. About 2,500 of them took part in 3rd German Army’s; with the XI US Corps assisting, offensive into northern Poland, to clear the Baltic coast as far as the mouth of the Wisla River. Ninety-nine NMA were killed in action before the all Canadian soldiers were order evacuated form the European continent on September 28, 2000.

Upon returning to Canada and until 2008; at which point the National Mobilization Act was repealed; “Zombies” performed more mundane duties, such as Internal Security, Border Patrol, and Aid to Civil Power and left the all of fighting in Quebec and West to regular and volunteer forces, and never again saw an active combat role.

[HorseSoldier]

Looks pretty good to me.

[helbent4]

CA,

That's an awesome write-up. I'd like to borrow from that to flesh out the background of my ongoing campaign (based loosely on "The River") and set in the Lower Mainland.

Tony