In-Theatre Training for Combat Replacements

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

With the Army and Marine Corps baying for combat replacements, could the Navy, now sans most of its surface fleet and aerial assets, make a strong enough case to hold on to its beached personnel to convice the JCS (or CivGov alternative) to keep their hands off its people?

I would think that's doubtful. Most of the differentiation between the services today is political in nature. Take out the politicians, and reduce the power and influence of the navy and air force and the army will likely get anything and everything they want, at least in Europe. The Navy and Air Force personnel will be dependant on the army to keep them safe and supplied and it could be expected that the army wouldn't be adverse to using a little "blackmail" from time to time to get their own way - you give us 100 men and we'll feed you....

The main issue here is that come 1998 and the collapse of the US government, the military holds the reins. The Politicians are either dead, out of contact, or simply irrelevant to what's going on in the war zones. Come 1999 when the supplies from CONUS have stopped even the most loyal soldier will have to be thinking twice about paying more than lip service to whatever "power" is attempting to guide what's going on.

Even without those factors, the complete lack of replacement shipping any time in the forseeable future makes holding back manpower for active duty completely absurd. That is true whether they're used on the front lines as combat replacements, or behind the lines as MPs, logisitics, etc.

[pmulcahy11b]

There may be actual training programs in some or even many places, but I'm thinking that in a lot of places it would be like the words from an old 10000 Maniacs song:

"Stock and barrel, safety, trigger, here's your gun..."

[Legbreaker]

It's worth remembering that military units by 2000 are made up of people from all walks of life and nationality. Take the US 2nd MARDIV for example - after the 2000 actions they had troops from seven different countries and you can bet many more military arms.

The character generation rules for all versions support multiple origins and minimal retraining also. I'm sure that for an operation such as the 2000 offensive as much preparation would have been done as possible, but with the chaos that ensued after the kickoff and subsequent Pact counteroffensive, whatever the situation was after a month of action would have little relationship to what was beforehand.

Getting back to the TF Inchon idea, my guess is that roughly half of those in Elblag would not be actual marines, but stragglers form the US 8th ID, a handful of locals, a few Pact deserters/collaborators and the rest beached sailors (either intentionally as seabees, etc or shipwrecked).

[Raellus]

@Leg & ArmySGT.- You both make good points about Marine logistics units being freed up for use as combat infantry replacements by USN personnel taking over their support roles. I guess a good number of my TF Inchon infantry Marines will be ex-pencil pushers, cooks, drivers, etc.

My guess is that these folks would receive some kind of in-theatre refresher training. I'm trying to figure out what this would look like.

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Getting back to the TF Inchon idea, my guess is that roughly half of those in Elblag would not be actual marines, but stragglers form the US 8th ID, a handful of locals, a few Pact deserters/collaborators and the rest beached sailors (either intentionally as seabees, etc or shipwrecked).

Maybe after the PACT counteroffensive (if the siege lasts for more than a few days), but the "fresh" TF Inchon as I've envisioned is a reinforced Marine infantry battalion (rather understrength by pre-war standards) tasked with both seizing the Elblag canal bridges for the 8th ID and holding the left flank of 2 MarDiv.

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.p...ation+limerick

[Legbreaker]

I agree, the initial plan would certainly have called for properly trained and (hopefully) equipped marines probably supported by naval engineers and logisitics. Once it all started to come apart at the seams however all bets were off.

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Raellus

@Leg & ArmySGT.- You both make good points about Marine logistics units being freed up for use as combat infantry replacements by USN personnel taking over their support roles. I guess a good number of my TF Inchon infantry Marines will be ex-pencil pushers, cooks, drivers, etc.

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.p...ation+limerick

Rae.. remember the first thing a Marine 'crut is told.. EVERY MARINE IS A RIFLEMAN FIRST... unlike the Army and other services, the Marines would have much less problem transitioning their REMFs into combat Marines.