Belize

[Olefin]

If you look at Belize you have the following there for sure in the 90's

BATSUB - British Army Training Support Unit Belize

- 70 soldiers acting as trainers for both the British Army and the Belize Defense Force

- 25 Flight Army Air Corps - two Westland Gazelles and two Westland Lynx - which included a detachment of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME0 to perform maintenance - based at the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport in Belize

the British battalion and the Harriers left in 1994 but with the V1 timeline you could see them still there - or possibly re-deployed as the war started if the Soviets tried to destabilize the country with guerrillas as they did in Africa

also could be soldiers there as well going thru the training that got stranded there after the TDM and the strikes on Britain at least until they could arrange transport to get home

[lordroel]

Originally Posted by Olefin

the British battalion and the Harriers left in 1994 but with the V1 timeline you could see them still there - or possibly re-deployed as the war started if the Soviets tried to destabilize the country with guerrillas as they did in Africa

Could a Territorial Army of the British Army not be deployed in Belize freeing the regular army battalion for combat use.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by lordroel

Could a Territorial Army of the British Army not be deployed in Belize freeing the regular army battalion for combat use.

Short answer is yes.

Problem is where said TA Battalion would come from. In the V1 timeline the TA Battalions were tasked with either reinforcing the British Army of the Rhine or United Kingdom Home Defence. There were no "spare" TA Battalions available so to redeploy one to Belize would mean pulling it from one of those two areas.

You'd have to ask the question as to how important Belize would be in the overall scheme of things - would it warrant pulling a Battalion from Germany or the UK? I doubt it very much - best case would probably be a reinforced Company.

In the V2 timeline there would have been even less TA Battalions.

(Obviously the above is based on RL TA deployments - if you opt to have hypothetical regular / TA Battalions raised during the course of the War in your T2K world it becomes more possible)

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

Short answer is yes.

Problem is where said TA Battalion would come from. In the V1 timeline the TA Battalions were tasked with either reinforcing the British Army of the Rhine or United Kingdom Home Defence. There were no "spare" TA Battalions available so to redeploy one to Belize would mean pulling it from one of those two areas.

You'd have to ask the question as to how important Belize would be in the overall scheme of things - would it warrant pulling a Battalion from Germany or the UK? I doubt it very much - best case would probably be a reinforced Company.

In the V2 timeline there would have been even less TA Battalions.

(Obviously the above is based on RL TA deployments - if you opt to have hypothetical regular / TA Battalions raised during the course of the War in your T2K world it becomes more possible)

I would think that if there was a battalion there it would have been one going thru jungle training and it got stuck there in place having to defend Belize when transport collapsed - much like the TA that got sent to the Falklands ended up sitting out the war and afterward there

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I would think that if there was a battalion there it would have been one going thru jungle training and it got stuck there in place having to defend Belize when transport collapsed - much like the TA that got sent to the Falklands ended up sitting out the war and afterward there

Do you mean a Regular or TA Battalion?

If Regular it's possible, although I have my doubts as to whether a Regular Battalion would be sent for jungle training if war clouds are gathering in Europe.

The chances of a TA Battalion being sent for jungle training are slim to nil (unless you are butterflying some major changes to the British Army's organisation / structure). As I said, TA Battalions all had a designated role and jungle warfare didn't feature in that.

I'd forgotten about the TA being sent to the Falklands. SO that's even less Battalions to go around. I'd also suggest it's likely that at least one TA Battalion may have gone to Cyprus (Cyprus would have been the most logical place for the Infantry Battalion the MEFF (1/KOSB) to have come from. I am doing all of this from memory but iirc in a V1 timeline there were usually two Battalions in Cyprus (not including UN forces), one of which was designated as the standby Battalion for any Middle Eastern deployment. So if 1/KOSB did come from Cyprus it's possible a TA Battalion may have backfilled for them.)

[Olefin]

You are right on the TA battalion as to jungle training - so perhaps all that was there was the BATSUB guys including the helo flight (plus of course the Belize Defense Force)

[Rainbow Six]

I think any large scale British presence depends on whether or not you have the 1990's era withdrawals happening in your game world. If you don't and you posit that the UK maintains a Regular Army Battalion in country right up to the start of the Twilight War it's feasible that said Battalion then stayed in situ - whilst it could be moved prior to Autumn 1997 you could argue there weren't the available logistics to do so and then post autumn 1997 it simply isn't possible.

IIRC the British Army orbat in the NATO Vehicle Guide and the official UK Survivor's Guide omits a number of Infantry Battalions - from memory several Guards Battalions and 1st Battalion Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters - so possible one of them was the resident Belize Battalion

Or you could go with the Regular Battalion being replaced with a TA Battalion as a backfill measure. As I said earlier, I think that's perfectly plausible, but the powers that be in London would have to accept that would leave a shortfall elsewhere - so you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.

If you posit that the 1990's withdrawals did take place - e.g. if Belize and Guatemala reached an accord as they did IRL - I can't see any way that there would be any sort of subsequent reinforcement at the start of the War if the Guatemalans started sabre rattling. Given geopolitical considerations elsewhere, once the resident Battalion is gone it would stay gone - troops would be badly needed elsewhere. You might see a token force - as I said earlier, some sort of reinforced Infantry Company, Regular or TA - to augment the BATSUB staff but that would be it.