Headcount in 2000 Formations

[Tegyrius]

One question I have regarding consolidation is unit identity, heritage, and heraldry as they support unit morale and cohesion. At what level, if any, would commanders deem it necessary to retain prewar designations as a tool to help maintain unity and loyalty? Would "we're 1st Platoon, B Company, 3-143 Infantry" still invoke any sense of pride or purpose for the squad-sized collection of survivors and replacements?

- C.

[castlebravo92]

I imagine that by 2000, there's probably very little difference between ex-military unit "marauders" and military units in practice besides notional affiliation to a higher HQ with military units. Notional because, even when military units remain "loyal", higher HQ can't really help them and they can't help HQ.

Does anyone think that by June 2000, US forces in Europe are getting any troops or supplies from the US?

Nope. They are living off of the "land". In the cantonments, they would be THE government with dictatorial powers - able to draft and direct civilian labor to do anything required. In some areas under some leadership, this would likely be a pretty benign dictatorship - the military unit(s) providing security, organization, and potentially reconstruction to a community or a group of communities. In other cases, it would be just as predatory as any other marauder group (and indeed, you can see this is the case with the 43rd Military Police Brigade in "The Last Submarine").

That being said, force levels are way too small (except maybe in contested Europe) to really control *anything*. For example, in Howling Wilderness, it's claimed that Colorado has 90% of it's pre-war population (so, ~4 million people). MilGov has 4,400 troops + 2,000 militia levies attached to the 100th ID in Colorado. That's...not enough.

For example, in 2023, Dallas has 3100 sworn police officers in the DPD for a population of 1.3 million (or ~425 people per sworn officer). Note, this doesn't count Dallas County SO or suburbs. Just DPD. MilGov has 6400 troops for 4,000,000 people, or 1 per 625 people. Dallas in 2023 is, all things considered, relatively peaceful. So...it's not enough to even "police" Denver, much less control and defend all of Colorado, much less anything else.

So the way I like to think of the book units is like the Roman comitatenses in the late empire. The last vestiges of the pre-war military trained and organized along pre-war TO&E with pre-war equipment and capable of maneuver (at least, maybe capable of maneuver). Not listed are the limitanei equivalent - the large militia contingent (which, for Colorado would be 200,000+ men and women) which would be locally raised and locally equipped with little to no training and variable experience. In some areas - particularly downstream from the reconstituted armories in Colorado Springs (and the equivalent organized areas in Europe), equipment of these militia units might be quite good - military small arms and light infantry support weapons (mortars, grenades, maybe some rocket launchers), but in most cases it would be men and women with mostly civilian rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and in some cases - worse (bows, sharp sticks, rocks...).

The demise (mostly) of mechanization for farming would mean that subsistence farming would be the norm. Today an acre of wheat will yield an average of 37.1 bushels of wheat or 1200 man days equivalent of food in calories (that's with modern fertilizers and pesticides) - or enough food to feed 3.3 people for a year. A person can farm 1-3 acres without animal labor or mechanization. So if yields are halved with the demise of fertilizer and pesticides, 2 adults could barely feed themselves and an (unproductive) child. There would be very little capacity for surplus, even with almost everyone farming, and so those 200,000+ militia would be needed locally to farm at least during sowing and harvest season.

Conversely, military units themselves would be all tooth AND all tail. Hardly anyone would have the luxury of being a pure 11B (infantryman) or 92G (culinary specialist)...and during non-operational phases would likely be planting and harvesting crops, felling trees, reloading ammo, scrounging, working construction, machining tools, or any number of sundry tasks a community would need - probably not unlike what happens today in North Korea. So we would be back to antiquity where armies could only campaign during limited periods of the year. Mobilization for war would mean that at least some of the population would starve at home/

For stateside scenarios though, what that also means is that neither MilGov nor CivGov has the maneuver forces necessary to conquer much of anything by force. A decent sized refugee camp can turn out as many fighters as any remaining US "division".

Operationally speaking, 2000 is probably the end year (for a decade or two) for high tempo military operations anywhere outside of areas of French involvement, and even the 2000 offensives used carefully husbanded supplies for one last hurrah.

[Heffe]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

I imagine that by 2000, there's probably very little difference between ex-military unit "marauders" and military units in practice besides notional affiliation to a higher HQ with military units. Notional because, even when military units remain "loyal", higher HQ can't really help them and they can't help HQ.

Does anyone think that by June 2000, US forces in Europe are getting any troops or supplies from the US?

Nope. They are living off of the "land". In the cantonments, they would be THE government with dictatorial powers - able to draft and direct civilian labor to do anything required. In some areas under some leadership, this would likely be a pretty benign dictatorship - the military unit(s) providing security, organization, and potentially reconstruction to a community or a group of communities. In other cases, it would be just as predatory as any other marauder group (and indeed, you can see this is the case with the 43rd Military Police Brigade in "The Last Submarine").

That being said, force levels are way too small (except maybe in contested Europe) to really control *anything*. For example, in Howling Wilderness, it's claimed that Colorado has 90% of it's pre-war population (so, ~4 million people). MilGov has 4,400 troops + 2,000 militia levies attached to the 100th ID in Colorado. That's...not enough.

For example, in 2023, Dallas has 3100 sworn police officers in the DPD for a population of 1.3 million (or ~425 people per sworn officer). Note, this doesn't count Dallas County SO or suburbs. Just DPD. MilGov has 6400 troops for 4,000,000 people, or 1 per 625 people. Dallas in 2023 is, all things considered, relatively peaceful. So...it's not enough to even "police" Denver, much less control and defend all of Colorado, much less anything else.

So the way I like to think of the book units is like the Roman comitatenses in the late empire. The last vestiges of the pre-war military trained and organized along pre-war TO&E with pre-war equipment and capable of maneuver (at least, maybe capable of maneuver). Not listed are the limitanei equivalent - the large militia contingent (which, for Colorado would be 200,000+ men and women) which would be locally raised and locally equipped with little to no training and variable experience. In some areas - particularly downstream from the reconstituted armories in Colorado Springs (and the equivalent organized areas in Europe), equipment of these militia units might be quite good - military small arms and light infantry support weapons (mortars, grenades, maybe some rocket launchers), but in most cases it would be men and women with mostly civilian rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and in some cases - worse (bows, sharp sticks, rocks...).

The demise (mostly) of mechanization for farming would mean that subsistence farming would be the norm. Today an acre of wheat will yield an average of 37.1 bushels of wheat or 1200 man days equivalent of food in calories (that's with modern fertilizers and pesticides) - or enough food to feed 3.3 people for a year. A person can farm 1-3 acres without animal labor or mechanization. So if yields are halved with the demise of fertilizer and pesticides, 2 adults could barely feed themselves and an (unproductive) child. There would be very little capacity for surplus, even with almost everyone farming, and so those 200,000+ militia would be needed locally to farm at least during sowing and harvest season.

Conversely, military units themselves would be all tooth AND all tail. Hardly anyone would have the luxury of being a pure 11B (infantryman) or 92G (culinary specialist)...and during non-operational phases would likely be planting and harvesting crops, felling trees, reloading ammo, scrounging, working construction, machining tools, or any number of sundry tasks a community would need - probably not unlike what happens today in North Korea. So we would be back to antiquity where armies could only campaign during limited periods of the year. Mobilization for war would mean that at least some of the population would starve at home/

For stateside scenarios though, what that also means is that neither MilGov nor CivGov has the maneuver forces necessary to conquer much of anything by force. A decent sized refugee camp can turn out as many fighters as any remaining US "division".

Operationally speaking, 2000 is probably the end year (for a decade or two) for high tempo military operations anywhere outside of areas of French involvement, and even the 2000 offensives used carefully husbanded supplies for one last hurrah.

Just wanted to call out that I really appreciate the thought and care that went into this post. This really clearly lays out how I've always viewed forces in the setting, and elegantly explains the reasoning behind such. Thanks for putting this together.

[Higgipedia]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

One question I have regarding consolidation is unit identity, heritage, and heraldry as they support unit morale and cohesion. At what level, if any, would commanders deem it necessary to retain prewar designations as a tool to help maintain unity and loyalty? Would "we're 1st Platoon, B Company, 3-143 Infantry" still invoke any sense of pride or purpose for the squad-sized collection of survivors and replacements?

- C.

Since it seems that units are anywhere between 5%-20% of their pre-war levels, an Infantry Battalion would be sitting at between 30-150 soldiers. This is roughly the natural size of human social networks, so I would see units really focusing on the battalion.

I'm not sure in the ruined force structure of mid-2000 that anyone is really holding too hard to the unit's heritage, given that substantial portions of the force may not even be nationals of the armies they're attached to. The units that settle and integrate into the community would probably start to identify more with the local heritage and identity than their previous unit.

High-morale units like special operations forces or airborne/air assault units might hold closer to their unit lineage.