Overseas Units and Family

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

Just pity the poor soldier who survives WWIII, only to find out his wife and kids died in an ambush on the bus on Day One....

In Sir John Hackett's The Third World War, there's an ugly scene about an airfield where several dependent flights are taking off, which comes under artillery rocket attack.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

In Sir John Hackett's The Third World War, there's an ugly scene about an airfield where several dependent flights are taking off, which comes under artillery rocket attack.

Team Yankee touch on this without going into detail, but when units dependents were rushed after air raid, the author left things to the imagination.

Yeah pulling dependent out early regardless if you plan on staging attack or expecting one could lead the other side to conclude that you were preparing to attack. The next worse than ordering Reforger Exercise out of the blue, without months of very public planning that usually went into them yearly. Either would send the Soviet and allies to high readiness. Interesting thing while either side was on high readiness, it seem the Air Forces on both side would aircraft that would suddenly suffer some type of failure, typically induce by pilots playing the deadliest form of chicken...

[Panther Al]

Another thing to think about is how it would effect the situation in "Going Home". Way I see out of all the dependants that want to go home about a quarter won't be able to for one reason or another. Then you have the dependants that are German nationals: will they prefer to stay at home? By this time you have to wonder how many US troops (especially the long service prewar german based ones) will actually prefer to stay in germany with their families.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by Panther Al

Another thing to think about is how it would effect the situation in "Going Home". Way I see out of all the dependants that want to go home about a quarter won't be able to for one reason or another. Then you have the dependants that are German nationals: will they prefer to stay at home? By this time you have to wonder how many US troops (especially the long service prewar german based ones) will actually prefer to stay in germany with their families.

I think this was GDW attitude about units like the 11th ACR staying....

[Panther Al]

Not having any of the v1 stuff I wasn't sure if any stayed behind or not. Whilst I was waiting to see if I got a response to this I ran the numbers according to v2 on equipment and manpower. If you say 10% elects to stay, and the deal was that out of the equipment we was leaving we could equip the unit that was staying, you could bring up an ACR to 100% strength less aviation and still leave roughly 200 tanks for the germans to re-equip one of their units, probably the 1st Panzer since they are already there.

My assumptions included the following;

That for each tank listed there would be 4 afv's of various makes, half of which would probably be brads of one flavour or another.
That for each tank lost due to "accidental fires" from troops not wanting to give up their stuff would be made up by tanks kept off the books (and their is always official under reporting of strength) and deadlined tanks floating around various rear area depots that could be cobbled together into enough tanks to make up said losses.

[Abbott Shaull]

Of course how else would one explain that all stuff is nice, clean, and shining when the inspection time roll around...lol

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

Of course how else would one explain that all stuff is nice, clean, and shining when the inspection time roll around...lol

Like the old saying goes, no combat unit ever passes inspections. No parade unit ever survives combat!

[Legbreaker]

I think it's fairly obvious that getting the dependants out was well down the list of priorities.
Winning the war, or at least getting the soldiers on the ground and into their defensive positions is definitely the priority.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I think it's fairly obvious that getting the dependants out was well down the list of priorities.
Winning the war, or at least getting the soldiers on the ground and into their defensive positions is definitely the priority.

Oh no doubt at all; but from a morale standpoint only, they would have tried to evac the dependents...its just flying them out of one of the major air bases in Germany always struck me as putting non-combatants right in the center of the bullseye.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Panther Al

Not having any of the v1 stuff I wasn't sure if any stayed behind or not.

Going Home states on Page 3 that approximately 43,000 Americans remained in Europe prior to the evacuation.

The following units remained in Europe:
XI Corp (staying) consisting of:
50th US AD (2,000 men, 33 AFVs)
4th Canadian (not quite US, but...) (1,000 men, 6 AFVs)
116th ACR (600 men, 8 AFVs)
2nd US Marines (3,400 men, 14 AFVs)
8th US MD (1,000 men, 14 AFVs)

III Corps HQ (staying):
1st US CD (2,400 men, 43 AFVs )(+ 600 men and 5 AFVs which have left to join the evac)
30 Bde, 44th US AD (300 men, 9 AFVs)
3rd US ACR (100 men, 1 AFV)

V Corps (mostly evacuating except for)
11th ACR (500 men, 4 AFVs)

Fourth US Army HQ (staying)
XIII Corp HQ (staying)
1-40th US MD (400 men, 7 AFVs)
107th US ACR (600 men)

XV Corps (HQ leaving)
70 US ID (2,000 men, 6 AFVs)

And then there's the 5th MD scattered across Europe (some will evac, but most probably not).

So, adding them up there are approximately 12,200 men (not including the Canadians) and 139 AFVs (again not including the Canadians).
Note that this does not include the Corps and Army HQ units manpower.

So we're looking at roughly one quarter of the US manpower staying behind and about 35% of all US AFVs remaining in US hands.