Ballooning Armies.

[ChalkLine]

No, not armies with balloons.

Usually in the books there's an assumption that pretty much only the units that exist in the day will take part in the war, but a reading of history notes that usually the armies uncase the colours of older units once the army starts to rapidly expand.

Similarly, units that were reduced to smaller sizes and made into subunits are restored to their old status along with the units previously under their TOE.

What units do you think this might happen to?

[Adm.Lee]

Given the assumption of really high losses on the front lines, IMO armies are going to be busy keeping their existing active and reserve formations full. Once the nukes start flying, any newly-drafted persons are probably going to be shifted into home-guard-like units and logistics, not fighting divisions.

In the US, for instance, I'd say the dozen or so training divisions that transformed into light infantry divisions are a big example of that. There would probably be innumerable transport, service, and supply small units at the field army and corps level, that would not show up on the OBs presented in-game.

For that matter, I propose that once air forces are grounded, their command structures get repurposed into rear-area-control commands, protecting civilians and collecting food & fuel.

[Desert Mariner]

What is the possibility that people would revert to a Civil War style of recruitment? Companies raised at the local level, which are then absorbed into State level regiments and finally into the Army.

[Adm.Lee]

I could see the first two steps of that: state or province authorizes county or city to recruit X units of strength Y, and tries to provide appropriate equipment.

In later stages of the war, that is-- 1999 or later.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Didn't the British just add extra battalions in the World Wars?

[Olefin]

In the East Africa Sourcebook you can see an example of three units that got reactivated that I saw as very likely to have occurred given the length of the war - i.e. long enough to have put together some units but not long enough to make whole new division size units

The 173rd Airborne Brigade was stood up in late 1995 using a combination of two existing Airborne battalions, one new battalion of parachute infantry that was raised during the war and a battalion of the 73rd Armored Regiment. It was ready in time to be deployed to Kenya in 1997.

They attempted to reactivate the 106th Infantry Division as well but only managed to get one infantry regiment, the 422nd, and two batteries of field artillery trained and ready before the nuclear attack on the US put a stop to the attempt to reform the division. It eventually went to both Liberia and Kenya.

You also have the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment reactivated and brought back to life using new recruits as well for Kenya.

And the Marines put together a new Marine Regiment by using basically the drill instructors and trainers at Camp Lejeune and Parris Island, the last classes being trained there as well as security detachments from African embassies that had been withdrawn to Kenya and troops withdrawn from Guantanamo for Africa.

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by Desert Mariner

What is the possibility that people would revert to a Civil War style of recruitment? Companies raised at the local level, which are then absorbed into State level regiments and finally into the Army.

That system was dropped during the Great War, because it meant that single communities suffered horrendously, whenever large losses were inflicted upon small bodies of troops within a small amount of time: e. g. a single attack that was broken by superior defenders would mean a county, town or even a city would loose disproportionately many men. In a time, when war was solely men's business and these men were already dearly missed as bread winners and household leaders (in public discourse at least), that was a huge problem, especially since only men could vote back then, so the local elected representative would not only face huge social and economical problems in his electoral district, but also loose his voters.

This system works better to some degree, if the socio-economical elite is not drafted or can buy its son's (and daughters?) out of the draft, e. g. by paying a fee or nominating a willing replacement candidate. In these cases, only the lower classes will get drafted (or serve as replacements for the elite) and likely will be denied voting rights anyway. But this is not a system that will be in place in the US during the Twilight War.

Where I could see your system work is for State Militia, which might serve as light infantry and constabulary, e. g. highway patrol, counter insurrection, roaming the wilderness between towns, in addition to supporting National Guard and (the few) remaining US Army units in any military region. These militias need to know their turfs, will only be available part-time, since their personnel would still be needed to work in their communities, have families etc. In such a three tier system, local troops might only theoretically be assigned to state-wide regiments, but would de facto serve in companies per county or (larger) towns to keep everything quite, under control and running. The light infantry role would be third in line, probably, after disaster relief, emergency construction duties, deputy policing and general security services.

That would be my take on this.