The Military Deployments of T2K

[dragoon500ly]

Yes, I think that's a relatively common theme...I've done it myself and I've seen several other British Orders of Battle that have a modest number of reactivated Battalions.

The trick, of course, is to not go stark raving mad about it!

[Legbreaker]

The most likely reinforcement for the MEFF might be a recon regiment with Scorpions/Scimitars, possibly a Australian battalion group and, at most, a company from New Zealand.

You can forget about Australian troops being involved in the Middle East with a war raging with Indonesian, and a potential UN involvement in Korea. Same for New Zealand - local needs come well before foreign deployment.

[dragoon500ly]

You can forget about Australian troops being involved in the Middle East with a war raging with Indonesian, and a potential UN involvement in Korea. Same for New Zealand - local needs come well before foreign deployment.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Australia import a sizable percentage of oil from the Persian Gulf With a local war threating/halting oil production from the Indonesian fields, would not the Australian government seriously consider commiting a battalion group, if only to acquire badly need oil

The arguement can be made either way, it all boils down to how much crude oil is available, and how much refinery capacity survived any Soviet nukes. I'm just advancing a theory that the Australian government may see the need to secure both, a product that CENTCOM seems to have enough of.

Have to admit though, I neglected to consider any Australian commitment to Korea; but just how much would Australia send I can see a battalion group, possibly two, but would a brigade be sent Or would Australia decide a division would have to be committed

LOL, this is where the lack of canon material on Korea inserts a monkey wrench!

[Adm.Lee]

One of the reasons why the Italian Campaign of WWII was such a meatgrinder, all of the trained "mountain" divisions had been deployed elsewhere. It was only until the French and their Algerian troops were deployed that mountain-trained troops actually fought in the mountains....

Well, until the French/Africans showed up, there were hardly any Allied mountain troops. The US was still training the 10th division (1 regiment went to the Aleutians for a while), the Indian 4th division had had some mountain training, but had been fighting in the Desert for a while. Other than the aforementioned 52nd, that was about it.

[HorseSoldier]

Have to admit though, I neglected to consider any Australian commitment to Korea; but just how much would Australia send I can see a battalion group, possibly two, but would a brigade be sent Or would Australia decide a division would have to be committed

I doubt they'd send anyone. Probably helping back stop the UK division in Hong Kong, rather than sending troops to Korea. The ROK Army in 1996/7 isn't going to need international bailing out at anything remotely approximating the level seen in the 1950s.

[Legbreaker]

Australia can barely scrape together a single Division on anything less than about 12 months notice. Any more and reservists have to be called up and trained.
Australia also has it's own oil reserves. It may not be massively productive Fields like Texas or the North Sea, but there should be enough production post nuke to support the country's vital needs (especially if a couple of the cities got hit).
Regarding China vs Korea, Korea would get the troops without a doubt. Korea is essentially a UN operation (regardless of who's actually commanding), while China is basically a fight between two sovereign nations - the USSR (plus allies) and China (plus whoever was in the area and got caught up in it).
North Korea has long been seen as the BIG EVIL in the area, much more than the Soviets. North Korea also has no/less nukes (depending on how you want to look at it), which means less likelihood of Australians being irradiated.

Regardless of where the troops went, the moment hostilities broke out with Indonesia they would be recalled - Australia simply doesn't have the manpower to hold off such a huge military (even a poorly trained, led and equipped military as Indonesia at the time). Same thing happened in WWII when the Japanese were coming across Papua New Guinea - the Divisions in the middle east (mainly northern Africa) were recalled immediately and sent from the deserts to the mountainous jungles.

[dragoon500ly]

Australia can barely scrape together a single Division on anything less than about 12 months notice. Any more and reservists have to be called up and trained.
Australia also has it's own oil reserves. It may not be massively productive Fields like Texas or the North Sea, but there should be enough production post nuke to support the country's vital needs (especially if a couple of the cities got hit).
Regarding China vs Korea, Korea would get the troops without a doubt. Korea is essentially a UN operation (regardless of who's actually commanding), while China is basically a fight between two sovereign nations - the USSR (plus allies) and China (plus whoever was in the area and got caught up in it).
North Korea has long been seen as the BIG EVIL in the area, much more than the Soviets. North Korea also has no/less nukes (depending on how you want to look at it), which means less likelihood of Australians being irradiated.

Regardless of where the troops went, the moment hostilities broke out with Indonesia they would be recalled - Australia simply doesn't have the manpower to hold off such a huge military (even a poorly trained, led and equipped military as Indonesia at the time). Same thing happened in WWII when the Japanese were coming across Papua New Guinea - the Divisions in the middle east (mainly northern Africa) were recalled immediately and sent from the deserts to the mountainous jungles.

Ouch! Another good idea meets up with cold reality!

Thanks for the info!

[Abbott Shaull]

Ouch! Another good idea meets up with cold reality!

Thanks for the info!

The reality is for many nation this would be the case, due to the fact had all made deep cuts even before the end of the cold war.

[dragoon500ly]

The reality is for many nation this would be the case, due to the fact had all made deep cuts even before the end of the cold war.

The issue remains just what kind of response would NATO have made, especially with the Sino-Soviet War starting to kick off, not to mention intelligence that something was brewing inbetween the Germanies.

At the very least we have more weapons rolling from the production lines, there should have been some call-up of selected Reserves. And if the intelligence people were really on the ball, there could have have been re-activation of units....even call up of the Individual Ready Reserve, its happened before with a lot less provocation, with a major shooting war in the Far East this could easily happen.

This is also the time period of Reagan-Bush and Maggie Thatcher...two Presidents and a Prime Minister that didn't have a lot of back-up when the Soviets were concerned. I can especially see Reagan pushing an even larger increase of the military...

So we can argue the point back and forth....my own view is that NATO would have done something to be a bit more prepared....

[Legbreaker]

Just going on memory, didn't the middle east flare up after Europe Therefore it's no surprise that the middle east received what is essentially the dregs of the various nations militaries (in as far as they were the only units not already deployed).
In that case it doesn't matter what the best mix of units might be - the only mix is what little is available and hope to hell that it's able to do the job.

[Abbott Shaull]

Just going on memory, didn't the middle east flare up after Europe Therefore it's no surprise that the middle east received what is essentially the dregs of the various nations militaries (in as far as they were the only units not already deployed).
In that case it doesn't matter what the best mix of units might be - the only mix is what little is available and hope to hell that it's able to do the job.

By canon, yes. Ironically the entire chain of events goes with Soviet-Sino War. Then Soviets getting their arse handed to them on gold plate. Soviet pull units from Europe and activating their units in the Soviet Union. Then someone in Moscow gets the bright idea to request "Volunteers" to help out in China, from their Pact Allies. The Pact with mix feeling sent units to the East and started to call up and build up troops. The meat grinder was so bad there was second and third call for help.

Sometime after the second call, somewhere in the Military Leadership of the East German Armed Forces starts to have high level talks with their counter-parts in West Germany. They didn't mind losing people if they were fight the evil west, but they were balking at the loses that their units were taking in China. Somewhere the West German Army moves into East Germany and about couple months later you have WWIII.

Somewhere along the way the US and UK started their build up. Some 6 weeks to 3 months later they enter the war to help reinforce the German Army. Leaving NATO torn up and some countries out right siding with the Pact. While other members of the Pact effective breakaway to only get hammered themselves by the newest members of the Pact.

Some time too Korea takes off in effort to draw US Troops from reinforcing Europe.

Then Soviet get the bright idea to take Iran and to cut oil supplies to West Europe, China and Japan. US and UK decide to send units to the Middle East to prevent the Soviet from reaching the Persian Gulf Coast and closing the straits that the oil tankers have to travel through. For some strange reason Pakistan and India start shooting each other, especially when the Soviet move one Army from Afghanistan into Iran to help that Front out from that direction with the hopes of getting to the location to close the straits. In effect drawing weapons supplies that were coming into Afghanistan over land from Pakistan off.

Along the way several other localized wars start. In many cases, these are started at the urging of the Soviets to keep non-Soviet Allies from reinforcing any of the fronts that they were currently fighting and introduction of Nukes did take much longer.

So yeah to answer you question, yeah as per canon the Middle East was largely an afterthought for the US and UK and other allies. Another thing is the allies of Iraq and Syria seem to being a whole lot of nothing. They may have made token attacks towards Turkey, but they did nothing to help the Soviets on their conquest of Iran. Again the Syrian and Iraq had Jordan border and Syrian had the Isreal Border to keep troops at.

What is more interesting there really isn't much reason for the Saudi or the other City-States of the Persian Gulf to play host to the US Central Command and British forces there. As for sending more heavy units, the ones that have been suggested were from the east Coast. Maybe they were going to Korea to help reinforce the 8th US Army and UN commitment there, and got diverted. The 9th Motorized Division, 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions with their bases along the Pacific would be perfect example of unit being diverted to give the US Central Command more punch.

Also diverting the 40th Mechanized wouldn't be too bad, they were from California and probably would of been sent to Korea as reinforcement first off. The 24th Mechanized Division as it stands probably had it two active duty Brigade diverted to Europe at the start of the fighting to bring up III Corps units. The 24th Mechanized that was sent Iraq only when it new troops had been trained and were ready to ship out to Europe, but then sent to Iraq to reinforce Central Command.

With 1st Mechanized, 4th Mechanized, 5th Mechanized, 1st Cavalry, and 2nd Armor Divisions as well as the 3rd ARC, 194th Armor Brigade, and 197th Mechanized Brigade sending their troops that were on active duty still in the States over to take over Preposition equipment. Each of the Division had left their equipment at their state side bases, so 5 Divisional HQ, Support, 2 out three Combat, and Aviation Brigades could be reformed with 1 ACR, and 2 other Brigade to boot. I am sure one could organize an additional Armor and Mechanized Divisions for the Middle East at the cost of reinforcing Europe with fresh troops and slightly used equipment.

Canon says this equipment was being used to refit National Guard units, but in real life many of the units that were refitted already had been refitted with the equipment, so there was still equipment to spare. The only problem would have been getting new recruits trained and ready, then ship them off to a front they weren't quite expecting to fight in. Kinda like 1st Mechanized Division going to the Desert fighting in their Woodland Camos during the 1st PGW. Not to far of stretch if things are written up correctly.

Just some thoughts.

[dragoon500ly]

Just going on memory, didn't the middle east flare up after Europe Therefore it's no surprise that the middle east received what is essentially the dregs of the various nations militaries (in as far as they were the only units not already deployed).
In that case it doesn't matter what the best mix of units might be - the only mix is what little is available and hope to hell that it's able to do the job.

According to the RDF sourcebook, the Soviets invade Iran in 1995, CENTCOM is delayed by lack of shipping until 1996 and go right into Saudi Arabia with CENTCOM/Transcaucasus Front crossing barrels towards the end of 1996/97

[dragoon500ly]

Then Soviet get the bright idea to take Iran and to cut oil supplies to West Europe, China and Japan. US and UK decide to send units to the Middle East to prevent the Soviet from reaching the Persian Gulf Coast and closing the straits that the oil tankers have to travel through. For some strange reason Pakistan and India start shooting each other, especially when the Soviet move one Army from Afghanistan into Iran to help that Front out from that direction with the hopes of getting to the location to close the straits. In effect drawing weapons supplies that were coming into Afghanistan over land from Pakistan off.

When you start talking India/Pakistan, only the intervention by the superpowers keeps things quiet....otherwise, India would dearly love to knock off Pakistan, once and for all.

[QUOTE]So yeah to answer you question, yeah as per canon the Middle East was largely an afterthought for the US and UK and other allies. Another thing is the allies of Iraq and Syria seem to being a whole lot of nothing. They may have made token attacks towards Turkey, but they did nothing to help the Soviets on their conquest of Iran. Again the Syrian and Iraq had Jordan border and Syrian had the Isreal Border to keep troops at.
What is more interesting there really isn't much reason for the Saudi or the other City-States of the Persian Gulf to play host to the US Central Command and British forces there. As for sending more heavy units, the ones that have been suggested were from the east Coast. Maybe they were going to Korea to help reinforce the 8th US Army and UN commitment there, and got diverted. The 9th Motorized Division, 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions with their bases along the Pacific would be perfect example of unit being diverted to give the US Central Command more punch.
Also diverting the 40th Mechanized wouldn't be too bad, they were from California and probably would of been sent to Korea as reinforcement first off. The 24th Mechanized Division as it stands probably had it two active duty Brigade diverted to Europe at the start of the fighting to bring up III Corps units. The 24th Mechanized that was sent Iraq only when it new troops had been trained and were ready to ship out to Europe, but then sent to Iraq to reinforce Central Command.[\QUOTE]

There was always a lot of doubt as to the 40th MID going to Korea, during the period covered by T2K, it was always Middle East/Korea/NATO...by the end of the '80s, early '90s, the talk was NATO reinforcement with a Middle East deployment possible. One of the reasons that I feel fry to post them into the Gulf.

With 1st Mechanized, 4th Mechanized, 5th Mechanized, 1st Cavalry, and 2nd Armor Divisions as well as the 3rd ARC, 194th Armor Brigade, and 197th Mechanized Brigade sending their troops that were on active duty still in the States over to take over Preposition equipment. Each of the Division had left their equipment at their state side bases, so 5 Divisional HQ, Support, 2 out three Combat, and Aviation Brigades could be reformed with 1 ACR, and 2 other Brigade to boot. I am sure one could organize an additional Armor and Mechanized Divisions for the Middle East at the cost of reinforcing Europe with fresh troops and slightly used equipment.

There are two possible ways to reinforce CENTCOM, either slide 1-2 heavy divisions over as reinforcements or deploy 3-4 of the NG armored/mechanized brigades to reinforce...but that kills the idea of the 44th Armored.

[HorseSoldier]

The 24th Mechanized Division as it stands probably had it two active duty Brigade diverted to Europe at the start of the fighting to bring up III Corps units. The 24th Mechanized that was sent Iraq only when it new troops had been trained and were ready to ship out to Europe, but then sent to Iraq to reinforce Central Command.

I'd doubt that. The situation in Europe isn't so critical that it would justify pulling the only heavy unit slated to help defend Middle Eastern oil supplies out of the mix. I'm actually not certain what level of badness would justify cutting 24th ID out of CENTCOM's force mix -- even if they're Dunkirking the remnants of USAREUR off the beaches, you've still got to hold the oil supply in the Middle East or face the possibility of defeat on a global, not theater, level. The thing I am skeptical about is that XVIII Airborne would collectively be held in reserve and out of theater until March of 97 -- more likely, I'd think, would be surging them into the region as soon as the shooting war starts in Europe.

There are two possible ways to reinforce CENTCOM, either slide 1-2 heavy divisions over as reinforcements or deploy 3-4 of the NG armored/mechanized brigades to reinforce...but that kills the idea of the 44th Armored.

Realistically, XVIII Abn probably gets punched up with the addition of the 197th and 194th brigades (which is what GDW shows in the Middle East portion of their WW III wargame). An ACR would be nice to have also, but realistically the 9th Lt Mot guys in T2K are filling that role for XVIII and given the distances and low troop density of the theater are probably doing it better than a heavy cavalry regiment could.

In the T2K alternate universe by the time the war kicked off the National Guard had punched up their readiness to the point where the round out brigades worked -- not an entirely unreasonable idea given that the Sino-Soviet War would have potentially provided serious motivation to get the NG and USAR ready to go to war. So 24th ID going downrange with 48th Mech Bde in tow is probably reasonable.

Add in the 194th and 197th, with their strategic reserve role being taken over by two or all three brigades from 44th Armored (which I agree, is kind of a silly unit, insofar as that's not how the NG Separate Armored and Infantry Brigades were supposed to be employed -- though to be fair I think it and a couple other divisions like 43rd were depicted as an editorial decision to keep overall length of USAVG down).

Adjusting for the situation, it probably yields something like:

194th Arm'd Brigade -- XVIII Airborne
197th Arm'd Brigade -- XVIII Airborne

157th Mech Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- To III Corps in USAREUR
187th Inf Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- Iceland Defense Force
205th Inf Brigade (from 43rd Inf Div) -- To 6th ID(L) (their actual round out unit)

30th SIB (from 44th AD) -- Strat Reserve @ Benning
31st SAB (from 44th AD) -- Strat Reserve @ Knox
218th SIB (from 44th AD) -- to III Corps in USAREUR

Or something like that. Putting 30th and 31st brigades at Knox and Benning allows them to pretty directly cover down on the 194th/197th storylines in the T2K timeline, though I suppose by the time XVIII punches out for the desert they could have just taken 30th/31st with them and left 194th/197th in place, though it seems like the combat power of the regular army units would be preferable in a low density theater.

[Legbreaker]

As far as I am aware, Iran and the west didn't have a lot of love for each other in the early to mid 90's. My guess is the late deployment to the area wasn't just due to lack of transportation, but also political manoeuvring - lots of background diplomacy/espionage/assassinations to ensure the government(s) of the day was friendly before putting boots on the ground.