Questions about Home Guard/Militia units..

[natehale1971]

Hi everyone,

I've got a question for everyone here about Home Guard/Local Militia units. A friend gave me something really good, namely three PDFs of an old West End Games Role-playing game called "The Price of Freedom" where the USSR and its allies occupy the United States of America. And PCs are resistance fighters from a wide vareity of civilian occupations and backgrounds.

Now the question i have is about arming, equipping and organizing home guard/local militia units in a WWIII type scenerio... now I know that the National Guard Armories that are located all across the country are meant for such purposes.

I am wondering about how these units are not just intitally outfited and equipped, but how they would be maintaing their munitions.

The presence of Reloading Equipment in gun & hunting stores would be a major part of keeping them in the field.

But I really would like to hear everyone's ideas and suggestions.

[The Rifleman]

In Vermont, most of the "home guard" units are almost exclusively retired or medically seperated national guard veterans. They did get some extremely limited use during Iraq/Afghanistan deployments when almost the entire state was gone.

The guard is different then active duty; we tend to have lots of excess equipment laying around different armories and national guard "bases". Most of it is really old and has little or no relevence, like massive amounts of tents, trailers and so on. Also, we tend to have more gear then we need, plus there are spares at "state" level.

Each state has its own National Guard HQ and related small units that aren't tied to a unit that gets deployed. I would assume that if things really were that bad, then the state HQ and non-deploying units would form a structure and the old retired guys in the state guard for form the cadre for new units.

I couldn't honestly see those old guys doing much, and its hit or miss with equipment. You'd probably see there are some small arms, lots of uniforms, helmets and individual gear, as well as some soft skinned vehicles and even a handful of tanks and APCs. However, the old guys may have the brains, but most aren't really capable of leading in the field, so you'd have some severe leadership issues at squad, platoon and possible company level.

[Legbreaker]

Don't count on any armoured vehicles being with the home guard. We already know there's been a huge attrition of vehicles in Europe with airfields, nuclear power stations, etc stripped of their armoured assets and sent to the front as battle replacements.
At best an occasional group may have a 50 year old vehicle one of their members happened to have laying about and restored.

[The Rifleman]

Don't count on any armoured vehicles being with the home guard. We already know there's been a huge attrition of vehicles in Europe with airfields, nuclear power stations, etc stripped of their armoured assets and sent to the front as battle replacements.
At best an occasional group may have a 50 year old vehicle one of their members happened to have laying about and restored.

Actually, no, this is not accurate becuase you are not taking National Guard / Active army politics into account.

The active army allots each National Guard unit (be battalion, company, brigade) the exact same equipment that its active duty peer gets. When the units are "called to federal service" all of this gear goes with them and becomes the active army's responsibility.

However, this authozirized equiptment is always the active army's hand-me-downs. When the National Guard gets "new" used gear from the army, then then most of its left overs get disposed off... in different ways. For example, most of the tanks are returned to depots and then sold to other countries. Trucks however aren't worth as much and tend to be sold at local auction. Other items that are considered "wore out" like generators, tents, stoves, trailers, camo nets (to name a few) are often abandoned. When I moved my company from our old armory (built in 1903) to a brand new one, we discovered parts to vehicles, tools, radios, tents... all the way back to the 50s.

Where the politics come into play is that this is each STATE's gear. They pretty much do whatever they want. At state level, we still have an old boneyard that has a few M-1s and M60s that are supposed to become memorials; I've seen an M42 duster and some captured Iraqi armor too. I know they are fully functional as the mechanics from the state level shops get in them and move them around from time to time to keep them running. The state determines where all this stuff is going to end up and there is so much of it the active army can't keep up. As a rough guess, I'd say there are about two dozen Vermont National Guard tanks scattered around the state on lawns, everything from M1s, M60s, M48s and even an M4 and M113s. I also know there are spares laying around in warehouses for them.

Politics. Do you think that the big army is going to track down an M60A3 in West Rutland, Vermont in front of the armory when they are in the middle of world war 3 No, actually I know first hand the active army has NO CLUE that these tanks are there. Do you think that with all the disturbances at home, Vermont is going to volunteer its reasources to go to Yugoslavia or Poland when they have a maurader problem in their own back yard You're darn right they aren't going to give up their assets.

As soon as all the deployable national guard units are gone, the state guard moves into the vacant armories and takes over the local "state" mission. Thats disaster relief, riot control, so on. Its hit or miss what gear is at the armory, so at state level they will send down what's needed. As I say before, most of the state guard is retired national guard, so they typicall have some rank and expereince. Lots of Colonels, Majors, Sergeant Majors and Master Sergeants are quite active. They now the local citizens, government, the unit, the gear, procedures and so on. Where they are hurting is young, able bodied men.

Then you've also got all those non-deployable units and they have some manpower too. Its really all hit or miss depending on the local leadership, how the politics play out, if the state was home to an armor brigade or an infantry brigade.... or even USED to have an armored brigade..... could be anything.

[natehale1971]

Since the State Guard/Home Guard has so many vets how hard would it be to set up training facilities to train younger bodies to fill all of the vacancies Using Boy Scouts (or equivilent) types to help create a cadre of support personnel that would supliment the police and emergency services Or others to help provide security and support (anything form community watches to other civilian security groups)...

It's not just the gear, it's the core of vets that would be to train and get bodies to do the acutal grunt work... just how quickly would it take for these vets to set up and train the first groups to fill the gaps in local security/defense like we saw the British did during the Second World War

[The Rifleman]

First, an appology to Legbreaker, I don't mean to sound confrotational. What you said makes GOOD common sense. However, in the military and national guard, common sense isn't always what happens.

As to using the State Guard as a cadre, its another good idea, on paper. In reality, I'm not so sure, as most of them are so old or broke that they are quite limited in how much they can do. Its hard to teach someone how move from fighting position to position when you have instructors that honestly can't run or maybe in trot.

Just to give you an idea, your average State Guard soldier is a retired E-8 or E-9 and is between 60 and 75 years old. Your average officer is the same age but most likely between O-4 and O-6. I'd say that there would be a few E-7s and maybe one or two O-3s. The biggest problem with training is that there are NO E-5s or E-6s that would be your team and squad leaders, and no junior officers to lead your platoons. So essentially you'd have everything you need to run an honest to god world class battalion HQ with a whole staff of NCOs and officers that are doing the job of a captain or major but could easily be the battalion or even brigade commander. But your actual battalion would have nothing more than draftees, which brings me to the next problem.

The state guard is not designed for basic training; I'd bet that the tough old guys know what needs to be done and could get around that, but there is no system in place. So somehow, the state would have to come up with a way to (unconstitutionally) draft people into it. Then, they'd have to run an OCS with "90 day wonder" Lts to run platoons and "shake and bake" sergeants. I hated both of these concepts in Vietnam, but its the only way it would work.

Just for laughs, I'm going to promote myself to the State of Vermont Adjuant General and play out the war, writing what I would do each step of the way so you'd have an idea of how things work out.

[HorseSoldier]

I thought there was legislation or a military policy in place that said vehicles on static display had to be de-mil'ed and rendered non-functional after that guy in California stole an M60 tank back in '95. I may be wrong on that, though, and obviously its relevance in the T2K timeline is questionable. (And rendering a vehicle non-functional does not imply it has to be permanently non-functional, though my understanding was that "non-functional" normally translated to the power pack being pulled from AFVs.)

Just to give you an idea, your average State Guard soldier is a retired E-8 or E-9 and is between 60 and 75 years old. Your average officer is the same age but most likely between O-4 and O-6. I'd say that there would be a few E-7s and maybe one or two O-3s. The biggest problem with training is that there are NO E-5s or E-6s that would be your team and squad leaders, and no junior officers to lead your platoons. So essentially you'd have everything you need to run an honest to god world class battalion HQ with a whole staff of NCOs and officers that are doing the job of a captain or major but could easily be the battalion or even brigade commander. But your actual battalion would have nothing more than draftees, which brings me to the next problem.

Back in the day, I had some contact with Alabama State Defense Force personnel, and would say that version of a state guard seemed to be about 75% military veterans as described above and 25% younger guys who wanted to serve in the active or reserve military but had some issue disqualifying them from enlistment. Some of those guys appeared to be okay enough guys and some were of the "I'm a cop . . . a mall cop" sorts whose disqualifying issue was probably psychiatric in nature (or they just wanted "military" involvement without the work it requires). Some portion of those younger guys might have been suitable for those missing junior leadership cadre positions, but A) they lack real experience and B) in a Twilight War scenario enlistment standards would become loose enough that all those guys except the truly exceptional duds (and probably even some of them) could have gotten themselves into the real military.

I am wondering about how these units are not just intitally outfited and equipped, but how they would be maintaing their munitions.

Here in Alaska, the State Defense Force has a small fleet of its own military vehicles -- 2.5 and 5 ton trucks are all I've seen. They keep them stored at NG armories, but are easily recognizable despite the standard NATO three color woodland camo paint jobs because unlike active or reserve military vehicles they have to carry state of Alaska license plates because they don't have the exemption from needing plates that applies to active or reserve military vehicles.

Judging by what I've seen, unless they have additional vehicles stored elsewhere, we're probably talking about a fleet of vehicles that would be inadequate to effectively motorize an infantry battalion. On the other hand, I assume those vehicles are surplus purchased by the state of Alaska and would be free from any concerns of being taken back into service to address attrition on the battlefield (well, at least until the Soviet invasion of AK, at which point I imagine the AK state defense force would wind up being a logistics and civil affairs auxiliary part of X Corps).

The presence of Reloading Equipment in gun & hunting stores would be a major part of keeping them in the field.

I'm not sure how much this would help -- the just-in-time inventory pattern in most retail stores is going to mean even seizing everything related to reloading in even a fair sized city isn't going to translate to enough reloading supplies to sustain a military unit of even moderate size that is seeing any significant action and expenditure of ammunition. Obviously, patrolling the mean streets of America post-TDM isn't going to be as ammunition intensive as slugging it out in Central Europe, but the mauling some of the divisions in USAVG suffered from armed groups in CONUS suggests that we're talking about a much worse situation that, say, the LA Riots even before New America goes active and presents a large, organized insurgency.

What's really going to be needed for military operations is smokeless powder, bullet, and primer production on an industrial scale even if brass cases are largely being scrounged and reloaded -- something comparable to the Wojo factory in Krakow is going to be have to exist on a regional basis in the US and elsewhere to keep even the greatly reduced military forces shown in T2K able to operate at even a semblance of modern fire and maneuver tactics.

[The Rifleman]

Situation: The Vermont National Guard is made up of a number of different units with diverse missions. During the war, not only did the units find themselves employed in different capabilities, but in different situations around the world. The following information is used to describe how these situations would have played out should world war three have happened in either V1 or V2 rules.

Vermont National Guard Organization (pre war):

Vermont STARC HQ (includes public affairs, state medical support, the biathlon team, Adjutant General and staff (100 men 10 vehicles)

Subunits
86th Armored Brigade (see below)
Vermont Troop Command (see below)
Vermont Military Academy (see below)
Vermont Army Mountain Warfare School (see below)
Ethan Allen Firing Range Control and staff (see below)
Camp Johnson Logistics and Full time support (see below)
Vermont Air National Guard (see below)
Norwich University (a military academy since the 1800s) ROTC, Castleton State University ROTC , University of Vermont ROTC (none of these programs are officially Vermont National Guard, however most of the facility are retired military officers, the state details excess officers as support and instructors and most of the students are dual members of ROTC and the Vermont National Guard (that are not eligible for deployment. Most of the Vermont National Guard officers are either Vermont Military Academy OCS graduates or Norwich University ROTC graduates)

86th Armored Brigade HQ (200 men, 30 vehicles)

Subunits:

1/172 Armored Battalion (800 men 56 M1s, 8 M901s, 8 M109/4.2 mortars, 120 vehicles)
2/172 Armored Battalion (800 men 56 M1s, 8 M901s, 8 M109/4.2 mortars, 120 vehicles)
86th Artillery Battalion (400 men 24 M109A3s 40 vehicles)
172nd Field Support Battalion (500 men, 120 vehicles)
Other Brigade units are from states other than Vermont
Vermont Troop Command HQ (controlling headquarters for small units) (30 men 5 vehicles)

Subunits

3/172 Infantry Battalion (Mountain) (500 men, 20 vehicles)
C Company, 3/126 Aviation (200 men, 20 blackhawks, 15 vehicles)
45th Engineer Company (75 men, 25 vehicles)
131st Engineer Company (120 men, 25 vehicles)
40th Army Band (30 men 5 vehicles)

Vermont Military Academy HQ and staff (20men)
Company H, 1st OCS Battalion (5 men)
Company E, 1st Infantry Training Brigade (15men 3 vehicles)
Company B, 14th General Studies Battalion (20 men)

Vermont Army Mountain Warfare School (25 men 5 vehicles)

Ethan Allen Firing Range
Range Control Staff (20 men 10 vehicles)
Medical Support (5 men 1 vehicle)
UTES Maintainece shop support (10 men)

Camp Johnson Full time support and staff
CSMS State support maintance shop (10 men)
Administrative offices, warehouse and support (30 men)
Post security (10 men)

Vermont Air National Guard HQ (50 men 10 vehicles)
158th Fighter Wing (total 600 men)
134th Fighter Squadron
158th Operations, Support, and Medical Groups

Vermont Army National Guard timeline:
1945 172nd Infantry Regiment returns from the war with Japan as a component of the 43rd Infantry Division (The Division commander was General Leonard Wing senior, a former Officer in the 2/172 Infantry) Also, the Vermont State Police are formed by Major General Merrit Edison, medal of honor winner for his service during WW2 with the USMC in the pacific.

1960s The 86th Infantry Brigade is converted into an Armored Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Leonard Wing Jr, an armor officer that served in World War 2. The 86th Armored Brigade is transferred from the 43rd Infantry Division to the 50th Armored Division. General Wing becomes the 50th Armored Division Commander, then later assistant Vermont Adjutant General. He retires in 1973.

1970s The army restructures its armor brigades and one battalion 3/172 is closed. The Brigade receives M48s

1980s General Donald Edwards, a Norwich University Graduate, Vietnam Veteran, and former active duty officer is elected state Adjutant General in 1981. He begins implementing a build up. The army expands under President Regan with political campaigning from General Edwards; 3/172 is opened as a oemountain battalion and the Army Mountain Warfare School is opened; the biathlon team begins competing in the Olympics . General Edwards essential creates a oespeciality mountain / sports / infantry environment. The Mountain School is teaching summer and winter oemountain classes, as well as specialty course such as oethe assault climber course. General Edwards oversees the transition from M48A5s to M60A3s for the 86th Armored Brigade. He retains some of the tanks for future memorials, as well as some of the other older support vehicles. General Edwards also secures funds for several large state run maintance facilities and permanent staff.

1990s In 1993 General Edwards secured M1 tanks for the 86th IBCT; he retains several of the M60A3s as war memorials. 1995 General Edwards secured funds for the new Vermont Military Academy building as well as expands the staff for the 1st Infantry Training Brigade. The staff now teaches 11B MOSQ, 11B BNCOC and 11B ANCOC all in 2 week phases.

1997 The 86th Armored Brigade is activated as part of the 50th Armored Division. All of its equipment and personal are deployed to Germany. To have enough personnel, all of the inactive national guard soldiers are also recalled and deployed. The Vermont Air National Guards 158th Fighter Wing is activated and deployed to Europe. Company C, 3/126 Aviation is activated and deployed with its parent unit to Korea.

1998 With the activation of 1st Army, all of its subordinate units are activated. The 3/172 Infantry Battalion is activated and is used for security duty for 1st US Army and disaster relief missions in the Army HQ immediate area. The 131st Engineer Company is activated and forms part of a Corp level engineer battalion in 1st Army. Due to political pressure from the Govenor of Vermont and General Edwards, the 40th Army band and the 45th Engineer Company are activated but remain under state control. The decision is partly political and partly practical as the 45th is perpetually understrength, the 40th band has no mission and the states need local forces to maintain order.

1999 With Vermonts limited population, riots and looting is fairly limited compared to other states. General Edwards is heavy handed (he was known to lock down state controlled roads and had numerous political battles with Burlington leaders over the years). General Edwards deploys the 40th Band and 45th Engineer to the Highways and turns around refugees that cannot show they can support themselves.

With numerous bridges, rivers and mountains, at first its easy to control access, but as the issues in the cities become increasing worse, General Edwards needs more soldiers and units. With pressure on the Govenor, General Edwards begins a oestate draft. Able bodied men are sent to the Vermont Military Academy and trained with instructors from the 1st Infantry training brigade and the Vermont Army Mountain Warfare school on infantry tactics. The 40 instructors and staff are able to run a basic training course every eight weeks that turns out 200 students. Drawing on his Vietnam War experience, he has the staff select the top 10 recruits to attend the OCS battalion 12 week long course to become officers and the next best 30 recruits attend the General Studies battalion courses for 8 weeks to become NCOs. Also, the Norwich University Campus has several hundred M16s and M14s as well as a large number of cadets that were in officer training but not deployed. The states warehouses are full of older equiptment such as uniforms, helmets and web gear. The armories of the schools and state level units are all full of M16 rifles and the state has a small ammo dump at Camp Johnson.

General Edwards then uses his staff to shift through the states retired reserve list and finds all of the national guard veterans who are receiving entitlements and activates them. (I personally witnessed an master sergeant who was retired for 4 years activated for service in Afghanistan so I know it can be done). He also activates that state guard. These veterans, as well as the personal who were declined for deployment with the 86th Brigade become the senior leadership for 2 new Vermont National Guard battalions, as the state has roughly enough rifles and gear for 1,000 or so new soldiers.

Discipline in the battalions is fairly tight as the battalion staffs are full of retired colonels, the company commanders are fairly young retired majors from the college ROTC, and most of the platoon sergeants are military school trained 20 year old Lts from Norwich. Many of the state guard and retired soldiers are former tankers, having served in the 60s 80s. These older soldiers are paired with some younger ones to form tank crews. The following vehicles are recovered from lawns where they were memorials or from the bone yard behind armories: M48A5s 4, M60A3s 8, M113s 4, M42s 2, 75mm pack howitzers 2. The M48s and M60s are not just paper tigers.

The state has TWO full maintance shops that can MAKE parts for tanks and have spares (especially for the M60s) in inventory. There is a hydroelectric dam just 1 mile from Camp Johnson and the state shop providing power for the machines to work. Also, Camp Johnson has a small ammo dump and the 86th Armored Brigade uses M1s with 105mm cannons. So there is a limited amount of ammunition remaining in stock that will work with the main guns on the M48s and M60s, as well as .50 for the M2 machine guns.

2000 Vermont is essentially a dictatorship. The governor is nothing more than a figurehead as General Edwards controls the military. The state police and Vermont national guard are algamated into one force. The oe1st Vermont Battalion with 500 men is controlling the northern half of the state and the oe2nd Vermont Battalion with 500 men is controlling the southern half of the state. Each platoon has one or two state troopers with it as a law enforcement specialist who acts as an investigator for need be for crimes; serious offenses are sent to battalion HQ for oetrial.

Most of the countryside is occasionally patrolled, but the cities and towns have regular patrols of National Guard, typically with either a state trooper or local law enforcement officer. The Interstates and Highways are controlled by 40th band in the North, or by the 2nd Battalion in the south. The 45th Engineer Company has been re-enforced to a battalion by using the state highway departments personal and equipment. Important bridges are maintained and the 45th is constructing permanent fortifications to keep refugees out of the state. The oe3rd Vermont Armored Company and oe4th Vermont Armored Company both formed around the remaining tanks and are used as a reserve at different locations around the state. They are based at armories that contain shops designed to work on tanks so maintance is easy to upkeep and the tanks are stored inside, out of the elements unless needed.

Rumors of the military state have made as far south as the 1st Army HQ, and when that headquarters disintegrated, the remaining 150 soldiers of the 3/172 Infantry (mountain) began the trek home to Vermont from New York by foot. The oestate farms outside the prisons are still active, as well as many dairy farms including ones at the universitys, and many Morgan horse farms have been used to raise horses for agriculture. As Vermont did not have a single military target worth hitting with a nuclear device, the only major threat to the populations were marauders and refugee influxes, both of which were prevented by General Edwards hard handed ways. Vermont even has a nuclear power plant (Vermont Yankee) and some remaining staff that is currently off line but will be restarted if enough industry in Brattlboro is repaired to justify it.

So thats just a really rough draft with some ideas I just typed up as I went along. I guess I could war game out a few things differently, but it really all comes down to leadership. If you have a 38 year military veteran of Vietnam, like General Edwards, who isnt afraid to piss people off and has the know how , you could do a lot.

[The Rifleman]

I thought there was legislation or a military policy in place that said vehicles on static display had to be de-mil'ed and rendered non-functional after that guy in California stole an M60 tank back in '95. I may be wrong on that, though, and obviously its relevance in the T2K timeline is questionable. (And rendering a vehicle non-functional does not imply it has to be permanently non-functional, though my understanding was that "non-functional" normally translated to the power pack being pulled from AFVs.)

You're right, they are supposed to be de-milled. However, a lot of those tanks spend YEARS sitting in motor pools waiting for state to get around to doing the work. Besides that, if if they are de-milled, the spares are still there to swap out, and at the state level they have everything they need to make parts. Power pacts probably would be the most difficult to replace, as whole ones aren't just laying around waiting to be replaced, but I don't think they removed the whole thing, just one or two parts. As a matter of fact, there is one partular one that needed to be moved, they just unlocked it and drove the 50 year old tank to a new home lol.

[natehale1971]

I want to thank The Rifleman for all his help on this. it's given me some good ideas for what i'm working on.

[The Rifleman]

You're welcome. I should thank you too. I saved all that info and perhaps I'll use it to create some sort of Vermont reasource guide or even campaign.

[natehale1971]

You're welcome. I should thank you too. I saved all that info and perhaps I'll use it to create some sort of Vermont reasource guide or even campaign.

That's great. just make sure you post it here for everyone to enjoy it as well!

[Targan]

Interesting take on Vermont. Have you guys read Webstral's New England material

[Legbreaker]

My major concern here is that once Europe, Korea and the Middle East really ramp up and losses start piling up (particularly in the latter half of 1997 when NATO was in full retreat and loosing entire Divisions one after the other), a concerted effort would be made to send out "scroungers" to round up all these vehicles, or at the very least tally up what is where in order to requisition them later on if things get REALLY bad (which they obviously did, but post nuke there's not exactly much of an organised "procurement" organisation left).

Some pieces of equipment are likely to escape being swept back into service, sure, but if the handful of us here on this forum are aware of what is potentially out there, I'm fairly sure somebody in the military, hell even the civilian government, is going to start thinking along the same lines and DO something about it.

Many vehicles, etc aren't going to be suitable for the front lines - who in their right mind wants to send an old M4 to Europe in 1997 However, anything deemed useful isn't likely to get easily overlooked.

Therefore, WWII and maybe Korea era equipment may be found with the state guard and militia, but anything newer is sure to be exceptionally unique.

[The Rifleman]

My major concern here is that once Europe, Korea and the Middle East really ramp up and losses start piling up (particularly in the latter half of 1997 when NATO was in full retreat and loosing entire Divisions one after the other), a concerted effort would be made to send out "scroungers" to round up all these vehicles, or at the very least tally up what is where in order to requisition them later on if things get REALLY bad (which they obviously did, but post nuke there's not exactly much of an organised "procurement" organisation left).

Some pieces of equipment are likely to escape being swept back into service, sure, but if the handful of us here on this forum are aware of what is potentially out there, I'm fairly sure somebody in the military, hell even the civilian government, is going to start thinking along the same lines and DO something about it.

Many vehicles, etc aren't going to be suitable for the front lines - who in their right mind wants to send an old M4 to Europe in 1997 However, anything deemed useful isn't likely to get easily overlooked.

Therefore, WWII and maybe Korea era equipment may be found with the state guard and militia, but anything newer is sure to be exceptionally unique.

Just no. The nearest army bases are Fort drum (10 hours drive) or Fort Dix (8 hours drive). By army base standards, neither are large. Do you honestly think that someone is going to get in a car, spend days or weeks driving around small towns in new england hoping to see a lawn ornaments The army has no idea where these tanks are because they are not even the army's property anymore. Lets play this out.

The army has people spending weeks driving around looking for old tanks. Then, after one is actually found, they have to get a truck and a special trailer to come up from Kentucky (three days drive) to get it. AND if its not running, you'll need a tank recovery vehicle to drag or push it. AND that vehicle will need a second truck and special trailer to bring it up from Kentucky to Ludlow, Vermont, to bring it back as well. AND don't forget that someone has got to keep them fueled. AND on top of that, these tanks ARENT OWNED by the army, they are sitting on the property book of the state. So even if the army decided they wanted to try and pull rank, its totally unrealistic.

Are you familiar with the US Army Vehicle guide Whole infantry divisions were getting attacked by bandits. How are two tractor trailers towing a tank recovery vehicle, mechanics, and some other vehicles with stills going to drive 3 days through bandit country because some private found a tank