US Army Recruitment?

[rcaf_777]

According to this article during fiscal year 2017, the US Army recruited almost 69,000 soldiers for active duty.

http://www.businessinsider.com/army-changing-recruiting-standards-to-attract-more-soldiers-2017-10

So my question is how many soldiers would the US Army need to recruit during twilight

I am guessing initially Guardsmen and USAR, and recalled members would used to fill critical positions need to deploy regular army divisions. While some new personnel with key cadre members would

A. Roundout National Guard/USAR Units
B. Establish new units

Other newly recruited personnel would thrown into the replacement system and assigned to existing units

am I out to lunch

[dragoon500ly]

How many people would need to be drafted

The easy answer is a lot! With the need to recruit service members to bring units up to TO&E strength, among all five branches, then you are looking at hundreds of thousands. Toss in the Reseve and Guard units, and you are looking at potentially a million or more.

The best example is World War Two, many people don't realize that the US military started ramping up for the war almost two years in advance, bringing Regular units to full strength, building/expanding training and support facilities, registration for the draft and then calling up the first draftees.

It is generally considered that roughly 17 weeks is needed to take a civilian, complete basic training and then push the new soldier through AIT, in the end, you have an individual that has a basic idea of their job, but is sorely lacking in experience. It takes roughly a year, in a peacetime Army, to get that new soldier sufficient experience for them to be an useful part of the unit. In wartime, running 7-days a week training schedules and exercises, you can get this done to roughly 6 months.

And by this time, you have a shooting war on three continents, with modern weapons being employed, casualties will be brutal. There will be demands to get these new recruits to the fighting units to bring battered divisions back up to effective strength. Give these new recruits experience Again, the WWII experience gives us a horrific view of what happens next, green 18-year olds reporting to their new unit, just in time for tomorrow's offensive, their squad leaders not even able to learn their names before they become casualties. Toss in the "joys" of a chemical attack and those new recruits are decimated, time for the G-1 to scream for more replacements.

By time the strategic nukes start getting tossed, I would expect that the replacement pipeline would be drying up, unable to sustain the heavy demands. This is why I can see divisions shrinking down to only a few thousand soldiers. Senior commanders would have no choice but to ruthlessly comb through support units in order to scrap up enough soldiers to reinforce the front. Air Force and Navy units, there are no aircraft or ships left! Welcome to the PBI!!

[Ancestor]

"The easy answer is a lot! With the need to recruit service members to bring units up to TO&E strength, among all five branches, then you are looking at hundreds of thousands. Toss in the Reseve and Guard units, and you are looking at potentially a million or more.

The best example is World War Two, many people don't realize that the US military started ramping up for the war almost two years in advance, bringing Regular units to full strength, building/expanding training and support facilities, registration for the draft and then calling up the first draftees."

Great point. A quick search turned up this resource from the US Army Historian:

https://history.army.mil/documents/WWII/ww2mob.htm

I always feel terrible for those poor souls from the NG who were mobilized for a year in 1940 IOT to provide a stop-gap to grow the force. Some were nearing the end of their mob when Pearl Harbor happened.

[dragoon500ly]

One of the greatest problems of the pre-War mobilization was leadership. The Army had its small pool of Regular officers, another small of Reserve officers (these were regulars who had resigned their commissions in order to get jobs that would allow them to support their families), ROTC cadets, and the graduating class from West Point. These were used to bring units up to strength.

One of the other problems was the miserable state of the NG units. Since these were state-controlled, their officers were riddled with over-age or political appointees. This resulted in a need to replace these officers as well. So West Point cut its classes from 4 years to 3 years and sending NCOs and promising EMs to OCS, turning out "90 Day Wonders" to fill in platoon leader slots, and, needless to say, promotions rained down like manna from heaven! One NCO, E-7, was promoted to 2LT, then to Captain, given a company, then was promoted to Major and made Operations Officer for his battalion, and all within the space of ten days! He wound up getting into a fight on post, was court-martialed, and reduced back to Captain, with the proviso that he would keep his officers rank, provided he transferred to a newly formed division (he finished the war as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a infantry battalion).

But one of the critical impacts of this leadership shortfall, was the promotion of barely trained "NCOs". In many cases, there would be, perhaps one experienced NCO in a company. The British were certainly right in complaining that American leadership didn't know how to lead. It would take the campaigns in North Africa and New Guinea to start the brutal process of instilling discipline teaching the hard lessons of combat, each year saw a more careful selection for OCS/NCOs. But there were still problems that were never successfully resolved. And these same problems returned with a vengeance during the Korean War.

[Adm.Lee]

Per Wikipedia:
"In WWII, males between 18 and 64 were required to register, but the selections were limited by executive order on December 5, 1942 from from 2145 to 1838. Assuming the citation (George Q. Flynn, The Draft, 19401973) is correct, 50 million men from 18 to 45 were registered. The Selective Service statistics page gives the total inductions during WWII as 10,110,104, which would indicate that the percentage would be somewhere around 20% were drafted based on registration.

By the Vietnam war, the draft age had changed to 18-26 by the Selective Service Act. The draft pool was around 27 million (apparently lifted verbatim from a paragraph from this paper), and per the Selective Service page linked above, there were 1,857,304 inductions during Vietnam. Note that Morris gives the number as 2,215,000 - this may reflect a difference in start and end dates used but they are fairly close. This would indicate that roughly 7-9% of the draft pool was conscripted."

So, 2 million per year in a serious emergency, to bring the combined US armed forces to around 13 million at war's end. In a not-so-serious emergency, an average of 200,000 to maintain a force of over a million.

If I had to guess, the Twilight-era US forces would want to draft at least a million per year, but probably don't achieve that. Say they start in late 1996, once shooting starts, ramp up in 1997 to fill up some of the units that need to be created or filled from cadre, such as the dozen training divisions that have to become light infantry/security formations after the TDM instead of maintaining the replacement stream to the battlefronts. Assume new formations try to resume that role in 1998, but disorganization keeps things breaking down.

[Tegyrius]

If the lessons Dragonfly mentions were learned, I can see there being a targeted call-up of retired field-grade officers and SNCOs who'd previously seen combat in Korea or Vietnam as company officers or JNCOs. They'd serve as cadre for training units (and an expanded OCS program) initially, but some of them might find their way into the fight. There's an argument to be made for the remaining CONUS units having a bunch of those dudes among their leadership, too, once the training pipeline becomes the direct-to-combat-unit replacement pipeline.

For another spin on it, some of them might have avoided the call-up but later spontaneously volunteered - or were "drafted" - as local militia commanders or trainers.

- C.

[dragoon500ly]

Per Wikipedia:

If I had to guess, the Twilight-era US forces would want to draft at least a million per year, but probably don't achieve that. Say they start in late 1996, once shooting starts, ramp up in 1997 to fill up some of the units that need to be created or filled from cadre, such as the dozen training divisions that have to become light infantry/security formations after the TDM instead of maintaining the replacement stream to the battlefronts. Assume new formations try to resume that role in 1998, but disorganization keeps things breaking down.

IMHO, with the increasing tension between the USSR and the PRC, one could reasonably expect a closer scrutiny of the region by the various intelligence agencies. One would also expect that the Selective Service people will start airing their PSAs advising the public that it is the law to register, and advising on the various ways to register.

Using the WWII example, a call-up of the Individual Ready Reserve (recently discharged personnel), as well as recently retired personnel would take place. As the Sino-Soviet War kicks off, the Naval Reserve and the Air National Guard will start being called up, first with fighter squadrons (for national defends), then as military aid starts towards the Chinese, with Naval Reserve warships being recalled to.replace regular warships that are conveying aid to the Chinese.

Sometime during the process, the Soviets will start objecting to our "interference" in a local matter", followed by Soviet backed efforts in the UN to "prevent mercenaries from interfering."

With increasing tempos the war, as the Soviets withdraw units from Western Europe, NATO would increase its alert status.

Stateside, I regard it as highly possible, that the President would order the activation of the Army Reserve, starting with the training divisions, bringing these units up to speed on the latest equipment and procedures. Within 2-3 months, the President will ask Congress to approve the restarting of the draft.

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

Thoughts

[Cdnwolf]

One ... Chuck Norris

[Ancestor]

"Stateside, I regard it as highly possible, that the President would order the activation of the Army Reserve, starting with the training divisions, bringing these units up to speed on the latest equipment and procedures. Within 2-3 months, the President will ask Congress to approve the restarting of the draft.

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

Thoughts"

I think you've got the jist of it! I don't see a big move towards national mobilization until 1996 (almost like what occurred in the US between 1939 and 1940). I still see a movement to "stay out of the war" competing with an opportunity to stick it to the commies in both Congress and public opinion. As things start to ramp up and the nation realizes the danger inherent in the situation (May-June 1990, maybe), you start to see many of the things that you've ably described above.

With respect to the NG, I think you'd start to see the same debate that occurred IRL in late 2005-early 2006 after Katrina, that is, the Guard's warfighting mission as a reserve of the Active Army versus the state mission for Homeland Response. Only this time on steroids, given that the threat to the homeland aren't just natural but potentially nuclear weapons! I think you'd see not only increased training and resourcing but also some type of agreement between the Governors' allied with the Guard's powerful congressional lobby and DoD to arrive at some sort of gentlemen's baseline for the percentage of Guard resources (men and materiel) that would remain CONUS at the Governor's disposal. From my experience IRL in the late "oughts" that baseline was 50%. However, I see it being weighed more heavily toward the Warfighting mission in the T2K universe (maybe 75-80% OCONUS and 20-25% CONUS) but with some additional emergency response/state civil defense bones being tossed towards the Governors in the form of federal dollars to fund, equip, and train State Guards as well as resourcing state emergency management agencies with civil defense materiel (MRE, water, tentage, medical supplies, etc.).

Still, I see enough political pressure to keep at least a portion of Guard capabilities available for state use. The active duty's resulting gap between requirements and capabilities must be filled somehow, hence, you have call-ups to form the cadre of USAR training divisions and an expansion of the training infrastructure so that it can handle inductees once the draft starts.

I agree that the Selective Service machine would slowly grind into action. I also see a sort of societal pressure giving rise a national conversation about conscription. I don't want to get into a generational debate but I can see both sides of US political aisle as well as the late Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation and especially the Boomer Generation American public getting behind a draft for various reasons so long as Gen X are the ones doing the fighting.

"Those damn slackers need to put down their Nirvana (or, more appropriately, Dain Dangerous) records, stop smoking pot, quit whining, and get a job!"

[Ancestor]

One ... Chuck Norris

No, they kept him at home. He stopped both the invasion from Alaska and the invasion from Mexico...simultaneously.

Lone Wolf McQuade meets Invasion USA - the Greatest Chuck Norris film never made

[rcaf_777]

During this period, the National Guard will be increasing its training tempo.

I guess many national guard units would being would going through the combat readiness exercises and you see the National Guard Roud-out units federalized

[Louied]

Hey guys,

I posted this on another forum, first two PDFs are entitled

The Cadre Division Concept June 1992 (two separate papers)

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251307.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a250990.pdf

Army Force Structure (November 1990)

https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/142720

Since the earlier document referenced the 26 ID as being 100% converted to AOE (and also because it apparently had a European/NATO mission)

Readiness of the Army National Guard: A case study of the 26th infantry division

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a266901.pdf

Louie

[dragoon500ly]

I guess many national guard units would being would going through the combat readiness exercises and you see the National Guard Roud-out units federalized

The National Guard activation would have been the round out brigades, scheduled for deployment within 30-45 days after activation. Then the NG Armored, mechanized and "selected" infantry divisions, to be ready for deployment within 60-90 days. The remaining infantry divisions were scheduled for deployment within 90-120 days.

The selected infantry divisions are quite a bit harder to pin down. I've got some six different sources, all listing different divisions. But my observation is that they were selecting units to reinforce Alaska and Hawaii (when their RA garrisons deployed), possible reinforcement for VII Corps in Germany and possible deployments to the Pacific.

[Ancestor]

The National Guard activation would have been the round out brigades, scheduled for deployment within 30-45 days after activation. Then the NG Armored, mechanized and "selected" infantry divisions, to be ready for deployment within 60-90 days. The remaining infantry divisions were scheduled for deployment within 90-120 days.

The selected infantry divisions are quite a bit harder to pin down. I've got some six different sources, all listing different divisions. But my observation is that they were selecting units to reinforce Alaska and Hawaii (when their RA garrisons deployed), possible reinforcement for VII Corps in Germany and possible deployments to the Pacific.

I agree 100% with that course of action. Another source (from canon) that might shed some light on what the GDW folks were thinking are the MTOE listings in the US Army Vehicle Guide. I was reviewing those and I noticed that some NG Divisions were equipped with M1/Bradleys while others still deployed with the older M60A4/M113 vehicles. The reason I say canon is that I'm basing my observation on the unit that I'm very familiar with IRL, 35ID.
While I was in middle school when the V.1 Guide was published in 1986, my own experience later in life serving in the 35 ID HQ as well as with one of the subordinate maneuver units during a GWOT deployment was that the Santa Fe Division and the units that were subordinate to it in the T2k Universe were not fielded IRL with the M1/M2 until much later than 1986, the year that the V.1 Guide was published.

While the designers may have been looking ahead to projected Army fielding schedules, I'm more inclined to believe that the MTOE tables showing 35ID with the M1/M2 series were a "game universe" reflection of the fact that 35ID was one of the first NG formations to mobilize and deploy in the T2K universe. It stands to reason that the unit would have spent 1996 (or sooner) taking part in NET fielding, then perhaps utilizing extended AT time or several of the dreaded MUTA 6 (or worse, the demonic MUTA 12) drills leading up to potential pre-conflict Presidential Call-Ups that we've discussed above.

Conjecture on my part but it fits with the "Wartrace" model that Dragonfly has outlined which allocated certain NG formations to deploy to specific COCOMs in response to contingency operations, so I think it could serve helpful for those of us trying to reverse engineer the road to the Twilight War.

[Ancestor]

Hey guys,

I posted this on another forum, first two PDFs are entitled

The Cadre Division Concept June 1992 (two separate papers)

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251307.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a250990.pdf

Army Force Structure (November 1990)

https://www.gao.gov/mobile/products/142720

Since the earlier document referenced the 26 ID as being 100% converted to AOE (and also because it apparently had a European/NATO mission)

Readiness of the Army National Guard: A case study of the 26th infantry division

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a266901.pdf

Louie

Those are awesome links, Louie, thank you for posting them. The 26 ID case study cracked me up. My how times have changed for the Guard!