US Army Recruitment?

[dragoon500ly]

The Round out NG brigades, during our timeframe, would consist of:

25th Infantry Division (Light) 29th Infantry Brigade, HI NG

9th Infantry Division (Motorized), had 3 RA brigades but would be augmented with 81st IB (Mech) WA NG. This was due to concerns that the FAV/HMMWV TOE of the 9th, would leave it a little too light for its RDF role. But not to worry! Within two years, the 81st would be in search of a mission!!

7th ID(L), it's round out would be the 41st IB OR NG

1st Cavalry Division, round out is the 155th Armored Brigade, MS NG

5th ID(M) gets the 256th IB(Mech) LA NG

101st Airborne Division has the 39th IB AR NG "affiliated" with it. Now the 39th is a traditional infantry brigade, but there was always talk that they would deploy if the 101st went to war. But then was also talk that the 39th would remain stateside...

24th ID(M) round out was the 48th IB (M) GA MY. There were always reports that the 48th was not combat ready during this time, which explains why the RA's 197th IB(M) deployed to Desert Storm with the 24th.

Of the National Guards major units;

26th ID was a NATO reinforcement
28th ID was a NATO reinforcement
29th ID(L) was in search of a mission, RED didn't want another light division, and deploying a LID into Central Europe

35th ID(M) was NATO reinforcement
38th ID was a stay at home
40th ID(M) was either a NATO or an RDF reinforcement
42nd ID was a stay at home
47th ID was a stay at home or an Alaska reinforcement
49th AD was a NATO reinforcement
50th AD was a NATO reinforcement, but of the NG Armored divisions, they were considered to be the least ready for deployment

The NG brigades, NOT including the round outs include
33rd IB IL NG
45th IB OK NG
53rd IB FL NG
73rd IB OH NG
92nd IB PR NG
207th Infantry Group AK NG
Of these, the 92nd and 207th would most likely have remained in their home areas. Of the remaining infantry brigades, there were some write ups in the Infantry Journal about possible deployments to Korea or to NATO as rear area protection.

The NG Mech and Armored brigades all had NATO reinforcement missions. Here I part ways with canon, these units were intended to be corps level attachments and NOT as elements of new divisions. Their primary missions would have been rear area security, screening roles with their corps, corps reserve and as augmentation for divisions in the attack. Sorry, but the Army doctrine of that period called for these independent brigades to be used in these roles. It is far more likely that the Guard independent battalions would have been used as cadre for new formed divisions.

[mpipes]

In my modified v2.2 timeline, arms production started ramping up markedly after the Sino-Soviet war started. It had already started even before that after the 1991 Coup to modernize US forces with the latest M1, M2, M3 and some new aircraft (F-20A and F-16F) as the draw down began.

Beginning in late 1995, with the Sino-Soviet War, US arms production kicked into high gear, and with the German-Polish war start, recruitment and drafts began. Congress authorized new divisions after the start of the German-Polish war as well. However, most NATO countries started modest mobilization and modernization after the war started in China, including France and Belgium. Germany's buildup started in 1991 after the coup.

[CDAT]

...
9th Infantry Division (Motorized), had 3 RA brigades but would be augmented with 81st IB (Mech) WA NG. This was due to concerns that the FAV/HMMWV TOE of the 9th, would leave it a little too light for its RDF role. But not to worry! Within two years, the 81st would be in search of a mission!!

...

Just a side note, talking with my brother and some of his buddies who spent there entire career in the 81st (joined early 1990's) it went from round out to enhanced readiness with a war mission in Korea. What they were told was the brigade (at the time two armor battalions, two-three infantry battalions, engineer battalion, FA battalion, MASH, support battalion, and more almost 8000 strong) was expected to be in combat within 30 day of the north crossing the DMZ. One of the guys was a tech (full time working for the guard but as a civilian) who said part of his job was to go to the two ships that were pre-loaded with equipment and pull maintenance on them every month. According to them, the plan was when the war broke out the ships would sail and the troops would fall in on their training equipment, when the ships were just about to arrive they would fly the troops over and hook up with the equipment. Now this is all hearsay but I have heared it from LTC and CWO-4's as well as senior NCO's. Would it have worked I do not know I can see some issues, but that is my understanding what the plan became for the 81st when the got rid of the 9th ID.

[Louied]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ~Heavy, III, V & VII with two ~Light I & XVIII) to fight a oe two & a half war contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I havent found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and its Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ~Rear Battle Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Divs RO.

To be continued....

[mpipes]

Yep. That was the plan for the round-out brigades till 1990 - and then "Desert Storm" - and the whole round-out concept fell flat on its face.

I was a logistics readiness officer in the 8th TFW in 1987 - 1989. I still shudder at how unrealistic some of the assumptions were for wartime build-up. My big wakeup was the TOTALLY bogus assumptions that were at play at evacuating US nationals during the 1988 Olympics if anything broke out. The base planned for only about 400 - the average number of visiting US citizens in the local area. State, on the other hand, said to expect 50,000!!!! After all, the airport in Seoul was within artillery range and would immediately shutdown. And 50,000 did not cover the allied civilians to expect. After discussing the entire situation with State, I ended up advising to be ready for at least 100,000 evacuees showing up within a week. I thought the base commander was going to have a stroke!!

[Ancestor]

Dragonfly: that is great information, thank you for sharing!

I am curious as to what was the mission assigned to the "stay at home" Divisions and BDEs, if any Was it to form a strategic reserve, remain available for support to civil authorities, or just a recognition that there was only so much mobilization support (mob stations, money, materiel, transportation) to go around and that these units weren't going to get to play with the others

In my timeline I kept 42ID at home to remain in support of civil authorities. I had them placed Title 32 service in support of the NY Governor to respond to the summer 1997 NYC unrest described in Armies of the Night. They were federalized after TDM and then I had them replaced in NYC by the Reserve Division (70th I think, going by memory) as stated in canon. But instead of deploying to the Balkans (what I believe to be the most absurd and inexplicable part of canon) I had the 42ID moved upstate to secure West Point and Albany.

Louie: Thanks. That might explain why the 35ID was fielded the M1/M2 series prior to other Guard formations. I'm looking forward to the continuation!

Mpipes: That is an amusing but not surprising story. After two deployments I am still often amazed by the vastness of the gap between how both State and DoD can view the exact same factual situation and come away with two diametrically opposite visions. We had an example of this actually occur today in theater. Confirmation bias is real!

[Louied]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ~Heavy, III, V & VII with two ~Light I & XVIII) to fight a oe two & a half war contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I havent found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and its Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ~Rear Battle Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Divs RO.

To be continued....

Now as for the ~Rear Battle Inf Bdes.....
45 IB was slotted for III Corps
73 IB has a European Mission but still havent found out which Corps.
33 IB has a mission to support the Infantry School but it looks to be the only remaining Bde the could be allotted to the V or VII Corps.

As for the Arm/Mech Bdes, your guess is as good as mine about assignments.
Now we do have the following Bdes with a European Mission:
30 IB (M)
30 AB
31 AB
32 IB (M) (the whole Bde did a REFORGER but I have also read it was slated to support Alaska)
Now that leaves us two short unless we want to throw in the AC 194 AB & 197 IB (M). BTW if anyone has info on the USAR 157 IB (M) please share, I have found nothing in regards !

Getting back for a moment to the ARNG Inf Divs.....it looks like 26 ID was heading toward an AOE config especially after it picked up 86 Bde and its two VT Arm Bns. Likewise 42 ID was up to three Arm Bns by 1989. Now I have read that 47 ID would go to Alaska to releave 6 ID (if it went to ROK) while 38 ID would be Reserve for SOUTHCOM (along with 53 IB & 92 IB). 28 ID was apparently under command of I Corps from 1985-88 and then XVIII Corps from 1988.

To be continued.....

[dragoon500ly]

Just a side note, talking with my brother and some of his buddies who spent there entire career in the 81st (joined early 1990's) it went from round out to enhanced readiness with a war mission in Korea. What they were told was the brigade (at the time two armor battalions, two-three infantry battalions, engineer battalion, FA battalion, MASH, support battalion, and more almost 8000 strong) was expected to be in combat within 30 day of the north crossing the DMZ. One of the guys was a tech (full time working for the guard but as a civilian) who said part of his job was to go to the two ships that were pre-loaded with equipment and pull maintenance on them every month. According to them, the plan was when the war broke out the ships would sail and the troops would fall in on their training equipment, when the ships were just about to arrive they would fly the troops over and hook up with the equipment. Now this is all hearsay but I have heared it from LTC and CWO-4's as well as senior NCO's. Would it have worked I do not know I can see some issues, but that is my understanding what the plan became for the 81st when the got rid of the 9th ID.

Running joke when I was active duty was that the 81st was always in search of a mission. They were slotted for NATO, then Korea, then RDF back to NATO, reinforcement to 9th MID, then Korea. My own take is that they would have wound up in the Middle East.

[dragoon500ly]

Dragoon,

From about 1989 this is what the Army was looking at (based on my research):

Under AOE we are looking at five Corps (three ~Heavy, III, V & VII with two ~Light I & XVIII) to fight a oe two & a half war contingency (Europe, NW Asia, and SW Asia, the half) I havent found anything on IX Corps yet other than its rear element in HI supervised RC units in the Pacific Rim and its Fwd in Japan functioned as USA Japan.

Each Hvy Corp, ideally, would consist of the following:
Two Arm Divs
Two Mech Divs
One Inf Div (now there were two AOE Configuratiions they were looking at for the five ARNG Inf Divs according to Romjue. Each version would have one each Arm, Mech, & AA Bdes but v.1 would have three of each Arm, Mech, & AA Bns along with a TLAT Bn. V.2 (the preferred one) would of had 4x Arm, 3x Mech, & 3x AA)
One ACR
One ~Rear Battle Inf Bde
One Arm Bde
One Mech Bde

49 & 50 ADs along with 35 ID seemed to RO the three Hvy Corps
. Though 50 AD was having a rough time and so was the 42 ID as it had to recruit a 3rd Bde to replace 27 IB when it became 10th Mtn Divs RO.

To be continued....

AOE called for corps to be either two Armored/one Mech or one Armored/two Mech divisions, separate Arms and Mech brigades, an ACT and from 2-4 Field Artillery Brigades. But AOE was always being tinkered with!

As for the IX Corps, it was slatted to reinforce Eighth Army in Korea, or as controlling headquarters for Taiwan if the decision was made to reinforce them.

[dragoon500ly]

Dragonfly: that is great information, thank you for sharing!

I am curious as to what was the mission assigned to the "stay at home" Divisions and BDEs, if any Was it to form a strategic reserve, remain available for support to civil authorities, or just a recognition that there was only so much mobilization support (mob stations, money, materiel, transportation) to go around and that these units weren't going to get to play with the others

In my timeline I kept 42ID at home to remain in support of civil authorities. I had them placed Title 32 service in support of the NY Governor to respond to the summer 1997 NYC unrest described in Armies of the Night. They were federalized after TDM and then I had them replaced in NYC by the Reserve Division (70th I think, going by memory) as stated in canon. But instead of deploying to the Balkans (what I believe to be the most absurd and inexplicable part of canon) I had the 42ID moved upstate to secure West Point and Albany. !

I have seen several possible reasons for keeping NG divisions stateside, but the most likely use would be safeguarding critical government sites, in other words the COG backups.

[mpipes]

Keep in mind that the National Guard would not deploy every member. Probably 10% of Guardsmen don't fill deployable personnel slots and would stay in the states. A number would have also not been able to deploy for health reasons of one sort or the other (e.g., recuperating from injury, surgery, active infections like flu, not qualified in their MOS, training school attendance, etc). So you'ld probably end up with upwards of 1000 to 1500 members missing deployment out of every division. Plus, active duty troops would be in the same situation; a number of troops non-deployable. You simply will not have 100% of the military packing up and heading overseas and military bases turned into abandoned ghost towns and instead will retain a significant number of troops. Every base will still have several hundred remaining at least.

[dragoon500ly]

Keep in mind that the National Guard would not deploy every member. Probably 10% of Guardsmen don't fill deployable personnel slots and would stay in the states. A number would have also not been able to deploy for health reasons of one sort or the other (e.g., recuperating from injury, surgery, active infections like flu, not qualified in their MOS, training school attendance, etc). So you'ld probably end up with upwards of 1000 to 1500 members missing deployment out of every division. Plus, active duty troops would be in the same situation; a number of troops non-deployable. You simply will not have 100% of the military packing up and heading overseas and military bases turned into abandoned ghost towns and instead will retain a significant number of troops. Every base will still have several hundred remaining at least.

If anything, you may be understating the numbers of undeployable troops! A more realistic number may be as high as 15-20% of the division, due to age and medical conditions.

In addition (from Armies of NATO 's Central Front), you also have the following issues:

Unit quality and training vary. Individual and small unit training can surpass that of Regular Army units. But battalion, brigade and division level training is normally limited to command post exercises.

Past experience shows that Guard formations are not fit for combat until 10-12 months after moving mobilization. Planning since the 1970s has assumed that the Guard could be in Europe within 30-days. The Guard's readiness does not justify such optimism.

There are five key shortcomings that have to be addressed.
1) Much of the Guard's equipment is non-deployable, unsupportable and non-compatible for joint combat operations.

2) Communications equipment is old,unreliable, incompatible and not secure.

3) When Guard units deploy to Europe, USAREUR cannot support many of their weapons systems. There is no pre-positioned equipment groUndout units.

4) Guard units are not authorized to hold combat-level parts stock. Spare parts are based on limited peacetime use levels.

5) Ammunition shortages and inadequate range facilities limit gunnery proficiency.

With the Guard's current status and equipment, to quote a Congressional report, the Guard "would fight with only limited possibilities of success or even survival."

[mpipes]

These are aggregate unit issue, much of which is quite true but other aspects were/are overblown. I know that the "poor training" brush painted was overstated to a point for the Desert Storm deployments.

After the fact, it was finally conceded that much of the training that needed to be accomplished could have been done in country. During real deployments post-9/11, Guard units have performed more than adequately. Not sure what the changes were.

During Desert Storm, many of the 256th were frustrated by all the red tape blocking their deployment. Much of it was a need to "check off" the appropriate training block, where they had to be requalified and the appropriate training record entry checked off, even though the troops were perfecting capable of doing the task. Case in point, most of the brigade had to requalify on the M-16, M-60, M2...what have you...because their qualification was expired. Did not matter if they had shot expert every time for years, they were deemed non-deployable because their qualification expired two weeks ago.

[pmulcahy11b]

In Desert Shield, we got about a week to set up camp, a day or so to get acquainted with the unit area -- and then training came fast and hard. It started out mornings only after PT to get us used to the climate, but then, we were training harder than we ever did, harder than any unit I've been in. By Desert Storm, we were strong, hard, lean, and chomping at the bit.

[mpipes]

Paul,

What unit were you with

Do you know what concrete changes, if any, were made after Desert Storm so the units could deploy

I was good friends with a Captain, and was practically reduced to tears with the frustration. According to him, active duty Army kept moving the bar, seemingly so that they would never reach the almost mythical status of "deployable." They had some troops they had to requalify on every infantry weapon to deploy, some of which they didn't have. Case in point, as I recall, they had to have everyone qualified on the M249 and M240, even though they still had M60s. And how dumb is it to absolutely insist someone requalify yet again who had annually qualified on the same weapon system every previous year for 10 years!! Also, I believe they had just received the M1A1s and M2s, and the active Army was requiring each and every MOS to get all the training redone on the new equipment. As he said, if you can drive one you can drive the other; you don't need the full week of programed training that the Army made them accomplish. All in all, the Army just heaped hoop after hoop on them that they had to jump through.

They pretty much got there after busting their asses for months, and then Army still did not deploy them. A lot of pissed off troops quit, and they were still rebuilding when 9/11 happened.