Airbase Personnel 2000/2001

[kalos72]

So to carry of the other thread, I have some questions about airbases and the units that would stay behind if the operations units were moved overseas or something.

Let's look at Vance AFB, its a training base. Canon has never said that they pulled trainers into Europe so I assume the T-6's or the T-38's are still there, no unit would have been moved out to Europe if the airplanes stayed right

So it logical to say then that these units were all on the base for most of the war at least This isnt about whats left or how effective or how many people still live there, just would the unit stay on base

Units today


14th Operations Group (14 OG)

37th Flying Training Squadron (37 FTS) T-6 Texan II "Bengal Tigers"
41st Flying Training Squadron (41 FTS) T-6 Texan II "Flying Buzzsaws"
43d Flying Training Squadron (43 FTS) T-6 Texan II, T-1 Jayhawk, and T-38 Talon
48th Flying Training Squadron (48 FTS) T-1 Jayhawk "Alley Cats"
49th Fighter Training Squadron (49 FTS)T-38 Talon "Black Knights"
50th Flying Training Squadron (50 FTS) T-38 Talon "Strikn' Snakes
14th Operations Support Squadron (14 OSS)
14th Student Squadron (14 STUS) "Eagles"
14th Mission Support Group (14 MSG)

14th Civil Engineering Squadron (14 CES)
14th Communications Squadron (14 CS)
14th Contracting Squadron (14 CONS)
14th Logistics Readiness Squadron (14 LRS)
14th Security Forces Squadron (14 SFS)
14th Mission Support Squadron (14 MSS)
14th Medical Group (14 MDG)

[Legbreaker]

As replacement aircraft became scarce, and replacement crew even scarcer (you can patch up a machine easier than a person), the instructors, who are often amongst the best the military has, would probably be pulled back to combat service.
Some of the trainers may have been armed and sent to provide ground support against the Mexicans and Soviets, a handful closer to the front in Europe, Korea and the Middle East to provide training there, and the rest maybe mothballed or used as donor aircraft for parts.
With a lack of fuel and little chance of sending reinforcements from the US to the various theatres, it seems somewhat wasteful to keep the units together, especially when you consider inexperienced cadets were pushed into combat.

[kato13]

The unit would only stay on base if that is where it was decided they were most useful. But IMO that is unlikely.

Think about what MILGOVs task list looks like the first week of December 1997. If a unit cannot perform their current mission or if that mission would not yield immediate results, you can be damn sure that someone somewhere could use that manpower.

Air support units might not be redeployed immediately, but three years out is a different story. I can see the unit staying in place to guard somewhat significant fuel reserves initially. But that fuel would soon be tasked to nearby units with greater need. Any remaining aircraft, spares, maintenance equipment, etc would be valuable resources that MILGOV would want to protect, but other tasks in the area with higher priority would pull portions of the unit away.

Keeping the unit on an inactive base represents not only the loss of the manpower of that unit, but also any logistical support that needs to be sent to that unit.

The best of the unit would probably be redeployed with a couple of aircraft to wherever units are still flying as trainers can do low fuel use recon missions. Some might be kept to maintain the local MILGOV commanders personal helicopters and C-12.

If you look at unit conversion for the Iraq conflict, you had all sorts of units converted to quasi infantry simply because that is what the conflict required. You were not fighting masses of tanks so MLRS trained troops were doing street patrols. I think that would be the fate of a majority of the unit you are discussing. Being converted to some type of light infantry or light engineering tasked to riot control and disaster recovery, because those are the greatest needs.

[kalos72]

OK, I get the logical point, but there is no canonical reference to Air Force units being pulled from bases or trainer aircraft being used in combat.

This unit represent 250 aircraft and 1000's of people. If this happened on every base, the ever present lack of military power would be solved in the US and so would alot of the "US is in chaos" type issues since ever location with a AFB would have a significant military force to at very least police the area.

Not to mention the forces left at other military installations...

I can see some pilots, and even a squadron or two perhaps being moved overseas or to Colorado perhaps along with thier support group maybe.

But what units would typical stay behind when its planes get deployed. Think of Iraq...what units would stay behind

[Legbreaker]

OK, I get the logical point, but there is no canonical reference to Air Force units being pulled from bases or trainer aircraft being used in combat.

It's sort of implied I'd think. If there were significant forces remaining, they'd probably have been detailed in at least one of the books.

Iraq is a totally different situation. It was essentially a one sided operation and there was not even a real sniff of danger to the homeland. Society rolled on as normal, with most people barely even aware the military had been deployed. Units in Iraq were able to be rotated and troops given leave.

Better to compare T2K US with real world areas such as Somalia today - not perfect by any means, but a far closer comparison than the deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.

[kato13]

I could see base population drop by as much as 85%. I am looking at units deployed to Iraq and I find cases where an Air Group is deployed and then later expanded to a wing by absorbing additional forces. Iraq for example was the first time a base security unit exceeded 900 personnel since Vietnam. In the twilight war that would need to happen around the world.

The natural place to draw these forces from is safe/secure homeland bases. At least before TDM (wait scratch that the US was still deploying divisions after TDM so maybe logic goes out the window.)

Even with substantial forces remaining in the US that are not mentioned in any of the canon, it would not be enough to keep the US from some very dark times.

The efforts of the US military is a significant reason 48% of the pre war population are alive, but a lot of our infrastructure is lost along with the 52% of the population.

A standard rule of thumb is one enforcement officer can control 10 angry members of the populace (25-50 if on horseback). Until local stability is achieved there are going to be a lot of times the military simply can't muster enough to meet the threshold of control.

Some units will be over run. Canon supports this in the last submarine and armies of the night module.

Some units will disband or even turn marauder when MILGOVs logistical network can no longer support them.

A few units will take serious causalities in the MILGOV/CIVGOV split.

As in every war prior disease will ravage some units.

In my very personal opinion the US was on the canvas for a long 6 count (maybe even saved by the bell). The question is what happens after. If you follow HW a Haymaker simply floors them. I however chose to have the US, battered an bloody, raise their fists and get ready for round 2. A personal choice that I know some don't agree with, but it is a game and the point is to have fun. So that is what I choose.

I can do this all day.

[kalos72]

I think Iraq is a fair example, there was no threat to the homeland envisioned in this war either, at first. Then the bombs dropped...but at that point would the US still have the means of getting these untrained personnel, for the roles they might server over seas anyway, across a nuke ravaged country and then across the ocean, with no navy left, to become cannon fodder

And its not like MILGOV has been great at getting things organized back home, how would they organize the round up of 100 bases full of men and equipment and then transport them in 1999+...at some point they are going to say "stay put and secure your location, try to assist local populations as able."

I think the questions here are two fold:
1. What units would TYPICALLY be left to secure a base once its operational units and perhaps their immediate support units were deployed

2. At what point would the US consider themselves in so much trouble they would even try to collect and command/control these types of units

[Legbreaker]

The moment the nukes fell on the US every man, woman and animal in uniform, or that had ever worn a uniform would have been mobilised for civil defence/disaster relief duties. With the vast bulk of the military overseas already, every warm body would be needed - there's just no way a unit would be left sitting idle anywhere.
Meanwhile, the war rages on, and as of early 1998 it's raging on five separate fronts, two of which are on home soil. All of these need to be supported while the remaining authorities struggle to keep the country from simply imploding.

[kato13]

I think the questions here are two fold:
1. What units would TYPICALLY be left to secure a base once its operational units and perhaps their immediate support units were deployed

All personal opinions of course.

If 15 percent of the original base population stays behind it would be a mix of Admin/support/maintainance-facilities/security.

I don't think the US military's standard 10:1 tail to tooth ratio would apply as the cupboard would be pretty bare and lots of people with obsolete training would be moved to security.

2. At what point would the US consider themselves in so much trouble they would even try to collect and command/control these types of units

Abandonment of bases would start happening in Jan-Mar 1998 when stocks start running out. The Mexican invasion in May would be the event that really gets it rolling.

[Legbreaker]

Abandoning of bases would start happening in Jan-Mar 1998 when stocks start running out. The Mexican invasion in May would be the event that really gets it rolling.

Any base seen as a potential nuclear target may even be abandoned before then with anything not nailed down taken with them and the unit and it's resources disbursed to reduce it's likelihood of being a target.

The only bases I can see continuing to be occupied are those vital to the war effort and/or sufficiently hardened against nuclear attack.

[Raellus]

Base personnel would be kept on base as long as the base was strategically useful.

Without operational aircraft, an airbases strategic importance wanes significantly.

Once the aircraft are gone (destroyed, deployed, inoperable due to a lack of fuel and/or spare parts), the ground crews, base admin, security, etc, would be transferred elsewhere- either to a base with operable aircraft or, as the war drags on, to the infantry.

There's precedent in a modern total war. In the last few months of WWII, as the Red Army closed in on Germany from the east and the Western Allies from the West, the Luftwaffe, which had been eviscerated by the destruction of German oil and synthetic fuel production facilities, and the loss of experienced pilots, transferred a significant percentage of their support personnel to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe ground forces to fight as infantry.

In the v1.0 U.S. Army vehicle guide, there are a couple of ex-USAF AFVs shown to be in Army service. It is either implied or stated outright that they'd lost original raison d'etre in the wake of aircraft atttrition and fuel/spare shortages.

[kato13]

Any base seen as a potential nuclear target may even be abandoned before then with anything not nailed down taken with them and the unit and it's resources disbursed to reduce it's likelihood of being a target.

The only bases I can see continuing to be occupied are those vital to the war effort and/or sufficiently hardened against nuclear attack.

A very good point. There must be some sort of plan for this. I wonder if anything has been declassified.

Canon wise the only bases hit were Missile and Space wings IIRC, but when a single boomer can wipe out 200 bases in the time it takes to boil water for tea I can certainly see there being quite a bit of dispersion.

I don't recall any US based units mentioning this in their history. Heck the 49th Armored stays in Chicago making it a doubly ripe target. We as the reader "know" the bases won't be hit so I honestly never though of it, but it should have been on someone's mind.

[kalos72]

Come 1998 isn't the fact that the military has 1000 men at an airbase to control the local population or keep the local machine shops/tools/equipment secure all strategically useful An 5000 acre military facility isnt exactly something you can replace at this point...

I cant see giving up the entire facility if there was a reason to keep them there. It seems to be rather logical that the cost of moving them across country versus their usefulness in Texas, for example, would need to considered. Especially if you think it wouldn't happen unto 1998, the timeline states the US used the last of the fuel reserves for the harvest.

Also, no units in the US have absorbed entire units like that from other services even. Yes, giving up their armor/vehicles sure...

[Raellus]

Yes, some, maybe most, airbases would be held onto, at least by skeleton crews, but others would be sacrificed if the manpower could be used elsewhere (other, more important bases or the infantry). Think about the base closures of the last couple of decades. Just because a base currently exists doesn't necessarily mean that it will remain important enough to always exit. There's a term for that kind of logical fallacy but it's escaping me ATM.

Also, no units in the US have absorbed entire units like that from other services even. Yes, giving up their armor/vehicles sure...

So it wouldn't happen then Why not

Look at the manpower strength of the USAF at the height of the Cold War. What percentage of that strength did non-flight crews make up 75% at least Then consider attrition due to combat operations losses and conventional/NBC strikes on airbases. Now consider the percentage of aircraft still flying or capable of flying in 2000 and beyond (T2K timeline). You'd be left with thousands of USAF personnel that would be surplus to requirements. It doesn't make much sense to station them all at bases where no significant flight ops are taking place, nor does it make sense to overstaff bases where flight ops are still taking place. What then to do with them The army is starving for manpower. If surplus air force personnel were transferred to the the army by a major military during a modern total war, why wouldn't happen in the U.S. military in a T2K WWIII scenario

[kato13]

The answer as it is to most military questions is "Logistics"

Every military leader in history has not wanted to abandon land, but there are always limits to what you can control. What MILGOV can do in an area is limited by how many resources and how relatively little chaos there is in that area.

Maybe one can look at the Causalities by state that Chico drew up. (Ill add a link when i find it) http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=906 post 4

Perhaps if a state has 38% remaining prewar population you could say there was a 19% chance a particular base in that state was never abandoned. ( I divided by half but you could adjust accordingly)


edit chico not web