US home forces 1945-1946

[Lord of Jerwood]

Hi gents

sorry if this is the wrong room.

I'm trying to find information on US armed forces that were based in US at the end of 1945-1946. for a game where soviet or German paratroopers launch a raid on the US to cripple the nuclear bomb production.     

was going to have local police, military police and OSS/FBI agents but not sure on what military forces would be able to respond. E.G were national guard unit's still based in the US or were some US units still barracks in the states and if so what experiences would they be, plus would they have any armed support.

all the best Jerwood.     

   

[Predatorpt]

That idea remind me of this book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_(1995_novel)

Pity it never got a sequel :\ But the German raid is very nicely done 

[akodo]

The army was constantly training up people and producing machines, but rather than load them on boats and send them overseas they'd just turn the around and stick em on trains heading toward whatever inland fighting was needed.

I think a more serious issue would be the lack of officers in the Captain-Major-Colonel rolls.  Most of the instructors would have been Sgt. so for at least a while the noncom ranks would be at least decent.

A lot of the training done for the North-Africa/Italian campaign was done in the UK, but later in the war training had shifted and troops were getting most of their training in the USA before shipping out.

I don't know how many National Guard units, or what percentage (very high I suspect), but in Feb 10 of 1941 a lot of the upper-midwest National Guardsmen were put under Federal command and sent to do preparation training as part of the 34th "Red Bull" infantry division.  So yes, they were mobilizing before Pearl Harbor.  The current Minnesota National Guard has been very active in Iraq and Astan - the 1st brigade combat team of the 34th is the longest serving unit in this very long war.

ANYWAYS, they do have a training camp here in MN that was built right around 1930, so I imagine most regions would have an active National Guard base, but these bases would be training up new troops to send in as regular Army not National Guard.   I'd put the military force for this as well equipped (with equipment fresh off the assembly lines) but very green and lacking in mid-level leadership.  Early in the war the troops would be training on the old 1903 springfield, but that late in the war the Army was training with the M1 Garand from day one.

Of course in such an event I suspect a lot of WW 1 veterans would step up to fill those voids in mid-level leadership.  Heck in addition to the very green well equipped troops you could have groups of 'old men' who have slower movement but improved moral and marksmanship etc.

And then there's always the regular 'citizens militia' of every red blooded American grabbing his rifle or shotgun and rallying to repel invaders.  I speculate that these groups would be organized and lead by the local sheriffs.

[AzSteven]

Hi gents

sorry if this is the wrong room.

I'm trying to find information on US armed forces that were based in US at the end of 1945-1946. for a game where soviet or German paratroopers launch a raid on the US to cripple the nuclear bomb production.     

was going to have local police, military police and OSS/FBI agents but not sure on what military forces would be able to respond. E.G were national guard unit's still based in the US or were some US units still barracks in the states and if so what experiences would they be, plus would they have any armed support.

all the best Jerwood.     

   

If you are thinking of this in terms of how the US Army looked in 1946 in our current history - the Army at that time was daramatically smaller than the Army of 1945.  Much of it was invovled in occupation duties in Europe and Asia.  In the continental US (or CONUS) the Regular Army was pretty small, focused mainly on training and support.  The draft was still in place in 1946 - the numbers being drafted were much smaller but there was still a steady flow through training programs.  And people were still volunteering, just in much smaller numbers.

However, the US at that time had a MASSIVE Army National Guard and Reserve program - many of the units raised for WW2 had been Guard units or Army Reserve units, and some of those were retained after demobilization as reserve components.  The US had a massive stockpile of equipment so it was common to find states with division-sized Guard and Reserve units well into the 1950s.  Many Americans who had enlisted during the war had signed up for four or six year commitments over and above the wartime commitment, and they were often serving the remainder of that commitment in the reserves (draftees on the other had had no major commitment after the war and were demobilized much faster).

So in CONUS you would have a few active Regular Army formations, with a solid core of experienced and veteran NCOs and officers, but also with a number of inexperienced or new troops.  The Reserves and National Guard would actually had had a larger percentage of experienced veterans than did the remaining Regular Army formations, but they would have not been full-time soldiers for a year at that point, so were probably a little rusty.  As well, activating and deploying a Reserve unit was a time-consuming effort requiring invovlement from an Army-level HQ and the Pentagon.  A Guard unit might be a bit faster to deploy as it would potentially be called out by the state Governor, but it still might take a day or two to get on the field (and would probably not be at 100% for a week or so as some members would be away on business or pleasure trips at the time of callup).