What you prpose has essentially been done and can again be done
on a limited basis. That's the problem -- limits.
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
...only if you expect them to be like they are.
Largely true; organisms evolve and in the process have strands of DNA, cells and bacteria that seemingly have no purpose or that once had a purpose that no longer exists. There will always be a cost for growth.
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...If civilians can live off the land, so can soldiers (although foreigners may have problems till their bodies adapted).
Sure, army logisticians and generals would need to survive heart attacks in the process, but it's possible if your junior leadership is good enough.
Undoubtedly. I agree it's possible. The problem with which you are confronted is that the Mothers or other family of those who had "problems till their bodies adapted" would complain to their Legislative representatives that their Soldiers were not being properly supported. Those politicians would also be accosted by nervous Generals and apoplectic logisticians -- as well as disgruntled Contractors who contribute to political campaigns -- and would call a halt to your plan in about five seconds.
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A 20% tooth + 80% tail force is a CHOICE - it is NOT A NECESSITY.
I agree -- and it is a political as much as a military choice.
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Look at the stupidity of "pirate"-hunting with warships. The same could be done with some improvisation off some converted auxiliaries (including helicopter operations; a hangar is no technical miracle, after all!).
I'd go a step shorter and stop at 'Look at the stupidity of pirate hunting.' There are other, better solutions. Regrettably, money to do things comes in discrete pots and pot owners are often reluctant to share, so funds get expended to do things because Party A can afford it while Party B with a better method cannot afford to implement his solution.
One of the problems affecting your hypothesis is that any military structure today is going to have at least some investment in capital materiel. The Politicians like to see that stuff used in lieu of sitting, doing nothing.
Ideally, we could develop robotic armies that sat on a shelf, were activated when needed (and only when truly needed) and which could and would clone themselves to desired strength. Unfortunately, instead, we have people.
People design imperfect structures that take on a life of their own and they also play with the occasional use of inappropriate force where it is inappropriate and unappreciated... :D
Curious about the AEF in 1918
SethB, I’m trying to come up with the 80% figure you cite and I’m afraid I simply can’t. When I look at the AEF in late 1918, I see two field Armies (each of which had a whole slew of attached non-combat formations like field hospitals, mobile hospitals and the like) plus the Services of Supply which was, in essence, another army devoted to the lines of communication (and had an 11/11/18 strength of 644,540). At the Corps level, all of the corps also had attached non-combat troops (veterinary hospitals, remount depots, motorized transport supply trains, etc.), as did divisions. 1st Division, for example, had 3 combat brigades (2 infantry and 1 artillery), plus divisional troops (MG Bn, Signal Bn, Engineers and the HQ Troop) which they clearly considered combat troops—just under 25,000 in a full division. They also had a number of units (HQ & MP Train, Ammunition Train, Engineer Train and Sanitary Train) that would only be in combat in the most dire situations—another 3,150. My rough & ready estimate would, in all honesty, put the tooth to tail ratio for the AEF in 1918 at closer to 3:2, which is really quite good for that war. Comparable figures for the British Army as a whole were 6:5 in 1916 and, given the cumulative impact of casualties, more like 3:4 by mid-1918. Looking at the BEF itself was more problematic because of how the force’s strength was represented in War Office files, but in all honesty I’d be very surprised to see figures that were wildly different (probably less tooth, more tail in fact for 1918).
(For sources, I pulled the rough & ready AEF estimate from the Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War, volumes 1 & 2. The British numbers come from work I did a number of years back but most of them can be pulled from Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire, 1914-1920)
Ian