Thread: Rear Area Operations

Originally Posted by S-2

"...The Swiss Army planned to mobilize 10% of its population..."

Killing those commies with mass concentrations of yodeling...

Actually, it would have been with those Alpine Horns as seen in the Riccola ads!

Or a division of Heidis!

On that note it might be interesting that in 1990, Switzerland had ten times more reservists than goats.

"Switzerland had ten times more reservists than goats."

Seems those goats lack horns...or something.

I'm just reading through a detailed Orbat of the German Territorialheer, and the sheer number and variety is ... staggering. Can't find any other word for it.

The IDF has 445,000 reserve soldiers, approx. 6.35% of the total population, including Israeli Arabs that don't serve. If every single soldier and reserve is mobilized, then it turns out to approx 9.5% of the total population.

If you don't count Israeli Arabs, that means that after a total mobilization you have nearly 11% of the population. Considering how small Israel is, that's a very large force to be playing games with

"...that's a very large force to be playing games with..."

Waiting for that first all-female division. I'll play games with that...

What might be interesting is that Germany effectively had 48,000 men staffing 15 infantry regiments that looked like this: 12 rifle companies supported by 7 casemate tanks (90mm KanJgPz), 21 field guns (20mm automatic) and 18 mortars (120mm).
Which was effectively by organization and fire support "class" a WW1 German infantry regiment with modernized weaponry.

"I'm just reading through a detailed Orbat of the German Territorialheer, and the sheer number and variety is ... staggering."

Looking through David Glantz's THE BATTLE OF KURSK, the German Army detailed in Appendix A covered seven pages in large paperback...and it was an impressive array of forces.

The Soviet Army covered the next forty-five pages in Appendix B.

Oh for the days when armies were truly armies! I thought my list on another thread about S. Korea was impressive. They seem to have a few troops.

America, I think, has the world's largest collection of supply officers. Death by memoranda...

The OrBat i'm reading covers 170 pages for the German Field Army and 264 pages for the Territorial Army. The Territorial Army has over 600 independent combat units for rear area security. Just to give you some scope of the detail

"Or a division of Heidis!"

Ahhh...I see my desire to play soldier with a division of bigross86's lil' Israeli girlfriends stems from this subliminal suggestion earlier. Hadn't read closely enough.

A division of Germanic queens!

"The Territorial Army has over 600 independent combat units for rear area security. Just to give you some scope of the detail ..."

Awww, tell the truth...it was in size six font.

Since i'm short-sighted that would make it more legible for me

Originally Posted by kato

There were about ten clusters that i can roughly identify:

• Cluster GE 1 : Northern Coast - LANDJUT forward area
• Cluster GE 2 : Bremen area - REFORGER path, strike bases
• Cluster GE 3 : northern edge of Ruhr - population center, I Corps rear area, BAOR, NORTHAG HQ, SRBM wing
• Cluster GE 4 : Munich area - population center, II Corps forward area
• Cluster GE 5 : eastern edge of Ruhr area - (see GE 3)
• Cluster GE 6 : Lech area - SRBM wing, strike bases, II Corps rear area
• Cluster US 1 (rear): Kaiserslautern area - USAFE main staging area, REFORGER path
• Cluster US 2 (rear): Rhine-Main-Neckar area - CENTAG HQ, REFORGER path
• Cluster US 3 (forward): Würzburg area - VII Corps forward area
• Cluster US 4 (forward): Fulda Gap (spread around it) - V Corps forward area, III Corps forward area

German clusters consisted of a Patriot unit (48 launchers), one or two Hawk units (24 launchers ea), and a Roland unit (airbase defense).
US clusters consisted of one or two Patriot units (48 launchers ea), one Hawk unit (24 launchers), and - for rear clusters - one Chapparal/Vulcan unit (airbase defense).

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 6- 1 Roland battalion Cluster GE 4

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 5- 3 hawk battalions Cluster GE 2

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 4- 1 Roland battalion +3 Patriot battalions Cluster GE 6

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 3- 2 Nike Hercules ( replaced with Patriot and Roland ) Cluster GE 2

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 2- 3 hawk battalions ( one later replaced with Patriot) Cluster GE 2 ??? or Cluster GE 3

Flugabwehrraketenkommando 1- 3 hawk battalions ( one later replaced with Patriot ) Cluster GE 1 LANDJUT

I'm not sure what Missile Command was assigned to Cluster GE 5.

1992 structure, after Patriot and Roland were fully integrated:

FlaRakKdo 1 (Heide/Holstein) (Cluster GE1)
- FlaRakG 26 - Heide/Holstein (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 39 - Heide/Holstein (Hawk)
Location: Schleswig-Holstein, northern flank / LANDJUT area.

FlaRakKdo 2 (Bremervörde) (Cluster GE2)
- FlaRakG 24 - Delmenhorst (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 36 - Bremervörde (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 37 - Cuxhaven (Hawk)
Location: area east of Bremen.

FlaRakKdo 3 (Oldenburg) (Cluster GE3)
- FlaRakG 25 - Eydelstedt (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 31 - Westertimke (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 35 - Delmenhorst (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 41 - Wangerland/Nordsee (Roland)
Location: area west of Bremen, from NRW to coast; northern flank airbases.

FlaRakKdo 4 (Lich) (Cluster GE5)
- FlaRakG 21 - Möhnesee (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 38 - Burbach (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 42 - Schöneck (Roland)
Location: Northwest Hesse, Burbach is the three-state point between Hesse/NRW/RLP; central airbases.

FlaRakKdo 5 (Erding) (Cluster GE4)
- FlaRakG 23 - Manching (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 32 - Freising (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 34 - Rottenburg (Hawk)
Location: around Munich.

FlaRakKdo 6 (Lenggries) (Cluster GE6)
- FlaRakG 22 - Penzing (Patriot)
- FlaRakG 33 - Lenggries (Hawk)
- FlaRakG 43 - Leipheim (Roland)
Location: around the Lech area; southern flank airbases.

Cluster GE5 was strategically sitting between the Ruhr area and the Rhine-Main area, so it could move in either direction. Unit HQ was later moved to Burbach slightly northwest.

The above reflects the peacetime stationing, in wartime some of these units would move into combat positions that weren't in the same place (especially the Roland units would disperse to the airbases in their AoR). Most of Cluster GE5 would have moved a bit further north (putting them south-east of the Ruhr area), as the Rhine-Main area was protected by Cluster US2 with some rather hefty firepower.