Confed999

Gotcha, but if they can't use 'em, what's the point of having 'em?
500,000,000 per person? No way.

Officer of Engineers

Relic of the Cold War Days. Need to change a whole set of laws, including employment protection which very few NATO member has. Politicians just don't want to go through the hassels.

Ever seen an American base in theatre with its own movie theatre, Convience Stores, portable water, in essence an entire city? Yeah, very way.

To maintain combat effectiveness without going home and combat pay, you'll need to build and bring the infrastructure from home. That means you can't rotate home for stand down and re-training so that you've got to do this in theatre, meaning also that you've got to build the ranges and testing grounds.

And I'm not even talking about bring families over.

One of the reasons why I called Rumsfeld threat of moving brigades to Eastern Europe a pipe dream. To upgrade those East European former Warsaw Pact bases to NATO standards would bankrupt the DoD.

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Chimo

Confed999

Wow, that's messed up. They should just do away with reserves, save the money and count any ex-military as reserve for the number crunchers.
Ahhhh, I see, I think. So the extreme cost difference is because it's ALL of the available troops? If it were 1/4 of the available troops the cost would be more normal?

Officer of Engineers

There's that pesky changing of the law thing again. It's actually cheaper to do nothing.

I say so.

s_qwert63

Are reservists obliged to keep in shape?

protonriver

I think they are given training every month to keep fit

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~Regards

Confed999

Only in the short run.

Thanks for the clarification.

Officer of Engineers

Depending on the trade, a reservist has to pass a physical course once every year or two. The onus is on the individual to keep in shape. Parade days are way too valuable for other training - like learning how to shoot instead of running a mile with a full pack.