What Happened to Civil Engineer/Security Units?

[MThompson016]

Oddball question for people regarding the T2K setting, but I wonder if there's some help here.

What happened to the ground units from the US Navy and Air Force in the T2K setting? I'm thinking of US Navy Seabees, Air Force RED HORSE,Prime BEEF and Security Forces here. All existed before the setting begins, and have some level of ground combat training. Were some retained as a strategic reserve, or did they all end up in the meatgrinder of the Twilight War?

[Timerover51]

Originally Posted by MThompson016

Oddball question for people regarding the T2K setting, but I wonder if there's some help here.

What happened to the ground units from the US Navy and Air Force in the T2K setting? I'm thinking of US Navy Seabees, Air Force RED HORSE,Prime BEEF and Security Forces here. All existed before the setting begins, and have some level of ground combat training. Were some retained as a strategic reserve, or did they all end up in the meatgrinder of the Twilight War?

I do not think that the designers thought of them at all. I would say that you can pretty much do whatever you want with them. With respect to the navies, they did away with them in a fairly cavalier fashion.

[aramis]

I suspect the CEn units would have been amongst the ones pulled back... Most would, at the time of the order, have been pulled back to the low countries and France, perhaps even the UK.

Security/MP units are essentially infantry with a different loadout, optimized for checkpoints rather than field engagement. (Yes, there's a lot more training differences, but they're still foot-soldiers with extensive combat training.) They should be deployed at Bn, Rgt, od Bde HQs... which probably bugged out on aircraft, along with the general/flag officers.

ISTR there being MP units mentioned in a couple of adventures. One adventure involves a CEn officer and his local well.

MP's are mentioned in a few, as well.

[Redcap]

There are some marked differences in how different countries equip and deploy/use their MP units and resources (ex-Reservist RMP(v) here), but once the lines of communitcations are stuffed to hell and back, it'll be down to local control and chain of command; British MPs aren't used as facility guards (except of their own facilities), for example, although they do run control/information posts on military routes, run policing patrols in occupied areas,and instruct other units in what to do with their EPOWs. YMMV

WRT other units, signallers, mechanics, admin types, medical facilities, stores units (such as they could given the problem of looking after the stores and ammunition) will likely have been pulled back when the tactical nukes dropped, Royal Air Force Police and RAF Regiment will have been protecting the air bases ("RAF Stations") and detachments (Harriers will have gone to pre-arranged dispersal points off-base, and when their stations got nuked, the OCs will likely have tried to withdraw them to safer places nearer the UK.

Naval forces will not have forward deployed as much (if at all), but given the bases are fixed, will likely have turned into rapidly-expanding clouds of radioactive vapour. Units at sea would have been left with little alternative than to try to find a friendly port after that.

Stations, camps, and bases in the UK will all have been targeted. You can assume they aren't much more than radioactive glass bowls by now. Whitehall and other command and communication posts will likewise be smoking holes in the ground.

Thus, without any meaningful strategic command and control, everyone's using their own initiative, their own preferences and priorities to likely strike out for home, using whatever they can, wherever they can, to get home.

Those that ARE home on their own soil (what's left of it) will likely form quasi-medieval zones of control, and since they have the guns, they'll rule the roost locally.

Welcome to the new dark ages

[Putraack]

I'd always assumed a lot of the AF units (in Europe, at least) had become rear-area units, responsible for both security and collecting food & fuel for the front-line forces. Ditto for the Navy, though concentrated on the coastal cities.

I'd also assume there were one or more volunteer drives for AF & Navy personnel to join Army units and staffs. Sailors might get preferential treatment to join the Marines? Again, they would fill out rear establishments, or take additional training as individuals to move into the front-line forces.