NAC Military Units in 2183

First, let me take this discussion in an interesting direction: How many
military units will the NAC have in 2183?

Answer: Pantloads. Metric Pantloads in fact.

Why: The NAC has been involved in large scale star spanning conflict for
protracted periods. These
conflicts include battles off-Earth, as well as the
restoration of America (pacification is such a nasty term), the thumping of
the LLAR and
booting off-Earth of same, and the Solar Wars.
Not to mention bushfire wars, etc. etc.

What is the population of the NAC? Beth has run some numbers, but take a guess
at a current day pop of about 700 million or so and then tack on 200 years of
growth, even with wars figured in. It ain't a small number. To defend that
many people takes a lot of armed people. Especially in the hostile climate of
the GZGverse. And there are a lot of taxpayers to back them up.

Yes, the cost of moving units to space will limit the number of space mobile
forces (note, this
doesn't limit the number of down-well forces,
just those you ship about). But the NAC and the ESU will be the big boys on
this block. And with the KraVak threat and other Xeno threats, more people
would likely be joining up (though this only impacts where the GZGverse is
headed, rather than where it is).

And, being the British, and fairly smart (fairly, I didn't say entirely....)
about colonial issues (and colonial pride), you'd surely want to adopt as many
of the military units with proud traditions as you could into your own
military and gradually homogenize them (somewhat) into an amalgamated fighting
force but with distinct traditions for the various units.

What units will be in the GZGverse? I'd say most of them. For the UK, that
would include the current active service forces, plus Gurkhas (at least 3 RGR
as referred to in the Stargrunt timeline), plus a number of colonial forces
(in this case, I'm not talking about North American
but off-Earth colonial forces). Albion must have
its own units with some tradition by now. And
every backwater will have milita/reserves with
some sort of affiliation with a parental military organizational unit.

For the US, I'd imagine you'd have the 101st and 82nd Orbital Assault
Divisions, the 1st Armoured (Grav), The 1st Mobile Infantry
Division (Grav) ("the big red one" - bunch of
snoozers), The 5th Special Forces, etc. Plenty of room for all the NGs, though
they'd probably have had to adopt a slightly different nomenclature under the
British crown. And of course, the Duke of Pittsburgh's Fusiliers and the
King's Own Memphis Rifles.

For Canadian Units, since I think most units would not only exist, but be far
larger than
today (this applies to all forces - the population
would likely be at least as high, and greater in places that today have a low
pop density like Canada), I think one should include:

(notice we already have UK themes....)

The Royal 22/e Regiment (Vandoos)
The Queen's Own Rifles The Royal Canadian Regiment Princess Patricia's Light
Infantry (PPCLI) The Canadian Scottish Regiments The West Nova Scotia Regiment
The Princess of Wales Own Regiment The Lord Strathcona's Horse The Southern
Alberta Light Horse
The Joint Task Force 2 (our Spec Ops/Airmobile)
The Lake Superior Scottish Regiment
The Canadian Rangers (Arctic/Innuit)
The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa The Toronto Scottish Regiment etc.

Plus of course a whole pile of Navy, Naval Reserve, Artillery, and
Communications Units
(note, in Canada, Comms/EW is some sort of
oddball separate service from normal army...never quite figured out their
relationship to us gropos). Oh and don't forget the flyboys.

Javascript enabled page with some very cool information about many of the
Canadian units (including who they are and some web page links)

http://www.cdnarmy.ca/

In general, assume the NAC will probably have just about every existing unit
plus more. Take a look at the fleet size. Perhaps Oerjan or Indy might take a
guess at how many sailors are represented by the fleet totals? I suspect it is
quite a few. And this is in a service where it only takes one guy and some AI
to control a few AU of space.... whereas the grunts still have to take
and hold ground and that is still labour-
intensive. There'll be no shortage of gropos or excuses to stick your favorite
unit into the future history.

Heck, there's even probably room for Sand, Dirt and Gravel (The Stormont,
Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders), the Broken Rifles (The Brockville Rifles),
the Goods Gift for "Alternate Lifestyles" (Governor General's Foot Gaurds),
and a few other select units:)

<No, my old unit affiliations don't show... much.>

Tomb.

G'day again,

> What is the population of the NAC?