Richmond Times-Dispatch; Jan-June 1908

[P3D]

The only exception is "political urgency".  The best example is the difference between Nazi Germany and the Allies.  Even at the worst moments for Nazi Germany, the women were "held" at their traditional values, when Rosie the Rivetter was propaganda issue in the US.

Part of the reason was that the ineffective, labour-intensive German agriculture. The rural women had to work the farms, so that Germany could avoid starvation, unlike in the Great War. That woman workforce was just unavailable for industrial production - therefore the Germans had to revert to forced labour.

[Borys]

It's when the standard of living gets high enough, the acceptation of women in harder/more dangerous roles of life (not that being a farmers wife ever was easy or light) can start, but only if the females demand it;

To put it bluntly - just as there always had been a surplus of expandable males, now there is alos a surplus of expendable women.
Borys

[Ithekro]

I'm wondering if the argument has a flaw in it based on the use of the work "conscript".  Most of the nations Korpen has mentioned as high rated I believe have "required service" as opposed to what the Americans would call "being drafted".  For a "required service" country, it is expected that you will serve in the military and afterwards can be called back and you are aware of this fact.  In the United States, we have a draft still, at least in terms of placing your name into the draft once you are 18 years old.  After Vietnam there has been no active draft of American civilians, thus no one expects to be called for military service unless you volunteer to serve with one service or another.  Drafts are only called in times of war and when the nation is desperate for manpower.  In addition to this, after Vietnam, the Army decided that using draftees was a bad idea for the reason Cartaginian has mentioned.  Draftees and volunteers did not particularly want to serve in Vietnam, but the volunteers at least could say that it was their own fault for being in a service (in some cases it was more that they got to choice which service rather than be drafted into the army.  My father volunteered for the Navy because his draft board decided he could go to the army even though he was registered for college, just in summer break...he got in about three hours before he recieved his draft notice.  He still ended up serving in Vietnam, on a PBR in the canals near Cambodia in 1969 and 1970).  In a post-Vietnam America, most politicians know that bringing up the draft again is amount to political suicide and neither the populations, nor the military, want draftees anymore.

[Tanthalas]

What's ironic about the draft for the USA is that as a former Second Class Petty Officer (E-5), I can tell you the Navy in most rates is critically under mand. When my command went to the gulf we had to pull people off of other commands just to meet the minimum requirements to take our ship into a war zone.  Recruiters continuously miss their recruiting goals, not enough people want to join.  The answer to this at least for non technical rates is the draft.  I am a firm believer that at age 19 every person should be required to serve for 2 years in the military or some Peace Corps type institution. 


/end rant

[miketr]

On the great conscription vs. volunteer army debate I have the following two bits.
1)   For the time period an all volunteer army can be of much higher quality.  The classic example of course is the British Army in WW1.  The 3 Corps of the BEF were the finest troops on the battlefield bar none.  The reason is troops signed 10 year enlistments and after the Boer War the British army drilled firearms accuracy.  There material wasn't the best as the pay wasn't all that hot compared to a factory worker but they were very well trained and drilled.  Of the great powers only the United States also had a volunteer army and it was no were near as good as the British in either training or doctrine and once it entered the Great War was basically remade in the image of the French Army.  This is were the US armies obsession with firepower comes from. 

2)   Of the mass conscript armies the German army was the best without a doubt followed by the French, Russians, Austrians and the Italians.   The German and French had well educated populations to draw upon and long term service NCO's.  10 years in the German army would get you a nice civil service job.  Both France and Germany had professional highly trained officers.  Were well equipped, trained and had at least competent military doctrine.  The tipping point was the Germans had twice the volume of NCO's per 1,000 men and a more decentralized tactical setup.  Orders from the top in the German army would state an objective, give resources available, general timing and leave the specific details up to the unit commander.  The French and British armies were far less flexible.  So while the manpower of the German Army wasn't well trained as the BEF it was close to it and a far larger military force.

Michael

[P3D]

A few figures about reinstating conscription. As it was said, better to draft everyone than only the unlucky few at the age of 18 for 9-12 months. That might even allow for a brief overseas employment (1-3 months) after training.
Now in the US, four million male and female reach the age of 18 every year. If the average conscript grunt cost $25K a year, we are at $100bn. If 75% of them is unfit for frontline service and have to go to the peace corps (cost reduced to half) that's $40bn of savings, and still 1,000,000 troops available.

[Tanthalas]

A few figures about reinstating conscription. As it was said, better to draft everyone than only the unlucky few at the age of 18 for 9-12 months. That might even allow for a brief overseas employment (1-3 months) after training.
Now in the US, four million male and female reach the age of 18 every year. If the average conscript grunt cost $25K a year, we are at $100bn. If 75% of them is unfit for frontline service and have to go to the peace corps (cost reduced to half) that's $40bn of savings, and still 1,000,000 troops available.

Actually that is basically my point.  My dad was drafted after he got his student exemption jerked for attending a Vietnam War protest.  He says it was the best thing that happened to him, he went on to a 30 year career in the Navy.  By throwing your net wider you have a greater chance of catching the type of fish you want, sure you get a few trash fish but you catch more desirable ones as well

[miketr]

A few figures about reinstating conscription. As it was said, better to draft everyone than only the unlucky few at the age of 18 for 9-12 months. That might even allow for a brief overseas employment (1-3 months) after training.
Now in the US, four million male and female reach the age of 18 every year. If the average conscript grunt cost $25K a year, we are at $100bn. If 75% of them is unfit for frontline service and have to go to the peace corps (cost reduced to half) that's $40bn of savings, and still 1,000,000 troops available.

There would be a rather large up front cost.

1) Many more trainning camps
2) More NCO's to train the drafties
3) All the other equipment tied to the expanded army.

As to what to do with it.

First I would think a 15 to 18 month term of service would be more usefull.
Second boarder patrol, the raw manpower alone should bring to a halt the illegal aliens.
Third public works, road and bridge building is a fine tradition of government spending and the perfect place to put those unwilling to carry a gun as it would be against their morals.

Michael

[Desertfox]

Do we even need the Border Patrol? Interesting discussion BTW.

[Carthaginian]

15-18 months isn't long enough to get your money out of a fry-cook, much less a trained professional like a heavy equipment operator or welder. Such short-term workers would never be profitable. You'd need at least training + 24 months to get anything useful out of them, plus incentive to retain at least 5% of them for cadre to train the next group. You'd also spend the 'profit' of the first 2-3 rotations building facilities to suport the program.

4 year minimum to get the program to work.

Heinlein had the perfect idea:
Work Corps
Military Service
Limited Franchise

I say it would work better than anything we've tried so far.

[P3D]

I'll split the thread and move it to the meeting room.

Carthaginian, do you know, when a raw recruit would be shipped to Iraq, the soonest, after how many  month of training?

The problem is that longer time periods would increase US Army/NG  to horrendous size. As I see from my limited conscript experience, you need a minimum training period of 6-9 months to be able to do anything useful. If you want to see a return for investment (say one overseas tour of 3 months) you won't want to send soldiers into harms way without less training. 12 month is the bare minimum. Anything more would scare the shit out of the Rest of the World, and would cost a lot.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would need almost Iraq war level defence budget.

[Carthaginian]

Carthaginian, do you know, when a raw recruit would be shipped to Iraq, the soonest, after how many  month of training?

Depends- a raw infantry recruit can be cranked out in about 12-13 weeks... a bit more if you cut out the 'sensitivity training' and such crap. Call it 10 weeks in a dire "holy shit, Batman" kind of emergency.
Other jobs take longer... some a LOT longer. MP's and Engineers are 18 & 16 week courses respectively and not easily reduced in length. Combat medics are more on the order of 24 weeks... that's half a year, just to train them! Surgical techs and X-ray techs take many MONTHS to make. Aircraft mechanics go for more than a year, and divers go for 24 months!

All MOS's (Military Occupation Specialty) are necessary for a war, and many can't be rushed like an infantryman.

The problem is that longer time periods would increase US Army/NG  to horrendous size. As I see from my limited conscript experience, you need a minimum training period of 6-9 months to be able to do anything useful. If you want to see a return for investment (say one overseas tour of 3 months) you won't want to send soldiers into harms way without less training. 12 month is the bare minimum. Anything more would scare the shit out of the Rest of the World, and would cost a lot.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would need almost Iraq war level defence budget.

A 3 month tour is a waste- you piss the troop off, but never really get him acclimated to combat. 6 months minimum for any kind of tour. Preferably a year. 18 months starts to approach fatal burnout.
You must balance experience and exhaustion with units rotated into action... they must be experienced enough to know how to fight, but not on the front so long as to loose effectiveness gained from experience.


And the crux of having an army big enough to do everything with is that it costs too much money to do anything with it. A balance is big enough to stall for reenforcement, small enough to maintain in the long run.

[Tanthalas]

Boot camp lasts 2 months, AIT is dependant on rate, Infantry school is 3 months, give the kid 30 days leave after AIT and he could be shipped out.  So Total Time from drafted to Active Unit say 6 months.  These are the Current Real World Numbers, if you enlisted Tomorrow you could be in an Active Unit in 6 Months.

As for Expansion of training facilities, The US Navy has 2 Inactive boot camps.  They are in Sandiago, and Orlando.  Personnel could be pulled from several locations to facilitate the upswing in training of recruits.  It takes 1 chief and 2 petty officers to train a division, with our current top heavy navy they could most likely double training in 3 months.

so the long and the short is for the army it would be about the same 9 months for the first class and a new one every 6 months after that.

[Carthaginian]

Boot camp lasts 2 months, AIT is dependant on rate, Infantry school is 3 months

Army infantry school isn't that long.
MP school isn't that long, and it's almost double infantry school.
Infantry is the shortest training time of all MOS's.
Not much you have to teach an 11 Bulletcatcher.;)

[Tanthalas]

I was using the numbers from marine infantry school which i knew figured army would be about the same guesse i was wrong =P