“The Preston tornado, Minister?” The Permanent Secretary wondered. “Well it was rather more powerful than we would normally expect for this country and the damage to BAE Preston and Warton aerodrome was quite extensive. The Met Office is still looking into…”
“Not the Preston tornado, we have a good idea what caused it.” West replied. “Something much more important than that, the Prime Minister would like to know how the French got command of an army group while we have ended up as, well, an appendage of the American army group. “We now have a large army, experienced commanders and staff, and a lot of combat experience. Arguably more than the French, certainly. So how did this happen?”
“We may have a large army, Minister by our standards.” Field Marshal Dannattt, the Chief of the General Staff, replied. ” But its still small in comparison with the whole Human Expeditionary Army. Even then, we don’t have enough equipment, uniforms, or weapons to equip even half of them, and we are only just keeping up with the requirements of our troops in Hell as it is.”
“Indeed, our defence factories are working flat out and yet are only just meeting requirements.” Air Chief Marshal Stirrup commented. “It will be a while before we can put many more troops in the field than we have now; most of our National Servicemen are still at home waiting to be told to report to training centers.
“If we were overstretched before in Iraq and Afghanistan then we’ve gone beyond overstretch.”
Admiral West looked back at the defence chiefs. “It still doesn’t answer the question. We’ve spent the last quarter century commanding NATO ground forces; first the Northern Army Group then the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps; and we’re not getting to use that experience. The Cabinet is not pleased.”
“With respect, Minister, the Cabinet should look beyond appearances and examine what the situation really is on the ground.” Dannatt pulled a file from his briefcase and opened it up. “If we look at the Human Expeditionary Army, it is very much a work-in-progress. It’s important to remember that armored units, tank and mechanized infantry, are to be considered front-line in this war. Everybody keeps the leg infantry at home for self-defense. Second Army Group (Russian) is complete although many of its units are below strength. No surprises there, the Russians always had a big army and its fully mechanized. Third Army Group (Chinese) is at roughly half strength with 65 divisions out of its planned 125. The Chinese have attached extra leg infantry divisions to their armored units to make up the numbers but we all know that in this war, its armor that counts. In both Russia and China’s case, they have huge stocks of war material in storage. The Russians are pulling it out fast and they have come up with some interesting examples I can tell you. Did you know one of their divisions is getting a mix of T-34s and KV-1s?
“That brings us to First Army Group (U.S.). The Americans are cloning divisions as fast as they can equip them – and diluting their force very quickly in the process. Each of their new divisions has a cadre of veterans but that’s about it, the rest of the formations consists of raw recruits, including an increasing number of conscripts. In the year since the war started, they’ve doubled the number of divisions they have available and then doubled it again. They now have 64 divisions in their Army Group. Again, they were able to do that because they had the reserves of equipment stockpiled. To that number, we’re adding five British divisions, two Australian, three Canadian and one Commonwealth division, 11 divisions bringing the total to 75. In other words, of the five armies planned for First Army Group, three actually exist. One of those is half-Commonwealth. However, there’s more to it than that. Those American divisions are big, they’re about twice the size of the Russian and Chinese units. There are reasons for that including structural requirements but the numbers remain.
“Those three Army Groups are the backbone of the Human Expeditionary Army. They are the important ones, the ones that actually matter. Now, the organization of those Army Groups was done to ease command and control. That was the critical constraint and its what put us in First Army Group. The Big Three can be defined by language, First is Anglophone, Second is Russophone, Third is Sinophone.
“Now we look at Fourth Army Group (Eastern). India dominates it of course, they’ve thrown 20 armored divisions into the pot. Bangladesh has added one, a creditable effort for them if I might say so, Pakistan added five, Sri Lanka one, Indonesia one, Japan nine, South Korea five. The Koreans would like to add more but with North Korea sitting on the fence, they have their own defense to think about. Malaysia’s sent one, the Philippines one, Singapore three and Thailand five. Vietnam rounds off the pot with six divisions. Add that up and we can see they have 58 divisions and that’s going to be about it. Those countries are straining hard to support what they have, any further force increments in the near future are really unlikely. Then they have the Middle Eastern component, that’s got Algeria with one division, Egypt with five, Iran with four, Iraq with one, Israel with nine, Jordan with two, Kuwait one, Morocco one, Saudi Arabia with one and Syria with seven. Another 32 divisions that have even less in common with the rest of the group. The Israelies don’t even listen to the Indians, they just wander off and do what they want. Total, 90 divisions and again, that’s more or less it. The big contribution from the Middle East has been the stockpiles of equipment. We got more than 2,000 tanks from Libya and they only have a 25,000 man Army. They may pull some additional forces in from Africa and so on but they won’t make much difference. They have no common language, no integrated command systems no commonality in logistics. They have no common doctrine but at least India has experience of commanding forces of this size in the field.
“That brings us to Fifth Army Group (Europe). We have much the same situation here. Certainly the French politicked their way into command and they put three armored divisions into the field. The Germans added five, the Czechs one, the Danes one and that took a heroic effort from them, Greece four, Italy five, Netherlands one, Norway one, Poland four, Romania one, Spain four, Turkey ten. Sweden’s added two divisions, Switzerland one, the Ukraine three. Added up that makes 46 divisions, again with no common language, logistics or operational doctrine. They are mobilizing their reserves but they don’t have the huge stockpiles of equipment that the Americans, Russians, Chinese and Middle East have. So, they’re mobilization work is producing mostly leg infantry for guarding the home front.
“In short, Fourth Army Group is marginally useful and Fifth is a shambles. It is reasonably obvious to us that General Petraeus knows this as well as we do. He knows that Fifth composes troops that, in most cases, are very good on the small unit level, up to brigade or division level, but they have no real capability of operating beyond that. If push comes to shove, he’ll break Fifth up and use the units as spot reinforcements, especially for First Army Group. The French “commander” will be left with an Army group headquarters but no troops to command.
“Now contrast that with our situation, we are in the primary striking group of the Human Expeditionary Army, we have the ear of the commander of that group and we are trusted, well-regarded allies. Our words weigh heavily with them. We are an influential partner in a vital organization, rather than the head of an ineffectual one. Put another way, we may have an inferior position on paper but in terms of actual power and influence we outweigh the French many times over.”
West harrumphed, knowing he would have to pass this information onto his Cabinet colleagues. Both the Prime Minister and his deputy were very keen on the idea of a British led army group; in time Britain would probably have one but not yet. The Human Expeditionary Army, even in its present incomplete form, was just too large.