Ian R
Posts: 3420
Joined: 8/1/2000 From: Cammeraygal Country Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus ......can you explain me why the I Australian Corps is treated differently? It is an historically accurate portrayal. Australia started WW2 with two armies - the small regular professional army, whose members supplied some higher command officers, but more importantly the technical specialist staff officers, logisticians, NCOs to train the troops etc. It had no large ground combat units in September 1939. The second army was the militia, or CMF ("citizen's military forces") which was renamed AMF (Australian military forces). As the name suggests, this was the part time force made up of citizen soldiers (and officers). This force had 5 divisions of infantry (numbered 1 to 5), some cavalry units etc. The deployment of this force was restricted by law to Australian territory - which includes mandate territory such as Papua New Guinea, but NOT the NEI or Solomon islands. The law was changed in February 1943 to permit deployment south of the equator between Java and the Solomons. 3 Division HQS and several brigades (3rd, 5th, 11th Divisions) from the AMF were deployed in that expanded area. So when you buy out some restricted AMF divisions, you are in effect passing the amendment bill that enabled wider deployment. Note this was a conscript force during the war. Before 1943, the AIF called the AMF the koalas - you weren't allowed to shoot or export them. After September 1939, Australia decided to form a third army, being the second AIF (Australian Imperial Force). It is the second one, because the first one was formed for WW1. This took divisions numbers 6 to 9*, and in 1945 10th division was to be reformed as an AIF division for Coronet. It also contained 1st Armoured Division, a unit designed to go to North Africa, but which stayed in Western Australia after 411207, and was eventually stood down. The AIF was an all volunteer force, all aged 21+ (at first) and could be sent anywhere in the world. The bird forces built from 23rd Brigade battalions were AIF units. Hence those divisions, and the I corps HQ, are unrestricted. (1st Armoured is restricted, in the game, but was not in real life; its non deployment off shore was a matter of unsuitability for jungle-mountain warfare). During the course of the war the inevitable happened, and the various units ended up with a mix of AIF, AMF, and occasionally even some regular army, personnel. So a rule was also brought in that if 75% of a unit was AIF persons, or 65% of a unit voted to transfer to the AIF, (% might be the other way round) the rest were "deemed to have volunteered". There was at least one AMF unit that volunteered, and never left home soil. [* Those division numbers were used, not only because the AMF were using 1-5, but because the first AIF in WW1 used division numbers 1-5. Similarly, the 2nd AIF brigades in WW2 start at number 16. This is also why many AIF unit designations have a '2/' in front of them. It is the second time an AIF used those designations for battalions etc.]
_____________________________
"I am Alfred"
|