Why were the Ft. Irwin soilders in LA?

[Stuv]

I think one of the most interesting things in the latest chapter waste recon team from Irwin. Why were they in LA? What was the purpose of the "map"? I have a theory.
I believe the maps are being gathered to aid Kimmet in planning an attack on LA. He needs intelligence on infrastructure and zombie movement and concentrations. I think he has enough intel to identify LA as the source of the infection.(at least on the west coast) I think he has the means and intention to pinpoint the source and destroy it, allowing him to re-claim whatever part of the city remains. I know there has been some discussion about a nuke. I don't think that is the weapon he has access to however I do believe it is something he feels will get the job done. In addition, I think he is willing to accept a high level of civilian casualties to accomplish this. I could see this leading to conflict with Michael and making the story at Irwin quite interesting. This could also complicate the rescue Lizzy/Mallers at the colony storyline.

[GeneTwo]

I'm not too sure about retaking LA. Why scout locations around the south of LA. The Airport would be a better place to scout if you wanted to take back LA. I mean, you would need a massive amount of troops and munitions and the best place to drop that off would be the airport.

I think its more likely they were scouting zombie ground zero.

[Cabbage Patch]

Funny thing, I once planned an invasion of LA starting from Fort Irwin. It was during the Rodney King riots. I was stationed at Fort Irwin, running an NTC mission planning section. We had two fully armed armored brigades the base at the time (the OPFOR and a training unit), and I was sure we'd get called.

It turns out that the key terrain isn't where you think it would be. Step one is to secure the Cajon Pass and routes through San Bernardino. The most critical military objective is the National Guard base in Los Alamitos, in Orange County, since that's the only place rioters could acquire heavy weapons. The next priority is to secure the passes to the San Fernando and San Gabriel Vallies, and on the coast headed to Ventura, and to position units on the major freeways. The LA Basin is remarkably flat, and that makes the freeways the key terrain. They can be used to divide the area into sectors, they channelize movement between sectors, and armored vehicles can use them to dominate the neighborhoods on either side. That allows you to isolate the trouble spots and support pacification efforts.

Needless to say, we never launched that particular operation. In fact I got pretty roundly reemed out for starting the process since there was never any plan to use the regular military to intervene in the riots.

I would never propose a plan like this in a We're Alive scenario. The Fort Irwin we've seen doesn't have enough manpower to make a full scale invasion work, and Los Angeles, in and of itself, isn't an important enough objective to justify the effort. All of which is a long-winded way of saying I don't think the Army recon was a precursor to re-taking LA. They're looking for something, or someone.

[VEE]

Disneyland?

Actually, as a result of this post I was doing some LA research and came across Catalina Island, which I've never heard of.

"This island may be only 22 miles across the sea, but it’s a world away from the urban velocity of L.A. Ferries dock in Mediterranean-flavoured Avalon, the island’s commercial hub. Most of the interior is protected nature preserve that may only be explored on foot or bicycle (permit required), or by taking an organized tour. These are excellent ways to learn about the island’s colourful history as a destination for sea otter poachers, smugglers, Union soldiers, mining speculators, and finally, tourists."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/USA_California_location_map.svg/220px-USA_California_location_map.svg.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Santa_Catalina_NASA_EO.jpg/220px-Santa_Catalina_NASA_EO.jpg

Sorry to be off topic, but this looks like a potentially good place to live post Z-Day.

Back on topic. I assume Michael must have some authority at FT Irwin, or be near the top end of the chain of command at least and is quite possibly directing intelligence gathering operations, why? I wonder if FT Irwin are way ahead of us intel wise and are there for the little ones/behemoths. Quite a lot of time has passed and they won't have been just sitting on their hands.

[7oddisdead]

actually, somebody find the direct episode/timestamp for me...but when michael/pegs/kelly were at the beach house and subsequently in the ocean afterwards..catalina was mentioned

chapter 16..i dont remember which part or when..its past this old mans bedtime;)

[Cabbage Patch]

Actually, as a result of this post I was doing some LA research and came across Catalina Island, which I've never heard of.

...Sorry to be off topic, but this looks like a potentially good place to live post Z-Day.


Nice thought, but KC was a step ahead of us. Remember Chapter 16, when Michael and Pegs were on the Yacht and encountered the zombies swimming in the water. They refer a couple of times to "The Island" as the place the zombies are swimming from. That island is almost certainly Catalina. The giveaway is when Michael mentions the bison herd; there's a herd of bison on Catalina. The upshot is that Catalina is over run and the surviving zombies have stripped it bare to the point that they're starving and willing to swim to the mainland for a meal.

[reaper239]

Funny thing, I once planned an invasion of LA starting from Fort Irwin. It was during the Rodney King riots. I was stationed at Fort Irwin, running an NTC mission planning section. We had two fully armed armored brigades the base at the time (the OPFOR and a training unit), and I was sure we'd get called.

It turns out that the key terrain isn't where you think it would be. Step one is to secure the Cajon Pass and routes through San Bernardino. The most critical military objective is the National Guard base in Los Alamitos, in Orange County, since that's the only place rioters could acquire heavy weapons. The next priority is to secure the passes to the San Fernando and San Gabriel Vallies, and on the coast headed to Ventura, and to position units on the major freeways. The LA Basin is remarkably flat, and that makes the freeways the key terrain. They can be used to divide the area into sectors, they channelize movement between sectors, and armored vehicles can use them to dominate the neighborhoods on either side. That allows you to isolate the trouble spots and support pacification efforts.

Needless to say, we never launched that particular operation. In fact I got pretty roundly reemed out for starting the process since there was never any plan to use the regular military to intervene in the riots.

I would never propose a plan like this in a We're Alive scenario. The Fort Irwin we've seen doesn't have enough manpower to make a full scale invasion work, and Los Angeles, in and of itself, isn't an important enough objective to justify the effort. All of which is a long-winded way of saying I don't think the Army recon was a precursor to re-taking LA. They're looking for something, or someone.

that's a great plan for riots, but what happens when the whole city is hostile? i think the best example to use for this is fallujah. all civillians were allowed to leave, so only hostiles were in the city itself, then they moved through and cleared it. also, zed don't use guns, so the armory would only be a priority for resupply.

[VEE]

Nice thought, but KC was a step ahead of us. Remember Chapter 16, when Michael and Pegs were on the Yacht and encountered the zombies swimming in the water. They refer a couple of times to "The Island" as the place the zombies are swimming from. That island is almost certainly Catalina. The giveaway is when Michael mentions the bison herd; there's a herd of bison on Catalina. The upshot is that Catalina is over run and the surviving zombies have stripped it bare to the point that they're starving and willing to swim to the mainland for a meal.

Yup, which means it's now empty of Zombies

lets go there!

[Stuv]

Great points all. I think perhaps I was bit unclear in my post. I will try to clarify. I don't think an all out assault is in the works. I think Kimmet will target the source (aka ground zero) and then attempt to reclaim whatever parts of the city are still habitable. I know many of you have military experience and are far more qualified to speak to tactics, viable targets etc. I was looking at it more from a storytelling perspective and this seemed like an interesting way to bring all the scattered groups together.

[Litmaster]

The soldier Fowler (who was killed) asks at 14:33 "What was that last (route? road?) again?" and the reply was "Santa Fe".

Santa Fe Avenue runs through Long Beach at a N-S axis, roughly parallel and just west of the 710 freeway. It seems likely that what they were doing was checking which roads were still passable going into and out of LA. I doubt this would be to pave the way for a full-scale invasion, but it could be to scout out possible land-routes for a future excursion to various resource-targets in the LA area.

[Robzombie]

Kimmet said that there were about 200 out in the field, which means between 66 to 40 teams out there (assume 3 to 5 per team, or section). I think this team is like most others and are strictly gathering intel, developing maps, etc, and not on any "special mission". It's then up to Intel and the Brass to determine what to do, if anything, with that info. Micheal is now a part of that, in fact the only MI (Military Intelligence) guy that Kimmet has, so he'll be at the top with that stuff. Like Kimmet said, they continue to grow and count on enough force multipliers to take back areas that they operate out of and maintain what they have secure, keep it real simple. He's a colonel, and colonels do not carry nukes at the ready in their back pockets. There is no way any full scale invasion of any kind is going to take place on the scale required of a city like LA. That takes a lot of resources, way too much for them at this point. Also Kimmet states that they have Boulder and Fort Irwin and thats enough.

[Stuv]

Kimmet said that there were about 200 out in the field, which means between 66 to 40 teams out there (assume 3 to 5 per team, or section). I think this team is like most others and are strictly gathering intel, developing maps, etc, and not on any "special mission". It's then up to Intel and the Brass to determine what to do, if anything, with that info. Micheal is now a part of that, in fact the only MI (Military Intelligence) guy that Kimmet has, so he'll be at the top with that stuff. Like Kimmet said, they continue to grow and count on enough force multipliers to take back areas that they operate out of and maintain what they have secure, keep it real simple. He's a colonel, and colonels do not carry nukes at the ready in their back pockets. There is no way any full scale invasion of any kind is going to take place on the scale required of a city like LA. That takes a lot of resources, way too much for them at this point. Also Kimmet states that they have Boulder and Fort Irwin and thats enough.

I should have flushed out my idea a bit more in my original post. I apologize.
I agree 100% that there is no nuke or full-scale invasion involved here. I just thought it possible that Kimmet was using some type of recon teams to scout and target ground zero. I thought maybe once he destroyed that he could begin to re-claim small sections of the city at a time. I understand that he has limited personnel and resources. I just thought identifying and destroying the source of the outbreak might be on his to-do-list. I bow to the military knowledge of others. It was just a random idea I had, thought I would throw it out for fun.

[Cabbage Patch]

I should have flushed out my idea a bit more in my original post. I apologize.
I agree 100% that there is no nuke or full-scale invasion involved here. I just thought it possible that Kimmet was using some type of recon teams to scout and target ground zero. I thought maybe once he destroyed that he could begin to re-claim small sections of the city at a time. I understand that he has limited personnel and resources. I just thought identifying and destroying the source of the outbreak might be on his to-do-list. I bow to the military knowledge of others. It was just a random idea I had, thought I would throw it out for fun.

I think your idea is a lot more realistic than my "pie in the sky" invasion thoughts. We have to assume that Fort Irwin only knows parts of the story of what's going on in LA, particularly regarding Ground Zero. The recon teams could be out trying to fill in the picture, they could be out checking on key resources (there are a lot of tech industry warehouses near the pickup point), or maybe a little of both.

[Robzombie]

I think the intel gathering abilities and available sources of intel will at least match if not be far superior to Michaels (30 people compared to 150 000 people). With only a few peoples accounts of what happened to them and when, Michael was able to triangulate where ground zero must have been. They know exactly where ground zero is and would not venture in without full NBC gear.

This particular recon team just happens to be the team that Saul encounters, and the only relevance to the story is that they provide Saul with stuff like the sat phone, the basis of Fort Irwins viability(the patch), etc, and thats it. Fixing the sat phone is an extra reason to go back to the colony, etc, and an extra reason for CJ to help them. I think its irrelevant now why the recon team was there. There are 40 to 60 teams "out there" and Saul and Victor happened upon one of them. I doubt we'll hear from them again.

[Stuv]

You win Rob. I am truly sorry I ever started this thread. It was just a crazy I had that I thought would be fun to discuss. I never claimed to be an expert in military tactics or strategy. I am happy to have people disagree with me and discuss. That is what makes forums enjoyable. I don't feel it is necessary however to shred people's ideas so viciously. Having an idea that is different than yours does not make me stupid though the tone of your posts suggest that. I will avoid having any opinion on military subjects in the future as you have made it very clear that they could never be right.

[Robzombie]

You win Rob. I am truly sorry I ever started this thread. It was just a crazy I had that I thought would be fun to discuss. I never claimed to be an expert in military tactics or strategy. I am happy to have people disagree with me and discuss. That is what makes forums enjoyable. I don't feel it is necessary however to shred people's ideas so viciously. Having an idea that is different than yours does not make me stupid though the tone of your posts suggest that. I will avoid having any opinion on military subjects in the future as you have made it very clear that they could never be right.

I'm honestly truly sorry that you take offense to my post. I try to not have any tone at all in my posts for fear that things may get taken personnally or out of context, and any tone in this case is unfortunately implied. I really don't think I shredded your idea at all and it certainly lacked any vicsiousness of any kind. I'm sorry that my participation and the points I raised in your debate was taken as a personal affront and I hope it does not dissuade you from posting any thoughts or comments at all in the future.

[Stuv]

I appreciate that Rob. I am sorry for being too defensive. I have had some bad experiences with forum trolls.(not here but in other places). I was having a bad day and was being too sensitive. I apologize. Thanks for replying and being understanding.

[Leedo2502]

Needless to say, we never launched that particular operation. In fact I got pretty roundly reemed out for starting the process since there was never any plan to use the regular military to intervene in the riots.


The 7th ID was called up for the LA riots... I have a Buddy that was guarding a gas station with his full combat load (and a pick-axe handle)

[Leedo2502]

I do think that there was a reason (related to the story) that the recon team was there. I'm of the opinion that they are taking care of several missions.

1) looking for survivors
2) looking for concentrations of Zombies
3) looking for and rating various LZ's for future operaions
4) And I'm going out on a limb here... looking for places to set up FOB's or safe areas in which to conduct operations.

For setting up the FOB's you'd need an area that has an open enough area to land a bird, prefrebly near a salvagable fuel source, some place defensible and with a 360 degree vantage point for surveillance.

[Cabbage Patch]

The 7th ID was called up for the LA riots... I have a Buddy that was guarding a gas station with his full combat load (and a pick-axe handle)

I never realized that 7th ID was sent into LA. We were told that federal military forces couldn't be used and I'm pretty sure that no Army troops from Fort Irwin were sent. I knew that the Coast Guard, Marshall Service, even the Forest Service sent in personnel to help the LAPD. Guess that wasn't enough.

[Leedo2502]

I never realized that 7th ID was sent into LA. We were told that federal military forces couldn't be used and I'm pretty sure that no Army troops from Fort Irwin were sent. I knew that the Coast Guard, Marshall Service, even the Forest Service sent in personnel to help the LAPD. Guess that wasn't enough.

The CA National Guard deployed like 5,000 troops and the 7th ID sent in an Infantry BDE with the support elements and there was a Marine force that deployed too

[Blood & Ice Cream]

was thinking about the recon teams in LA recently, some random theories included:

1. Checking out the general state of the highways and plotting a clear traffic route into LA, maybe straight to the colony - as Michael knows that there are survivors at this location. I 'm guessing Fort Irwin doesn't have a large contingent of military aifcraft (or fuel) to risk turning up and taking control of the colony therefore an alternative plan is to roll up in APC's and perhaps a M1 Abrams and say hello at the front gate!

2. The recon team was located near Long Beach, which is next to several military locations i.e. i) Long Beach Port; ii) a Naval Complex; and maybe iii) Los Alamitos Army Airfield - my thoughts are that any surviving Naval elements may use this Port as it is the nearest to Fort Irwin and may be the next step to start an investigation as to the pacific ring of fire incident (thats if they know about the crack/no go zones at ground zero). Or, contact with other surviving nations could start from this port.

[LiamKerrington]

Hi there,

I like what you are saying there; and I would like to de- and re-construct it slightly:
What, if the recon team was supposed to check the several military locations in order to establish a base; and this base would be the HQ for any plans to move towards the colony in order to rescue the people? Or the Colonel might be interested in having a close-by base to check Inglewood instead of having to deploy (few) troups all the way down from Fort Iwrin?

I agree that Michael might think of the situation of the suppressed civilians in this "facility"; but I guess Michael could accept their situation, because their situation would still be a lot better then having to deal with the zeds.

Checking the routes into LA is, I think, of low priority. The situation is obvious: when all things started to go south, people tried to flee LA and created a chaos on all roads leading away from LA. And since a lot of blood and death were shed on these roads, the military will know what the situation looks like. Therefore, if they really think about moving in with tanks (just consider the amount of fuel a single tank consumes on a 100mi run), they would not waste time on the highways, but would simply choose side roads along the main routes ...

All the best!
Liam

[Nathan.Luiz]

I have no idea why they were there, but I don't think it had anything to do with The Colony. As far as Michael is concerned, The Colony is hostile and is probably best left alone. I don't like making too many long-term predictions in regards to We're Alive, but I don't see Saul, C.J. and Victor being reunited with Michael due to The Colony, nor do I see them being reunited at all this season (Well, maybe right at the end of Chapter 36, but not before or at The Colony).

[LiamKerrington]

Hi,

yeah; I hear you. And thinking it over and considering the hardly predictable story-arcs I would like to imagine that KC will focus on two parallel plots that intertwine very late in the whole WA campaign - arc one about the military and ground zero/ Inglewood, arc two about the whole colony-maller-Saul/Vitor/CJ/Scratch/Briggs/Lizzy/Burt/Durai situation ...