Does my military make much sense?

Question

For some context, my world takes place in the year 2027, just close to a two decades ever since the Black Flu pandemic ripped across the human race and the zombies initiated the Great Collapse, leading to the fall of modern civilization. The US Government was able to somewhat survive and in 2009, under the leadership of President Obama, the surviving remnants of the federal government and US military liberated Washington, DC from both zombies as well as hostile militias, bandits, terrorists, etc. As of 2027, the District of Columbia has expanded in size and has a population of 810,000 people (might jack the number up to a million).

Anyway, now that you have some insight, here’s my military:

The United States Garrison (U.S.G.) also referred to as the U.S. Garrison and simply the Garrison, is the modern post-Black Flu incarnation of the old pre-Black Flu United States Armed Forces. Established on November 11th, 2010, the United States Garrison is by far the strongest, most powerful, advance, well trained, disciplined, and experienced military in all of North America (if not the entire Western Hemisphere) and is responsible for conducting land, aerial, naval, expeditionary, and amphibious warfare. The strength, power, experience, and iron discipline of the U.S. Garrison has made it the premier military of North America. Due to the numbers and resources that it possesses, the U.S. Garrison has spearheaded combat operations, peacekeeping missions, and humanitarian aid services throughout the East Coast while also working to diligently defend the District of Columbia from hostile invaders. The U.S. Garrison was created after President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Reorganization Act of 2010 (NDRA). The Garrison was formed under President Obama’s tenure due to the need to unify the scattered resources and manpower of the five branches of the old U.S. military in order to more strategically and productively utilize the limited resources available.

MANPOWER

Total Number of Troopers: 75,000 Troopers

Active Duty: 62,216 Troopers

Reserves: 12,784 Troopers

Structure

The Garrison is under the administration of the Department of National Defense, which is led by the Secretary of National Defense (who answers to the President of the United States, who also serves as the Commander in Chief). The highest ranking and most senior commissioned Trooper in the Garrison is the Commander General, a five star general who also holds the command office of being the Commander of the Garrison. The Commander General is responsible for leading the Garrison in executing its missions as well as all operations handed to it, including leading, arming, recruiting, training, etc. the Troopers of the Garrison. The current Commander General is Commander General Adam Mars, a former Colonel in the United States Marine Corps before commissioning into the Garrison as a Brigadier General and later rose to command the Garrison Ground Force before being promoted to Commander General. The Garrison is headquartered in the Pentagon located in Alexandria, Virginia while it’s main operating base is Garrison Base Quantico, known as the “beating heart and muscles” of the entire Garrison and its operations.

The Garrison is divided into three main cohesive operating components each headed by a General (who reports to the Commander General). These three components of the Garrison act together in a combined arms fashion akin to a Marine Air-Ground Task Force/MAGTF that compliments one another when conducting operations. They are the following (NOTE: the reason why I’m using Marine Corps and Army unit organizational structure names for non-land warfare forces is for ease of organization and structure):

Garrison Ground Force/GARGROF (General)

• 1st Ground Corps (Lieutenant General, 35,984 Troopers)

1st Division (Major General, 10,000 Troopers)

2nd Division (Major General, 10,000 Troopers)

3rd Division (Major General, 10,000 Troopers)

1st Brigade (Reserves) (Brigadier General, 5,384 Troopers)

SPECIAL UNIT: United States Garrison Special Operations Command (SOCOM)

• 5th Special Warfare Battalion (Colonel, 600 Troopers)

  • Echo “Titan” Company (Major, 200 Troopers)

  • India “Fire” Company (Major, 200 Troopers)

  • Zulu “Shadow” Company (Major, 200 Troopers)

Garrison Air Wing/GAW (General)

• 1st Air Division (Lieutenant General, 15,000 Troopers, 490 total aircraft)

1st Air Brigade (Brigadier General, 6,000 Troopers, 175 aircraft)

2nd Air Brigade (Brigadier General, 6,000 Troopers, 175 aircraft)

3rd Air Regiment (Reserves) (Brigadier General, 3,000 Troopers, 140 aircraft)

Garrison Naval Fleet/GARNAF (General)

• 1st Naval Corps (Lieutenant General, 24,016 Troopers, 55 total warships)

• Fleet Flagship: USS Harry S. Truman

1st Naval Division (Major General, 12,590 Troopers, 19 warships)

• Division Flagship: USS Essex

2nd Naval Brigade (Major General, 7,590 Troopers, 18 warships)

• Brigadier Flagship: USS Iwo Jima

3rd Naval Regiment (Reserves) (Brigadier General, 3,836 Troopers, 18 warships)

• Regimental Flagship: USS Green Bay

Public Agenda

MISSION

• Defend the territory of the District of Columbia (and by virtue/in spirit, the United States) from all hostile threats, foreign and domestic

• Preserve and maintain law, order, peace, and stability within the District of Columbia

• Support and implement the national military policies and objectives of the United States

• Conduct humanitarian aid operations whenever possible

• Seize and defend strategic positions and assets critical to the defense of the District of Columbia

• Prepare and maintain naval and naval aviation assets in order to project naval strength across the seas and wage naval warfare

• Prepare and maintain aviation assets in order to conduct aerial warfare and maintain air supremacy

• Assist in reuniting the United States of America

• Execute such other duties as the President or Department of National Defense may direct

Assets

EQUIPMENT/WEAPONS

Individual Standard-Issue Weapons:

• M16A5 rifle w/20-round straight-body magazines

• M1911 (SNCOs and Officers-only)

• M4A1 carbine w/30-round magazines (Special Operations Command/SOCOM-issued only)

• SIG Sauer M17 pistol (Special Operations/SOCOM-issued only)

Crew-served Weapons:

-M249 SAW

• M240 MG

• M40A3 bolt action sniper rifle

• M2010 sniper rifle

• Mk 18 AWM

• M110 SASS

• Barrett M82A1

• GAU-17 minigun

• Soltam K6 120 mortar

• M777 howitzer

VEHICLE ASSETS

M1 Abrams (450)

• Bradley Fighting Vehicle (390)

• Stryker APC (470)

• LAV-25 (483)

• AAV (280)

• MRAP (320)

• M1117 ASV (515)

• M142 HIMARS (400)

• M109 self-propelled howitzer (375)

• M939 truck (915)

• Landing Craft Air Cushion (12)

Total Ground Vehicle Assets: 4,180 Vehicles

AVIATION ASSETS

Fixed-Wing Aviation Assets:

• A-10 Thunderbolt (30)

• AC-130 (4)

• C-5 Galaxy (15)

• C-17 Globemaster (20)

• C-130J Hercules (25)

• E-3G Sentry (3)

• Boeing E-4 (3)

• F-15 Strike Eagle (16)

• F-16 Fighting Falcon (22)

• F-22 Raptor (10)

• KC-10 (6)

• Boeing VC-747 (1)

• F/A-18 Hornet (22)

• AV-8B Harrier II (10)

• F/A-18F Super Hornet (10)

• Total Fixed-Wing Aviation Assets: 197 fix-winged aircraft

• Rotary-Wing Aviation Assets:

• UH-1N Huey (24)

• Bell 412 (22)

• MH-60T Jayhawk (20)

• MH-65D Dolphin (15)

• AH-1W SuperCobra (24)

• CH53-E Super Stallion (26)

• Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King (4)

• Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk (5)

• MH-6 Little Bird (35)

• AH-64 Apache (25)

• V-22 Osprey (30)

• CH-47 Chinook (10)

• Bell 206 (30)

• Airbus Helicopter H125 (2)

Total Rotary-Wing Aviation Assets: 272 rotary-wing aircraft

Drone/Unmanned Aviation Assets:

• Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk (15)

• MQ-9 Reaper (6)

Total Drone Aviation Assets: 21 drones

Total Manned Aviation Assets: 469 manned aircraft

Total Aviation Assets: 490 aircraft

NAVAL ASSETS

Critical Naval Assets:

• USS Harry S. Truman (Nimitz-class aircraft carrier) (Fleet Flagship)

• USS Lewis Chesty Puller (Lewis Chesty Puller-class battlecarrier)

• USS Kurt Chew Een Lee (Lewis Chesty Puller-class battlecarrier)

• USS Essex (Wasp-class Landing Helicopter Dock/LHD amphibious assault ship)

• USS Iwo Jima (Wasp-class LHD amphibious assault ship)

• USS Green Bay (San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock)

Fleet Assets:

• Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer (20)

• Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser (11)

• Los Angeles-class attack submarine (3)

• Cyclone-class patrol ship (9)

• Legend-class Coast Guard cutter (4)

• Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutter (2)

Total Naval Assets: 55 warships

Answer 1

There's a big difference between owning and operating

Owning? No problem.

I see two different questions here. The first is is it possible for the DC government to own this pile of military hardware? The answer is yes. We have room for all that hardware. The ships may have been at sea during the insurrection and out of reach of the enemy forces. One radio call could have gotten them to the greater DC area where they could drop anchor. I live in the District and we have enough runways between our civilian airports and military bases that we could park a whole bunch of aircraft. Between the National Guard armory, military bases, and law enforcement buildings, we could fit tons of other kinds of weaponry. Getting the stuff here and finding room to store it isn't a problem. After all, the United States already has places where we store ships and aircraft for decades at a time with minimal staffing. Davis-Monthan AFB (shown below) has 4,400 aircraft managed by the relatively small 309th AMARG.

Operating? A problem

Here's the more important question: could a nation-state of fewer than one million residents support the deployment of this kind of firepower? The answer is a definitive no.

Let's start by looking at your aircraft carrier. RAND analyzed aircraft carrier maintenance cycles in real world conditions and found that carriers are only deployed 19% of the time (shown in green in the chart below). As RAND puts it, "These ships, which are among the most complex weapon systems the Navy operates, require continuous and regularly scheduled maintenance."

Supporting force readiness is a big job. Check out the org chart for the 50,000-employee Naval Sea Systems Command. Your smaller navy won't need quite as many divisions, but you'll still need a lot of experts in different fields to support a nuclear carrier and other large ships.

Your aircraft and ground vehicles also require maintenance and support. According to this analysis, every flight hour of the F-35 could require 50 people-hours of maintenance. Bradleys and Abrams need less maintenance but you'll still require specialized mechanics and facilities to keep them operating.

Beyond the hands-on maintenance, repair, and training requirements, you'll also need to manufacture ammunition and replacement parts and you'll need fuel and electricity. I'm reminded of this answer to an unrelated question where the author listed all the industries you need just to build one rudimentary computer.

Realistically, 999,999 of my neighbors and I could support a handful of patrol boats, a few easy-to-maintain aircraft, and a number of heavy vehicles.

Answer 2

Make your nation bigger.

Clearly you love the military and all their sweet stuff. And you want what is essentially the US Military to be fighting they way they do now in a near future post apocalyptic environment. That is what you need to have! That is where your passion is.

To keep the sweet military you just need a bigger population. And fortunately you can have it. I think you are keen on DC too, so keep that. But expand their area of control to be much larger. Large enough to have a population that can support a standing army of the size that you want to work with.

An army with the stuff you list would have no trouble defending a reduced sized US. And you will want them to be battling equals: comparably armed warlord mini-nations, zombie hordes, kaiju - not rinkydink militias.

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I do think it would be fun fiction to have your army own military assets they don't really know how to use or maintain. Having your tanks fall apart as you are trying to use them makes for exciting fiction.

Answer 3

LOGISTICAL HANDWAVIUM: This scenario requires a LOT of handwavium to justify, especially without adding some really extraordinary tech.

• Assume the federal government has become an absolute dictatorship, complete command economy where the people are serving purely for the sake of preserving the federal government. Despite the fact the district could be concentrating on expanding the safe base around the city, expanding agriculture, etc, they are instead reaching out in an attempt to rebuild the federal government. Then assume the survivors they encounter are interested in supporting the federal government, instead of their village, city, and state.
• Assume the federal government has built a giant series of military bases around DC prior to the apocalypse, since you don't have the economy to build them after. A MASSIVE buildup of equipment (especially maintenance equipment and spare parts reserves) were put here as some sort of political statement by a previous administration, ignoring the risk of nuclear attack and concentrating most of the equipment reserves of the old USA in and around DC.
• Assume federal law or some sort of legal requirement by interfering state governments prior to the war caused a large number of defense contractors to produce their weapons in or near the capital. The engineering expertise to simplify and update equipment was concentrated here.
• Assume Norfolk VA was the exclusive naval maintenance facility for the USA (possibly due to those same considerations) and that it survived completely intact from the apocalypse. This starting premise isn't too bad, as this is already the biggest naval base in the world.
• Assume due to political reasons the USA assured critical infrastructure (smelting plants, etc) and HUGE strategic reserves in the immediate area of the capital, including thousands of tons of steel, millions of tons of surplus food, and millions of barrels of oil.
• NOW: Idle 90% of this stuff as being impractical in an actual zombie apocalypse. You don't need most of the air power, and you don't need most of the sea power. Sure, it's there, but a cargo ship filled with soldiers will be a lot more useful than an aircraft carrier. Each one of these ships requires a huge crew. They would mostly get parked somewhere and used as bases and landing strips. I saw a game once where the USS Constitution was equipped with 50 cal machine guns and turned into a pirate ship. The modern equivalent would be more practical - sailing ships with engines for maneuvering, to minimize fuel consumption (modern ships are starting to look into similar options - it just proves what comes around goes around).
• The scenario that justifies all this handwaving is if there was a conspiracy going on prior to the zombie apocalypse that knew it was coming, and prepared for it in advance. Personally, I wouldn't pick DC if I were a conspirator, but hey, why not? The conspiracy would be decades-long. Maybe someone WANTS the USA to become the only superpower, and a deeply authoritarian one, at that.Who knows the motives of conspirators? Sounds like a good back-story...