NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Type 08

[Yukonastan]

Guys, I've a question. I don't know if this is the appropriate topic, if it isn't them I'm sorry:
How would be the better strategy to defend your shores from a amphibious invasion? Not only when the Marines disembark on the beach, but also when the enemy shpis are approaching your shores.

Mobile antiship missile batteries for the ships, mobile artillery and direct-fire gun batteries for the beaches themselves, mines to act as extra deterrent. *nods*

[Purpelia]

Consider strategically placing MLRS batteries so that you can quickly mine any beach that is threatened. Nothing beats landing on a freshly mined beach.

[Alien Space Bats]

I was thinking about the use of tactical nuclear weapons, and I think that, especially on NS, they have their uses. Nuclear depth charges can be used when you have only a general idea of where your target is, or when someone has not visited this thread nor asked if submarine wolfpacks would be useful in MT. Nuclear bombs also present unique solutions to those pesky dense formations of enemy tanks.\

With this in mind, and also the fact that a nuke is not always useful, I came up with a surprisingly unoriginal idea; giving every unit both conventional and nuclear capability.

All this means is that the cruise missile subs, destroyers, and aircraft carriers would carry both types of ammunition. That way my forces are never locked in to one option, but can use such tools as there appears a use for them. In each ship/brigade/air wing nearly 25% (varies between units, a fighter wing will have a higher percentage than a patrol boat) of all stored ammunition would be of the nuclear variety. The logic behind the 25% value is from looking at RPs in II and getting a feel for how often a nuke would be logical.

So would this be reasonable, or would it be folly to try and make a mixed conventional/nuclear force?

Leaving aside the problem of devising a set of tactics appropriate to a full-on nuclear environment (because rest assured that if you use tactical nuclear weapons on your adversaries, they will surely use those same tactical nuclear weapons on you), equipping EVERY unit in your military with nuclear weapons will not only be exceedingly expensive, but will impose tremendous security problems on your military.

One of my many puppets is Narodna Odbrana, is a stateless criminal organization (think of a cross between a terrorist organization and La Cosa Nostra). Knowing that your army distributes nuclear weapons down to, say, the battalion/squadron/patrol boat level, we'll be looking to find ways into your lowest level arms lockers in an effort to rob you blind of some very, VERY valuable contraband,

And so will every other similar organization, including many who are far less capable than they are.

A necessary consequence of this policy is that you're going to lose a LOT of nukes, and that your country is going to have a huge black market in nuclear devices of all kinds (especially the small ones). After all, a black market nuke can fetch a pretty hefty price; that not only creates a tremendous amount of temptation for your soldiers, but can also fuel a huge system of bribes paid to people to look the other way as the action unfolds.

This in turn will have other consequences: For a young nation just starting out on the nuclear trail, getting one's hand on a working nuke can shave a huge amount of time off the process of developing a working model of your own; in similar fashion, if you ever try to develop an improved arsenal in relation to everybody else (seeking smaller and lighter, higher yields, enhanced blast or neutron effects, or whatever), the proliferation of nuclear weapons storage sites is going to make your adversaries job easier when it comes to espionage.

I recommend you rethink this policy from a security perspective. Most nuclear-armed nations centralize nuclear arms storage (and therefore command and control) in an effort to try and keep any of their many nuclear devices from walking away. Such policies have the drawback of limiting access by lower-level units to nukes in any potential warfighting situation in which they might be used, but that's generally seen as acceptable given the risk of sabotage, theft and/or espionage.

[Enso and Mu]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

[Yukonastan]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

It makes sense, but it's better to attach air defense units to battalion-level formations.

[Questers]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

It makes sense, but it's better to attach air defense units to battalion-level formations.

Is it?

[Immoren]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

Yes.
What is its parent unit?

[Enso and Mu]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

Yes.
What is its parent unit?

The working-titled Nth Regional Defence Brigade, which looks something vaguely like a couple of Combined Arms BTNs, Artillery BTN, A/D BTN, each with their own subordinate logistics companies. Or something.

[Immoren]

Yes.
What is its parent unit?

The working-titled Nth Regional Defence Brigade, which looks something vaguely like a couple of Combined Arms BTNs, Artillery BTN, A/D BTN, each with their own subordinate logistics companies. Or something.

AD BTN
1xHeadquarters&Headquarters Battery
2xSPAAG BTY
1xSAM BTY

[Enso and Mu]

Yeah, that's basically what I was thinking. Cheers.

[Gallia-]

My google fu is weak. Does "Air Defence BTN" make sense as a unit, and if so, about what should I include in its orbat?

Yes, air defence units generally operate as battalions.

What they have depends on what they do. A Corps-sized unit might have an air defence battalion of Patriot or Hawk missiles or two, supplemented by shorter range missiles like Stinger, ADATS, Crotale, etc. A division or independent brigade would just have the latter, if anything, organised as a single battalion of four or five batteries. An air defence battery consists of anywhere from one or two to eight launchers, at least in the US Army, regardless of the system (Patriot, Avenger, Hawk, Linebacker, ADATS (in a just world), etc.).

You should avoid giving a division or smaller something like Patriot or S-300, though. They wouldn't have a tremendous use for it organically and giving it to a corps means that the division can just have it attached as needed depending on the air threat.

[Alien Space Bats]

Chernobyl, one of the few reactor explosions in nuclear power history, blew because of steam pressure in the core. The concrete core lid was blown clean off the reactor vessel. When it did so, the material inside the core burnt. This dispersed vast amounts of fissile material and fission products (the remnants of nuclear fission), much of which was dispersed locally, but much of which was dispersed right across Europe by winds.

Let me add that the explosion at Chernobyl was caused by the rupturing of water coolant lines within the reactor, which was itself a carbon-graphite moderated system. This means that it consisted of a huge block of graphite laced with cooling tubes, fuel rods, and control rods (consisting of neutron absorbing materials), quite unlike the most common Western designs (in which the reactor core is suspended in water, which provides both cooling and neutron absorption). Western reactor design followed this approach mostly because the early research money went into building nuclear reactors for maritime propulsion, and such designs are very good in that role; Soviet power plants followed the older carbon-graphite pattern because it was less expensive and more easily developed into a useable civil design.

The thing is, when the water lines ruptured, the steam struck the surrounding graphite, igniting it. Carbon compounds can (and do) burn explosively at very high temperatures; thus the reactor block instantly became a glorified superheated charcoal briquette. THAT'S what blew the roof off the reactor containment structure and spewed radioactive ash across a wide area.

This is not to say that water-cooled reactors are inherently safer; as the disaster at Fukushima demonstrated, they aren't. At Fukushima, a failure in the pump system needed to keep the water flowing resulted in most of the coolant/moderator fluid boiling away. This became an accelerating process, subject to a feedback loop (hotter reactor temperatures leading to less cooling and moderation, resulting in hotter reactor temperatures leading to less cooling and moderation...). A feedback loop like that would not have happened in a Chernobyl-style reactor; each disaster followed its own unique path, exploiting each reactor design's unique weaknesses.

That said, both Chernobyl and Fukushima demonstrated the problem of having multiple reactor cores in close proximity to one another: At Fukushima, failure in one reactor made it impossible to service the adjoining reactors, resulting in their loss as well. At Chernobyl, the fire and explosion also jeopardized the operation of adjacent systems.

The lesson to be learned here is that reactor cores should be separated by enough distance/buffers/failsafe systems that catastrophe in one system won't affect the ability of other systems on the same site (or any site linked to the first, by proximity or power usage) to continue functioning normally and/or undergo a controlled and timely shutdown. In the US, thanks to a variety of factors, most reactors stand alone as the only system located at their respective sites, quite unlike systems in Russia, France, or Japan, where 4-6 reactors are often situated in a cluster at a single site. Clustering reactors DOES make maintenance and operation easier and less expensive; but it also makes such plants riskier to operate as well.

[The balkens]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

[Nirvash Type TheEND]

Die. Leos are glasschins.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

Violently.

[The balkens]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

Violently.

And succeeding?

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Violently.

And succeeding?

I'm not a tankologist.

[Korva]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

The Leopards would have almost every advantage.

[The balkens]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

The Leopards would have almost every advantage.

Thank you.

[Fasnova]

So.....

Leopard 2A6 Vs an assortment of Soviet cold war tanks....How would the leopards handle this?

Soviet cold war tanks beat Germany in a single thing.

[Imperializt Russia]

This varies a bit with doctrine as I understand it, but where possible you're going to want to engage enemy craft before they can land on the beach, because this is when the assaulting force is most vulnerable. A forward screen of dispersed ATGM teams, or even recoilless rifle teams, in concealed or mobile positions represent a greater threat than concrete bunkers and trenches. Out at sea, maintaining air superiority and patrolling coastal waters with quiet submarines can go a long way to deter amphibious attacks before they even materialize.

On the other hand, though, this means that your enemy will try to counter these developments by trying to anticipate your movements and land somewhere undefended (or avoid an opposed landing altogether if possible). LCACs don't have vastly better armor than LCV(P)s, but they can go places the latter can't and get there faster. Add in electronic warfare, heliborne assaults, and mass employment of precision-guided munitions, and a 21st-century amphibious assault is unlikely to look anything at all like Normandy or Iwo Jima. Even WWII landings involved a good deal more deception and preparation than one might immediately think.

Immediate responses to the Normandy invasion included the pulling of large armoured formations from the Spanish border, and French resistance operations to delay those formations in transit.
Operations that led to the slaughter of an entire village in reprisal.

This level of scale, to me, is almost more magnificent than the landing operation itself.

[Rich and Corporations]

A necessary consequence of this policy is that you're going to lose a LOT of nukes, and that your country is going to have a huge black market in nuclear devices of all kinds (especially the small ones). After all, a black market nuke can fetch a pretty hefty price; that not only creates a tremendous amount of temptation for your soldiers, but can also fuel a huge system of bribes paid to people to look the other way as the action unfolds.

This in turn will have other consequences: For a young nation just starting out on the nuclear trail, getting one's hand on a working nuke can shave a huge amount of time off the process of developing a working model of your own; in similar fashion, if you ever try to develop an improved arsenal in relation to everybody else (seeking smaller and lighter, higher yields, enhanced blast or neutron effects, or whatever), the proliferation of nuclear weapons storage sites is going to make your adversaries job easier when it comes to espionage.

don't be silly, we have insane libertarian nations and the great likelyhood wikiweapons exist

you could 3d print a nuclear device probably

[Imperializt Russia]

Chernobyl, one of the few reactor explosions in nuclear power history, blew because of steam pressure in the core. The concrete core lid was blown clean off the reactor vessel. When it did so, the material inside the core burnt. This dispersed vast amounts of fissile material and fission products (the remnants of nuclear fission), much of which was dispersed locally, but much of which was dispersed right across Europe by winds.

Let me add that the explosion at Chernobyl was caused by the rupturing of water coolant lines within the reactor, which was itself a carbon-graphite moderated system. This means that it consisted of a huge block of graphite laced with cooling tubes, fuel rods, and control rods (consisting of neutron absorbing materials), quite unlike the most common Western designs (in which the reactor core is suspended in water, which provides both cooling and neutron absorption). Western reactor design followed this approach mostly because the early research money went into building nuclear reactors for maritime propulsion, and such designs are very good in that role; Soviet power plants followed the older carbon-graphite pattern because it was less expensive and more easily developed into a useable civil design.

The thing is, when the water lines ruptured, the steam struck the surrounding graphite, igniting it. Carbon compounds can (and do) burn explosively at very high temperatures; thus the reactor block instantly became a glorified superheated charcoal briquette. THAT'S what blew the roof off the reactor containment structure and spewed radioactive ash across a wide area.

This is not to say that water-cooled reactors are inherently safer; as the disaster at Fukushima demonstrated, they aren't. At Fukushima, a failure in the pump system needed to keep the water flowing resulted in most of the coolant/moderator fluid boiling away. This became an accelerating process, subject to a feedback loop (hotter reactor temperatures leading to less cooling and moderation, resulting in hotter reactor temperatures leading to less cooling and moderation...). A feedback loop like that would not have happened in a Chernobyl-style reactor; each disaster followed its own unique path, exploiting each reactor design's unique weaknesses.

That said, both Chernobyl and Fukushima demonstrated the problem of having multiple reactor cores in close proximity to one another: At Fukushima, failure in one reactor made it impossible to service the adjoining reactors, resulting in their loss as well. At Chernobyl, the fire and explosion also jeopardized the operation of adjacent systems.

The lesson to be learned here is that reactor cores should be separated by enough distance/buffers/failsafe systems that catastrophe in one system won't affect the ability of other systems on the same site (or any site linked to the first, by proximity or power usage) to continue functioning normally and/or undergo a controlled and timely shutdown. In the US, thanks to a variety of factors, most reactors stand alone as the only system located at their respective sites, quite unlike systems in Russia, France, or Japan, where 4-6 reactors are often situated in a cluster at a single site. Clustering reactors DOES make maintenance and operation easier and less expensive; but it also makes such plants riskier to operate as well.

Whilst a valid concern, British and French reactor plants will often site 2 or more (usually two in the UK) reactors functionally in the same building for a reactor complex and we've yet to have any serious reactor incidents.
We're also lucky enough to be unlikely to face major incidents like the Japanese are and operate designs that, from record alone, seem to be less vulnerable to such catastrophes occurring.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

This varies a bit with doctrine as I understand it, but where possible you're going to want to engage enemy craft before they can land on the beach, because this is when the assaulting force is most vulnerable. A forward screen of dispersed ATGM teams, or even recoilless rifle teams, in concealed or mobile positions represent a greater threat than concrete bunkers and trenches. Out at sea, maintaining air superiority and patrolling coastal waters with quiet submarines can go a long way to deter amphibious attacks before they even materialize.

On the other hand, though, this means that your enemy will try to counter these developments by trying to anticipate your movements and land somewhere undefended (or avoid an opposed landing altogether if possible). LCACs don't have vastly better armor than LCV(P)s, but they can go places the latter can't and get there faster. Add in electronic warfare, heliborne assaults, and mass employment of precision-guided munitions, and a 21st-century amphibious assault is unlikely to look anything at all like Normandy or Iwo Jima. Even WWII landings involved a good deal more deception and preparation than one might immediately think.

Immediate responses to the Normandy invasion included the pulling of large armoured formations from the Spanish border, and French resistance operations to delay those formations in transit.
Operations that led to the slaughter of an entire village in reprisal.

This level of scale, to me, is almost more magnificent than the landing operation itself.

IMO, Overlord still tops that.

How quickly did the formations move BTW?

[Imperializt Russia]

Immediate responses to the Normandy invasion included the pulling of large armoured formations from the Spanish border, and French resistance operations to delay those formations in transit.
Operations that led to the slaughter of an entire village in reprisal.

This level of scale, to me, is almost more magnificent than the landing operation itself.

IMO, Overlord still tops that.

How quickly did the formations move BTW?

I don't recall. They were being moved by train.
If you google "French village massacred" you'll almost certainly find the right one - it's still abandoned as a memorial.