NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[The Manticoran Empire]

I have a dilemma that has been in my mind for a while:

Using slightly-postmodern military technology (2040s to 2070s), what would it take for one country to forever render Earth uninhabitable for even the blue tits, or send the planet into a death orbit with the sun? I have a feeling that using all nuclear weapons may not be enough to send Earth into death orbit with the sun.

I am asking this, because if it isn't possible, then obviously it makes no sense for anyone in my roleplay to make such a claim without being mocked.

To entirely render the Earth uninhabitable would require that it no longer maintain the necessities of life. You either have to A. Remove all of the water and prevent that water from returning. B. Strip the Atmosphere, which will then cause the oceans and everything else to go away. C. Stop or alter the rotation of the Earth causing the magnetic field to weaken and the atmosphere and oceans to migrate to the poles with the rest of the planet being bathed in solar radiation.

As you can see, all of these are quite extreme solutions that require you to inflict more damage than has ever been caused to the environment. You would, quite literally, have to kill the planet in order to render it uninhabitable. Nuclear warfare will simply make certain areas uninhabitable for a few decades while famine, chaos, and disease kill millions of people. But life will go on. There are not and never were enough nuclear weapons to entirely extinguish life on Earth.

[Hrstrovokia]

To entirely render the Earth uninhabitable would require that it no longer maintain the necessities of life. You either have to A. Remove all of the water and prevent that water from returning. B. Strip the Atmosphere, which will then cause the oceans and everything else to go away. C. Stop or alter the rotation of the Earth causing the magnetic field to weaken and the atmosphere and oceans to migrate to the poles with the rest of the planet being bathed in solar radiation.

As you can see, all of these are quite extreme solutions that require you to inflict more damage than has ever been caused to the environment. You would, quite literally, have to kill the planet in order to render it uninhabitable. Nuclear warfare will simply make certain areas uninhabitable for a few decades while famine, chaos, and disease kill millions of people. But life will go on. There are not and never were enough nuclear weapons to entirely extinguish life on Earth.

At what point does our (mis)management of the ecosystem get to the point that it destroy all life ala The Road?

[The Manticoran Empire]

To entirely render the Earth uninhabitable would require that it no longer maintain the necessities of life. You either have to A. Remove all of the water and prevent that water from returning. B. Strip the Atmosphere, which will then cause the oceans and everything else to go away. C. Stop or alter the rotation of the Earth causing the magnetic field to weaken and the atmosphere and oceans to migrate to the poles with the rest of the planet being bathed in solar radiation.

As you can see, all of these are quite extreme solutions that require you to inflict more damage than has ever been caused to the environment. You would, quite literally, have to kill the planet in order to render it uninhabitable. Nuclear warfare will simply make certain areas uninhabitable for a few decades while famine, chaos, and disease kill millions of people. But life will go on. There are not and never were enough nuclear weapons to entirely extinguish life on Earth.

At what point does our (mis)management of the ecosystem get to the point that it destroy all life ala The Road?

At the point that we match 40k levels of ecological not-giving-a-fuck.

[Hrstrovokia]

Fuck it I'm not recycling anymore.

[Imperializt Russia]

I have a dilemma that has been in my mind for a while:

Using slightly-postmodern military technology (2040s to 2070s), what would it take for one country to forever render Earth uninhabitable for even the blue tits, or send the planet into a death orbit with the sun? I have a feeling that using all nuclear weapons may not be enough to send Earth into death orbit with the sun.

I am asking this, because if it isn't possible, then obviously it makes no sense for anyone in my roleplay to make such a claim without being mocked.

To make earth uninhabitable to that level would require FAR more nuclear weapons than have ever existed. Considering the K-T asteroid that contributed to the extinction of the Dinosaurs delivered 100 million MT of TNT equivalent energy, several orders of magnitude beyond what humanity has produced, and failed to completely render earth uninhabitable to life in general (of course saurids and their relatives would say otherwise)...

National-to-regional societal collapses of areas impacted by atomics as well as good ole fashioned famine and other second-order effects are more plausible.

Whoever is claiming that for 2050-2070 is probably high.

The energy required to move Saturn onto an orbit one photon's-width closer to the sun would be enough to boil away its entire atmosphere.

Or rather, I remember reading something similar many years ago.
De-orbiting planets is not as easy as de-orbiting hilarious landers in KSP.

[Imperializt Russia]

Fuck it I'm not recycling anymore.

"The world will end" and "society will be irrevocably altered" are not the same thing.

To a sizeable portion of the earth's current population? It might as well be.

[The Manticoran Empire]

To make earth uninhabitable to that level would require FAR more nuclear weapons than have ever existed. Considering the K-T asteroid that contributed to the extinction of the Dinosaurs delivered 100 million MT of TNT equivalent energy, several orders of magnitude beyond what humanity has produced, and failed to completely render earth uninhabitable to life in general (of course saurids and their relatives would say otherwise)...

National-to-regional societal collapses of areas impacted by atomics as well as good ole fashioned famine and other second-order effects are more plausible.

Whoever is claiming that for 2050-2070 is probably high.

The energy required to move Saturn onto an orbit one photon's-width closer to the sun would be enough to boil away its entire atmosphere.

Or rather, I remember reading something similar many years ago.
De-orbiting planets is not as easy as de-orbiting hilarious landers in KSP.

So the energy required to not even noticeably move Saturn is absolutely ludicrous.

[Grater Tovakia]

Not Recycling>Military Realism

[Austrasien]

Nuclear weapons remove very nearly zero mass from the earth permanently (read: escape velocity), so their ability to affect Earths orbit permanently is vanishingly small. Interplanetary satellite launches have probably had a bigger effect on the earth than every nuclear detonation ever.

Momentum, not energy, is what matters here. You could flash the whole earth to plasma and the gas cloud would still remain in its orbit as it coalesced back into a planet (unless the plasma was so energetic the particles achieved escape velocity LMAO). But the momentum of the Earth (and the moon) is conserved, for the Earth to drop into a lower orbit except by incredibly insignificant effects like gravitational radiation and light pressure requires the momentum of the Earth be transferred to something else and removed from earths gravity well.

Because the Earth is very heavy that means a lot of mass even at the most absurdly optimistic delta-Vs. You would probably have more luck doing repeat fly by's with massive asteroids slowly nudging it into a more eccentric orbit.

[Imperializt Russia]

I could have misremembered the anecdote, and it could have been "the extra energy incurred by Saturn having an orbit one photon's-width closer to the sun (ie rotational energy) would be enough to boil it away".

It was in a children's science book at school, so it could easily have been plain wrong either way.

The cogent point, was that no, changing the earth's orbit is not feasible for foreseeable technology.

[Kedri]

How practical is privateering in modern day warfare? Kedri was historically a Pirate hideout, and while it did eventually abolish piracy, Kedrians do want to maintain their Pirate heritage to some degree.

[The Akasha Colony]

How practical is privateering in modern day warfare? Kedri was historically a Pirate hideout, and while it did eventually abolish piracy, Kedrians do want to maintain their Pirate heritage to some degree.

It isn't. In large part because there's generally no incentive.

The concept of privateering is based on the idea that privateers can afford to outfit and maintain their ships and profit from their prizes. Unfortunately, modern international maritime laws and customs make this impossible. Not only was privateering itself specifically banned under the Paris Declaration in 1856, modern laws of war generally prohibit the use of non-uniformed, non-controlled private actors from taking armed action. Which means that any privateer would not be protected under the laws of war and would find it rather difficult to find a market for any prizes they attempted to seize (as law-abiding nations, even neutral nations, would likely refuse any transactions). So it's very high risk without much potential for reward.

Lastly, the cost of procuring a fighting ship these days is quite high. So high that only state actors with a reliable tax base can afford such ships. There simply aren't enough employment opportunities to fund the ongoing costs of operating a warship. And you would need a warship to even think about attacking convoys, which are now standard practice in wartime. This is why commerce raiding in modern warfare is carried out by national navies, as only they have the funds and personnel to procure well-armed warships or submarines and man them with skilled combat sailors. They might disguise themselves as merchantmen but as lawful combatants they are entitled to protection under the laws of war and international maritime conventions.

I guess in "big NS" you might find some nations here and there willing to flout international rules and try to hire privateers, but you'd probably find an even bigger number of nations that would just declare privateers to be pirates (as IRL nations would do, and most NS nations generally follow IRL custom because that's what most players are familiar with) and sink them on sight even if they were otherwise neutral in a conflict. This would probably make privateering a rather unprofitable endeavor given the high costs, high risk, and relatively low rate of return.

[Deutschess Kaiserreich]

This question has been on my mind.

Which would be better to storm a well-defended position. Like a fort?

Infantry with heavy air support.

Or armored forces?

[The Manticoran Empire]

This question has been on my mind.

Which would be better to storm a well-defended position. Like a fort?

Infantry with heavy air support.

Or armored forces?

Mechanized infantry supported by tanks, artillery, and close air support.

[The Akasha Colony]

This question has been on my mind.

Which would be better to storm a well-defended position. Like a fort?

Infantry with heavy air support.

Or armored forces?

Specialized shock formations, usually focused around infantry, have been preferred for assaulting fortifications directly. These formations are usually very well-trained and loaded up with all sorts of high-explosives to further improve their shock value against entrenched defenders.



Notice how many grenades these German stormtroopers from WWI are carrying. The explosives are quite important as they are by far the most effective way to clear a room.

Artillery and air support are not tremendously important once troops have assaulted the fortification and made their way inside. It might be useful in softening up defenses but if another way can be found inside, such as in the glider assaults by the Fallschirmjager against the Belgian border forts it may not be necessary at all. Once troops are inside artillery is generally not accurate enough to continue to support the assault and may simply be ineffective against deeper layers of fortification. Mechanized transportation may substitute as a means of delivering infantry to their targets but obviously a tank cannot dismount and clear a room.

[The Manticoran Empire]

This question has been on my mind.

Which would be better to storm a well-defended position. Like a fort?

Infantry with heavy air support.

Or armored forces?

Specialized shock formations, usually focused around infantry, have been preferred for assaulting fortifications directly. These formations are usually very well-trained and loaded up with all sorts of high-explosives to further improve their shock value against entrenched defenders.



Notice how many grenades these German stormtroopers from WWI are carrying. The explosives are quite important as they are by far the most effective way to clear a room.

Artillery and air support are not tremendously important once troops have assaulted the fortification and made their way inside. It might be useful in softening up defenses but if another way can be found inside, such as in the glider assaults by the Fallschirmjager against the Belgian border forts it may not be necessary at all. Once troops are inside artillery is generally not accurate enough to continue to support the assault and may simply be ineffective against deeper layers of fortification. Mechanized transportation may substitute as a means of delivering infantry to their targets but obviously a tank cannot dismount and clear a room.

You don't need to clear the room if you blow up the building.

[Deutschess Kaiserreich]

[New Vihenia]

Specialized shock formations, usually focused around infantry, have been preferred for assaulting fortifications directly. These formations are usually very well-trained and loaded up with all sorts of high-explosives to further improve their shock value against entrenched defenders.

Hey guys... sounds like this is a good justification for powered armor

[Imperializt Russia]

Specialized shock formations, usually focused around infantry, have been preferred for assaulting fortifications directly. These formations are usually very well-trained and loaded up with all sorts of high-explosives to further improve their shock value against entrenched defenders.

Hey guys... sounds like this is a good justification for powered armor

Taking back The Castle was a breeze with my Hot Pink Power Armour and explosive railgun.

[Crookfur]

Hey guys... sounds like this is a good justification for powered armor

Taking back The Castle was a breeze with my Hot Pink Power Armour and explosive railgun.

Meh real men do it in leather armour with a rocket launcher...

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Taking back The Castle was a breeze with my Hot Pink Power Armour and explosive railgun.

Meh real men do it in leather armour with a rocket launcher...

Real men seize forts without firing a single shot almost alone and with a scraped knee as casualty.

[Crookfur]

Meh real men do it in leather armour with a rocket launcher...

Real men seize forts without firing a single shot almost alone and with a scraped knee as casualty.

That's just a cover story to hide the hideous mirelurk nest the germans discovered.

[The Manticoran Empire]

(Image)

Precisely.

[Kyneland]

What defensive tactics could be employed to stave off enemy invasion on an island like this nation, specifically in regards to canon location and the like? Location is in the overview.

[The Manticoran Empire]

What defensive tactics could be employed to stave off enemy invasion on an island like this nation, specifically in regards to canon location and the like? Location is in the overview.

In your case? Not much. Your map isn't exactly clear on your location and the population isn't large enough to support a well equipped and large military. Guerrilla warfare until your EU and NATO buddies show up to bail you out.