NS Military Realism Consultation Thread #2

[The Corparation]

There are turbofan-powered seaplanes in service. Turboprop too.

Fighters are Mike Sparks silly, though - literally. Bombers a little less so. Patrol aircraft actually make sense.

jet powered sea gavin. Win.

I am so drawing this.

[The Holy Twig]

I'm working on getting my military set up, and as a first time detailed NS war-rper (I've mostly done medieval nation rp and other general regional-forum things where your gun's caliber doesn't matter and so on) and I was wondering if people could look over a couple pages on my factbook and tell me how much I need to revise, what I need to add, and so on:

The Theocracy of the Holy Twig is a terrible person. (note that I'm not in the WA and everything on that page is a state secret anyway)
Page on general infantry things

[Samozaryadnyastan]

First things first - multi-calibre isn't a great idea.
It's a civilian market thing that makes weapons look more tactilol. I use it in one of my export rifles, because ICly my weapons are intended to be adaptable to whatever your native calibre is without requiring you to switch. Because it's export.

Secondly, whilst multi-calibre between 7.62x39, 5.56x45, 5.45x39, 6.5x38, 6.8x43 (though I have no idea what 6.8 ASG is) is indeed possible, having multi-calibre between these and also 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x54R Russian, is not. It's also just pointless. Pick a cartridge from the two lists and stick with it. Personal recommendation, either 5.56x45mm (in M855A1 variant) and 7.62x51 NATO, or 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x39

Your soldiers and logistics officers will learn to love you this way.

The battle rifle rounds (7.62 NATO, 7.62R Russian) are significantly larger than the other rounds, and also significantly more powerful, and cannot be put inside the same weapon without significant modification to the point you may as well field a different weapon. A weapon firing 7.62x51 or 7.62x54 or similarly-sized rounds is no longer referred to as an assault rifle by the way, it is now a battle rifle.

I would recommend ditching stats for muzzle velocity and muzzle energy - they're relatively unimportant waffle with regards to the weapon system.

With your handgun, gas-operated handguns are very very rare. The vast majority of handguns are operated by either short recoil or in some cases, blowback.

Gas operated, as a phrase, is incredibly vague and covers a myriad of very different systems. Type into wiki 'gas-operated reloading' for a rundown on most of these systems.

With the machine gun, I'd advise two utterly separate variants, one in your smaller calibre and one in the battle rifle cartridge. Since your pic is of the M249, you can handwave and use the M249 in your smaller calibre, and use the Mk48 in the battle rifle cartridge (Mk48 is just the 5.56mm M249 modified to accept 7.62x51 - it was originally designed with this variant in mind, but was never actually produced in the 7.62mm variant [also known as Minimi 7.62] until recently, when demand for lightweight 7.62mm machine guns was renewed in Afghanistan).

[The Holy Twig]

First things first - multi-calibre isn't a great idea.
It's a civilian market thing that makes weapons look more tactilol. I use it in one of my export rifles, because ICly my weapons are intended to be adaptable to whatever your native calibre is without requiring you to switch. Because it's export.

Secondly, whilst multi-calibre between 7.62x39, 5.56x45, 5.45x39, 6.5x38, 6.8x43 (though I have no idea what 6.8 ASG is) is indeed possible, having multi-calibre between these and also 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x54R Russian, is not. It's also just pointless. Pick a cartridge from the two lists and stick with it. Personal recommendation, either 5.56x45mm (in M855A1 variant) and 7.62x51 NATO, or 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x39

Your soldiers and logistics officers will learn to love you this way.

The battle rifle rounds (7.62 NATO, 7.62R Russian) are significantly larger than the other rounds, and also significantly more powerful, and cannot be put inside the same weapon without significant modification to the point you may as well field a different weapon. A weapon firing 7.62x51 or 7.62x54 or similarly-sized rounds is no longer referred to as an assault rifle by the way, it is now a battle rifle.

I would recommend ditching stats for muzzle velocity and muzzle energy - they're relatively unimportant waffle with regards to the weapon system.

With your handgun, gas-operated handguns are very very rare. The vast majority of handguns are operated by either short recoil or in some cases, blowback.

Gas operated, as a phrase, is incredibly vague and covers a myriad of very different systems. Type into wiki 'gas-operated reloading' for a rundown on most of these systems.

With the machine gun, I'd advise two utterly separate variants, one in your smaller calibre and one in the battle rifle cartridge. Since your pic is of the M249, you can handwave and use the M249 in your smaller calibre, and use the Mk48 in the battle rifle cartridge (Mk48 is just the 5.56mm M249 modified to accept 7.62x51 - it was originally designed with this variant in mind, but was never actually produced in the 7.62mm variant [also known as Minimi 7.62] until recently, when demand for lightweight 7.62mm machine guns was renewed in Afghanistan).

Thanks for the help, I'm getting on it as we speak

If anyone else has any suggestions (Eg gaps in the info, other impossible things I overlooked/skimmed vaguely over) I'd be thankful to hear them.

[The Akasha Colony]

First things first - multi-calibre isn't a great idea.
It's a civilian market thing that makes weapons look more tactilol. I use it in one of my export rifles, because ICly my weapons are intended to be adaptable to whatever your native calibre is without requiring you to switch. Because it's export.

Secondly, whilst multi-calibre between 7.62x39, 5.56x45, 5.45x39, 6.5x38, 6.8x43 (though I have no idea what 6.8 ASG is) is indeed possible, having multi-calibre between these and also 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x54R Russian, is not. It's also just pointless. Pick a cartridge from the two lists and stick with it. Personal recommendation, either 5.56x45mm (in M855A1 variant) and 7.62x51 NATO, or 7.62x51 NATO and 7.62x39

Your soldiers and logistics officers will learn to love you this way.

The battle rifle rounds (7.62 NATO, 7.62R Russian) are significantly larger than the other rounds, and also significantly more powerful, and cannot be put inside the same weapon without significant modification to the point you may as well field a different weapon. A weapon firing 7.62x51 or 7.62x54 or similarly-sized rounds is no longer referred to as an assault rifle by the way, it is now a battle rifle.

I would recommend ditching stats for muzzle velocity and muzzle energy - they're relatively unimportant waffle with regards to the weapon system.

With your handgun, gas-operated handguns are very very rare. The vast majority of handguns are operated by either short recoil or in some cases, blowback.

Gas operated, as a phrase, is incredibly vague and covers a myriad of very different systems. Type into wiki 'gas-operated reloading' for a rundown on most of these systems.

With the machine gun, I'd advise two utterly separate variants, one in your smaller calibre and one in the battle rifle cartridge. Since your pic is of the M249, you can handwave and use the M249 in your smaller calibre, and use the Mk48 in the battle rifle cartridge (Mk48 is just the 5.56mm M249 modified to accept 7.62x51 - it was originally designed with this variant in mind, but was never actually produced in the 7.62mm variant [also known as Minimi 7.62] until recently, when demand for lightweight 7.62mm machine guns was renewed in Afghanistan).

Thanks for the help, I'm getting on it as we speak

If anyone else has any suggestions (Eg gaps in the info, other impossible things I overlooked/skimmed vaguely over) I'd be thankful to hear them.

Is there a reason why your pistol uses a .50 cal/12.7 mm round? Generally speaking, the hilarious kick from such rounds makes them impractical to aim with. The current military trend in handguns is for smaller but higher-velocity rounds, with an armor piercing shape, allowing them to be used against troops with light body armor in an emergency. A fat but relatively short bullet with a flatter head like most .50 pistol cartridges will be very poor in this regard.

While standardizing on one round for your SMG, SAW, and main rifle may sound attractive, this is a bad idea for the SMG. Submachine guns are designed to be lightweight, low-recoil, high rate-of-fire weapons for close-quarter combat, and indeed are basically defined by the fact that they used pistol cartridges, rather than rifle cartridges. Hence, a 7.62 NATO submachine gun is just not going to work, and functionally wouldn't even be much different from your main rifle at that point. Which as mentioned would be a battle rifle, rather than assault rifle, at that point.

[Galla-]

Thanks for the help, I'm getting on it as we speak

If anyone else has any suggestions (Eg gaps in the info, other impossible things I overlooked/skimmed vaguely over) I'd be thankful to hear them.

Is there a reason why your pistol uses a .50 cal/12.7 mm round?

Rawr:

[The Holy Twig]

Thanks for the help, I'm getting on it as we speak

If anyone else has any suggestions (Eg gaps in the info, other impossible things I overlooked/skimmed vaguely over) I'd be thankful to hear them.

Is there a reason why your pistol uses a .50 cal/12.7 mm round? Generally speaking, the hilarious kick from such rounds makes them impractical to aim with. The current military trend in handguns is for smaller but higher-velocity rounds, with an armor piercing shape, allowing them to be used against troops with light body armor in an emergency. A fat but relatively short bullet with a flatter head like most .50 pistol cartridges will be very poor in this regard.

While standardizing on one round for your SMG, SAW, and main rifle may sound attractive, this is a bad idea for the SMG. Submachine guns are designed to be lightweight, low-recoil, high rate-of-fire weapons for close-quarter combat, and indeed are basically defined by the fact that they used pistol cartridges, rather than rifle cartridges. Hence, a 7.62 NATO submachine gun is just not going to work, and functionally wouldn't even be much different from your main rifle at that point. Which as mentioned would be a battle rifle, rather than assault rifle, at that point.

Do you have any suggestions for the SMG and Handgun? I've been reading up on different calibers and so forth, but the numbers and statistics have been giving me a hell of a headache and I feel as though I haven't learned quite as much as I'd like to have.

Edit: And, yeah, .50 cal handgun was a blunder. My excuse is that I was running on ~4 hours of sleep when I wrote some of the specifications for the weapons down.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

.50AE is a bad round, don't use it - it's very difficult to control.
The 'Magnum' cartridges are intended for revolvers, and are also very powerful, so I'd stay away from those.

Cartridges heavier than 9mm NATO but packing more punch include 10mm Auto, .40S&W and .357 Sig

[The Holy Twig]

.50AE is a bad round, don't use it - it's very difficult to control.
The 'Magnum' cartridges are intended for revolvers, and are also very powerful, so I'd stay away from those.

Cartridges heavier than 9mm NATO but packing more punch include 10mm Auto, .40S&W and .357 Sig

.357 Sig sounds attractive. I'm gonna look that one up~
(And the others.)

[The Akasha Colony]

Is there a reason why your pistol uses a .50 cal/12.7 mm round? Generally speaking, the hilarious kick from such rounds makes them impractical to aim with. The current military trend in handguns is for smaller but higher-velocity rounds, with an armor piercing shape, allowing them to be used against troops with light body armor in an emergency. A fat but relatively short bullet with a flatter head like most .50 pistol cartridges will be very poor in this regard.

While standardizing on one round for your SMG, SAW, and main rifle may sound attractive, this is a bad idea for the SMG. Submachine guns are designed to be lightweight, low-recoil, high rate-of-fire weapons for close-quarter combat, and indeed are basically defined by the fact that they used pistol cartridges, rather than rifle cartridges. Hence, a 7.62 NATO submachine gun is just not going to work, and functionally wouldn't even be much different from your main rifle at that point. Which as mentioned would be a battle rifle, rather than assault rifle, at that point.

Do you have any suggestions for the SMG and Handgun? I've been reading up on different calibers and so forth, but the numbers and statistics have been giving me a hell of a headache and I feel as though I haven't learned quite as much as I'd like to have.

Edit: And, yeah, .50 cal handgun was a blunder. My excuse is that I was running on ~4 hours of sleep when I wrote some of the specifications for the weapons down.

If you want armor piercing rounds like the modern PDW rounds, then 5.7x28 mm and 4.6x30 mm are your options. Between the two, 5.7x28 mm has generally been shown to be superior, but H&K will never admit it.

[Strykla]

Hey guys, what would be a good radar to mount on a modern battleship? The battleship would have 700-km-capable railguns and cruise missile capability. I'm thinking about an AN/SPY-1 look-alike but that's set up for air search.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

.357 Sig is based on .40S&W, which is based on 10mm Auto.
It's all rather confusing.

10mm Auto was intended to replace 9mm and .38 Special in FBI issue, deemed too powerful, so they created .40S&W, which is just 10mm Auto, with a shortened case. .357 Sig is .40S&W but necked down to 9mm. .357 Sig is supposedly comparable to .357 Magnum (or even .44 Magnum, not sure).

[Felix Terra]

What would be a realistic amount of troops for a nation of about 7 million people? That is, if they would even have a military yet.

[The Akasha Colony]

Hey guys, what would be a good radar to mount on a modern battleship? The battleship would have 700-km-capable railguns and cruise missile capability. I'm thinking about an AN/SPY-1 look-alike but that's set up for air search.

It's going to ideally be some sort of AESA radar, but you're not going to be able to take a peek at your targets 700 km away without an external, high-altitude independent platform anyway, like an aircraft. Curvature of the Earth gets in the way, and beyond-the-horizon radar is going to cause a major drop in resolution. Hence, the ship should basically have a radar suite similar if not identical to a modern guided-missile destroyer, since ground-looking radar is going to need a separate aircraft to deploy anyway.

[Yes Im Biop]

Can you have teh Frangible rounds for a 35mm Cannon? I Am thinking they would be good for marking targets and Close combat support so your not using HE aor AP Rounds.

[Crookfur]

Hey guys, what would be a good radar to mount on a modern battleship? The battleship would have 700-km-capable railguns and cruise missile capability. I'm thinking about an AN/SPY-1 look-alike but that's set up for air search.

Out of existing radar I would go with SAMPSON as your primary multi fucntion, or APAR if you want everything totally fixed.

Going next gen in development gives you the whole AN/SPY-3 system.

all these systems will get you out to your 400km horizon against aircraft.

onbaord gun fire control will be horizon limited to about 40-50km so your 700km guns will need off board sensors and spotting i.e. you need an aircraft. The same issue is already well known with mdoern anti shipping missiles which need an aircraft to provide a target location to make use of the missile's full range.

[The Holy Twig]

Fixed the ammunition to my liking (Thanks for the help, guys ) Are there any other glaring issues in there? In particular I'd like feedback on the chemical weapons bit (linked it earlier under "Twig is a terrible person"), and any other possible advice would be great

Edit: And any other glaring errors on there.

[The Akasha Colony]

Can you have teh Frangible rounds for a 35mm Cannon? I Am thinking they would be good for marking targets and Close combat support so your not using HE aor AP Rounds.

You can, but it's a terrible idea not worth the effort to develop. Just use AP if you don't want collateral damage, since the time it takes to switch your ammunition feed is going to make the whole thing pointless. Modern guns can accept dual feeds of HE and AP, but adding more than that makes them much more complex, and takes up even more space with special-purpose rounds that you'll only use in a tiny handful of situations.

[Yes Im Biop]

Can you have teh Frangible rounds for a 35mm Cannon? I Am thinking they would be good for marking targets and Close combat support so your not using HE aor AP Rounds.

You can, but it's a terrible idea not worth the effort to develop. Just use AP if you don't want collateral damage, since the time it takes to switch your ammunition feed is going to make the whole thing pointless. Modern guns can accept dual feeds of HE and AP, but adding more than that makes them much more complex, and takes up even more space with special-purpose rounds that you'll only use in a tiny handful of situations.

Ok Noted. Combat uses BAD. But would they be cheaper for training of the gun?

[Crookfur]

Can you have teh Frangible rounds for a 35mm Cannon? I Am thinking they would be good for marking targets and Close combat support so your not using HE aor AP Rounds.

already exists, look up FAPDS (frangivle amour Peircing discardign sabot).

IIRC its the standard ammo for the 35mm guns on the gepard SPAAG.

[Yes Im Biop]

Can you have teh Frangible rounds for a 35mm Cannon? I Am thinking they would be good for marking targets and Close combat support so your not using HE aor AP Rounds.

already exists, look up FAPDS (frangivle amour Peircing discardign sabot).

IIRC its the standard ammo for the 35mm guns on the gepard SPAAG.

Really? Cool. I just thought it was a Pistol round used for steel targets

[Crookfur]

You can, but it's a terrible idea not worth the effort to develop. Just use AP if you don't want collateral damage, since the time it takes to switch your ammunition feed is going to make the whole thing pointless. Modern guns can accept dual feeds of HE and AP, but adding more than that makes them much more complex, and takes up even more space with special-purpose rounds that you'll only use in a tiny handful of situations.

Ok Noted. Combat uses BAD. But would they be cheaper for training of the gun?

just use exisitng 35x228mm training ammo

[Yes Im Biop]

Ok Noted. Combat uses BAD. But would they be cheaper for training of the gun?

just use exisitng 35x228mm training ammo

I see. Thank you. Now onto the Guns.

What Kind of ammo could a 15x 110mm Round use?

[Crookfur]

already exists, look up FAPDS (frangivle amour Peircing discardign sabot).

IIRC its the standard ammo for the 35mm guns on the gepard SPAAG.

Really? Cool. I just thought it was a Pistol round used for steel targets

FAPDS is a specialist round mainly used in anti aircraft roles to combine the high muzzle velcotiy of sabot ammo with a fragmentary effect to hurt softish targets

[Crookfur]

just use exisitng 35x228mm training ammo

I see. Thank you. Now onto the Guns.

What Kind of ammo could a 15x 110mm Round use?

AP, API, MK211 style SAPHEI and tracer versions of each.