NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Type 08

[Celibrae]

What could I realistically do to an Apache Helicopter to make it more, special and NS-worthy? Better missiles? 25mm Autocannon?

Well, getting this idea from the WZ-10, I think the design should be focusing a bit more to reducing radar cross-section, IR signature and maneuverability - in other words, if you are to rebuild the Apache, I suggest that you increase its survivability.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/apache-helicopter6.htm

[Crookfur]

Well I kept hearing that 30mm was overkill and that 25mm could hold a lot more rounds.

Wondering if a more controllable and close-fire missile is a good fit, less blue on blue.

Who on earth is telling you this rubbish? Obviously they know very little about cannon.

Look at http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/tankammo4.html and school down to the post war aircraft group. Compare 30x113b to 25x137 and tell me which one you can carry more of. Then compare pictures of the M230 to the M242 Bushmaster and realise how insane the suggestion is.

[Purpelia]

So what you are saying is that the next big thing in NS guns is going to be attaching electric heaters to gun chambers for a consistently scorching temperature?

Nope. the goal here is to keep the temperature stable. Not to high or too low. My consideration is to actually air conditioning the bustle or wherever you store ammo inside the tank.

That's the smart/sciency thing to do. The NS thing to do is to put a lava dispenser on the gun breach to increase the temperature to just under the melting point of steel and ensure you eek out those extra 0.0001% power from the propellant. You know, kind of like having 3 turbochargers and a supercharger on an engine for moar power.

[Atlantica]

Would operating X numbers of supercarriers be more efficient than operating 2X numbers of smaller aircraft carriers, which size is in the 60,000-ton range?

[Purpelia]

Would operating X numbers of supercarriers be more efficient than operating 2X numbers of smaller aircraft carriers, which size is in the 60,000-ton range?

Efficiency is a measure of how well your approach performs at the task you want it to perform. Without knowing your exact strategic situation we can't really tell.

[Atlantica]

Would operating X numbers of supercarriers be more efficient than operating 2X numbers of smaller aircraft carriers, which size is in the 60,000-ton range?

Efficiency is a measure of how well your approach performs at the task you want it to perform. Without knowing your exact strategic situation we can't really tell.

Well, in battle, my aircraft carriers will be at the heart of Carrier Battle Groups, which will occasionally have to sail far from friendly ports. I was thinking that dividing them up into smaller, 60,000-ton carriers would make the forces more flexible.

[Purpelia]

Efficiency is a measure of how well your approach performs at the task you want it to perform. Without knowing your exact strategic situation we can't really tell.

Well, in battle, my aircraft carriers will be at the heart of Carrier Battle Groups, which will occasionally have to sail far from friendly ports. I was thinking that dividing them up into smaller, 60,000-ton carriers would make the forces more flexible.

That's nice. Now how about you tell us some things such as:
1. Size of your nation.
2. Your world map, strategic disposition and the positions and sizes of your enemies and allies on it.
3. The goals you want your navy to achieve. And none of the vague "expeditionary" or "defend home" stuff. Actual solid strategic objectives.
4. Your preferred approach toward achieving these objectives.
5. The size and general capabilities of your enemies and allies and their strategic objectives as well as tactical approach to achieving them.
6. The capabilities of the rest of your fleet.
etc.

These and other such considerations will dictate what kind of carrier task force (if any) you need. And thus what kind of carrier is best suited for such a task force.

[Tulacia]

Is this a good place for asking about the pros and cons of a rifled gun vs. smoothbore?

[Questers]

Is this a good place for asking about the pros and cons of a rifled gun vs. smoothbore?

Military Ground Vehicles would be a better place, but I can tell you straight away almost everybody will say smoothbore.

[Purpelia]

Is this a good place for asking about the pros and cons of a rifled gun vs. smoothbore?

Military Ground Vehicles would be a better place, but I can tell you straight away almost everybody will say smoothbore.

Except me and the British. We prefer things rifled.

[Questers]

Military Ground Vehicles would be a better place, but I can tell you straight away almost everybody will say smoothbore.

Except me and the British. We prefer things rifled.

I also use rifled guns

[Mansuriyyah Islamic State]

Hi everyone,

I need some help or guideline to calculate the following:

- Based on my total number of personel in the Army, how many Divisions I can field?

- How t calculate the number and types of ships for a Navy

- How to calculate the numer and type of planes for an Air Force.

You could briefly give a guideline, or direct me to some source. I hand't much luck searching online.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Hi everyone,

I need some help or guideline to calculate the following:

- Based on my total number of personel in the Army, how many Divisions I can field?

- How t calculate the number and types of ships for a Navy

- How to calculate the numer and type of planes for an Air Force.

You could briefly give a guideline, or direct me to some source. I hand't much luck searching online.

Ok, so what is the total number of personnel in your military?

[Korva]

Hi everyone,

I need some help or guideline to calculate the following:

- Based on my total number of personel in the Army, how many Divisions I can field?

- How t calculate the number and types of ships for a Navy

- How to calculate the numer and type of planes for an Air Force.

You could briefly give a guideline, or direct me to some source. I hand't much luck searching online.

While you could take total number of personnel and divide them by the size of your divisions, that won't really give an accurate answer.

The long answer is that you should figure out what your military is supposed to be doing, in other words, what is its mission or major goal?

Part of that question involves answering other questions such as "what do my neighbors have?" "what relations do I have with them?" "what type of funding do I have?" and others.

Once you have a fleshed out idea of the geopolitical situation your nation is in, you can figure out what your domestic situation is like.

In other words, if you make a nation, the military part makes itself, rather than making a military and trying to work backwards.

[Scandinavian Nations]

Well.. the Rheinmetall 120mm gun managed to have 6300 Bar chamber pressure at 50 degrees Celcius. In 20 Degrees Celcius, it's less (5600 bar)

So what you are saying is that the next big thing in NS guns is going to be attaching electric heaters to gun chambers for a consistently scorching temperature?

Bad thinking.

More pressure is bad, less pressure is good. Getting more pressure is easy, what's hard is getting less pressure while still burning all of the propellant. With a lower pressure, you could use more propellant to get more firepower, or you can get more barrel life. If you were going for maximum firepower, you'd be cooling the chamber, not heating it.

Propellant temperature sensitivity is a problem, it's bad for accuracy (FCS compensation isn't always perfect) and better temperature compensation for an optimal level of performance is being sought. This has been fixed in the latest German rounds.

[Mansuriyyah Islamic State]

Ok, so what is the total number of personnel in your military?

I'm currently changing region so I'm not sure with how much personnel I will end up with, but lets say one million active duty between the three branches

[United Earthlings]

A sufficient tree density can stop a tank however.

IMO, an upgunned IFV would be essentially as well armed and as expensive as the original Sherman, and as well armored as the original Sherman against the Panther.

Tree density itself in the modern age isn't really the problem anymore, as most tanks have a pretty good power to weight ratio that combined with a dozer blade can clear away most vegetation. Furthermore, trees with sufficient girth to prevent knocking them down generally aren't that densely cluster to begin with since they tend to deprive nearby trees of one of the necessary ingredients for life: Sunlight.

Also, this may be news to you, but humans tend to be self destructive and are especially good at destroying forests/jungles among many other things. Watching Nova, Frontline and Vice tend to be kind of depressing, just yesterday some French lady was talking about how the acidic PH levels in the ocean are killing the coral reefs. NSMR needs to start a topic on disaster relief or at the least how modern wars would be fought over basic resources like food and water supplies.

But, back from the rant, it's still the actual ground terrain that's going to stop a tank and not generally tree density specifically. Tanks still don't operate well in boggy/marshy/swampy areas as well as one's with heavily sloped with many different degrees of converging angles.

Also, on the second point, considering the Sherman proved to be a superior war machine in the end that could be produced more cheaply {a plus with modern defense budgets being what they are}, more quickly and more numerously, modern IFVs armed with a 105/120mm gun are a threat not best ignored, because tanks no matter how frakking awesome they are, like any weapon they still have weak points that can be exploited.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/870 ... DF_NMA.pdf
PDF outlines my military reforms and structure

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/870 ... vision.png
divisional template; greyed out = reserves

Very good write up and read, I especially liked the not readily apparent exploitable weaknesses parts of it.

As a curtsey, here's but, one example quoted from your write-up for context:

"More than ever, the GSR Defence Forces continue the Gallo-Questarian Military Tradition
(GKMT), emphasising planning and centralised preparation. Questarian military operations
are characterised by meticulous levels of planning and preparation, and the broad tactical
success of Operation Neptune has consolidated this opinion in the General Staff. A
Morivaine General who worked with the Questarians on exercises had this to say:
They are obsessed with plans and details. No minor detail escapes them, and plans
are rife with schematics to be consumed by their huge staff. Layers of contingencies
and exceptions cover all decisions. Decisions that deviate from plans are rarely
made without consultation to plans and superior commanders. It is intensely
frustrating.
Mission-type tactics and officer initiative-focus is less important in this system than
adherence to plans which are designed around logistical and temporal needs and
objectives. Preparation is the key word, and this is not just a second-best for a system that
uses conscripted officers. It is part and parcel of the military culture."

While meticulous levels of planning and preparation make sense given the military culture & legacy of GSR Defence Forces, no war in history has ever gone according to plan and when your military forces face opponents who do place a high value on mission-type tactics and individual initiative to say the least your going to find out the hard way that all that meticulous planning and preparation counted for {forgive my French} SHIT. That stated, failure is a great teacher and I'm sure your forces will be triumphant in the end even after learning the hard way that "No plan survives contact with the enemy."

On the divisions themselves, with the reserves added, maybe it's just me, but a divisional strength of 24,000 seems a tad unwieldy to control effectively as even the greatness that is the Royal Commonwealth Defence Forces, the largest division is around 15,500 with all attachments and generally around 14,000 basic. The Armored Division is even smaller at around between 13,300-13,500 depending on if it's a standard armored division or a heavy armored division.

Furthermore, as one more good example, I noticed you made no mention of women, whereas the Commonwealth Kingdom being a more egalitarian society both accepts and conscripts both men and women into service. So, I do hope your society can handle the fact of being defeated in battle by women or just even for the lulz of it by an entire division composed of lesbians, yes seriously our military as an organizational experiment created an entire division composed of self-declared lesbians among other strange oddities you'd expect to find in a Civil Rights Lovefest.

I do not have any mechanised rapid reaction units. Perhaps that deserves amending!

Yes, yes it does if only to match the superiority that is the Commonwealth Kingdom.

I haven't gotten time to fully work everything out, which of course is saying a lot since the project will never be satisfactory completed, but what I was envisioning was this:

6 to 12 of what I've so far decided to call Mechanized Combat Regiments or MCRs for short with each composed of a single battalion of: armour, armoured infantry {IFVs of either tracked or wheeled with four at least of the regiments being tracked and two wheeled} & armoured artillery plus aviation assets & various supporting companies.
4 to 6 Air Assault Regiments

The above would all be part of the volunteer active army in addition to many other assets.

The Commonwealth was built on stealing other country's things and claiming them as our own.

But, One of the reasons why I call {claimed} my nation as the Commonwealth. Have my way, I shall be the last NS Commonwealth standing as to paraphrase an old movie. There can be only one Commonwealth!

[Husseinarti]

Furthermore, as one more good example, I noticed you made no mention of women, whereas the Commonwealth Kingdom being a more egalitarian society both accepts and conscripts both men and women into service. So, I do hope your society can handle the fact of being defeated in battle by women or just even for the lulz of it by an entire division composed of lesbians, yes seriously our military as an organizational experiment created an entire division composed of self-declared lesbians among other strange oddities you'd expect to find in a Civil Rights Lovefest.

That entire division proceeded to then fall behind all the other divisions in everything combat related.

The infantry can't move as far, they have issues bearing weight and moving long distances with said weight.

The infantry can't stay out long without proper bathing without contracting infections that may become very severe, because they have a literal hole in their crotch that traps and holds more than just my dollars.

Must we go back down the "Why females are explicitly bad for combat roles" thing again.

[Imperializt Russia]

A sufficient tree density can stop a tank however.

IMO, an upgunned IFV would be essentially as well armed and as expensive as the original Sherman, and as well armored as the original Sherman against the Panther.

Tree density itself in the modern age isn't really the problem anymore, as most tanks have a pretty good power to weight ratio that combined with a dozer blade can clear away most vegetation. Furthermore, trees with sufficient girth to prevent knocking them down generally aren't that densely cluster to begin with since they tend to deprive nearby trees of one of the necessary ingredients for life: Sunlight.

Tanks can push down trees until their engines explode. High-tolerance engines and high tree densities turn that time from hours into minutes. It also slows you the fuck down anyway.

[Questers]

no war in history has ever gone according to plan and when your military forces face opponents who do place a high value on mission-type tactics and individual initiative to say the least your going to find out the hard way that all that meticulous planning and preparation counted for {forgive my French} SHIT.

Unfortunately this is a complete contradiction to all military history. Almost all successful military operations were planned and prepared for meticulously, even the ones conducted by auftragstaktik armies. NATO itself does not adhere to "mission type tactics", preferring "intent", which is similar but not at all the same.

https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm5-0.pdf
The US Army in particular stresses planning and preparation as fundamental elements of the ongoing process of command and control.

On the divisions themselves, with the reserves added, maybe it's just me, but a divisional strength of 24,000 seems a tad unwieldy to control effectively as even the greatness that is the Royal Commonwealth Defence Forces, the largest division is around 15,500 with all attachments and generally around 14,000 basic. The Armored Division is even smaller at around between 13,300-13,500 depending on if it's a standard armored division or a heavy armored division.

The division is slightly larger than US divisions. 13,300 is almost as small as a Soviet division.

Furthermore, as one more good example, I noticed you made no mention of women, whereas the Commonwealth Kingdom being a more egalitarian society both accepts and conscripts both men and women into service. So, I do hope your society can handle the fact of being defeated in battle by women or just even for the lulz of it by an entire division composed of lesbians, yes seriously our military as an organizational experiment created an entire division composed of self-declared lesbians among other strange oddities you'd expect to find in a Civil Rights Lovefest.

Actually, Questers is basically a sexist society, but the pdf did include this:

"One more change has altered the Questarianmilitary institutions – women, who have been able to volunteer since 2009, are now allowed to hold Staff positions."

[Auroya]

Is it possible to combine a catapult with a ski-jump?

I'm trying to come up with a method for having both STOBAR and CATOBAR capability that's as space-efficient as possible.

[Celibrae]

Combat kilts y/n?

[New Carloso]

Ey bbe

What kind of range could I get with a 128 mm smoothbore gun thats 7.023 m long?

[The Kievan People]

Ey bbe

What kind of range could I get with a 128 mm smoothbore gun thats 7.023 m long?

How powerful?

[New Carloso]

Ey bbe

What kind of range could I get with a 128 mm smoothbore gun thats 7.023 m long?

How powerful?

Well, the primary type of ammunition used would be APFSDS rounds and ATGMs, propably something based off the LAHAT.

I'd also like to find out what the barrell length would be in calibers.