NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mark IX Spitfire

[Gallia-]

LAV is literally a half track

e: or is it a three quarters track? the depths of american depravity escape me regardless

but in the ever optimistic future there are band tracks for 8x8s that go around the wheels

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

It's what you don't see that is more important. Gun and rocket propellant burns most of its energy in the infrared spectrum.

Railguns muzzle flash is mostly produced by the energy that remains in the rails arcing across the muzzle after the projectile leaves the barrel. This can be mostly prevented with a proper muzzle shunt that dissipates the energy without arcing, the really spectacular muzzle blasts seen on some demonstrator shots are not at all representative of what a fielded railgun will be like. They are just nice PR photos, actual railguns will have very weak muzzle reports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eObepuHvYAw

Something like this?

This paper also mentions a "muzzle shunt" for reducing muzzle flash and barrel damage

I always assumed the molten pieces of metal from the armature flying out the barrel of a railgun would cause quite an impressive pyrotechnics display but apparently it's not the case. I guess I'll have to incorporate this into the writeup for the railgun on my BMD cruiser, albeit with a way to turn it off so when the press and politicians stop by for a live demonstration we can give them a nice fireworks show.

[Crookfur]

Before I draw an ORBAT for this can someone tell me if I'm doing this right?

Most of the brigade is rifle companies but there are two anti-tank companies, one anti-air company, and a signals platoon, sometimes a Light tank company will be attached as well.All in there are around 4,200 infantry in a Light Infantry Brigade which are organised into six rifle battalions. Five have an attachment of a mortar company and one of them has a anti-tank company attachment. As well as this there is also a field artillery battalion which has 52 105mm howitzers. There is also a support battalion which consists of a medical company, a logistics company and an engineer company.

As said 6 infantry battalions is a bit much. Also why not give each battalion a platoon each of mortars, anti tank and SF (sustained fire) machine guns in a support company?

[Mancunian Northumbria]

So if I have 4 battalions with 4 companies of 180 men and add a support company to each which consists of a mortar platoon, an AT platoon and a heavy weapons platoon (automatic grenade launchers, M2s, etc.) as well as the artillery and support battalion that would be better yeah?

[Dostanuot Loj]

wow you replaced half tracks

sad

I know.

But they eventually get hard to find parts for.
And it's nice to sell them to collectors so they can enjoy the freedom.

[Ardavia]

Are there any statistics regarding how many German tanks lost in WW2 were lost to ATGs, enemy tanks, etc?

[Kazarogkai]

wow you replaced half tracks

sad

I know.

But they eventually get hard to find parts for.
And it's nice to sell them to collectors so they can enjoy the freedom.

You can make your own parts in your own country and in geeral encouraging indigenous manufacturing capabilities to help diversify the economy. State owned arms manufacturing facilities should fit well enough in this role.

State Capitalism for the win

[Spirit of Hope]

So if I have 4 battalions with 4 companies of 180 men and add a support company to each which consists of a mortar platoon, an AT platoon and a heavy weapons platoon (automatic grenade launchers, M2s, etc.) as well as the artillery and support battalion that would be better yeah?

A little on the large side, but yeah that would be fine.

[Kahanistan]

How feasible is it to use a cruise missile as a drone delivery system? My idea is to be able to have a warship a couple of thousand kilometres from enemy territory fire off a modified cruise missile with points for several drones on it, have the drones detach when the missile gets near enemy territory, and when the drones are a safe distance away blow up the missile in the air to limit enemy efforts to analyse the technology. It would allow recon drones to operate a significant distance from their mother ship and self-destruct when their fuel supplies run out and send intel to the mother ship in the mean time. Will the drones need some kind of heat shielding to withstand transport by long-range missile or will they be fine with the air friction generated by travel at high speeds? I'm thinking six to eight small drones or up to four medium to large drones mounted on a single Tomahawk sized missile with enhanced range, which gets shot off by a mothership (probably a destroyer or guided missile nuclear submarine) and when the mothership detects the missile has passed a certain distance the drones detach, move in separate directions, and relay intel to the mothership until they are shot down or their fuel supplies exhaust and they self destruct.

[Spirit of Hope]

How feasible is it to use a cruise missile as a drone delivery system? My idea is to be able to have a warship a couple of thousand kilometres from enemy territory fire off a modified cruise missile with points for several drones on it, have the drones detach when the missile gets near enemy territory, and when the drones are a safe distance away blow up the missile in the air to limit enemy efforts to analyse the technology. It would allow recon drones to operate a significant distance from their mother ship and self-destruct when their fuel supplies run out and send intel to the mother ship in the mean time. Will the drones need some kind of heat shielding to withstand transport by long-range missile or will they be fine with the air friction generated by travel at high speeds? I'm thinking six to eight small drones or up to four medium to large drones mounted on a single Tomahawk sized missile with enhanced range, which gets shot off by a mothership (probably a destroyer or guided missile nuclear submarine) and when the mothership detects the missile has passed a certain distance the drones detach, move in separate directions, and relay intel to the mothership until they are shot down or their fuel supplies exhaust and they self destruct.

You almost certainly couldn't just attach the drones to the outside of a missile, they would have to be inside a specially made missile. While this is possible it has limited utility.

Larger drones would certainly have a problem fitting. A predator drone is 27 ft long, the tomahawk is 18 ft long, and that includes the motor.

You would probably be better off just launching the drone and piloting it to the destination.

If you want a quick pass over without any return you could also just fit observation equipment, and a satellite link, into the cruise missile. Missile flies over, gathers intelligence, sends intelligence via satellite, crashes into ground.

[Kahanistan]

Not sure a smaller drone would have the fuel supplies to travel for ~2,000 kilometres before hitting enemy territory. Might just use modified missiles for intel purposes but those might be more easily traced to a mothership unless specifically programmed to take a weird trajectory.

[Connori Pilgrims]

How feasible is it to use a cruise missile as a drone delivery system? My idea is to be able to have a warship a couple of thousand kilometres from enemy territory fire off a modified cruise missile with points for several drones on it, have the drones detach when the missile gets near enemy territory, and when the drones are a safe distance away blow up the missile in the air to limit enemy efforts to analyse the technology. It would allow recon drones to operate a significant distance from their mother ship and self-destruct when their fuel supplies run out and send intel to the mother ship in the mean time. Will the drones need some kind of heat shielding to withstand transport by long-range missile or will they be fine with the air friction generated by travel at high speeds? I'm thinking six to eight small drones or up to four medium to large drones mounted on a single Tomahawk sized missile with enhanced range, which gets shot off by a mothership (probably a destroyer or guided missile nuclear submarine) and when the mothership detects the missile has passed a certain distance the drones detach, move in separate directions, and relay intel to the mothership until they are shot down or their fuel supplies exhaust and they self destruct.

There have been extant concepts for long-range cruise missiles capable of some kind of limited surveillance and carrying "drones" in the form of submunition missiles inside the larger missile body; a recent (but probably cancelled already) US program called SMACM is an example of such.

The drones though aren't recon tools, since they'd be too small. They'd be the kill-mechanism instead, fitted with a warhead and a terminal guidance system. The surveillance system should be on the larger carrier missile.

[Allanea]

There's a drone that launches from the Smerch MLRS, it's probably small enough to be fitted to a cruise missile if you need to.

[The Kievan People]

How feasible is it to use a cruise missile as a drone delivery system? My idea is to be able to have a warship a couple of thousand kilometres from enemy territory fire off a modified cruise missile with points for several drones on it, have the drones detach when the missile gets near enemy territory, and when the drones are a safe distance away blow up the missile in the air to limit enemy efforts to analyse the technology. It would allow recon drones to operate a significant distance from their mother ship and self-destruct when their fuel supplies run out and send intel to the mother ship in the mean time. Will the drones need some kind of heat shielding to withstand transport by long-range missile or will they be fine with the air friction generated by travel at high speeds? I'm thinking six to eight small drones or up to four medium to large drones mounted on a single Tomahawk sized missile with enhanced range, which gets shot off by a mothership (probably a destroyer or guided missile nuclear submarine) and when the mothership detects the missile has passed a certain distance the drones detach, move in separate directions, and relay intel to the mothership until they are shot down or their fuel supplies exhaust and they self destruct.

Communication with a UAV is generally LOS limited. At any range where a small UAV will still have communication with the launch platform, it would probably be able to reach under its own power.

[Allanea]

Do SSGNs even have communications with the Tomahawks they launch when submerged? I thought the Tomahawks just kind of proceed on inertial or GPS guidance.

[Kirkendoll Island]

Regiments within regiments.
Regimentception.

Yo, dawg! We heard you like regiments, so we put regiments...in your regiments! So now, you can have regiments, while you havin' regiments!

---

For the sake of posting something relevant to the purpose of this thread, I have a question. Is there any use in the modern day for a Commando-style force mounted on horseback and light vehicles?

[The Kievan People]

Do SSGNs even have communications with the Tomahawks they launch when submerged? I thought the Tomahawks just kind of proceed on inertial or GPS guidance.

It can sort of be done, both have SATCOMs. AFAIK it has never been seriously attempted because of the risk of having a submarine at periscope death using the SATCOM for that long is too great.

Communication between a submarine and a UAV is an area of great research interest. But I am aware of no breakthroughs.

[Spirit of Hope]

For the sake of posting something relevant to the purpose of this thread, I have a question. Is there any use in the modern day for a Commando-style force mounted on horseback and light vehicles?

It's very situation dependent. US Special Forces used horses in Afghanistan, largely because that what the locals were partially using.

Some special operations units use light vehicles to help with long range patrols. The Seals used DPV's in Desert Storm for his and other missions.

So yeah, you want commandos who can use light vehicles. Though it is more they use whatever transport fits the mission, rather than light transport being their primary thing.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Do SSGNs even have communications with the Tomahawks they launch when submerged? I thought the Tomahawks just kind of proceed on inertial or GPS guidance.

Not really. Tomahawk uses TERCOM for midcourse guidance and until block IV were purely fire-and-forget weapons.

It can sort of be done, both have SATCOMs. AFAIK it has never been seriously attempted because of the risk of having a submarine at periscope death using the SATCOM for that long is too great.

Communication between a submarine and a UAV is an area of great research interest. But I am aware of no breakthroughs.

The only way to do it currently is with a communications buoy connected to the submarine via a long cable which would allow the sub to communicate with surface or airborne assets while it's at its operating depth, although there's a risk of the buoy being detected. So you could have the communications buoy communicate with a drone overhead and then the drone communicate with the cruise missile.

[Heavonia]

How bad is it for naval forces (especially supporting a marine landing) to get into an enclosed waterway? Suppose a unified Baltic States equipped with ex soviet bloc kit and the like (probably to a level with, or more, than Syria with those SAM missiles), could one sail a fleet to land a Marine brigade-->division in Estonia and support it, or would it make it too easy for AShMs to engage the fleet?

Would sufficient AF action be able to suppress and destroy the threat of AShMs enough to enable that sort of operation?

[The Kievan People]

Cruise missiles are no big deal.

But submarines are. Finding submarines in the Baltic is almost impossible. Sending a large fleet into the Baltic is probably not worth the risk.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

How bad is it for naval forces (especially supporting a marine landing) to get into an enclosed waterway? Suppose a unified Baltic States equipped with ex soviet bloc kit and the like (probably to a level with, or more, than Syria with those SAM missiles), could one sail a fleet to land a Marine brigade-->division in Estonia and support it, or would it make it too easy for AShMs to engage the fleet?

Would sufficient AF action be able to suppress and destroy the threat of AShMs enough to enable that sort of operation?

Diesel-electric subs are what you should be worrying about. Those suckers can hide in littoral waters near shore where there's tons of sonar clutter and ambush any unsuspecting surface ship that comes by.

[Heavonia]

Okay, so I should just not engage in a landing in the baltic. Hrm. The main thing seems to be a thrust up from Central/Eastern Europe through Lithuania and Latvia to end in Tallinn.

How valid a tactic would be massed landings (Brigade-sized) of paratroops into Estonia to threaten the rear areas of the nation and seize strategic points?

[Imperializt Russia]

If you can get them there and your enemy doesn't suspect you will, then probably very effective.

How do you propose on landing a brigade of paratroops in a combat drop well behind the enemy line?
How far behind the line is "Estonia" here? It probably won't be effective if your ground forces can't be expected to punch through and link up, even if it throws them into complete disarray. If they're too far to be exploited, then all it will really do is limit the availability of the enemy's reserves as they respond to the landings, and not provide a benefit on the frontline itself.

[Heavonia]

If you can get them there and your enemy doesn't suspect you will, then probably very effective.

How do you propose on landing a brigade of paratroops in a combat drop well behind the enemy line?
How far behind the line is "Estonia" here? It probably won't be effective if your ground forces can't be expected to punch through and link up, even if it throws them into complete disarray. If they're too far to be exploited, then all it will really do is limit the availability of the enemy's reserves as they respond to the landings, and not provide a benefit on the frontline itself.

Well, the assault will come from the southern border of Lithuania.

If we assume 0 hr is the point at which we start rolling across the border. The enemy knows a war is coming because we're not even in-region and we've been shipping forces to the nation on the southern border of Balticland to enable an invasion after they orchestrated a terrorist attack on Kouralian soil. I imagine they'd know if we deployed a brigade of paratroops there, considering all the specialist equipment that comes with it. Would that level of preparedness preclude massed airborne landings.

Also, I was assuming you combine masses of SEAD and regular fighter sweeps over the area of operations and then a load of tactical airlifters fly overhead and drop guys out of them. Is that not how massed airborne landings work? For this I'd assume they'd curve out over the Baltics and come in across the Estonian West Coast.