NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Great Nordanglia]

If you were going to build a Regiment (Battalion for all Germans or Russians out there) based around an anti-tank platform, which of the abovementioned would be the best for deploying across a front for delaying an armoured advance, and why? Assuming you could build it on an armoured chassis (Bradley I guess, or M1 if you want to be ultra cool).

[Purpelia]

If you were going to build a Regiment (Battalion for all Germans or Russians out there) based around an anti-tank platform, which of the abovementioned would be the best for deploying across a front for delaying an armoured advance, and why? Assuming you could build it on an armoured chassis (Bradley I guess, or M1 if you want to be ultra cool).

I would suggest you start off with a bog standard M1 (what ever current variant you are using). And than change nothing.

[Laritaia]

the whole Artillery vs Infantry thing over Swingfire was eventually solved when it was replaced by Spike NLOS/Exactor

the artillery won and proceeded to demand the weapon be mounted on something less able to operate close to direct combat to insure the Infantry could never lay claim to it

[Gallia-]

If you were going to build a Regiment (Battalion for all Germans or Russians out there) based around an anti-tank platform, which of the abovementioned would be the best for deploying across a front for delaying an armoured advance, and why? Assuming you could build it on an armoured chassis (Bradley I guess, or M1 if you want to be ultra cool).

AH-64.

Fast, carries lots of tank killing missiles, good sensors, adequately armored for its job.

the whole Artillery vs Infantry thing over Swingfire was eventually solved when it was replaced by Spike NLOS/Exactor

the artillery won and proceeded to demand the weapon be mounted on something less able to operate close to direct combat to insure the Infantry could never lay claim to it

Eggselent.

I don't know where EFOG-M lives in Galla though. I suspect Infantry by association with mortars, but it may be more likely that its range puts it firmly in the Artillery's hands since it would be side-by-side with howitzers and gunitzers.

[Laritaia]

Fear teh mighty missile trailer

also

did this ever actually happen

[Austrasien]

LOSAT was truly the first victim of Future Combat Systems. ;_;

ADKEM was weird too since he was mmW guided, which seems an odd choice for an ATGW. Although I suppose if he's fitting on helicopters it makes sense to integrate him with Longbow. Did he ever fly and did they actually make a KEM that was the size of Hellfire though, because that would be impressive. Especially if they met the goal of 7-10 km for rotary wing aircraft attack. OTOH I'm still dubious on the choice of mmW over laser beam riding. LOSAT seems to have the superior guidance system, while ADKEM seems to be the superior vehicle.

Could have resurrected ADKEM instead of trying to make a backwards compatible CKEM. Like HTLD had the Hellfire HMMWVs, but with LOSAT's laser seeker instead of the mmW. If they'd previously fabricated rocket motors successfully it wouldn't be too difficult beyond establishing the baseline manufacturing/tooling capacity, since the documentation would probably still exist in some archive.

So basically what they did with EFOG-M when FOG-M died, except actually buying the thing, and it's a KEM instead of a FOG. OTOH, FOG-M was fully developed to the point of utility. I'm not sure where ADKEM left off but it seems it ended around FY93 or FY94, before they could mate the seeker and the missile. Or conduct booster separation flight testing. Or inertial guidance tests. It seems like they only managed to fabricate rocket motors (maybe) and test those, but the whole missile was never fabricated. So that's a few years of work, but better than CKEM's starting point regardless. However it wouldn't be man-portable and it wouldn't be Javelin sized like CKEM was supposed to be.

It would also be ghetto as all hell.

MMW was chosen because the radar could track the motor through the rocket exhaust problem. But this probably helped kill it because the necessary radar didn't exist. LOSAT and CKEM both needed unusual guidance designs to get around the problem of the motor obscuring the guidance beam.

The CKEM had a weird design history I don't really understand because it seems to have begun as a much larger missile, 165mm diameter with canard control, then was downsized massively to try and literally fit in TOW launchers, then got bigger again when TOW compatibility was dumped and maybe slower. No one seems to have gotten around to writing a proper book about its history though so this is just what I piece together.

[Gallia-]

So it was a radar beam rider?

[Austrasien]

Command line of sight. Other US testing with MMW beamrider ATGMs showed it was difficult to capture missiles in the guidance beam because of ground reflections.

[Gallia-]

That is actually quite neat.

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

So what's the likelihood that the Kurds might get their own nation once ISIS is defeated? The more I read about them the more they seem like Israel: beset on all sides by unfriendliness, they have gotten to be really good at fighting.

[Gallia-]

"Really good".

[Dostanuot Loj]

So what's the likelihood that the Kurds might get their own nation once ISIS is defeated? The more I read about them the more they seem like Israel: beset on all sides by unfriendliness, they have gotten to be really good at fighting.

Think of it this way: Who's going top stop them?

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

"Really good".

From a relative standpoint, I guess? Are you saying the Kurds aren't very good?

So what's the likelihood that the Kurds might get their own nation once ISIS is defeated? The more I read about them the more they seem like Israel: beset on all sides by unfriendliness, they have gotten to be really good at fighting.

Think of it this way: Who's going top stop them?

The US might, if it is committed to keeping the borders as they were pre-ISIS. At least that would be my guess.

[Gallia-]

"Really good".

From a relative standpoint, I guess? Are you saying the Kurds aren't very good?

What do you think? They are seriously strained trying to fight a bunch of randos with Hiluxes, AKMs, and no military training. Any actually good military would have conquered all of Syria years ago, probably in less than a month. Meanwhile, Trump seems quite content to continue Obama's policy of moderate interference with aircraft and relying on one of any thousands of factions of the mythical "Free Syrian Army" to win the war.

[Spirit of Hope]

Think of it this way: Who's going top stop them?

The US might, if it is committed to keeping the borders as they were pre-ISIS. At least that would be my guess.

Turkey wouldn't be that pleased by an independent Kurdistan. And they would almost cerintly exert some pressure on the US to keep it from happening, plus the US doesn't want to re draw the borders in the at region.

[Dostanuot Loj]

The US might, if it is committed to keeping the borders as they were pre-ISIS. At least that would be my guess.

Turkey wouldn't be that pleased by an independent Kurdistan. And they would almost cerintly exert some pressure on the US to keep it from happening, plus the US doesn't want to re draw the borders in the at region.

The US is significantly more interested in not being tied into "that quagmire."

The reality is the Kurds will get their state, because they will take it by force. And with the world spotlight on their fight against ISIS, preventing it may be political suicide. Even the Turks are starting to come to the idea that a Kurdish state (albeit one in their favour) is a better alternative to the shitfest that keeps happening.

[Albynau]

I was doing some reading and learned that the Argentinians manage to refit one of their old WW2 era Colossus-class carriers to operate Super Etendards sometime during during the mid-1980s.

This amused me to no end, but it made me curious about a couple of things. Assuming that a country in question has aspirations to defend its maritime waters, would it be reasonable to maintain a WW2 vintage carrier up through the 90s or beyond, assuming of course that our nation is capable of maintaining such a vessel? Or to put it another way, was what Argentina/Brazil/India did with keeping their old WW2 carriers in service reasonable or just really wasteful spending?

It would carry some Alizes for ASW and rely upon the said Super Etendards for both strike, anti-shipping, and for the lack of any other carrier-capable fighter aircraft that is the same weight as the Super Etendard, air defense.

And on that note, Royal Navy Sea Harriers and Indian Navy Sea Harriers had radar refits which allowed their planes to utilize BVR active radar missiles. Sea Harriers are also roughly the same weight as Super Etendards, so would it be plausible to refit Etendards to also carry BVR missiles or is that asking too much of a very dated design?

Thanks.

[Taihei Tengoku]

I was doing some reading and learned that the Argentinians manage to refit one of their old WW2 era Colossus-class carriers to operate Super Etendards sometime during during the mid-1980s.

This amused me to no end, but it made me curious about a couple of things. Assuming that a country in question has aspirations to defend its maritime waters, would it be reasonable to maintain a WW2 vintage carrier up through the 90s or beyond, assuming of course that our nation is capable of maintaining such a vessel? Or to put it another way, was what Argentina/Brazil/India did with keeping their old WW2 carriers in service reasonable or just really wasteful spending?

It would carry some Alizes for ASW and rely upon the said Super Etendards for both strike, anti-shipping, and for the lack of any other carrier-capable fighter aircraft that is the same weight as the Super Etendard, air defense.

And on that note, Royal Navy Sea Harriers and Indian Navy Sea Harriers had radar refits which allowed their planes to utilize BVR active radar missiles. Sea Harriers are also roughly the same weight as Super Etendards, so would it be plausible to refit Etendards to also carry BVR missiles or is that asking too much of a very dated design?

Thanks.

The Chileans have a gun cruiser (partly) from 1939 still. It is good for prestige purposes, which is why small, weak navies like the South Americans and Indians refitted old boats for decades.

The Anemone radar of Super Etendard SEM has "double the range" of the previous Agave. The Agave could detect fighter-size targets at 10 to 15nm, which means Anemone could see at 30nm. Not quite the APG-65.

[Dostanuot Loj]

I was doing some reading and learned that the Argentinians manage to refit one of their old WW2 era Colossus-class carriers to operate Super Etendards sometime during during the mid-1980s.

This amused me to no end, but it made me curious about a couple of things. Assuming that a country in question has aspirations to defend its maritime waters, would it be reasonable to maintain a WW2 vintage carrier up through the 90s or beyond, assuming of course that our nation is capable of maintaining such a vessel? Or to put it another way, was what Argentina/Brazil/India did with keeping their old WW2 carriers in service reasonable or just really wasteful spending?

It would carry some Alizes for ASW and rely upon the said Super Etendards for both strike, anti-shipping, and for the lack of any other carrier-capable fighter aircraft that is the same weight as the Super Etendard, air defense.

And on that note, Royal Navy Sea Harriers and Indian Navy Sea Harriers had radar refits which allowed their planes to utilize BVR active radar missiles. Sea Harriers are also roughly the same weight as Super Etendards, so would it be plausible to refit Etendards to also carry BVR missiles or is that asking too much of a very dated design?

Thanks.

I have family ties to all three of Canada's carriers, and a pretty deep personal interest, plus connections in the group of people who worked on the projects, so I have some fun insight.

The first, and most important thing, to know about Veinticinco de Mayo staying in service is that she was bought after a major refit at the end of the 1960s. And she was kept in service entirely because of spares taken from her sisters Independencia, Bonnaventure, Sydney and so on. In 1980 there were only four 42 Light Fleets in service, out of fourteen completed, and a few uncompleted. Low time spare parts were plentiful for these ships in the 1980s, but they would all dry up by the 1990s.

You could keep one in service, if you only had one and did not use it much, even today. But you would be looking pretty desperately at a replacement around now.

Also, there are a few huge issues you can't escape. First and foremost is just how many people the 42 Light Fleets took to run. You will be sinking almost 3,000 people into this ship, which will be old and you can't use much. In the 1980s these issues are well known, and a bunch of harrier carriers are coming to light like the SCS. If running a light carrier into the 2010s is important to your nation, it is far more likely your nation will be looking to buy something like Princepe de Asturias by the 1990s. Especially because the PdeA will be newer, operate better, and cost half the crew.

And this brings us to the third issue, aircraft. Super Etenard is not a good plane. It's maintenance intensive, expensive to operate, and not very good. It's only worth using after 1980 if you can't get anything else at all. Even Skyhawks will be better. And that is really your only option: Skyhawks. If you are converting to Harriers, the SCS is better by far.

So you will find yourself where every other nation who tried to operate the 42 Light Fleets for so long did: with inadequate planes (or worse with SuE), on a carrier that takes up way too many crew, too much money, and can only be used half as much as a newer carrier. This will all be apparent by the mid-1990s at the latest, and there will be very very attractive options to replace her. By the time of her major refit in the mid-1990s you will be looking at the option of paying for a refit, and refurbish your planes to go a little further into the 200s before doing it again, or paying a little bit more and buying something like PdA and Harriers, but dramatically cutting your personnel and maintenance costs. Or if cost and crew are not an issue, you will be looking at being able to afford two, or even three carriers instead of one, allowing you to actually use them.

The real thing here is Argentina/Brazil kept their 42 Light Fleets in service because they always planned to replace them by the 1990s. For Argentina, the money and political will never appeared. For India and Brazil, the money got tight and they bought another second hand, both of which are to be replaced or completely scrapped soon.

[Crookfur]

I was doing some reading and learned that the Argentinians manage to refit one of their old WW2 era Colossus-class carriers to operate Super Etendards sometime during during the mid-1980s.

This amused me to no end, but it made me curious about a couple of things. Assuming that a country in question has aspirations to defend its maritime waters, would it be reasonable to maintain a WW2 vintage carrier up through the 90s or beyond, assuming of course that our nation is capable of maintaining such a vessel? Or to put it another way, was what Argentina/Brazil/India did with keeping their old WW2 carriers in service reasonable or just really wasteful spending?

It would carry some Alizes for ASW and rely upon the said Super Etendards for both strike, anti-shipping, and for the lack of any other carrier-capable fighter aircraft that is the same weight as the Super Etendard, air defense.

And on that note, Royal Navy Sea Harriers and Indian Navy Sea Harriers had radar refits which allowed their planes to utilize BVR active radar missiles. Sea Harriers are also roughly the same weight as Super Etendards, so would it be plausible to refit Etendards to also carry BVR missiles or is that asking too much of a very dated design?

Thanks.

The Chileans have a gun cruiser (partly) from 1939 still. It is good for prestige purposes, which is why small, weak navies like the South Americans and Indians refitted old boats for decades.

The Anemone radar of Super Etendard SEM has "double the range" of the previous Agave. The Agave could detect fighter-size targets at 10 to 15nm, which means Anemone could see at 30nm. Not quite the APG-65.

IIRC the radar size/weight limits of the super standard are pretty restrictive (max weight in the 65kg region) which seems to rule out even the grifo series of itty bitty multi role sets.

Anemone can do air to air tracking and ranging but I don't think it's up to supporting BVR missiles of any kind.

Keeping the old carriers around is incredibly wasteful but it's the only choice if you don't want to buy tiny harrier cruisers from the Spanish or Italians and have a pressing national need to maintain some kind of regional dominance.

[Dostanuot Loj]

Keeping the old carriers around is incredibly wasteful but it's the only choice if you don't want to buy tiny harrier cruisers from the Spanish or Italians and have a pressing national need to maintain some kind of regional dominance.

To be perfectly honest, PdeA will do with Harriers everything that a 42LF will do with Skyhawks or SuEs. And it will do it cheaper and better.

[Husseinarti]

Fear teh mighty missile trailer

also

did this ever actually happen

(Image)

D I L D O R O U N D
I
L
D
O
R
O
U
N
D

[Gallia-]

Fist
to
carrot

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Albynau]

Thank you all for your input, it was very helpful.

I guess my question at this point would be if our nation in question has strained relations with our version of the US (no actual dispute with the US itself but a long ongoing dispute with a close US ally, like a Japan or Israel tier ally), would it even be feasible for our nation to acquire a second hand light carrier and Harriers which would be mostly American avionic systems?

Spitballing an example here, but if South Korea magically was neutral, kept North Korea at bay independently, and had been butting heads with Japan over island territories, would the US allow this version of South Korea to acquire an ex-Spanish light carrier and their flight groups? I'm thinking it's unlikely.

The flipside of this argument is that I imagine an upgraded-WW2 carrier with an anemic flight group would be next to worthless in any sort of shooting war with our not-Japan, though I imagine they could sort of do something against lower tech not-North Koreans in this situation.

In this case would it be more practical to keep tinkering with what we have or just use the carrier until it falls apart and don't get a replacement?

Thank you.

[The Akasha Colony]

Thank you all for your input, it was very helpful.

I guess my question at this point would be if our nation in question has strained relations with our version of the US (no actual dispute with the US itself but a long ongoing dispute with a close US ally, like a Japan or Israel tier ally), would it even be feasible for our nation to acquire a second hand light carrier and Harriers which would be mostly American avionic systems?

Spitballing an example here, but if South Korea magically was neutral, kept North Korea at bay independently, and had been butting heads with Japan over island territories, would the US allow this version of South Korea to acquire an ex-Spanish light carrier and their flight groups? I'm thinking it's unlikely.

The flipside of this argument is that I imagine an upgraded-WW2 carrier with an anemic flight group would be next to worthless in any sort of shooting war with our not-Japan, though I imagine they could sort of do something against lower tech not-North Koreans in this situation.

In this case would it be more practical to keep tinkering with what we have or just use the carrier until it falls apart and don't get a replacement?

Thank you.

Define "butting heads."

The United States has actively sold weapons including F-16s to Pakistan while at the same time courting defense contracts and trying to build stronger economic and political ties with India. It has also sold weapons to most of the major Arab states that have gone to war with Israel in the past (while of course also having supplied Israel with its own weapons), some of whom still refuse to acknowledge Israel's existence (like Saudi Arabia).

The US will sell weapons to anyone so long as it is in its strategic interests to do so. Which means the more important question isn't whether you're "butting heads" with a US ally, but more whether there is any strategic value for the United States in selling these weapons in the first place. Does the sale of weapons to your nation benefit US economic, political, or security interests?