NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Taihei Tengoku]

Kill is an affirmative in .mil

[Husseinarti]

Does the way the killing is done matter? I'd imagine shooting someone 100 yards away might have a different effect than eviscerating their bowels with your bayonet.

Most bayonet wounds don't have you pulling out their innards or whatever iirc. You'd probably get more fucked sitting there watching dudes get ripped up by arty fire than dudes getting stabbed.

You stab them a bunch, they fall and scream and you keep advancing.

What happens if you deliberately condition your recruits to find joy in killing?

It isn't the kill itself, its getting troops to respond without thinking.

During World War Two, the US Army found itself surprised on just how many troops didn't fire their rifles at all, or at the very least would fire them with the intent of missing. In the days of Napoleon, you just fired into the wall of enemy advancing, in World War One and Two however you were firing directly at singular point targets who would have somehow exposed themselves. You have men moving and attacking, withdrawing and flanking. Infantry combat by WW2 had become a personal affair.

What the Army implemented later after World War Two were shooting drills designed to make soldiers react as an enemy would expose themselves. i.e. instead of shooting a target at 150 meters that just stands there, challenge soldiers to shoot a target that pops-up for a limited amount of time before they go back down. The 'I'm up, he sees me, I'm down' type thing. During training, you create a competition between recruits over who can shoot the best with the least amount of time to have the men want to hone and become better, etc. You create a physical response to the enemy, not just to them wanting to kill, which creates fucking psychopaths and shouldn't be done. The attempt was to, at the very least, remove any hard thought in the shooting of the target. Now, what to do once the idea hits you that you just killed a man isn't covered, the training only covers right to when the dude drops dead.

Making dudes who 'like' killing is how groups like E-Gruppe start.

It's not clear if human being are naturally repulsed by killing or not.

That's to say, killing a single human being is traumatic to most, but studies differ on what happens afterwards.

Well, the biggest thing is that we can't just pull a Roman soldier from 250 BC to tell us if he ever has any second thought about killing a Carthaginian. The values instilled in the society at large also would be a big factor on if the human mind is naturally hesitant on killing.

Some studies argue that killing is traumatic in general, and others - for example, research into the experience of WW1 combatants - suggest that killing actually reduces the trauma of war, and that soldiers that were exposed to enemy fire and not able to kill the people who fired themselves (for example, rear-echelon troops who were regularly exposed to enemy fire) were actually more severely traumatized than front-line soldiers.

I'd say that also correlates with soldiers who stay from the front to long after they've seen combat. I forget the study, but it was shown that soldiers who would be at the front and be taken off the front for longer than like 1-2 weeks showed the signs of 'battle-fatigue' allot more than soldiers who returned after that 1-2 week period.

[Purpelia]

Does the way the killing is done matter? I'd imagine shooting someone 100 yards away might have a different effect than eviscerating their bowels with your bayonet.

Yes and no. Like, basically it is my very limited understanding that if you can see the guy you are killing it's worse than if you are just firing shells over a hill but that fundamentally that's it. But that's like not reliable and I hope someone who has read more on the subject will fill it in or correct me.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

What the Army implemented later after World War Two were shooting drills designed to make soldiers react as an enemy would expose themselves. i.e. instead of shooting a target at 150 meters that just stands there, challenge soldiers to shoot a target that pops-up for a limited amount of time before they go back down. The 'I'm up, he sees me, I'm down' type thing. During training, you create a competition between recruits over who can shoot the best with the least amount of time to have the men want to hone and become better, etc.

You create a physical response to the enemy, not just to them wanting to kill, which creates fucking psychopaths and shouldn't be done. The attempt was to, at the very least, remove any hard thought in the shooting of the target. Now, what to do once the idea hits you that you just killed a man isn't covered, the training only covers right to when the dude drops dead.

Making dudes who 'like' killing is how groups like E-Gruppe start.

Which was more a response to soldiers complaining that the other soldiers weren't just sitting in the open to get delibrately shot at repeatedly. So snap-shooting [or combat-shooting] became a thing.

Training that prevented the soldier from knowing where the target was going to be was generally a huge step up from simply doing timed drills on targets that even if they did dissappear, or move, were easy enough to keep track of or predict.

Does the way the killing is done matter? I'd imagine shooting someone 100 yards away might have a different effect than eviscerating their bowels with your bayonet.

Yes and no. Like, basically it is my very limited understanding that if you can see the guy you are killing it's worse than if you are just firing shells over a hill but that fundamentally that's it. But that's like not reliable and I hope someone who has read more on the subject will fill it in or correct me.

More along the lines of "if you have time to stare" or not. If they don't stare, they don't think, they don't dwell, they move onto the next task. This ofc leads to non-mortally wounded enemy surprising the jeebies out of any follow-up troops, the super-commoness of it was part of what the flamethrower and bayonet were all about in WW1.

They generally learned to not shoot the advancing enemy after being wounded when they found out their medics would pause and fix them up a bit if they just surrendered.
-Unless things were bad.

[Halfblakistan]

What would be a realistic amphibious troop transport for a developing archipelagic country? I was looking at the DUKW and imagined that an island country would need to upgrade during the middle of the Cold War. The M113 looks good, but what would replace that?

[Laritaia]

What would be a realistic amphibious troop transport for a developing archipelagic country? I was looking at the DUKW and imagined that an island country would need to upgrade during the middle of the Cold War. The M113 looks good, but what would replace that?

you aren't going to go island hopping in an amphibious APC

[Taihei Tengoku]

What would be a realistic amphibious troop transport for a developing archipelagic country? I was looking at the DUKW and imagined that an island country would need to upgrade during the middle of the Cold War. The M113 looks good, but what would replace that?

[Gallia-]

NO HOTLINKING!

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

Is there any realistic truth to the claim that soldiers in pre-gunpowder eras might not be as prone to combat stress, under the belief that they were raised and lived in a much harder society? There's literary evidence for soldiers having stressful reactions back in the day - off the top of my head, I know an Athenian is recorded as having gone permanently blind at the sight of a terrifying Persian soldier at the Battle of Marathon, and the Macedonians at the Battle of Pydna are horrified at the Romans' shortswords carving people up(though this is much more likely to be the Macedonians being a green and untested army at the time, where the Romans were veterans of the Punic wars).

The book Achilles in Vietnam which I referenced earlier posits that the titular character suffered from combat stress, while comparing what is written in the Iliad to American soldiers' experiences in Vietnam. It's a fictional poem, obviously, but it's a work of tremendous importance on the world it was written in.

[Halfblakistan]

What would be a realistic amphibious troop transport for a developing archipelagic country? I was looking at the DUKW and imagined that an island country would need to upgrade during the middle of the Cold War. The M113 looks good, but what would replace that?

you aren't going to go island hopping in an amphibious APC

Right, but assuming the military owned some sort of LPD or another amphibious warfare vessel, what would they land on the beaches with if they were a backwater? I can imagine Mutual Defense Assistance Act LSTs sending out DUKWs onto a beachhead to root out leftist rebels.

[Gallia-]

Is there any realistic truth to the claim that soldiers in pre-gunpowder eras might not be as prone to combat stress, under the belief that they were raised and lived in a much harder society? There's literary evidence for soldiers having stressful reactions back in the day - off the top of my head, I know an Athenian is recorded as having gone permanently blind at the sight of a terrifying Persian soldier at the Battle of Marathon, and the Macedonians at the Battle of Pydna are horrified at the Romans' shortswords carving people up(though this is much more likely to be the Macedonians being a green and untested army at the time, where the Romans were veterans of the Punic wars).

The book Achilles in Vietnam which I referenced earlier posits that the titular character suffered from combat stress, while comparing what is written in the Iliad to American soldiers' experiences in Vietnam. It's a fictional poem, obviously, but it's a work of tremendous importance on the world it was written in.

We can't possibly know because practically zero records or knowledge of that time survive.

You would be better served looking at developing economies like Congo or Somalia.

[Laritaia]

you aren't going to go island hopping in an amphibious APC

Right, but assuming the military owned some sort of LPD or another amphibious warfare vessel, what would they land on the beaches with if they were a backwater? I can imagine Mutual Defense Assistance Act LSTs sending out DUKWs onto a beachhead to root out leftist rebels.

AAVs or literally just regular APCs in landing craft

[Puzikas]

Does the way the killing is done matter? I'd imagine shooting someone 100 yards away might have a different effect than eviscerating their bowels with your bayonet.

Most bayonet wounds don't have you pulling out their innards or whatever iirc.

Correct. A few years ago I had a case of a patient who was stabbed with a relatively large hunting knife, and then the assaulter pulled the knife in an upward manner, resulting in a wound 36cm in length with a maximum depth well into the abdominal cavity.
The Paramedics on scene reported the patients intestines were poking out, and upon arival, it was a relatively small protrusion.

You'd probably get more fucked sitting there watching dudes get ripped up by arty fire than dudes getting stabbed.

You stab them a bunch, they fall and scream and you keep advancing.

Basically. I can use a jumping off point for this when I'm not being brutalized at work tomorrow if anyone cares.

[Allanea]

Well, the biggest thing is that we can't just pull a Roman soldier from 250 BC to tell us if he ever has any second thought about killing a Carthaginian. The values instilled in the society at large also would be a big factor on if the human mind is naturally hesitant on killing.

Another big issue is how the society reacts to the war itself. If society at large sees the war as a just one, like WW2 was seen as a largely justified conflict against the Axis, that is a much more supportive environment for soldiers than something like Vietnam or Soviet Afghanistan, where a large segment of society just didn't understand at all what the soldiers were doing in those countries, and the governments didn't do a good job of explaining it.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that if soldiers are supported by society when they go abroad and kill people, then, again, they might end up committing some kind of terrible stuff because the people at home hate the enemy and will cheer as the soldiers butcher them. There's any number of examples of organizations which committed acts that, by modern Western standards, count as 'atrocities', and then had their members treated well at home and go on to live -as far as we know - entirely normal lives.

Some of these examples are even in the West - Davy Crockett, for instance, committed actions against the Indians which would generally see him probably horrifyingly PTSDed today, and of course the officer who massacred the Dachau camp guards violated every possible Geneva Convention right they might have had and suffered absolutely no health consequence that we know of. I suspect that the fact they believed these actions to be justified and the society they lived in supported this (Davy Crockett was seen as a hero in his day and pretty much is seen as a hero by many even now, and the officers who oversaw the massacre of Dachau guards did not see any meaningful repercussions).

[The Akasha Colony]

Right, but assuming the military owned some sort of LPD or another amphibious warfare vessel, what would they land on the beaches with if they were a backwater? I can imagine Mutual Defense Assistance Act LSTs sending out DUKWs onto a beachhead to root out leftist rebels.

Dedicated amphibious vehicles like AAV-7, or with landing craft like LCACs or LSTs.

It should be noted that not all "amphibious" vehicles are created equal. Most "amphibious" APCs like M113 and even the USMC's LAV-25 series have only river-crossing capability, they are not designed for ocean landings and rough water will easily swamp and sink them. They also lack sufficient thrust to remain maneuverable in the face of likely ocean currents and tides. These "amphibious" capabilities are only meant to cut down on the need for bridging units and the like, not to actually get these vehicles ashore.

Thus, your options for roughwater amphibious craft are much more limited, to basically the AAV series and the cancelled EFV in the West. Other powers like France use landing craft to get their regular vehicles ashore, which is also how even the US gets all of its non-amphibious vehicles ashore since Abrams doesn't float.

[New Oyashima]

Taking Cheyenne conversation from both threads to here in general, why was the Cheyenne horrible?

Gayla is just being an ultra-hipster.

Cheyenne is best kkkoppter

[Gallia-]

So I need to get this out of my head:

Here is what I'm thinking about Galla's ground troops atm. It has a smattering of brigades and division types scattershot across various modernization programs, with not enough money to upgrade them all and a desperate need to keep them all because its in eternal four-way cold war with the forces of fascism, Marxism, and liberalism. So I have a smattering of lists of different types of brigades which would be organized by a letter followed by a number. Here's the "official list" of the letters and numbers, and their explanations. Whatever's here is a retcon of my previous attempt to reconcile the various Gallan brigade designators.

D = Mechanized infantry (Mekskytte)
P = Armored (Pansarskytte)
I = Light infantry (Skyttar)
H = Motorized infantry (Motskytte)
L = Aviation/helicopter
A = Artillery
S = Strike (Aviation, but meaner)
K = Corps

Yes, Gallan soldiers are literally called "strelkovs".

Numerical designators indicate the year, but they also follow a general trend. Formations get more digitized, but not necessarily smaller. There's a trend to have a single "high readiness/response" style formation ("Army Strike/Contingency Force") and a pair or a triplet of "heavy" formations for general war, since Galla is the Industrial Future taken to excess.

90, 98, 02, 08, 12, 16 = General war formations, with the exception of "Type 12S" which is a high speed strike division
96, 04, 06, 14, 21 = High speed formations

I'm not sure if mere equipment changes necessitate a change in TO&E. I'll have to think more about how the equipment changes units. Basically, any unit with a number greater than "04" is going to have nothing but Bradley carriers if it's mechanized and HMMWVs if it's not.

Anything less than "03" will have either 1980s LAVs or just M113s. Anything greater than "06" will have full digitization. Anything between "98" and "08" will have vehicle digitization. Anything less than "98" will have some laptop desks for interim digitization until the Blue Machine can get around to modernizing their ancient formation. Anything "12" or greater will have digitization down to the individual level and probably be the realm of either the most fast action STRAC ballers or really high readiness general war formations.

Main stumbling block is sorting out the equipment issue and whether that's pertinent to the TO&E. Galla has a lot of "reserve" formations like the US Army in 1989, when it was still using J- and H-series TO&Es unironically in the National Guard, so a lot of divisions will be stuck transitioning to digitization. Those divisions would also have hand-me-down equipment like M113s and Galla's dumb MBT-70 ripoff, and OH-58s and AH-1s. It's probably unironically considering re-lifing this equipment because it won't have enough Bradleys or Block III tanks to equip them all for a couple decades. At least one or two high speed/fast action units will also have M113s, probably the "96" series.

TO&Es will be cycled in a roughly 5-10 year schedule, with another ~10 years needed to hit the Army in quantity. So the darkest of the Dark Ages of mechanized troops will only be interim digitization (or essentially one-offs like M1A1D) dating to the mid-late 1990s. Certain sections of the Army will go for each 5 year plan to avoid swamping industry and budgets with requisition orders. Artillery and Aviation might modernize during "even" plans while Armor and Infantry will modernize during "odd" plans but that's only representative.

It's essentially a three, perhaps more, tiered system. You have your high speed high readiness troops with the most advanced gear; your "regular" troops who are general war professionals with your "regular" gear, and then your full mobilization troops who are equipped with last generations', or the generation before that, gear. Probably still better off than the US Army would be in similar situations in reality, but whatever. Gallaverse is inherently optimistic so that's not a bugbear for me. What the bugbear is is keeping the organizations straight without going crazy with the sperg, but it should give me a lot of room to stretch the sperg without making it super silly or something.

My major problem ATM is I have no way of cleanly showing differentiation in equipment issue for different, near identical TO&Es. I also have to deal with two very different types of formation: brigade combat teams and heavy divisions.

My plan is to eventually have a somewhat coherent picture of how Galla's military evolves over the +1,000 year lifespan of the actual Thousand Year Reich.

"One thousand years. Let's go for two! :>>>"

1488-2509 RIP

[Ardavia]

what is the most HSLD helicopter for transporting light infantry air cavalry around in the 1980s?

[Gallia-]

Barring ridiculous prototypes, UH-60.

Including ridiculous prototypes, an assault transport version of S-69.

stuff

OK so, here goes...

Basically the Gallan Army is split between Cavalry and Infantry. Historically, the Cavalry is more focused on open terrain, deep attacks, and balanced tank-infantry cooperation while the Infantry is more focused towards closed terrain, cooperation between infantry and mortars, and IFVs. Not coincidentally, the Infantry is the more terrain oriented of the two while the Cavalry is more force/time-oriented, so the Cavalry tends to be more mobile while the Infantry is slower and more methodical. The Infantry has both mechanized and unmechanized formations, although the "light infantry" in the Gallan Army usually have trucks or some other form of motor transportation to move themselves. The Cavalry is fully mechanized.

Besides this, there is also a split between "regiment" and "brigade". Regiments are self-contained brigades, essentially US Army BCTs, while "brigades" are AOE-style pure units composed of line battalions. The former is generally attached to a Corps-sized formation for purposes of a reserve, or as part of the Army Strike Force for expeditionary/colonial warfare. It trades flexibility for mobility, essentially. The latter is part of general war formations designed to fight in known areas, and affords greater flexibility for division commanders, who can assign battalions as many guns or engineers as they need to do their jobs, rather than relying on brigade-sized packets of pre-set CS/CSS elements.

There are several types of "basic" regiment structures:

Air Assault Regiment*: The Airmobile or Air Assault Infantry regiment is designed to be moved by helicopter or tiltrotor. It is also trained in parachute assault. They are generally light infantry, with no mechanization aside from gun jeeps and missile carriers. The most well equipped air assault regiments have UCGVs instead of gun jeeps, equipped with a variety of heavy weapons such as automatic cannons and anti-tank missiles. The air assault regiment is intended to be used to capture and hold terrain features such as bridges or airfields, or defend key terrain.

Airborne Regiment: The Airborne Infantry regiment is a more mechanized form of air assault regiment. It is equipped with light armored vehicles (approx. 15-20 tons) and light tanks, designed to be airdropped, similar to VDV divisions. Mostly this is to give them a measure of mobility and shock action that would be otherwise lacking; the airborne regiment is generally intended to search and destroy enemy headquarters units, nuclear missile and reconnaissance-strike complexes, and airbases.

Armored Regiment*: The modern Cavalry regiment is a balanced square (2:2), while older Cavalry regiments are triangular, or triangular squares (3:1). The Cavalry has its own mechanized infantry, Pansarskytte, who are trained specifically in the task of tank-infantry cooperation.

Light Regiment*: The light Infantry regiment is broadly similar to the air assault regiment, but is mounted in HMMWV carriers down to section level. The light regiment is designed to be used more independently from the air assault regiment, being able to both seize terrain and then attack nearby objects, without being beheld to the arrival of a mechanized main force. It is generally used by expeditionary/colonial troops who can afford to lack mechanization/protection. In a general war, it would probably be considered the same as an air assault regiment, or used for reconnaissance.

Mechanized Light Regiment: The Mechanized Light Infantry regiment is essentially a one-off (two, actually) formation designed for rapid expeditionary deployment. It is considered identical to the mechanized regiment on paper, but its carriers are about half the mass. They are also smaller than the mechanized regiment's carriers. In a general war it would probably be used as a reconnaissance formation because of the small size of its carriers.

Mechanized Regiment*: Mechanized Infantry regiments are triangles or triangular squares, so either lacking tanks or possessing a single battalion of them. The mechanized regiment is mounted in infantry fighting vehicles and equipped with tank destroyers/missile carriers in similar armored vehicle chassis. It is the most mobile infantry formation.

Motorized Regiment: The Motorized Infantry regiment are mechanized troops mounted in wheeled carriers. They're a cheaper alternative to the mechanized regiment. Basically, the same dichotomy as BTR vice BMP motor rifles, but motorized troops have gun carriers/assault guns, rather than actual tanks.

Reconnaissance Regiment: The Armored Cavalry regiment is an all-arms ground reconnaissance formation. It is a triangular square of mechanized reconnaissance troops and tanks, with an organic helicopter gunship, field artillery, and self-propelled AAA batteries. It is designed to screen ground divisions and corps-sized formations, imitating the appearance and firepower of a line unit. In practice, it is probably overpowered for the role of screening, which is something that would be more likely handed off to a Motor Infantry Regiment or Light Infantry Regiment, while the ACR is used as a reserve or a line regiment.

Strike Regiment: The Strike Infantry regiment is an aviation and infantry unit, equipped with large numbers of attack helicopters, but also has an organic infantry battalion and helicopter assault transports. It is a more aggressive form of the air assault regiment, able to fight through or avoid enemy troops and assault extremely deep targets, such as command posts and nuclear missile launch complexes. It is seen to combine the mobile aspects of the airborne regiment with the air assault capability of the airmobile regiment.

*Has a "pure" brigade equivalent.

[Taihei Tengoku]

The Combined Armies have 2.5 types of combat brigades: the line, half-line, and parachute.

The line brigades (two digits) are combined-arms formations made of battalion tactical groups of tanks and mechanized infantry. Half-line brigades (three digits) are motorized troops maintained as a mobilization cadre. Despite their name they are actually overstrength to accommodate the large numbers of draftees they process in and out during their operational stint. In wartime they detach to become the nucleus of a new mobilization division or route army. Half-line brigades fulfill the same operational role as full line brigades, just with cheaper equipment. Breakthroughs are decided by the allocation of fires (the DIVARTY and the Route Army's surface-to-surface missiles) rather than the rotation of special assault units. Combat engineers are allocated at the company/battalion level and RSTA is at the battalion/brigade level.

Parachute brigades are light infantry. 30 Brigade is the traditional jump brigade while 33 Brigade is a heavier air assault brigade.

The Reaction Force is basically a MEU with two rather than one battalion. Usually it is a parachute battalion and a motor rifle battalion. The actual "standing force" is the HQ, with the rest of the battlegroup filled out by attachments.

e: Modernization--each brigade is a hodgepodge and equipment modernization happens at the battalion tactical group. The NPA likes to "spread" modernization around to equalize combat strength so the BTG with the new tanks might have the previous-gen artillery and the one with the new cannons still has T-64 and the one with neither is fully digitized.

[Mestovakia]

"This poison is odorless, tasteless, and has no antidote. The bodies of those killed with 135 remain poisonous for a year. Inhaled compound 135 attacks the brain and lungs, and shuts down the central nervous system.. Several orders of magnitude deadlier than sarin, this poison causes your nervous system to fail, resulting in an extremely painful death."
...
"It is in solid form, with a volume of 45 cubic centimeters, when the pin is pulled an initial explosion happens in 5 seconds, the explosion releases 135 into the air which almost instantly sublimates into a gas."

Anyone else see a problem with this? I need professional opinion on this weapon an associate of mine is using.

[Spirit of Hope]

"This poison is odorless, tasteless, and has no antidote. The bodies of those killed with 135 remain poisonous for a year. Inhaled compound 135 attacks the brain and lungs, and shuts down the central nervous system.. Several orders of magnitude deadlier than sarin, this poison causes your nervous system to fail, resulting in an extremely painful death."
...
"It is in solid form, with a volume of 45 cubic centimeters, when the pin is pulled an initial explosion happens in 5 seconds, the explosion releases 135 into the air which almost instantly sublimates into a gas."

Anyone else see a problem with this? I need professional opinion on this weapon an associate of mine is using.

Are they using poison gas hand grenades? Because that just sounds really stupid. At the range you would be throwing a hand grenade at your troops are going to be just as effected by it's use as any opponents, especially if they want it to be as deadly as they portray it. Either your troops have to be in MOAP gear, or they are going to be killed by "135" as well.

And as soon as you start using it your opponent can counter it's use by issuing their own troops with MOAP gear, and using there own chemical weapons in retaliation. Using chemical weapons also violates several real life treaties and won't gett you treated all that well by the world community, thought that is something you can partially ignore in NS.

[Mestovakia]

"This poison is odorless, tasteless, and has no antidote. The bodies of those killed with 135 remain poisonous for a year. Inhaled compound 135 attacks the brain and lungs, and shuts down the central nervous system.. Several orders of magnitude deadlier than sarin, this poison causes your nervous system to fail, resulting in an extremely painful death."
...
"It is in solid form, with a volume of 45 cubic centimeters, when the pin is pulled an initial explosion happens in 5 seconds, the explosion releases 135 into the air which almost instantly sublimates into a gas."

Anyone else see a problem with this? I need professional opinion on this weapon an associate of mine is using.

Are they using poison gas hand grenades? Because that just sounds really stupid. At the range you would be throwing a hand grenade at your troops are going to be just as effected by it's use as any opponents, especially if they want it to be as deadly as they portray it. Either your troops have to be in MOAP gear, or they are going to be killed by "135" as well.

And as soon as you start using it your opponent can counter it's use by issuing their own troops with MOAP gear, and using there own chemical weapons in retaliation. Using chemical weapons also violates several real life treaties and won't gett you treated all that well by the world community, thought that is something you can partially ignore in NS.

I'll make sure to tell him that. I specifically told him not to do anything that'd bring the hammer down on us in the region.

[Albynau]

For a nation that has no desire for force project beyond its borders, yet has a large number of islands it wants to maintain control of (for example let's say the nation in question is Greece and they want to control Crete and the Aegean sea), does maintaining an aircraft carrier serve any benefit over just building airfields on islands, or for the distances we're talking about is it a complete non-issue?

Or put another way, is there a point to aircraft carriers if you don't need force projection? I can understand why, for example, Spain might want to have an aircraft carrier since they have overseas territories that are far from their mainland, but then I look at Italy and I'm drawing a blank.

Thanks.

[Gallia-]

Italy has an aircraft carrier for frankly obvious reasons: to keep Soviet subs out of Mare Nostrum.