NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Gallia-]

I mean having your entire army destroyed in a month is a good reason too.

e: Although they probably stripped the IJA on the continent of anything good beforehand.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

What did Europe really learn from the Russo-Japanese War? Did anybody, even the Russians themselves garner a healthy respect for the artillery shell and the machine gun?

[Kassaran]

Why do you keep thinking there's some key to industry in North Africa?[There's nothing there that makes it particularly well-suited to industrial development. And indeed there's a lot that makes it a poor candidate in this regard, given its low population density, lack of exploitable resources, lack of hydropower potential, poor fertility, etc. The Nile is the only thing in North Africa that's useful until oil starts to matter, and even then the Nile is inferior to the Congo both as a source of fertile growing area and hydropower potential. The only benefit to North Africa is that you can more easily sell stuff to the Europeans but that's not enough to overcome the disadvantages the region has.

The Congo river basin is the most valuable part of Africa, full stop. It is rich in resources, has high fertility, has enormous hydropower potential, and can be turned into an effective transportation network with a bit of effort to construct locks around the rapids. While not as rich in oil, it still has significant reserves.

A few minutes of basic research though and you can find all this yourself.

The only reason to bother heading along the coastline is to ensure others don't claim it and then start moving inland. Otherwise, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, etc. are of no particular interest.

So I probably just want to expand into wherever the green is on the continent?

I'm seeing then that the west coast, upon which the most potent yet dangerous lands are, should be my goal for expansion. I'm also seeing that I need to push through into DR Congo, and into all the coastal nations along the Gulf of Guinea. If I do that, then I hold a significantly better chance at getting ahead, right?

Leave North Africa out of the scope of my interests until later 1800's when the Suez is up and I see my chance to grab it and hold it easily for trade purposes... this, however, should not be my main priority. I should be focusing on building up internal infrastructure to support the heartlands and begin a tradition of positive civil development, right? Enforce change, bugger indigenous tribes, and use soviet tactics for just pushing through the slog of central Africa to hit the far coast in some Somalian perversion of Manifest Destiny?

[Taihei Tengoku]

What did Europe really learn from the Russo-Japanese War? Did anybody, even the Russians themselves garner a healthy respect for the artillery shell and the machine gun?

tenno heika banzai

It's a bit hard to separate signal from noise from the Russo-Japanese War. In the case of the war at sea there was little noise: the decisive battle was decided by long-range gunnery and that led to HMS Dreadnought (though the Japanese themselves had the idea first). Port Arthur was an intense siege on a narrow front against a minor detachment of Russians, awaiting the main army coming in from the north. The decisive battle on land at Mukden was a fairly conventional set-piece battle. It wasn't decided by throw weight of the artillery batteries but by maneuver of the better-coordinated and worse-equipped IJA. That sieges are a shitshow is nothing new, and at Mukden the plan was to destroy the Russians in the field so that the Japanese wouldn't have to invest Mukden like they had Port Arthur.

If you were a fairly conventional (and by no means dumb!) military theorist in 1906 you would think that future battles would play out like Mukden rather than Port Arthur at a continental scale.

[Greater Kazar]

OK, looking at my mechanized infantry companies. Essentially company sized units which are assigned to tank regiments as part of a regimental combat team. So this is regiment (aka batalion) sized combined arms. In this guise, the infantry are entirely there to support the tanks of the regiment in their task of victory through maneuver.

So, the company has a few roles:
1: Direct support of the tanks.
2: Local security of the tanks.
3: Assault/defense of minor local strongpoints.

Is there a normal order of priority for these for tasks?

My sense is that:
#1 is best accomplished by an infantry platoon if the regiment is conducting offensive operations and is not required during defensive or retrograde operations.
#2 is best accomplished by infantry squads, but is only necessary during periods of limited visibility.
#3 is best accomplished by the company as a whole, depending on the size and immediate surrounding terrain.


broader overview of this regimental combat team is such:
- Regimental HQ and signals
- Mechanized Infantry Company (As above)
- Tank Squadron
- Tank Squadron
- Tank Squadron
- SPG battery
- Recce troop
- Regimental FO troop
- SHORAD/SPAAG troop
- Tank Destroyer troop
- Assault Pioneer platoon
- Assault bridging troop

really need to reduce the span of control at the regimental level, 11 subordinate units is way too many for most commanders and staff to handle effectively.

Some thoughts:
1. Combine the Assault Pioneer and Bridging platoon into a single engineer unit. (Or place a AVLB inside each Tank Sqdrn)
2. move the TD troop to be part of your infantry company.
3. Group the engineers, recce and SHORAD/SPAAG into a Combat Support Co

A side note, why have additional recce in the infantry company along with a Regimental Recce Troop?

[Taihei Tengoku]

What will probably end up happening is that there will be the maneuver forces under the control of the CO but the artillery and logistics/engineers gets their own deputy commanders. As it stands it has all the units of a Soviet CAB/Russian BTG, but with an inverted tank-infantry ratio.

[North Arkana]

1: "I was thinking huge howitzer style railguns that shot discs fill with MIRVs."
2: "no"
1: "but y The science is there."
3: "Too OP (and stupid)"
1: "A howitzer is too op?"
4: "I think it's more the huge railgun that shoots MIRVs filled discs that is the OP part"
1: "It's essentially an advanced howitzer. I don't get if it's the word salad or what, but they're just electromagnetically propelled artillery."

Every day we grow farther from god

[Gallia-]

Why do you keep thinking there's some key to industry in North Africa?[There's nothing there that makes it particularly well-suited to industrial development. And indeed there's a lot that makes it a poor candidate in this regard, given its low population density, lack of exploitable resources, lack of hydropower potential, poor fertility, etc. The Nile is the only thing in North Africa that's useful until oil starts to matter, and even then the Nile is inferior to the Congo both as a source of fertile growing area and hydropower potential. The only benefit to North Africa is that you can more easily sell stuff to the Europeans but that's not enough to overcome the disadvantages the region has.

The Congo river basin is the most valuable part of Africa, full stop. It is rich in resources, has high fertility, has enormous hydropower potential, and can be turned into an effective transportation network with a bit of effort to construct locks around the rapids. While not as rich in oil, it still has significant reserves.

A few minutes of basic research though and you can find all this yourself.

The only reason to bother heading along the coastline is to ensure others don't claim it and then start moving inland. Otherwise, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, etc. are of no particular interest.

So I probably just want to expand into wherever the green is on the continent?

I'm seeing then that the west coast, upon which the most potent yet dangerous lands are, should be my goal for expansion. I'm also seeing that I need to push through into DR Congo, and into all the coastal nations along the Gulf of Guinea. If I do that, then I hold a significantly better chance at getting ahead, right?

Leave North Africa out of the scope of my interests until later 1800's when the Suez is up and I see my chance to grab it and hold it easily for trade purposes... this, however, should not be my main priority. I should be focusing on building up internal infrastructure to support the heartlands and begin a tradition of positive civil development, right? Enforce change, bugger indigenous tribes, and use soviet tactics for just pushing through the slog of central Africa to hit the far coast in some Somalian perversion of Manifest Destiny?

Land for land's sake is non-existent. The only plausible route is to have micro-empires fighting over scraps of valuable land between the undeveloped dense jungle and Sahara desert. Which means the only plausible route is to be colonized by Europeans. In order for Africa to be "unified", you need to destroy the indigenous cultures (there are probably more indigenous cultures in Africa than Eurasia, for one thing, and the population is smaller, so the chances of being able to do this is rare without an actual invasion by a huge foreign enemy; not coincidentally this is exactly what happened with Europe!) and you'd need to have a reason for being there.

The first part is probably possible. You don't need to physically kill everyone, you can just adopt an apartheid empire like Qing or something. The second part is impossible, because Africa has nothing of note or value in the jungles until you realize that they're full of diamonds that rich Westerners want to buy or gold mines or rare earths or phosphorous or whatever, which requires industrialization. And even then, the material wealth is dwarfed by the Sinosphere/East Asia and North America, where rare earths, uranium, and other industrial elements flow like water. By the time you realize that Africa has something valuable, you've already been colonized and you're being told this by a Briton or a Frenchman or a Belgian who is building roads to get the materials from mines to ports and back to Europe.

You might be able to achieve a total despotic, divine right regime if you have a Green Sahara or something, but you will be at the mercy of Eurasia, because it is impractical for reasons of geography and demographics that anyone besides maybe a more aggressive, more militarily successful Song Dynasty or various European countries could industrialize, at least at first.

Africa is completely devoid of the most cheapest source of compact energy in the pre-Industrial age. So you are left with waterwheels and windmills until someone discovers that oil exists deep underground and decides they need to suck it up. Or uranium in the Congo that can be used to fuel atomic powerplants. And naturally, it's not going to be Africans who will discover it. Because Africans have not industrialized to the extent that they would need it. Rather, it will be Chinese or Europeans who discover it.

Africa's biggest problem is that it missing the obvious link between agrarian and industrial societies: cheap energy. It has very small amounts of coal, and all other forms of energy, besides solar power, require advanced extraction techniques that cannot be easily done by hand. And solar power is so inefficient that it cannot fuel an industrial economy. Manchuria is the actual best place to industrialize because it has so much energy just sitting around in the dirt. But Song never extended far enough into Manchuria to seriously tap the energy reserves there, and Liao Dynasty was so small/backwards that it's unlikely to have discovered the utility of coal to any serious degree anyway.

What will probably end up happening is that there will be the maneuver forces under the control of the CO but the artillery and logistics/engineers gets their own deputy commanders. As it stands it has all the units of a Soviet CAB/Russian BTG, but with an inverted tank-infantry ratio.

It can only really be made to work in the widest of Levants or the most expansive of Steppes.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Which is exactly what Sumer is so I guess it works?

From my extensive combined-arms experience in Steel Panthers Main Battle Tank infantry are a hassle to move and in open terrain a specialized assault group (like Kyiv's stosstruppe) would be much more useful than a ton of infantry that are only good within four hexes and move real slow.

[Gallia-]

Which is exactly what Sumer is so I guess it works?

Yeah that's my point.

My actual point is that "that is something the IDF would do pre-1982" but mount the troops in M113s or something instead of an actual IFV.

Although at this point I still can't tell if Sumer is supposed to be Fertile Crescent, or Newfoundland and he just forgot the password to "Arcadia". He keeps talking about white people weapons like CG, HK21, and Leopard 1 instead of brown people weapons like "Gr88", "scatterblastas", and "Juggernauts of Death"/"MCA-7" that I'm provided adequate evidence to believe the latter, but he is still posting with "Sumer".

From my extensive combined-arms experience in Steel Panthers Main Battle Tank infantry are a hassle to move and in open terrain a specialized assault group (like Kyiv's stosstruppe) would be much more useful than a ton of infantry that are only good within four hexes and move real slow.

You should suffer so many command penalties using M577 that you can only advance like one hex every turn for constant movement and two hexes but you have to reestablish contact for a turn by stopping and getting your bearings first. So either the tank just stops moving or the crew actually dismounts, or both. It would be Most Realistic Computer Hex Game at that point.

What did Europe really learn from the Russo-Japanese War? Did anybody, even the Russians themselves garner a healthy respect for the artillery shell and the machine gun?

tenno heika banzai

It's a bit hard to separate signal from noise from the Russo-Japanese War. In the case of the war at sea there was little noise: the decisive battle was decided by long-range gunnery and that led to HMS Dreadnought (though the Japanese themselves had the idea first). Port Arthur was an intense siege on a narrow front against a minor detachment of Russians, awaiting the main army coming in from the north. The decisive battle on land at Mukden was a fairly conventional set-piece battle. It wasn't decided by throw weight of the artillery batteries but by maneuver of the better-coordinated and worse-equipped IJA. That sieges are a shitshow is nothing new, and at Mukden the plan was to destroy the Russians in the field so that the Japanese wouldn't have to invest Mukden like they had Port Arthur.

If you were a fairly conventional (and by no means dumb!) military theorist in 1906 you would think that future battles would play out like Mukden rather than Port Arthur at a continental scale.

This is a dank sperg.

[Dostanuot Loj]

OK, looking at my mechanized infantry companies. Essentially company sized units which are assigned to tank regiments as part of a regimental combat team. So this is regiment (aka batalion) sized combined arms. In this guise, the infantry are entirely there to support the tanks of the regiment in their task of victory through maneuver.

So, the company has a few roles:
1: Direct support of the tanks.
2: Local security of the tanks.
3: Assault/defense of minor local strongpoints.

Is there a normal order of priority for these for tasks?

My sense is that:
#1 is best accomplished by an infantry platoon if the regiment is conducting offensive operations and is not required during defensive or retrograde operations.
#2 is best accomplished by infantry squads, but is only necessary during periods of limited visibility.
#3 is best accomplished by the company as a whole, depending on the size and immediate surrounding terrain.


broader overview of this regimental combat team is such:
- Regimental HQ and signals
- Mechanized Infantry Company (As above)
- Tank Squadron
- Tank Squadron
- Tank Squadron
- SPG battery
- Recce troop
- Regimental FO troop
- SHORAD/SPAAG troop
- Tank Destroyer troop
- Assault Pioneer platoon
- Assault bridging troop

really need to reduce the span of control at the regimental level, 11 subordinate units is way too many for most commanders and staff to handle effectively.

Some thoughts:
1. Combine the Assault Pioneer and Bridging platoon into a single engineer unit. (Or place a AVLB inside each Tank Sqdrn)
2. move the TD troop to be part of your infantry company.
3. Group the engineers, recce and SHORAD/SPAAG into a Combat Support Co

A side note, why have additional recce in the infantry company along with a Regimental Recce Troop?

No more complicated command wise then essentially any other combined arms unit. The 3-5 subunits thing has to do with Maneuver not supporting forces. That said, I should have been more clear that almost everything is cross -attached from other units in the brigade or division, and thus can't be put into a combined unit. The regimental combat team is at its core the tank regiment and it's HQ, so everything not in that are attached from other units.

Also, different types and levels of recce. Never enough recce.

Task assignment is largely left to regimental commanders, in line with the intentions of the brigade and division commanders. Sometimes they can push this down, sometimes they don't get the freedom. So there is no specific order of tasks, and what is done is dictated by the situation and what higher officers want done.

But TT is right in that both regimental, and to less extent company, HQ is large enough and adequately staffed to take on the extra stuff.

TT is also right in that Sumer is essentially open plains. With not infrequent canals and wadis. So the Sumerian military is heavily invested into the tanks.

Gayla: I have a puppet I use for newfoundland.

[Gallia-]

You stopped using scatterblastas though so I'm unconvinced you are the real Sumer.

[Dostanuot Loj]

You stopped using scatterblastas though so I'm unconvinced you are the real Sumer.

I thought nobody liked them.

I promise for you I will work them back into other infantry units. Traditional infantry roles are divided by armoured and motorized infantry for me, and I think they need more shotguns then. Since they do far less fighting in the open and far more taking hamlets.

[Gallia-]

I mean, I still don't like them, but it's what "Sumer" means in my brain. I've also associated White Man Weapons like Leopards/84mms/HKXXs with Arcadia.

[The Akasha Colony]

So I probably just want to expand into wherever the green is on the continent?

I'm seeing then that the west coast, upon which the most potent yet dangerous lands are, should be my goal for expansion. I'm also seeing that I need to push through into DR Congo, and into all the coastal nations along the Gulf of Guinea. If I do that, then I hold a significantly better chance at getting ahead, right?

Leave North Africa out of the scope of my interests until later 1800's when the Suez is up and I see my chance to grab it and hold it easily for trade purposes... this, however, should not be my main priority. I should be focusing on building up internal infrastructure to support the heartlands and begin a tradition of positive civil development, right? Enforce change, bugger indigenous tribes, and use soviet tactics for just pushing through the slog of central Africa to hit the far coast in some Somalian perversion of Manifest Destiny?

Africa is extremely resource rich but the problem is that it lacks any obvious means of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one. At least, not one that can be easily replicated nation-wide. You can build textile factories along the Congo in the same manner as textile mills in the Northeast US were built, but without plentiful coal there is no easy way to power factories outside of the basin. So you end up with a small core of industrial development focused on the river and limited to basic tasks while the rest of the country remains agrarian as it always was, and whoever ended up along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, in Europe, and in North Asia starts exploiting their coal reserves to industrialize most if not all of their country.

The problem is that Africa is lacking in ready access to a few basic resources (coal, iron, lead) even though it is extremely rich in a number of very desirable ones (gold, uranium, diamonds, aluminum, cobalt) and acceptably rich in others. A modern society would have no problem providing for itself in Africa, but the trouble is figuring out how to build one when the best resources for early exploitation are comparatively rare.

I suppose you could try to sell gold to the Europeans and Americans in exchange for coal and iron, but the value of these resources would not be known until the industrial revolution started occurring in which case they are suddenly in high demand.

[Kassaran]

Africa is extremely resource rich but the problem is that it lacks any obvious means of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one. At least, not one that can be easily replicated nation-wide. You can build textile factories along the Congo in the same manner as textile mills in the Northeast US were built, but without plentiful coal there is no easy way to power factories outside of the basin. So you end up with a small core of industrial development focused on the river and limited to basic tasks while the rest of the country remains agrarian as it always was, and whoever ended up along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, in Europe, and in North Asia starts exploiting their coal reserves to industrialize most if not all of their country.

The problem is that Africa is lacking in ready access to a few basic resources (coal, iron, lead) even though it is extremely rich in a number of very desirable ones (gold, uranium, diamonds, aluminum, cobalt) and acceptably rich in others. A modern society would have no problem providing for itself in Africa, but the trouble is figuring out how to build one when the best resources for early exploitation are comparatively rare.

I suppose you could try to sell gold to the Europeans and Americans in exchange for coal and iron, but the value of these resources would not be known until the industrial revolution started occurring in which case they are suddenly in high demand.

1800, sits dead center of the general start dates of the industrial revolution (1760-1820) while colonization of Africa happened in the later half of the 1800's. fortunately, that's our timeline and with NS-wankery, we've got people already beginning the processes of both, colonization and industrialization, while those doing one, usually aren't doing the latter.

The group of people industrializing are, as before, Britain and to a much different note, America and 'British-Russia'. America is industrializing because moon alien experiments while Britain is kind of on the same path as before while Russia is working on it's fun-stuffs.

I might just be in luck though. It looks like the majority of Africa's coal deposits, are right strung out along the eastern coast, pooling in South Africa. If I can push south and chase coal deposits, is it possible, plausible even, that I could develop a system that could industrialize the heartland at least? that's my number one concern right now.

Land for land's sake is non-existent. The only plausible route is to have micro-empires fighting over scraps of valuable land between the undeveloped dense jungle and Sahara desert. Which means the only plausible route is to be colonized by Europeans. In order for Africa to be "unified", you need to destroy the indigenous cultures (there are probably more indigenous cultures in Africa than Eurasia, for one thing, and the population is smaller, so the chances of being able to do this is rare without an actual invasion by a huge foreign enemy; not coincidentally this is exactly what happened with Europe!) and you'd need to have a reason for being there.

Already trying to put together an army force, but unfortunately there's going to be little amounts of properly armed soldiers, so- yeah.

The first part is probably possible. You don't need to physically kill everyone, you can just adopt an apartheid empire like Qing or something.

Already in the plan.

The second part is impossible, because Africa has nothing of note or value in the jungles until you realize that they're full of diamonds that rich Westerners want to buy or gold mines or rare earths or phosphorous or whatever, which requires industrialization. And even then, the material wealth is dwarfed by the Sinosphere/East Asia and North America, where rare earths, uranium, and other industrial elements flow like water. By the time you realize that Africa has something valuable, you've already been colonized and you're being told this by a Briton or a Frenchman or a Belgian who is building roads to get the materials from mines to ports and back to Europe.

You might be able to achieve a total despotic, divine right regime if you have a Green Sahara or something, but you will be at the mercy of Eurasia, because it is impractical for reasons of geography and demographics that anyone besides maybe a more aggressive, more militarily successful Song Dynasty or various European countries could industrialize, at least at first.

Good thing the various European countries working against me are having to deal with their own issues right now.

Africa is completely devoid of the most cheapest source of compact energy in the pre-Industrial age. So you are left with waterwheels and windmills until someone discovers that oil exists deep underground and decides they need to suck it up. Or uranium in the Congo that can be used to fuel atomic powerplants. And naturally, it's not going to be Africans who will discover it. Because Africans have not industrialized to the extent that they would need it. Rather, it will be Chinese or Europeans who discover it.

That latter bit is something I'm trying to change, but by making the choices that let me beat the European nations to the punch first. I still have ties to Europe through the 'intelligentsia' that have helped to create a Somalian 'empire'. I'm working from herein on the assumption that the higher ups running the empire for the 'emperor' (read figurehead puppet of the Europeans that fled to Africa for a new and better life) understand the importance of coal and what it is going to mean in the future, and as such have begun looking for deposits across the land.

Africa's biggest problem is that it missing the obvious link between agrarian and industrial societies: cheap energy. It has very small amounts of coal, and all other forms of energy, besides solar power, require advanced extraction techniques that cannot be easily done by hand. And solar power is so inefficient that it cannot fuel an industrial economy. Manchuria is the actual best place to industrialize because it has so much energy just sitting around in the dirt. But Song never extended far enough into Manchuria to seriously tap the energy reserves there, and Liao Dynasty was so small/backwards that it's unlikely to have discovered the utility of coal to any serious degree anyway.

Asia isn't my concern right now. That's out of my hands, as I've said before. I have an advantage here in that I do have the regional science buff, meaning I can get to tech reasonably quicker than most others, or finish development of key technologies first. If I needed to choose, what do I need to research or look into most in order to ensure I can stay ahead of European colonial aggression and strategically where do I need to go? If I need to chase coal to continue fueling my own industrialization in the heartland of the Somalian 'empire', then I can head south and roll over any sort of opposition I come across. If I need to look into getting money first, then I'll push to sell more coffee and gold from my lands and push into central Africa to pull out more. If I need to look into securing my borders from colonial aggression, then I'll turtle for now and look into building up some sort of navy while gathering what money I can to pay for it all.

[Gallia-]

South Africa's coal deposits can't even fuel South Africa. Why do you think they can fuel a pan-continental industrial empire? Here's a hint: They can't. Until oil or the atomic age, Africa is a net energy importer. Which means it isn't industrial, it is pre-industrial, until other people have industrialized to the point that industrialization can trickle down to the Africans. This began to happen in the 1970s or so, when South Africa was independent and began importing industrial goods, like engines and oil, from places like Germany, Saudi Arabia, and America.

Knocking over the various African and Asian empires was so piss easy for the European militaries that they did it while their homelands were undergoing revolution or invasion. So yeah, "communist revolution" or "the Germans are invading" won't stop France from stealing Algeria. It actually accelerated it in real life.

By the time you have met Europeans, you are already doomed if you do not successfully subjugate them first. An African Empire might be able to survive in a world where Islam conquers Europe, but it would just be a caliphate.

I am not saying "Asia is your concern" I am tell you outright that Africa probably doesn't have the available cheap energy that Asia, North America, and Europe have. The high latitudes are simply better for industrialization and sedentary populations because they have more readily arable land and more easily accessible energy sources. You are not industrializing with water wheels, windmills, and water buffalo. Because the Europeans or Chinese or Indians or whoever come to steal your land and kill your people will have coal.

There is literally one way for Africa to not be colonized by Europeans: colonize them instead. Otherwise you will be destroyed.

[Greater Allidron]

What kind of units are best suited for fighting in tropical forests? I'm assuming lighter infantry will be needed or can mechanized and armored units work just as fine?

[Ugetstan]

What kind of units are best suited for fighting in tropical forests? I'm assuming lighter infantry will be needed or can mechanized and armored units work just as fine?

Usually tracked IFV or AFVs work. But it really depends on the severity of the desert. Tanks work as well.

[Spirit of Hope]

What kind of units are best suited for fighting in tropical forests? I'm assuming lighter infantry will be needed or can mechanized and armored units work just as fine?

Mechanized forces can fight almost anywhere, and where they can't fight you generally aren't going to be finding much worth fighting over.

[Allanea]

Mechanized infantry, with some small amount of light infantry support.

[Dostanuot Loj]

I mean, I still don't like them, but it's what "Sumer" means in my brain. I've also associated White Man Weapons like Leopards/84mms/HKXXs with Arcadia.

That largely stems from wanting to move to a more RL tech setting, and not wanting to ruin Sumer because ts so established in some circles. Then not giving a crap about that an wanting to make Sumer more 2nd world, real tech. So it's more fun world building within real constraints.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

So I probably just want to expand into wherever the green is on the continent?

I'm seeing then that the west coast, upon which the most potent yet dangerous lands are, should be my goal for expansion. I'm also seeing that I need to push through into DR Congo, and into all the coastal nations along the Gulf of Guinea. If I do that, then I hold a significantly better chance at getting ahead, right?

Leave North Africa out of the scope of my interests until later 1800's when the Suez is up and I see my chance to grab it and hold it easily for trade purposes... this, however, should not be my main priority. I should be focusing on building up internal infrastructure to support the heartlands and begin a tradition of positive civil development, right? Enforce change, bugger indigenous tribes, and use soviet tactics for just pushing through the slog of central Africa to hit the far coast in some Somalian perversion of Manifest Destiny?

Africa is extremely resource rich but the problem is that it lacks any obvious means of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one.

The problem with Africa is that it is full of stupid, short-sighted people.

At least, not one that can be easily replicated nation-wide. You can build textile factories along the Congo in the same manner as textile mills in the Northeast US were built, but without plentiful coal there is no easy way to power factories outside of the basin. So you end up with a small core of industrial development focused on the river and limited to basic tasks while the rest of the country remains agrarian as it always was, and whoever ended up along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, in Europe, and in North Asia starts exploiting their coal reserves to industrialize most if not all of their country.

You know you can just move coal from other places. Africa had inland cities on a European level of development before decolonisation. Japan was never rich in coal (or anything really... except people).

[Greater Allidron]

Mechanized infantry, with some small amount of light infantry support.

What kind of units are best suited for fighting in tropical forests? I'm assuming lighter infantry will be needed or can mechanized and armored units work just as fine?

Mechanized forces can fight almost anywhere, and where they can't fight you generally aren't going to be finding much worth fighting over.

Thanks for the quick responses!

[Spirit of Hope]

Mechanized infantry, with some small amount of light infantry support.

Mechanized forces can fight almost anywhere, and where they can't fight you generally aren't going to be finding much worth fighting over.

Thanks for the quick responses!

Your welcome, feel free to keep asking questions.

Africa is extremely resource rich but the problem is that it lacks any obvious means of transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one.

The problem with Africa is that it is full of stupid, short-sighted people.

Not really. It is filled with people who are suffering from a number of issues that look easy to fix from the outside but given all of the tangled complications within are actually very hard to fix.

At least, not one that can be easily replicated nation-wide. You can build textile factories along the Congo in the same manner as textile mills in the Northeast US were built, but without plentiful coal there is no easy way to power factories outside of the basin. So you end up with a small core of industrial development focused on the river and limited to basic tasks while the rest of the country remains agrarian as it always was, and whoever ended up along the mid-Atlantic seaboard, in Europe, and in North Asia starts exploiting their coal reserves to industrialize most if not all of their country.

You know you can just move coal from other places. Africa had inland cities on a European level of development before decolonisation. Japan was never rich in coal (or anything really... except people).

Moving coal doesn't really work in this scenario. To start needing coal you have to know how useful it is, if you don't have enough around to mine you are unlikely to go around asking for it. Because you don't know useful it is to build industry. Japan escaped this because they started really industrializing after everyone else, so they knew how useful coal is from the beginning of their usefulness. Japan escaped colonization for a verity of reasons, but largely because they had a rather powerful centralized state before the Europeans turned up, and were an island without a lot of resources that European nations were seeking. This isn't really the case for 1800's Africa.