NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Austrasien]

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?

Anywhere people live in significant numbers will not be solid forest, but probably forest inter-spaced with clearings. Just about any kind of economic activity, including subsistence farming, is associated with land clearance and the amount of land clearance will increase in direct proportion to economic development. And people will also create road networks with a sophistication and density proportional to the level of economic development. Only the most primitive hunter gatherers can truly live in the forest.

Virgin forests cannot support a significant population and generally only have military value as potential routes to somewhere more interesting.

Heavy mechanized and light infantry forces make a good team in forested terrain. Mechanized forces advanced along whatever passes for roads, seizing settlements are other key locations as they go and forcing the defender to mass their forces to halt their advance. Light infantry maneuver through the forests to outflank defenders who have massed to stop the mechanized advance and they become the hammer that breaks the enemy on the mechanized anvil.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

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.

I.e. problems that intelligent, far-sighted people could easily fix.

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.

There was lots of proto-industry powered by charcoal and water mills that didn't exist in Africa before the Europeans either, and the Japanese defended themselves and even conquered an empire without access to resources. It wasn't down to natural resource shortages.

[Greater Allidron]

I'll take you up on that offer Spirit of Hope.

Currently I'm struggling with the organization of my mechanized divisions. In Namgiang the division is considered the basic tactical unit, so I tried to model some of my stuff after Soviet divisions. However, Namgiang isn't the Soviet Union, especially culturally and geographically. This is what I got so far:

Group=Regiment

Rifle Division:
HQ Battalion
3x Mechanized Group
1x Artillery Group
1x SAM Group
1x Sustainment Group

I'm going for 12-13k personnel for my mechanized divisions, and I am going to have a lot of corps level support.

What kind of support battalions separate from the Mechanized Groups should one have? What kind of factors influence these decisions?

Should I do three mechanized regiments then have an armor battalion in each, or make it 3 mechanized 1 armor regiment, or both?

[Spirit of Hope]

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.

I.e. problems that intelligent, far-sighted people could easily fix.

Nope. If it were as easy as "smart far sighted people will fix it" the problem would be fixed. There are plenty of smart far sighted people out there, willing to give advise. The problem is going to be implementing any such fix. How do you pay for it? Who oversees it and who carries out the work?

Then their are issues of government and stability. What is short sighted and stupid when looking at a nation, isn't short sighted or stupid from the position of keeping the people on top on top. So how do you get the right people on top, and them keep them their? Is the government set up to encourage actions that benefit the whole, or the minority? Building a stable democracy isn't easy.

It is easy as a (presumably) college educated person living in a modern industrialized nation with access to the internet to come up with solutions. Not so easy without those advantages. Instead of going there stupid because they don't do X, instead ask why aren't they doing X.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

I.e. problems that intelligent, far-sighted people could easily fix.

Nope. If it were as easy as "smart far sighted people will fix it" the problem would be fixed. There are plenty of smart far sighted people out there, willing to give advise.

I'm willing to advise a blind man on how it is to see but that doesn't mean he can follow my advice.

The problem is going to be implementing any such fix. How do you pay for it? Who oversees it and who carries out the work?

Then their are issues of government and stability. What is short sighted and stupid when looking at a nation, isn't short sighted or stupid from the position of keeping the people on top on top. So how do you get the right people on top, and them keep them their? Is the government set up to encourage actions that benefit the whole, or the minority? Building a stable democracy isn't easy.

It is easy as a (presumably) college educated person living in a modern industrialized nation with access to the internet to come up with solutions. Not so easy without those advantages. Instead of going there stupid because they don't do X, instead ask why aren't they doing X.

They're stupid because we can measure how stupid they are, and when we do we measure that they are very stupid indeed. This explains what they (fail to) accomplish. According to economic statistics, North Korea and Zimbabwe are about equally poor. We can suggest that both countries are equally poorly governed. But it's clear that Zimbabweans are still considerably stupider and less organised than North Koreans.

[Taihei Tengoku]

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.

There was lots of proto-industry powered by charcoal and water mills that didn't exist in Africa before the Europeans either, and the Japanese defended themselves and even conquered an empire without access to resources. It wasn't down to natural resource shortages.

When they could count on the good graces of the Europeans, sure; the Meiji era began with free trade after all. However after the expansion of Asian empires and the establishment of exclusive "spheres of influence" in the biggest market in the world there was little else Japan could do to sustain its industrialization without an empire. In the Protectionist Dark Age of 1930-47 the imperial necessity was even greater, even though it was probably better in the long run if they reached an accomodation with the USA.

[HMS Queen Elizabeth]

There was lots of proto-industry powered by charcoal and water mills that didn't exist in Africa before the Europeans either, and the Japanese defended themselves and even conquered an empire without access to resources. It wasn't down to natural resource shortages.

When they could count on the good graces of the Europeans, sure; the Meiji era began with free trade after all. However after the expansion of Asian empires and the establishment of exclusive "spheres of influence" in the biggest market in the world there was little else Japan could do to sustain its industrialization without an empire. In the Protectionist Dark Age of 1930-47 the imperial necessity was even greater, even though it was probably better in the long run if they reached an accomodation with the USA.

Sure, if Britain went to full mobilisation or something it could have conquered Japan in the 19th century. Maybe even considerably less than that, but still at major expense.

Poland got conquered in this way, and there was nothing wrong with them.

It can happen to the best of us, and there's not necessarily any shame in it.

It just isn't what happened to Africa.

[Kazarogkai]

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.

One thing Africa has a shiton of though is trees though which is from what I remember the primary means by which they did fuel things(aka iron smelting and the like).

Trees = charcoal

which is a reasonable alternative to coal. Coal usually only replaced charcoal when deforestation became a problem in the country in question forcing them to make a switch to something else.

Also the main issue with Africa isn't really it's resources quite honestly, it's the environment. Few if any good navigable rivers and lakes mixed in with horrific obstacles in the form of rain forests and massive deserts, and the overall north south orientation of the continent all contribute to isolating the local populations which in itself leads to ideas and technology spreading far more slowly and ultimately bringing about a population which has a tendency to stagnate. In many cases they came up with some pretty nifty shit, technologically speaking, but said tech never spread due to aforementioned reasons. A good example of this would be the discovery of high quality carbon steel in parts of Tanzania nearly 2000 years ago which while cool seems to have never spread outside that specific area for the aforementioned reasons. This isn't helped by the outright hostility of the environment towards many forms of draft animals especially horses due to the rugged terrain and endemic diseases which only further contributes. When your stuck with just runners and some dirt roads quickly washed away by the next wet season nothing is going to spread that quickly, including ideas.

This not only hindered technology but slowed societal building, aka empire creation. Notice all of Africa's really big empires developed in a very specific region, namely the Sahel belt which has a nice east west orientation and the ability to support reasonable populations of horses and other draft animals which all encourage empire building and with it societal advancement.

The fact that Africa skipped the bronze age and jumped straight into the iron age is probably the greatest example of this. Due to the nature of bronze which is and alloy formed from tin and bronze which are rarely found in the same region and as such necessitate long distance trade networks in order to access both. Though yes Africa has plenty of copper, and I believe it does have tin but the problem is in order to get bronze you need for the groups who have the former to have trade contacts with the latter. This never happened though due to aforementioned problems with communication and trade as a result Africa didn't get a bronze age and hence it had to "skip it". Not because African societies were particularly well advanced but due to the exact opposite reason, a lack of development. Iron due to the relative ease by which to obtain it was really there only option besides Neolithic materials(stone, bone, wood). And despite the fact that they skipped the bronze age in terms of tech for tool and weapons one may notice when reading about African societies they honestly have more in common with bronze age societies like the Mycenaeans(for the more advanced ones anyways) than say medieval Europe in terms of political and social development.

For all intents and purposes the Africa as a continent is basically in some ways is systematically by design discourages development as a whole. In effect it is basically a series of upland plateaus inter spaced by disease ridden jungle in between with few easily navigable rivers or lakes from which to make use of. The civilizations usually develop on said plateaus from which they become stuck and never really move out from. This results in isolation which leads to stagnation and so on.

Another issue that brings issue is the lack of native domestics. As Jared diamond more or less put it all animals which could have been domesticated have more or less already been, and effectively in a brilliant stroke of luck practically every single one of them come from Eurasia. All potential domestics Africa has access to have to be imported from elsewhere. The reasoning behind this is hard to determine but the general consensus from what I read is twofold: Humans developed on Africa making the animals in said environment incredibly hostile to humans, and two lack of time. For the latter case is due to the lateness of human society developing on Africa. Hunter gatherers have less reason to and ability to domesticate animals compared to sedentary peoples consequently since sedentary culture developed a lot later in Africa this means they have had overall less time to potentially try to domesticate what animals exist on said continent. To the former, that is pretty much the reason why domesticating animals in Africa is effectively a dead end. Their all too damn aggressive along with other issues. Looking at potentially useful domestics this seems to be a usual theme:

Zebras: Too aggressive. Buck when things go on back and have a tendency to bite, alot.

Hippos: Far too aggressive, breed to slow, and their semi-aquatic.

Elephants: Aggressive, bread to slow, poor social structure(no alpha male eccentric grouping).

Cheetahs: Their carnivores, won't breed without a massive "home" area.

Rhinos: aggressive, mentally unstable due to nearsightedness, bread slow

The list goes on. So in order just to have domestics Africans have too import them from far away which due to aforementioned environmental problems rendering trade difficult this can take a very long time. And even if they do such a thing, the environment comes to strike again in the form of disease most notably in the form of the Tsetse fly which brings horrific mortality rates for effectively any non native species. Sure yes with time they can be adapted to the local conditions but the results aren't pretty with the most potent example being native Sanga cattle which though reasonably hardy are some of the most worthless of any cattle breed having incredibly low productivity and size(1400 lbs vs 2000 lbs).

So to summarize, it's less to due with the resources on the continent and more to due with the environment itself being just suckish for any sort of development in general.

[Taihei Tengoku]

When they could count on the good graces of the Europeans, sure; the Meiji era began with free trade after all. However after the expansion of Asian empires and the establishment of exclusive "spheres of influence" in the biggest market in the world there was little else Japan could do to sustain its industrialization without an empire. In the Protectionist Dark Age of 1930-47 the imperial necessity was even greater, even though it was probably better in the long run if they reached an accomodation with the USA.

Sure, if Britain went to full mobilisation or something it could have conquered Japan in the 19th century. Maybe even considerably less than that, but still at major expense.

Poland got conquered in this way, and there was nothing wrong with them.

It can happen to the best of us, and there's not necessarily any shame in it.

Japan would've been China in miniature where every country in the world pulls its strings while the territory remains nominally intact. The Russians get Sendai or Niigata, the British get Osaka, the French Nagasaki, and there is an extraterritorial legation quarter a mile from Edo Castle. Hardly an ideal situation.

Can you clarify what you mean by Poland?

It just isn't what happened to Africa.

True, but can you blame them?

[The Akasha Colony]

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).

Japan survived on importing weapons, equipment, industrial expertise, and basically everything else from Europe and the United States. It never really managed to "industrialize" until after WWII; its industrial capacity was extremely limited until it started conquering an empire of its own and remained limited on a per-capita basis until post-WWII when Japan was free to import whatever resources it needed thanks to ever-liberalizing trade rules in the Western system.

Japan's reputation for development and military strength comes mostly from the Japanese government's decision to devote an unsustainable percentage of their limited industrial capacity to military pursuits, in contrast to Western nations. But even with this, their potential was clearly limited. The Japanese government considered the IJN's Eight-Eight plan to be mind-bogglingly expensive, while the British were able to build over two dozen new dreadnoughts in less than ten years despite having a population 30 million smaller.

Japan might be a useful model except that the nation in question seems to be unable or unwilling to rely on imports of goods, expertise, equipment, and raw materials. Doing so requires letting someone else develop that expertise and resource base first and then hoping they'll be nice enough to trade rather than conquer.

[Puzikas]

Guns, Germs, and Steel is the flavor book of the day it seems.

[Allanea]

What stops me from using straight-up RDX in AT landmines?

[Minoa]

Only a handful of civilizations have enjoyed the blessing of geopolitics to not share a land border with their most dangerous enemies: Phoenicia, Minoa, Britain, Japan, and USA are among them.

From 1 May 2075, we will be sharing borders with Syria, a country engulfed in civil war – this is because the provinces of Adana, Hatay and Merson decisively voted on 8 June 2073 to leave Turkey and join Minoa. This and Minoa’s imminent entry to the EU means that Minoa’s literal ‘no-doors’ policy towards refugees will be up against the EU’s indecisiveness on how to handle the refugee crisis, ranging from support from the likes of Germany, to the opposition from the likes of Hungary.

[Theodosiya]

Gallia would've meant the Ancient Minoans. Kinda precursor to western civilization.

[Gallia-]

Only a handful of civilizations have enjoyed the blessing of geopolitics to not share a land border with their most dangerous enemies: Phoenicia, Minoa, Britain, Japan, and USA are among them.

From 1 May 2075, we will be sharing borders with Syria, a country engulfed in civil war – this is because the provinces of Adana, Hatay and Merson decisively voted on 8 June 2073 to leave Turkey and join Minoa. This and Minoa’s imminent entry to the EU means that Minoa’s literal ‘no-doors’ policy towards refugees will be up against the EU’s indecisiveness on how to handle the refugee crisis, ranging from support from the likes of Germany, to the opposition from the likes of Hungary.

I meant real life Minoans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization

[Allanea]

At any rate. RDX. Can it go into mines?

[Crookfur]

At any rate. RDX. Can it go into mines?

Yes and it has done. However it's most commonly used in various mixes for improved stability and insensitivity. Most common western mix would be comp B which adds tnt and parafin wax. RDX is becoming a bit less common with all the new IMEX series explosive compositions but it's still the main part of many of them.

[Allanea]

At any rate. RDX. Can it go into mines?

Yes and it has done. However it's most commonly used in various mixes for improved stability and insensitivity. Most common western mix would be comp B which adds tnt and parafin wax. RDX is becoming a bit less common with all the new IMEX series explosive compositions but it's still the main part of many of them.

As I understand it, RDX is quite a bit more potent than TNT. Just how hazardous would switching to RDX outright be?

What's the absolute most potent, dickish substance be to put in mines?

[Crookfur]

Yes and it has done. However it's most commonly used in various mixes for improved stability and insensitivity. Most common western mix would be comp B which adds tnt and parafin wax. RDX is becoming a bit less common with all the new IMEX series explosive compositions but it's still the main part of many of them.

As I understand it, RDX is quite a bit more potent than TNT. Just how hazardous would switching to RDX outright be?

What's the absolute most potent, dickish substance be to put in mines?

Sensitive enough that its only really used in small(ish) quantities in AP mines and its not really suitable for anthing you want to "launch".

Also mixing it with TNT makes it castable and moldable.

Anyway a nice list of mines by filler type can be found here:

http://www.nolandmines.com/explosivesinmines.htm

Generally you want your mine filler to be stable and insensitive so you can store, handle and leave it buried for long periods quite happily. It's the fuzing you want to make nasty.

[Spirit of Hope]

Nope. If it were as easy as "smart far sighted people will fix it" the problem would be fixed. There are plenty of smart far sighted people out there, willing to give advise.

I'm willing to advise a blind man on how it is to see but that doesn't mean he can follow my advice.

The problem is going to be implementing any such fix. How do you pay for it? Who oversees it and who carries out the work?

Then their are issues of government and stability. What is short sighted and stupid when looking at a nation, isn't short sighted or stupid from the position of keeping the people on top on top. So how do you get the right people on top, and them keep them their? Is the government set up to encourage actions that benefit the whole, or the minority? Building a stable democracy isn't easy.

It is easy as a (presumably) college educated person living in a modern industrialized nation with access to the internet to come up with solutions. Not so easy without those advantages. Instead of going there stupid because they don't do X, instead ask why aren't they doing X.

They're stupid because we can measure how stupid they are, and when we do we measure that they are very stupid indeed. This explains what they (fail to) accomplish. According to economic statistics, North Korea and Zimbabwe are about equally poor. We can suggest that both countries are equally poorly governed. But it's clear that Zimbabweans are still considerably stupider and less organised than North Koreans.

You know there you go and prove my point. Robert Mugabe, the "president" of Zimbabwe, isn't stupid, he just isn't necessarily interested in making Zimbabwe better. He is much more interested in enriching himself and his cronies. In a country where the per capita GDP is $1,000 Robert Mugabe is worth around $10,000,000.

Telling him how to fix Zimbabwe doesn't mater, it is all about how he can enrich himself, his key supporters, and remain in power. Even if he was interested in improving Zimbabwe he would have to worry about maintaining his power, which means diverting wealth to those people that he needs support from to "win elections."

[Allanea]

Of course, North Koreans score comparably to South Koreans on IQ tests, if the stats are to be believed.

Yet there are any number of African countries where people are wealthier than North Koreans.

[Allanea]

As I understand it, RDX is quite a bit more potent than TNT. Just how hazardous would switching to RDX outright be?

What's the absolute most potent, dickish substance be to put in mines?

Sensitive enough that its only really used in small(ish) quantities in AP mines and its not really suitable for anthing you want to "launch".

Also mixing it with TNT makes it castable and moldable.

Anyway a nice list of mines by filler type can be found here:

http://www.nolandmines.com/explosivesinmines.htm

Generally you want your mine filler to be stable and insensitive so you can store, handle and leave it buried for long periods quite happily. It's the fuzing you want to make nasty.

HMX is apparently very sstable.

[Tekeristan]

I'm willing to advise a blind man on how it is to see but that doesn't mean he can follow my advice.


They're stupid because we can measure how stupid they are, and when we do we measure that they are very stupid indeed. This explains what they (fail to) accomplish. According to economic statistics, North Korea and Zimbabwe are about equally poor. We can suggest that both countries are equally poorly governed. But it's clear that Zimbabweans are still considerably stupider and less organised than North Koreans.

You know there you go and prove my point. Robert Mugabe, the "president" of Zimbabwe, isn't stupid, he just isn't necessarily interested in making Zimbabwe better. He is much more interested in enriching himself and his cronies. In a country where the per capita GDP is $1,000 Robert Mugabe is worth around $10,000,000.

Telling him how to fix Zimbabwe doesn't mater, it is all about how he can enrich himself, his key supporters, and remain in power. Even if he was interested in improving Zimbabwe he would have to worry about maintaining his power, which means diverting wealth to those people that he needs support from to "win elections."

He is a 'race realist', so say as you will but little will likely change.

[I didnt vote for Trump]

A Mugabe-led Zimbabwe is still only marginally worse than any other African country in the same region. Many are still languishing in a power vacuum or feeling the effects from a despot inheriting the empty space. You can't expect to annex huge swaths of land, re-organize the inhabitants into new arbitrary boundaries, fuck off in the middle of the night without so much as a note of instructions on how immediate issues should be managed, leave a few of your hand-picked, local cronies in charge and expect it to turn out any other way. American colonies were more unified before independence, due to a greater non-native population and often through conflict against a common foe, hence authority gradually transitioned instead of quite suddenly disappearing altogether.

Sounds like a few need a brush up on African history. Are you guys aware that the Rwandan genocide only happened 23 years ago? There's your window into the social discord on the dark continent.

[Spirit of Hope]

You know there you go and prove my point. Robert Mugabe, the "president" of Zimbabwe, isn't stupid, he just isn't necessarily interested in making Zimbabwe better. He is much more interested in enriching himself and his cronies. In a country where the per capita GDP is $1,000 Robert Mugabe is worth around $10,000,000.

Telling him how to fix Zimbabwe doesn't mater, it is all about how he can enrich himself, his key supporters, and remain in power. Even if he was interested in improving Zimbabwe he would have to worry about maintaining his power, which means diverting wealth to those people that he needs support from to "win elections."

He is a 'race realist', so say as you will but little will likely change.

What the heck does that even mean?