NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Husseinarti]

What would be the effects of deliberately teaching recruits to be emotionally detached?

You lose a bunch of money
You lose a bunch of morale
You lose people being happy

Yeah then in 12-20 years we get to see all the news documentaries about how troops proceeded to kill themselves after they come into the civilian world, become totally unable to cope and adjust, and just off themselves.

Sometimes more often than naught they end up taking one, two, maybe twenty people with them in the process.

go for it~

[Dostanuot Loj]

What would be the effects of deliberately teaching recruits to be emotionally detached?

Just an FYI, and I am not a psychologist, but in my experiences talking with a lot of combat veterans, attempting to emotionally detach themselves emotionally from their experiences tends to drive them to heavy drinking, abusive relationships, drug abuse, and sometimes suicide.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Okay, so I have been thinking up an alt-history timeline for a nation that I may start RP-ing with, and I want to know if this scenario seems possible.

In 1917, after Nicholas II abdicates, a regency council made up of members of the Imperial family and military officers takes power; instead of embarking on what would be the disastrous Kerensky offensive, they decide to remain on the defensive, and the Germans are never able to gather the men for the July Offensive in 1918, and are forced to sign an armistice. At the peace negotiations, it was decided to give what would become interwar Poland in our time to the Russian Empire; dismayed at the thought of being forced back into Russian servitude, the Poles revolt, quickly followed by the Balts. Desperate, the Russians ally themselves with the German freikorps in East Prussia, and, after a two year war, though the Russians lose Congress Poland, and can never take Galicia, they maintain control of the Baltic States, and Germany maintains control of Danzig. This conflict would come to be known as the First Intermarian War. (map).

In 1942, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey form an alliance, and, a year later, begin the Second Intermarian War. Initially successful (the lines at the height of their power), they were eventually pushed back when the Imperial Russian Army arrived to support the Romanian Armies. At sea, though industrialization had greatly improved the capabilities of the Russian Navy, and the Russian Navy had some modern battleships and battlecruisers, the Italians were able to restrict their movements, and eventually a peace was signed that favored Italy. However, Italy's allies suffered greatly. In order to maintain peace, Russia, Greece, Romania, and Serbia formed the Eastern Orthodox Pact, forced Bulgaria into the pact, and made the Bosphorus an international zone through which the Russian fleet had military access. (map).

Because the Second World War never took place in the same capacity as it did historically, and the Russian civil war was far more minor, how much stronger could I expect the Russian economy to be between 1945 and the present? How much of its GDP could this Russian Empire spend on its military?

[Tekeristan]

The Stalinists had some pretty nice industrialization going on with them.
That's what made Russia any sort of real power.

[Dostanuot Loj]

Because the Second World War never took place in the same capacity as it did historically, and the Russian civil war was far more minor, how much stronger could I expect the Russian economy to be between 1945 and the present? How much of its GDP could this Russian Empire spend on its military?

You are looking at this wrong. The Russian economy was so incredibly backwards by 1917 that the various screw ups by the revolution, and later Communist governments, are what dragged Russia into the modern world. Without the revolution, civil war, forced industrialization in the 1930s, WW2, and the cold war, there is no motivation for the Russian elite to update. There was no insentivisation to industrialize, and ever incentive to not industrialize on Russia prior to Communisim. If you skip this part you essentially remain backwards.

Situations like the Kerensky offensive were disastrous but led to the Russian Army being forced to consider new ideas, and led to the fledgling Red Army post war to embrace modern concepts. It is very likely that an Imperial Russian Army of 1939, of your timeline, would look like one of 1916, and little changes.

Russia's advantage would rely only on its size, and in your Second Intermarian War, it would be a secondary player at best on any serious level. If they did not progress into Russia offensively, there is no doubt that the 1942 armies of Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey could bring the Russian Empire to defeat easily.

The only way to bring Russia even to its current position is to force it to industrialize, and that means you need to force through severe hardship. If you maintain the status quo, you don't advance. Your best hope is to end up like India, but that is not as likely. Especially as due to vast land and potential food and oil/gas imports the rest of the developed world has every incentive to keep Russia backwards. Pay the Russian elite to keep the population down, or essentially the Saudi Arabia of the North, but less powerful.

[United Muscovite Nations]

The Stalinists had some pretty nice industrialization going on with them.
That's what made Russia any sort of real power.

http://voxeu.org/article/russia-s-natio ... -1913-1928

If this is accurate, then the Russian economy declined enormously due to the civil war, and Stalin's industrialization, while it did promote economic recovery, wouldn't have been necessary if the economy hadn't failed before him taking over.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Because the Second World War never took place in the same capacity as it did historically, and the Russian civil war was far more minor, how much stronger could I expect the Russian economy to be between 1945 and the present? How much of its GDP could this Russian Empire spend on its military?

You are looking at this wrong. The Russian economy was so incredibly backwards by 1917 that the various screw ups by the revolution, and later Communist governments, are what dragged Russia into the modern world. Without the revolution, civil war, forced industrialization in the 1930s, WW2, and the cold war, there is no motivation for the Russian elite to update. There was no insentivisation to industrialize, and ever incentive to not industrialize on Russia prior to Communisim. If you skip this part you essentially remain backwards.

Situations like the Kerensky offensive were disastrous but led to the Russian Army being forced to consider new ideas, and led to the fledgling Red Army post war to embrace modern concepts. It is very likely that an Imperial Russian Army of 1939, of your timeline, would look like one of 1916, and little changes.

Russia's advantage would rely only on its size, and in your Second Intermarian War, it would be a secondary player at best on any serious level. If they did not progress into Russia offensively, there is no doubt that the 1942 armies of Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey could bring the Russian Empire to defeat easily.

The only way to bring Russia even to its current position is to force it to industrialize, and that means you need to force through severe hardship. If you maintain the status quo, you don't advance. Your best hope is to end up like India, but that is not as likely. Especially as due to vast land and potential food and oil/gas imports the rest of the developed world has every incentive to keep Russia backwards. Pay the Russian elite to keep the population down, or essentially the Saudi Arabia of the North, but less powerful.

As far as I can tell, this is outdated historiography. Before WWI, the Russian Empire was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and was quickly industrializing.

[Tekeristan]

Russia's economy was controlled by a small aristocracy who had no desire to perform socially necessary tasks like making clean water or electricity.
Stalin wasn't great, but he still industrialized Russia, which allowed it to have something akin to an economy.

Forced collectivization was also an astounding success, after it was performed Russia did not have a single famine since.
After WW1 Russia had no heavy industry, barely any electricity at all, and poor political ability. It's why it lost, and its revolution was a result of a failing system.

A revolution was inevitable, to be honest.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Russia's economy was controlled by a small aristocracy who had no desire to perform socially necessary tasks like making clean water or electricity.
Stalin wasn't great, but he still industrialized Russia, which allowed it to have something akin to an economy.

Forced collectivization was also an astounding success, after it was performed Russia did not have a single famine since.
After WW1 Russia had no heavy industry, barely any electricity at all, and poor political ability.

A revolution was inevitable, to be honest.

As I sourced earlier, the Russian Economy only went into total collapse after the February Revolution.

Moreover, if Russia had survived the Great War, it seems likely to me that there would have been a great deal of incentive to industrialize.

[Austrasien]

What would be the effects of deliberately teaching recruits to be emotionally detached?

For what purpose? Human's are already born ready to do basically anything as long as it is done in a group that reinforces and legitimizes their actions.

It is also highly questionable if emotional detachment can actually be taught. Capacity for self control is probably to a very large degree innate and is closely related to the prefrontal cortex and higher intelligence which is itself strongly hereditary and cannot be significantly increased in adulthood. This is likely related to why more intelligent people are less likely to experience a combat stress reaction. Self control can however be boosted in a pinch with a sugary snack, Snickers wasn't lying to us.

[Laritaia]

fear and anger are powerful motivators

[Dostanuot Loj]

As far as I can tell, this is outdated historiography. Before WWI, the Russian Empire was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and was quickly industrializing.

You would be wrong, on both accounts.
The Russian economy spent most of the 1800s stagnant, and growing only due to population and a few other events. Even the shittiest Western European economy was better on a per capita basis. This culminated in attempted revolutions in the early 1900s prior to WW1. This is all very well documented.

The Stalinists had some pretty nice industrialization going on with them.
That's what made Russia any sort of real power.

http://voxeu.org/article/russia-s-natio ... -1913-1928

If this is accurate, then the Russian economy declined enormously due to the civil war, and Stalin's industrialization, while it did promote economic recovery, wouldn't have been necessary if the economy hadn't failed before him taking over.

???
You know your chart shows Russia's greatest economical advances following Stalins forced industrialization, right?
Your chart sees its enormous decline begin right with WW1, follow through into the revolution and civil war, and only begin to pick up under Soviet rule. It would actually be fair to state, from that graph if true, that the largest single upswing can be attributed to Lennin. You have another jump during build up to war (1935-1940), a drop in the immediate post war era (just before 1950), and so on.

I'm not saying you can't make a powerful continued Russian Empire (That sounds like a fun experiment to be honest), but you are taking a bad revisionism to pre-WW1 Russia and attempting to cut out or gloss over what actually allowed Russia to become what it is today. You will need something akin to Stalin, you will need market reform, labour reform and all that, but you will also absolutely need something to drive you to do it. Progress for progress sake does not exist, there must be a driving force.

My advice to you to make that work? Maintain your adversary with Germany. Your WW1 armistice is just that, an armistice where the lines are. This would allow much the same RL timeline stuff to happen in the West while putting you in a significantly less problematic position. This gives you a more interesting flow of history to help you out.

1: Civil unrest, or even civil war, in the early 1920s. This will set the stage for later and make a jump into industrialization much more likely. This also needs to set the stage for civil reform, you need to get away from a de facto serf state.
2: Border wars in the late 1920s. This happened RL, but you will do it at a lesser rate, and largely to pacify nationalist movements that pop up after WW1 in the region.
3: War in the Baltics in the early 1930s. Unite the Slavs, use nationalism. You don't win this war, and are driven to a pre-war situation by the armies of the region (Your second Intermarian War). This is also your kickoff to widespread industrialization. The issues present with Stalinisation would not be as big here (or not exist, like collectivization of farms), and you would already have a leg up from early efforts.
4: Germany is growing back in the 1930s, and does not like how you're acting re: 2 and 3 above. Spurs more "we must industrialize!".
5: War with Germany in the early 1940s. Either by another attempt at the Baltics where Germany joins the fray, or where Germany starts it. This does not have to be a major war like WW2, but it should happen.

By the end of 5, if you played your alliances right with Britain, France and/or America, you should be in a Great Power position. This is great (no pun intended) and allows you to enter the second half of the 20th century similar, but better off, than Spain.

As I sourced earlier, the Russian Economy only went into total collapse after the February Revolution.

No, he is right. The revolution was inevitable. The seeds for it were sown deeply in the pre-WW1 era. The only way to avoid it would be to not commit to WW1, and that would still leave Russia as a backwards state far behind any other economy in Europe.

You should re-read your sources, because the Russian economy went into total collapse with the beginning of 1915. It was truely a marvel they lasted to 1917. This collapse, following two decades of revolution, unrest, and turmoil in Russia, is what led to the 1917 revolutions.

Moreover, if Russia had survived the Great War, it seems likely to me that there would have been a great deal of incentive to industrialize.

No there wouldn't. The upper class were staying upper class, and they had resisted industrialization for decades for their own benefit. There was no reason for the upper class to modernize because they had excellent lives living off their serfs. This is exactly why the revolutions happened. If Russia survived WW1 according to your timeline, they would have a great deal of issues with food supply. The de facto serfdom would be rigidly enforced to re incentivize production of food, and likely minor famines would follow. Nothing serious enough to incentivize modernization, but enough to keep the economy down. This would culminate in serious famine in the late 1930s and into the 1950s, and many would die. But at this point Russia would still be 150 years behind any Western state, and the economy would tank. Those pre-WW1 revolutions would come back in a heartbeat no matter how hard you put them down, and your system would collapse anyway. Except you would now be a colder Ethiopia.

The only way to pull Russia into the modern world is to properly incentivize it. That means you have to get rid of the old aristocracy. You can do that violently like happened RL, or you can manage to pull off a Western style transition to no-power. But the thing with that second option is: it was tried repeatedly and crushed by the aristocracy until 1917, which is why it happened violently. With your planned digression from the OTL, you are in a fantastic position to have the military do it, and do it without seriously disrupting the civil situation more than is needed.

Edit: A more realistic approach would be to follow the OTL a bit for the civil unrest, but have the Whites win. This would pot you in a much better position for a foreign influenced democratic system. In fact this may be best for all around.

[Tekeristan]

Also, if you want the whites to win : don't burn the farms.
Whatever you do just don't burn the farms.
As I live in a farming community, and our livelihoods exist on said farm land, it's such a great way to actively generate people wanting to kill you.

[United Muscovite Nations]

As far as I can tell, this is outdated historiography. Before WWI, the Russian Empire was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and was quickly industrializing.

You would be wrong, on both accounts.
The Russian economy spent most of the 1800s stagnant, and growing only due to population and a few other events. Even the shittiest Western European economy was better on a per capita basis. This culminated in attempted revolutions in the early 1900s prior to WW1. This is all very well documented.

The Russian economy in the 1890's was growing at 8% and 6% in the 1900's.

Moreover, economic trends from 1913 show very similar levels of GDP per capita in OTL:

The level of GDP per capita and the structural composition of the Russian economy in
1928 were approximately the same as they were in 1913.24 In 1928-1940, growth in real GDP
(measured in 1913 rubles) is very rapid but it starts from a low base and by 1940 GDP per
capita is just above the pre-1913 trend.

We then compare the projection of Tsarist trends to the actual Soviet data to measure
how much of the difference in levels of the employment share and GDP per capita in 1939 is
explained by the difference in the levels of wedges and TFPs and by how much the growth and
structural transformation during the 1928-1939 period is explained by changes in each wedge
over that period. We show that the reduction in the production component accounts for most
of the structural change that occured during Stalin’s period, and significantly contributes to the
expansion of real GDP per capita. The role of other components is relatively small. We further
evaluate the significance of the production component by fixing all other distortions at their 1913
levels and reducing the production component to zero. In this counterfactual, output growth
in both sectors significantly outperforms that of Soviet Russia with manufacturing production
exceeding Soviet numbers by at least a third and agricultural production outperforming Soviet
numbers by a quarter during the famine years, and predicts even more significant structural
change than that observed in the Soviet Union in 1928-40.

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/def ... vision.pdf
So, you are partially right, in that immense structural changes are necessary; however, if these structural changes are necessary, which could be spurred by a defeat in the First World War and an emergency within Russia, in which military-interests supersede those of the aristocracy, then I think, based on what I have read, that GDP per capita could become significantly higher than OTL.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Germany expected Russia to improve quickly. Schlieffen himself viewed his plan as only valid until 1916-1917; if there was no war before then key assumptions about the Russian army (ill-equipped, slow to mobilize) would no longer be true. Even the incomplete Russian modernization of 1914 allowed them to spend 1916 essentially undertaking offensives at their choosing after the Great Retreat. Only the Revolution dissolved the Dvina line.

[Allanea]

Because the Second World War never took place in the same capacity as it did historically, and the Russian civil war was far more minor, how much stronger could I expect the Russian economy to be between 1945 and the present? How much of its GDP could this Russian Empire spend on its military?

You are looking at this wrong. The Russian economy was so incredibly backwards by 1917 that the various screw ups by the revolution, and later Communist governments, are what dragged Russia into the modern world. Without the revolution, civil war, forced industrialization in the 1930s, WW2, and the cold war, there is no motivation for the Russian elite to update. There was no insentivisation to industrialize, and ever incentive to not industrialize on Russia prior to Communisim. If you skip this part you essentially remain backwards.

Except this is untrue.

Russia was rapidly industrializing before WW1. Industrial output was growing, and so were wages, consumption, etc. This was set back by the war, revolution, and Civil War. It took the Soviets until the mid-1930s to return to 1914 production levels.

[Allanea]

Just so we're clear:

Russia's industrial output had doubled in the first 13 years of the 20th century, and in fact continued to increase up to 1915.

After this, the loss of hundreds of thousands of productive hands, the destruction of Russian farming (first by the need to take up farmers and horses to the front, later by Civil War and various mass-murders), set the country back immensely.

Moreover, millions of people were plain killed off in the early Communist era. Having 10 million+ of your citizens die off/get killed is not good for your military readiness.

[The Greater Aryan Race]

I may have asked this before, but I can't find it.

For my Cold War Prussia, is the F-4 Phantom a good plane to outfit the majority of my air force around? As I see it, the thing is a fantastic fighter-bomber - it has the speed to attack Warsaw Pact forces without exposing itself to their excellent air defense networks for too long(and why expose oneself at all, just dive toss the bombs) and can go toe-to-toe against most Soviet fighters in my chosen period of the 1970s. Would it be a bad decision if that is the only combat aircraft I field? Obviously, there'll be transport planes and the like, but no need for carrier-based fighters, and little need for lightweight fighters or heavy bombers.

If you're talking 1970s, I'd recommend diversifying your aircraft inventory to include say, A4-Skyhawks and the Panavia Tornado. The latter is an especially good fighter-bomber. Of course you can always just field one single type of combat aircraft though it helps to diversify your inventory a wee bit.

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

I may have asked this before, but I can't find it.

For my Cold War Prussia, is the F-4 Phantom a good plane to outfit the majority of my air force around? As I see it, the thing is a fantastic fighter-bomber - it has the speed to attack Warsaw Pact forces without exposing itself to their excellent air defense networks for too long(and why expose oneself at all, just dive toss the bombs) and can go toe-to-toe against most Soviet fighters in my chosen period of the 1970s. Would it be a bad decision if that is the only combat aircraft I field? Obviously, there'll be transport planes and the like, but no need for carrier-based fighters, and little need for lightweight fighters or heavy bombers.

If you're talking 1970s, I'd recommend diversifying your aircraft inventory to include say, A4-Skyhawks and the Panavia Tornado. The latter is an especially good fighter-bomber. Of course you can always just field one single type of combat aircraft though it helps to diversify your inventory a wee bit.

What would be the benefit of those planes? I figure the F-4 can fly the missions both those planes could. The Tornado would be an obvious replacement, being much newer, but I'd want to keep with the Phantom for as long as possible to maintain parts commonality.

[The Akasha Colony]

I may have asked this before, but I can't find it.

For my Cold War Prussia, is the F-4 Phantom a good plane to outfit the majority of my air force around? As I see it, the thing is a fantastic fighter-bomber - it has the speed to attack Warsaw Pact forces without exposing itself to their excellent air defense networks for too long(and why expose oneself at all, just dive toss the bombs) and can go toe-to-toe against most Soviet fighters in my chosen period of the 1970s. Would it be a bad decision if that is the only combat aircraft I field? Obviously, there'll be transport planes and the like, but no need for carrier-based fighters, and little need for lightweight fighters or heavy bombers.

Yes. For several reasons:

1. Your entire air force is now completely reliant on a single airframe. Which means a single technical fault or problem can ground your entire combat air force. Entire fleets of fighters have been grounded before; the F-15C fleet was grounded in 2007 after a crash and the entire F-22 fleet was grounded in 2011 due to problems with the oxygen system. In both cases, the remaining fighters and attack aircraft in US service continued flying without issue until the faults in the grounded fleet were worked out. This of course also means that if an enemy discovers some hidden fault or means of exploiting this airframe, your entire combat air force is vulnerable.

2. It's excessively expensive. The F-4 has well over twice the fuel consumption of an aircraft like the A-4 Skyhawk and is nearly three times as heavy. In fact, an F-4 costs four times as much as an A-4. It is very expensive indeed to operate for the sorts of missions that the A-4 would be expected to undertake, and it would be impossible to field the same number of airframes with an all-F-4 fleet compared to a mixed fleet for the same budget. This means that while the F-4 might be more survivable, the air force as a whole would be more vulnerable to attrition due to a smaller number of airframes. It also puts a greater combat burden on a smaller number of airframes.

3. It's not specialized for every mission. It may be a fine fighter-bomber against relatively fixed targets, but it's not a good CAS aircraft. Yes, yes, "muh A-10 vulnerability" and all that, but F-4 has much worse loiter time than lighter attack aircraft like A-4 or heavier aircraft like F-105. The A-4 can also carry more bombs despite being a lighter and cheaper aircraft than the F-4.

4. Your domestic fighter industry will basically disappear. No industry can be expected to survive an entire decade without design orders, since you're importing foreign aircraft. Maybe you didn't have any to begin with, but generally the German government has been pretty careful about protecting its industries, and one would imagine a Prussian military state would place even greater importance on maintaining its defense industrial base.

I think this is another example of the proof being in the pudding: no major air force ever made such a decision, to base their entire combat arm on a single airframe type. It's expensive, it leaves you vulnerable, and it's bad for the industrial base. Even more so if it's an import fighter. Even the wealthy United States did not indulge in such luxuries.

Even the Israelis (who had plenty of experience with the "excellent air defense networks" supplied by the Soviets to the Arab states) loved the A-4 even though the F-4 was the backbone of their fighter force. The A-4 suffered heavy losses during the Yom Kippur War, but the Israelis could afford to lose them in larger numbers than their more valuable fighters.

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

Interesting, thanks. I didn't think of those points.

If I want a lighter weight attack plane and I want to keep the German arms industry afloat, would the Alphajet be a good investment? The biggest drawback that I see is that the Alphajet has a much smaller payload capability, and most other figures seem to be evenly matched. Aside from the Tornado(which I will be phasing in to supplement/replace the Phantom) I can't think of many other planes which are German-built.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Interesting, thanks. I didn't think of those points.

If I want a lighter weight attack plane and I want to keep the German arms industry afloat, would the Alphajet be a good investment? The biggest drawback that I see is that the Alphajet has a much smaller payload capability, and most other figures seem to be evenly matched. Aside from the Tornado(which I will be phasing in to supplement/replace the Phantom) I can't think of many other planes which are German-built.

There really aren't. Germany imported some G91s but they carry less than the Alpha Jet. I guess you could Germanize the Jaguar in your canon if you really wanted to?

[The Akasha Colony]

Interesting, thanks. I didn't think of those points.

If I want a lighter weight attack plane and I want to keep the German arms industry afloat, would the Alphajet be a good investment? The biggest drawback that I see is that the Alphajet has a much smaller payload capability, and most other figures seem to be evenly matched. Aside from the Tornado(which I will be phasing in to supplement/replace the Phantom) I can't think of many other planes which are German-built.

There aren't many successful ones. Germany pursued a lot of projects during the Cold War but essentially none of them bore fruit until the Germans decided to push for joint development programs, which eventually yielded Tornado and then Eurofighter. The Germans were quite interested in VTOL technology and produced a lot of demonstrators, but to my knowledge did not seriously pursue a domestic fighter program. They were strong supporters of the NATO joint procurement proposals, but since these didn't go anywhere aside from NBMR-1, none of Germany's entrants went anywhere either.

In the early Cold War though Germany was a bit hampered by the fact that its military industry still existed in something of a twilight zone wherein the Allies were never sure whether to let it develop or try to stamp it out entirely. Big projects were hard to justify, and Germany did not submit any entrants to the NATO NBMR-1 competition in the 1950s, even though it bought more G.91s than anyone else. By the 1960s it was pretty clear it was going to stick around, but developing a high technology industry like fighter development tanks time compared to something like tank development, which was more suited to the existing German industrial base. The Germans did manage to submit candidates to the NBMR-3 competition, but this one never progressed.

But at the very least, these programs still kept the design teams working and didn't leave them twiddling their thumbs for a decade. And the German government chose to domestically manufacture the G.91 under license rather than import complete or knockdown planes from Italy. To my knowledge, the Germans never produced the F-4 domestically, but they didn't actually order that many of them. They did manufacture the F-104 domestically, which is not surprising given the sheer number they ended up operating.

[Hyggemata]

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=hyggemata/detail=factbook/id=519766

Some sword designs from history.

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

wordy quote

I still want to keep the F-4 in relatively strong numbers, but I suppose it's probably worth it to invest in a healthy balance.

As for the F-104, I'm not sure if I should touch the plane. From what I've read, the horrific safety record is partially a matter of pilots being not well-trained, and the plane's unforgiving nature. Since Prussia's definitely having mandatory civil service, I don't want those who fly the planes being rushed through training and being given a speed demon with very little in the way of brakes. The F-4 might not be quite as fast, but it's definitely not slow, can carry a lot more ordnance, and has two seats - wouldn't that make it a better dogfighter, especially after both designs have matured by the 70s?

Is there even a competition between the A-4 and G.91? The A-4 has much greater range, payload, and from the looks of it, ability to be upgraded as it ages. The A-4 seems to be equal to the Alphajet, except the A-4 can again carry much more ordnance. I'm fixed on not using the A-10 for Fulda Gap operations, but I need a plane that can fill the role.

An interesting airframe I found was the EWR VJ-101. It's a supersonic-capable VTOL fighter, but I can't find a whole lot of information as to why it was never adopted. Could that be a good addition to keep the West German fighter industry afloat?

Finally, are there preferred plane designs for delivering nuclear weapons? I'm guessing that one would want a fast plane to get out away from the blast radius as quickly as possible, but with toss bombing even a relatively slow plane could get out of danger.