NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Puzikas]

Within the Army there are two elements:

The Army Ground Force, which include both the Regular Force, which constitutes three active mechanised divisions and a light role division in two corps, and the Territorial Force, which constitutes a further two reserve corps. It also includes the Army Helicopter Corps as an administrative element.

This isn't anything special. Basically every armed force with a modern combined arms aspect has the division of labor among itself and has commands who attend academies to learn their given role.

The Army Flying Corps on the other hand acts as frontline aviation, using strike fighters for interdiction and CAS, but with little doctrinal focus on air defence, primarily because their aircraft aren't particularly modern.

This is fine basically since it's what Army Aviation/Front Aviation does.

Further, within the Navy, there are five elements:

The Combined Fleet, which controls all ships. Also a few battalions of marines for security and possibly light infantry/special purposes.

The Fleet Air Arm, which operates carrier-borne aircraft.

The Coastal Air Arm, which operates maritime patrol and strike aircraft.

Fighter Command, which handles territorial air defence.

Bomber Command, which handles deep penetration bombing.

This is fine basically, but again, essentially any (major/middle) Navy has this or something similar. It's just a bunch of different names and positions for them.

I'm not sure about what to do with land-based nuclear weapons, though. With air-launched nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, and SLBMs, it'd seem quite redundant to add a land-based strategic element: Just allocate tactical nukes to corps, maybe? Plus, I'm not sure whether to cross-attach Fighter Command and Bomber Command or give Bomber Command dedicated escort squadrons.

If you have missiles, Strategic Rocket Command, or give them to your Airforce.
Give bombs and ALCMs to command of respective Maritime and Airforce units.


The Soviet command structure was very centralized, and these forces were unique to the USSRs air doctrine. There were variations of the Armys troops, like Fronter troops who defended the interior of the USSR and guarded key installations. These were sometimes folded into the KGB guards but we're actually troops of the Army, and this is really the only true notable deviation from what a euro-centric military mindset might be farmiliar with in the Armys normal organization.

Basically all of the differences in the Soviet structure and their 4 gorillion branches came from in the Airforces and that had a combination of reasons.

[Gallia-]

If you are going to divide by domains, the way things are going, there should probably be a Digital Force also.

Also, a space or strategic missile force.

Unfortunately, in America both of these are done by the USAF predominantly, with minor inputs from the other branches whenever.

So you have:

Army (General War ground troops)
Navy (sea combat troops including carriers/escorts/subs/boomers)
Merchant Marine (sea auxiliary)
Home Guard (ground auxiliary/reserves)
Air Defense Troops (Homeland air defenses)
Front Aviation (Tactical Air Command)
Bomber Command (Strategic Air Command minus the earth-bound strategic missiles)
Transport Command (Air Mobility Command)
Atomic Force (static silo/rocksite-based strategic missile troops)
Celestial Command (space-based strategic missile troops/missile defense shield)
Cybernetic Command (netrunner division)
Marine Corpse (navy policemen)???
Strike Command/Contingency Force (generic inter-branch operations command)
Revenue Cutter Service (homeland sea policing/sea border guard/counter-terr)
Gendarmerie/Constabulary (homeland civil policing/land border guard/counter-terr)

Oh wait that's me. ):

no steal memes ):<

[*]Space: No naming convention yet[/list]

CELESTIAL/SPACE/STAR

FLEET/NAVY/COMMAND

!

[Purpelia]

I like the term Cosmic Fleet.

[Gallia-]

But what if

Land/air (Air defence)
Land/sea (Coastal defences)

Are actually second order?

Air forces do more than just air and coastal defense though. If you restrict them to that, you're not fully exploiting their capabilities.

When the USAAF proved it could intercept warships out to 300+ nautical miles from the USA, the US Navy allegedly conspired to restrict it to 100 nautical miles. Whether or not this was because the Navy was "afraid" of the Air Force (it's an open question) isn't really known, but the order did. An Air Force can project power thousands of miles deep into enemy territory, which is more than just 'flying artillery' that supports ground operations by destroying bunkers or deep attacks armored troops. It can attack an economy directly with nuclear weapons and flatten cities, which is something an Army or Navy wouldn't really see the need to do because a city a thousand miles away in the middle of the continent isn't going to interfere with ground operations in Europe/Africa or sea operations in the Atlantic/Pacific.

You can chop it up into a lot of different little branches but that just replicates the functions of a unified Air Force in the end. Perhaps with less coherency/efficiency since the air power thought is not centralized.

e: Or is this about Viky's third order placement of air defenses? I think he means things like the PVO-Strany in that case, and RAF Coastal Command, which are pretty niche and unique to their respective cultures. The USA just subsumed the PVO-Strany role into the USAF and never bothered fleshing out a serious coastal command after like 1940.

[-Celibrae-]

Centralisation is for communists.

Wait...

[Gallia-]

USSR did capitalism better than the USA!

[Rhodesialund]

USSR did capitalism better than the USA!

Nice meem.

[Gallia-]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woV7zaI9OWk

This Thing.

Is there still room for bulk litter transports like Maxi- and Mini-Ambulance? Would this thing be a very low level ambulance that could move casualties from a CASEVAC location to a BAS. The point would be not necessarily treatment, but stabilization of casualties for when they hit the BAS, where they aren't off-loaded at the aid station but instead are shoved into another ambulance/bulk litter transport like a Maxi-Ambulance and moved to the division rear area or Corps rear area hospital?

Is there an equivalent to This Thing in Army of Excellence? The only ambulances I've seen in AOE are full out treatment stations like M8 Chemical/Biological Protective Shelters and Maxi-/Mini-Ambulances. There doesn't seem to be an actual ambulance in any of that, i.e. a vehicle that transports casualties with en route stabilization capability.

They're either bulk litter loads or semi-fixed treatment centers (unless we count heavy armored ambulances which are real life dope, like AMTV), with the assumption that litter loads are hustled as quick as possible through the CASEVAC machine to a place that can treat them? Since the battalion aid station's sole purpose in life is for medical receiving and stabilization prior to bulk loading, does this mean that This Thing invalidates the fixed site concept? Are fully mobile, stabilize-on-the-move CASEVAC becoming a thing, or do fixed treatment areas have an advantage in capacity brought about by elbow room?

I'm thinking what happens in Galla's 21st century cyber army:

1) Guy gets shot. He gets an Asherman or sth stuck inside him.
2) Guy gets taken to platoon or company CASEVAC point where combat medic keeps him alive until This Thing arrives.
3) This Thing loads guy using power lifter and combat medic in This Thing tends to him until they arrive at BAS.
4) Fixed site BAS either takes over stabilization duties in preparation for loading into a Mini- or Maxi-Ambulance, or direct loading from This Thing to a litter carrier.
5) Maxi-Ambulance (pure litter carrier, no attendant) drives him to brigade medical company where he gets dumped at the first hospital.
6) In lieu of a forward surgical team, an air ambulance flies him to the combat support hospital or a ground ambulance drives him there.
7) In lieu of a bed, he is taken to an airbase and evacuated to homeland aboard a fixed-wing medical transport for treatment at a civilian hospital.

The major difference from the US Army is that air evacuation occurs at medical company rather than medical platoon level I guess.

The question then is whether This Thing, the litter carrier, and the semi-mobile treatment center can cohabitate without stepping on each other's toes, I guess. This Thing seems to invalidate a lot of semi-mobile treatment concept, though. It's like a wheeled version of Bradley AMTV.

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/amtv.htm

Also should there be dedicated MASCAL evacuation vehicles? Like an MTV or HEMTT or sth?

[The Akasha Colony]

I'm not sure about what to do with land-based nuclear weapons, though. With air-launched nuclear bombs and cruise missiles, and SLBMs, it'd seem quite redundant to add a land-based strategic element: Just allocate tactical nukes to corps, maybe? Plus, I'm not sure whether to cross-attach Fighter Command and Bomber Command or give Bomber Command dedicated escort squadrons.

Land-based ICBMs are very useful for bulking out the size of your arsenal at very low cost, which is why they still exist in nations that strive to maintain more than a bare-minimum nuclear arsenal. A ballistic missile submarine fleet can at best expect to have half of its boats on station and ready to fire at any given time, meaning that you're paying huge sums for very expensive submarines of which only half will be available. Of the four-boat Trident fleet in the Royal Navy, only one is expected to be on a deterrence patrol at any given time, so the British are paying for four submarines and 64 missiles just to keep one submarine and 16 missiles ready.

In contrast, it is quite cheap and easy to keep an entire land-based arsenal of ICBMs ready to fire. The silos can be left alone except for occasional inspections and controlled from a comfortable base several hundred miles away. And finding crew for submarines is becoming increasingly difficult. In a connected era it's hard to find young people who are interested in spending months out of communication with the outside world.

[Gallia-]

The Internet is literally the worst thing ever invented.

[United Muscovite Nations]

USSR did capitalism better than the USA!

>when a group of smaller businesses form NATO to prevent your business from expanding into their markets

[Gallia-]

USSR did capitalism better than the USA!

>when a group of smaller businesses form NATO to prevent your business from expanding into their markets

k i k
i
k

[-Celibrae-]

I went a-searching for orbital solutions to killing satellites, and ended up stumbling upon SDI. Specifically, the chemical laser element. From what I understand the components like Alpha laser had been tested but there were a few technological challenges that were overcome this side of 2000. Is this correct?

My regionmates are particularly jittery about spaceborne lasers, so it would help to have some *cough* professional input.

Edit: Apparently the challenges surrounding beam stabilisation were solved by Hubble.

[Kouralia]

How long should it really take to establish a Forward Operating Base for say 12 STOVL aircraft with adequate specialists and equipment? This article note that 10 days is 'far too long' following the loss of the Atlantic Conveyor.

Secondly, would it be plausible for a p.1216-based Supersonic STOVL craft to have a comparable ability to operate in austere conditions to the actual Harrier/Harrier II?

[Austrasien]

But what if

Land/air (Air defence)
Land/sea (Coastal defences)

Are actually second order?

I thought about that...

But airborne and marines branches or forces with high levels of autonomy are fairly common. Coastal and Air defense forces with similar levels of independence are not. Probably because they cannot seize the initiative.

If you are going to divide by domains, the way things are going, there should probably be a Digital Force also.

True.

[Questers]

But what if

Land/air (Air defence)
Land/sea (Coastal defences)

Are actually second order?

I thought about that...

But airborne and marines branches or forces with high levels of autonomy are fairly common. Coastal and Air defense forces with similar levels of independence are not. Probably because they cannot seize the initiative.

If you are going to divide by domains, the way things are going, there should probably be a Digital Force also.

True.

Are they? I thought only USSR-Russia had a separate Airborne arm (and it also had separate Coastal/AD arms).

edit: Ukraine has VDV too apparently.

[Austrasien]

Only the USSR promoted them to an arm but elite airborne units that could operate in a fairly autonomous way with a distinct esprit de corps were quite common before the end of the Cold War.

[Gallia-]

I thought about that...

But airborne and marines branches or forces with high levels of autonomy are fairly common. Coastal and Air defense forces with similar levels of independence are not. Probably because they cannot seize the initiative.



True.

Are they? I thought only USSR-Russia had a separate Airborne arm (and it also had separate Coastal/AD arms).

edit: Ukraine has VDV too apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dep ... Task_Force

):

[-Celibrae-]

Are space-based lasers feasible?

[Purpelia]

Are space-based lasers feasible?

The answer to that is easily found by looking at just how many are deployed right now.

[-Celibrae-]

Are space-based lasers feasible?

The answer to that is easily found by looking at just how many are deployed right now.

Perhaps that has something to do with the ABM treaty, rather than any technological barrier?

[Purpelia]

The answer to that is easily found by looking at just how many are deployed right now.

Perhaps that has something to do with the ABM treaty, rather than any technological barrier?

Arms treaties are propaganda stunts where great powers come together to outlaw impractical weapons (or impractical quantities of otherwise practical weapons) in exchange for political points back home and in general. It's basically a face saving way to give up all those things that sound incredibly useful to theorists and the press but really aren't. "We are not incapable of building super cool death rays and orbital atomic bomb dispensers. No, in fact we could build a million right now! But they are totally OP and we are too civilized so we'll make a treaty banning them. It has totally nothing to do with them being useless and hyper expensive. That's just lies."

[Gallia-]

Are space-based lasers feasible?

Zenith Star's biggest obstacle was in the optics IIRC. The adaptive mirrors and lenses required to achieve the sort of ranges needed for ZS's infrared laser to attack RVs in LEO were...problematic. They didn't exist. They still don't exist AFAIK, and they would have been hard to fabricate because they would have been the biggest apertures in space.

Anyway yes they are probably feasible if you invested time and money into them at a constant rate since around 1988 to now and a couple years into the future. You could probably have a space laser in service before 2020.

For Galla's ZS constellation I pegged the first vehicle launch in 2017 and IOC in 2019 or something IIRC. That's broadly what was expected for the ZS program before it was cut to oblivion by Bush and then Clinton, as MDA shifted from space-based TBM destruction to land based weapons like THAAD. By the time the USA withdrew from the ABM Treaty to focus on serious missile defense efforts, Martin-Marietta had already gone bankrupt and all institutional knowledge of Zenith Star is probably gone now.

As an aside, one of my lecturers the semester before last worked on ZS's infrared chemical laser. That's how he came to America.

Perhaps that has something to do with the ABM treaty, rather than any technological barrier?

Arms treaties are propaganda stunts where great powers come together to outlaw impractical weapons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ball ... withdrawal

[-Celibrae-]

Perhaps that has something to do with the ABM treaty, rather than any technological barrier?

Arms treaties are propaganda stunts where great powers come together to outlaw impractical weapons (or impractical quantities of otherwise practical weapons) in exchange for political points back home and in general. It's basically a face saving way to give up all those things that sound incredibly useful to theorists and the press but really aren't. "We are not incapable of building super cool death rays and orbital atomic bomb dispensers. No, in fact we could build a million right now! But they are totally OP and we are too civilized so we'll make a treaty banning them. It has totally nothing to do with them being useless and hyper expensive. That's just lies."

Okay Purp.

Are space-based lasers feasible?

Zenith Star's biggest obstacle was in the optics IIRC. The adaptive mirrors and lenses required to achieve the sort of ranges needed for ZS's infrared laser to attack RVs in LEO were...problematic. They didn't exist. They still don't exist AFAIK, and they would have been hard to fabricate because they would have been the biggest apertures in space.

Anyway yes they are probably feasible if you invested time and money into them at a constant rate since around 1988 to now and a couple years into the future. You could probably have a space laser in service before 2020.

For Galla's ZS constellation I pegged the first vehicle launch in 2017 and IOC in 2019 or something IIRC. That's broadly what was expected for the ZS program before it was cut to oblivion by Bush and then Clinton, as MDA shifted from space-based TBM destruction to land based weapons like THAAD.

Arms treaties are propaganda stunts where great powers come together to outlaw impractical weapons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ball ... withdrawal

How big are we talking? Problematic, or problematic?

Edit: Programs like these are a perfect example of the defence industry bringing in valuable intellectual capital.

[Gallia-]

Zenith Star was bigger than the Space Shuttle's cargo bay.



Also I lied, they fabricated the adaptive mirror (LAMP) and the Alpha Laser was already built and tested on the ground (Alpha I think later was reused in the YAL-1) by TRW.

The full aperture size for the laser lens optics would have been about five meters or something I think, which would be sufficient to shoot down nuclear reentry vehicles with the Alpha Laser. The Barbarian Launch Vehicle was also never finished AFAIK, but NASA was working on the "Shuttle-C" robotic delivery craft that would have been a 90% disposable launch vehicle (the robotic brain would be de-orbited in a parachute capsule like a CORONA film canister, everything else burns up or crashes) that was sized specifically for a completed and fully assembled Zenith Star. Otherwise, it would require two launches with the Space Shuttle's cargo bay and orbital assembly by EVA.

A few things that needed to be done before ZS could be combat operational:

1) Fly the Complementary Space Experiment (CSE), which would have used an Alpha Laser system (essentially, the ass end of the picture I drew) with a very small mirror assembly.
2) Acquire a suitable Space Launch Vehicle. Initial intention was to fire a completed ZS system into space aboard the Barbarian SLV. The last plan before ZS died was to fire her into orbit aboard two Space Shuttle launches, with EVA assembly as required once in orbit. NASA's Shuttle-C was specifically sized to launch a completed and assembled ZS into orbit.
3) Development and deployment of a magnetic vibration isolation system (SAVI) to keep the LAMP mirror/beam expander combined assembly from shaking while in orbit.
4) Ensuring that the Alpha/LAMP Integration (ALI) could be properly boresighted using the infrared tracking system.

Other things that would be nice to have would be weight reduction and computer modeling of disturbance events (such as coolant movement potentially making the beam expander wobble around). Computational modelling wasn't required for the success of ZS, but it would be required for successful mating of the laser, mirror, and beam expanders. There were also questions of the admittance of the composite structure of the spacecraft. Composite structures would have assisted in the vibration damping.

The most important thing needed was an anti-vibration system to keep the beam expander from making the laser spot too big when it hits the target (Scud missiles and RVs).

There were lingering questions about Zenith Star's combat usability, since it used a chemical laser it would have required reloading and resupply of munition, which was problematic for a space weapon. Ideally it would have been a free electron laser, which is probably why we don't have a Zenith Star IRL, because a FEL can generate laser beams from electricity. Thus a solar powered space FEL is an infinite firing gun. Another example of the perfect being the enemy of the good.