NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Radictistan]

I'm thinking of making my infantry squad smaller, at least in mechanized units. Given the lethality and responsiveness of modern artillery, I'm starting to think that dismounted combat is something to be avoided if at all possible when fighting a near-peer opponent. Since a squad will probably either not stick around for a long firefight or get obliterated by artillery, it doesn't seem like having a larger, more casualty-absorbing squad is useful.

[Korva]

Formations won't be at full strength even before combat losses. A tiny squad runs the risk of being unable to service the various squad weapons with even minimal losses.

[Cli Selido]

So I'm planning on designing the military for my nation, the libertarian Republic of Cli Selido. I've already determined that it has about 3,000 active infantrymen, with 12,000 more militiamen in reserve. I've also considered giving the third world country two or three patrol boats as the whole of its meager navy.

So given those numbers, I want to ask you guys the question of whether or not they are realistic - and if not, what more realistic numbers could be for the military.

Here is the WIP factbook I have for the nation. It contains basic information about the country, which I personally think would be more than enough for an experienced person to determine if my suggested numbers are alright.

[The Manticoran Empire]

I am toying with the idea of adding ADA and Aviation battalions to my modular combat brigades. Can I get some Pros and Cons of this idea and some recommendations for the vehicles to be included?

[Greater Kazar]

I am toying with the idea of adding ADA and Aviation battalions to my modular combat brigades. Can I get some Pros and Cons of this idea and some recommendations for the vehicles to be included?

An entire battalion of ADA for a brigade is probably overkill unless there is a significant enemy air threat.

Not a fan of separate aviation battalions, like infantry, aviation works best when able to mass.

[The Manticoran Empire]

I am toying with the idea of adding ADA and Aviation battalions to my modular combat brigades. Can I get some Pros and Cons of this idea and some recommendations for the vehicles to be included?

An entire battalion of ADA for a brigade is probably overkill unless there is a significant enemy air threat.

Not a fan of separate aviation battalions, like infantry, aviation works best when able to mass.

Well my primary adversaries have the same technological capabilities as I do and drones are extremely common. I was thinking the Brigade ADA battalion would be a combined C-RAM and SHORAD unit.

[Crookfur]

So I'm planning on designing the military for my nation, the libertarian Republic of Cli Selido. I've already determined that it has about 3,000 active infantrymen, with 12,000 more militiamen in reserve. I've also considered giving the third world country two or three patrol boats as the whole of its meager navy.

So given those numbers, I want to ask you guys the question of whether or not they are realistic - and if not, what more realistic numbers could be for the military.

Here is the WIP factbook I have for the nation. It contains basic information about the country, which I personally think would be more than enough for an experienced person to determine if my suggested numbers are alright.

To be honest looking at RL countries similar to yours your regulars could be about 3 times too large but on the other hand you seem a bit better off.

Personally I would look at in the region of 800 to 1200 personnel and spend the extra budget on aircraft or boats. At this kind of level you can likely afford 3-4 small twin engine fixed wing patrol/utility types and a handful of rhibs/Boston whaler justice style boats and then on top of that it's pretty much a choice between some helicopters or a few 40-50ft patrol boats (damien 4700 series or there about).

[Taihei Tengoku]

The best way to go for a country that small is to take neighboring Costa Rica's example and militarize a portion of the police.

[Cli Selido]

To be honest looking at RL countries similar to yours your regulars could be about 3 times too large but on the other hand you seem a bit better off.

Personally I would look at in the region of 800 to 1200 personnel and spend the extra budget on aircraft or boats. At this kind of level you can likely afford 3-4 small twin engine fixed wing patrol/utility types and a handful of rhibs/Boston whaler justice style boats and then on top of that it's pretty much a choice between some helicopters or a few 40-50ft patrol boats (damien 4700 series or there about).

The best way to go for a country that small is to take neighboring Costa Rica's example and militarize a portion of the police.

That sounds pretty reasonable, but there has been a bit of a military buildup between my nation and Nicaragua over the borders between the two countries at Lake Nicaragua - I'm fairly certain that it won't change your responses, though.

[The Akasha Colony]

An entire battalion of ADA for a brigade is probably overkill unless there is a significant enemy air threat.

Not a fan of separate aviation battalions, like infantry, aviation works best when able to mass.

Well my primary adversaries have the same technological capabilities as I do and drones are extremely common. I was thinking the Brigade ADA battalion would be a combined C-RAM and SHORAD unit.

Dealing with drones usually means integrating counter-drone functions at the lowest frontline units. Battalion-level ADA equipment such as SHORAD or C-RAM vehicles are overkill against small platoon and company level drones and you will never have enough of them given their significant expense.

This basically means issuing drone jammers to your frontline units or mounting them on at least a few of your armored fighting vehicles in each unit, maybe one per tank or IFV platoon or something. Combined with something like MANPADS (with some kind of improved detection system) at the company level this should be sufficient to deal with any drones up to the battalion level.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Well my primary adversaries have the same technological capabilities as I do and drones are extremely common. I was thinking the Brigade ADA battalion would be a combined C-RAM and SHORAD unit.

Dealing with drones usually means integrating counter-drone functions at the lowest frontline units. Battalion-level ADA equipment such as SHORAD or C-RAM vehicles are overkill against small platoon and company level drones and you will never have enough of them given their significant expense.

This basically means issuing drone jammers to your frontline units or mounting them on at least a few of your armored fighting vehicles in each unit, maybe one per tank or IFV platoon or something. Combined with something like MANPADS (with some kind of improved detection system) at the company level this should be sufficient to deal with any drones up to the battalion level.

It will be a brigade ADA battalion. The Mechanized companies have MANPADS and I'll add drone jammers to the IFVs and possibly my tanks, as well. The ADA battalion is for bigger threats as part of a tiered air defense system.

[The Akasha Colony]

It will be a brigade ADA battalion. The Mechanized companies have MANPADS and I'll add drone jammers to the IFVs and possibly my tanks, as well. The ADA battalion is for bigger threats as part of a tiered air defense system.

By "battalion-level" I mean the sort of equipment you would give to a dedicated air defense battalion (within a brigade or larger formation).

There is little need for a combat brigade to have an entire battalion dedicated to air defense at the brigade level though. Because air defense isn't a core mission of a ground combat brigade.

It just needs enough air defense capability to ward off fairly minor attacks, and the average combat brigade already has plenty of anti-aircraft firepower in the form of its autocannons and machine guns. The anti-aircraft capability of a ground combat brigade should primarily be focused on deterrence: it only needs to be strong enough to deter easy attacks on ground formations, which aren't really high priority targets anyway. "Bigger threats" have more important targets to engage.

And probably won't be mucking about at low altitude anyway.

[Taihei Tengoku]

just make it a division at that point

[Manokan Republic]

So I'm planning on designing the military for my nation, the libertarian Republic of Cli Selido. I've already determined that it has about 3,000 active infantrymen, with 12,000 more militiamen in reserve. I've also considered giving the third world country two or three patrol boats as the whole of its meager navy.

So given those numbers, I want to ask you guys the question of whether or not they are realistic - and if not, what more realistic numbers could be for the military.

Here is the WIP factbook I have for the nation. It contains basic information about the country, which I personally think would be more than enough for an experienced person to determine if my suggested numbers are alright.

I think that 3,000 men makes sense, as if only 1% of your forces are in the military, and 4% are in the militia, that gives you an exact figure of 5% of your country in the military, which is pretty good out of 300,000 people.

Mandatory conscription is common in countries like Switzerland, Norway, and other really small countries, which can easily boost your numbers. If you train your civilian populace to be trained ot go to war at any time and then select from them only the elite to be active military, sort of like the Swiss grenadiers, you'll get a higher proportion of your best men in the active military, who can sort of serve like special forces. A 5% GDP towards the military is not uncommon, but 2.5-5% is more reasonable, which for a 4 billion dollar GDP gives you a 100-200 million dollar annual budget. Guns themselves are pretty cheap, as are body armor and other accessories. To arm all your men with 15,000 dollars worth of equipment would only be about 225 million dollars, which is close to 1-2 years of military budget costs. That would be scopes, body armor, lightweight gear, an expensive gun (2,000+ dollars), possibly night vision and light weight load bearing equipment. You can always do the Russian thing and have insanely cheap gear, like 100 dollar ak-47's, and it will be a lot less than that, maybe 1000 dollars per soldier, and so that's only like 15-25 million dollars. Perhaps that is what you would use for your regular troops, of which 50-75% of your population would be military capable, that is not too old or too young and still physically capable of being in the military (18-45, maybe 55).

For your militia, I'd use humvees or technicals, and armored personnel carriers are really the big question. On the one hand, .50 caliber resistant armor is not all that expensive, but on the other hand something like a Stryker is 3 million dollars, easily. For 3,000 troops that's a need for about 300-400, which is 1.2 billion dollars which is, not insubstantial. You certainly couldn't afford that for the whole country or for the militia, but for your elite 1% of active troops it's not that bad. There are far cheaper alternatives out there, especially russian, but just how cheap depends. 500,000 to a million dollars per APC is about the minimum you'd go before getting in to true 1950's soviet equipment. Tanks are actually interesting in that a T-72 or so is not actually all that bad, and you can buy them for 50,000 dollars on the open market. So surprisingly you can have them, but they'd be crappy tanks. 30-50 tanks of M1 abrams would be a maximum, but as tanks are only 5 million dollars, as in not that much more expensive than Strykers, a few hundred tanks is possible if you really want them. Otherwise, cheap soviet tanks are probably your best bet, and actually quite affordable and effective for anything other than tank warfare. As in, if you want to defeat enemy APC's. In WWII only about 15% of tanks kills were by other tanks, and with APC's like the Bradley which killed more tanks in Desert storm than the M1 abram did, an APC with anti-tank missiles is usually going to kill more enemy tanks anyways. So, tanks are more useful as short range artillery for infantry support, heavily armored anti-APC weapons, or anti-material weapons. Basically tanks are for destroying lighter vehicles than themselves mostly, or serving as a rolling barricade for infantry, perhaps as a vehicle in front of a line of APC's due to it being heavier armored. They also have machine guns which can make them good at infantry support.

An air force is implausible, as a single aircraft is like 40 million dollars for a decent one, and the main issue is training as in, in such a small country you have no ability to train in your limited air space, with limited air fields, and limited air crews. For every hour in flight you 10 hours of maintenance so, more than a handful of aircraft is not possible. Helicopters are more plausible due to their reduced speed, dual use for transport and capability of being used for dropping dumb bombs and other cheap munitions like barrel bombs, making them good for bombing your enemies. But they are also expensive and require a lot of maintenance. Good anti-aircraft weapons will be expensive, but shouldn't be something you should skimp on given how small you are. A 2000 square mile country is only like 45 x 45 miles, so a handful of well placed anti-air guns combined with anti-aircraft missiles would be sufficient on air defense; if you really splurge on air defense, you can stop the majority of threats unless they send a whole army. The main idea is deterrence, to prevent the enemy from attacking you unless they are really motivated to do so. 3000 planes would overwhelm you, but shooting down 500 of their planes would be a big deal. I'd argue 10% on anti-air defense is not obscene given how small you are and how it's your biggest vulnerability, but it wouldn't be necessary per say.


So, with say 150 million dollars a year (3.5% GDP), for 25 years, you get 3.75 billion dollars built up over time, around half of which will have to go to salaries and the like. Honestly, 5% GDP spending would be a lot better, as you could get all the way up to 5 billion dollars, which would be a lot nicer. Your best bet is to get some really good APC's with a lot of anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, as well as chain guns and machine guns if you can help it. That way you can take our their tanks with your APC's, which also serve as your infantry transport, and infantry fighting vehicles. They'll lack the armor of IFV's, but possess the weapons. Something dirt cheap would be really great, but it's hard to say what. BMP and BTR series of vehicles would be right up your alley for this strategy, but there are some western vehicle equivalents out there. The russians designed these specifically with anti-tank purposes in mind, so there's a pretty good idea. The BMP-2 is pretty good but only like 500,000 dollars, which would save a lot of money and fit will with the doctrine of multi-role highly mobile infantry. With so few men and pieces of equipment, having them do everything would be great. The soviets also have tons of anti-air weapons, and heavy mortars, the mortars and artillery of which can replace aircraft for bombardment purposes. Your only really concern is fuel, which can be made up in part by using ethanol from agriculture (and diesel engines configured to run on both diesel and ethanol) and other forms of synthetic fuel. This is also why you might not use very many tanks or aircraft, which guzzle fuel like crazy in comparison to An F-16 has like a third of it's weight in fuel, or 7,000 pounds when loaded, and a Boeing 747 has like 400,000 pounds of fuel. In comparison, a humvee has a few hundred pounds, and it's not known for being fuel efficient. Humvees are also only like 100,000 dollars, as are other russian vehicles, which typically hold 9-11 men unlike the americans with only 4 men (such as the Gaz Tigr).


So! A rough break down of units for your primary ground forces would be:

-Tanks: 30-50 (500 or so if you bought cheap surplus tanks for like 50,000 dollars), 150-300 million dollars
-APC's: 300-400, 200 million to 1.2 billion dollars
-Light APC's: 1200, 120 million dollars
-Technical: 30,000 (for militia), 450 million dollars
-Logistics vehicles: 1200, 120 million dollars
-3000 Soldier's equipment: 45 million dollars (15,000 each)
-12000 militia's equipment: 24 million dollars (2,000 each)
-150,000 Country wide militia: 300 million dollars (2,000 each)

Which is only about 1.56 billion dollars for all your equipment, not including the logistics and whatnot which is, fairly reasonable. The cost of each technical I calculated at being 15,000 dollars, as I'm assuming they will be equipped with heavy weapons, mortars, and anti-tank weapons. I also calculated it for half your country being in the militia in case of a full scale invasion, sort of like switzerland, whichif removed saves you on about 750 million dollars.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Ideal break down is

3,000 dudes
500 cop cars
Enough tax haven monies that the oligarchs of your neighbors won't want to risk getting lost in an invasion

[The Manticoran Empire]

How feasible would light carriers such as USS America be?

[Imperializt Russia]

How feasible would light carriers such as USS America be?

For what duties?

Light carriers are meant for situations, geographies or operations where the deployment of a supercarrier, or otherwise 'normal' size carrier is impossible, dicey or wasteful for political or other reasons.

[The Manticoran Empire]

How feasible would light carriers such as USS America be?

For what duties?

Light carriers are meant for situations, geographies or operations where the deployment of a supercarrier, or otherwise 'normal' size carrier is impossible, dicey or wasteful for political or other reasons.

Well the region I'm in has about 4 continents and I attempt to project my power to all four of them. I currently have 13 super-carriers, with 3 deployed at all times. Because there are only 3 deployed at any one time, the area that they can influence is limited. So I'm considering creating carrier groups around light carriers intended to maintain the projection of power in areas that the Super Carriers can't get to during their 9 month deployments. However, I'm wanting to know if it would just be more cost-effective to build more super-carriers, rather than going through the process of developing smaller, conventionally powered ships.

[Imperializt Russia]

If you have thirteen heavy fleet carriers, I'm surprised you would only have three deployed at any one time.
Additionally, I'm surprised you recognise the hole this leaves between capability and flexibility, and then instead consider plugging this gap with light carriers.

Why are ten supercarriers inactive? Why not activate more of the fleet (I would say having 10 deployed and three not deployed would be a sensible use of 13), or pare it down in the first place?

[The Manticoran Empire]

If you have thirteen heavy fleet carriers, I'm surprised you would only have three deployed at any one time.
Additionally, I'm surprised you recognise the hole this leaves between capability and flexibility, and then instead consider plugging this gap with light carriers.

Why are ten supercarriers inactive? Why not activate more of the fleet (I would say having 10 deployed and three not deployed would be a sensible use of 13), or pare it down in the first place?

Here's why: Maintenance cycles and the fact that sailors do have families. The way my deployments work for all branches is 1:3 so for every 1 unit deployed there are 3 in various stages of preparation. In the case of the Fleet Carriers, 3 are deployed, 3 are returning from deployment, 3 are rearming, refitting, and training, and 3 are preparing for deployment. Each carrier deploys once every 3 years. 1 carrier is usually undergoing a refuel and refit every year these days, so that's the reason for having 13. Deploying 10 carriers puts undue strain on the budget and the personnel, as well as the equipment. A Carrier Group is very expensive to operate so deploying 10 of them puts a MASSIVE strain on the budget. It's about $20 to $30 billion to build a CSG, depending on how many ships are in it and it costs $6.5 million per day to operate the CSG. Over a 9 month deployment, that is $1,774,500,000 for just ONE CSG. Every 9 months, I have to budget for 3, which is $5,323,500,000. 10 CSGs being active won't have any reserves or real rest at all. The daily cost probably doesn't change too much regardless of whether it is deployed or not, though there is an increase in personnel costs due to hazard pay, combat pay, tax credits, and other bonuses.

In simple terms, deploying most of my carrier force during peacetime is not sustainable. Which is why I'm considering the Light Carriers as an option to pick up some of the slack.

[The Manticoran Empire]

just make it a division at that point

Well my BCTs are basically divisions in their roles. The division is basically an administrative formation that fills the role traditionally applied to the Corps.

[Yan Dynasty]

Does the America even qualify as light carrier?

[The Manticoran Empire]

Does the America even qualify as light carrier?

It is capable of operating 20 Harrier or F-35B fighters from its deck and it doesn't have a well deck (which the Marines bitched and moaned about QUITE a lot) so I'd say it does. The primary benefit I see from it is cheaper construction and operating costs, allowing me to have more of them, allowing them to take up some other positions and reducing the strain on my super-carriers.

[Yan Dynasty]

Does the America even qualify as light carrier?

It is capable of operating 20 Harrier or F-35B fighters from its deck and it doesn't have a well deck (which the Marines bitched and moaned about QUITE a lot) so I'd say it does. The primary benefit I see from it is cheaper construction and operating costs, allowing me to have more of them, allowing them to take up some other positions and reducing the strain on my super-carriers.

I ask because it seems to me like her primary purpose isn't to launch aircraft, but helicopters. This is quite unlike the older light carriers who were still dedicated aircraft carriers. I dunno. I'm not an expert. For what it's worth Wikipedia lists the America as a helicopter carrier. Also, the general definition of a light carrier, according to Wikipedia, is as follows:
"The precise definition of the type varies by country; light carriers typically have a complement of aircraft only one-half to two-thirds the size of a full-sized fleet carrier. A light carrier was similar in concept to an escort carrier in most respects, however light carriers were intended for higher speeds to be deployed alongside fleet carriers, while escort carriers usually defended convoys and provided air support during amphibious operations." So, I think that's one thing to consider. Y'know, ignoring the fact that the twin concepts of light and escort carriers is pretty outdated.

Putting that aside, why does your nation have supercarriers? Is your navy the most powerful force in the world? Politically speaking, I think that's the only real justification one could have for constructing and operating thirteen of the monstrosities.

And, on an unrelated note, is your nation at all related to the Honorverse?

[Yan Dynasty]

Interestingly enough, escort carriers were the most numerous of the three types of carriers in the US Navy during World War II.