NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[United Mongol Hordes]

Any advice on proper MT battle tactics that'd involve effective archery and blitzkrieg? (That is, assuming this number of at least <1 million archers have been adequately trained and can fire a bow that has a drawstring of about 100 - 150lb.)

Shoot the horses with the bows then drop the bows and use rifles.

I only drew a little bit about the Polish myth

Its a Nazi propaganda "myth".

Atm lots of players respect the opinion of regular posters in this thread because you guys are some of the smartest people on NationStates.

lmao

Don't worry; the way I see it, it's at least relieving I just get little outbursts like Neu's post and not full-on bombarded with 'newfag lol'.

You could keep horses in a couple of places. If you still have areas of your nation that are so undeveloped as to still have a horse based infrastructure then it would perhaps make sense to have border gaurds/patrol units that maintain a horseback capability. Other than that you are looking at doing something like the British household cavalry where you have a bunch of armoured regiments who ride horses for public display/ceremonial duties. This would also be about the best place to keep bows as it let's you have all the traditional stuff without impeding your forces' actual operational capabilities.

Anything human muscle powered is going to be generally pretty shitty compared to anything powered by the joyful expansion of combustion gases.

As for wanting fast moving armour supported by other arms, well thats pretty much what all modern forces have and aim to use. If you want something that feels more like cavalry that your regular "armoured division" then you might want to have a look at the US armoured cavalry regiments or, if you must have light vehicles, how the whole British Cvrt family was supposed to work together until.

The US's armoured cavalry seems a nice start, considering our tanks and that. I'll look into their ways.

As for your mentioning of keeping around horses, we do have mainly just plain grassland in the Mongol mainland (e.g. Tuva, Mongolia and Manchuria), alot of steps in Xinjiang and the Turkestan area, and let's not forget that nightmarous melting pot of mountainous terrain we call Afghanistan. Thanks for the help there.

[Atlantica]

See, on this novel called the 'Ghost Fleet' by P. W. Singer and August Cole, I saw how the Zumwalt used a fictional Metal Storm CIWS as a CIWS against incoming supersonic anti-ship missiles. Seeing its incredible RoF and its 'creating a wall of metal' upon firing, I got a feeling that the Metal Storm can be used for the role.

So, how viable is the Metal Storm, with enough modifications, as a CIWS? Will it be a better CIWS than, say, the Phalanx?

[The Akasha Colony]

See, on this novel called the 'Ghost Fleet' by P. W. Singer and August Cole, I saw how the Zumwalt used a fictional Metal Storm CIWS as a CIWS against incoming supersonic anti-ship missiles. Seeing its incredible RoF and its 'creating a wall of metal' upon firing, I got a feeling that the Metal Storm can be used for the role.

So, how viable is the Metal Storm, with enough modifications, as a CIWS? Will it be a better CIWS than, say, the Phalanx?

It doesn't work all that well in such an application.

One of the problems with Metal Storm is inherent in the stacked ammunition design: each bullet in a Metal Storm barrel will travel through a longer barrel length than the last bullet which means that each bullet has a different muzzle velocity. This introduces an additional variable that must be controlled for. On top of that, in a stacked array of Metal Storm barrels each barrel will be slightly offset from the others, creating another variable that must be controlled for. You don't need to create a "wall of metal," you need to accurately hit your target.

In comparison, a rotary cannon like M61 will always fire at the same point in its cycle, and each shell will be travel the same barrel length for roughly the same muzzle velocity. Ammunition storage is also much more efficient and CIWS need deeper magazines for repeat engagements more than they need an extreme ROF. Phalanx is already basically the fastest-firing CIWS at 4,500 rpm and could fire even faster if required, but 4,500 rpm is plenty and most alternatives like Goalkeeper would rather trade ROF for a heavier shell with longer range. Modern CIWS aren't restricted by their rate of fire so improving the rate of fire isn't very useful.

[Dostanuot Loj]

As for your mentioning of keeping around horses, we do have mainly just plain grassland in the Mongol mainland (e.g. Tuva, Mongolia and Manchuria), alot of steps in Xinjiang and the Turkestan area

You mean you have perfect tank country?
Using horses there, not that you're claiming it but I feel I need to point this out for others, is bad when others have any tanks. This is literally the worst terrain for horses.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Shoot the horses with the bows then drop the bows and use rifles.

Its a Nazi propaganda "myth".

lmao

Don't worry; the way I see it, it's at least relieving I just get little outbursts like Neu's post and not full-on bombarded with 'newfag lol'.

You could keep horses in a couple of places. If you still have areas of your nation that are so undeveloped as to still have a horse based infrastructure then it would perhaps make sense to have border gaurds/patrol units that maintain a horseback capability. Other than that you are looking at doing something like the British household cavalry where you have a bunch of armoured regiments who ride horses for public display/ceremonial duties. This would also be about the best place to keep bows as it let's you have all the traditional stuff without impeding your forces' actual operational capabilities.

Anything human muscle powered is going to be generally pretty shitty compared to anything powered by the joyful expansion of combustion gases.

As for wanting fast moving armour supported by other arms, well thats pretty much what all modern forces have and aim to use. If you want something that feels more like cavalry that your regular "armoured division" then you might want to have a look at the US armoured cavalry regiments or, if you must have light vehicles, how the whole British Cvrt family was supposed to work together until.

The US's armoured cavalry seems a nice start, considering our tanks and that. I'll look into their ways.

As for your mentioning of keeping around horses, we do have mainly just plain grassland in the Mongol mainland (e.g. Tuva, Mongolia and Manchuria), alot of steps in Xinjiang and the Turkestan area, and let's not forget that nightmarous melting pot of mountainous terrain we call Afghanistan. Thanks for the help there.

So basically you are a Panzer Commander's wet dream for the most part? Why in the hell would you want horses? Tanks and APCs are faster, more heavily armed, more heavily armored, and don't have complicated dietary and veterinary requirements.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Manchuria-Korea is also one of the world's great industrial zones so you can actually make some of your own too

[Osseptia]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

[The Akasha Colony]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

No?

Shockingly, jolting a person upwards and then letting them be tossed around in the wind behind an aircraft until they can be winched in isn't generally all that great for someone dealing with bullet or shrapnel wounds. If confined to a stretcher or otherwise incapacitated, they would be unable to stabilize themselves and would be tossed and spun around at will by the turbulent air, definitely not good for an injured person.

Beyond that, it would be a very hazardous environment for an aircraft to operate in due to the number of obstacles. Flying in close proximity to mountain peaks or in deep mountain valleys is generally avoided if possible.

[Great Aletia]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

Just winch them into a helicopter. What's the issue with that?

[The Akasha Colony]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

Just winch them into a helicopter. What's the issue with that?

Helicopters generally do not operate well (or at all) at the altitudes normally encountered in very tall mountains like the Himalayas or the Alps. They tend to have rather low service ceilings and very low payload when operating near their service ceiling.

[NeuPolska]

My head hurts.

There's no point in the bows. It's such a huge disadvantage in pretty much way. They will not have the range, armor-piercing capability, nor accuracy as a rifle.

Secondly, why would they firing while advancing to begin with. This isn't some Star Wars Hollywood bullshit. That's not how war works. That whole bit is incredibly fucked to the point that I recommend throwing it all out the window and into an incinerator.

Third, there are many myths about the Polish cavalry in WWII. Not even any of those, which are already incorrect, have Poles using A R C H E R Y off horseback in WWII. Where the fuck did you learn history because they failed the fuck out of you. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Fourthly, YOU CAN'T USE GIANT, LOUD WEAPONS OFF HORSEBACK. Horses hate loud noises. Horses are also incredibly skittish as a general rule. When you have armored vehicles, there's literally no reason to stick anti-tank or high caliber anything on some dude on horseback, unless you want to make him incredibly combat ineffective (implying he isn't already, I know).

Basically, just throw out the entire idea from the get-go. You'd be fucked venturing into Somalia let alone anywhere with even half a functioning military.

I've read his post they're well-written and he seems to be genuinely asking for advice, And he's not rude unlike German Kaiserreich, I really want to advertise this thread because this thread contains some of the smartest players from the NS rping community (you guys), But I can't advertise this thread to new players if they're going to be abused or be told to get "fuck" the moment they ask (not even one liner) questions here, Atm lots of players respect the opinion of regular posters in this thread because you guys are some of the smartest people on NationStates. I understand that some questions can sound dumb but remember they are new players and even many old players out there don't have a clue about realism things, That's what this thread is for our job is to showcase the best of what realism has got to offer and I (and many other like me) need your help to make this work

Realism is the default RPing mode now. This is 2018 not 2008 or 2011, People who don't know much about realism look up to you because they respect your knowledge, Again I understand it can be hard to to shake heads atsome of the things out there but yeah just want to see continuing success for this thread thats all peace dude

The only people that look up to me are the ones that don't actually know me

But regardless, sorry if I was abrasive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The best use for cavalry nowadays is scouting or border patrolling. Bows have a lot less use, if you want to be the heir to the Mongol Empire I guess you can have mounted border guards but that's really it. The bows are honestly better off scrapped altogether, though you could give them to special forces, who would be more likely to develop the skills needed to effectively use a bow, and have a need for the sort of stealth and functionality you could get with a bow. Aside from niche fields like that, leave the big battles for your armor and artillery.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

you get hurt up there you're fucked

[Crookfur]

Just winch them into a helicopter. What's the issue with that?

Helicopters generally do not operate well (or at all) at the altitudes normally encountered in very tall mountains like the Himalayas or the Alps. They tend to have rather low service ceilings and very low payload when operating near their service ceiling.

They might not work brilliantly but they do work and are regularly used for medical evacuation from the himalayas and the alps these days.
Biggest issue is that you tend to need small helicopters with biggish engines, most commonly squirrels and lamas/cheetahs. IIRC the biggest helicopter operated on everest was a bell 412.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Fulton surface-to-air recovery system style system for casualty evacuation in extremely high altitude alpine combat?

Tbh extreme high altitude alpine combat begs the usual question of what is there to fight for on the top of Mount Everest? Usually you fight over observation posts and passes and forts guarding those passes, and those are all at a more reasonable altitude.

[Grand Unity of the Righteous Nation Cele]

I just had a stupid idea:

You have a coastal city at the base of some mountains. Above the skyline you find bunkers carved in to the mountains, containing large caliber artillery. They are fully automated and they are armed with rocket-propelled fin-stabilized gps-guided cheaper-than-missiles shells. They are defended by smoke and chaff launchers, CIWS, flares, and SAM launchers.

An area-denial system against landing crafts.


Could this be cost effective? The cannons are not expected to survive for long against dedicated airstrikes.

[United Mongol Hordes]

I've read his post they're well-written and he seems to be genuinely asking for advice, And he's not rude unlike German Kaiserreich, I really want to advertise this thread because this thread contains some of the smartest players from the NS rping community (you guys), But I can't advertise this thread to new players if they're going to be abused or be told to get "fuck" the moment they ask (not even one liner) questions here, Atm lots of players respect the opinion of regular posters in this thread because you guys are some of the smartest people on NationStates. I understand that some questions can sound dumb but remember they are new players and even many old players out there don't have a clue about realism things, That's what this thread is for our job is to showcase the best of what realism has got to offer and I (and many other like me) need your help to make this work

Realism is the default RPing mode now. This is 2018 not 2008 or 2011, People who don't know much about realism look up to you because they respect your knowledge, Again I understand it can be hard to to shake heads atsome of the things out there but yeah just want to see continuing success for this thread thats all peace dude

The only people that look up to me are the ones that don't actually know me

But regardless, sorry if I was abrasive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The best use for cavalry nowadays is scouting or border patrolling. Bows have a lot less use, if you want to be the heir to the Mongol Empire I guess you can have mounted border guards but that's really it. The bows are honestly better off scrapped altogether, though you could give them to special forces, who would be more likely to develop the skills needed to effectively use a bow, and have a need for the sort of stealth and functionality you could get with a bow. Aside from niche fields like that, leave the big battles for your armor and artillery.

Well, it disappoints me, but it's only the tactical way to be doing things these days... I'll keep the horses around for soldiers traversing up mountainous terrain in Afghanistan or the Alay mountains, but all the cavalry work will be replaced with self-made armoured vehicles thanks to aforementioned industrial areas of Manchuria and Korea, also ditching the bows entirely.

Thanks, nonetheless. I'll be working on my factbooks now.

[Austrasien]

Now, seeing as your rant has inspired me, maybe I'd figured out my own way of replicating Mongol tactics; instead of horseback archers, use light and fast armoured vehicles, backed up by tanks and infantry with guns, using artillery in conjunction with air support and arrow-fire using explosive tips or simply heavy arrowheads

I was under the assumption that the powerful force yielded from a 150lb bow with a sturdy-enough arrow could penetrate Kevlar, considering it'd wield the same effect as a knife would... but oh well. Sorry, Genghis.

Archery will not under any circumstances be competitive with firearms. Historically, even primitive matchlocks displaced archery on the steppes quite rapidly. Actual Mongolian horse nomads were enthusiastic adopters of guns. As were the warriors of the Qing Dynasty (Manchurian horse ex-nomads who crushed the last independent Mongolian nomads, ruling over the Han Chinese who had seen the bow as the quintessential weapon of a gentlemen for over 2 millennia and pioneered the development of crossbows) and the feudal Japanese (Samurai, the "way of the horse and bow"). That the gun displaces the bow is practically a truism because it happened independently across the world multiple times, in widely differing circumstances, largely within the period between 1600-1800.

Horses are a (very) inefficient but basically serviceable means of transporting soldiers between battlefields. If you want a strong cavalry flavor in your nation, you could keep a lot of units who move on horseback but fight on foot around. This is generally inferior to riding cars or trucks in every way but it is much more reasonable than say, trying to keep bows as a standard infantry weapon.

[Hrstrovokia]

Is this underpowered/overpowered for a Air Defence regiment in a Tank/Mech Inf division? Bear in mind the Tank/Mech Inf brigades have x1 Air Defence Missile-Artillery battalions and x1 Air Defence Missile battalion.

x3 Air Defence Missiles Bn which contain:
[Example of a Battery]

x3 Anti-Aircraft Missile Plt
x2 9A310M1-2 Buk TELAR - 4 Crew

Total: 6 SAMs & 24 Crew

MANPADs Plt
x9 MT-LBM-6MB5 - 45 Personnel [x3 Squads of 3 - x9 30mm GSh-30K Gun, x27 9K333 Verba MANPADS]

[Additional Units: Target Acquisition Btry, Early Warning Btry, NBC Defence Plt , Combat Support Plt, Combat Services Plt, Technical Support Plt, Motor Transport Sec, Maintenance Plt & Signals Plt]
Command Element: Bn HQ CO]
318 All Ranks
134 Support Vehicles

[There are 3 ADM Btry's, 1 MANPADS Plt plus 1 HQ CO per Bn . Total per Bn = 18 SAM's and 117 Crew, 134 Support Vehicles and 318 Personnel]
-------------------------------------------
x1 Air Defence Artillery Bn which contain:
[Example of a Medium-range AAA Battery]

x3 Anti-Aircraft Artillery Plt
x2 2S38 ZAK-57 - 8 Crew [57mm AA Gun]

Total: 6 AAA Guns & 24 Crew

[Example of Short-range AAA Battery]

x3 Anti-Aircraft Artillery Plt
x2 ZU-23M - 14 Crew [23mm AA Gun w/ x2 9M32M Strela-2M SAM]

Total: 6 AAA Guns, 6 MT-LBu Prime Movers & 42 Crew

MANPADs Plt
x9 MT-LBM-6MB5 - 45 Personnel [x3 Squads of 3 - x9 30mm GSh-30K Gun, x27 9K333 Verba MANPADS]

[Additional Units: Target Acquisition Btry, Early Warning Btry, Control Plt, NBC Defence Plt, Combat Services Plt, Motor Transport Sec & Signals Plt]
Command Element: Bn HQ CO]
150 All Ranks
84 Support Vehicles

[There are 2 Medium-range ADA Btry's & 1 Short-range ADA Btry, 1 MANPADS Plt plus 1 HQ CO per Bn . Total per Bn = 12 Medium-range AAA's, 6 Short-range AAA's and 126 Crew, 102 Support Vehicles and 150 Personnel]
-------------------------------------------

[The Akasha Colony]

I just had a stupid idea:

You have a coastal city at the base of some mountains. Above the skyline you find bunkers carved in to the mountains, containing large caliber artillery. They are fully automated and they are armed with rocket-propelled fin-stabilized gps-guided cheaper-than-missiles shells. They are defended by smoke and chaff launchers, CIWS, flares, and SAM launchers.

An area-denial system against landing crafts.


Could this be cost effective? The cannons are not expected to survive for long against dedicated airstrikes.

No. The most cost effective defense against an amphibious landing is a navy, followed by a mechanized counter-landing force to directly attack the enemy landing forces before they can establish a foothold and begin a breakout from the beach.

Artillery on its own is not a particularly effective defense against landing attempts. Especially fixed installations in bunkers, which are easily detected and suppressed. Any competent landing attempt will be preceded by reconnaissance by the invader so they will be well aware of the defenses. In which case they will either land anyway if they believe they can adequately suppress the defenses or simply go elsewhere if they do not believe they can do so. For these reasons, mobile artillery is generally more effective as it can protect a wider swath of shore and introduces unpredictability in the enemy's planning process.

Guided shells are also not much cheaper than missiles. Generally the most expensive part of a missile is the guidance system, followed by the engine. But now you have both of those things in your shells. Fin stabilization would be unnecessary.

[Gallia-]

To avoid the problem of "watchstanders falling asleep during a piddly ass 10-12 hour shift" Galla will now use dry electrode helmets to induce transcranial magnetic stimulation to increase the effectiveness of the CIC and bridge watchstanders. Additionally the latter will have special goggles that will project an augmented reality display/simulacra using shipboard sensors and edge detection and etc. memes to produce video game-esque effects of highlighting objects that a sailor is looking at outside his bridge and presenting things like heading, bearing from own ship, speed, and projected course gathered from ship sensors to things on the horizon. (Alt. idea is I just copy the Royal Navy's thing and have the bridge windows do the job it depends on how useful I think being able to walk in and gather information directly is vice wearing a special hat).

(...) Among the beneficiaries are Robert Smith’s group at Honeywell Aerospace, in Phoenix, Arizona, and Paul Sajda’s at Neuromatters, in New York. Both of the “image triage systems” designed by these groups require the humans in them to wear special skull-enclosing caps (see picture). Each cap is fitted with 32 electrodes that record the brain’s electrical responses to whatever stimuli it is subjected to. Wearers have pictures flashed before their eyes at the rate of ten a second. That is too fast for conscious recognition, because the brain’s attention will have moved on to the next image before consciousness can come into play. It is not, though, too fast for the initial stages of recognition, marked by a P300 signal, to occur when suspicious items are present. Images that provoke such a signal are then tagged for review. According to Dr Sajda, this triples the speed with which objects of interest can be found.

Speed is important, of course. But in matters such as this, accuracy matters more. And some people think they can improve that, too—not by reading the brain, but by stimulating it. Many studies have shown that zapping the brain with a weak electric current, a procedure called transcranial neuronal stimulation, enhances what is known as “fluid intelligence”. This is the ability to reason, as opposed merely to recall facts. Another American military-research establishment, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), hopes to exploit this phenomenon for the purpose of target identification.

The notion of bathing brains in electricity spooks some. But with a current of just two milliamps, the stimulation is painless and safe, says Vincent Clark, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico. In a project paid for in part by IARPA, he and his team have stimulated the brains of more than 1,000 volunteers using a 9V battery connected to electrodes on the scalp. After half an hour of stimulation, volunteers spot in test photographs 13% more snipers, makeshift bombs and the like than do volunteers given a “sham” current of 100 microamps (5% of the experimental current) that mimics the skin-tingling induced by the experimental current.

Placing one of the electrodes on a volunteer’s arm boosts the phenomenon still further, according to Andy McKinley, head of brain stimulation at the American Air Force’s Human Effectiveness Directorate at Wright-Patterson, an air base in Ohio. This way, current travelling from one electrode to the other passes through more brain tissue than it otherwise would. Six hours after about 25 minutes of such stimulation, those so treated spot twice as many tanks, missile launchers and other targets in images as control groups manage to.

Nor do volunteers in these sorts of experiments seem to suffer ill effects. According to Dr Clark, the stimulation he uses makes a few feel drowsy, but most enjoy “a very deep mindful state”. Curiously, Dr McKinley reports almost the opposite. He says of his volunteers that when deprived of sleep they stay alert and cheerful longer. Some, he says, “feel like they’ve just had a bunch of caffeine”. (...)

As to the goggles.

Since Galla is a few years behind IRL it'll probably appear in the early-mid 2020s on warships.

tl;dr:



Bois it's gun' be bib. Finally sailors no longer need 10 pots of coffee. They just wear their Navy Type 1 Workhelmet and it gives them all the brain think juice they need. Which is good for me since coffee is 1) addictive 2) tolerance inducing 3) diminishing returns 4) withdrawal producing. Perhaps in 30-40 years we will be wearing Workhelmets that make coffee a Third World thing and it is now banned in the West like Bennies and other dumb oral delivery means since we can just attack the problem directly and stimulate the parts of the brain that coffee works on without needing to use it as a middle man.

The excess crewmen who were once the third shift of the Ops Division can be shifted to the Deck Department and trained to use small arms for a truly dedicated shore party, as well as extra hands for the damage control teams.~

I'm not going balls deep into this and doing legit CT2WS style things where images are flashed before your eyes at 10 images per second so you can triage the most important things since I don't think that is particularly important for a warship which has a combat computer that can fight the ship if the CIC and bridge are burned out by hollow charges and flash fires. It might be a thing for Galla's army in terms of visual and IR image analysis similar to the Chinese "battle brain" tho where you have like a half a dozen intelligence troops in a van/truck hooked up to a few cameras that look around a firebase or a checkpoint and analyze images at faster-than-conscious speed and forward any flagged/triaged images to a analysis unit which can alert ground troops to suspicious persons or whatever.

[Kassaran]

I've actually been thinking about how technology just being introduced will change the way we view the far future. Something I've been toying with is the idea of space-faring Humans in a couple hundred years using Oxygen-rich fluids to breathe while onboard travelling starships.

There would be a number of reasons I imagine this could be feasible, but here are the top three out of them all:

1) Inertial Dampening: Fluids work well as a dampener for solid objects, and having an environment that utilizes fluids rather than air might work well. Unfortunately, while shockwaves might induce more harm to sensitive tissues, I doubt most weapons a few hundred years into the future will rely on High Explosive warheads to knock out manned vessels. As this is the case, the use of a highly-Oxygenated fluidic substance, might enable better cushioning when undergoing rapid acceleration and deceleration.

2) Damage Control: Something that many consider as eventually becoming a point for future star-ships to have onboard are advanced nanobots capable of carrying out repairs on ship systems, vital or otherwise if properly piloted or supervised by a remote controller. As this is the case, a fluid might be the best method of allowing some forms of nano-robots to move about freely on the ship. Large objects moving past them would be less likely to run into, (or in the case of the human crew-members) or swallow and ingest them as the nanites are displaced. Additionally, fluids leaking from a micro-fissure or opening in the hull might not leak as quickly as an actual atmosphere.

3) Amniotic Control and Command Systems: On the note of the electric currents and how they stimulate the brain, it's sort of gotten me thinking as to how future electronic systems may be able to stimulate the Human brain, or interact with it. I personally do not know the conductivity of highly-Oxygenated fluids, or if this is even feasible, but being immersed in a sort of, 'Amniotic' fluid within a ship could enable a future human reasonable ability to remotely interact with other crew members or areas of the ship through this system. If you can disperse control mechanisms throughout the ship, you might also be able to create a nutrient rich 'food' source that perfectly regulates the intake of a crew-members diet and enables them to move about, unhindered by hunger or even illness with the ability to potentially disperse drugs through this amniotic fluid.

So, what do you all think of this, and how would an Amniotic-type of control system work for planetside operations? Would submarine crews find it to be useful? What if we could create exo-suits that can carry out these functions for future soldiers (give it a hundred or so years)? Would we even field soldiers at that point? Perhaps the total immersion of a 'commander' would be all that's needed to enable control over an unmanned military force (ala Cylon-style bath-tech).

[Taihei Tengoku]

i would be very down to swim inside an evangelion

[United Earthlings]

Yugoslav Fourth Generation Main Battle Tank

135mm Combat Tank M-114

armament includes:
135mm 2A67 smoothbore cannon
12.7mm coaxial machine gun
12.7mm Remote Weapon Station
12x Smoke Grenade Launchers (tight pack of 6 either side)

http://iiwiki.com/wiki/M-114_Main_Battle_Tank

The design and write-up could use some more polishing, between the various grammatical errors {Ex1: "a replacement for the 2A46 12 mm gun of the previous Yugoslovenski and FSR tanks."} and the reason why this tank exists in the first place would be a great place to start.

In addition, as others pointed out, removing any references of the fourth generation mentions wouldn't subtract any substance from the design write-up. If you want to state it’s the latest generation of tanks in service within your nation, there's a myriad of ways of stating that without having to confuse people with some meaningless number.

Here's the idea on how military defence works in my nation:

You decide to attack us. We are a remote island nation far from anywhere relevant, which means that you have to start your assault with your navy. We do not have nearly strong enough naval or air forces (we have as much as 20 planes ) to impede you, but we do have enough hidden artillery cannons on the coast to annoy your landing efforts for a short time. You most likely want to capture the only large airfield on the nation as fast as possible. This is where our strenghts come in.

We have a population of over 200 million. Over half of this can and will be conscripted (passive reserve). In our nation, everyone is required to own a gun, which thanks to goverment subsiditation will most likely be the same rifle used by our armed forces. There aren't enough fatigues for the majority of the conscripts, which means that they have to use their civilian clothing, which allows them to pose as civilians or steal your uniforms and pose as your soldiers. Everyone in the nation is required to go through a two-year service period, meaning that the population is already familiar how the military operates.

The nation is filled with old bunkers and caves left from the Revolution, most of which are used to store and hide artillery and mortars. They have predetermined fire zones and trained soldiers in active service camping nearby.

Point of these defences is to make the lives of the enemy soldiers as miserable as possible to lower their combat effectiveness and their willingess to be here.

I want to know if any of this is actually effective.

As a nation that roleplay's as a premier maritime power, not effective in the slightest. One of the rules of warfare is never fight to your enemy's strengths, but to their weaknesses.

• Step 1: Massive Naval Blockade of your entire island nation.
• Step 2: Time and some long range cruise missiles as a reminder that we've got all the time in the world to wait for your unconditional surrender.
• Step 3:Welcome your nation into the glorious Commonwealth as one of its newest independent province's or state's. Your people will thank you later...

---

It's just a gut feeling, but I think when Padnok saw this their life mission was completed and they ascended to a higher plane of existence.

[Taihei Tengoku]

• Step 1: Massive Naval Blockade of your entire island nation.
• Step 2: Time and some long range cruise missiles as a reminder that we've got all the time in the world to wait for your unconditional surrender.
• Step 3:Welcome your nation into the glorious Commonwealth as one of its newest independent province's or state's. Your people will thank you later... :D

you are so cool

[Dreviczenko]

Hello again, RCT! Long time NSer here, went inactive for a couple of years and I am now building my new nation, which is basically a retool of the old one with lessons learned. I have some questions about tanks; specifically, which platform/general vague direction I should go with for tanks in my nation.

Some RP stuff, in case it helps for context-

My nation is RP-wise a hyper-capitalist former-Soviet breakaway republic that started in Serbia and absorbed most of the Balkans. This gives you a clue as to the type of old stock I have laying around and what my troops would be familiar with. That being said, rapid modernization and brutal capitalism has turned my nation into an accidental economic superpower; we are friendly with the west and I intend to RP close ties to western corporations, but there is still a very entrenched Eastern Europe/Balkan culture feel that I want to stay true to.

I have always had a soft spot for Eastern-Bloc tanks, but Im trying to be more pragmatic in my approach, and the type of objective, higher-level understanding that you folks have about these things is beyond my mere academic affinity. That being said, assume that cost is not really an issue, considering I have a GDP almost triple that of China with half the population, a defense budget that rivals RL USA in percentage (and indeed highly surpasses in "real" "dollars"), and IC-RP wise, my nation is looking to modernize anyway, considering the horrible hodgepodge mish-mash of what I have now.

Without delving into a massive debate about what makes a tank good or "best" (believe me, I know its far more complicated and multi-faceted than that), in broad terms, within the constraints of what I have, should I try to move in to a phase-in of more Western tank designs, should I bother modernizing and improving the Eastern Bloc stuff with help from a western corporation (this is my MO so far; I already did this for my service rfiles and handguns, and the T-80U Oplot is just ripe for the picking), or should I just dive headfirst into a new original design for maximum autonomy and maximum brain-breaking-homework?

Genuinely invested in what this community will have to say, and of course Im open to any reasonable suggestions and criticisms.

Edited only for clarity and Grammar.