NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Manokan Republic]

Would this loadout work for a basic rifleman (as a poor, western aligned mediterranean nation):

Firearm:
1 x FN FAL 50.00
6 x Magazines, 20 rounds 7.62 each

Grenades:
4 x M67 frag grenades
1 x Smoke grenade

Uniform:
Camo BDU
combat boots
M1 helmet
ALICE rig

Misc:
1 x canteen
2 x wound dressings
1 x combat knife
1 x pocket knife
1 x personal ID card

In backpack:
1 x entrenching tool
1 x sleeping bag
1 x tarp with supporting sticks
1 x canned food
1 x firestarter
1 x change of clothes
1 x weapon cleaning kit
2 x canteen
1 x first aid kit
1 x sewing kit

Is anything missing? I am thinking about swapping some frag grenades for WP grenades, what do you think?

It looks fine, just a little light. 120 rounds is pretty low for example, with 160 rounds being more reasonable for a battle rifle, and multiple smoke grenades being more useful, such as at least 2, for strategic reasons. If you only have one you'll be afraid to use it, but if you have two you'll use it more tactically than just strategically, or be more inclined to. I'd also reccomend more canteens. A canteen can hold between 8-16 ounces of water, and most soldiers need 6-8 pounds of water, or 90-128 ounces a day, depending on how much they get from their food, so you'll need more than three canteens. However if this is just a general combat kit, and not intended to represent how much you'd use on a longer trip (with a 3 day assault pack being pretty ordinary), then it would be fine.

Basically it's good if light is your intention, but a couple extra magazines, grenades and some more water/food if you plan on this being a typical 3-day combat pack. Otherwise looks good

[Taihei Tengoku]

Would this loadout work for a basic rifleman (as a poor, western aligned mediterranean nation):

snip

Is anything missing? I am thinking about swapping some frag grenades for WP grenades, what do you think?

Most people carry two canteens and the E-tool on the ALICE rig. Ration draw (the "canned food") depends on how long you'll be walking. That aside this is a pretty solid Duder; ALICE is a pretty good load bearing system and the Altis Tigerstripe pattern looks really good.

[High Alyria]

Do any of you go in-depth of explaining your defense contracts between your govts and companies/manufacturers and how you would make it less expensive on the govt’s side? Or do you just hand wave money around like air.

Since this is fictional I figured it’d be more plausible to have something more costly efficient than in real life

[The Akasha Colony]

Do any of you go in-depth of explaining your defense contracts between your govts and companies/manufacturers and how you would make it less expensive on the govt’s side? Or do you just hand wave money around like air.

The whole nature of this game is hand-waving, more or less. You can invent plenty of ways to save money when you can write whatever you want, such as claiming all of your engineers work for minimum wage or something. On a slightly less extreme level, you can easily just write away the IRL factors that drive up the cost of procurement.

Since this is fictional I figured it’d be more plausible to have something more costly efficient than in real life

Absolute cost efficiency isn't really the top priority of most defense contracts. There are plenty of ways to save money on government contracting (and contracting in general) but it isn't pursued for political and practical reasons.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Could something like the PIAT be designed to fire rifle grenades or versions of standard grenades? Would the cost, weight, and lack of easy use make this less practical than just issuing a rifle just for rifle grenades?

Or would an RPG-16 be more practical than this still?

Typically, if you're poor. You suck it up as per the mass-inefficiency and continue issuing bolt-action rifle grenade launching rifles because you cannot fund a rifle-grenade launching muzzle-device for your semi-automatics.

And yes, 5.56x45 in blowback operated rifle can into 22mm STANAG rifle-grenade... as can 7.62x39 and to lessser extent the 5.45x39.

Alternately, if using the french RGs... replace the tail-assemblies, add a sleeve/sabot and covnert them all into 60mm mortar-shells.

[Purpelia]

Do any of you go in-depth of explaining your defense contracts between your govts and companies/manufacturers and how you would make it less expensive on the govt’s side? Or do you just hand wave money around like air.

Since this is fictional I figured it’d be more plausible to have something more costly efficient than in real life

I do. Well sort of. Basically the way Purpelia is set up is that the Dukes that run the government are also big capitalists that own all the big industries including weaponry. So you have the ruling elite essentially dividing up the national market between them like a cartel.

[Manokan Republic]

Do any of you go in-depth of explaining your defense contracts between your govts and companies/manufacturers and how you would make it less expensive on the govt’s side? Or do you just hand wave money around like air.

Since this is fictional I figured it’d be more plausible to have something more costly efficient than in real life

My country is hybrid socialist, so basically the government makes and sells most of the military equipment, thus keeping the products as low a price as possible, and we get military support from the United State's. One way to do this in a purely capitalistic nature, is to have things like war bonds and auditors who audit the price of equipment and require it to be sold at lower prices. So for example if a company sells a 20 dollar polymer stock for a gun, for like 200 dollars, then the government would say, we are buying that for 20-30 dollars, instead of 200. You offer to buy so much they can't refuse the offer, but you get a better deal. Buying in bulk can help with that to some extent, as well as putting in a negotiated price after evaluating how expensive it is to actually make the product. A good example of this would be the price of bottled water, with a gallon of water in water bottles being about 1 dollar a gallon, even though it costs far less than this to actually get the filtered water and plastic (5 to 10 cents a gallon or less), and this is true for many other products.

Basically do an audit of a company to figure out what price it really costs them to make stuff, and only buy it for a little bit higher than that.

[United Earthlings]

Do any of you go in-depth of explaining your defense contracts between your govts and companies/manufacturers and how you would make it less expensive on the govt’s side? Or do you just hand wave money around like air.

Since this is fictional I figured it’d be more plausible to have something more costly efficient than in real life

Sometimes, in the design write-ups I do I make a small mention here or there, but generally it’s just assuming all to be occurring in the background, because let’s be honest most people don’t want to read about what type of contract whether a Cost-plus-incentive fee or a Fixed-price incentive contract, etc… is issued to the thousands of different variety of contracts a nation would sign on a annual basis. I’ve actually taken the time on occasion to read those real life reports and they make for dull reading…

Here’s a real life short one just from today: “L-3 Chesapeake Sciences Corp., Millersville, Maryland, is being awarded a $43,094,331 fixed-price-incentive, firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-type modification to previously-awarded contract N00024-16-C-6251 to exercise options for the production of TB-29C towed arrays. Work will be performed in Liverpool, New York (48 percent); Millersville, Maryland (32 percent); and Ashaway, Rhode Island (20 percent), and is expected to be completed by January 2022. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 other procurement (Navy); and fiscal 2016 and 2017 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funding in the amount of $43,094,331 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.”

Exciting stuff right! Boy I could spend all day reading those…

Also, as is reflected in real life, I don’t tend to make things cheaper as cost savings are usually only achieved later in a procurement contract and if you actually looked at real life defense budget breakdowns, most defense spending is consumed by first personnel costs and then O&M {Operations and Maintenance} where the only way to really reduce costs is to cut something.

As such, I tend to acknowledge my nation as having a higher amount of defense spending per GNP then comparable real life counterparts.

I could go into more depth if you like, but that in-depth look extends beyond just the role of contracts.

[Rose Federation]

I'm looking to make a chart like this (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... _Force.png) for my airforce and I have no clue where to start.

Does anyone have any tips or resources detailing compositions of an air regiment? As in what various smaller units make up the regiment, the number of men, vehicles, and equipment in the smaller units, etc.

My goal is to make a chart like the one above, know exactly how many men there are in each unit, what their jobs are, and the number of equipment and vehicles they use.

[Triplebaconation]

The ideal aviation regiment after the most recent reorganization has three squadrons of 12 aircraft each plus a few trainers. Bomber and transport squadrons will have fewer aircraft, helicopter squadrons more.

In practice your question is impossible to answer because every regiment is different, and the actual number of squadrons varies from one to four. The equipment level of each squadron also varies considerably.

[Kazarogkai]

While playing a good old game of EU4 I decided upon the idea of bringing Kazarogkai to life using Madagascar as my jumping off point and well it was quite fun. The info gleamed from that play through to some degree influenced my thinking on the development of Kazarogkai and it's history in it's world. During this something rather interesting occurred while I was at war with Spain, who controlled the cape colony, and their junior partners(notably Portugal). While the main front was on a stalemate I decided to do a rather daring little attack striking at the heart of my enemy. Making sure to get the required basing rights for countries along my path I quietly sent a fleet of transports loaded up with 24 thousand soldiers(20 Inf, 4 Art) and saw fit to land them upon the Portuguese capital of Lisbon which was miraculously sparsely defended except by a force of about 2,000 which I quickly dispatched. I was able to get up to 25% siege progress before Spain was able to mobilize an army of about 20 thousand mercenaries that forced me to retreat knowing full well that such a force would clobber my own being that I was something like 5 tech behind them. Due to the aforementioned basing rights my fleet made it back home largely in one piece, albeit just barely. I eventually did win the war largely via attrition with Spain unable to achieve it's war goals and me eventually being able to negotiate in effect a white peace.

Sadly said save did become corrupted and I had to start over with the above picture being my current progress. In the previous play through I in effect dominated the Indian ocean controlling most of coastal southern Arabia, parts of India, and finally bits of south east Asia in addition for the most part to what I have in this play through. My wonder was what type of interesting effects would this had actually happened in a world like are own. Military, political, or cultural. In effect a powerful 800 year old pagan empire of 5'0 foot tall, plated-mail clad, gun wielding ass hats just led a naval expedition against one of if not the premier great powers of Europe and burned about 25% of one of it's major cities to the ground. At the time africa was regarded as a rather primitive land filled with small tribal kingdoms who had a lot of slaves and gold; while still largely true in this world especially on the western half, the eastern half in this world lays host to a rather large power which has just proven itself capable of directly threatening Europe itself. I can just imagine terror being the best word for such a thought.

The place in white called Sazi Wali Is me just so were on the right page.

[Vespertia]

How does this warship count look? For comparison, military size is 381k active personnel, 137k voluntary reservists and 550k conscripts, and military budget is US$65.26 bn.

2 Charles de Gaulle-class-sized nuclear powered carriers
4 landing platform docks
16 destroyers
12 frigates
12 corvettes
8 patrol boats
4 nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines
20 nuclear powered submarines

[Taihei Tengoku]

cvns are a rip if you only have two

[Purpelia]

Beats me. All I my navy has is a handful of patrol ships that couldn't stand up to a harsh wind, a small fleet of speedboats and an amphibious mechanized brigade.

[The Manticoran Empire]

How does this warship count look? For comparison, military size is 381k active personnel, 137k voluntary reservists and 550k conscripts, and military budget is US$65.26 bn.

2 Charles de Gaulle-class-sized nuclear powered carriers
4 landing platform docks
16 destroyers
12 frigates
12 corvettes
8 patrol boats
4 nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines
20 nuclear powered submarines

The submarines seem a bit much.

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

They are a very versatile and powerful weapon.

[The Manticoran Empire]

But 24 of them on a 65 billion dollar budget?

[Crookfur]

How does this warship count look? For comparison, military size is 381k active personnel, 137k voluntary reservists and 550k conscripts, and military budget is US$65.26 bn.

2 Charles de Gaulle-class-sized nuclear powered carriers
4 landing platform docks
16 destroyers
12 frigates
12 corvettes
8 patrol boats
4 nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines
20 nuclear powered submarines

Looks a bit over inflated to me.
Carriers and amphibs look OK.
Destroyers could probably top out at 8 to 12 depending on what they are.
Could probably afford more frigates in the region of 16 to 18, particularly if you ditched the corvettes.
Ditching the corvettes would give you the funds for a decent mine warfare element of maybe 12 to 16 minehunters/mine warfare vessels.
Yeah as the others have said the SSNs are a bit much, 8 to 10 is more likely.

[The Manticoran Empire]

A US Navy attack submarine cost 70 million dollars in direct costs and 140 million dollars in indirect costs.

[The Akasha Colony]

But 24 of them on a 65 billion dollar budget?

The budget does not appear to match the manpower.

Modern European nations generally field half as many active troops on roughly the same defense expenditure, and that's before considering over half a million conscripts who still need to be equipped, trained, and fed even if they are not paid.

Of course, it's possible that labor costs and income are much lower in this nation, but this in turn raises the question of how such a nation has otherwise-modern naval equipment. This isn't an impossible state of affairs as both China and India have constructed aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines while having far lower labor costs than their European counterparts, but their performance in human factors is generally worse as well.

[Triplebaconation]

A US Navy attack submarine cost 70 million dollars in direct costs and 140 million dollars in indirect costs.

This is an excellent factoid that will no doubt help Vespertia do a line-item budget for the entire military.

Comparing your country's military with another is good way to see if it's reasonable. Vespertia's compare well with Russia if it changed its priorities slightly, but this assumes his economy is similar to Russia.

Most comparisons of military budgets simply use exchange rates. If your military relies primary on domestic suppliers, then you have to take purchasing power parity into account. A ruble in Russia is worth more than exchange rates suggest, so what Russia gets for its defense budget in US dollars is much more than the US or somewhere with similar purchasing power parity would.

Basically if your economy is similar to Russia, your military is reasonable. If it's more similar to the UK (which has a similar budget in USD), your military will be much smaller.

[The Manticoran Empire]

A US Navy attack submarine cost 70 million dollars in direct costs and 140 million dollars in indirect costs.

This is an excellent factoid that will no doubt help Vespertia do a line-item budget for the entire military.

Comparing your country's military with another is good way to see if it's reasonable. Vespertia's compare well with Russia if it changed its priorities slightly, but this assumes his economy is similar to Russia.

Most comparisons of military budgets simply use exchange rates. If your military relies primary on domestic suppliers, then you have to take purchasing power parity into account. A ruble in Russia is worth more than exchange rates suggest, so what Russia gets for its defense budget in US dollars is much more than the US or somewhere with similar purchasing power parity would.

Basically if your economy is similar to Russia, your military is reasonable. If it's more similar to the UK (which has a similar budget in USD), your military will be much smaller.

I have a CBO report on the cost of running various US military units.
Here it is.

[Triplebaconation]

Yeah, but it's 146 pages more than anyone wants to read and it doesn't have any relevance to running military units in Canada, let alone a kingdom of vampires that don't sparkle but don't burst into flames either which is in a cold war with a kingdom of werewolves.

[Gallia-]

The only major downside is that one of those carriers is going to be in a many-months long refueling and overhaul for the reactors at some point in its life. You can separate the two but it means your boat either needs to sit in a drydock for 2 years while some duders uproot the flight deck to pull the reactors out, or it becomes a crazy quilt of computers and radios as you try to separate a single really long overhaul period into what can be accomplished when the carrier sits around in a drydock for 6-8 months to avoid a long gap between carrier availability.

So basically for like maybe 4-6 years of the combined lifespans of those carriers you won't have either of them available. Three carriers means one can be refueled and two will still be in service to alternate between deployments.

The cheaper option is to just use a conventional carrier like a Kitty Hawk or a QE.

Everything else looks OK.

[Vespertia]

Okay, what if I increased the budget to 88 billion USD (2.4% of GDP, up from 1.78%, as I realised it didn't make sense for a nation at a state of cold war to spend less than 2% of its GDP on defence), removed all the corvettes, added 10 frigates and removed 6 submarines?