NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Immoren]

I wonder if I'm again copying familiar RL system withouth thinking, from one context to another wrong. But I'm not sure if this style of "dual career path for senior career/cadet officers" would make sense in context of larger NS army cultures.
Let me explain.
System for professional officers I had was that after serving certain amount of time as equivalent of captain, based on their ambitions and capabilities, officer would apply either into Staff Officer Course or General Staff Officer Course. Former would be shorter while latter would be longer. And even though officer would be promoted into major after graduating from either and would go through staff officer ranks either way. Difference would be that officer with staff officer course would have much longer promotion cycle and they would never go beyond colonel or equivalent before retirement, officer from General Staff Officer Course would pretty much speed through staff officer ranks and have much less time serving in those roles, before going into General Staff and possibly retiring as General equivalent.
lol

[Purpelia]

I wonder if I'm again copying familiar RL system withouth thinking, from one context to another wrong. But I'm not sure if this style of "dual career path for senior career/cadet officers" would make sense in context of larger NS army cultures.
Let me explain.
System for professional officers I had was that after serving certain amount of time as equivalent of captain, based on their ambitions and capabilities, officer would apply either into Staff Officer Course or General Staff Officer Course. Former would be shorter while latter would be longer. And even though officer would be promoted into major after graduating from either and would go through staff officer ranks either way. Difference would be that officer with staff officer course would have much longer promotion cycle and they would never go beyond colonel or equivalent before retirement, officer from General Staff Officer Course would pretty much speed through staff officer ranks and have much less time serving in those roles, before going into General Staff and possibly retiring as General equivalent.
lol

Why would anyone volunteer for a variant of the same job that comes with less prospects for promotion along with everything that comes with that? The only way I imagine this could work is if the longer and fancier one was the one you can apply to and than you pick the best and wash the others out into the other program. Might lead to resentment though.

[Immoren]

I wonder if I'm again copying familiar RL system withouth thinking, from one context to another wrong. But I'm not sure if this style of "dual career path for senior career/cadet officers" would make sense in context of larger NS army cultures.
Let me explain.
System for professional officers I had was that after serving certain amount of time as equivalent of captain, based on their ambitions and capabilities, officer would apply either into Staff Officer Course or General Staff Officer Course. Former would be shorter while latter would be longer. And even though officer would be promoted into major after graduating from either and would go through staff officer ranks either way. Difference would be that officer with staff officer course would have much longer promotion cycle and they would never go beyond colonel or equivalent before retirement, officer from General Staff Officer Course would pretty much speed through staff officer ranks and have much less time serving in those roles, before going into General Staff and possibly retiring as General equivalent.
lol

Why would anyone volunteer for a variant of the same job that comes with less prospects for promotion along with everything that comes with that? The only way I imagine this could work is if the longer and fancier one was the one you can apply to and than you pick the best and wash the others out into the other program. Might lead to resentment though.

Well it was what I wrote or "best of staff officer course continue directly to general staff officer course while rest go to units". Which has been other alternative but I am not sure what's currently going on and I was being lazy.
But yeah this system that Finland has in place might be due to size of actual general staff and would be moot in larger NS armies. Don't know about resentment. And I guess some people are content being staff officer at battalion quite while who knows.

[Purpelia]

Why would anyone volunteer for a variant of the same job that comes with less prospects for promotion along with everything that comes with that? The only way I imagine this could work is if the longer and fancier one was the one you can apply to and than you pick the best and wash the others out into the other program. Might lead to resentment though.

Well it was what I wrote or "best of staff officer course continue directly to general staff officer course while rest go to units". Which has been other alternative but I am not sure what's currently going on and I was being lazy.
But yeah this system that Finland has in place might be due to size of actual general staff and would be moot in larger NS armies. Don't know about resentment. And I guess some people are content being staff officer at battalion quite while who knows.

Well like, you know how every PE teacher in every school is a grim and dejected individual because they all wanted to be athletes and go to the Olympics and stuff s and instead ended up washing out and are now teaching in a school. Well, maybe not every single one but you get the idea. That's the sort of thing I see happening here at least for some people. In a huge NS sized army this might even lead to an effectively two tier system of "lesser officers" and a sort of "officer nobility" with the higher ranks claiming superiority over the other not just due to rank but due to being intrinsically better than the washouts.

Than again I am an admitted misanthrope with too much imagination on my hands.

[Gallia-]

It makes sense as a tranche/pipeline system for people with different skills and abilities. Commanding a tank battalion is going to require a bit of a different skill set, or at least a lower skill ceiling, than staff planning as a G4 for a theater commander. Putting the shining stars on the fast path to E-ring tenure is probably a good idea if only to get them away from the drudgery of commanding an armored battalion for 3-4 years. You could probably do away with, or have a toned down, up-and-out type system where you retain the most naturally gifted battalion and brigade commanders with such a system, too, since only a few people will assumed to be on the path to general officer's staff (or general officer), while the majority will just end up peaking as commanders of tactical units.

You'd need some way to identify who is good at being a staff planner as opposed to a field officer early on, but that shouldn't be too hard. You'd probably make the decision as to who goes to the general staff tranche and who goes to the brigadier/field colonel tranche before they hit captain.

[Immoren]

Also when it comes to piping, when I was searching on how that
Works irl Finland apparently we now have tenure track where current cadet officers don't have to continue their studies after Bachelor of military science to further their career, because there is going to be lack of low level career officers after last of "old NCO corps turned into alternate company officer corps" retires.
Because previously cadet officer could only work up to 10 (iirc) years before needing to take master in military science but apparently that's no longer the case.
So apparently there are enough people who are content serving as lieutenants and captains for years on end. Lol

[Gallia-]

Those guys could probably be turned into NCOs tbh. Captain isn't really a terminal career placement, it's not even a middling career placement and even major as a terminal is pretty poor performance (major is where you'd be basically middle management, so it can be a terminal, but it's mostly a middle career arc for career officers). Really, colonelcy (battalion or brigade) is the lower bound terminal career progression (for officers who more skilled in things like commanding tanks or employing weapons rather than the "soft" skills of planning and staff discourses), and obviously general officer is the apex terminal for the most competent and brightest officers.

But not everyone can be E-ring material. You can probably ensure that all career officers are at least competent enough to end their careers as staff majors for a colonel or something, though.

[Immoren]

Those guys could probably be turned into NCOs tbh. Captain isn't really a terminal career placement, it's not even a middling career placement and even major as a terminal is pretty poor performance (major is where you'd be basically middle management, so it can be a terminal, but it's mostly a middle career arc for career officers). Really, colonelcy (battalion or brigade) is the lower bound terminal career progression (for officers who more skilled in things like commanding tanks or employing weapons rather than the "soft" skills of planning and staff discourses), and obviously general officer is the apex terminal for the most competent and brightest officers.

But not everyone can be E-ring material. You can probably ensure that all career officers are at least competent enough to end their careers as staff majors for a colonel or something, though.

Well it's sort of weird to me too given we're still trying to re-rstablish career NCO corps.
I guess I try to post a translated graph that was on that article about career later. Lol

[Spirit of Hope]

I will say I know more than a couple Majors that would be willing to serve as captains again, not willing enough to take the pay cut though.

As to a duel track staff/tactical that isn't a bad idea, it would depend a lot on how you implemented it.

[New Vihenia]

uh yeah quick question... how one define "air superiority" ?

Is definition like :

"Being able to contest, maintain and defend control of airspace regardless of hostile forces's action" enough ?

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Is it realistic for a significant proportion of Generals to be members of a secret society?

[The Manticoran Empire]

uh yeah quick question... how one define "air superiority" ?

Is definition like :

"Being able to contest, maintain and defend control of airspace regardless of hostile forces's action" enough ?

Air Superiority would be the ability to conduct air operations while still contesting the air space. Air Supremacy is where you own the skies.

The way I remember it is like this, when you have Air Superiority, you have more planes than the enemy but they can still kill your planes. When you have Air Supremacy, your enemy doesn't really have anymore planes and can't really contest the skies.

[Socialist Macronesia]

Is it realistic for a significant proportion of Generals to be members of a secret society?

If it is run by the government, P E R H A P S

If not, I don't really see how people would overlook all the generals meeting, no matter how secret.

"Where is General Tom?"

"He's out today."

"Then where is General John?"

"Also out today."

And so on.

[Dayganistan]

Is it realistic for a significant proportion of Generals to be members of a secret society?

It's literally your NS nation. Do whatever you want with it. You're clearly not that concerned with realism because people are able to dodge bullets in your universe.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Is it realistic for a significant proportion of Generals to be members of a secret society?

You could try it but it wouldn't stay secret for very long.

[Triplebaconation]

Secret societies usually aren't very secret.

[Gallia-]

There were a couple weird USAF generals who were dominionists. It keeps happening for some reason. Well, that guy might only be a fellow traveler of actual Evangelical terrorists (this is a meme from the future, you don't understand it yet), since I think he just led online prayer at lunchtime and sold books through his website, but still.

What sort of highly trad Christian baby eating rituals go on at Colorado Springs? Is this the power of modern architecture? Does the Air Force Academy Chapel gather spiritual energy from nearby megachurches and their blessed Hummer-limos and funnel them into a portal to be spread across the minds of cadets attending every Sunday service? Who knows.

But it's not like evangelical dominionism is a secret society or anything in any significant sense except that it's marginalized and obscure to outsiders. As it turns out this is the biggest thing for secret societies, because I can literally tell you the street address of both of the Freemason and the Moose Lodge in my hometown, I don't know the specific rituals or esoterica of the societies at large, although their activities are probably less something sinister like plotting world domination through Napoleons or ownership of the banks from the Rothschilds and more playing bingo and poker while smoking cigarettes with bussed in folks from the retirement home. Maybe they plan investments to the local country club and expansion of the golf course? Very serious talk goes on behind those walls.

This probably has more to do with my being a reclusive hermit than anything particularly substantial towards the secrecy of said "secret societies" though, but my impression is that they're just places for old geezers to gather around a poker table, talk about dude things like investments and work, and drink or smoke, without being nagged by minorities or wives.

As far as Muslim secret societies go, the secret society there is all Islam itself, because part of the actual theology is world domination. Christianity sort of resigns itself to more or less "get as many as possible before Jeezy comes back", Judaism advocates for Lebensraum for the Jewish Nation and nothing more, but Islam genuinely requires constant warfare and expansion of the Caliphate as a religious tenet. If an Islamic leader isn't expanding into societies next to it, turning them Muslim, or outright invading them and stealing their women and land, he isn't a Muslim. The best you could hope for as a dhimmi was being a small, semi-autonomous ethno-province under the Sultan and have to pay a submission tax, and also riding at the back of the bus. The worst is forced conversion of future generations (or current) by kidnapping of orphans and daughters by Muslim men. Both of these occurred at the same time though, so they're really two stages of the same thing with the same end goal: conversion of a conquered population to Islam to solidify the Islamic State/Caliphate/Sultanate/whatever.

This is ubiquitous in all Islamic sects as well. Christians overall are substantially less aggressive because Jesus was something of a pacifist (or could be interpreted that way); while Judaism might be similarly aggressive to Islam there's no reasonably rapid way to convert a population to Judaism through its rites, so they'd just sorta institute an apartheid or something, with divisions even between converted and natural born Jews. Islam is the only one of the major three international Abrahamic faiths to explicitly require periods of warfare and conquest as a theological rite.

[Austrasien]

Popularly imagined secret societies tend to go hand-in-hand with the vision of a secret hierarchy where shadowy puppet masters are the ones really giving the orders. This generally does not happen, the people who are powerful in society tend also to be the ones powerful in secret societies. Secret societies are largely indistinguishable from closed clubs. That some have rites and hierarchies is about as significant as the fact most major religions have hierarchies and rites. Being a 14th degree Grand Frog does not by itself catapult someone above CEOs, senators and generals even if there are a lot of them in the lodge except in whatever specific domain this office pertains to.

A secret society of generals is going to look a lot like an officers club. The Mystical Order of the Frog isn't anymore (or less) likely to be a conduit for mischief than a Golf Club or Bird-Watching association with the same members.

[Mitheldalond]

sheridan turret + bradley chassis = ultimate ifv

Not sure if sarcasm, but I've actually been wondering about this. Not the Sheridan, but replacing the autocannons on IFVs with 120mm gun-mortars. Basically this, but uparmored to match the rest of the IFV, and without any of the indirect fire specific systems since I don't plan on using it as a mortar. So I guess it would essentially be a western equivalent of a BMP-3, but without the autocannon.

Is there anything that makes this a particularly bad or good idea? Should it be done to all IFVs, or only a few?

[Purpelia]

sheridan turret + bradley chassis = ultimate ifv

Not sure if sarcasm, but I've actually been wondering about this. Not the Sheridan, but replacing the autocannons on IFVs with 120mm gun-mortars. Basically this, but uparmored to match the rest of the IFV, and without any of the indirect fire specific systems since I don't plan on using it as a mortar. So I guess it would essentially be a western equivalent of a BMP-3, but without the autocannon.

Is there anything that makes this a particularly bad or good idea? Should it be done to all IFVs, or only a few?

You'll probably end up with a relatively low velocity weapon that will have a hard time hitting fast moving IFV's and have low ammo capacity. There is a reason for the 30mm on the BMP-3 after all.

[Dayganistan]

sheridan turret + bradley chassis = ultimate ifv

Not sure if sarcasm, but I've actually been wondering about this. Not the Sheridan, but replacing the autocannons on IFVs with 120mm gun-mortars. Basically this, but uparmored to match the rest of the IFV, and without any of the indirect fire specific systems since I don't plan on using it as a mortar. So I guess it would essentially be a western equivalent of a BMP-3, but without the autocannon.

Is there anything that makes this a particularly bad or good idea? Should it be done to all IFVs, or only a few?

You'd probably be better off doing something like the Ratel 90 which had a high velocity 90mm gun. But in 2020 you could probably use a 105mm gun in an unmanned turret instead and have a coaxial autocannon or HMG. As for the mortar IFV though, I could see that being used more so as a fire support vehicle than an actual IFV.

[The Islands of Versilia]

What made the Third Reich so militarily successful, at least overall? What could be attributed to Germany’s overall military success, and how could an island nation functioning under a similar authoritarian and nationalist regime achieve similar military success?

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

What made the Hitlerreich so successful was more due to the absolute lethargic response to aggression it received and the absolute incompetence on the part of the Franco-British alliance when war eventually came.
As an island nation: Acquire a navy, turn the army into the Special Naval Landing Forces and call it a day.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

What problems come from all intelligence services being part of the military?

[Socialist Macronesia]

What made the Third Reich so militarily successful, at least overall? What could be attributed to Germany’s overall military success, and how could an island nation functioning under a similar authoritarian and nationalist regime achieve similar military success?

You are gonna get a lot of answers for this, I can tell.

My 2c are that they won because they had a pretty charismatic leader who indoctrinated his citizens into loving their nation far more than any normal person should. Plus they dumped most of their money into the military and had pretty good strategies.

Unfortunately they got a bit too power-hungry and backstabbed the Soviet Union too early and also declared war on the USA when they didn't have to.

I think they would have lost either way though. They didn't care about the people all that much, which usually leads to revolt no matter how charismatic you are.

Island nation: best strategy would be to slowly take over nations, using legitimate justifications of self defence and liberation to do it. Don't backstab your allies until you are sure you can win. You will probably still get overthrown but you will last much longer.