NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Gallia-]

2) What are people's thoughts on using semi submersible platforms as some form of forward naval base/ area control platform.

Worse than a ship in every way.

but if you arent shooting navy seals inside meat pods out of tomahawk missile tubes are you really even fighting hyper 2200s mega brushfire wars?

[The Dolphin Isles]

I could definitely see the use of AAA or at least autocannons in the 20-50 mm caliber range though for anti-drone work though or maybe something like a beefy wiesel with stingers but I guess this just goes back to the original idea OP said which is that only manpads are really needed if any AA provisions are needed at all.

Nah, you just need a really large shotgun or small shrapnel shell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KS-23

How high do you expect drones to fly anyway?

I guess what I had in mind while postulating that were the quadcopters in Syria that could drop grenades on troops with those troops reporting that those UAVs were incredibly hard to destroy or even detect. Although, I assume autocannons could be successful against other UAVs such as the IAI Harop. I am saying this under the theory that the airborne assault landed somewhere of actual importance, and not just a screening force (like Danternoust said with the port), so the enemy is willing to risk UAVs in hostile airspace to strike critical targets like command posts.

[Cossack Peoples]

Speculative question here: how many destroyed satellites would it take to effectively create Kessler Syndrome to the degree that orbiting bodies would have a very high probability of being struck after a short while in orbit, assuming the catalyst satellites mostly conform to the size of generic imaging or communications satellites and the targets are generally as large as a Los-Angeles-Class SSN (for comparison)? What would that number approximately be?

[Danternoust]

Speculative question here: how many destroyed satellites would it take to effectively create Kessler Syndrome to the degree that orbiting bodies would have a very high probability of being struck after a short while in orbit, assuming the catalyst satellites mostly conform to the size of generic imaging or communications satellites and the targets are generally as large as a Los-Angeles-Class SSN (for comparison)? What would that number approximately be?

Uh. Assume equal distribution of bits of matter for a distance of 100 meters each on a sphere of (earth's circumference + 200 km) in radius?

I think wolfram alpha might help. Multiple circles sufficient to be 100 meters apart from each other is equivalent.

It would be the same as computing Dyson swarm mass.

[New Vihenia]

So i'm trying to explain about Radar absorbers to someone... in the simplest way possible.

I started with "there are 2 kinds of absorbers. First is Dielectric, Second is magnetic" Then, "Both are dissipate the radar wave in form of heat, differences ? Dielectric behave like a resistor while magnetic one behaves like a dynamo."

Whaddya guys think ? There are 3rd and 4th kind however which is Chirosorb and "loaded circuit" or FSS (Frequency Selective Surface) But those two are rarely found as far as i see. FSS however is quite common but not as one you may see in typical stealth fighter coating. It's in the Radome.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Does homosexuality help or harm troop performance? Is it completely unrelated?

[Spirit of Hope]

Does homosexuality help or harm troop performance? Is it completely unrelated?

From a purely physical stand point homosexuality has no bearing on an individual soldiers performance of their duties. How homosexuality will interact with unit cohesion is going to depend a lot on the culture and legal code of the nation.

[Atheris]

Does homosexuality help or harm troop performance? Is it completely unrelated?

Obviously not. What the fuck?

[Hurtful Thoughts]

2) What are people's thoughts on using semi submersible platforms as some form of forward naval base/ area control platform.

Worse than a ship in every way.

Unless you mean like an oil rig.

In which case the one benefit is that it can house an utterly MASSIVE radar.

But otherwise, yeah... kinda terrible. Still need a crew to go belowdecks to check for leaks and actually able to perform damage-control in severe weather.

A more primitive jackup rig is slightly cheaper, but really can't go too deep and really isn't super useful except for massive radar instals.

That said, barge-warfare is kinda neat.

[Gallia-]

Does homosexuality help or harm troop performance? Is it completely unrelated?

Homosexual men tend to more often right brain, rather than left brain, dominant. This means they're worse at visuo-spatial correlation and physical movement in general, but better at verbal communication and probably get affected by their emotions more often than not. They might be worse on average as a population group in using tools, like rifles or anti-tank mines, and worse on average in using gestures and movements for communication as opposed to using purple prose, flowery language, and long run-on sentences followed by a flippantly glib reply about some obvious esoterica. They're probably worse at driving, having higher rates of automobile accidents and being worse at parallel parking, due to the accompanying visuo-spatial intelligence deficiencies (homosexual men are essentially women drivers), and so they shouldn't really be trusted around automobiles unless the vehicles are so small they can literally see themselves all around, like an ATV, or a motorcycle. But ATVs have their own issues and motorcycles will inevitably require good balance, coordination, and reaction time.

As a population, recruiting from homosexuals exclusively is probably not much different than recruiting from heterosexual women in some areas, like driving cars, dealing with stressful situations coolly and rationally, and judging distance based on depth perception, and not much different than recruiting from heterosexual men in other areas, like number of push-ups or pull ups able to be done, how fast you can do the 2-mile run, and attraction to natty muscular physique while slapping dudes' asses with wet towels.

You can recruit homosexuals who meet the heterosexual male baseline standards in terms of visuo-spatial awareness, physical movement, and fitness standards for the job (naturally this would be fewer homosexuals in combat arms like infantry, artillery, armor, or logistics like transportation and stevedores, but maybe quite a few gay men in signals or something) or you can simply bar them from service and suffer few ill effects either way. That said you don't really need to know how to toss a hand grenade, how many dicks away a APC is, or how to shoot a rifle accurately if you're a signaller. All you need to know how to do is slot a plug into a port with proper protection, maybe dig some holes and fill sandbags with the spoil, and pickup and move somewhat heavy square objects. Anyone can do this, possibly even women, and certainly a gay man since he has good upper body strength even if he can't shoot a rifle to save his life.

tl;dr Gay men are the actual strong, independent woman Hollywood wants you to believe in. Stick them on rear area COMMZ, nursing, and shore duty like WAVES, and free up the heterosexual males for dangerous work.

Worse than a ship in every way.

Unless you mean like an oil rig.

bruh

[Hrstrovokia]

Can I ask, what's the best approach in countering Loitering munition systems and MALE drones?

I saw a video recently heaping praise on the new Russian 57mm AA system. I guess it has merits. Shells are way cheaper than missiles. You could easily swarm a system using missiles, but a dual system or AA shell system would be relative might be a better approach?

[United Earthlings]

Two separate thoughts.

1) I've been poking at my air defense units for the last couple of days, and what I'm currently stuck on is the air defense batteries to be associated with airborne and air mobile brigades/divisions. Currently they are basically identical to the ones assigned to mechanized brigade/divisions. The obvious problem is that these units aren't well designed for air mobile or airborne operations. However there isn't a lot of options for equipment besides going to mostly MANPADS. So I'm thinking either leave it as is, airborne and airmobile operations are unlikely to happen outside of air superiority, and this provides them good coverage when operating as light infantry or go the mostly MANPAD route so they have more air defense when they do conduct airborne and air mobile operations.

For Air Mobile Brigades/Divisions, one idea you could go with is have the air defense batteries be replaced by a Attack Helicopter Squadron/Battalion specifically assigned to the AA role, I.E. the helicopters are fitted with mostly SHORAD AAMs and supporting rocket pods for anti-infantry/light vehicle suppression. In addition, if you haven't already, assign a Heavy Lift Helicopter Support Battalion or two or three to your Air Mobile Brigade/Division to lift your larger medium range SAM systems whether on trailers or light vehicles. For an Air Mobile unit, you don't need or want anything heavier than that for air defense.

Airborne should just stick to MANPADS.

2) What are people's thoughts on using semi submersible platforms as some form of forward naval base/ area control platform. The idea would be that you could drop a platform in to a strait or disputed area and it could provide sea control. Obvious downside is that it isn't stationary, but it could be far more persistent than a destroyer sitting around to do the same. Seizing land in the area, or building your own island, might be preferable, but this could be done relatively quickly at the start of hostilities without requiring the same localized work.

Not sure what you specifically had in mind, but the US Navy beat you to the punch by about a decade. "An Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD) (formerly the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP)), are designed to be a semi-submersible, flexible, modular platform providing the US Navy with the capability to perform large-scale logistics movements such as the transfer of vehicles and equipment from sea to shore. These ships significantly reduce the dependency on foreign ports and provide support in the absence of port availability."

Besides something like that, a large naval vessel or preferably a large surface group is the only way to secure sea control.

[The Archregimancy]

Does homosexuality help or harm troop performance? Is it completely unrelated?

You have been warned multiple times about these derailing posts on the topic of sexuality and sex.

You were last sent a clarification regarding the problem following a warning as recently as the 27th of December.

Given your inability to pay attention to either moderator warnings or constructive advice, take a *** 1-day ban for ongoing derailing via posts on sexual topics that, cumulatively, have come to represent trolling of your fellow thread participants ***.

[Austrasien]

Can I ask, what's the best approach in countering Loitering munition systems and MALE drones?

There are two different questions here.

1. Very probably the most effective defence against MALE UAVs is a combat air patrol. A typical MALE drone will strike with a weapon like the Hellfire from medium altitude where it is beyond the reach of most SHORADs and difficult to detect by anything but radars that are themselves susceptible to jamming and destruction. A plane can fly right up to it and engage with different kinds of missiles or if necessary the cannon.

2. Effective counters to loitering munitions don't really exist yet. The basic problem of reliably detecting and recognizing them at militarily useful ranges is not solved. Or at least have not been proven to work on an actual battlefield. Sandia Labs (a fairly authoritative source) believes high resolution visible/NIR cameras and radio-frequency interception are the best methods available for detecting small drones. But the former works only when light and visibility permit and the latter only against drones that radiate and have known signatures. It is not practical to make a single reasonably simple system for field use (as opposed to a very sophisticated and expensive ELINT system) that could detect and classify the full range of possible drone uplink/downlink signals that exist.Researchers from Britain have developed a new kind of radar with extremely good doppler resolution that is promising for detecting small/slow drones but its still a WIP, not yet suitable for a battlefield.

I saw a video recently heaping praise on the new Russian 57mm AA system.

It is the internet. Every Russian weapon is the greatest weapon ever created. Medium calibre (between 1 and 3 inches) AAA shells with some form of high precision proximity or time fuse can definitely work, the 35mm AHEAD has been around for a while, but the cost of these weapons is not significantly different from short-range guided missiles. Inclusion of the high-performance fuse boosts the cost of rounds from 100s to 1000s of dollars and the number of rounds consumed per engagement still sits in the double digits.

I guess it has merits. Shells are way cheaper than missiles. You could easily swarm a system using missiles, but a dual system or AA shell system would be relative might be a better approach?

The best system of defense, in general, would be airborne early warning and control, though there is still a need for airborne sensors geared towards detecting and tracking very small and slow targets. Because they are not horizon-limited aerial systems have many more opportunities to detect drones, especially the smaller kinds which can be difficult to track. They also have the potential to detect other indications of drone activity like the uplink signal from the drone controller (generally line of sight and no not detectable from a distant ground sensor) or the flash of a booster rocket which some use. Aircraft can also physically approach the drone and so may be able to acquire a drone at short range visually or with their FLIR after being cued to its general location by radio intercept or low-quality radar track, and verify it is not a nuisance object like a bird or reflections from moving ground traffic or some other falsity.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Unless you mean like an oil rig.

bruh

A design so unsuccessful they tried again in 2006

I'm Freeeeeeeeeeeeee!

SBX-1 was last seen on Sept 2019, departing Pearl Harbor.

[Austrasien]

bruh

A design so unsuccessful they tried again in 2006

I'm Freeeeeeeeeeeeee!

SBX-1 was last seen on Sept 2019, departing Pearl Harbor.

its a floating monument to the military-industrial complex

[Gallia-]

bruh

A design so unsuccessful they tried again in 2006

I'm Freeeeeeeeeeeeee!

SBX-1 was last seen on Sept 2019, departing Pearl Harbor.

Yes, America's inefficiency and inability to produce quality weapons in favor of obnoxious ideas instead, with alarmingly increasing regularity, is well known.

SBX and the other stupid things are dumb jobs programs, like LCS, FCS, and FVL. Instead of doing something sensible, like making a big boat, they decided to make a dumb Texas Tower that moves very slowly. Instead of doing something sensible, like making a minesweeper and a cheap Eurofrigate, they decided to make an empty box that goes really fast. Instead of doing something sensible, like buying some new radios when the Air Farce's hyper radio SDR thing inevitably implodes, they decided to assume it would always work instead and spent an aircraft carrier's worth of money on 6 tankettes. Instead of doing something sensible, like upgrading the AH-64 and UH-60 with new engines, and maybe buying a HLH to compare with Mi-26 and another flying crane, they decided to go all-in on tiltrotors despite not knowing how they even worked or what their advantages and disadvantages might be relative to something like a handful of C-27 Spartans/DHC Caribous and big normal helicopters.

Almost as if there's a theme or something wau.

Lots of people get employed in the dumb ideas for a few years, while MBAs get lifetime positions in the defense procurement department, and they're very flashy so they're easy to sell to graphic artists, which explains why they keep happening. But they don't actually make good weapons, but that was never their purpose anyway. Big sad.

The only good news is that the US Army might have wasted so much money that Congress is finally waking up to this fact and only letting them do not-stupid things like buy a new howitzer. If we're lucky they'll kill FVL and the pusher prop helicopter and replace it with MQ-1s or MQ-9s, C-27s, and better UH-60s and maybe something like ACA, all of which will make the Air Force mad but they need to have a time out from the budget for what they did with JTRS and with how they've been managing F-35 anyway. And the USN decided to buy a cheap Eurofrigate in the end so it's not all lost, even if it's the wrong Eurofrigate, at least it's better than LCS.

Meanwhile the USMC continues to be the most cost effective branch despite not having tanks and being the only group of people who have the pilot experience left in literally the entire world (Harrier pilots) to form a tiltrotor corps.

[Danternoust]

I wonder if PMT wars won't be hypersonic ramjets, open cycle nuclear engines, or anything nearly as cool as that, but simply the Cod Wars on a global scale as fishing stocks become severely depleted while fishermen are subsidized sufficiently to enter the open ocean, but not enough to feed their own families.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

I wonder if PMT wars won't be hypersonic ramjets, open cycle nuclear engines, or anything nearly as cool as that, but simply the Cod Wars on a global scale as fishing stocks become severely depleted while fishermen are subsidized sufficiently to enter the open ocean, but not enough to feed their own families.

That's MT.

Or 2021 irl/

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Do Rastafarians make bad soldiers on average?

[The Dolphin Isles]

Is a six month conscription period like Taiwan currently has worth the cost-benefits analysis?

I'm think that as an archipelago, my air force is need of funding and manpower. This sector and the naval sector aren't really the best places for conscripts anyways though, and a large standing army is going to be more of a drain on the other two than of a benefit. I do like the idea of everyone getting basic military training in general though as this would help mobilization if I did end up needing a.bunch more people in areas such as drone pilots, internal security of bases/sites, etc..

I guess my main question is should I even try having conscription if I'm not getting at least 1-2 yrs of work from them?

[Danternoust]

Is a six month conscription period like Taiwan currently has worth the cost-benefits analysis?

I'm think that as an archipelago, my air force is need of funding and manpower. This sector and the naval sector aren't really the best places for conscripts anyways though, and a large standing army is going to be more of a drain on the other two than of a benefit. I do like the idea of everyone getting basic military training in general though as this would help mobilization if I did end up needing a.bunch more people in areas such as drone pilots, internal security of bases/sites, etc..

I guess my main question is should I even try having conscription if I'm not getting at least 1-2 yrs of work from them?

According to the US's statistics from the BLS OES, office support jobs make up 13% of the workforce, with sales being 9.7%, and transportation is 8.5%.
If any of those can be made more efficient, any worker transferred to the military is one that can be transferred without reducing quality of life.

Of course with an average population pyramid, half a year of conscription may be equivalent to one or two percent of total manyears available....

The US population does pay 2.5% of GDP towards the national debt, so, meh.

[Gallia-]

Is a six month conscription period like Taiwan currently has worth the cost-benefits analysis?

No.

The ROC's conscription period isn't exemplar of a serious military. Their ground force is not well equipped, or well trained, because they know they would lose if the mainlanders land on their island. I'm not even sure their Air Force is particularly good, though, even if it is their main defense, because they have fairly outdated aircraft. This probably directly a result of having a security arrangement with the United States. Were that to disappear you'd see something more akin to Singapore's National Service, or Israel's, rather than the lackluster and effete policy in place, and pursuit of more advanced tactical fighters like F-35.

Galla conscripts for 18 months ordinarily, which can be reduced to 14 months through a variety of incentives.

[Danternoust]

Is a six month conscription period like Taiwan currently has worth the cost-benefits analysis?

No.

The ROC's conscription period isn't exemplar of a serious military. Their ground force is not well equipped, or well trained, because they know they would lose if the mainlanders land on their island. I'm not even sure their Air Force is particularly good, though, even if it is their main defense, because they have fairly outdated aircraft. This probably directly a result of having a security arrangement with the United States. Were that to disappear you'd see something more akin to Singapore's National Service, or Israel's, rather than the lackluster and effete policy in place, and pursuit of more advanced tactical fighters like F-35.

Wouldn't logically, for a country the size and shape of Switzerland, follow the Swiss strategy of retreating to the mountains to fight a long guerrilla war, while giving as many people in the cities Stingers and other light weapons, and maybe even guns to fight the invasion forces?

Of course this would result in China being embargoed by the world's powers, and there being the largest computer parts shortage since Thailand flooded.

[Gallia-]

lol