NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Dtn]

should my magic mecha have a RENK 5+5 gear automatic gearbox and hydropneumatic suspension or rocket hooves lol

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

what can i say im surprisingly conservative

[Gallia-]

Dumbla makes centaur mecha with dual shoulder cannons because it's chad.

[Dtn]

if a mecha doesn't have a sword or axe it should at least have 16" guns

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Right. I never imagined the Marines to have a historical precedent that far back. It was just a luck of the draw that when the governing body of the time decided to expand a force for war, they went with expanding the (mostly) volunteering Marines as opposed to raising the "Guard" which was home to more of the conscripted levies. Think if the US expanded the USMC instead of the Volunteer Army of the United States. Both were pretty awful since they were thrown up out of thin air but developed a lot over time.

Naval policemen are historically not as good at fighting as a army of levied soldiers though.

Although initially the armed sailors performed well at Sevastopol and during the war of 1812, at least when compared to the normal army units of the time.

If Russia had a Battle of Bladensburg, today, it would be Putin leading from the front at the gates of Moscow with a battalion of naval-infantry while the Red Army Choir sang over the loudspeakers... Moscow would still burn, but an epic nonetheless.

[Gallia-]

A battle so well fought literally no one remembers its name.

People rarely remember losers. Even Thermopylae wouldn't be very popular if it weren't for 19th century Romantic aristocrats looking to tie their contemporary problems that they were poorly equipped to handle to their classical educations, and in the long run it will likely be forgotten too. Perhaps it will be replaced by something else once the British Empire sinks into the same sort of historical afterlife alongside the Mongols, the Persians, and the Romans. Marines are not a good fighting force for general combat because they are small and unable to do little more than glorified search and seizures on bandit dens. Hence, naval policemen: they sail around the world and arrest bad guys. When they try to play army, they're bad at it, even in the modern age.

Just compare the Marine dominated Central Pacific campaign to the Army dominated European or Southern Pacific campaigns. Totally different beasts. People remember MacArthur because he was good at his job. People remember Chesty Puller because he was a walking anachronism.

Leave the war fighting to the guys who know how to fight wars. Naval policemen can protect boats in port or something and raid bin Laden's house I guess, which is what Marines were historically good at.

[Dtn]

Bladensburg perfectly demonstrates why historically marines are unlikely to be the main ground forces of a nation.

(That the 100 or so US Marines there were able to hold the British for a while probably had more to do with their screening landed naval guns rather than any fighting ability - the USMC was hardly an elite force at the time despite their mythos.)

[Gallia-]

They were just about adequate to fight a bunch of Berber pirates who had little to no organization or serious military capabilities and little else I suppose. Naturally they copied the Army's ideas for...literal centuries.

But that pretty much describes naval infantry in a shellnut before like WW2 I guess.

[Dtn]

Shady mercenaries did most of the fighting at Derna.

The USMC had lower pay and standards than the Army at the time so it attracted worse recruits - there were quite a few 60-year-old privates in 1812.

In general the organization of marines wasn't well-suited to land service so they had to be augmented or expanded and reorganized to fight effectively. Attempts to form permanent marine regiments in the age of sail were almost always failures for a variety of reasons, most directly or indirectly related to life at sea being pretty miserable.

[New Vihenia]

So, yeah. If i ever want to bring back "battle rifle", the one using full-power rifle caliber bullet like 308.

I wonder if providing a 3 or 2-round burst mode along with full auto and semi-auto will help with Controllability issue ?. Also how far are we in drum magazine development ? Can drum magazine be made to be sufficiently reliable or maybe a polymer or aluminum drum magazine to address potential issue with weight. That i heard that drum magazine arent more widespread due to the fact it's less reliable, more expensive to make and somewhat heavier and more difficult to load as there are springs.

I was also think to make a SAW variant of the rifle, which to simplify production will use the same lower, upper, bolt but with longer and stronger barrel basically like RPK-16. The solution i see is either make a long magazine like the RPK Or having drum magazine. Reloading drum is a biatch in combat thus the machine gunner will carry "spare drums".

Oh and this is the said battle rifle. I call this one "308EX"

[Hrstrovokia]

What are opinions on the new Serbian Lazanski 8x8 IFV?

Has a Russian 57mm turret - very powerful. No Atgm or grenade launchers though. Might be similar to the Finnish Patria?

[Gallia-]

An incredibly generic made-in-the-USA truck I guess?

[Antipatros]

An idea that you're seeing with some future tank designs is increased drone integration (for example, a tank launching small quadcopter drones, or mixed platoons of unmanned and manned tanks).

Would it make sense to add a crew member who helps to manage/control these drones, or should the tank commander be tasked with this? Many countries used to have radio operators in their tanks (who also often controlled bow machine guns), but then removed that position later on.

[Danternoust]

An idea that you're seeing with some future tank designs is increased drone integration (for example, a tank launching small quadcopter drones, or mixed platoons of unmanned and manned tanks).

Would it make sense to add a crew member who helps to manage/control these drones, or should the tank commander be tasked with this? Many countries used to have radio operators in their tanks (who also often controlled bow machine guns), but then removed that position later on.

Could remove the artillery gun from self propelled artillery and use that as a command vehicle.

Other types of command vehicles exist, for instance many IFVs have a command variant. Not entirely clear what happens inside a command vehicle, maybe there are more screens that would display no data during a heavy EW environment.

[Spirit of Hope]

An idea that you're seeing with some future tank designs is increased drone integration (for example, a tank launching small quadcopter drones, or mixed platoons of unmanned and manned tanks).

Would it make sense to add a crew member who helps to manage/control these drones, or should the tank commander be tasked with this? Many countries used to have radio operators in their tanks (who also often controlled bow machine guns), but then removed that position later on.

Could remove the artillery gun from self propelled artillery and use that as a command vehicle.

Other types of command vehicles exist, for instance many IFVs have a command variant. Not entirely clear what happens inside a command vehicle, maybe there are more screens that would display no data during a heavy EW environment.

Command variants of vehicles are generally set up to carry commanders and their staff with additional communication equipment.

Modern ones do generally have a network connection so that they can do data operations, but they are going to be carrying extra radios and will likely sacrifice normal troop steering for those radios. With those radios you are going to want a radio operator. Your going to want to have some type of battle tracking capability, which will also take up space.

As to the question of tanks having an additional crew man to control unmanned additions, I can see it as a thing. I don't think unmanned vehicles offer enough capability now for each tank to have one, but it could certainly reach that level soon.

[New Vihenia]

So basically a 4 man tank with autoloader ?

[Gonswanza]

An idea that you're seeing with some future tank designs is increased drone integration (for example, a tank launching small quadcopter drones, or mixed platoons of unmanned and manned tanks).

Would it make sense to add a crew member who helps to manage/control these drones, or should the tank commander be tasked with this? Many countries used to have radio operators in their tanks (who also often controlled bow machine guns), but then removed that position later on.

So basically... A more complex and integrated version of "glass armor" which is an adaptation of the "glass cockpit" applied to tanks? I mean, I see it done with drones that are deployed separately and independent of the tank, while the tank may have some small radar kit attached to it or a suite of sensors to enable the "glass armor". And this is being tested on the Merkava 4M, afaik. Haven't heard much about it since though.

[Gallia-]

So basically a 4 man tank with autoloader ?

Return of the radio operator position.

[The Manticoran Empire]

So basically a 4 man tank with autoloader ?

Return of the radio operator position.

Drone operator, operating a quad copter to help locate enemy armor.

[Gallia-]

Lol.

More like he has a couple computer monitors to cycle through various image sources beamed to the tank while the TC maintains local SA and battle command. The only persons who would realistically "operate" a drone would probably be the TC and gunner because they could replicate the controls at their stations: namely driving and moving the turret on the robot. But that would probably require a brand new tank to actually do properly. M1 has no driving controls at either station and adding them is probably annoying since I think the TC station is already filled with junk.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Lol.

More like he has a couple computer monitors to cycle through various image sources beamed to the tank while the TC maintains local SA and battle command. The only persons who would realistically "operate" a drone would probably be the TC and gunner because they could replicate the controls at their stations: namely driving and moving the turret on the robot. But that would probably require a brand new tank to actually do properly. M1 has no driving controls at either station and adding them is probably annoying since I think the TC station is already filled with junk.

I was thinking more along the lines of a camera drone. Nothing too fancy, just some extra eyes.

[Gallia-]

What's the point?

The obvious solution is that there is some sort of aircraft loitering around a tank company or platoon and beaming them overhead imagery so they can watch themselves on the camera and keep an eye out for VBIEDs or something around the next corner. That doesn't mean the tank is going to have a UAV. That means the tank is going to have a radio operator receiving imagery from the UAV. Lol.

[Austrasien]

Given the glacial pace of modern AFV design, it's more likely drones will be sufficiently automated that a dedicated operator is unnecessary than an AFV will be made with space for a drone operator.

[Gallia-]

Probably, but you would still want some sort man in the loop for weapons control and local control by a tank seems a possible option, or at least the most attractive: the tank can poke a robot around the corner instead of an operator connected through three or four separate satellite point to point links.

That said the radio operator would be more for looking at the UAV imagery while the TC is using the CITV to look around the target and the gunner is scanning for targets. I'm not sure a TC or gunner needs any more jobs relating to looking at cameras given how many cameras he has to keep watch over already, and the loader's job in most tanks is already to look around when he isn't loading the gun.

So it's more really just job division with the tank crew not actually flying a plane or w/e. A wingman tank like Black Knight might be useful but that's probably really far away.

[Gonswanza]

Again, more cost effective to keep the tank and the drone launchers and operators seperate. Otherwise you have a useless guy in the tank plus extra equipment that would replace something else entirely that could serve a greater and more immediate purpose benefitting the tank more than just another UAV... Which could have been carried by anyone into the field.