NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Dtn]

If this had happened in 1942 it would've been a great IJN victory. To send a fleet carrier home for the rest of the war with just 1 pilot, 1 plane and 2 medium bombs.

The March 1945 attack wasn't a kamikaze.

Now ignoring the fact that it would be pretty unrealistic for a nation that’s regularly employing suicide attacks to develop things like PGM’s and other (because rule of cool), how would they be employable in a modern military? Not just as terrorist attacks but as regular units? For example, one-way nuclear bombers (because loading fuel for a one way trip and saving the weight off the landing gear is good)

There's a fine line between "rule of cool" and "cringe."

[Laka Strolistandiler]

I think the major problem with the RL kamikaze was generally that they’ve lacked effective aircraft, equipment and tactics.

This really isn't true (Japan had the most experienced and practiced pilots and some of the best performing naval fighters and bombers of the early war) at all but okay.

Early war, but not by 1944, which actually is my main point

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Is there a difference between these things?

The only difference I can see is that one uses people as the main triggering mechanism and the other uses a Rube Goldberg machine of industrial products. The targets (troop concentrations, random blobs of civilians/insurgents, checkpoints, etc.) are essentially the same if you ask anyone living in Helmand. Historically, the optimal strategy to win wars in the modern era is to employ sedans and pickup trucks with large amounts of plastique inside them on checkpoints and crowded areas, and people wearing photographers vests filled with nails and bricks of Semtex.

Suicide attacks and manually controlled land mines certainly have a better track record than laser guided bombers and cruise missiles, at least.

The thing you're missing is that these things tend to be mutually exclusive (people use PGMs because they have low birthrates because they have powerful industrial societies, which necessarily have low birth rates but productive factories, and vice versa) and that one is generally used in recognition of greater goals which are simple (suicide bombing --> get rid of foreign occupiers) and one is generally used in lieu of recognition that your goals are complex and inscrutable, even to yourself (carpet bomb Helmand --> liberate women and install voting rights), though.

If you used PGMs to bomb <insurgents> who were trying to convert random people to <religion/belief/idea> by way of the suicide bombing of <popular gathering of people> for <alien reasons> you can expect the PGMs will win.

Yet again it’s either me not making my point entirely clear or me not actually understanding yours.

What I meant by “as regular units” was utilizing suicide attacks in not a situation where one side is in a technological disadvantage to another and has suprerior birth rates, but in a hypothetical situation where both belligerents are numerically and technologically comparable, have somewhat similar birth rates, it’s just that one of the belligerent is willing to send his soldiers to suicide missions. The original questions was using which tactics and what equipment they are better to be used. I know a few examples of this being done even by US during the Cold War (Special Atomic Demolition Munition n’ shit), now how can this be utilized in a military where such tactics are more widespread? It should be noted that the said problem basically ignores all of the associated ethical and political issues because I don’t understand them (hey at least I’m honest)

[Gallia-]

me not actually understanding yours.

Yes that's the case.

It's a pretty simple economic issue: suicide attacks are done where the cost of human life < the cost of constructing autonomous weapons, and vice versa.

Some groups of people are good at making babies. Some are good at making factories. No one is really good at both at the same time, as they appear to be mutually exclusive. Japan in WW2 had no capacity to produce things like assault drones or acoustic torpedoes, so it instead produced Kamikazes and Kaitens, which were far more effective mostly due to the relative primitiveness of American robotic weapon technologies.

It would be bizarre for a society that isn't some sort of Nazi-esque delusional state to genuinely use suicide bombers en masse, unless they were completely incapable of producing autonomous weapons. Whether they have them or not is not particularly important, as Germany was at one point able to produce fairly capable PGMs such as the Fritz X and V-1 missiles, until the US Army bombed their factories. Then they turned to suicide weapons, because they had a relative glut of fanatics and a paucity of gyroscopes. Even then they sort of backed away from it because they were still able to make radios due to the Rhineland being in their control and industrial societies, even delusional fanatic ones, are rather leery of using people to control things.

Japan OTOH was fully committed to it and knew they had economic limitations that were impossible to overcome. They weren't being necessarily carpet bombed, but they were unable to train their pilots due to a shortage of gasoline, and to save on a variety of economic resources they instead decided to train suicide pilots and boatmen because it was cheaper and easier than training good bombers. Even then kamikazes were relatively rare, but that's mostly because they were being saved for Downfall.

[Dtn]

Hmm. People don't hop into kamikazes because they're fanatics. I guess until you understand this you won't understand why intentional suicide attacks against someone of equal or nearly equal strength are rare.

Nobody's going to weld themselves into a torpedo because they're incredibly devoted to your genetically-engineered gay mentally ill empress or whatever.

[Gonswanza]

Hmm. People don't hop into kamikazes because they're fanatics. I guess until you understand this you won't understand why intentional suicide attacks against someone of equal or nearly equal strength are rare.

Nobody's going to weld themselves into a torpedo because they're incredibly devoted to your genetically-engineered gay mentally ill empress or whatever.

This is a place for discussion, not slinging insults at others. Cool it, dude... Sheesh.

[Gallia-]

Hmm. People don't hop into kamikazes because they're fanatics. I guess until you understand this you won't understand why intentional suicide attacks against someone of equal or nearly equal strength are rare.

Nobody's going to weld themselves into a torpedo because they're incredibly devoted to your genetically-engineered gay mentally ill empress or whatever.

IDK b0ss the Leonidas guys were probably pretty fanatical, like SS Airplane Division. That the Nazis weren't hurling Fw 190s filled with 500 lbs bombs at Allied transports in D-Day (which probably would have been quite successful if Okinawa has anything to show) probably says more about their own delusions and inability to accurately gauge the state of their own economy than anything though. It wouldn't have stopped the Allies but it probably would have made things slightly more difficult for them.

Even if the Kamikaze pilots are doubting themselves or have to be rattan caned or walloped with cricket bats or whatever, the fact that they actually do it and don't just flee or hide or something says more than any individual doubts or concerns expressed in their diaries, I'd imagine. Volunteering for a certain suicide attack is fairly fanatical I'd argue, but probably in the Durkheim sense of altruistic suicide, rather than anything else. Instead of jumping on a grenade in Iwo Jima you're plowing into an LST at Okinawa.

But yes it's probably a matter of perspective: Either Kamikazes and suicide soldiers are beaten into pitiful whelps by brutality so that they can be easily manhandled into a plane and told they're going to be killed if they come back, or they can do it because they've been convinced that there's no other choice, or they are so immersed in nationalist propaganda or whatever that they go to do such things willingly. The actual cause is probably impossible to gauge writ large because a successful suicide attack results in the only person who can tell you the real answer kinda exploding.

I'm not sure if ISIS beat their suicide bulldozer drivers or not, or if the average suicide bomber is just convinced that they have no other recourse but to blow themselves up and receive a beautiful afterlife in Jannah, and I imagine both motivations are at work there? Maybe suicide bombers are just consumed by ennui and find purpose in killing themselves for something bigger? Maybe they have to be beaten by the jun'i to get to that state of lack of self-esteem and absolute self-loathing that they think they're worthless unless they blow up a boat or something. Naturally atrocity propaganda also played a big factor in this because Japanese people specifically were terrified that the Allies were going to exterminate them for waging war on America.

Does it matter much if the end result is the same? Individually perhaps, but I'm not sure it's an issue at a macro level.

They might not weld themselves into a torpedo because they're doing it for the gay mentally ill empress but they might do it because they think the alternative is their family, friends, and future (culture/society/children/whatever) being annihilated, which seems to be one of the better go-to methods of encouraging suicide troops to do their jobs. I'd imagine the only reason peoples of "equal power" don't do it is because people in general tend to not push for Nazi-esque exterminations. Israel would probably resort to using suicide troops if the Arabs could actually win fights I suppose. Maybe they'd call them the Masada Brigade?

As long as there's some perceived individual incentive in it (Jannah and 72 virgins, protection of friends/family from Americans coming to annihilate Japanese society, etc.), a suicide bomber will usually do their job. How you get there is a bit irrelevant to the question at hand (PGMs from airplanes vs suicide bombers) though. So maybe "fanaticism" isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what else would be suitable to describe a belief in a delusion strong enough to override survival instinct to make a driver go into Kurdish TOWs or a pilot fly into flak guns and crash himself into a battleship.

People might not get welded into a torpedo for the "mentally ill gay empress" but they'll do it because "they'll get 72 virgins in Jannah" or "US convict armies will rape-murder all your family if you don't", or even more simple benefit of "I'm a poor, old man who missed the last war and I will be honored by society if I die for it"/liberation from ennui, though Poland never used suicide torpedoes so who can know if Polish old men volunteering to human torpedo the Blucher would actually do it.

[Gonswanza]

I suppose one should check back to the Art of War on things like discipline and communications, given a rowdy group of hooligans (putting that lightly) would do untold damage and also be harder to control as-is, especially when they will have a negative impact on your stature post-war... Likely even inciting resistance from the newly liberated people.

Alas, if you manage to control your troops and keep their heads level with clear communications all around, not only will they be more effective and precise, but they can also win over the people being liberated as they won't be seen as animals.

Of course, that's just summarizing the text in general in a nutshell, as it's not exact nor is it word-for-word either. Take this with a bucket of salt, given I'm also going by memory as well.

[Dtn]

IDK b0ss the Leonidas guys were probably pretty fanatical, like SS Airplane Division. That the Nazis weren't hurling Fw 190s filled with 500 lbs bombs at Allied transports in D-Day (which probably would have been quite successful if Okinawa has anything to show) probably says more about their own delusions and inability to accurately gauge the state of their own economy than anything though. It wouldn't have stopped the Allies but it probably would have made things slightly more difficult for them.

Were they? Most Luftwaffe suicide missions were flown by ordinary pilots in the last few weeks of the war.

The difference between these and the Japanese kamikaze attacks is that the kamikazes did have a realistic chance of stopping the Allies, at least in the early phases. Certainly if a large proportion of carriers had been sunk they may have sought more favorable terms for surrender.

It's interesting that the first kamikaze attacks were carried out by someone who rejected them earlier.

What I get from kamikaze diaries is more fatalism than fanaticism, increasing as the war continued. You really see the same thing in Islamic suicide bombers.

What you really need throughout history seems to be:

1) A dire threat from an overpowering force
2) Death being a necessary and disproportionally effective way of mitigating that threat

Culture, fanaticism, the ubiquitous overconfidence in war, etc I guess would affect how the threat is perceived and the mechanisms effecting your willingness to accept that death.

This is a place for discussion, not slinging insults at others. Cool it, dude... Sheesh.

This isn't an insult, it's how she's described in his factbook. I strongly suspect "comical compliance" to her and "discussion" about "rule of cool" suicide tactics are strongly related.

Maybe they aren't so cool?

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Hmm. People don't hop into kamikazes because they're fanatics. I guess until you understand this you won't understand why intentional suicide attacks against someone of equal or nearly equal strength are rare.

Nobody's going to weld themselves into a torpedo because they're incredibly devoted to your genetically-engineered gay mentally ill empress or whatever.

They hop into torpedoes because of Lakan culture being very fatalistic, like to an absurd point. I’ve read (and translated from English to Russian) some of the diaries you’ve mentioned as well as diaries of Soviet soldiers who were stationed at the Nievsky’ Pyatachok’ and fatalism is truly the explanation for their willingness to do this. And let me tell you that Laka and it’s culture/civilization are all about fatalism.

[Bears Armed]

re kamikazes & suicide bombers _

1. The IJA routinely included methamphetamine tablets in their troops' ration, for the stimulant effects, and this probably boosted aggressiveness (and willingness to commit atrocities) as well: Possibly the same was true for kamikaze & kaiten pilots?

2. Israel's "Masada option" is allegedly, like Samson among the Philistines, to take their enemies down with them: It's fairly sure that they have (or had for a while, anyway) atomic bombs, and the surrounding Arab nations, armed forces couldn't guarantee being able to shoot down the bombers before those reached the capital cities...

[Gallia-]

IDK b0ss the Leonidas guys were probably pretty fanatical, like SS Airplane Division. That the Nazis weren't hurling Fw 190s filled with 500 lbs bombs at Allied transports in D-Day (which probably would have been quite successful if Okinawa has anything to show) probably says more about their own delusions and inability to accurately gauge the state of their own economy than anything though. It wouldn't have stopped the Allies but it probably would have made things slightly more difficult for them.

Were they? Most Luftwaffe suicide missions were flown by ordinary pilots in the last few weeks of the war.

I meant the pre-Mistel guys who were brought in for Fi 103. You don't really sign up for that at gunpoint in a society that doesn't care about it, whose big king of the secret police thinks it's stupid, and whose supreme emperor orders it to be replaced the suicide pilot program with a robotic missile. I don't think KG 200 was actively yanking dudes out, though they found something a few guys who were like "Yeah I'd do it". Might have been asking around for names and just counting people who said "maybe". They could have also just lied but surely they'd be able to find a few dozen boisterous Hitlerites who would just sign a piece of paper I suppose.

The difference between these and the Japanese kamikaze attacks is that the kamikazes did have a realistic chance of stopping the Allies, at least in the early phases. Certainly if a large proportion of carriers had been sunk they may have sought more favorable terms for surrender.

This might be true, but seems pretty crazy given they basically rolled over the entire USN carrier force once before. Even if half the fleet carriers in Leyte Gulf had been sunk...IDK.

What I get from kamikaze diaries is more fatalism than fanaticism, increasing as the war continued. You really see the same thing in Islamic suicide bombers.

Yes, okay, I see the difference now. That's fair, it's very easy to sign up for a volunteer flyer promising great glory and honor. It's much harder to stare death in the face and shout "for the emperor" or whatever propaganda movies say. No one is going to actually run into the face of a tank or something and blow themselves up in a sedan because they're particularly zealous or spirited. There's that underlying ennui necessary to be a suicide attacker, and I suppose that can only be stoked by being in a group of people that encourages that behavior.

What you really need throughout history seems to be:

1) A dire threat from an overpowering force
2) Death being a necessary and disproportionally effective way of mitigating that threat

Culture, fanaticism, the ubiquitous overconfidence in war, etc I guess would affect how the threat is perceived and the mechanisms effecting your willingness to accept that death.

Ye.

I guess we're talking about different "levels" TBH. I'm thinking in terms of like macroeconomics and you're thinking in terms of individual dudes, and I really don't know what Laka actually wants or cares about as an answer.

This is a place for discussion, not slinging insults at others. Cool it, dude... Sheesh.

This isn't an insult, it's how she's described in his factbook. I strongly suspect "comical compliance" to her and "discussion" about "rule of cool" suicide tactics are strongly related.

All women are queens - Laka Special Atomic Sapper Brigades.

Maybe they aren't so cool?

Ye they're p morose and depressing.

Hmm. People don't hop into kamikazes because they're fanatics. I guess until you understand this you won't understand why intentional suicide attacks against someone of equal or nearly equal strength are rare.

Nobody's going to weld themselves into a torpedo because they're incredibly devoted to your genetically-engineered gay mentally ill empress or whatever.

They hop into torpedoes because of Lakan culture being very fatalistic, like to an absurd point. I’ve read (and translated from English to Russian) some of the diaries you’ve mentioned as well as diaries of Soviet soldiers who were stationed at the Nievsky’ Pyatachok’ and fatalism is truly the explanation for their willingness to do this. And let me tell you that Laka and it’s culture/civilization are all about fatalism.

This is what an actual fatalistic culture does:



They would just surrender like Denmark.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

This is what an actual fatalistic culture does:

(Image)

They would just surrender like France or Denmark I guess.

Aaaand once again I mess shit up because I mistranslate English words and misuse them. Blaim is on me.

What I meant to say by this is that in their culture, human’ life is viewed as a very expendable resource and there is basically no treatment of death as sort of “most noble sacrifice”, etc.

This is really hard for me to explain using my limited English vocabulary, but I’ll try my best.

They do it because not only because their culture extremely collectivist with individual being put aside or relevance to the collective, but because of most of them being very, very self-loathing. Now I haven’t yet came up with an explanation to this (because generally I suck at writing psychological things), but to them a mere existence seems like so much of a pain that dying in a dignified way and ending it as soon as possible seems like a viable option. Basically the whole nation is passive-suicidal, say so.

[Gallia-]

What I meant to say by this is that in their culture, human’ life is viewed as a very expendable resource

Chicken and egg? Resources are viewed as expendable usually because they are expendable. Which brings us back to "agrarian societies have high birthrates and industrial ones have low birthrates etc etc". The USA and other Western cultures began viewing human life as important long before birthrates made it literally important, because people probably recognized that investing in children was important to a degree, and protecting them from things like cholera and smallpox, perhaps installing safety guardrails to keep workers from falling into vats, and educating children to be farmers was a good idea.

People are generally good at sussing out what things are expendable and what things aren't in aggregate. The few peoples who aren't are typically confined to bizarre personality/sex cults like NXIVM and Krishna Venta.

Weird personality cults don't reproduce well because they tend to shed people, wealth, or social capital to varying degrees of excess.

They do it because not only because their culture extremely collectivist with individual being put aside or relevance to the collective, but because of most of them being very, very self-loathing.

They would just kill themselves then?

Now I haven’t yet came up with an explanation to this (because generally I suck at writing psychological things),

Yes.

but to them a mere existence seems like so much of a pain that dying in a dignified way and ending it as soon as possible seems like a viable option.

Yes, they would just kill themselves. Like so many before them.

Basically the whole nation is passive-suicidal, say so.

How are they a nation and not simply a cult of UFO worshiping Raelians led by a suicidal god empress who will beam them up into the mothership if they all kill themselves on 4/20/2069?

[Dtn]

re kamikazes & suicide bombers _

1. The IJA routinely included methamphetamine tablets in their troops' ration, for the stimulant effects, and this probably boosted aggressiveness (and willingness to commit atrocities) as well: Possibly the same was true for kamikaze & kaiten pilots?

Meth turns Japanese into kamikazes but it just makes Americans and the British snappy marchers and "relieves their nasal congestion."

[Gallia-]

I put Bennies in my coffee and smoke atropine cigarettes to deal with my asthma because I'm a good boy.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

snip

They won’t kill themselves because dying in an “undignified” way to them is an even worse alternative to existing. Basically they hate their lives but don’t kill themselves because doing it would be a waste of human resource that can still be used before being allowed to put themselves out of their misery.

I mean NS has a lot of nations- why won’t it have passive suicidal ones?

Hey at least I admit that I’m bad at writing stuff while some people here come up with explanations so complex even they can’t exactly understand what means what (not you)

[Gallia-]

Yeah I'm saying that your explanations could use some work and you should think it through more. "Passive-suicidal" just sounds like "suicidal" and a society based on killing yourself for the emperor wouldn't really exist very long, even if it were able to exist (people's motivations aren't that abstract). It's less people and more bumblebee or ant colony mindset, but neither insects are meta-cognitive, and for all practical purposes they're extensions of a reproductive body/organ (the queen) and should be considered organs of a gestalt "intelligence" (this is a bit loose I guess, insects are only intelligent in that they can solve problems at the rate of DNA mutations) rather than individuals.

An empress who is suicidal would just be usurped by a stronger and more capable leader, who isn't suicidal but is able to reinvigorate the dominant culture that is consumed by ennui, or the society is so degenerated and atomized it dissolves and gets replaced by one of a myriad cultures neighboring it or residing within it, or whatever. There's a lot of things that could happen but a society continuing to exist in that sort of state isn't one of them. It changes to a more stable and reasonable society or it is destroyed and replaced.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

Is it advisable to join your country's armed forces to gain useful knowledge for NS RPs?

Uh, no. Most if not everyone does it by flying by the seat of their pants. Plus referencing google for some useful knowledge.

So what you're saying is it would give you an edge?

[Gonswanza]

Uh, no. Most if not everyone does it by flying by the seat of their pants. Plus referencing google for some useful knowledge.

So what you're saying is it would give you an edge?

More or less, yea? Granted, being 1:1 with reality tends to destroy any little advantage had in just playing up fiction... And increases complexity and possibly even irritation from trying to figure out your own posts when trying to deal with things like cocked up logistics or lemons of vehicles.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Uh, no. Most if not everyone does it by flying by the seat of their pants. Plus referencing google for some useful knowledge.

So what you're saying is it would give you an edge?

it would give you despair, if they don't just reject you outright for failing training.

[Gallia-]

TFW you join the Space Force to learn elite strategies to get good at Starcraft.

[Gonswanza]

TFW you join the Space Force to learn elite strategies to get good at Starcraft.

Absolute kek

Also (well, afaik) currently space force is more just tracking junk in space and some stuff about cyberwarfare. I'm not sure how it is for other countries, but usually when you need to knock out a satellite the air force (US) is the one doing it, not the space force. Space force just sorta sits back and watches before giving a thumbs up when the target is intercepted.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

So what you're saying is it would give you an edge?

it would give you despair, if they don't just reject you outright for failing training.

Your post makes very little sense to me.

[Gallia-]

TFW you join the Space Force to learn elite strategies to get good at Starcraft.

Absolute kek

Also (well, afaik) currently space force is more just tracking junk in space and some stuff about cyberwarfare. I'm not sure how it is for other countries, but usually when you need to knock out a satellite the air force (US) is the one doing it, not the space force. Space force just sorta sits back and watches before giving a thumbs up when the target is intercepted.

It has a secret sauce Space Combat Delta.

They probably just throw old satellites like shurikens though.