NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[The Manticoran Empire]

R squared in excel means we no longer have to know as much, just measure, put in numbers, get formula to get new numbers that look okay.

Best radar craft is airship. Just have to mount a one tonne radar mast inside and even stealth would be detected.

I wonder if you could use the metal reinforcements that hold together the skin of a rigid airship as a giant radar antena. Or hell, if you could do some magic with modern materials to draw wires through the material or something to make the entire skin a radar antenna. That'd be awesome.

Sounds OP. Please nerf.

[Gallia-]

R squared in excel means we no longer have to know as much, just measure, put in numbers, get formula to get new numbers that look okay.

Best radar craft is airship. Just have to mount a one tonne radar mast inside and even stealth would be detected.

I wonder if you could use the metal reinforcements that hold together the skin of a rigid airship as a giant radar antena. Or hell, if you could do some magic with modern materials to draw wires through the material or something to make the entire skin a radar antenna. That'd be awesome.

no a phased array airship with skin as sensor is impossible and no one has ever thought of the idea before especially not back in 08 august 2006 when DARPA collaborated with raytheon and the USAF to explore an unfortunately named idea that went nowhere in particular because airship operations in a certain central asian country tended to be underwhelming and sort of dissuaded anyone from trying to deploy an extremely fragile and expensive aircraft over the north american coast or anywhere really and also because fabrication of the flexible antenna radar is basically impractical despite throwing billions of dollars at the problem and 5+ years of materials science leveraging then state-of-the-art high mmw radar technologies couldn't produce any viable system

tl;dr if you can make an ISIS airship you can make sensorcraft and your problems of aerial surveillance are solved forever

[Danternoust]

Which way for COIN, a dozen drones in the air at a time at a million dollars a pop to monitor everything or an AC-130 with telescoping lenses to see an entire country side?

It doesn't matter.

The US has billions of dollars in SIGINT assets, probably has everyone's financial ledgers, and can't win against a few burner phones, runners to outposts in caves, and a bunch of disloyal locals just nodding their heads until the US finally declares financial bankruptcy before it declares moral bankruptcy.

[Purpelia]

Which way for COIN, a dozen drones in the air at a time at a million dollars a pop to monitor everything or an AC-130 with telescoping lenses to see an entire country side?

It doesn't matter.

The US has billions of dollars in SIGINT assets, probably has everyone's financial ledgers, and can't win against a few burner phones, runners to outposts in caves, and a bunch of disloyal locals just nodding their heads until the US finally declares financial bankruptcy before it declares moral bankruptcy.

Americans keep loosing at COIN not because they can't win but because they refuse to win. COIN requires that you are ruthless, definitive and without mercy towards both your opposition and the civilian population supporting it.
Perhaps the best example of it being done properly is the 2nd Boer War.

Americans don't have the moral strength to go through with a campaign like that and will thus always loose.

[Purpelia]

Question. In an alternate history scenario where WW2 lasts for 10 years (1940-1950) and involves heavy use of chemical weapons do you think it would be justified for me to claim a far more rapid development of protection systems up to and including overpressure systems by its end? If so, how early could I get those? If not, what is the best I could get into the field for a 1950 final battle royale?

[Triplebaconation]

Which way for COIN, a dozen drones in the air at a time at a million dollars a pop to monitor everything or an AC-130 with telescoping lenses to see an entire country side?

It doesn't matter.

The US has billions of dollars in SIGINT assets, probably has everyone's financial ledgers, and can't win against a few burner phones, runners to outposts in caves, and a bunch of disloyal locals just nodding their heads until the US finally declares financial bankruptcy before it declares moral bankruptcy.

Americans keep loosing at COIN not because they can't win but because they refuse to win. COIN requires that you are ruthless, definitive and without mercy towards both your opposition and the civilian population supporting it.
Perhaps the best example of it being done properly is the 2nd Boer War.

Americans don't have the moral strength to go through with a campaign like that and will thus always loose.

lol

[Danternoust]

Americans keep loosing at COIN not because they can't win but because they refuse to win. COIN requires that you are ruthless, definitive and without mercy towards both your opposition and the civilian population supporting it.
Perhaps the best example of it being done properly is the 2nd Boer War.

Americans don't have the moral strength to go through with a campaign like that and will thus always loose.

You don't need Pre-Nazi concentration camps to win.

You don't need strategic hamlets to win.

If the Chinese can hack the OPM database, but the US with it's billions can't pinpoint targets like high ranking officials or even supply chains of relatively common but not used in bulk products, then ... what is the point of US intelligence?

This no longer is a matter of withdrawal, this is a matter of basic competence and comprehension.

Of course the Game of Thrones option is to launch a crusade and put the Moslems to the sword.

[Gallia-]

lol

[Eukaryotic Cells]

lol

same

[New Vihenia]

So, what people expect from so called "6th gen fighter" or in Chinese "5th gen" or in AGARD papers it would perhaps be considered "8th Gen" ?

Considering stealth and networking. Can that relax the requirement to have Supercruise or even any degree of maneuverability as the Drone will do it for the fighter ? The fighter doesnt even need to carry weapon on its own.

Thus a flying doritos or mini B-2 could be one option. It will have wing leading edge Array for Radar and UCAV datalinking function. It may have a 3 stream engine but a suitable high bypass turbofan can perhaps be fashioned if one relax the service ceiling requirements.

[Almadaria]

What organizational structure are attack helicopters best put under? I'm just starting to doubt whether putting attack helicopters solely in the air force was a good idea... would they be better under a sort of inferior air force organization or would it be better to have them applied into army aviation structures?

Edit: Or both?

[Gallia-]

So, what people expect from so called "6th gen fighter" or in Chinese "5th gen" or in AGARD papers it would perhaps be considered "8th Gen" ?

Considering stealth and networking. Can that relax the requirement to have Supercruise or even any degree of maneuverability as the Drone will do it for the fighter ? The fighter doesnt even need to carry weapon on its own.

Thus a flying doritos or mini B-2 could be one option. It will have wing leading edge Array for Radar and UCAV datalinking function. It may have a 3 stream engine but a suitable high bypass turbofan can perhaps be fashioned if one relax the service ceiling requirements.

B-2 is honestly the ultimate offensive air weapon ATM.

F-22 can't even carry three atomic bombs.

[Radictistan]

What organizational structure are attack helicopters best put under? I'm just starting to doubt whether putting attack helicopters solely in the air force was a good idea... would they be better under a sort of inferior air force organization or would it be better to have them applied into army aviation structures?

Edit: Or both?

How far behind the lines do you intend to operate the helicopters?

[Almadaria]

What organizational structure are attack helicopters best put under? I'm just starting to doubt whether putting attack helicopters solely in the air force was a good idea... would they be better under a sort of inferior air force organization or would it be better to have them applied into army aviation structures?

Edit: Or both?

How far behind the lines do you intend to operate the helicopters?

So, if I'm catching the drift correctly, what unit they would be part of would depend on their reach? E.g. a Cobra would be front-line army aviation while an Apache could be that or air force?
And the helicopters have an anti-tank payload that has a range of ~30 kilometers, so I'm guessing that'd warrant an army aviation unit?

[Gallia-]

What organizational structure are attack helicopters best put under? I'm just starting to doubt whether putting attack helicopters solely in the air force was a good idea... would they be better under a sort of inferior air force organization or would it be better to have them applied into army aviation structures?

Edit: Or both?

Yes.

The Soviets put attack helicopters in the Frontal Aviation Units, which were the "tactical" air force of the USSR (along with the transport air forces, bomber forces, and maritime patrol/strike air force), with the pilots typically being Army personnel trained at an Air Force school. Americans and British, being Anglos, decided to make the Air Force responsible for airplanes and the Army responsible for helicopters, and both do their own training of their own pilots.

The U.S. Marines operate both fixed wing and rotary wing aviation in their Marine Air Groups, which they train their pilots to fly, and they are probably the most rational organization in terms of "ground support" but are pretty awful at the actual purpose of an air force (destroying the enemy's air forces) which is why they rely so much on the US Naval Aviation to make sure their F-18s and AV-8s aren't ass blasted by Su-27.

You can do whatever you want is the point and it would probably make sense.

Galla, being secretly Leninists, has like 5 or 9 different air forces that probably all train their pilots at the same schools depending on the characteristics of the aircraft (rotary, STOVL, four engine, supersonic fighter, etc.) or something.

Bigger countries can generally afford the inefficiencies by just eating the overhead and having separate air forces for different types (rotary, fixed-wing, drones, etc.) of aircraft (you could have an air force of helicopters and an air force of AV-8s in the army for example). Smaller countries that are poor and can't afford big aviation groups in the first place usually consolidate their aircraft (all types) into the Air Force regardless of type. Obviously the most efficient method in terms of costs is putting everything in the air force since that means you have one source of pilots and aircraft, but this has some significant disadvantages in that it limits the career prospects and breadth of particular officer clades who will argue against it (and it may result in a general tendency towards homogenization of solutions to problems which is incidentally how the USAF lost Korea and Vietnam) so big countries tend to have multiple air forces for different reasons.

Small country (~50 million at most) = one air force with all aviation.

Bigger country = multiple air forces with different aviations (army air force with helicopters, navy air force with MPAs, air air force with F-15s, bomb air force with B-52s, etc.) depending on size.

[Radictistan]

How far behind the lines do you intend to operate the helicopters?

So, if I'm catching the drift correctly, what unit they would be part of would depend on their reach? E.g. a Cobra would be front-line army aviation while an Apache could be that or air force?
And the helicopters have an anti-tank payload that has a range of ~30 kilometers, so I'm guessing that'd warrant an army aviation unit?

If your helicopters are just going to do CAS then it would make sense to have the helicopter units be organic at Corps or even Division level. On the other hand, if doctrine calls for BAI and deep reconnaissance than it might be useful to place them higher up the command chain so they can be husbanded for the most critical missions.

[Austrasien]

What organizational structure are attack helicopters best put under? I'm just starting to doubt whether putting attack helicopters solely in the air force was a good idea... would they be better under a sort of inferior air force organization or would it be better to have them applied into army aviation structures?

Edit: Or both?

The air force is good. The Israeli Air Force controls its attack helicopters.

[Gallia-]

TFW you realize the IDF is just Canadian Forces with actual enemies.

[New Visayan Islands]

TFW you realize the IDF is just Canadian Forces with actual enemies.

> Israeli Defense Force
> more like Israel-eh? Defense Force (because "Canada, eh?")

I'll see myself out.

[Austrasien]

So, what people expect from so called "6th gen fighter" or in Chinese "5th gen" or in AGARD papers it would perhaps be considered "8th Gen" ?

Considering stealth and networking. Can that relax the requirement to have Supercruise or even any degree of maneuverability as the Drone will do it for the fighter ? The fighter doesnt even need to carry weapon on its own.

Thus a flying doritos or mini B-2 could be one option. It will have wing leading edge Array for Radar and UCAV datalinking function. It may have a 3 stream engine but a suitable high bypass turbofan can perhaps be fashioned if one relax the service ceiling requirements.

• Even more bypass. So much bypass. More bypass than you can handle.
• IR signature suppression.
• Active cancellation????
• Self-defense missile
• It will talk to satellites a lot

Maybe some other stuff. The biggest defects in the F-22, more like the world moving on, are the lack of attention to the airframes IR signature and it can't carry 2000lb bombs. Presumably, the next fighter will rectify this. Supersonic flight will probably be de-emphasized both to increase range (just about everything the USAF does now involves flying a long time) and reduce aerodynamic heating. Stormbreaker will probably still be the backbone of USAF A2G for the foreseeable future and it wouldn't be too surprising if the basic load ended up being 2 AMRAAMS or 4 MiniRAAMs + 8 Stormbreaker. Which isn't terribly different than the F-22 or F-35. But it probably will be able to carry 2000lb bombs.

Seperate rails for the sidewinder are probably out because this is a highly deprecated launch method.

[Danternoust]

Hypothetically the only possible variation (in the sense of going in a new design direction) on existing aircraft is bigger wings, more hardpoints, maybe remove afterburners and perhaps use rocket assisted speed boosts, basically JATO while flying. Ideally as the same size as drop tanks.

The problem of course is that modern equipment is simulated to a large extent as to capabilities and efficiencies, so there's no cool WWII-style deviation in design preferences, everything will reach a single optima. Mainly MBTs with Falcon-type turrets.

The next step after MBTs is to remove the main gun, use a laser targetter and allow precision guided artillery to conduct direct vertical hits against tanks.

Thus ending the dreadnought era.

Or the bomber era.

It's just multi-role aircraft of increasing sizes.

[Onekawa-Nukanor]

Would it be worthwhile to have an airlifter which had both turboprop and turbofan variants or even actually possible? Say as in having a stretched, greater payload, longer ranged variant with the turbofan and vice versa? Or is it just a waste of time for a nation looking for a multi-airlifter fleet?

The aim would be something ofroughly A400 size and capability for the prop equivalent. Would stretching it and adding turbofans enable a significant (if any) increase in worthwhile payload, range and so on.

[Danternoust]

Would it be worthwhile to have an airlifter which had both turboprop and turbofan variants or even actually possible? Say as in having a stretched, greater payload, longer ranged variant with the turbofan and vice versa? Or is it just a waste of time for a nation looking for a multi-airlifter fleet?

The aim would be something ofroughly A400 size and capability for the prop equivalent. Would stretching it and adding turbofans enable a significant (if any) increase in worthwhile payload, range and so on.

The B-36 is similar in concept, however it used piston engines instead of turboprops. Turboprops have excellent climb rates and the C-130 for instance is a STOL aircraft.

The B-36 was so because jet engines at the time were unreliable to point that motorjets even existed.

[Cossack Peoples]

Okay, here we go again. I have a list of vehicle pages and related articles I've been working on and I'd like for someone to pick them apart so I can try to make them better. Maybe then I'll work on organizational boogaloo (Edit: With that being said, do you have any preferences for what you use to make those nice-looking ORBAT charts, or do you just write them out like masochists?)

Stealth Fighter that I can't afford
APC
Recon and attack drone
Ratnik/Felin supersuits
Attack Helicopter

[Gallia-]

So, what people expect from so called "6th gen fighter" or in Chinese "5th gen" or in AGARD papers it would perhaps be considered "8th Gen" ?

Considering stealth and networking. Can that relax the requirement to have Supercruise or even any degree of maneuverability as the Drone will do it for the fighter ? The fighter doesnt even need to carry weapon on its own.

Thus a flying doritos or mini B-2 could be one option. It will have wing leading edge Array for Radar and UCAV datalinking function. It may have a 3 stream engine but a suitable high bypass turbofan can perhaps be fashioned if one relax the service ceiling requirements.

• Even more bypass. So much bypass. More bypass than you can handle.
• IR signature suppression.
• Active cancellation????
• Self-defense missile
• It will talk to satellites a lot

Maybe some other stuff. The biggest defects in the F-22, more like the world moving on, are the lack of attention to the airframes IR signature and it can't carry 2000lb bombs. Presumably, the next fighter will rectify this. Supersonic flight will probably be de-emphasized both to increase range (just about everything the USAF does now involves flying a long time) and reduce aerodynamic heating. Stormbreaker will probably still be the backbone of USAF A2G for the foreseeable future and it wouldn't be too surprising if the basic load ended up being 2 AMRAAMS or 4 MiniRAAMs + 8 Stormbreaker. Which isn't terribly different than the F-22 or F-35. But it probably will be able to carry 2000lb bombs.

Seperate rails for the sidewinder are probably out because this is a highly deprecated launch method.

Imagine not having a sweaty airplane that sweats (#uwu#) to counteract aerodynamic heating.

w e t