NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Type 08

[Wulfenia]

They're M2 Bradley's, which according to Wikipedia, can carry six fully equipped soldiers.

Instead of figuring how many a division should have, it might be helpful to design your military at least to the battalion level, so it can be more easily identified what, where and how you'll arrange vehicles and other elements.

I planned on doing that, but was trying to find out what a realistic number would be for a division to have so that I could make sure not to overdo it.

[Alien Space Bats]

Well yeah. The Iranian government thought it could conquer Iraq and install a puppet government without having any real equipment worth speaking of, lengthening the war by years. The Iraqi government thought that it could invade Iran and annex all the oil fields along their shared border at a time when Iran was still experiencing tremendous chaos and disruption in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They didn't count on a surge of patriotic feeling in the part of the Iranians, resulting in mass enlistments and a strategy of national resistance on the part of the Iranians that mirrored the Russian response to Hitler's Operation Barbarossa back in 1941, and this is what led the war to drag on for years.

Fixed that for you — but I honestly shouldn't have had to.

Seriously, there have been numerous creative attempts at rewriting history down through the years, all in an attempt to blame the Iraq-Iran War on the Iranians when the clear facts of the day show without the slightest doubt that the war essentially began as an Iraqi landgrab, of the same sort that led to the Gulf War of 1990. The Iranians may not be high on anybody's list of favorite nations, and their government may suck; but that's not reason enough to distort history in an ex post facto attempt to blame them from everything from gingivitis to colon cancer.

[Questers]

The short answer is somewhere between 100 and 300.

[The Akasha Colony]

Instead of figuring how many a division should have, it might be helpful to design your military at least to the battalion level, so it can be more easily identified what, where and how you'll arrange vehicles and other elements.

I planned on doing that, but was trying to find out what a realistic number would be for a division to have so that I could make sure not to overdo it.

The number you need will depend on the number of infantry you need to move. So you need to figure that out first.

[Crookfur]

Combat kilts y/n?

Might be an issue in an NBC environment.

Needs a set of NBC hose

[United Marxist Nations]

Would anyone mind linking me to diagrams of Soviet Military command structures during the very late Cold War (I figure that if I get one in 1989, then it could still be decent with limited changes, if I am wrong, correct me, please). Thank you in advance.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Would anyone mind linking me to diagrams of Soviet Military command structures during the very late Cold War (I figure that if I get one in 1989, then it could still be decent with limited changes, if I am wrong, correct me, please). Thank you in advance.

Do you mean ORBATs and organization, or national high command structures?

If it's the former, they've been linked in the OP since MilRealism Type 08 began.

[United Marxist Nations]

Would anyone mind linking me to diagrams of Soviet Military command structures during the very late Cold War (I figure that if I get one in 1989, then it could still be decent with limited changes, if I am wrong, correct me, please). Thank you in advance.

Do you mean ORBATs and organization, or national high command structures?

If it's the former, they've been linked in the OP since MilRealism Type 08 began.

The latter, though, I will help myself to the former as well, since you mention it.

[Tule]

Well yeah. The Iranian government thought it could conquer Iraq and install a puppet government without having any real equipment worth speaking of, lengthening the war by years. The Iraqi government thought that it could invade Iran and annex all the oil fields along their shared border at a time when Iran was still experiencing tremendous chaos and disruption in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. They didn't count on a surge of patriotic feeling in the part of the Iranians, resulting in mass enlistments and a strategy of national resistance on the part of the Iranians that mirrored the Russian response to Hitler's Operation Barbarossa back in 1941, and this is what led the war to drag on for years.

Fixed that for you — but I honestly shouldn't have had to.

Seriously, there have been numerous creative attempts at rewriting history down through the years, all in an attempt to blame the Iraq-Iran War on the Iranians when the clear facts of the day show without the slightest doubt that the war essentially began as an Iraqi landgrab, of the same sort that led to the Gulf War of 1990. The Iranians may not be high on anybody's list of favorite nations, and their government may suck; but that's not reason enough to distort history in an ex post facto attempt to blame them from everything from gingivitis to colon cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80 ... e_proposal

On 20 June 1982 Saddam announced that he wanted to sue for peace and proposed an immediate ceasefire. Khomeini rejected the Iraqi peace offer because an immediate ceasefire would mean that Iraqi troops would remain on Iran's borders in the disputed territory.[60] He proclaimed that Iran would invade Iraq and would not stop until the Ba'ath regime was replaced by an Islamic republic

For most part, Iraq remained on the defensive for the next six years of war

Saddam was a dick, but Iran's government wasn't made up of angels either.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Mark's questions made me notice the Longsword ship and an implicit opposition to it. What, was it some incredibly bad OH SWEET MOTHER MARY'S HONEY NETHERS.

[North Yemen-]

Fixed that for you — but I honestly shouldn't have had to.

Seriously, there have been numerous creative attempts at rewriting history down through the years, all in an attempt to blame the Iraq-Iran War on the Iranians when the clear facts of the day show without the slightest doubt that the war essentially began as an Iraqi landgrab, of the same sort that led to the Gulf War of 1990. The Iranians may not be high on anybody's list of favorite nations, and their government may suck; but that's not reason enough to distort history in an ex post facto attempt to blame them from everything from gingivitis to colon cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80 ... e_proposal

On 20 June 1982 Saddam announced that he wanted to sue for peace and proposed an immediate ceasefire. Khomeini rejected the Iraqi peace offer because an immediate ceasefire would mean that Iraqi troops would remain on Iran's borders in the disputed territory.[60] He proclaimed that Iran would invade Iraq and would not stop until the Ba'ath regime was replaced by an Islamic republic

For most part, Iraq remained on the defensive for the next six years of war

Saddam was a dick, but Iran's government wasn't made up of angels either.

Somebody started the war. It sure wasn't the Iranians.

[Connori Pilgrims]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80 ... e_proposal





Saddam was a dick, but Iran's government wasn't made up of angels either.

No one here has attempted to paint Iran as angels or some such during the Iran-Iraq war. Your quotes only show that Iraq got way more than they bargained for (in the worst way) and that Saddam was an idiot who thought he could get away scot-free after starting something as serious as invading another country.

Khomeini thinking that he shouldn't give away Iranian land by agreeing to a ceasefire and that he should regime-change Saddam (who has proven to be a threat to their country) isn't inherently bad or anything, its the logical thing to do in his case.

[United Earthlings]

Hi everyone,

I need some help or guideline to calculate the following:

- Based on my total number of personel in the Army, how many Divisions I can field?

- How t calculate the number and types of ships for a Navy

- How to calculate the numer and type of planes for an Air Force.

You could briefly give a guideline, or direct me to some source. I hand't much luck searching online.

Best by beginning with going to wiki, finding a RL {Real Life} nation that as closely approximates your nation's population size and land area, use that to establish a baseline, set a defense budget, modify as needed.

no war in history has ever gone according to plan and when your military forces face opponents who do place a high value on mission-type tactics and individual initiative to say the least your going to find out the hard way that all that meticulous planning and preparation counted for {forgive my French} SHIT.

Unfortunately this is a complete contradiction to all military history. Almost all successful military operations were planned and prepared for meticulously, even the ones conducted by auftragstaktik armies. NATO itself does not adhere to "mission type tactics", preferring "intent", which is similar but not at all the same.

Omission on my part that I missed as it was getting late, I didn't mean all planning and preparation is shit, only that I disagreed with your use of the term meticulously. Good planning and Preparation is it should go without saying or not as it would seem, important, but to me it seems your use of the term meticulously implies that your generals, soldiers, politicians have planned and prepared for every possible enemy contingency and as a perfectionist, I know planning and preparing for all eventualities is an impossibility. That's what I meant when I said every war doesn't ever go to plan, which to me isn't a complete contradiction of all military history. Even the hugely successful planning and preparation for Operation OVERLORD encountered quite a few SNAFUS once it got underway that had the Germans reacted better could have had serious consequences on the outcome of the war. Thankfully the Germans didn't and the outcome was what it was.

As for NATO members, preferring "intent" instead. Can't speak for all NATO members, but from some quick research it seems the US, Germany and the British trying to, but failing prefer the mission type tactics.

https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm5-0.pdf
The US Army in particular stresses planning and preparation as fundamental elements of the ongoing process of command and control.

I love reading FMs and as that's one I haven't read yet, thanks for the link. Hopefully, the above will have cleared up some of the confusion. Also, again maybe it's just me, but I found that FM to be focused on critical thinking skill then necessarily on planning and preparation, then again the two are inter-linked so made sense.

The division is slightly larger than US divisions. 13,300 is almost as small as a Soviet division.

Slightly larger as compared to what though? I'm assuming you didn't mean the 24,000 reserves added one as depending on the exact modern US division and whether Marine or Army that's more then slightly larger in a good many cases.

13,300 might seem small, but it packs a lot of firepower. You also have to keep in mind the operational requirements of the Commonwealth, which goes back to what some of us keep trying to tell all those people who keep asking for help in creating a military. The Commonwealth is a Maritime Power {full Maritime as we share no land borders with any other nation} and hence since the closest landmass is thousands of kilometers distance, any land force can only be transported by either sea or land, mostly by sea though. Goes without saying that smaller divisions create less of a logistical footprint. Additionally, all our tanks use a autoloader hence 3 man crews hence the elimination of hundreds of unnecessary personnel. Same reason are infantry divisions are in the 14 to 15 thousand range.

See the Commonwealth does planning and preparation too.

Actually, Questers is basically a sexist society, but the pdf did include this:

"One more change has altered the Questarianmilitary institutions – women, who have been able to volunteer since 2009, are now allowed to hold Staff positions."

Missed that in the PDF...

Tanks can push down trees until their engines explode. High-tolerance engines and high tree densities turn that time from hours into minutes. It also slows you the fuck down anyway.

None of that is an issue...taking a page out of Padnak's book. Any area deemed severe enough with said high tree density is the perfect opportunity to lob a few large thermobaric FAB.

Or you know bring some of those annoyingly nifty engineers along to clear you a path.

The pace is also even less relevant if enemy contact has been made it said high tree density area.

P.S. I think you meant minutes into hours...

Must we go back down the "Why females are explicitly bad for combat roles" thing again.

Yes we must and while were going down that road again along the way remind me to stop at the "Why technology acts as a combat modifier" thing again.

Meanwhile, someone definitely needs a

[Vitaphone Racing]

Must we go back down the "Why females are explicitly bad for combat roles" thing again.

Do lets. I really want to hear another explanation about dirty vaginas keeping women out of combat, despite the vagina being a self-cleaning organ.

#justNSthings.

[HMS Vanguard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80 ... e_proposal





Saddam was a dick, but Iran's government wasn't made up of angels either.

Somebody started the war. It sure wasn't the Iranians.

As someone who wishes a plague on both their houses, this war seems to have been started by mutual consent. Whoever a team of the world's three hundred most expensive lawyers might eventually be able to stick it on, neither side made any effort to reduce the tensions while escalating things further.

[Husseinarti]

Must we go back down the "Why females are explicitly bad for combat roles" thing again.

Do lets. I really want to hear another explanation about dirty vaginas keeping women out of combat, despite the vagina being a self-cleaning organ.

#justNSthings.

So was the M-16.

[Atomic Utopia]

I was thinking of joining a proper RP region and you know, actually roleplaying. Now I was thinking of military capability and thought it would be interesting to play as a European nation that once had colonies in quite a few places (Africa, the Americas) but have had all of those decay excepting a colony in Australia being maintained through a combination of the nation not wanting it to leave and them being a providence with actual ability to vote and elect representatives.

Now here is where the interesting part comes in. With this situation and the fact that my nation is powered 82% by nuclear fission (electrical and thermal) the uranium supply is considered a major point of national security. While indeed the mainland has a stockpile of nuclear fuel in case of emergency conditions that cut off the supply for a few years occur, it still needs a relatively constant supply.

As such I have one question to ask, would it be reasonable to focus your navy on being capable of quickly responding (anywhere within two weeks) to emerging threats anywhere as well as basing a disproportionately large number of people in Australia (say 30% of the entire military) in order to defend against any conceivable threat to the uranium supply.

[Questers]

Omission on my part that I missed as it was getting late, I didn't mean all planning and preparation is shit, only that I disagreed with your use of the term meticulously. Good planning and Preparation is it should go without saying or not as it would seem, important, but to me it seems your use of the term meticulously implies that your generals, soldiers, politicians have planned and prepared for every possible enemy contingency and as a perfectionist, I know planning and preparing for all eventualities is an impossibility. That's what I meant when I said every war doesn't ever go to plan, which to me isn't a complete contradiction of all military history. Even the hugely successful planning and preparation for Operation OVERLORD encountered quite a few SNAFUS once it got underway that had the Germans reacted better could have had serious consequences on the outcome of the war. Thankfully the Germans didn't and the outcome was what it was.

Overlord was meticulously planned. The trend against meticulous planning has been something that has arisen because of the smaller size of the forces involved. You can't fight across a front with a million men and expect not to get away without having planned meticulously your expenditure of consumables and without having gone through consistent combat-outcome modelling (something every competent military does, seemingly.) You can do that with a brigade though, and on a smaller tactical level, yes.

As for NATO members, preferring "intent" instead. Can't speak for all NATO members, but from some quick research it seems the US, Germany and the British trying to, but failing prefer the mission type tactics.

Mission type tactics are a thing in all NATO armies, but the overriding concern is centralised intent but decentralised execution. What I am saying is not against that, but the scale of the execution actually affects how much planning you need. To move a platoon from point A to point B requires very little planning or preparation. In that sense you can simply says "yo lieutenant dudikov, I want your troops on the hill by X time, bear in mind it might rain." If you are moving a whole army corps it's a different matter completely.

Slightly larger as compared to what though? I'm assuming you didn't mean the 24,000 reserves added one as depending on the exact modern US division and whether Marine or Army that's more then slightly larger in a good many cases.

In full mobilisation a US army division is something like 18-20,000. So I guess yeah it is a bit bigger, but 24.5k isn't undoable, although it is admittedly very large.

13,300 might seem small, but it packs a lot of firepower. You also have to keep in mind the operational requirements of the Commonwealth, which goes back to what some of us keep trying to tell all those people who keep asking for help in creating a military. The Commonwealth is a Maritime Power {full Maritime as we share no land borders with any other nation} and hence since the closest landmass is thousands of kilometers distance, any land force can only be transported by either sea or land, mostly by sea though. Goes without saying that smaller divisions create less of a logistical footprint. Additionally, all our tanks use a autoloader hence 3 man crews hence the elimination of hundreds of unnecessary personnel. Same reason are infantry divisions are in the 14 to 15 thousand range.

Unfortunately there are few ways to decrease manpower but increase firepower.

Logistical footprint consists of two parts: how much the total equipment and personnel of a division weigh, and how much they consume in combat. The former is especially important for you because you want to maintain a low logistical footprint while being unable to transport forces via land to enemy borders. A US Army light division of 11,000 men weighs just 17,000 tons. Enough to put one one large ship, if you had the physical volume. A US Army mechanised division, however, with 18,000 men - a 163% increase in manpower - weighs 110,000 tons. - a 647% increase in actual weight. You can make the division small, but if it's packing heat it's going to weigh a lot, because weapons are heavy.

The second part is how much forces use in battle. I haven't divisional figures, sadly, but I do have brigade figures. A US army heavy brigade of only 3,100 soldiers uses approx 600 tons per day. An airborne brigade of 3,400 soldiers, half that (despite having more men.) And a stryker brigade about 400 tons, with the most men at 3,900. The lowest manpower sized force still uses the most supplies per day because it is mechanised, and - it has less troops but uses up twice as many as a light infantry unit. Here's where it gets interesting. The heavy brigade uses 300 tons of fuel compared to the 85 tons of the airborne brigade, and 60 tons of ammo compared to the airborne brigade's 10 tons. But the smaller heavy brigade uses only 130 tons of water whereas the airborne brigade uses 145. Figures for the stryker brigade are similar. Fuel, dry stores, and ammo increase as mechanisation increases - only water and food increases as manpower increases (food is part of dry stores, but so are things like mechanical components.)

So here's the other thing: firepower is mechanised. Broadly speaking, if you want firepower, you need mechanisation, because weapons systems need to be carried. The main equipment of a heavy brigade is 58 M1A2 and 109 Bradley FV (at the time this source was written) and 43 APC, supported by 45 humvees, 23 ARV, 451 utility trucks and 218 cargo trucks. An infantry brigade is 75 humvees, 16 heavy trucks, 25 "medium tactical vehicles", 13 "light tactical vehicles," and 263 utility trucks. It's obvious which has the more bang for its buck. Except in city-street fighting, the mechanised brigade is more useful each time - unless you have a strict hard-limit on how many resources you can funnel into an area, which is why low-footprint reaction forces are usually always light infantry or light mechanised, and which is why they tend not to be packing a lot of firepower.

You are trying to decrease footprint but keep firepower the same by reducing the number of personnel in your divisions. As the evidence shows, the source of a footprint is basically the fuel usage of a unit, as well as its ammo and spare parts. Food and water play a large role but do not change drastically as a unit size increases. So in one sense that is already fighting a losing battle. The other problem is this: manpower is necessary. You shave off men, you shave off combat service support units. So the unit fights less efficiently and its staying power in the field is reduced - less repair-men, less transport drivers, less cooks, less signals men etc. You're shaving off these men, and crewmen of vehicles, to make a logistical saving - but you're not making a big saving because if you want heavy firepower, you need a large logistical footprint.

A Soviet division was small because it had small subunits because it had granularity of formations, and because they also wanted this feature as part of their larger corps and armies. The Soviets also tried to keep manpower down wherever possible because there is one advantage that I haven't said yet, which is that a smaller unit can be moved more quickly (but not more cheaply in terms of logistic footprint: that doesn't matter if you don't expet a division to last longer than a week.)

[Imperializt Russia]

Fixed that for you — but I honestly shouldn't have had to.

Seriously, there have been numerous creative attempts at rewriting history down through the years, all in an attempt to blame the Iraq-Iran War on the Iranians when the clear facts of the day show without the slightest doubt that the war essentially began as an Iraqi landgrab, of the same sort that led to the Gulf War of 1990. The Iranians may not be high on anybody's list of favorite nations, and their government may suck; but that's not reason enough to distort history in an ex post facto attempt to blame them from everything from gingivitis to colon cancer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80 ... e_proposal

On 20 June 1982 Saddam announced that he wanted to sue for peace and proposed an immediate ceasefire. Khomeini rejected the Iraqi peace offer because an immediate ceasefire would mean that Iraqi troops would remain on Iran's borders in the disputed territory.[60] He proclaimed that Iran would invade Iraq and would not stop until the Ba'ath regime was replaced by an Islamic republic

For most part, Iraq remained on the defensive for the next six years of war

Saddam was a dick, but Iran's government wasn't made up of angels either.

Iraq was on the defensive because they prodded a patriotic nerve-gas-strewn hornet's nest, got bogged down, and were killed in great number.

Tanks can push down trees until their engines explode. High-tolerance engines and high tree densities turn that time from hours into minutes. It also slows you the fuck down anyway.

None of that is an issue...taking a page out of Padnak's book. Any area deemed severe enough with said high tree density is the perfect opportunity to lob a few large thermobaric FAB.

Or you know bring some of those annoyingly nifty engineers along to clear you a path.

The pace is also even less relevant if enemy contact has been made it said high tree density area.

P.S. I think you meant minutes into hours...

If you have a low tree density and you're using your tank as a dozer, you're doing less work than with a high tree density. The engine will survive for longer. Of course, you'll still need to regularly rotate your tank on point that's acting as the dozer, and that wear will linger on its engine parts. If your engine has high tolerances (by which I mean tight, I realise now this may have been the wrong word), this wear may manifest sooner and more catastrophically.

[Alien Space Bats]

On 20 June 1982 Saddam announced that he wanted to sue for peace and proposed an immediate ceasefire. Khomeini rejected the Iraqi peace offer because an immediate ceasefire would mean that Iraqi troops would remain on Iran's borders in the disputed territory.[60] He proclaimed that Iran would invade Iraq and would not stop until the Ba'ath regime was replaced by an Islamic republic

Which, in the end, wasn't a whole lot different from the Allies deciding at Yalta that they weren't going to accept any peace deal short of one that resulted in the complete dismemberment of the Nazi regime that started the war.

<pause>

Look, my point here is that we need to avoid looking at things with some kind of double standard in the backs of our minds. Iran got invaded without any provocation whatsoever; it's only natural that they would (a) refuse to accept a ceasefire if it meant allowing the Iraqis to continue to hold onto Iranian territory, and (b) would instead insist on the overthrow of the government that invaded them, in order to replace it with one that would be far less inclined to repeat said stunt in the future.

---

The foregoing aside, the cited article does suggest that the Iranians learned to make ever better use of their principal asset (i.e., highly motivated light infantry) as the war went along. It also points out three other things of note for a country in their situation: First, that when you have a non-politicized regular army and a highly politicized national militia, that there are likely to be severe problems in coordination due to rivalry between the two; second that using armor aggressively and/or in mobile fashion is better than using it as a kind of mobile artillery; and third, that having an advantage in the air — even a small one — can be crucially important.

So for NS nations that are playing third world countries, the object lessons are to invest in lots of motorized light infantry (with supporting artillery), looking to both their morale and effectiveness; to invest in enough of an air force to challenge the enemy for control of the skies (while hopefully continuing to fly support missions on behalf of that army); to use what armor they have aggressively; and to clean up their chain of command and do everything possible to eliminate potential rivalries.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Mark's questions made me notice the Longsword ship and an implicit opposition to it. What, was it some incredibly bad OH SWEET MOTHER MARY'S HONEY NETHERS.

It's a kilometer-long arsenal-ship-meets-Over-The-Horizon-radar-platform, from back in the days when NS's realism standards were looser.

It's already been debated to death, both in terms of structural feasibility and strategic usefulness, and bringing it up tends to result in three straight pages of people ranting about the problems with it, so now that that's over with I'm going to drop the issue now and suggest that everyone else do the same.

None of that is an issue...taking a page out of Padnak's book. Any area deemed severe enough with said high tree density is the perfect opportunity to lob a few large thermobaric FAB.

Or you know bring some of those annoyingly nifty engineers along to clear you a path.

The pace is also even less relevant if enemy contact has been made it said high tree density area.

P.S. I think you meant minutes into hours...

If you have a low tree density and you're using your tank as a dozer, you're doing less work than with a high tree density. The engine will survive for longer. Of course, you'll still need to regularly rotate your tank on point that's acting as the dozer, and that wear will linger on its engine parts. If your engine has high tolerances (by which I mean tight, I realise now this may have been the wrong word), this wear may manifest sooner and more catastrophically.

Isn't this when dedicated engineering vehicles enter into the equation?

[Imperializt Russia]

Dozers burn out too. Just ask Marvin Heemeyer.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Do lets. I really want to hear another explanation about dirty vaginas keeping women out of combat, despite the vagina being a self-cleaning organ.

#justNSthings.

So was the M-16.

Yet the M16 does not conduct self-lubrication. And why are we not harping on about filthy oral cavities preventing soldiers from being combat capable? After all my dear SandSerb, it too is a "hole in XX bodypart that holds more than your dollar bills."

[Bumfrakistan]

Must we go back down the "Why females are explicitly bad for combat roles" thing again.

Do lets. I really want to hear another explanation about dirty vaginas keeping women out of combat, despite the vagina being a self-cleaning organ.

#justNSthings.

In Bumfrakistan, women who are unclean must sleep in a different hut.

It is for this reason men have multiple wives, to rotate.

It is considered a sign of disfavor when their menses synchronize.

[Rupudska]

Do lets. I really want to hear another explanation about dirty vaginas keeping women out of combat, despite the vagina being a self-cleaning organ.

#justNSthings.

In Bumfrakistan, women who are unclean must sleep in a different hut.

It is for this reason men have multiple wives, to rotate.

It is considered a sign of disfavor when their menses synchronize.

While that is certainly relevant to the argument at hand, this is a military consultation thread.