NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Allanea]

Could it be "westernized" with avionics & weaponry?

Why not? I do believe there's a number of "Western" countries doing this, but - as other people pointed out - a KA-52 is probably better.

Israel in particular once tried to get a deal where it would 'Westernize' or 'NATO-ize' KA-52s for Turkey.

[Laritaia]

Could it be "westernized" with avionics & weaponry?

There are infact two separate options for westernized Hinds, only one of which actually resulted in examples entering service.

Israel in particular once tried to get a deal where it would 'Westernize' or 'NATO-ize' KA-52s for Turkey.

ah yes, the Erdogan.

unfortunately even naming it after the boss man himself couldn't hide the fact that they were basically planning on taking the KA-52 powertrain and dynamic components and fitting it into an almost entirely new airframe.

[Allanea]

Could it be "westernized" with avionics & weaponry?

There are infact two separate options for westernized Hinds, only one of which actually resulted in examples entering service.

Israel in particular once tried to get a deal where it would 'Westernize' or 'NATO-ize' KA-52s for Turkey.

ah yes, the Erdogan.

unfortunately even naming it after the boss man himself couldn't hide the fact that they were basically planning on taking the KA-52 powertrain and dynamic components and fitting it into an almost entirely new airframe.

I do not think they were thinking of the guy who's President of Turkey today.

[Puzikas]

Erdoğan in Turkish means "Born brave" as a given name.

[Gallia-]

Mi-36 Hussein in the Membrane

[Puzikas]

That just means "good looking" and the Comanche already exists :<

[Gallia-]

This is the only good Ka-52:



He has a kitty face. :3

[Puzikas]

Yello six-one is like the face man of the Kamov family

[Gallia-]

he deserv

he kyut

af

[Laritaia]

most of if not all of the Kamov's are good looking when compared to the Mi-28

[Laywenrania]

Could it be "westernized" with avionics & weaponry?

Yes.

Similar things were done and are done to ex-soviet equipment run by various nations.

[Tekeristan]

What does a war economy fully entail?

[Laritaia]

What does a war economy fully entail?

your economy is based upon profiting from warfare, ie the manufacture and export of arms.

[Albynau]

Dumb question but what does licensed production entail? I purchase the rights to manufacture said item, presumably with assistance from the entity I'm buying the rights from, but what does that usually mean? Presumably they get plans, but there's also an entire manufacturing process that can't simply be packed up and shipped over right? I can understand the process for more basic things which just require the retooling, but for advanced tech?

For instance, Japan had licensed production of the F-4, which is a big plane with lots of electronic doodads and big honking advanced engines that they hadn't produced before. How does one go from a blueprint of a radar, to making a radar if you haven't got everything in between?

In comparison I would imagine unlicensed production is just reverse engineering a thing and making more of them.

Thanks.

[The Akasha Colony]

Dumb question but what does licensed production entail? I purchase the rights to manufacture said item, presumably with assistance from the entity I'm buying the rights from, but what does that usually mean? Presumably they get plans, but there's also an entire manufacturing process that can't simply be packed up and shipped over right? I can understand the process for more basic things which just require the retooling, but for advanced tech?

For instance, Japan had licensed production of the F-4, which is a big plane with lots of electronic doodads and big honking advanced engines that they hadn't produced before. How does one go from a blueprint of a radar, to making a radar if you haven't got everything in between?

In comparison I would imagine unlicensed production is just reverse engineering a thing and making more of them.

Thanks.

Generally licensed production for complex weapons only means final assembly. Lots of the parts may still be imported from the licensor, usually those that the licensee does not have the industry to produce locally or which the licensor may be unwilling to grant a license for. These are usually things like engines and sensitive electronics. The licensor usually agrees to provide trained personnel and equipment to the licensee to get their assembly facilities working and provide oversight to ensure the terms of the agreement are being adhered to, and to supply whatever components the licensee cannot build or the licensor is unwilling to let them build.

The Japanese have slowly developed their aviation industry, going from wholly foreign-developed aircraft licensed for local assembly like the F-4EJ to collaborating with more experienced foreign companies at a design level like F-2, and finally moving toward a fully independent aviation industry with the in-development F-3. Japan was actually interested in developing all of these industries (electronics, turbine engines, etc.) whereas many licensees only sign domestic manufacturing deals for political reasons.

The Leopard 2E produced in Spain was still built with German components imported from Germany, the Spanish only provided final assembly in order to make the whole endeavor a bit more politically acceptable since at least some of the jobs would remain in Spain. But otherwise they weren't willing to invest in building the industries necessary to supply the rest of the components for the tank. Many nations producing Soviet equipment started out by receiving knock-down kits from Soviet factories, which is why there are so many different variants of these vehicles as slowly local equipment was substituted for Soviet components.

[Albynau]

Thank you, that was very helpful.

But otherwise they weren't willing to invest in building the industries necessary to supply the rest of the components for the tank.

This part has me curious though, if there was a will to invest in the industries, what would happen then?

For a nation that wants to be militarily self sufficient with regards to supplying itself, yet has no desire to engage in the international arms trade, is it even viable to to go the route of just purchasing license permits for everything and making the stuff for yourself? It seems a bit wasteful to spend large amounts in R&D if there's no potential for export sales if you could just find something that works and make more of it.

[Purpelia]

This part has me curious though, if there was a will to invest in the industries, what would happen then?

For a nation that wants to be militarily self sufficient with regards to supplying itself, yet has no desire to engage in the international arms trade, is it even viable to to go the route of just purchasing license permits for everything and making the stuff for yourself? It seems a bit wasteful to spend large amounts in R&D if there's no potential for export sales if you could just find something that works and make more of it.

For a nation that wants to be militarily self sufficient with regards to supplying itself you most definitively have to develop your own industry and technology and that includes R&D. Buying licenses for foreign equipment is what nations that don't want to be self sufficient use to sell the idea of being dependent on foreigners for weaponry to their population so that it goes down easier.

[Gallia-]

For a nation that wants to be militarily self sufficient with regards to supplying itself, yet has no desire to engage in the international arms trade,

This is somewhat mutually exclusive.

The closest is Japan IRL and they are hardly a military arms autarky, since they rely so heavily on America.

[Laritaia]

Westland Helicopters before the European defence industry swallowed them and reduced them down to a name plate, before disposing of even that, Was a really good example of license production of foreign designs.

They took Sikorsky helicopter designs and adapted them to use domestically available powerplants and avionics, to the extent that some of their offerings were about as distinct from the base design as it was possible to get.

[Albynau]

Thank you all, your responses have been very helpful.

[The Akasha Colony]

Thank you, that was very helpful.

But otherwise they weren't willing to invest in building the industries necessary to supply the rest of the components for the tank.

This part has me curious though, if there was a will to invest in the industries, what would happen then?

It would depend on the state of the existing industries. In the case of vehicles like the British licensed version of AH-64 Apache, the British already had a suitable engine and electronics industry, they just had no experience in the design and development of attack helicopters and weren't willing to spend the money and time to develop one. So they just bought the license to Apache but substituted their own equipment where they had the industrial base to do so.

On the other hand, Japan at the time it originally licensed F-4EJ did not really have these industries, although they were developing them. Thus, the important parts of F-4EJ were largely imported but over time some of these systems were replaced with Japanese equivalents as they became available. By the time F-2 rolled around, the Japanese were able to contribute much more to the program, including domestic electronics and they now had the facilities to build the engines locally as well. Japan wanted to do this because they wanted to actually wanted to develop these industries for their export potential, but they started with an advantage because they were already an industrial power with a large manufacturing base and a skilled workforce.

Spain was not willing to do this for Leopard 2E because their industries were nowhere near the level needed to be competitive with Germany, France, and other defense industrial powers in Europe. Spain was never going to develop an automotive industry that was competitive with Germany's so they were never going to develop their own tank engines, nor were they going to develop an optics or electronics industry on par with Germany or France or the UK. So they had to content themselves with some basic final assembly work, because they weren't interested in spending tens of billions propping up new industries until they were competitive with existing powerhouses (and doing so probably would have been illegal under existing trade agreements anyway).

For a nation that wants to be militarily self sufficient with regards to supplying itself, yet has no desire to engage in the international arms trade, is it even viable to to go the route of just purchasing license permits for everything and making the stuff for yourself? It seems a bit wasteful to spend large amounts in R&D if there's no potential for export sales if you could just find something that works and make more of it.

The problem is that having the industry to handle the domestic production of licensed products (beyond very basic final assembly of imported knock-down kits) means that the nation already has already developed this industry somehow; it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Britain could build a helicopter like Apache domestically because it had already designed and developed helicopters before, it just didn't want to spend money to develop an attack helicopter. Japan wanted to develop the ability to build aircraft like F-2 and F-3 because it wanted to develop (and has developed) other military aircraft. It is no surprise that Mitsubishi is also the company leading Japan's civilian aerospace sector.

And the notion of "just purchasing licenses" while remaining "militarily self-sufficient" is a bit mutually exclusive. A nation that is reliant on foreign licenses and designs even if every component is produced domestically is still dependent on foreign firms for perhaps the most important part of weapons development and procurement. One of the biggest reasons why nations want to develop these industries are because they develop intellectual talent that can be applied to other uses. But if you simply import licenses, you have eliminated the need for engineers to practice their skills and develop experience in their industry.

Licenses are a stepping stone to true defense self-sufficiency, but over-dependence on them is detrimental because it stunts the growth of actual design and engineering talent.

[Albynau]

I think I might understand it better, in the sense that the development process goes something like:
1) Find a thing that meets our needs
2) License the manufacture of the thing, assembling the thing from imported parts
3) Develop local substitutes for non-complex imported parts
4) Develop local substitutes for complex imported parts
5) Improve local substitute parts that they provide better performance than imported parts, resulting in a better thing
6) Take all the accumulated knowledge of the process to design new thing

I guess my intention behind being militarily self sufficient was having the capability to manufacture most of what it might need should a crisis materialize, even if it is just older equipment, or at the very least, its own munitions. It would be difficult to maintain an independent foreign policy should a nation be reliant upon arms imports should a war start.

[Gallia-]

sprut has arrived

it probably uses skid steering instead of the turning front wheel thing 2a45m actually does

[Purpelia]

I think I might understand it better, in the sense that the development process goes something like:
1) Find a thing that meets our needs
2) License the manufacture of the thing, assembling the thing from imported parts
3) Develop local substitutes for non-complex imported parts
4) Develop local substitutes for complex imported parts
5) Improve local substitute parts that they provide better performance than imported parts, resulting in a better thing
6) Take all the accumulated knowledge of the process to design new thing

That's basically how it works. And after you reach #6 you go on being the one selling others their #1.
And even if you don't sell anything the key is to keep that knowledge going because the moment you stop investing and developing and doing #6 over and over again is the moment you lose all that knowledge and have to go back to #1.

I guess my intention behind being militarily self sufficient was having the capability to manufacture most of what it might need should a crisis materialize, even if it is just older equipment, or at the very least, its own munitions. It would be difficult to maintain an independent foreign policy should a nation be reliant upon arms imports should a war start.

That is a goal all sensible nations should strive for. So 'd say it's good.

[Allanea]

So my books arrived from Russia. It's a shipment of college textbooks in military science.
Preparation and Planning of Military Operations and Planning of Combat Operations in Local Wars and Armed Conflicts - S. A. Batyushkin
Construction and Breaching of Obstacles ~ A. P. Baranov
Preparation of Special Forces Units of the Ministry of Interior for Mountain Operations ~ A whole bunch of authors.