What's old is neu: Relighting the Fringe with old guns and new wars

[Daryk]

That's fair criticism of the China Lake model... it seems only SOF used them.

[Failure16]

More when I can break loose, but here is a Black Devils excerpt from Purveyors of the Flames: Mercenary Units of the Outer Fringe, Kahler Operational Studies Press, 2505 Edition. I added in the MS line very quickly, so I'll probably have to go back in and edit it for spelling, etc. I will probably get more specific with their infantry breakdown, too. Stay tuned.

You are all unspeakably awesome, by the way. I'm a shotgun kinda guy, and the auto-blooper is awesome. And those patches, chanman...

[ANS Kamas P81]

So I'm making one major change to things and renaming the planet to simply "Mriya," dream.  It's quicker to type, and divorces things some more from Serednya Slaviya further making it more of its own thing.  So they're Mriyans, speaking primarily Mriyan with Tomokomaian as an official language as well.  Novosibirskan is a secondary language in the outback, but isn't a government-recognized language on the planet.

That excerpt on the Black Devils was a great read, I like the unit.  They're not nice men, and have a reputation for getting the job done with some cruelty on the side to make the point of not screwing with them.

Things that the Mriyans learn from the Black Devils...I'll acknowledge the usefulness of ADVs, though the air threat from the NMPR is nonexistent at the moment.  Still, the Ratel 20 can elevate its gun to 38 degrees, so it's capable of engaging low-flying aircraft.  Instead of dedicated vehicles for the role, the idea was to make it a feature of the general IFV.

Another thing is the presence of tanks on the battlefield, which is admittedly beyond Mriyan capabilities right now - they don't have the transport assets to move heavy armor around the country.  The Ratel ZT3 can engage tanks with its GM/M, though it can be quickly killed by incoming fire.  It needs to exploit its advantage with the missiles to plink armor from beyond their range.  There's also the fact the vehicles are uncommon, with only a section of two per company of mechanized infantry.

One other thing I notice is that the Black Devils carry 7mm battle rifles.  That's a big difference from the compact 5.56mm carbines of the MLF, and the difference would not be lost on the Mriyans.  Historically, the Fire Force carried FAL rifles along with their FN MAG, so they were closer to the Black Devils than the MLF.  I thought about replacing the carbine with backdated FN-49s, which are damn good looking rifles, but I want to keep the K2C/K11 mix.  Issuing both would be troublesome, I'd have to have two completely different logistics, ammo, and maintenance chains to account for both rifles in service.  I'll stick with my carbines.



But it's such a handsome rifle...you know what, I'm going to erase the AK-47 from the Mriyan military and replace it with the FN 49, they both date to the same year so the change from a bolt-action Enfield to a semiautomatic rifle remains the same.  It'll serve the military from 2465 to 2497.

So for my timeline, Nebesni Vovky and Tugarin Zmeyevich ARBs get stood up in 2496.  That means they start with FN 49 rifles, but quickly switch to the K2C carbines as they get issued to the military.  I figure the ARBs, as the newest and shiniest of units, would get the new rifles first.  After that the Black Devils get hired in 2497, and Tokushu Shuudan Youkai ARB gets stood up in 2498.  I figure the Devils stick around until 2500, spending three years honing the COIN operations of the MLF to a fine edge.

Also a technology timeline edit to reflect the real world development of the Ratel and fitting it into the expanded calendar of the Fringe.

2495 - 1972, Beginning of NMPR rebellion, Ratel IFV design starts
2496 - 1973, NMPR truce, importation of G6 howitzer
2497 - 1974, Introduction of K2C carbine, arrival of Black Devils
2499 - 1975, importation of K11 multiweapon, introduction of Pucara attack plane
2500 - 1976, Introduction of Ratel IFV
2503 - 1979, Ratel production ceases
2505 - 1980, present day

I should assemble all these timelines and notes and put them together in one document.  That would require settling on the details, but I think I'm good with that right now.

Also, +1 on the shotgun love.  I have one of those turkish AK clones in 12 gauge, plus a bullpup semiauto 12 gauge as well. 

[Daryk]

+1 for shortening the planet's name! :)

[Failure16]

The Black Devils are...a group of tough men. And they are mostly men: Vereeninging is indeed patterned of Cold War South Africa in many respects, but the overt and palpable racism is replaced with xenophobia, and in their case, the "outsiders" are anyone who is not in with the ruling party, regardless of the color of their skin. If a Hochstadtler, for example, is in with the National Unity Alliance being the be-all-and-end-all of Vereeninging political and social life, they are A-OK. If not, well, they will be treated like second-class people or worse as the situation allows. Part of their view is that men do the fighting and the tough work, because when things went south during the during the initial colonization and then again during the Second Troubles, they found themselves short on women. So, females are to be protected, and part of that is not putting them at unnecessary risk (even if the woman in question doesn't see it as unnecessary herself).

All of that sounds reasonable, when you think of it. But it would be hard to live in such a society if you are used to certain freedoms, rights, or trains of thought. The Tswana Republic on the planet certainly thinks so, which is why they are fighting and dying as a sort of long, drawn-out protest (that has lasted between 20 and 50 years, depending on who you ask, and how you are counting). But this is the Fringe, and public sentiment doesn't mean as much as it does on Earth in our 2024 (or 1984 as it were). I do not think the Vereeningingers are right, but I do think they could exist.

The Vereeninging Armored Corps has found, much as the US military recently, that sometimes you really do need to reach out past 300 meters and touch someone. And even if they are close, they just need to stay down, no matter what they are wearing as protection. So, they have stayed with a tried-and-true battle rifle that--like all of their equipment--can be locally produced and will work, absolutely, no matter what the user does to it, or the environment throws at it (or into its inner workings).


It can be said that the Foreign Service Regiment owes a lot to Drake's Hammer's Slammers. I do not disagree, but they are really based on the 11th ACR that I served in. Drake has said they were patterned sociologically on the Foreign Legion of the 1950s when they supposedly had a fair amount of ex-Wehrmacht/SS personnel under arms. Now, that notion has been relatively widely disputed (starting with Bernard Fall in 1950+), but in 1971+...it's not an unreasonable supposition, even if I do not personally believe it.

The FSR is quite capable of doing some hard things, but that is a result of an internal ethos about getting the job done right the first time, and damn who is in the way. But the Black Devils do even harder things because they believe it will make their job easier in the long run, and because they really do not care about the other person, because they are not entirely convinced the other person is indeed a person worth worrying about.

Neither group is composed of masochists, sadists, mass-murderers, or outright villainous bastards (though, sure, all of those exist in any purely warfighting force). But the fundamental reasons that underlay the doctrine and decisions that are made vary quite a great deal. And that makes a big difference when you see them on the other side of the battle-line.

Captain Smith from Pick-a-Place's insurgent army may not want to face the FSR because he knows they have the ability to destroy his company of rebel farmers and their star-merc backup, and they will do it quickly, and by close-assault. He will not want to face the Black Devils because he knows that they will smash his force with the same end-result (dead is dead, not so?), but they will do so after they grind their boot into his windpipe and throw his men into a pile and light the bodies. The FSR and others of their ilk (i.e. the First Tier star mercenary commands) are impersonal in their savagery, but the Black Devils are savage in their impersonality.


My vote for Mriya is to have it settled as Mriya Slaviya, but eventually shortened to Mriya in an official capacity.

The GT-10s are wheeled tanks, but monsters. I have to bring them up to present standards, but I have attached an apocryphal version (they are called Leeu, now, not Rhinoceros, to boot) to give you the gist. As part of the re-write, I need to impart the fact that the Devils initially used the GT-10 as their standard tank but converted to the smaller and lighter GT-11 to ease interstellar transport and make the outfit lighter on its feet than the lumbering fifty-tonne wheeled tank could manage.



Tomorrow, I'll be able to start talking about that timeline. But as food for thought: initially, the timeline was going to be some made-up (work with me here!) number based on the fact that Settled Worlds lost touch with each other for...longer than a few decades. Long enough that no one really thought of Earth time anymore--because no one thought of Earth anymore, just as an adult doesn't think about the cradle he once slept in, but settled on a non-arbitrary touchpoint that was common to all of them (like, say, "thirty years after the Troubles", or maybe "Ten years since Resumption (or starflight)".

We decided on a placeholder of 2500 and it stayed that way, but what does everyone else think?

[ANS Kamas P81]

One dead computer later...

Vehicle thoughts.  The Leeu is a pretty solid tank, with good armor protection all-around.  You're going to have to get into the rear to threshold it with any ease.  The Luiperd trades a good chunk of protection, but makes up for it with light weight and firepower - a 90mm cannon and twin ATGM launchers means it can wreck multiple faces at once.  The Wildebeest sees the protection scheme of the Leeu and thinks it's a good idea, though it's only an APC so its supporting firepower is kind of light.  Well protected, though.  The ADV version has a "bet you can't hit that with this" sticker on the ATGM launcher, I bet; I picture the main gun as something like the 40mm Bofors shooting HE rounds at helicopters and swatting them from the sky.  Something like the CV9040 with better main gun elevation.

Vereeniging wouldn't be the first xenophobic sort of place with its own cultural ideals of equality being skewed outside the liberal West's norm.  And they've got good reason for it; I imagine their population is still off-kilter demographically in 2505.  They got hit hard enough to shake things up socially.  I get a bit of feeling of North Korea for the veneration of the leadership, though it's not anywhere near as isolationist.  They feel realistic to me, given their circumstances, and...hm, I could see King Volodomyr accepting such a situation in a pragmatic way.  The NUA is the rightful government of Vereeniging, and they take whatever measures they need to to secure that place of control.  This is especially true since they're desperate for the help of Lartsua-Okunbi OMC for dragging them up the technological ladder and reinventing the military the last ten years.

That harshness of force that the VAC has learned will likely rub off on the Mriyans, especially the Air Rifle Battalions - they're supposed to be the best of the bunch, the take-no-shit soldiers who have that same impartiality towards their enemies.  Perhaps the motto of the Air Rifle Battalions is "None But Us" - they're the ones who go it alone in the field with just their fellow riflemen at their back, with the intent to not just defeat but destroy an enemy force.  I could picture a bayonet charge against a hardened NMPR position being one of the scariest things the separatists could see.  Their opponents are not worth consideration, so they don't take many prisoners.  Surrender to the ARBs means an unknown time of hostile and painful interrogation, followed by being incarcerated as a POW, and who knows how long the insurrection will last, so that's not a popular option.  Hell, one of them is named Special Group Monster and plays up the name in parades.

Speaking of North Korea, there's a bit of that sentiment in Mriya.  The concept of self-reliance, as well as veneration of the military and the leadership (all hail the King) though maybe not quite to the same level.  Plenty of patriotic music and movies to watch about the glory of service and the tales of great soldiers, and plenty of propaganda to spread around - especially with the separatists in Novaya Mechta.  Granted, self-reliance has its limits, and the King knows the Mriyans are recovering slower than they should from the Great War.

On the topic of planetary names, I like the idea of splitting the difference.  It's initially colonized as Mriya Slaviya by the Cherkasians, and that name stays for a while despite the presence of the Tomokomai settlers, but after the end of the reunification war in 2388 the planet is simply renamed Mriya by King Andrei I.  This probably led to some initial confusion in 2455 when the first starship in over a hundred years visits, but what's a little bureaucratic trouble between worlds anyway?

The FN 49 will remain the standard rifle of the MLF, then.  We'll take the lessons learned in the veldt by the Devils and keep the longer-range rifle.  The FN MAG/M240 will remain the standard machine gun in fire teams, specifically modified into the M240L which came out in 1977 - or 2501 in Fringe years.  It's lighter than the M60 by a few pounds, making it easier to carry around through the bush, and lets you lug an extra belt of ammo for the weight tradeoff.  You can never have too much ammmo...  That leaves me with the question of what to equip my vehicle crews with besides S&W Model 59s; they need something more than just a handgun to go into battle with.  How about the classic Uzi?  It gets introduced in 1954, or about 2470 in Mriyan years.  It can be issued to truck drivers and other support personnel that aren't line infantry, and it's chambered in 9mm just like the Model 59 is. 



And damnit there's something about that wood stock I just like.  I'll make that my "PDW" instead.

Question, then, with the FN 49 and M240 machine gun, just what would the stats be for Mriyan rifle teams?  2495 and 2505 sees the same weapons at work, with some minor modification between those years, so the stats wouldn't change depending on the timeframe.  I could see them as RT2 Medium Technology, which gives me a 3 hex range translating to 600m.  They wouldn't be HWT/MMG teams because they're not focused around their machine gun; the gun is there to give fires to allow the infantry in the team to maneuver.  The Mriyans would copy the light load of the Black Devils, with light body armor and minimal electronics.  And still, everyone but the machine gunner carries an M72 LAW.  They're just too darn useful and light.

As far as years go, 2505 is good for me for a present day.  It's long enough that early colonies (say FTL was invented in 2050 for a round number) would have had significant enough time for population growth to make them sizeable worlds in their own right, while allowing follow-on colonies the chance to grow somewhat but remain clearly small, second-class worlds.  It sets the Sapporo war in the 2350s, with Resumption in 2450 or so, depending on fine grain details.

I'll keep the Nebesni Vovky patch with Death From Above.  That's the motto of that particular battalion under the general ARB mindset of None But Us, with the Tugarin Zmeyevich battalion being "Glory In Action" and the Tokushu Shuudan Youkai battalion being "Eater Of Souls."  I'll get translations of those later.

Looking forward to the timeline!  I'll work on mine afterward and make some edits, and combine the technological timeline for Mriya with the general one.

[Daryk]

That's one handsome Uzi! :)

[ANS Kamas P81]

Uzi's a good looking gun, and it's been around long enough to be developed locally.  Back to "self reliance" even if we've been hypocrites about it.

Megafauna in the mountains of Gensoukyou can be dangerous.  Road sign below.

[Daryk]

That's hilarious! :D

[ANS Kamas P81]

What do you think of adding a vertical grip to the front of an Uzi?



Seems it'd make it a little more controllable on bursts, and give a better grip angle than the regular forend.  A VFG works on the Uzi because of the vertical main grip and the under-reciever stock, but it would break up the lines of an FN 49 too much to look right.

Also my information was wrong, the M240L doesn't get developed and adopted until 2010.  So the FN MAG used by the MLF is just that, a baseline early model that soldiers on despite its size and bulk.  The light equipment carried by the MLF simply means the gunner carries their own ammo, though I wouldn't be surprised if the riflemen in the fire team carry a spare belt of their own on top of their ammunition load.

BIG EDIT:

Thoughts on advanced aircraft and a change to the Air Rifle Battalion makeup.

So the first integrated circuit was invented in 1958, although it wasn't until 1971 that the Intel 4004 microchip became the first commercially produced microprocessor.  That puts Mriya as having early forms of the technology in its growth through the 2490s, leading to basic personal computers and consumer electronics.  They'd have technical experience with them, and an understanding of how they're made, so they wouldn't be too far behind the curve for high-tech equipment.  I'm looking at the "self reliance" in one hand and the Gripen in the other, and you know...the technology really is there for Mriya to operate the jets.

They'd have to order them from another planet, but the first flight of a complete Gripen was in 1988, only 8 years ahead of the current tech base on Mriya.  It doesn't go into production until 1993, and enters service in 1996.  An early model would be something that, with some technical assistance for the details, the Mriyans could maintain and operate.  I need some kind of air dominance aircraft, even if it's just a single squadron of eight, and that picture of Gripen-chan I posted in the first page of the thread sealed the deal for the airframe.

The same goes for the Rooivalk, which first flew in 1990.  It's specifically designed to be operated in harsh conditions with minimal maintenance, using only a team of four maintainers and a small bundle of spare components to operate in the bush.  It's like a Clan 'Mech, if something goes bad it's built to allow its ground crew to just swap out the part.  Like the Gripen I'd need to import technicians and trainers for my flight crews and maintainers, but it's not so much of a technological stretch as, say, importing Comanche helicopters for the recon/attack role.

Speaking of which, I'm reshuffling my ARB helicopters slightly.  Nebesni Vovky and Tugarin Zmeyevich ARBs were both stood up before the arrival of the Black Devils, so I'm going to convert them to a "heavy" format using UH-1s exclusively.  Tokushu Shuudan Youkai ARB would equip entirely with OH-6As, which would have modifications to reduce vibrations and noise of the airframe to make it quieter and stealthier in operation.  I'm going to need extra OH-6s to do that, but it gives the Youkais a special option that the other heavier helicopters don't have.  It also streamlines my logistics and maintenance, with having the same airframe across the battalion instead of mixed all the way down to platoon level.  The Youkais' gunships are lightly armed compared to their UH-1C counterparts, with a single M134 minigun and a seven-shot rocket pod as standard loadout.

Nebesni Vovky Air Rifle Battalion
  Air Rifle Company (x3) ("Iklo" (Fang), "Kihotʹ" (Claw), "Talon" (Talon))
    Command Group (UH-1D x2)
    Air Assault Platoon (x3) (UH-1C gunship x2, UH-1H transport x4, RT2 x8)
Tugarin Zmeyevich Air Rifle Battalion
  Air Rifle Company (x3) ("Shchyt" (Shield), "Spys" (Spear), "Shablya" (Saber))
    Command Group (UH-1D x2)
    Air Assault Platoon (x3) (UH-1C gunship x2, UH-1H transport x4, RT2 x8)
Tokushu Shuudan Youkai Air Rifle Battalion
  Air Rifle Company (x3) ("Youma" (Demon), "Yuurei" (Ghost), "Yousei" (Fairy))
    Command Group (OH-6A x2)
    Air Assault Platoon (x3) (OH-6A gunship x2, OH-6A transport x8, RT2 x8)

That brings me to a total of 120 UH-1s and 96 OH-6As, reducing my numbers of aircraft slightly.  I also changed the rifle teams to reflect their proper status as rifle teams, and not medium machine gun teams - even if they have an FN MAG in each fire team, there's no tripod and dedicated ammo bearers in the team.  The machine gunner brings their own 400 rounds of ammo along, supporting the movement of the fire team with his fires rather than emplacing defensively and having the whole fire team serve the gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFYf1okSydU

A pretty good video on the history and usage of OH-6s.  It mentions they only carry two people in the passenger compartment, but there's a shot where you can see a group of folks sitting on the floor making room enough for a four-man team.

Idly, the Nebesni Vovky ARB has a totem statue outside their barracks.  It's a rearing up beast that looks like the classic griffin, except that the lion body is replaced with a wolf and the eagle's wings are bat wings.  It retains the talons of the eagle, however, because Mriyan life is trying to kill you and there are the equivalent of spectral bats - the largest carnivorous bat on earth - that have talons on their legs.  Tugarin Zmeyevich ARB just has a statue of a bogatyr like their unit insignia, carrying a saber, shield, and spear.  The Youkais have a statue of this potbellied guy painted red:



EDIT AGAIN:

Remember how I said the Elands were unpopular, troublesome in the badlands, and were retired after only 14 years, sent to the MFP, and their 90mm gun turrets reused on Ratel 90s?  Here's a great reason why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3BMx_JSg88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_vHHo5ovo

Inside the Chieftain's Hatch on the AML-60 - and trying to cram a two meter tall vehicle crewman into the thing proves they needed smaller crews than Soviet tanks!

[Daryk]

Does the Uzi really need a stock if it has a VFG?

[DOC_Agren]

Instead of the M79, did you consider the "China Lake" launcher that came out in 1967?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Lake_grenade_launcher

I love that damm thing, but I had heard about long before I tracked down what it was by someone who got to play with 1. 
Another option on that is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KS-23
slightly smaller but useful

Also.. I think of the Fringe more like "80's to mid 2020" style engagements.  There really won't be many if any equal force meeting.  Most the time, it would be local rebels vrs government troops (okay that might be close to equal) then there are calling in the Pro Troops. 
yes they can get messed up, when well they get ambushed.   But if you try to stand and fight the Pro are going to mop the field.

VTOL, unless there are great air defense set up that minor planets and rebels buy in bulk, have a good place.  Of course SAM in the hands of rebels will be a PIA to crews not used to dealing with that threat

[chanman]

Does the Uzi really need a stock if it has a VFG?

Not in Japan. The Minebea PM-9 is basically a mini-Uzi with extended barrel and a foregrip without a stock



I think the main argument against the Uzi is that well, it's a pistol calibre submachine gun. The Uzi itself is compact, but it's still a heavy chunky monkey as indeed most SMGs are. Only a few (Type 79, B&T MP9, HK MP7) manage to get under the the 2 kg mark, and all are fairly short ranged and most of the others aren't any lighter than a short 5.56mm carbine or even the old M1/M2 carbines.

Since it'll be firing different ammo than the service rifle anyway, something in .300 BLK supersonic loadings get 7.62 x 39 performance out of significantly less barrel, especially if you combine it with a folding stock configuration. The new HK437 fits that to a 'T'. With the way firearms technology has plateaued, there's no reason it couldn't have been made decades ago once polymer composition had advanced enough. Or you know, roll old school with sheet metal.

[Failure16]

I have a soft-spot for the Uzi going back to my childhood, but chanman is right: the things were heavy for what they were. Putting a gangster-grip on one is an interesting idea (though I would like mine a bit thinner than the standard grip of an Uzi). If you really want SMGs as a primary arm, you'll be looking at the Close Assault (CA) Infantry Type.

If there is a machine gun in a unit, everyone is carrying at least a box (or belt) of ammo in addition to their own kit. It's just the way it is. Remember, however, that the aero-rifle/Fire Force elements under discussion were inserted into an AO for a very short duration (usually hours--in Vietnam, the 1/9 Blues would get rather uppity if they had to spend the night in the bush*), so their heavy loadouts were not as vital a consideration as for an infantry unit out in the boonies for two weeks at a time.

I made a new infantry type: Heavy Rifle Team. Better range bands, slightly elevated AT and AP scores, same everything-else as an RT. Also remember that many/most units will operate as squads (but not your airmobile battalions), so let me know if they need to be composed that way in the future. The general rule of thumb is that "elite" or special infantry units will operate as teams on a gameboard, but most regular outfits will function as squads.

DOC, you are not wrong, but peer-level force-on-force engagements are becoming more prevalent as the timeline wears on. Wars are heating up, and as they grow in number, they grow in scope. And yes, the professionals will kill those unprepared to meet them, and they do their very best to ensure their foes are unprepared most of the time. When you hire star-mercenaries, you are really hiring people with experience in the gear they bring with them, and that means a lot when things start to go pear-shaped.

"None But Us". Love it, love it, love it.


*If you want to get to know how an aircav unit worked, look for Matthew Brennan's Brennan's War or Headhunters for a pebble-level look at what those men thought, saw, and did.

[chanman]

Going back to the PDW thing again, there's also the Sig MCX Rattler.

Really, the main argument for submachine guns is ease of manufacture. Overall cost of production is generally going to be dwarfed by other things like the amount of ammo consumed in training and goes away if you aren't cranking out massive numbers on a deadline (aka WW2) and even in WW2, comparable numbers of more labour-intensive rifles was easily comparable or higher than their cheapest SMG counterparts.

[ANS Kamas P81]

You know, I have to admit the Uzi does look pretty good with a VFG and without a stock.  It may be heavy for a 9mm SMG, but it was good enough for Israel and that says a lot about its performance.  And I'm only issuing it to support troops and vehicle crews, people who aren't supposed to get into combat unless stuff has gone dramatically sideways, not as a general infantry weapon.  It's also the same caliber as the standard sidearm, so that smooths logistics. 

The KS-23 is a fun toy; a four-bore shotgun is a great way to tell someone to stop doing whatever it is you want them to.  A lot lighter than the monster China Lake launcher.

There's definitely room for force disparity in the Fringe, but like F16 said - see if your ragtag militia with trucks and rifles can go dislodge the company of star-mercenaries and their GEVs over in the valley.  A stand-up fight can still be won, if you're sneaky and creative, and liberally apply landmines in the path of those merc hovertanks.  VTOLs would function in most TL3 and TL4 fights, but once you get air defense lasers and spammed ADA troops they tend to be built with heavy stealth and ECM/countermeasures, or die horribly.  The same goes for drones and other aircraft.

The Heavy Rifle Team looks good, and I can see that being the representation of Soviet-style single-team squads of six or seven troops.  I admit I wasn't satisfied with three-man fireteams for the 2505 MLF's mechanized infantry; dividing a squad of six in half and expecting them to serve as well as four or five man fireteams didn't make sense to me.  Having an HRT makes a good representation of that six-man squad and making it an indivisible thing.

That lets me change the makeup of the 2505 mechanized infantry platoon to the following configuration:

Ratel 20 1:
Vehicle Driver (M11/9)
Vehicle Gunner (M11/9)
Platoon Leader (M11/9)
Squad Leader (FN 49, LAW)
GPMG Gunner (FN MAG, M11/9)
Grenadier (M79, M11/9)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Forward Observer (FN 49)

Ratel 20 2:
Vehicle Driver (M11/9)
Vehicle Gunner (M11/9)
Platoon Sergeant (M11/9)
Squad Leader (FN 49, LAW)
GPMG Gunner (FN MAG, M11/9)
Grenadier (M79, M11/9)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Medic (M11/9)

Ratel 90 1:
Vehicle Driver (M11/9)
Vehicle Gunner (M11/9)
Vehicle Commander (M11/9)
Squad Leader (FN 49, LAW)
GPMG Gunner (FN MAG, M11/9)
Grenadier (M79, M11/9)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)
Rifleman (FN 49, LAW)

Ratel 90 2:
Vehicle Driver (M11/9)
Vehicle Gunner (M11/9)
Vehicle Commander (M11/9)
Squad Leader (FN 49)
Mortar Gunner (M224, M11/9)
Ammo Bearer (FN 49)
Assistant Squad Leader (FN 49)
Mortar Gunner (M224, M11/9)
Ammo Bearer (FN 49)

Total weapons strength for the platoon is 17 FN 49 battle rifles, 21 M11/9 machine pistols, 3 FN MAG GPMGs, 3 M79 grenade launchers, 12 LAW rocket launchers, and 2 60mm M224 mortars.

Since I'm generally issuing 7.62mm battle rifles, I don't see the need for a designated marksman - I'm already reaching out to longer ranges than the standard assault rifle infantry with my regular riflemen.  I thought about giving pistols to my regular riflemen, but for the weight I figure an extra rifle magazine is a better option for them.  The weapon specialists get backup sidearms, since they're not carrying regular rifles.

I'm also changing the platoon organization into two Ratel 20s with a Heavy Rifle Team each backed up by a Ratel 90 carrying a third HRT and a second Ratel 90 carrying two Recoilless Rifle teams.  It brings the fire support units more integral to the platoon, with two Carl Gustafs and a 90mm gun available to the platoon commander for dealing with armored targets.  A platoon looks like this:



Headquarters Element
  HQ Section (Ratel 20 x2, Ratel Command, Ratel 81 x2)
  Supply Section (Truck x2, Jeep x2)
  Maintenance Section (Ratel Command x2, Truck)
Primary Combat Force
  Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Ratel 20 x2, Ratel 90 x2, Heavy RT x3, HWT/RCLR Team x2)
  Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Ratel 20 x2, Ratel 90 x2, Heavy RT x3, HWT/RCLR Team x2)
Additional Combat Platoon
  ATGMV Section (Ratel ZT3 x2)
  Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Ratel 20 x2, Ratel 90 x2, Heavy RT x3, HWT/RCLR Team x2)
Combat Support Elements
  Recon Section (Pavuk x4)
  Fire Support: Battalion (Ratel 81 x4)
  Fire Support (Medium Artillery Mission x12 OR CAS Mission x6)

The new platoon organization gives me an FO to spot for all those mortars and potentially 155mm artillery support, and a dedicated medic in the platoon as well.  The platoon leader and platoon sergeant stay with their vehicles and command from them when the squad dismounts, so they get SMGs instead of rifles.  And mixing the Ratel 90s into the infantry platoon gives them significant direct firepower, augmented by the two Carl Gustaf teams.

The ARBs don't get the long multi-week deployments into the bush, though I can see them spending a night or two there easily enough.  They carry all their gear with them, so they need to keep their load as light as possible.  Everybody carrying a belt of ammo for the MAG is something I can get behind, it's the big gun of the fire team and everyone should support it - but not to the point that the machine gun becomes the only option and they lose their mobility.  It's still a support weapon after all.  The gunner carries 400 rounds with him, and the other three soldiers in the stick carry 100 rounds each, that gives a good supply of ammo.  Everyone with an FN49 carries six magazines for 120 rounds each.  Body armor I'm mixed on - the kind of protection that you'd need against rifles is pretty heavy and bulky, which makes moving through terrain on foot difficult.  The ARB is expected to operate fast and light, so I'm thinking no armor for them.  The fire team leader gets a radio, and everyone gets NVDs since second-gen nightvision systems were developed in 1971 and the technology would be available for homebuilt versions.  That allows them to make night raids against suspected insurgent hideouts.  There's no grenadier in the ARB fire team, everyone carries their own hand-thrown grenades.

Looking forward to seeing more about the timeline.

EDIT:

Thoughts on insurrections, counterinsurgency, and the situation on Mriya.

So reading up on counterinsurgency operations from the Wikipedia and it seems there's historical precedent for a wide variety of methods that achieved success.  The general agreement is that the population supporting the insurgency must be convinced to isolate the insurgent fighters, denying them popular support.  There's different ways to go about doing this, everything from plans to win hearts and minds to crushing a population so severely they're afraid to fight back.

The biggest thing that's needed for COIN ops is intelligence, gathered by all the methods available.  HUMINT and SIGINT both are critical to determining insurgent operations and applying force against the insurgency.

There's also plenty of support for the Black Devils approach to an insurgency from the quotes and summaries from different viewpoints. Things like the Hama massacre, where the Syrian army shelled the city that was the heart of the Muslim Brotherhood and killed thousands, are cited as successful means of cowing a population.  Other theorists agree with such overkill tactics, arguing that "moderate levels of violence" are ineffective.

I suppose the MLF is going to learn that lesson well, especially with the Air Rifle Battalions.  Taking a page from the Devils, anyone who is a supporter of King Volodomyr's government and the nobility is an okay person, those who don't...screw 'em.  The Youkai ARB especially adheres to this mindset, taking harsh measures in sweeps of populated areas to find and eliminate NMPR insurgents.  They see the NMPR as a group of second-class people at best.

The Novaya Mechty People's Republic is a separatist, pseudo-egalitarian, pro-Novosibirsk movement centered on a breakaway region of the outback.  Approximately 1/4 of the interior highlands is occupied by the NMPR, which rebelled in 2495 against the Mriyan government.  Fighting was fierce, but the outdated weapons and equipment of the MLF caused the fighting to grind to a standstill with a truce line roughly marking the original borders of the NMPR territory.

Since then there has been occasional but consistent raids from both sides over the truce line, with NMPR insurgents infiltrating Mriyan settlements in the interior and fighting the MLF on their own terrain, and the MLF conducting sweeps in the broken terrain searching for NMPR hideouts and responding to sightings of insurgent groups.  Both sides officially acknowledge the truce line, but both sides violate it on a regular basis without significant concern to the resumption of open warfare.  These violations are minimized with the small size of the raids; a platoon here and an insurgent band there are not considered enough of a provocation to resume the conventional war.  Major combat forces have remained in their cantons on both sides of the border.

This may be changing, as the reorganization and reequipping of the Mriyan Armed Forces has given a impetus for those in the MAF in favor of resuming the war to press towards.  The hawks in the House of Lords actively call for the abrogation of the truce and a continuation to conquer the NMPR.  Intelligence reports suggesting that the rebellion is getting support from off-world is lighting a fire in the Mriyan government, and they have recently sent delegations to Cherkasy to engender political support from Mriya's mother colony.  The military has signaled its readiness with increased exercises and relocation of the Zalizni Kozaky 1st Mechanized Brigade into the central region of the outback, putting them within reach of the truce line, while the Mriyan Federal Police have redoubled their efforts in cracking down on arms smuggling to the region.

EDIT:

Adjusted the platoon weapons to represent the M11/9 being issued to officers, specialists, and vehicle crews.

[Daryk]

Speaking of mortars... wouldn't it make more sense to have them instead of the recoilless rifles?  I mean, you have the 90mm for direct fire and all... ;)

[ANS Kamas P81]

That's actually an HWT that Dust & Fire 4.0 lacks, though your point is well made - a pair of 60mm mortars in the platoon for indirect support would be a better supplement than the Gustafs.  That does make the company mortar-heavy, with six HWT/MORT teams and six Ratel 81 mortar carriers.  That would make doctrine for the Mriyan infantry heavily reliant on mortars for support instead of heavy artillery; since they've only got 24 155mm wheeled guns and 12 122mm rocket launchers it makes sense that fire support would rely on light and portable means.

An HWT/MORT would be a useful addition to the infantry.  Maybe stats similar the HWT/AGL, with long range and strong infantry damage but low AFV damage?

[chanman]

What was the last version of Tankreator? The one in my files is 1.5 dated 07 OCT 10

It looks like you can import it into Google Sheets, although I haven't tried using it:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16B4gN_ncoHqAxLhs-9IrBvCwnnNowFuBcxIqgNhd_c4/edit?usp=sharing

[Failure16]

Well, mortars always make sense...but Carl Gustav teams are pure panache. I wouldn't argue with either. You could always cheat and add a light mortar team at the platoon level.

If you wanted six-man teams, all you had to do was ask. I've attached a second-version. Same basic stats except "Large Teams" of 6+ personnel get a bonus to their Suppression Threshold and more Actions.

The present version is v1.65 Working. I am in-process with revamping something to do with team-sizes, but that will be done in minutes and won't change anything game-related (other than adding a "Small Team" size for RTs and a "Small Squad" for BTU-style 7-man squads). My version has Light and Medium Mortar teams, as well as some things we rarely talk about: Suicide Bombers, two different kinds of Zombies, Melee troops...lot of interesting things in the Infantry Creation Rules. I put up a Light Mortar Team, as well.

One thing I need to look into is how HWTs are presented, because the HWT/LAD, for example, seems like an infantry element with several klicks of range--which is true, against aircraft, but not against other infantry teams and tanks! So, I know the "AT" value if for attacks against VTOLs, but not sure where to cram that info into the stat line. Hrm.

EDIT: Probably be easiest to add a "Notes" Section at the bottom of the block itself.

Anyone who wants Tankreator v1.64/5 give me a shout out, or PM your e-mail address if we don't converse frequently that way.

EDIT2: I am still working out and actual aircraft generation system--but I know I had it working at one point, because I have an F-22 built. Right now, Tankreator lacks the capacity to build a WiGE; I suppose we'll call that an oversight. That is not something that gets added overnight, though, so the Lun will have to wait...of course, Luns are considered waterborne-GEVs. I might have to flex out that type and see if one can be built.

Kamas, those troopers need more ammo in their basic loads. Give the riflemen six mags in their pouches or bandoliers plus the one in their rifle (7, 140 rounds total). The gunners carry 600 rounds in their basic load (six boxes, about 18 kilos). One thing I have always thought about with the Fireforce and even the aircav Blues: the gunners were not part of a conventinal machinegun team, so that means no tripods and almost certainly no spare barrels. Which means the guns are not "medium machine guns" in a traditional and technical sense, but instead a really heavy automatic rifle. That is all okay, but merely plays into the doctrine that the gun is there as a force multiplier for the infantry, not as a primary set-piece of the unit in itself.

I love the UZI, but I still wonder about its weight and size as a PDW. But, well, it's about as Fringeworthy as it gets: a small nation in harm's way making things work as well as they can. Roll with it.

Most FSR sliders come factory-equipped with mine-clearance charges and the electronics/sensor suites to really flex that ability. But not everyone does, so mine-warfare remains a likely avenue for insurgents to try to level the playing field against such superior forces.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Ooh, Zombie Troops.  That could be a fun Halloween supplement to the Fringe; maybe some colony Went Too Far and accidentally released a T-virus on their planet.  A world that was already dead by Sapporo's war, so it's still at a 24th century level of technology - which is a draw for treasure hunters and mercenaries looking for high tech to salvage.

I agree with the representation of the FN MAG as a bigass automatic rifle.  It's for short bursts, not extended fire, and is probably primarily intended to suppress an enemy target to allow the infantry to close and assault with grenades.  The FN 49 is a semiautomatic rifle, so it doesn't have the kind of automatic fire that the MAG brings.

Idly...instead of an Uzi PDW and a compact 9mm pistol, why not throw both in a blender and get one weapon to do both out of it?



Behold the Cobray M11/9, a 9mm version of the MAC M-10 machine pistol.  I owned a pistol version once and it was a fun thing to shoot, and despite the claims I found it acceptably accurate for a 9mm pistol.  Not fantastic, but functional, though the muzzle rise was noticeable with the way the gun balances in the hand.  It's mostly stamped sheet steel so manufacturing is easy even for Mriya.  It's also less than half the weight of the Uzi, making it far more portable.  It's more of a machine pistol than a submachine gun, and would fill both sidearm and PDW roles for the MLF.  Standard issue is with one 16 round magazine in the gun and two 32 round mags, though a few extra are typically carried.

I kind of like that idea.  The M11/9 comes out in 1972, so it would be developed by 2495, around the time that the NMPR rebellion takes place.  Prior to that, BTR-152K crews carried Suomi KP-31s and officers carried Walther P38s, coming out in 2437 and 2452 respectively.  I went back and edited the loadout for the mechanized infantry platoon above.

The point about ammo loads for the Air Rifles is taken, and I'll make that change.  Since they're not dealing with heavy body armor, they can load up on ammo and grenades.  I've heard the phrase attributed to the USMC that "rifles suppress, grenades kill" though that's for a military not using semiauto battle rifles to shoot with.

Shooting culture on Mriya is a thing, with the widespread ownership of long guns to deal with Mriyan fauna.  There's competitive riflery that's commonplace, and a lot of rural areas where a good rifle can be a lifesaver - so most recruits have at least some experience with a rifle.  I could see a mindset of "every soldier is a rifleman first" like the Marines, with training in long-range shooting being part of basic training.

As far as the mechanized platoon...whether I go with 60mm mortars or Carl Gustafs, I'm doubling down on some sort of support weapon.  The company's six Ratel 90s make great antiarmor and antibunker weapons, and they each carry 72 rounds for the gun onboard.  Machine gun teams wouldn't make sense because each squad is already carrying a MAG plus the three vehicle mounted MGs on each Ratel, so that would be a duplication of effort there too.  Carrying 60mm mortars would also be duplicating things with the six 81mm mortar carriers in the company.  Tough call...

The inertial option would be to continue using what's already in the inventory, which is Carl Gustafs.  They were carried to give the BTR-152K-transported infantry an antiarmor capability, and I could see them continuing to use HWT/RCLR teams.  There's also the fact that the Gustaf has ammunition for smoke rounds and battlefield illumination as well, giving them utility beyond the antitank or HE rounds of the Ratel 90.  So do the 60mm mortars, and they get a lot more range than the Gustafs.  Since F16 was kind enough to make a Mortar-Light Team stat block, I'll go with those and edit the above platoon strength.  The M224 lightweight 60mm mortar was issued in 1978, so that would be 2502 or so for Mriya.  That's after the development of the Ratels, so there was a doctrinal shift towards more fire support.  Each company with six 60mm mortars and six 81mm mortars is going to have a field day directing fire...no wonder there's an FO in each platoon calling in fire.

The mechanized infantry also need body armor of some kind, and the classic Vietnam-era flak jacket is likely to be what does the job.  PASGT would be nice, but it doesn't get issued until 1983, which is about 2510 or so.  The flak jacket isn't really to stop bullets, but does good work against grenade and artillery splinters, so it's better than nothing.  Since the mech infantry rides directly into battle, they can take the extra weight.  Ammo loadouts for the mechanized infantry would be the same as the ARB, six-plus-one magazines for the rifles and six belts for the MG gunner, plus everyone in the squad carries a belt for three extra kilos of load and 1,100 rounds total for the MG.  I figure the Riflemen also port around an extra barrel for the MG, since pushing 1,100 rounds through a single barrel with any speed is going to eat it alive.  And who better than riflemen to hump additional gear?

The Medic and Forward Observer technically make for seven-man squads, but they're not typically fighting as part of the squad and have other jobs anyway.  They don't carry an extra belt of ammunition for the squad's MG, instead the medic has their own gear and the FO has a radio on his back.

Bah, what are knees anyway.

EDIT

Replaced the Carl Gustaf teams with mortar teams, since the M224 is such a nice toy to play with and can be dropped off in a safe defilade along with a bunch of ammo, while the rest of the platoon advances to contact.

[Failure16]

I wonder if we should take away an Action artificially but maybe increase the AP value somehow of these teams. They are loaded for bear, but everything in life has its drawbacks...

But keep doing what you are doing and I will happily pirate your hard work for the betterment of the Black Devils!

I think Hell had some people that were far enough gone they qualified as zombies.

Your ARBs might be able to buy-in higher-grade body-armor from off-world. Higher-TL protection that you can fluff as lighter but still capable of keeping the troopers alive at least, even if not in great shape.

I was reading about mortars a bit ago and found that the US Army considers a unit neutralized once it takes 10% casualties and destroyed after 30%--"depending on the type and discipline of the force". Reorganizing, -staffing, and -equipping will mitigate the effects, of course. But, still, the numbers are severe enough it makes you think.

Okay, I got a Lun working; see below.

I wish we had more WiGEs to work off of so I can develop a better--or at least more true--baseline for different mass-targets.

As it is, though, the only thing I had to massage from the GEV fundamental numbers was the structure.

Check it out: the ASMs came in almost exactly at weight (6xSunburns @ 4500kg each; Tankreator racked them at 27T all-up), and so did the engines (8xKuznetsov NK-87s at 2200kg each; Tankreator came in at 17.1T for motive mass). Again, the only thing I had to change was the Structure Modifier. I'm...pleased with this system. I need more examples to derive a motive-class that I can be confidant of, but this system gets the job done. Anyone who has hard data on other WiGES, send them this way and we'll see what we can do.

Now that I remember how to do all that, we can get back to Aircreator one day. We have all sorts of hard data for airplanes!

[ANS Kamas P81]

I need a good precipitating incident for the sudden 2405 push by the MLF to put the NMPR to bed for good.  Maybe in 2403 the insurgents start sneaking out and mining roads, aiming for military and civilian convoys in Mriyan regions of the outback.  Some get hit, losing vehicles and passengers, but in mid 2504 a school bus full of kids got blown up by an antitank mine sitting in a rain-filled pothole. 

This incident finally prompts the MLF to find a means of dealing with landmines on the highways between settlements.  Behold the Pookie is born, originally developed in 1976 in Rhodesia. 



It's built off a VW minivan, with a design that allows components to blow off should it set off a mine while it's sweeping.  Its ground pressure was only 3 psi, less than that of a human standing on the ground.  In the real world, they could travel as fast as 80km/h while sweeping the road in front of a convoy, and were so light on the road they never set off a mine even when driving directly over it.  Something similar enough to be this gets developed in a Mriyan auto shop, and is immediately pushed into service at the head of military convoys traveling back and forth.

At the same time, the Okhtyrka Atrocity (named for the town the school was in) mentioned above lit the fires of retaliation under the hawks in the House of Lords, and prompted the military council to order the movement of the Zalizni Kozaky to an encampment near the truce line, and the Air Rifle Battalions to heavily sweep regions on the Mriyan side of the line for insurgent stockpiles and hideouts.

It's a good enough atrocity to ignite the flames of war, and land mines are indiscriminate enough (and plentiful enough) to be impersonal as to their targets.  Thoughts?

The ARBs are considered elite forces, albeit in a relatively small military.  Buying the same body armor as the Black Devils would make sense; I'd only need about 2,000 sets of armor to fit out the infantry.  Add another 5-700 sets for the Marodery Moroza, who really are special forces types, and that solves the protection issue.  It's a long way to Vereeniging but there's definitely a supply chain being built up.

I'm thinking something on the level of Interceptor vests then, for the Black Devils and the Mriyan special troops.  They're heavy, with the inserted plates, but they're actual protection against small arms fire.  Between that and an attached medic in each platoon, the chances of surviving a firefight in the ARBs or MM is pretty good.  Call it TL4 level body armor for those units.

There just aren't a lot of WiGE airframes to begin with, and what data there is is pretty well scrapped.  Awesome that you got so close with the design specs, though.  Aircreator would be fun to see, I'd love to put an AH-6 into there and see if I can get all that firepower.  Sadly the AH-6 doesn't show up until 2006, so the Youkais are stuck with their lightly armed gunships.



Alas...

EDIT

The Marodery Moroza is the spec ops branch of the MLF, and I could see them all carrying M11/9s as sidearms in addition to their FN 49 rifles.  They'd be equipped with suppressors and special subsonic 9mm ammunition for quiet operations when not tooling around in their Pavuks.  That's in addition to a range of other weapons, including short barreled shotguns for breaching reinforced doors and all kinds of grenades. 

[Daryk]

The M11/9 looks like a winner! :)

F16, please shoot me a copy of the latest Tankreator... thanks brother! :)

[ANS Kamas P81]

So I went looking for more information about brigade slice elements and just how much of the US Army is made up of combat vs noncombat troops.  I came across this PDF:

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/mcgrath_op23.pdf

After searching for "brigade slice" I was rewarded with the following info.

Once all 48 active modular brigades are fielded in late 2007, the projected brigade slice for the brigades would be 10,417 (Table 7). Based on this figure, modular brigades were 36 percent of the Army’s overall organizational structure.

That took the total active-duty staffing of 500,000 personnel and divided it among the 48 organized brigades at the time, and that's the end result.  The standardized brigade size was 3,735 personnel, which is where the 36% comes from.  It's a lot lower figure than I was using to work out the Mriyan Land Forces, with their brigade slice estimate of 16,600.  What's that mean for the MLF?

I'm going to add a third mechanized infantry brigade to the list, which brings me more in line with similarly equipped countries.  It's still fewer brigades than the Uzbekistan Ground Forces, which has 40,000 personnel and has a special forces battalion, five Motor-Rifle Brigades, an independent Special Forces Brigade, and a tank regiment.  Since the Uzbeks have enough troops to delineate some of them as special forces, I'll keep the Marodery Moroza.  I was wondering if the army was too small to have an SF unit, but apparently that's not the case.

(Active/Reserve)
"Zalizni Kozaky" (Iron Cossacks) 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade (1,650/2,100)
"Kurosai" (Black Rhino) 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade (1,650/2,100)
"Blidyy Kinʹ" (Pale Horse) 3rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade (1,650/2,100)
"Nebesni Vovky" (Sky Wolves) 1st Air Rifle Battalion (700/0)
"Tugarin Zmeyevich" (Tugarin Zmeyevich) 2nd Air Rifle Battalion (700/0)
"Tokushu Shuudan Youkai" (Special Group Monster) 3rd Air Rifle Battalion (700/0)
"Marodery Moroza" (Moroz's Marauders) Special Reconnaissance Battalion (700/0)
MLF Administrative, Technical, and Support Personnel (16,250/12,100)
Mriya Slaviyan Air Force (4,600/2,400)

Pale Horse, fourth rider of the Apocalypse, Death and Hell, seemed like the kind of thing to name a unit after.  Their unit patch is a horse skull over a black stripe on a green shield.

I also reworked the personnel totals for each unit, breaking them down to their actual organic sizes and moving the admin/support units to their own line item.  Breaking down the two brigades into three left me with a thousand active and a thousand reserve troops; I piled them into the Air Force to increase its size to 7,000 personnel in total.

The enlarged Air Force cements my four small combat squadrons, and adds a couple helicopter squadrons in addition to the handful of transport planes.  The rest are utility aircraft, shuttling around the country rather than being frontline combat forces.

On the Marauders, I'm making some changes.  First off is the name, changed to Special Reconnaissance Battalion reflecting their general change of mission.  They're the eyes of the Land Forces, and they sneak through enemy lines to strike deep into hostile territory while reporting back to the rest of the MLF.

With the size of the landmass of Mriya, and the vehicle's offroad capabiities, the Pavuk can drive itself wherever it needs to go.  I don't need air insertion and I can scrap the heavy lift helicopters from Perun Squadron and move its attack helicopters to the Air Force.  I don't see Mriyan industry building something to the level of an MH-53 or CH-47, it's just not a populated enough planet to have that big a military industry.  UH-1s I can see, but a monster the size of a Super Jolly Green Giant not so much.

It also means I can expand the size of the platoon for the Marauders, since I'm not limited by transport helicopters.  Each one gets six Pavuk DPVs for a total of eighteen personnel per platoon.  Each Pavuk carries a .50 M2HB on the roof and a 40mm Mk 19 AGL on the front, with a 7.62mm FN MAG on the rear.  That'd be two APW/Hs on the front and an APW/M rear, as far as game stats.  Each platoon has two officers and sixteen enlisted men, and is able to divide into two squads, each squad having its own officer and being able to subdivide into three assault teams of three soldiers each.

The primary mission of the Marauders is reconnaissance, and often times leads to their vehicle camouflaged behind a mound with the crew dismounted in an observation post nearby, observing and reporting on enemy movements.  Other roles include strikes against soft targets, infiltrating enemy posts for sabotage missions, or targeted raids for assassination or capture of a high value target.  They don't have aviation assets of their own, but can work alongside Air Force units temporarily attached to the Marauders for a specific mission.  They're the ones who deploy into the bush for a week at a time, relying on their fieldcraft to hide from enemy forces and stealthily striking where they're not expected.

Idly, here's a video on SEAL equipment that was a pretty interesting watch, and has DPVs in it starting at 1:20. 

https://www.military.com/video/combat-vehicles/weapons-carriers/navy-seal-combat-vehicle-in-action/1555339470001

I originally had an attack helicopter squadron of Rooivalks attached to the Marauders, but I'm moving that squadron to the Mriyan Air Force and enlarging it to twelve helicopters.  The other combat squadrons are one squadron of eight Gripens and three squadrons of eight Pucaras.  There's a couple utility helicopter squadrons of UH-1s in the Air Force as well, plus large transport and training aircraft.

EDIT:

Added patch.

[Daryk]

You're never too small to have special forces... even if it's only a single ex-operator from another country... ;D

[Daryk]

I daresay this is relevant to our collective interests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBuFEpZeeH4

[Failure16]

You're never too small to have special forces... even if it's only a single ex-operator from another country... ;D

That about sums up half of the barracks-level pulp fiction and blockbusters from the Cold War era.

Glad you could free up more teeth to wag the tail, Kamas. And everyone needs a Pale Horse Regiment (mine is the 197th ACR, wherever I can fit it into my fiction); it's a helluva name. I like your style, kid.

Good videos of late, too, all.


I managed to squeak in an AH-6S, but I had to get real creative to do it. And I could only swing a TL3 FCS since I had to have Ground- and Air-Attack. I am not sure that air-show loadout is valid for actual flight-making, but I did manage to make it in Tankreator...

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, special troops seem to be something everyone has except for the really little militaries.  Everyone wants to be awesome, I suppose.  As far as those single ex-operator movies and dime-novels go, let's just say that Chuky Norisenko is a major action star in the Mriyan propaganda films and his roundhouse kicks are copied by his fans.  A retired member of the Marodery, he fights in movies as a one-man army against the forces of vaguely disguised space mercenaries and the NMPR terrorists.  He's most famous for his denim outfits and twin M11/9s he carries in a custom shoulder holster.

Yeah, I'm happier with three mech inf brigades, and the amount of admin and support elements feels right.  It doesn't include civilian jobs, of which there's plenty - my mother worked civil service for the Navy for five years so I have a firsthand understanding of how that works.  If I had enough personnel for four brigades I'd very seriously consider acknowledging the large majority of the population being Eastern Orthodox (carried over from the mother colony, and there from Earth) and name them all after the Four Horses.  Alas, three brigades it is, and I like the patches too much to change things now.  Besides, the Four Horsemen are arguably cavalry units, not infantry, though I suppose mechanized infantry mixes that into being dragoons.

I suppose the major religion on the planet would be the Mriyan Autocephalous Orthodox Patriarchate, primarily in the Novy Zemyla region.  The Gensoukyouans practice a  postmodern Shinto animism; the colony ship from Tomokomai left the Buddhists behind.  The MAOP is heavily sponsored by the Mriyan government, and is recognized as the official religion of Novy Zemlya.  Attempts to proselytize in either direction have been limited and unfruitful; both regions of the planet stick to their own beliefs.

Love the AH-6, it's a wicked little aircraft that has more firepower than I expected.  Four Stingers, a Hellfire, a minigun, and a rocket pod, just like the picture shows, and a neat sensor ball to go with it.

The video on the Bohdana was a great watch, I did not know Snake Island had been liberated by the Ukrainians.  Artillery is the king of battle, and range is the king of artillery.  When you shoot from too far away to be counterbatteried, you have an unstoppable advantage in a duel.  I had half a mind to make the 3rd Brigade an all-artillery unit, but I felt the extra infantry would be a better solution, and would be in line with the general mission of the MLF.

EDIT:

I wonder how that 10%/30% figure is working for the Russians, with the abhorrent number of casualties they've taken fighting the Ukrainians.  They're still at it, despite losing a lot of soldiers, so maybe those figures are too low for cohesiveness/destroyed units?

I'm mostly satisfied with the Marauders SRB.  I have a desire to take two Pavuks in the platoon of six and replace their M2HB with a ZT3 launcher, like the TOW-equipped versions of the DPV.



But there's no tank threat from the primary enemy, so ATGMs would be an overspecialization that the Special Recon Battalion arguably doesn't need.  A Carl Gustaf and some HE rounds would be something that could be carried in the Pavuk to deal with hardened threats and makeshift armored vehicles.  I'll say that the switch of the mechanized infantry from Carl Gustafs to M224 mortars gave the Marauders (and the recon company of each MI battalion) plenty of excess launchers and ammo to work with.  It'd replace carrying a bunch of M72 LAWs, and could probably carry six to eight rounds for the launcher in each vehicle.  Granted, it'd have to be used dismounted from the Pavuk, rather than as something mounted to the vehicle like the other weapons.

The Marodery doesn't need helicopters to make an arial attack!



Third generation nightvision was developed in 1980, so they'd be cutting-edge prototypes not yet in service. Second-gen systems date from 1970, giving a few hundred meters of visibility, and would be issued to the Marodery to drive and operate in the dark.  The tech is still pretty expensive and high-end, so the ARBs and regular mechanized infantry don't use NVDs.

[Daryk]

Chuky Norisenko is begging for an AI image generator! :D