F16, those links were some interesting reading. I found this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1djbmu/what_would_weather_patterns_on_an_ocean_planet_be/which is where I got the idea that storms wouldn't be huge on Mriya Slaviya. It depends on the ocean flows from the equator to the poles, and the heat transfer - if things are more stabilized, and there's not a major difference in water temperatures, then there's not a lot of energy going into the atmosphere.
You know what, I'm going to argue the shape of the land under the water is enough to interrupt those currents, and keep the equatorial waters from losing their energy to the equator-pole cycle. That plus a strong jet stream keeping polar air up where it belongs, though that jet stream does cross the northern part of the continent allowing for cold weather and snow in winter in Gensoukyou.
If I put an island chain off to the east of the main continent, something heavily actively volcanic and unpopulated because of it, then I'd have a nice atmospheric disturbance point to start generating cyclones...and with the generally warmer temperature of Mriya Slaviya and equally warmer waters, the heat engine that powers storms would churn up some doozys. So that gives me my big storms back, and brings back the heavy architecture to resist those storms. Hooray neo-brutalism!
And now some changes to the military and a blob of historical fluff:
Yeah, I felt like the Mriya Slaviyan military was getting on the level of the big worlds, and it was irritating me. Especially the Air Force, which was getting far too large for such a planet. Considering there's nowhere to go but the outback, I just don't need most of the heavy transports I had.
VTOLs I could see two modes of operation for - and they're both low NOE flights. One is a low-tech bird with rockets and machine guns making passes over a target as low and fast as possible to minimize return fire, and hopefully with a quiet enough helicopter to do it. Looking at you, Kiowa. The other option for higher tech militaries is hiding choppers in terrain, either among trees or behind a hillside, lofting heavy missiles over that terrain in an ersatz artillery strike on infantry-designated targets. Stealth systems for helicopters would become a thing, and the Core Worlds would probably be operating aircraft like the Comanche or the FARA prototypes.
A damn shame that aircraft program was canceled, but drone technology arguably was more preferable. Endurance, loiter time, and not risking an aircraft crew to hostile fire; same reasons the Kiowa Warrior's in the bin nowadays as well.
As far as shrinking the MS Armed Forces...
All these headcounts include administrative and support staff, Two mechanized brigades comes to 16,600 personnel each. A single air cavalry battalion would be about 1/6 of that, giving the Sky Wolves about 2,800 personnel. The special forces command would be Moroz's Maroders, plus a helicopter transport element; I figure around 2,800 in total. That brings me to 38,800...say around 5,000 for an Air Force, about 1/4 that of the real Australia. That's a total of 43,800 troops, or about 1.7% of the total population.
I'd split that as 0.6% active duty and 1.1% reserves, or 15,600 active and 28,200 reservists. That's pretty close to Kuwait's percentages, so I've got a real-world analogue. The Kuwaitis conscript their men into the military, so I suppose I've got the same going on but with a number of options for deferments. General conscription is of most men turning 18, with women allowed to volunteer for service. Total term of service in the military is three years active and six years reserve. I'm likely conscripting more than just what's reflected above, so I can say that the other draftees serve in the Militia Federal Police and the Coast Guard, both of which I'm not going to bother detailing.
MSLF
Mechanized Infantry Brigade (x2)
Mechanized Infantry Battalion (x3)
Mechanized Infantry Company (x3)
HQ Section (Ratel 20 x2, Ratel Command x3, Ratel 81 x2)
Mechanized Infantry Platoon (x2) (Ratel 20 x4, RT2 x6, HWT/GM-L x2)
Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Ratel 90 x4, RT2 x6, HWT/GM-L x2)
ATGMV Section (Ratel-ZT3 x2)
Recon Platoon (LRDPV x4)
Mortar Platoon (Ratel 81 x4)
Artillery Battalion
155mm Tube Artillery Battery (x2) (G6 Rhino x6)
122mm Rocket Artillery Battery (BM-21 Grad x6)
Sky Wolves Air Cavalry Squadron
Air Cavalry Troop (x3)
Command Group (UH-1D x2)
Aeroscout Platoon (OH-58A x9)
Gunship Platoon (UH-1C x4, OH-58A x4)
Transport Platoon (UH-1H x5)
Transport Platoon (UH-1H x5)
Infantry Platoon (RT2 x7, HWT/MMG x2, HWT/RCLR)
Infantry Platoon (RT2 x7, HWT/MMG x2, HWT/RCLR)
MSSOC
Moroz's Maroders Battalion
Raider Company (x3)
Fast Attack Platoon (x3) (LRDPV x3, LRDPV-ZTE)
Perun Squadron
Attack Platoon (Rooivalk x9)
Scout Platoon (OH-58A x9)
Heavy Transport Platoon (CH-47 x9)
Heavy Transport Platoon (CH-47 x9)
25 Ratels per company gives me a total of 450 AFVs, and a total of 108 Pavuks. There's 24 Rhinos and 12 Grads providing artillery support. Helicopters include 48 UH-1s, 48 OH-58s, 9 Rooivalks, and 18 CH-47s. The Air Force has a nebulously small amount of transport planes, just enough to haul cargo and the occasional VIP around the country. Tactical aviation includes one squadron of eight Gripens and three squadrons of eight Pucaras each.
Those numbers, outside of the imported Rooivalks and Gripens, feel buildable over time for the Mriya Slaviya Armed Forces.
Meanwhile, some fluff:
As a result of the planetary assault from Sapporo in the 2350s, Mriya Slaivya was blasted back to a near-pre-industrial state. With the loss of communications and planetary coordination, many groups formed their own local governments in the wake of the devastation. By 2380, many of these small polities had skirmished with each other in small wars, each striving for dominance.
One such city-state had reformed its government around a monarchy centered around the former governor's family, and created a nobility based around the founding families of the region. The king was also a talented military leader, who quickly gathered victory after victory in the wars that plagued the planet. Absorbing many of the small states that populated the coasts, the kingdom would reach a critical mass of military power that overwhelmed the remaining mini-states. Mriya Slaviya would fight its civil war with the weapons of Earth's first World War. The planet would find itself reunited by 2390 under this kingdom, with King Andrei I ruling the world.
Not all the various mini-states were conquered militarily; more than a few were absorbed in trade for recognizing their leadership as noble families and given priveleges above the standard common man. This includes the Tomokomai-colonized mountainous northern region known as Gensoukyou, the Land of Illusions. Many noble titles were handed out after the Reunification War ended, establishing a strong peerage and the potential of the commonfolk having accession to their ranks. Noble titles such as knighthoods are common rewards for service to the nation, and can be inherited by a designated successor to the original title holder.
Most of the military's officer corps are volunteers in long-term service, many of them part of the noble families of Mriya Slaviya. There's strong social pressure for the nobility to serve in the military; those who don't tend to be among the lower strata and are sometimes considered politically unreliable. Meanwhile conscription fills in the enlisted ranks and the remainder of the officer corps, as those with high scores in the intake evaluation are routed to OCS.
In 2394, King Andrei I ordered the formation of a university system that would lead the world in technological research, to regain what was lost. Progress was slow, with only a few researchers and engineers available to organize the effort. By 2455, when the first starships reappeared over Mriya Slaviya and the world was reintroduced to the Fringe, technological capability had only advanced from 1920 to 1940. The arrival of the Devil's Herd mercenaries and their occupation and thievery of the mines in 2458 was a turning point in Mriya Slaviyan history, and after driving the mercenaries from the world the kingdom looked to other worlds to build up their technology base into as modern a one as could be maintained.
By 2405, the nation had only advanced to approximately 1980's level of technology. The planet is generally on the cusp of printed circuits and the information revolution, though there are small foreign-made factories turning out small amounts of more advanced technology. Imported technology is popular amongst the nobility as a way of showing their wealth; having a flatscreen television is a popular means of it.
Public transport covers much of Mriya Slaviya, between buses and trains in the cities and a rail and road network that connects many of the small settlements in the outback to the coastal cities. Car ownership has its own culture, though it is heavily regulated by the government. Light aircraft are popular, used in various roles but mostly for agricultural duties. Many small airports dot the nation, some of which are the only way to reach distant villages.
Governmentally, the planet is a constitutional monarchy in the executive with a democratically elected House of Lords for the legislative branch. Every three years the population chooses those among the nobility to represent the general population; the small size of the population means that the elections are planetwide instead of by region. The High Court is appointed by the House of Lords, and forms the national-level judiciary.
EDIT:
Crazy aquatic wildlife...well, there's that scene from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; "there's always a bigger fish." The apex predator in Mriya Slaviya's great ocean is the Giant Anglerfish, which feeds on shark and whale analogues and other large wildlife. I mean, it's one butt-ugly fish to start with, so it makes for a good 'bad guy' sea life. There'd also need to be something akin to the blue whale, some truly massive sea life feeding on MS's equivalent of plankton. They don't come close to the shores, though, because there's a continental shelf that makes things rather shallow for sea life. Once you get offshore in the deep, though, there's some wild stuff to be found. Octosharks are a thing as well, because why not give a shark tentacles and camouflage abilities. They need the latter to hide from the Giant Anglerfish.
Also a note on geology; Mriya Slaviya has the typical plate tectonics of an earthlike world. The three moons exhibit quite a bit of pull on the world, so it gets some active quakes; the main continent of Mriya Slaviya is in the center of its plate so it doesn't ride the edge and suffer quakes like Earth's "ring of fire" does. The volcanic islands off to the east are on a mid-ocean ridge, which makes for significant seismic and volcanic activity in the area.
I should name the main continent one of these days. I could just call it Mriya Slaviya as well, but then you get confusion when talking about the continent or the planet. I'll call it Nova Zemlya, "new land" in Ukrainian.
EDIT 2:
I suppose I'll rethink the idea of no satellites for Mriya Slaviya. They'd have to buy from foreign sources, and get help putting it in orbit. With the reintroduction of the major hurricanes spawned and hitting the south and east coastlines, the idea of a weather satellite is just too obvious a thing to install. Put it in geosynchronous orbit over Nova Zemlya, and it'd see enough of the ocean to give warning for major storm activity.
I suppose I'll put that along with a communication satellite to allow nationwide broadcasts and military communications; the Sky Wolves and Moroz's Maroders would be equipped with advanced directional radios as part of their imported equipment. It'd give the reconnaissance platoons of the Maroders the chance to send signals from anywhere on Nova Zemlya to military HQ. Mriya Slaviya can't afford a GPS constellation yet, so navigation is still done the hard way with maps and compasses.
EDIT 3:
Musings on Moroz's Maroders, and a slight change to their organization.
It's a pretty small force. Each vehicle holds a crew of three, so there's only twelve Maroders in a platoon. Across nine platoons of Pavuks, that's 108 personnel out of a total of 2,800. There's a lot of specialists supporting the small unit; I imagine the maintenance elements are pretty big to keep the helicopters and dune buggies in top-performing shape. The Rooivalks especially would draw a lot of technical attention. There's probably more vehicle and helicopter crews than just the 108 seats, allowing readiness to be maintained at 100% at any time.
The Maroders are most equivalent to WWII's Long Range Desert Group in concept and execution. The unit is also trained as a special operations force, able to operate away from their vehicles and performing raids on foot if required. With their advanced radios, and the communications satellite in orbit, they act as the eyes of the army. They're often used as OPFOR units in training in Nova Zemlya's outback region, because they know the broken desert well and can train the MSLF in dealing with asymmetric warfare.
Each platoon operates independently, with three Recon Pavuks and one ATGM Pavuk making up the individual unit. This gives each platoon the capability to engage anything up to armored targets, with the ZT3 missile launcher in the ATGM Pavuk giving it heavy firepower. The unit is trained heavily in night operations, using infrared lights and advanced nightvision goggles to operate in those conditions.
The unit patch is a desert-brown circle with a black spider on it over a silver sword. Platoons are numbered 1-9 below the spider in red. Helicopter crews are given a small pair of wings below the spider. Personnel not directly attached to one of the platoons or the aviation wing have no red decoration on their unit patch.
EDIT 4:
A Rooivalk showing off its 20mm cannon, enough ATGMs to take out two platoons of tanks, and two Sidewinders for dealing with air threats. In Mriya Slaviyan service, the latter is there to attack other helicopters primarily, though the AIM-9s can be used against enemy fixed-wing aircraft as well. The Rooivalks are expensive and rare, so they need the protection. With only 8 Gripens and 24 Pucaras, the MSAF is pretty light weight and can't be everywhere, so the Roos need their AAMs.
