Creating Serednya Slaviya's military, part the second

[DOC_Agren]

I will ask the question some in your leadership will ask.

DO WE NEED A CAV FORCE?  or is the Military going to wasting money on an idea we don't need?
Should we copy the American/NATO idea or the French?

[chanman]

I will ask the question some in your leadership will ask.

DO WE NEED A CAV FORCE?  or is the Military going to wasting money on an idea we don't need?
Should we copy the American/NATO idea or the French?

That's such a complex question that the only solution will be to hire consultants to produce a series of very long, expensive, and inconclusive reports. Once the budget has been depleted, no further decision making will be required.  :)

[Daryk]

If the ones doing the studies are smart, they'll spin out the process indefinitely...  ::)

[chanman]

If the ones doing the studies are smart, they'll spin out the process indefinitely...  ::)

No, only until the money runs out. It's not a charity, sheesh!  ;)

[Daryk]

Tell that to any number of think tanks in DC...  ^-^

[Failure16]

I bet a fact-finding trip to NTC will show them just what a cavalry force using WarPac doctrine can accomplish.

We used to have dignitaries of all kinds ride along with us. Bonus points if you got to overrun a BluFor BSA when they were in the BRDM. Because then you got to shower them with all that tasty hot brass.

I'm quite sure TRADOC can jack the price up as needed to fit the buyer's budgetary constraints or limitations.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah...I think after seeing what an ACR can do in both Iraq and at the NTC, there'd be a push to form those units.  I suppose I'll go with one armored BCT and one mechanized infantry BCT plus the ACR in each division, using the ACR as a combination reconnaissance force as well as a frontline fighting unit; since the divisions are small there'll be more reliance on the ACR as more than just the eyes of the division.

I'm thinking of organizing the cavalry platoons around a combined arms mindset like the French.  Two T-72s, two BTR-4s, and four armored HMMWVs from the American free surplus hardware to supplement the UAZ-469 in more frontline roles.  Each HMMWV would have a driver and a two-man scout team, as well as carrying spare weapons for the dismounted elements of the platoon.  The BTR-4s would split up their infantry into a single four-man fire team and a two-man scout team; that brings me to six scout pairs to fulfill the recon mission while bringing the heat with the tanks and ATGMs of the IFVs.  It's only 36 troops in the platoon as well, with three men each in the T-72s and BTR-4s, twelve more between the BTR's dismounts, and three each for the HMMWVs, so I'm not overloading platoon leadership.

Just random thoughts, really, not sure where else to go with any of this.

[Daryk]

No truck commanders for the HMMWVs? ???

[ANS Kamas P81]

I suppose a dedicated commander/gunner for the HMMWV would make sense.  I had three-man crews on the brain because I was initially thinking of rolling VBLs instead of armored HMMWVs, but free American hardware is hard to pass up.  That'd increase the platoon to all of 40, though I should bring that to 42 with having a separate platoon commander and platoon sergeant riding in different BTR-4s.  Scouts can be trained as drone operators, so I'd have that capability spread around the vehicles.  Actually that should be 44 personnel - a platoon medic and platoon sniper with a bolt-action.

The HMMWVs...I can see the general use of the .50 M2 instead of a mix of M2s and Mk 19s; the latter are pretty short-ranged and the M2 has more utility in the anti-materiel and anti-aircraft roles.  Load up the HMMWVs with extra RPG-7 launchers and rockets for the platoon grenadiers in the fire team.

I'm thinking on the cav fire team as being the Team Leader with a Beryl plus a 40mm grenade launcher, a Grenadier with an RPG-7, a Machine Gunner with an Ultimax-100, and a Rifleman with a Beryl to round out the team.  That's a dedicated team leader that takes orders from the platoon commander, rather than the standard mechanized infantry platoon where the platoon leader and platoon sergeant are also a fire team leader (since I only have 8 dismounts in a BMP-1 or BTR-4).

[Daryk]

.50 cal ammo is also cheaper than 40mm grenades...  ^-^

[DOC_Agren]

Yeah...I think after seeing what an ACR can do in both Iraq and at the NTC, there'd be a push to form those units.

Yes but that was in the Desert, do we really need it in Eastern Europe?   Or would it be better with more Armor to Stop Armor?

[PsihoKekec]

Ukrainians had some success with cavalry (HMMWs and technicals) during the exploitation phase of Kharkov offensive. Once Russians consolidated the frontlines the successes became expensive and once the mud kicked in the missions became suicidal and the units had to be pulled for rear area security.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Well, there are plenty of tanks in an ACR, so I'd have the extra armored capability - maybe not as much as an armored BCT, but still pretty solid.  Each squadron has 24 tanks, for at least 72 in the whole regiment.  An armored BCT only has 89 IIRC, so my tank strength is around 300 in total.  Shame the Mech Infantry BCT doesn't have tanks of its own, but c'est la vie.

[ANS Kamas P81]

So I've had this percolating in my head lately, and have been wondering.  With the economics of the country as they are, I picture there being a very tight fight for budget dollars and the largest outlay going to the Air Force to keep its MiG-29s flying.  That leaves the land forces bringing up the rear, and maintaining its heavy equipment was limited at best.  What went to the land forces was spread around to keep its artillery up and running, leaving its T-72 fleet on back burner and slowly becoming more dilapidated and worn out over time.  Serednya Slaviya just doesn't have the heavy industry on its own to keep its armor in running order.  It's probably getting tech support from Poland to keep the MiGs flying, at that.

With the breakout of war in Ukraine, I figure Serednya Slaviya would ship its functioning tanks to its neighbor along with the rest of Europe, leaving a gap in capability that needs to be filled. France is phasing out its AMX-10 RCs, and getting those is easy enough.  The trick is using them properly, as the Ukrainians discovered.

With joining NATO, the country has less of a need to provide an all-aspect army and can focus, like the Baltic states, on providing a quality force for one mission and relying on foreign support for other capabilities.  Transforming the army from its roots as a Soviet MR division into a pure mechanized infantry force with BTRs and BMPs for the primary combat element, and a cavalry force equipped with AMX-10 RC vehicles.  Armor and artillery would be supplied by NATO partners, and I suppose I'm going to have to dedicate a large-scale training facility where they can hook up and train together.

[chanman]

So I've had this percolating in my head lately, and have been wondering.  With the economics of the country as they are, I picture there being a very tight fight for budget dollars and the largest outlay going to the Air Force to keep its MiG-29s flying.  That leaves the land forces bringing up the rear, and maintaining its heavy equipment was limited at best.  What went to the land forces was spread around to keep its artillery up and running, leaving its T-72 fleet on back burner and slowly becoming more dilapidated and worn out over time.  Serednya Slaviya just doesn't have the heavy industry on its own to keep its armor in running order.  It's probably getting tech support from Poland to keep the MiGs flying, at that.

With the breakout of war in Ukraine, I figure Serednya Slaviya would ship its functioning tanks to its neighbor along with the rest of Europe, leaving a gap in capability that needs to be filled. France is phasing out its AMX-10 RCs, and getting those is easy enough.  The trick is using them properly, as the Ukrainians discovered.

With joining NATO, the country has less of a need to provide an all-aspect army and can focus, like the Baltic states, on providing a quality force for one mission and relying on foreign support for other capabilities.  Transforming the army from its roots as a Soviet MR division into a pure mechanized infantry force with BTRs and BMPs for the primary combat element, and a cavalry force equipped with AMX-10 RC vehicles.  Armor and artillery would be supplied by NATO partners, and I suppose I'm going to have to dedicate a large-scale training facility where they can hook up and train together.

Partner countries can provide the facilities. Singapore keeps F-16s in the US and I think the Luftwaffe had or shared T-38s there during the Cold War for the same reason. The British Army's biggest armour training area is in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_Training_Unit_Suffield

As for specializations. Might I suggest combat engineering and sappers?

[ANS Kamas P81]

So I can station my MiGs in Poland, at least in peacetime, and benefit from their aerospace facilities.  Good idea, that; it makes it more believable that there's military industry support for the aircraft in Poland instead of Serednya Slaviya.

On the idea of turning the army into a primarily combat engineer and sapper force, that's quite a bit more interesting than yet another few mechanized infantry battalions.  Got any good reading to learn more about those groups and how they might organize, so I can see how to arrange my personnel and determine how large they are?

Just for numbers sake I have 29,700 personnel in the army between volunteers and careerists, so I suppose I'll still have regular infantry alongside a few specialist CE/S battalions.  Stryker BCTs are easily duplicated with BTR-4s, and bring 4300 troops in each one.  Four of those is 17,200 personnel, leaving me 12,500 for three AMX-10 RC squadrons along with an unspecified number of combat engineers.  I suppose I've got enough to add some artillery, but I'd rather focus on the engineers and sappers primarily.

[PsihoKekec]

AMX-10 is no replacement for MBTs and as short as the life expectancy of an MBT (even one as maligned as T-72) crew might be in a war, AMX-10 crews would have even lower life expectancy, especially if they are a replacement for MBT.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, my thought was to use them specifically in the recon role, considering the Ukrainian attempt to use them in the frontal assault failed miserably.  That said, artillery was cited as the cause of the vehicle's destruction, and considering the rest of the combat vehicles in the land forces are just as vulnerable, I'd put the AMX-10's chances as fair enough.  I wouldn't be using them as tank standins, but as "light cavalry" (compared to tanks and the heavy cavalry of an ACR) instead.

[Daryk]

However big you make your engineer and sapper units, make them a little bigger so you can convert some into drone operators... ;)

[Failure16]

EDIT: For the driest version possible, here is a rundown of a current US Army CEB: https://man.fas.org/dod-101/army/unit/toe/05415L000.htm

Here is a treatise by the USMC on combat engineer battalions. I think it is pretty representative and worth taking the time to parse through it. Especially for the organizational bits.

Here is a case study of US Army CE operations in OIF 1+. A bit long, good to see what CEs do for a force, and how they operate in a real-world setting.

And if you want to go to school, go to NTC. A good treatise by the OCs that assist the engineer elements at the National Training Center.

I always respected the CEs of the 11th ACR (and was equally glad I wasn't amongst them), because when the line troops and squadron headquarters were deploying back to the rear at the conclusion of a rotation, we would see them still pushing in the anti-tank ditch and rolling up wire as the last HETs were being loaded. As part of S-3, there were no squadron troopers that were out in the box longer insofar as absolute time is considered, but it sucks to be the last on the jobsite too, sometimes*.

As a personal anecdote, you can never have too many combat engineers. There was a minefield in Kosovo that was not properly marked that I wished I had known about. It would have been nice for there have been more sappers in-sector to look after things like that. Infantry units never have engineer support to dig their holes for nightly patrol bases (hasty fighting positions and all), but if you want to see bunch of happy troopers, wait until you see an earthmover of some kind show up when a deliberate defense is being conducted. Digging proper fighting positions is no joke, boy, in any terrain. Woods have trees, and trees have roots, and deserts have clay and rocks or shifting bloody sand. And urban areas...well, sappers carry a lot of demo, and you need more demo than you can ever carry.


*The engineers were Regimental assets, so we had no call to sit and watch them police up their business, for example. At NTC, the two line squadrons rotated responsibility for a rotation (10-11 per year plus an internal one for the 11th ACR called Blackhorse Stakes), but the S-3s themselves for both squadrons would usually be out in the field before the rotation started to the moment it ended and the last trooper was back at the motor-hole.

[Failure16]

You know, Imma just leave this here: https://companyleader.themilitaryleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NTC-Update-MAR-20-Defensive-Operations-Against-a-Near-Peer-Threat-CO-LDR.pdf

It is the magazine of which the previously linked engineer article is a part. And it reads real quick. It gives some good insight into how all the various arms of a BCT operate and shows that "combined arms" doesn't mean tanks, infantry, and mortars in a company team, but how the combat support elements (from engineers to artillery to aviation) are a part of the whole as well. A lot of wargamers think transitioning from a defense to a counterattack is simply moving their counters out of their starting positions on the map. It's not that easy in the real world. At a base minimum, you have to have your assets, combat and combat support both, positioned to be able to do so, and a plan for them to do so efficaciously. 

Combat engineers need to have sited their obstacles properly beforehand, field artillery will need to know where to move, or where (and what and with what) to shoot--and the commanders will need to know how long it will take to do all that--and aviation will need to have the planning and assets in place to emplace blocking units, for example. It's all part of an interlocking whole. Of course, for the riflemen and tankers on the sharp end, it is just a matter of getting out of that comfy hole (just as nearly every mobile engagement is a frontal meeting battle by and large) and going forward. But there is a world more to it than just that alone.

[ANS Kamas P81]

It's a lot to read, and I'll get to it, but I like what I'm reading.  There's a lot of infrastructure construction involved in engineer and engineer support battalions, and I wonder how that reflects on the nation as a whole - would it be reasonable that the engineer units in the army get tapped to build new roads and bridges in civilian areas as training missions that have the side effect of improving travel infrastructure?

Still gotta read that masters thesis, I'll save that for tomorrow.  I'm not sure how many of each type of battalion I'm going to end up with in the army, and I'm still going to need logistics and transportation troops as well as MPs and security companies.  I think I'll end up leaving it vague, but it's starting to look like the army has just one Stryker BCT-sized unit of line troops and the rest of the personnel all support and engineer units.  That'd fit the tooth-to-tail ratio of 7:1 - higher than the American 5:1, but I'm focusing my capability on those support units and accepting the limited combat capability.

[Failure16]

It is a lot, but combat engineers do a lot more than force protection and mobility enhancement/countermobility. In Operations Other Than War, they seem to spend a lot of their time doing things like construction, from bunkers to buildings and everything in-between. So, is Sere-Slav's military going to be a sort of "special teams" roster for NATO now, or what? You could set up brigade staff specialists that could deploy to work as advisors for local militaries in places like Africa. Or build up your ADA and MP arms to deploy with your CEs and become a Force Protection adjunct force.

You know, in the Fringeverse, there is a mercenary outfit called the Earth Shakers who were just a regiment of engineers that would piecemeal themselves out on different contracts: construction companies for an invasion force to build a spaceport or FOBs, maybe, or different sapper platoons for light fighter battalions or heavy brigades on an offensive mission; maybe an Obstacle Platoon with minelayer support for a bigger mercenary regiment on a defensive contract, or a Mobility Platoon with AVLB support...It would make an interesting semi-roleplaying campaign, I bet.

Oh, engineers use a lot of trucks, because they need a lot of stuff. And the line units they support better have a lot of it, too, aboard their vehicles (like concertina/razor wire, engineer stakes, etc.)

[ANS Kamas P81]

It is a lot, but combat engineers do a lot more than force protection and mobility enhancement/countermobility. In Operations Other Than War, they seem to spend a lot of their time doing things like construction, from bunkers to buildings and everything in-between.

With the focus on the engineers I'm looking for, I suppose that means I'm going to have first-class facilities.  At least, it keeps them active and in practice of their skills, and at the very least working on civilian projects.  The Army Corps of Engineers does a lot of civil works, so I can see the Engineers Corps doing the same for Serednya Slaviya's civilian infrastructure - which probably suffered a lot of neglect in the post-Soviet years, and took a lot of effort rebuilding into something acceptable.

So, is Sere-Slav's military going to be a sort of "special teams" roster for NATO now, or what? You could set up brigade staff specialists that could deploy to work as advisors for local militaries in places like Africa. Or build up your ADA and MP arms to deploy with your CEs and become a Force Protection adjunct force.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking - a specialist group that focuses on one primary mission, and probably gets parceled out in company and battalion sized elements attached to various foreign missions.  The idea of adding air defense and MPs...well, I'd need a lot of MPs to handle the traffic control mission especially during construction projects, and they'd handle a lot of rear-area security missions as well as protecting said facilities. 

You know, in the Fringeverse, there is a mercenary outfit called the Earth Shakers who were just a regiment of engineers that would piecemeal themselves out on different contracts: construction companies for an invasion force to build a spaceport or FOBs, maybe, or different sapper platoons for light fighter battalions or heavy brigades on an offensive mission; maybe an Obstacle Platoon with minelayer support for a bigger mercenary regiment on a defensive contract, or a Mobility Platoon with AVLB support...It would make an interesting semi-roleplaying campaign, I bet.

Hah, I dig that idea.  Even in the future, there's still need for engineers to build and unbuild things.

Oh, engineers use a lot of trucks, because they need a lot of stuff. And the line units they support better have a lot of it, too, aboard their vehicles (like concertina/razor wire, engineer stakes, etc.)

Yeah, I read the first two documents you linked, and the mention of all the Engineer heavy equipment having its own company in a battalion.  I figure there's going to be some transport battalions as well in the service, just to support the engineers with extra lift capability.

So okay, air defense and MPs and engineers, maybe I should drop the Stryker BCT and go with a purely 'tail' military.  Air defenses...I suppose there's a good trio of the SA-9, SA-6, and SA-8 organized around their engagement envelopes, with a battery of each making up a battalion.  Two SAM battalions seems sufficient, while my MP force...yeah, I'm going to end up with a lot of military police units.

Time to research MP forces...I found their Field Manual, so I'm going to give that a read too. 

So much reading.

[chanman]

One of the reasons I suggested engineering goes back to your immediate post-Cold War state. At that point, you'll have:

• Lots of unemployment as the economy restructures
• A massive outflow of the young and ambitious leaving (and moving to richer Western countries by hook or by crook)
• Fundamentally mismatched building stock
• Massive funding challenges for the government
• Potentially crumbling infrastructure depending on your area's particular mix of corruption and centrally-planned apathy, especially in the last 10-15 years of Communism

Tying some kind of national service to granting exit visas or whatnot might let you hold on to the grad classes of 89-early 90s for a bit longer and let them build connections that either keep them home or make it more likely for them to return after making their fortune (or seeing how much housing and child care cost in London, natch)

Engineering and construction bridges the military-civil gap, especially in terms of transferrable skills, but also puts (affordable) resources in the hands of the government at a time of chaos (especially budgetary chaos) as the economy dramatically rearranges itself.

Notably, construction and demolition are important for revitalization for quality of life and future development - building nicer housing stock and new infrastructure appropriate for whatever industries push to the fore, and demolishing unnecessary/unsafe/old facilities too. There's a lot of work to be done and not that much money to be done doing it.  They can also be hired out North Korea-style, essentially as a revenue-generating instrument of the government (some overlap with State Owned Enterprises or Crown Corporations) with the fundamental implied contract with the troops and officers being they're trading stingy military wages for contacts and knowledge they can exploit after they discharge.

Corruption, of course, will be massive and keeping it down to a dull roar will be an ongoing challenge. Construction as an industry in general has long been infamous for ties to organized crime and graft in all kinds of places.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Hm...that poses some thoughts then, if the military was already heavily focused around its engineers even during the Cold War.  Say that the majority of the combat elements were Russian troops, while the support elements - the transportation, engineers, maintenance folks - were Serednya Slaviyan locals.  When the Russians retreated, they took a lot of their equipment back with them, leaving the locals relatively high and dry in combat forces but well equipped with support troops and equipment.

Centrally-planned apathy though the 80s as well as the corruption issues endemic to the eastern bloc probably left the cities in dismay, and the rural areas downright bucolic.  It'd be a place ripe for rebuilding, and the army to do it with.  Granted it'd be slow going with the post-Cold War corruption problems in Eastern Europe, but the idea of focusing the army on building a new and prosperous nation might well be something championed in "Building The Communal Future" propaganda for the masses.  I'd have to funnel some serious resources to the army to retain its brain trust.

That also means I'm likely to have at least one really good engineering college in the country to train these troops, especially the officers.

I don't think that SereSlav has the major funding to rebuild its combat arms, while maintaining its engineering corps.  That leaves them in a weird military situation until they joined NATO, an army for construction and limited national defense.  I'm thinking that a Militia Federal Police paramilitary force would end up standing in for the army in a combat situation, while acting as both a border guards and a federal & military police force.  That lets me build up my MP corps quite a bit, and turns them into their own separate force from the army.  Going with that thought, it would make sense to spin off the ADA troops in the army into an Air Defense Force that generally lacks aircraft (bye bye MiG-29s) but is well equipped with SAMs and other AA vehicles.  That leaves me with three military forces operating independently, the Engineer Corps, the MFP, and the ADF.

Corruption...yeah, especially in construction it's pretty endemic.  That's probably something in the jurisdiction of the MFP, especially when it involves the Engineer Corps, and is something being fought hard but impossible to root out all together.

As far as the MFP goes...what's the makeup of a Soviet style KGB Border Guards unit?  What kind of heavy combat equipment do they get outside of trucks and light vehicles?  I'm eyeing the ERC-90 as a combat vehicle for them, something lighter and more amphibious than the AMX-10RC - not to be used as a tank, but as a recon and fire support vehicle.  Mexico and a few other South American countries bought into the ERC-90 program as a major component for their land forces, so it's got utility in a military that lacks heavy equipment.  This would be something for after their accession to NATO, and an attempt to modernize with Western equipment - and with the French getting rid of their ERCs for Griffons, they'd be dirt cheap and something simple enough for the MFP to maintain.  They just don't have the industry for heavier vehicles like main battle tanks.

I like the idea of potentially hiring out the Engineer Corps as a revenue-generating force.  They would have a lot of opportunity in Africa, perhaps working alongside the French.  Maybe that's what prompts the purchase of ERC-90s and other French equipment...maybe replacing the antiquated Soviet SAM launchers with modernized secondhand Crotale NG vehicles as well for the ADF.

EDIT: I admit I still want at least the one squadron of fighters, even if they're based in Poland and the Poles help with the maintenance and modernization.  With an independent ADF of 3100 personnel, that's doable, while still heavily stacking up ADA units in-country.  Copying the Croatian Air Force, I could step down to 1,260 personnel and still have a squadron of MiG-21s.  Back to the Balalaikas, I suppose, while adding a few more personnel to the force to run four Soviet SAM regiments.  I wouldn't have much in the way of transport capabilities, but a good set of firefighting gear if I copy the Croatians completely - which I think I'll do.

As far as those SAM regiments, each has five firing batteries of four SA-6 carriers for a total of twenty vehicles each.  Since each of the regiments has just over 500 personnel, that means I'd need to poach a few from the Land Forces to get a total of 2,020 Air Defense Force personnel.

That leaves me with 29,500 between the MFP and the Engineers Corps.  A Soviet BTR-transported infantry regiment is 2,523 personnel.  Add in an Antitank Battalion of 195 and a Reconnaissance Battalion of 340 and I come to a total of 3,058 personnel.  Five of those would make a pretty potent military police force, especially when boosted with a number of ERC-90 tank destroyers replacing the 100mm towed gun batteries and T-72s in the Recon platoons.  Each AT battalion would be twelve ERC-90s plus nine BRDM-2-based ATGM carriers for a total of 60 and 45 vehicles respectively.  There's also the reconnaissance companies, which would have an additional six ERC-90s replacing tanks in the scout-hunter role.  So a total of 90 ERC-90s for the military, that puts me in good with the French if I'm getting that many vehicles from them.  The MFP districts settle easily into the five oblasts that make up the country - Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, and Volyn - so that gives me about 15,300 personnel in the MFP.

The remaining headcount is 14,200, which makes up the engineers and logistics folks.  The Engineer Battalion of the MR Division and Tank Division is made of the following: BN HQ, Sappers, Assault Crossing, Technical (heavy construction), Road/Bridge Construction, Pontoon Bridge, Engineer Recon, Communications, Maintenance, and Service elements.  That comes to about 400 personnel for each battalion, which would give me a whopping 35 Engineer Battalions.  I think that many is overkill, so I'll cut it roughly in half to 18 battalions of engineers and let the remainder of my troops be maintenance and logistics personnel.  We may not fly stuff around, but between the engineers and transport folks stuff will get where it's supposed to go.

Having 18 battalions also makes it easy to sort again - each oblast gets three engineer units, with three more deployed on foreign soil to work with the locals in building a better future and all that crap.

Thoughts on this?  Am I overdoing it with the MFP as a military police force or does it seem like the kind of thing that could be counted on to at least slow down an invader and still handle internal security threats against the nation?

[chanman]

MiG-21s sound right for an air policing role. Bulgaria and Romania stuck with them as well, perhaps longer than they should have, but as the air freight industry likes to say - paid off covers a multitude of sins.

Going Western, the peace dividend drawdown sees the general elimination of second-line forces, so when the MiGs start falling out of the sky, replacing them with some F-5s shouldn't be a big ask.

[ANS Kamas P81]

MiG-21s sound right for an air policing role. Bulgaria and Romania stuck with them as well, perhaps longer than they should have, but as the air freight industry likes to say - paid off covers a multitude of sins.

Yeah, there's something to be said about outright owning your aircraft, only having to pay for life extensions and ordnance.  I wonder about switching to something more modern...but the economy just doesn't allow for it.  Croatia is dropping a billion dollars to switch to a squadron of secondhand Rafales, but it's also got 250% of the GDP of SereSlav and can afford the damn things.  Maybe we're buying the old Croatian MiG-21s and spare parts as a means of keeping the ones we have flying, and upgrading them like the Romanians did.

Going Western, the peace dividend drawdown sees the general elimination of second-line forces, so when the MiGs start falling out of the sky, replacing them with some F-5s shouldn't be a big ask.

The Taiwanese are divesting their F-5s, which is an option...but I kind of like the MiG-21 with all its drawbacks.  The weapons fitment would only be four R-60 missiles (and a fuel tank), but those missiles are still in service across many nations so there'd be plenty of supply.  Plus it won't require heavily retraining my pilots and technicians on an all-new airframe, so I think I'll stick with the MiG-21 in the end.

[chanman]

Yeah, there's something to be said about outright owning your aircraft, only having to pay for life extensions and ordnance.  I wonder about switching to something more modern...but the economy just doesn't allow for it.  Croatia is dropping a billion dollars to switch to a squadron of secondhand Rafales, but it's also got 250% of the GDP of SereSlav and can afford the damn things.  Maybe we're buying the old Croatian MiG-21s and spare parts as a means of keeping the ones we have flying, and upgrading them like the Romanians did.

The Taiwanese are divesting their F-5s, which is an option...but I kind of like the MiG-21 with all its drawbacks.  The weapons fitment would only be four R-60 missiles (and a fuel tank), but those missiles are still in service across many nations so there'd be plenty of supply.  Plus it won't require heavily retraining my pilots and technicians on an all-new airframe, so I think I'll stick with the MiG-21 in the end.

The thing is that you don't want to pick up aircraft that are at the end of their service lives. That's a lot of hidden costs with worn out airframes and also why I would expect the MiG-21s to only tide you over to the early-mid 2000s. They are an old and unforgiving design with limited spares availability. China makes the J-7 into the 90s, but there's unknown parts compatibility since the designs diverge almost at the point of origin.

It's why the peace dividend retirements are interesting because some of those older second-line airframes should still have a good deal of life left in them (Mirage IIIs and F1s, F-5s of various stripes). The Swiss keep their Mirage IIIs and F-5s for a lonnnng time and some attempts at offering Mirage III/V upgrades in the early 90s fell through due to the end of the Cold War.

Plus, I'm sure it'd be distinctive as hell if you picked up Kfirs :P

On the gripping hand, you can also drop all the way down to armed-trainer level. Alpha Jets are available and are reasonably high subsonic and pack an entirely reasonable armament (27mm or 30mm ADEN cannon, IR missiles). Or even the old WP standard L-39 if you aren't concerned with air policing. The main limitation for the Czech birds is that they're actually quite slow. You won't be catching any airliner-like platforms at all.

As for the missiles, wiring up for other designs doesn't seem to be a huge issue. I think you see a number of the later users convert their MiG-21s to use Sidewinders or Matra Magics

[chanman]

Also, also. Even if you're operating old aircraft, look into getting modern ejection seats for them. Martin-Bakers or Russian K-36s. It's especially important since they're both older/harder to fly designs, and mechanical reliability is also an issue with airframe and component age.