Creating an army for a fictional nation brainpile thread

[Cannonshop]

So how does one properly lose a war then, without completely getting overrun.  I doubt a border skirmish would count, though something that grinds like the Iran-Iraq war, perhaps both sides thought they lost.

maybe past eras they were more international or interventionist, but then got bogged in some (Now defunct) Ally's foreign war that ground on for a long time and eventually ended in a loss.

Afghanistan (1980s), Vietnam (1970s), Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and so on could be useful historical hysterias.  Dragged in, dragged on, not much damage at home, but it gutted and consumed your military and demonstrated every weakness of past doctrines, along with triggering a strong "NOPE!! We're not doing THAT again!!!" reaction in your national consciousness, maybe even a popular aversion to "Foreign entanglements", Expeditionary wars, or Optional conflicts-sort of setting your stage-including the pressures you mentioned earlier.

Basically, some 20 or so years before the "Present" of your setting, having them involved in an alliance that went bad could do it-"Lost the war' but weren't overrun (but suffered some hefty pain as a result of being involved at all).

[glitterboy2098]

or perhaps they contribute heavily to UN peacekeeping forces?

[Colt Ward]

Well . . . ideally, IMO, the Korean War might fit as 'overseas adventurism' . . . IIRC, some national contingents got hammered pretty hard, others did OK, and in the US I know it led to some re-organizations.  FREX the acceleration/improvement of pushing as much medical support as close to the frontlines as possible, it started the air mobile development with the med evacs, changed how post-WWII garrisons were set up, saw the development of Jet doctrine, and was the last true mass amphib assault that I am aware of- after that it went more towards air assault w/ OTB logistics.

[Kidd]

There was the 1950s war, remember? ANS still hasn't told us what that entails.

On the topic of reservists... may be too detailed to go into what manpower pools you have for what ranks, MOSs, etc. Just pick a number or percentage and run with it.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I'm still settling on that.  The big question is, do I go completely alt-history alt-setting and ignore the binary superpower situation of the latter half of the 20th century set up by the World Wars, and free up a lot of social and strategic history?  Or do I settle into a known historical region and then try to explain how this country managed to survive and which side it was on, and take all kinds of historical and social baggage.  The latter would be a lot easier as far as deciding potential threats and such, but there's also a lot of limitations as to what things would be doable.  The former...gives me plenty of room for doing what I want to do, but I also need to build up a framework of everything around it.  That's the situation I'm sorta stuck in right now...

I mean, look at the mapped area I made, those three countries...did Not Do Well historically and spent the entire timeframe in question under Soviet control, so there's not a lot of independent action that could historically happen anyway.  Not to mention, again, the actual population of the whole place would be closer to about 11-12 million, not 37...

[Colt Ward]

Which is why I suggested relocating to SE Asia, carve out something similar and you get some very specific benefits.

1)  You can use IRL history except in the immediate area- 500 miles from your borders? (in fact, some of this could be a big help- explain later)
2)  The bi-polar power structure is still in place, but since you are not in Europe its not as high-pressure
3)  Your naval link to your oil islands is shorter, and you can conveniently place them in the Spratleys (historical claim?)

I am not sure the US DOD did this back in Vietnam, but rather than shipping equipment back to the US after leaving Vietnam they could have sold it to a nearby ally (you).

Depending on when some of the French equipment you wanted to go with was built, you could have picked it up being part of the French sphere of influence before they pulled out of Vietnam and maintained contacts with the French military industry.  Getting involved in the Korean War would have still been possible, and during that time IIRC you still had a lot of border war situations as the British Empire ended along with other colonial power.  Burma/Mynmar would probably fit the bill- though the Spratleys are out at that point you do get a island chain in the Indian Ocean.

[Kidd]

SEA was well into WW2 as well

It can help in the 50s war and creating the 70s threat. But you need to find some appropriate land. And tropical jungle fighting is quite different from what you are familiar with I think.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Well, there's options there.  Alt history thoughts of "what if the Americans helped Ho Chi Minh fight China" that lead to a western Vietnam, for example...and I admit to a continental eurasian bias in setting (see: pseudoPrussia) such a thing in SEA is only slightly less surprising than the fact that the Lithuanian language is an Indian Sanskrit descendant (explain that one!) perhaps.

Straight up magically replacing Burma with this alternate country would be doable I suppose, and there'd be no small number of local belligerents - India to the west, China to the northeast, Thailand to the east, and Laos tucked in there nibbling on a piece of the border as well.  It's got that really long sea border though, so coastal and deepwater power will be a major thing.  I also had half a thought for Cambodia - mostly land borders, short sea border, Thailand/Laos/Vietnam for neighbors, and the Gulf of Thailand to fill with submarines.  Quite a bit smaller, though...

Or I could get super-weird and go with an alternate history independent Poland, literally with Nato to the left and the Warsaw Minsk Pact to the right, stuck in the middle with you.  32.8 million historically there, so at least relatively similar.  At least there'd be no question at all of historical revisions and 'just how did a society like that show up here' for a european-styled aristocracy...and a lot easier to explain than "just how DID Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus not only put their differences aside and unite but hold off the Soviets?"

Idly the idea of this alterPoland getting its major support from France of all places because they don't entirely trust NATO does make some sense...

Hm. 

SEA was well into WW2 as well

It can help in the 50s war and creating the 70s threat. But you need to find some appropriate land. And tropical jungle fighting is quite different from what you are familiar with I think.

Yeah, see above...not that I mind involving one way or another there, but a lot of this fictional country's in my head and it's too much based on central continental europe.  Unless someone can legit justify things, say "Burma was a Prussian colony for 300 years and didn't mind it so much" but that feels...I dunno.  Weird, in very deep Rule 4 ways I won't go into.  It's not a bad idea at all and certainly solves much of the local unhappy neighbors...but that insane Independent Poland idea kinda does as well.

I'd probably need more nukes than any other independent power on the planet to make THAT one stick though...

[Colt Ward]

Or . . . Burma is easy to use, they lost a border war against Thailand and lost the appendage that forms much of the border against Thailand and the seacoast.  The other part of that seacoast, is how much is usable without a lot of development?  They have a huge delta near Rangoon, then another that opens up to a N running river valley near Sittwe . . . . E of Sittwe you run into some jungle mountains with no major roads I can see going through them . . . and E of the mountains you have the Irrawaddy river they would have to cross.

Population is currently a bit bigger- 53 mil . . . but in the 60s & 70s?

Well, the Brits did use the Regimental system at one point and creating their own military system post-Empire could give you some narrative room.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Sounds like it'd be hell on armor, for terrain like that.

[kato]

Suggestion: Western South America.

[Sharpnel]

Peru, Ecuador or Colombia?

[kato]

Peru probably, best tie-in.

[Kidd]

All tropical countries. But the European context may be what most people are familiar with.

I think ANS should stick with his slice of the Baltics, as a nominally Non-Aligned country with Western leanings. Kind of like opposite Albania. Perhaps considerably bad border terrain helps preserve the country's independence.

Also, what if there were no tac nukes in existence in this alt history?

[Colt Ward]

Sounds like it'd be hell on armor, for terrain like that.

From what I can tell with pictures and maps- granted, not great maps b/c quick look at work between calls- you have a lot of N/S river valley with 'easy' infrastructure/roads working in that valley since they go up to the plateau further east but not crossing mountains.  Most of the major cities are in the Irrawaddy drainage which concentrates a bit of your strategic requirements.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I'm actually beating around the idea of an alt history where the Allies manage to bypass the Ardennes offensive, go through Siegfried, and bumrush Berlin by the start of 1945.  At the same time, Stalin has his stroke ten years early, and with a little reversal to slow things down they'd only be just arriving at Poland at that point - and the political power is in turmoil there.  That opens up a potential history for this Free Poland, which at the moment is holding on with a really remarkably altered Europe.  More about this in a little bit.

Also, what if there were no tac nukes in existence in this alt history?

That was one possibility I'd had, the idea was that a different timeline led the first great physics push for peaceful power and the first reactor being a largescale operation, since they knew everything about it - except for xenon contamination, and when the entire nuclear physics world was there to watch their culminating achievement it ate itself and took them with it.  Instant major setback in the world of nuclear physics, doubly so when nobody has any idea what went wrong in the first place and only the grad students are left.

It ended up in a short story I wrote, posted it here a couple boards ago.  Originally this idea was for part of that same setting, but ideas mutate often.

From what I can tell with pictures and maps- granted, not great maps b/c quick look at work between calls- you have a lot of N/S river valley with 'easy' infrastructure/roads working in that valley since they go up to the plateau further east but not crossing mountains.  Most of the major cities are in the Irrawaddy drainage which concentrates a bit of your strategic requirements.

That would make a fun alternate, looking it over.  You've got the central lowlands and the river delta, one hell of a natural barrier with India, and a mess of a highlands to the east.  Some good tank country, but you'd really need light mobile assets in those hills, depending on how much of a plateau the Shan is.  And one very, very solid brownwater navy as well...

[Colt Ward]

Yeah, and have to explore the Brit vs Japan campaigns of early WWII . . . I am going to look that up a bit, but my other point based on terrain was that it gives you the border war that forces a re-thinking off the military structure if they lost that leg that went down the side of Thailand.

[Kidd]

I'm actually beating around the idea of an alt history where the Allies manage to bypass the Ardennes offensive, go through Siegfried, and bumrush Berlin by the start of 1945. 

Aka What If Market Garden Had Succeeded

You've got the central lowlands and the river delta, one hell of a natural barrier with India, and a mess of a highlands to the east.  Some good tank country, but you'd really need light mobile assets in those hills, depending on how much of a plateau the Shan is.  And one very, very solid brownwater navy as well...

Lots. Of. Light. Infantry. Scads of it.

Medium tanks at best, and short range weapons.

It's not really very fun really.

[ANS Kamas P81]

This whole thread has really reinforced that I need a LOT of details about the country I'm creating.

Aka What If Market Garden Had Succeeded

That and...there's a scene in Patton where there's a discussion of how to reply to the Ardennes offensive and what became the Battle of the Bulge.  I can't find details offhand of the actual meeting, but in the film Patton suggests it be ignored and that the rest of Germany is wide open, and they should ignore it and charge for Berlin.  I'm sure that idea came up in the real meeting, and in this history it was the option chosen.   The offensive still stalls out at Bastogne in the end, partly because of the defense and mostly because the supplies just weren't there to continue, but the Allied thrust continues, ending the war at the end of 1944.

This gives me a fictional country at the end of WWII staring at the Soviets on one side, the Allies on the other, and Austria & Czechoslovakia to the south.  Southern highlands, central river lowland, and scattered forests.

Lots. Of. Light. Infantry. Scads of it.

Medium tanks at best, and short range weapons.

It's not really very fun really.

Yeah, you'd really need weight being a consideration for tanks when you get to that role; I suppose at that point gun-armed armored cars are going to be your most common thing.  Although that would give me my light infantry fun.  Not to mention helicopter airborne and air-assault units, plus enough gunships to blot out the skies....and a rather heavy air superiority element.

If I were going to build a helicopter force, I think Burmalter would be a fine setup.  I might come back to that idea.

[Daryk]

As for the South American ideas, what about Argentina?  It wouldn't be too hard to make an argument for "Prussian" culture there, really, and it's not so tropical...

[ANS Kamas P81]

I suppose the last consideration for that alternate poland idea would be Operation Bagration being nowhere near as successful as it was...which in itself is going to be hard to really explain by that point in history.  So I suppose...eh, scratch that idea at that point.

[Colt Ward]

Yeah, you'd really need weight being a consideration for tanks when you get to that role; I suppose at that point gun-armed armored cars are going to be your most common thing.  Although that would give me my light infantry fun.  Not to mention helicopter airborne and air-assault units, plus enough gunships to blot out the skies....and a rather heavy air superiority element.

If I were going to build a helicopter force, I think Burmalter would be a fine setup.  I might come back to that idea.

Well, you also have to consider the roads in Europe are due to a LONG period of historical development . . . SE Asia did not need to develop them as much b/c the rivers were quite functional 'roads' for a lot of areas that the mountain watershed divisions in Europe cause to be shorter.  Transplant the amount of effort that went into a road network into such a country and you will not have to worry about getting bogged down as much . . . it will be like Europe, where seizing or digging in at the next bridge was a key point for WWII.

[glitterboy2098]

From what I can tell with pictures and maps- granted, not great maps b/c quick look at work between calls- you have a lot of N/S river valley with 'easy' infrastructure/roads working in that valley since they go up to the plateau further east but not crossing mountains.  Most of the major cities are in the Irrawaddy drainage which concentrates a bit of your strategic requirements.

That would make a fun alternate, looking it over.  You've got the central lowlands and the river delta, one hell of a natural barrier with India, and a mess of a highlands to the east.  Some good tank country, but you'd really need light mobile assets in those hills, depending on how much of a plateau the Shan is.  And one very, very solid brownwater navy as well...

Lots. Of. Light. Infantry. Scads of it.

Medium tanks at best, and short range weapons.

It's not really very fun really.

split the difference?
perhaps keep the country in europe.. but have them with very recent former colonial ties to (another fictional) SE asian country, having given them their independence but maintaining some oversea's bases there. which keep getting them dragged into said country's internal conflicts.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Thoughts on an SEA version - how well would armored cars like the ERC-90 or Commando w/ Cockerill 90mm handle the jungle and wetland terrain?  I can imagine the absolute requirement for amphibious capability to deal with all the waterways, but are the wheeled toys too susceptible to bogging compared to tracked vehicles?

[Kidd]

Scorpion was designed with something like in mind. And the Bv206 family sees a lot of use in the region, not because of snow.

Caddy Commandos and M113s are the order of the day. I dunno, was the former used much in Vietnam? How did the Army find it?

Some people invest a lot in the Cockerill 90mm, but it's dependent on the threat profile - those things work fine on bunkers and IFVs, not so much against the front of even a 1970s MBT.

Also, on the lighter vehicles, recoil is a big problem. That's why recently they put the Cockerills on a slightly heavier, more stable platform. The smaller APCs armed with the 90mm don't actually use them.

A lot of Vietnam lessons will be applicable. Singapore is a decent example as they train for jungle warfare and are generally deadly serious. They tend to rely on technology however, whereas the game is a lot about infantry, and of course - they're not battle tested.

[ANS Kamas P81]

To be fair to the Cockerill, I wouldn't take it against an MBT either.  Older ones, sure, 250-330mm penetration (sauce) from 90mm HEAT rounds will still do a T-54 and similar outdated tanks, or anything light enough to have a legitimate excuse for being in a jungle.  1400-ball canister shot is also never not funny.

So idly, what's the consensus on the alternate poland idea - too fantastic to work, or just-maybe believable without requiring the intervention of space lizards with a ginger addiction?

[Daryk]

Sadly, I do think it's too fantastical to work.  Poland was bled dry early in the war.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Darn.  It would neatly solve so much, especially with the Polish in-exile forces from Britain returning and bringing as much British gear as they could with them...but those early years would be difficult.  Historically there were all kinds of partisan fights between the Byelorussian SSR, Ukrainian SSR, and Poland; I can't imagine a situation where the Soviets stop early would have had any different events. 

They've been smashed, but they'd get some support from the exiles returning, the Brits early on, which quickly gets replaced by the French who sell off their old WWII stuff as they update and turn into big arms exporters...and my thought was that this Poland would quickly become a major importer from France, for various reasons - the Americans eventually busy with Korea, and less interested in Europe this time around. 

The starting situation is at least obtainable without too many changes, but...can it be sustained, I wonder.  I admit I really like the idea conceptually, and it gives a nice mix of potential OPFORs.

Idly as far as combat capability, in the Free Poland scenario with Bagration stalling the previous year, that'd mean most of it was still in German hands when the surrender comes at the start of 1945 - maybe the Poles end up with much of their late-war hardware, as the Germans go home.  It'd form some sort of backbone of an early army...and they wouldn't have had the post-Bagration steamrolling of the Soviet army either.  So they've been hurt pretty bad, but not as much as it ended up in our time.

[Daryk]

Don't forget that would also mean no partitioned Germany, and potentially a Western Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and maybe even Romania.  Tito would still have held the Balkans.

Also, as far as the Polish exiles, if you ever get the chance to go to Monte Cassino, the Polish War Cemetery there is the best thing to see there.  There's a small museum just before you enter the cemetery proper, and it's in three languages (Polish, Italian, and English).  It's an amazing story.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Tito running rampant through the balkans, turning it into his little empire.  Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, and Hungarians kinda stuck in the middle doing their thing, also staring down the Russians.  Germany still ends up divided, though on different lines - the north under Brit occupation through Hanover, the Ruhr becomes part of France once more, and the south probably a Nuremburg republic.  Spain and Switzerland still stay neutral, along with Norway and Finland; the Swedes probably join in the French alliance against the Soviets.  America gets tired of Europe, and has its own things going in the Pacific anyway, and come 1950 they're occupied by the Korean situation.  The Low Countries would join in the French, while Soviet expansion comes in more subtle ways - less invasions, more advisors.  And until 1949, they'll be looking over their shoulder very carefully at the Americans, giving Poland a few years to consolidate.

It's a rough summary of the idea a friend and I had.  You'd end up with about 32 million population, but I daresay a vastly larger army than the defensive one we came up with originally for Fictional Republic (iteration 1).

Idly, no chance I'd get to go there, I don't travel well and I'm on fixed income anyway, LOL.  What's the story behind it, if you don't mind?