Creating Serednya Slaviya's military, part the second

[DOC_Agren]

and until they are members of NATO, to be honest they need to defend against all comers.  After all you never know who might try to upset the apple cart and overthrow the current government for someone more aligned with the upsetter POV.

[Failure16]

I've been gone too long to unpack all the excellent dialogue of late, but I'll toss my hat into the general "agreement ring".

Ditch the T-72s before someone does it for you, violently. Most here will know that I am a firm believer in the notion that gear is only as good as the troopers who use it. But the other side of that particular coin is that bad gear doesn't get better or more capable in the hands of an expert; it's just that the experts' prior planning and skill manage to camouflage the inherent deficiencies until the odds catch up to them.

Therefore, go with the gear you can afford, and put the overflow surplus into training, facilities, infrastructure, and building esprit de corps.

Chanman mentioned the Toyota War. It is a good example of ersatz gear trumping purpose-built machinery. But it only worked in the sahel because the individuals manning the technicals were motivated, properly staffed and led, and managed to work themselves into some of the finest contemporaneously modern light cavalry in the world. The PLA light brigades are really just an attempt to put into operation concepts that the US Army tried in the 1980s (primarily with the 9th ID and to a lesser extent the 7th LID and their FAV-based "fast-attack battalions"; see https://www.historylink.org/File/10131, "A High-Technology Test Bed").

Which leads me to...

As far as the why of buying from China, there's a few reasons.  The vehicles in question are modular in design, like the Boxer is, comes with all kinds of variants because of it including a 155mm howitzer, it's amphibious, and the price is a third or less of other options.  I admit I'm looking at it with a capabilities and statistics mindset, as well as one of price.  What don't you like about buying from China, out of curiosity?  I admit it's a long way to ship things and get tech support from,

Well, this:

@chanman
I think old new stuff is a more reliabe option than the chinese way i think.

...is the easiest way to say it. As well that Chinese military gear is hardly proven worldwide (and their civilian gear is certainly not fabulous despite its prevalence) and it comes with more strings than a reasonable person or group should assume is reasonable in a business transaction. Further discussion would risk treading in verboten territory which would be a disservice to and derail this wonderful family of threads.

If you manage to swing 4.8% of your NATO spending, I am quite sure you will be able to swing whatever American gear to want (okay, within reason, but you get it). Americans like people who spend money. Especially when you are spending it on them (or are doing something they want, which is often one and the same, not so?).

[ANS Kamas P81]

Points well made.  I'll reply more later when I've had some time to let my brain settle around things, but the debate over Chinese hardware...understood.  Doubly notable that none of their gear is battle-tested, unlike the Patria AMV or B1 Centauro.

As far as a Technical army, not quite, but I'm looking at stripping away the combined arms brigades and going with three squadrons of wheeled armored cavalry and six battalions of light infantry.  Any reasons I shouldn't do that?  I'm at that point because otherwise I'm still operating a lot of BTR-80s, and I'll have another 200 or so vehicles to replace - at which point it's getting prohibitively expensive to operate, hence my stripping them down to light infantry BNs instead.

[mikecj]

Battalion Combat Teams don't fare well when operating together.  You really need to let the brigades fight and train as brigades.

Any invading force coming in as Brigades or Divisions will eat them for breakfast even if your battalions concentrate.

There's a synergy that comes from operating together regularly.

[Daryk]

Last year's events pretty well demonstrated exactly that, and I expect this spring will see another Master Class on it too.

[Failure16]

If you are talking about a certain part of the world where a...borderland...is under sustained attack, the only thing that is being learned there is that mashing individuals into units and then pressing them into deliberate attack* with no training is equally as bad as doing the same to units.

So, you are both right (which is why countries have some form of Joint/National Training Center if they want to succeed), but its a damn shame to see it proved again and again.

I do think that Sere-Slav (and Kamas as its national father figure) will be using brigades/regiments as more than administrative formations, though battalions may find themselves operating semi-autonomously given the small size of the national defense force.

[Daryk]

As long as they exercise at the regimental level more than once a year, I think they'll be fine... 

[Failure16]

Right on, brother.

[NightSarge]

As long as they exercise at the regimental level more than once a year, I think they'll be fine... 

Regimental level training is quite necessary for all levels of leadership. Otherwise you cam come quite solaced in some places.

[Daryk]

The more senior levels need more "tabletop" exercises to stay proficient, but those are WAY cheaper to do.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Big post with long lists incoming.  And some questions as well, but at least I've solved the vehicle source question.

Yes, I'm definitely using brigades as the major combat element, not breaking it down into battalion groups.  The BTG concept didn't work for the Russians, while the American brigade combat team is what I'm trying to reflect but with light infantry forces instead of mechanized troops.

National training center...not sure Serednya Slaviya's big enough for a dedicated area to romp around in the size of the NTC; it's only about 125 miles by 125 miles for the whole country.  Our good neighbors in Poland should have plenty of training fields.  I imagine the brigades rotate to eastern Poland for large-scale training; they'd deploy as brigades just as they would in fighting.  Spend a few weeks a year in Poland for each brigade, and get good training against fellow NATO units.


Click to enlarge.

Since I'm copying American organization when it comes to a brigade combat team, I might as well look at the organization I'm working off of.  I got rid of the mechanized infantry/tank combined-arms battalions, and only operating two Light Infantry battalions in each brigade instead of three.

This chart gives me a few questions - what makes up the Forward Support Companies in each of the battalions?  I also notice that the Cavalry Squadron lost its artillery, but I made sure to make up with it with NEMO 120mm mortars.

As far as the makeup of the cavalry platoon, that changes some as well.  I was originally going with four Patria AMVs and their infantry, two Panhard VBLs for scouts, two Centauros, and an AMV MEMO mortar system.  Unfortunately that led to a platoon size of 78 personnel which was way too large.  I traded two AMVs for two LMVs, and cut my platoon size down to 54 plus an attached Forward Observer and an attached Medic.  Still big, but nearly half of it is vehicle crews.

AMV 1
Vehicle Crew
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Platoon Commander (FB Beryl)
Rifle Squad
  Forward Observer (FB Beryl) (attached)
  Squad Leader (FB Beryl)
    Scout Team
      Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
      Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Fire Team
      Team Leader (FB Beryl + Pallad)
      Grenadier (RPG-7, FB Beryl)
      LMG Gunner (Ultimax 100, CZ-75)
      Marksman (FR F2)
    Fire Team
      Team Leader (FB Beryl + Pallad)
      Grenadier (RPG-7, FB Beryl)
      LMG Gunner (Ultimax 100, CZ-75)
      Rifleman (FB Beryl)
AMV 2
Vehicle Crew
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Platoon Sergeant (FB Beryl)
Rifle Squad
  Medic (CZ-75) (attached)
  Squad Leader (FB Beryl)
    Scout Team
      Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
      Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Fire Team
      Team Leader (FB Beryl + Pallad)
      Grenadier (RPG-7, FB Beryl)
      LMG Gunner (Ultimax 100, CZ-75)
      Rifleman (FB Beryl)
    Fire Team
      Team Leader (FB Beryl + Pallad)
      Grenadier (RPG-7, FB Beryl)
      LMG Gunner (Ultimax 100, CZ-75)
      Rifleman (FB Beryl)
LMV 1
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Drone Operator (FB Beryl)
  Scout Team
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
LMV 2
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Scout Team
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
LMV 3
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Scout Team
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
LMV 4
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Scout Team
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
    Cavalry Scout (FB Beryl)
Centauro 1
  Commander (FB Mini Beryl)
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Loader (FB Mini Beryl)
Centauro 2
  Commander (FB Mini Beryl)
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Loader (FB Mini Beryl)
AMV NEMO Mortar 1
  Commander (FB Mini Beryl)
  Driver (FB Mini Beryl)
  Gunner (FB Mini Beryl)
  Loader (FB Mini Beryl)

Nine vehicles in that platoon, though, so it's still going to be bulky.

It's not as heavily armed as it might seem, either; the AMVs only carry M2HB in a remote weapons station.  Two of the LMVs also mount M2HB machine guns; the other two LMVs carry 40mm grenade launchers onboard.  I figure the LMV's guns can be easily dismounted to set up in observation posts or other dug in positions.  I was originally going to go with Panhard VBLs instead of LMVs, but the VBL meant not having a dedicated gunner or extra seat available.

For jobs requiring a translator or other personnel, the LMV seats five, so I have room for three mission specialists to attach to the platoon if necessary.

The revised cavalry squadron looks like this:

Squadron Command Troop
  Command Team
    Patria AMV x2
  Mortar Platoon
    Patria AMV NEMO (120mm Mortar) x4
  Air Defense Platoon
    SA-9 Gaskin x4
    Patria AMV x2
      SAM teams x4
  Chemical Platoon
    GAZ 66 4x4 Truck
  Drone Platoon
    GAZ 66 4x4 Truck x2
  Medical Platoon
    Patria AMV Ambulance x6
  Supply Platoon
    Ural 375D 6x6 Truck x10
  Maintenance Platoon
    MAN KAT 1 x3
    Patria AMV x4
  Motor Pool
    UAZ 469 x20
    GAZ 66 4x4 Truck x12
Cavalry Troop x3
  B1 Centauro
  Patria AMV (HQ Vehicle)
  Patria AMV NEMO (120mm mortar) x2
  Iveco LMV x3
  Platoon x3
    Patria AMV x2
      Rifle Team x2
      Scout Team
    Iveco LMV x4
      Scout Team
    B1 Centauro x2
    Patria AMV NEMO (120mm mortar)
Recon Troop
  EBRC Jaguar x2
  Recon Platoon
    EBRC Jaguar x4
  Recon Platoon
    EBRC Jaguar x4
  Gun Platoon
    B1 Centauro x4

That comes to 35 Patria AMVs, 19 Patria AMV NEMOs, 45 Iveco LMVs, 25 B1 Centauros, 10 EBRC Jaguars, 4 SA-9 Gaskins, 15 GAZ-66s, 10 Ural 375Ds, and 3 MAN KAT 1s in each squadron.  That's a lot of 120mm mortar fire from the various echelons of the squadron.

I wanted to find a place to slot at least a few EBRC Jaguars, and it made sense to put a mounted recon troop of dedicated reconaissance vehicles alongside the dismounted cavalry scouts.  It partially replaces what would be the heavier tank troop in the cavalry squadron.

The Squadron Command platoons I have listed, would they apply to the Light Infantry battalion level command as well?  That'd let me add up my total number of vehicles, and get an idea of how much I'm actually spending on hardware.

Light Brigade
  Headquarters & Headquarters Company
  Light Cavalry Squadron (AMV/Centauro)
  Light Infantry Battalion
  Light Infantry Battalion
  Artillery Battalion (CAESAR/BM-21 Grad)
  Brigade Engineer Battalion
  Brigade Support Battalion
Light Brigade
  Headquarters & Headquarters Company
  Light Cavalry Squadron (AMV/Centauro)
  Light Infantry Battalion
  Light Infantry Battalion
  Artillery Battalion (CAESAR/BM-21 Grad)
  Brigade Engineer Battalion
  Brigade Support Battalion
Support Brigade
  Military Police Battalion
  Intelligence Battalion
    Military Intelligence Company
    Counter-Intelligence Company
    Signals-Intelligence Company
  PSYOPs Company
  Civil Affairs Company
  Mortuary Affairs Company

As far as the artillery battalions go, I'm thinking each brigade has three batteries, one of CAESAR 155mm guns and two of BM-21 Grad rockets.  That's a total of 12 tubes and 24 rocket launchers, which isn't terribly accurate but pretty heavy on the boom.  I intend to replace those artillery pieces with CAESAR 155mm entirely, though I'm only doing that at one battery per year.

I cut it down to two fighting brigades instead of three; I had too many battalions that I didn't have enough troops to fill.  As it is now, it comes to a total of 16 battalion-equivalents, with roughly 11,500 troops.  That average comes to around 720 personnel per battalion.  Considering my light infantry companies are 200-strong units, that about fits the numbers I'm seeing.  That also cut my requirements for the number of vehicles in the force, losing the third cavalry squadron meant I could afford to modernize the cavalry forces, with the artillery next on the list.

tl;dr: I'm down to two brigades instead of three, I made the cavalry troops smaller, I modernized out most of the old Soviet hardware, I'm trying to copy the Infantry BCT, I don't have all the firepower in the cavalry that I used to.

[Daryk]

For jobs requiring a translator or other personnel, the LMV seats five, so I have room for four mission specialists to attach to the platoon if necessary.

That sounds like room for a drone operator... 

[ANS Kamas P81]

That sounds like room for a drone operator... 

You are of course entirely correct; I wrote that when I still had VBLs on the brain for those vehicles.  Edited the post to add a drone operator to one of the LMVs.

[Daryk]

And that's why threads like these are so cool! 

[Failure16]

I'm digging this latest force. Aren't you glad this went to a new thread? 

When you are not hanging out with the Poles, I am quite sure you can swing a JMRC Hohenfels rotation every so often with your 4.8% NATO spending (even if it is just a light-inf battalion sent over to bolster the OpFor).

[Daryk]

The fact we're at 1600 posts and counting is testament by itself... 

[ANS Kamas P81]

I'm digging this latest force. Aren't you glad this went to a new thread? 

Actually I am, it's been informative and fun to work out the details to fill in Serednya Slaviya's armed forces.  Working out some of the history as well was a surprise, especially the early years after the fall of the USSR.  It just felt right to have the initial oligarchy rise up and get overthrown by a popular movement and a coup that turned into a short-lived civil war, followed by a big anti-corruption push.

What if, instead of a group of politicians taking over post 1991 it was the military cracking down on civilian governance and installing a particular general as president, who installs a military dictatorship for a few years before the coup.  That would be why the military falls in on itself in a civil war, with the rebel forces eventually winning and deposing the general and his cronies.  It'd also be one more reason to reformat the military, this time as something that serves the government instead of its own interests.  Serednya Slaviya would spend the next few years rebuilding itself and the damage from the civil war, and probably had a UN intervention force after the end of the war to keep the peace - Poland taking a lead role in that, hence why there's such good relations with our western neighbor.

When you are not hanging out with the Poles, I am quite sure you can swing a JMRC Hohenfels rotation every so often with your 4.8% NATO spending (even if it is just a light-inf battalion sent over to bolster the OpFor).

4.8% is pretty high, but it's matching Ukraine's numbers for 2021.  I suppose ever since 2014 the percentage jumped up, though I haven't worked out how much - though I'm going to be spending around 40 million a year on replacing the Soviet vehicles with NATO equipment, some old and some new.  So I'm certainly exceeding NATO's 2% requirement.

Hohenfels looks like a fun place, and I'd certainly happily ship units over there for large-scale and small-scale training.  And even if it's only 63 square miles, I'm not sure I could duplicate such a training facility in Serednya Slaviya.  At around 125x125 miles, a 7x9 mile section takes up a surprisingly large chunk.  So yeah, we'll send battalions or brigades out to NATO facilities elsewhere, and give the logistics and transportation folks plenty of experience.

The fact we're at 1600 posts and counting is testament by itself... 

It's also a testament of how many iterations this has gone through, and a big testament of "I can't let an idea go."   But what's a little OCD between friends, anyway.

Just to rebuild the cavalry cost:
108 Patrias at 2.3 million each: at least 248.4 million USD
90 Iveco LMVs at 390,000 each: 35.2 milion USD
50 B1 Centauros at 1.6 million each: 80 million USD
20 EBRC Jaguars at 5 million each: 100 million USD

All together that comes to only 463.6 million; that's assuming Patria AMV NEMO mortar carriers aren't that much more expensive than the base vehicle.  I could pay that off over ten years with relative ease, though that's not the only thing the military's buying.  Granted, I'm probably taxing pretty highly to get such levels of defense spending, but what's a European government without high taxes anyway?  Gotta pay for stuff somehow.

[Daryk]

You're keeping your personnel numbers relatively low, so that will help.  People are the most expensive things over the long term.

[ANS Kamas P81]

No kidding, I'm paying 33.7 million a year in payroll alone.  And that's not counting benefits or retirement pay, either.  At least small arms are cheap.  11,500 rifles and pistols only comes to under 6 million, assuming 500 bucks per weapon at manufacturer's price.

[chanman]

Just to rebuild the cavalry cost:
108 Patrias at 2.3 million each: at least 248.4 million USD
90 Iveco LMVs at 390,000 each: 35.2 milion USD
50 B1 Centauros at 1.6 million each: 80 million USD
20 EBRC Jaguars at 5 million each: 100 million USD

What's the annual cost on upkeep and expendables? I'm pretty sure there's actuarial guides for rough estimation of annual costs barring absolute lemons. Established designs will obviously have more solid data. For cars, it seems to be 3-5% per year. Using 5% as the benchmark, that's going to be about 23 mil a year in upkeep*

*upkeep gets more expensive if you run units harder than expected and start deferring maintenance. Just ask the US Navy

Stretching procurement out and staggering introduction of new designs over a longer period of time also helps in a couple respects:
1) The necessity of having to replace multiple designs at the same time down the road
2) Simplifying familiarization. You don't want depot to accidentally cross Centauro procedures or parts with Patria ones
3) Multiple tranches give space and time to introduce changes that might be necessary for your operating conditions. Centauro traction control or tires might not be up to handling East European mud season and you might need to change say, tires, or doctrine to accommodate. Maybe your troops can't stop doing tank desant so you need to have  handholds, footrests, and stirrups tack-welded everywhere

[chanman]

The more senior levels need more "tabletop" exercises to stay proficient, but those are WAY cheaper to do.

Time to practice some collaboration with the private sector. You can call it Public-Private partnership, or Military-Civil fusion, or some other mix of buzzwords of various degrees of ominous-ness.

Serednya Slaviya's military needs to partner with its publishing and hospitality industries to host the biggest annual wargame extravaganza seen since the emergence of the personal computer*! 

It's not new at all - there's plenty of individual cross-pollination between think tanks, wargaming spaces, and staff colleges, but being a niche aspect of all those does leave room for some directed coordination.

*There's room for collaboration with niche publishers or studios that work mostly in the strategy or wargaming space like Paradox or Slitherine, but the caveat is that unless the project is government-funded, there will be commercial considerations and software costs are essentially open-ended. Perhaps the most useful software for you would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_Simulator

*IIRC, while Germany is the center of the board game world, there may be historical complexities with giving wargames a particularly high profile

[Daryk]

Kriegspiel is totally harmless! 

[ANS Kamas P81]

I'll go with 5% a year in maintenance costs, at least for the ground vehicles.  Aircraft are probably higher, but I have only a few of those.  My operations budget is, for 2023, 81.3 million so that's more than enough for maintaining the new and old hardware.

I forgot to add in the twelve CAESAR howitzers at 7.5 million; that's an additional 90 million to my procurement (and 4.5 million to my maintenance) but I can spread that over 15 years, along with everything else.  The only things that would be frontloaded are the Jaguar buy at 100 million, and that's still got a four year window to buy into the program and get vehicles.  The Patria AMVs show up in 2002 for Poland, CAESAR for the French in 2008, Centauros date back to 1991 and finished deliveries in 2006, LMV dates back to 2001, so I've got plenty of time to order various tranches and have modifications made as well as pay off my deliveries.

Granted, that's with some pretty high defense spending, but Serednya Slaviya's fear is that Ukraine falls and they're next on the list, with help from Belarus.  It's not like they could hold off a determined Russian invasion launched from Ukrainian territory; the sheer mismatch between the Red Army and the SSLF guarantees a Russian win.  But the hope is that by god the Russians will feel it if they try, barring NATO alliance support.  It's the best I can do, really, but I accept that as the price of running such a small country.

Hm, the idea of wargaming being a national hobby might be interesting.  Maybe there's room for some kind of partnership like you mention, but I figure there's only one military academy and staff college in Serednya Slaviya.  Whether there's enough room for think-tanks and military development centers is iffy, the whole population is only 2,184,000 or so.  The idea of a get-together to introduce people into the wargaming world could be a thing, maybe.

Say something where the academy students take on all comers in various wargames at a major convention, something like that?  The ones who do well get potentially scouted for applications into the military, perhaps with an eye to becoming an officer - though I've only got about two thousand officers in the military in total based on this document's 18% estimate.

Serednya Slaviya's pretty rural, with uplands in the south and forests in the north, and it has deep roots in Slavic traditions and folklore.  There's a lot of overlap between the majority Christian population and its pagan mythologies, especially reverence of a harvest wolf, uncommon for a country that far east.

It's old, it's insular, and it's traditional, so I don't see a lot of progressive ideas percolating to the top except in the occasional maverick thinker.  And even then there'd be a lot of pushback Hell, it probably took twenty years just to reorganize the military from a Soviet division to match the US IBCT, and only recently succeeded.

[Failure16]

Article V [almost] guarantees an attack on Sere Slav starts the Big One. Which could lead to an interesting second departure from our timeline (the first, of course, being Sere Slav's existence).

Hey, man, the Fringe awaits only a few hundred years or so!

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, NATO is a big thing keeping Serednya Slaviya alive.  Probably the only thing, in the end; even with the improvements to the army there's still no real chance for them in a major fight.  It all depends on how long they can hold off an invader, and if they can do it long enough for NATO's rapid reaction forces to intervene, and for the rest of the alliance to mobilize.  Which comes down to having a good national intelligence apparatus and reading the other guy's tea leaves.

I imagine Serednya Slaviya hasn't changed much by the time of the Fringe setting, either still rural, still farming, still got forests, there's not a lot of nightlife even in the big towns.  And probably still operating heavily on its light infantry, too.

And yes, that Orkney 'harvest wolf' thing I linked above is why I liked the Ghost Wolf Brigade name so much, it's something that fits the traditional mythology so well.  I suppose I'd name the other one the Bulava Brigade, which was suggested a while ago.  It can be stationed in the eastern part of the country, while Ghost Wolf is in the west. 

[Daryk]

Serednya Slaviya would be making common cause with the countries on the Baltic Sea, and would probably get much the same from the rest of NATO (rotating forces, air patrols, etc.).

[chanman]

Yeah, NATO is a big thing keeping Serednya Slaviya alive.  Probably the only thing, in the end; even with the improvements to the army there's still no real chance for them in a major fight.  It all depends on how long they can hold off an invader, and if they can do it long enough for NATO's rapid reaction forces to intervene, and for the rest of the alliance to mobilize.  Which comes down to having a good national intelligence apparatus and reading the other guy's tea leaves.

I imagine Serednya Slaviya hasn't changed much by the time of the Fringe setting, either still rural, still farming, still got forests, there's not a lot of nightlife even in the big towns.  And probably still operating heavily on its light infantry, too.

And yes, that Orkney 'harvest wolf' thing I linked above is why I liked the Ghost Wolf Brigade name so much, it's something that fits the traditional mythology so well.  I suppose I'd name the other one the Bulava Brigade, which was suggested a while ago.  It can be stationed in the eastern part of the country, while Ghost Wolf is in the west.

I may have missed it, but what are the borders of Serednya Slaviya and where's the capital?

[DOC_Agren]

And when are you designing your military from??
Are moving from what was left when the Warsaw Pact fell apart to present day.   And when Serednya Slaviya broke from Ukraine, there had to be fear as they went "West" while Ukraine stayed "Eastern" that they would want to "reclaim" their breakaway area.

[NightSarge]

Serednya Slaviya would be making common cause with the countries on the Baltic Sea, and would probably get much the same from the rest of NATO (rotating forces, air patrols, etc.).

Quasi some kind of a united front concept.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I may have missed it, but what are the borders of Serednya Slaviya and where's the capital?

Serednya Slaviya is the combination of Volynska Oblast and Rivne Oblast, the two northwestern regions marked off in this map.  The capital is Rivne.  It was an area that back in the late 1910s when the USSR set up its expansion it was a region that didn't see itself as Ukrainian, but simply as "locals" to the area.  So there is a historical independent mindset for the region; hence in its history it wasn't incorporated as an SSR but instead formed a little client state for the Soviets.  Language is a local dialect of Ukrainian that isn't terribly different.

And when are you designing your military from??
Are moving from what was left when the Warsaw Pact fell apart to present day.   And when Serednya Slaviya broke from Ukraine, there had to be fear as they went "West" while Ukraine stayed "Eastern" that they would want to "reclaim" their breakaway area.

Military design is as of modern day, hence all the commentary about watching the current events happening in its neighbor and how warfare is changing the organizational ideas that come up.

As far as when Serednya Slaviya was formed, that was as mentioned above, spun out of an historically independent region of Ukraine that didn't get absorbed into the USSR.  It's not a breakaway area like Taiwan is to China.

Quasi some kind of a united front concept.

That's NATO for you.  Though just how united it is can vary from day to day...