SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread III

[Steve]

On the matter of the insurance insisting on security, that's where the armed guards come in. Not only that, but as I recall I expressly remarked that the mutiny was almost snuffed out by the mutineers being locked in the hold, but one of the crew was a native Bissauru native of the same tribe as the captives from there and held a door open for them long enough for armed men to get through.

And it's not like it'd be the first time that security measures were lax.

As for Bissauru, sure, maybe I was wrong to think that Equitoreal Guinea wasn't immune from intertribal conflicts along the border areas, especially since unlike the real-life country Bissauru has a border with nothing at one area.

[Sea Skimmer]

And if you want to talk about this becoming a wargame, well, maybe that's because someone built his own military without any adherence to the point system and made himself so powerful militarily so as to equal most of the Old Continent combined, if not the entire Old Continent, because those players did adhere to the point system?

Its not my fault people are too damn ignorant to even copy and paste together the NATO and USSR OOBs I offered up which showed in great detail what can be afforded.. It is however a problem that people don’t fucking know how to make a military, and don’t know how to fight one, and yet the game gets a new war every week.

[Norseman]

By the way I can't find any Law of the Seas source that says that Cascadia may search Astarian ships. The closest thing I could find was this:

"Under the law of armed conflict, belligerent warships or aircraft may visit and search a merchant vessel for the purpose of determining its true character, i.e., enemy or neutral, nature of cargo, manner of employment, and other facts bearing on its relation to the conflict. Such visits occur outside neutral territorial seas. This right does not extend to visiting or searching warships or vessels engaged in government non-commercial service. In addition, neutral merchant vessels in convoy of neutral warships are exempt from visit and search, although the convoy commander may be required to certify the neutral character of merchant vessels' cargo."

There's no war declared though, and even if you claim it is to say... capture pirates, all that would be required is an escorting warship to make it a convoy. Certainly not legal.

By the way (to SeaSkimmer) I tried to use real world militaries in order to build my forces. However that seems to have failed rather miserably. I'm working on a rather complete refurbishment of my forces, IC that is, but that will probably take a while. In my defence though I've not started any wars, nor have I really been in the business of starting one.

[RogueIce]

Ok, 13 OHP frigates, two of them recently overhauled so they're "like new". I just really, really need the names for my new frigates so it's time to get rid of the old. They'll be stripped of sensitive materials and you'll have to arm them yourself, of course, but I will let you take possession over here in the Shinra Republic and sail away with a full tank of gas.

I'll also have one more ready to sell by the end of the (game) year, but it's currently out on deployment so I can't. PM me if you want them since I know I'll lose track if it's done in here. We can just do the "undisclosed sum" thing since I'm reasonably sure you all can afford a (sane) number of old FFGs, especially as I'll limit by size:

Duchy - max 4
Principality - max 6
Kingdom - max 8

If I really, really like you or want to get on your good side I can increase by 1 or 2. If I get more offers than I have ships I'll try to be fair and work something out.

And now, off to decommissioning so I can use their names for my pending frigates!

[Steve]

Cascadia will take six.

[RogueIce]

So Steve gets 6 at $200mil a pop. That leaves 7 now, with an 8th at the end of the year-ish (around Oct. 15 real time).

And I figure it'll go for $250 million, but if you buy four or more I'll knock off $50 million per ship.

[Norseman]

I am working on my own response to the CSR attack, and view on the outcome thereof. It'll be out sometime tomorrow I hope.

[Setzer]

I'm thinking of really re-activating the FUN.

Cascadia has been trying to mediate peace in the world. Zoria and the Kingdom of Serenity/Mangka are trying to form some form of alliance. Well, let me tell you that you can get Shroomania in on an alliance and through that, you can get Shroomania's friends in PeZookia AND Frequesue. And Langley! And Sirnoth!

GO FUN!

I'm in.

I think we should do our bit to prevent the situation from escalating. The problem is, we're rather scattered, geographically speaking. Anyone have any ideas?

[Coiler]

Its not my fault people are too damn ignorant to even copy and paste together the NATO and USSR OOBs I offered up which showed in great detail what can be afforded.. It is however a problem that people don’t fucking know how to make a military, and don’t know how to fight one, and yet the game gets a new war every week.

Of course not everyone will have the same in-depth knowledge of military budgets that you do. Of course not everyone will have the same desire to go massively in-depth with their militaries like you do.

Coyote pointed out this problem exactly-some people want to play Simcity, others want to play Command and Conquer, all on the same program.

I think a huge mistake made by either not making the point system mandatory for anyone, or for allowing it at all. It was unrealistic, but allowed for increased smoothness of army formation, for those (like me) who didn't want to get bogged down in budgets. The problem is that those who do can organize a much larger and unbalanced (from a gameplay perspective) army.

This argument wouldn't have come up if one side was forced to bite the bullet and accept a system it didn't like for the sake of either realism or easier army formation.

I can understand your frustration to an extent-I myself was annoyed at the MESS players choosing a needlessly costly amphibious assault over a secure landing and overland push through the OD. But I'm also getting a "HA HA! I KNOW MORE ABOUT THE MILITARY THAN OTHERS, SO I'LL GET A BIGGER ARMY AND PROVOKE A WAR SO I CAN CRUSH THEM WITH MY SUPERIOR KNOWLEDGE AND PLANNING-FUCK GAME BALANCE" vibe from people like Shep and you.

[Karmic Knight]

Ok, 13 OHP frigates, two of them recently overhauled so they're "like new". I just really, really need the names for my new frigates so it's time to get rid of the old. They'll be stripped of sensitive materials and you'll have to arm them yourself, of course, but I will let you take possession over here in the Shinra Republic and sail away with a full tank of gas.

Am I still getting my three or four?

[Raj Ahten]

On Indhopal's military: with the acquisiton of the subs I'm mentioning, that is pretty much going to be it for Indhopal's military size wise. Getting ll those ships and subs is also likely going to take a few years.

[K. A. Pital]

...that everyone seems intent to turn this into a pure wargame

Seriously, get a clue. It wasn't even close to a wargame until Shep and Lonestar decided to have a wargaming wankfest. And the fact that "everyone doesn't have a fucking clue" how to build up militaries is wrong - some people (like me) just thought the points system is obligatory since it had caps.

Its not like the world hasn’t seen 20th century slave ships either, the Soviets operated quite a number of them for the gulag system. In one case such a ship became trapped in the pack ice in winter, and the entire human cargo ended up starving to death, they couldn’t escape dispute numbering several thousand.

That one's probably and most likely a tall tale (kitbashed to underscore "Cheluskin"), but POW and prisoner ships, as well as GULAG vessels existed in reality. However, mutinies on ships, even large ones, were a fact of life. The ability to get some arms is paramount. "La Amistad" didn't occur in the Middle Ages either, you know. For a yet more recent example, see "Pervorechensk". In Ukraine - Kiev, Odessa, etc. men made contracts but were later enslaved on a fisher trawler "Pervorechensk". The people were forced to fish (illegally, of course ) with very limited food. Finally they mutineed, which forced a standoff between fishers and slavers, wheer the former were not taking any food. Ultimately the vessel could not fish any longer, and the slaves managed to take over a comm facility and send a message to coastal guard. That was 2004.

The fact is any power that is a democracy or anything close to it in this game would have OVERWHELMING levels of public opinion against any kind of war

I never ran any "war" except a Yugoslavia-like bombing of Astaria - hell, even less than that. I know ground interventions will not get public support due to the massive level of casualties they entail.

[Sea Skimmer]

Seriously, get a clue. It wasn't even close to a wargame until Shep and Lonestar decided to have a wargaming wankfest.

Right, and they had their own damn island so that it wouldn't affect anyone else directly, but then world police alliances had to get involved. Now meanwhile how many months of peace has Frequesue ever had?

And the fact that "everyone doesn't have a fucking clue" how to build up militaries is wrong - some people (like me) just thought the points system is obligatory since it had caps.

It wasn't, and that was no secret. Not my problem.

I never ran any "war" except a Yugoslavia-like bombing of Astaria - hell, even less than that. I know ground interventions will not get public support due to the massive level of casualties they entail.

But it can't be like Yugosalvia, your declaring war on a fully equipped, fully intact nation by doing that. Yugoslavia had almost no ability at all to respond with offensive military force, it was an already broken state faced with the worlds most powerful military alliance that was already deployed in the region in such a manner as to totally blockade it. Astaria meanwhile has great isolation, 450 decent fighters with tanker support and some very modern submarines. That means it can defend itself and it can strike back. You can't just do a hit and run and expect zero reply. In many respects it would work out to be stronger then Iraq in 1991 given its much newer weapons and general isolation.

Course, Yugoslavia also provides a lesson one can see in WW2 and many other wars, external attacks typically strengthen extremists regimes as long as they can keep the people fed. Astaria will probably now be using its household slaves as labor battalions to clear raid air debris and pour bunkers along the coast.

[Steve]

Newer weapons relative to Iraq or newer weapons period?

[K. A. Pital]

Right, and they had their own damn island so that it wouldn't affect anyone else directly. Now meanwhile how many months of peace has Frequesue ever had?

I'm not sure there are ongoing wars there right now. Maybe a low-intensity conflict in that CFR place Raj likes so much, but I guess nothing beyond that.

It wasn't, and that was no secret. Not my problem.

Well, don't blame people for building up their militaries then. Unlike Shroom, I am at least reasonable about it and keep military aquisitions on a constant level from year to year - I kept the same production rates as I had in 2008. Neither can you blame people for banding together against you since their militaries, as a fact of life, have been lacking.

But it can't be like Yugosalvia, your declaring war on a fully equipped, fully intact nation by doing that.

Sure, what next? I figured out what his nation looks like, what kind of equipment he has. What kind of attack I need to conduct. He doesn't have a long arm to strike back at me.

Astaria meanwhile has great isolation

Meaning that it can't get data on what is being prepared against it either, only projected plans.

450 decent fighters with tanker support and some very modern submarines.

Oh sure, sure. He doesn't have strategic bombers however. He can do needle-runs against my nation with his fighters refuelled mid-air, but that's it. He can try and do it. My IADS network consists of S-300PMU-2 and S-400, meaning longer ROE and farther radar reach, than the stock weapons he has.

In many respects it would work out to be stronger then Iraq in 1991 given its much newer weapons and general isolation.

Of course it's stronger than Iraq. It still has no long arm. But he can try.

P.S. What do you think would be his response time? How many fighters would he be able to lift in the air before I blow a huge SEAD salvo over his territory? I gave him realistic time of reaction - his first A-50 detected my initial penetrators at oh-380 km, while was fired at oh-300 km something, in total it's destruction operation took 5 minutes, and 4 minutes to warn. My planes will be covering his entire nation in 10 minutes, so any other AEW&C present will be down within this time.

How many fighters will his IADS scramble then?

As for the PVO systems he has, my SEAD missiles have longer or equal ROE than his SAM complexes, sadly. He doesn't have the latest S-300-PMU-1/2 versions, right? I even gave him one battery of such weapons, with a 150 km ROE.

[Steve]

What should also be noted is that the quality of the Astarian military's manpower is described as "conscript-level and poor" by the OrBat Marina compiled for Norse.

[Sea Skimmer]

Newer weapons relative to Iraq or newer weapons period?

The gap between Astarian weapons standards and SDN world 2009 par is smaller then the gap between Iraqi and Coalition weapons in 1991, and the weapons are just physically newer. A few of his systems like SA-12/SA-17 and the diesel subs pretty much are top notch, but they make sense, Astarian put its limited money towards key capabilities. Saddam would have done the same, but he was just simply denied any access to the best toys by international political policies from all nations that are simply not in play in this game or its history.

[K. A. Pital]

The coalition also suffered 75 losses per 100,000 sorties. That's a 0,00075 loss rate. They also often flied low which allowed ZSUs to pin them, and tried to penetrate defenses in small groups, while my fighters and bombers are concentrated, flying at higher altitudes and lobbing SEAD missiles at maximum range of engagement versus the better SAM systems like S-300. First phase of Iraq operation included only 84 targets. But the Coalition also had to bomb hundreds if not thousands of various army depots, etc. I don't have to do that.

It's a different bombing campaign from Iraq. There's no ground war. There are no multiple sorties. Astaria doesn't have hyper-powerful large FARs to detect incoming objects at thousands of kms away. And I'm not flying low.

Hell, I even estimated a loss of 24 planes during the single sortie. That's a very high rate for a single sortie, reflecting the advanced nature of Astaria's IADS. Do you want me to determine everything by the second? I'll do it. Count on it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, don't blame people for building up their militaries then. Unlike Shroom, I am at least reasonable about it and keep military aquisitions on a constant level from year to year - I kept the same production rates as I had in 2008. Neither can you blame people for banding together against you since their militaries, as a fact of life, have been lacking.

I will as long as people keep bitching about my armaments at every chance, when you yourself acknowledged that that I outspend the Soviet Union 2 to 1, but most certainly do not have even equalforces.

Sure, what next? I figured out what his nation looks like, what kind of equipment he has. What kind of attack I need to conduct. He doesn't have a long arm to strike back at me.

He has submarines, and it wouldn’t take more then a few sunken merchant ships to cause you problems and to shoot shipping insurances rates through the roof. That’ll remain until you sink every last one, and make the shipping companies believe it.

P.S. What do you think would be his response time? How many fighters would he be able to lift in the air before I blow a huge SEAD salvo over his territory?

Quite a few because your planes would have made a huge amount of radio chatter to conduct so many refueling over the open ocean without GPS. This assumes he gets no intelligence at all of so many planes taking off in the first place. He also happens to have modern SAMs, including SA-12 and SA-17 both of which can shoot down incoming anti radiation missiles. Iraq didn’t have that, and yet we still had to fire 2000 HARM missiles in the Gulf War, at the end of which Iraq still had a number of operational systems.

I gave him realistic time of reaction - his first A-50 detected my initial penetrators at oh-380 km, while was fired at oh-300 km something, in total it's destruction operation took 5 minutes, and 4 minutes to warn.

And you assumed it was unescorted which is illogical, you don’t fly radar planes without some kind of support, or else what on earth is the value of flying them?. He also doesn’t have any good reason to fly them so close to his own coast when its blatantly well known that supersonic bombers are common in this world. Either they’d be over his own territory so they can be easily defended, or way out over the ocean to provide real early warning. This is assuming he doesn’t have any backscatter radars, which would be a blindly obvious solution to defending a large island, but they aren’t specified as existing.

My planes will be covering his entire nation in 10 minutes, so any other AEW&C present will be down within this time.

I wouldn’t expect radar planes to live long, but I would expect them to be properly deployed.

How many fighters will his IADS scramble then?

By 15 minutes he would have abiyt 100 in the air, if not more if they were really on a high alert status. In general 25% of forces can be held at a high state of readiness for a limited period, in true peacetime it would be more like 5% but his forces would fully well know a crisis is brewing because of the slave ship.

As for the PVO systems he has, my SEAD missiles have longer or equal ROE than his SAM complexes, sadly. He doesn't have the latest S-300-PMU-1/2 versions, right? I even gave him one battery of such weapons, with a 150 km ROE.

He has S-300V and Buk-M2, which are designed to work together. That is nothing to sneeze at. S-300V was even designed with an integral capability to defeat supersonic high flying missile too, owing to the high need to defend against nuclear SRAM attacks. The defenses are specified as on par with Poland in numbers density. Poland in 1989 had 10 brigades with about 300 launchers of heavy SAMs for its air defence forces. He also four more (Poland had 3) army brigades spelled out as existing, abet one is specified as being in his colony. This doesn’t count individual divisions air defence battalions.

Furthermore, what on earth is this MiG-31s provide target stuff? They could maybe make radar maps of an airfield, but someone has to go and interpret that data, and then program the locations of things into cruise missiles. That’s the limitation of cruise missiles, without GPS you cannot just tell them to go to arbitrary locations with any useful accuracy unless you first perform detailed reconnaissance to create TERCOM maps and collection infrared photos of what you want to hit. In the Gulf War it took the US six months to do this using satellites.

[Sea Skimmer]

The coalition also suffered 75 losses per 100,000 sorties. That's a 0,00075 loss rate.

Yeah, against a nation with greatly inferior technology. Not a single modern SAM system in the entire country, and for modern fighters the best Iraq had were about 30 Fulcrum As which just weren’t even allowed to fly half the time. The best Iraq had was old models of SA-6, effectively the same version used in 1973 against Israel along with a few slightly newer but not all weather capable Roland firing units. Iraq also simply fell prey to new technology it just didn’t anticipate like stealth fighters being able to knock out vital parts of its command system by surprise.

They also often flied low which allowed ZSUs to pin them, and tried to penetrate defenses in small groups, while my fighters and bombers are concentrated, flying at higher altitudes and lobbing SEAD missiles at maximum range of engagement versus the better SAM systems like S-300.

Ehn, use of low level tactics was minimal over Iraq strategic targets, really only the British did it to hit airfields, and contrary to common reports, they lost only one plane on a JP.233 mission. The US most certainly employed mass tactics when it was appropriate, including in one case the simultaneous launch of over 100 HARM missiles into the Bagdad area, which knocked out much less then 100 radars. But then this hardly matters, Iraq didn’t have anything that could compete.

First phase of Iraq operation included only 84 targets. But the Coalition also had to bomb hundreds if not thousands of various army depots, etc. I don't have to do that.

No but you do have to deal with ten times as many modern fighters that will actually fight, and SAMs which are not sitting ducks. And you have to do this thousands of miles from any friendly base.

It's a different bombing campaign from Iraq. There's no ground war. There are no multiple sorties. Astaria doesn't have hyper-powerful large FARs to detect incoming objects at thousands of kms away. And I'm not flying low.

So his radars can see you 350 miles away then, radar signatures on bombers are huge, particularly supersonic ones with unshielded turbine blades. Never mind the issue of radio chatter, you cannot have achieved much surprise with such a huge force refueling several times over.

Hell, I even estimated a loss of 24 planes during the single sortie. That's a very high rate for a single sortie, reflecting the advanced nature of Astaria's IADS. Do you want me to determine everything by the second? I'll do it. Count on it.

What I’d REALLY like to know if how on earth you targeted electro optical homing missiles like Kh-101 with a freaking radar equipped interceptor.

[K. A. Pital]

I will as long as people keep bitching about my armaments at every chance, when you yourself acknowledged that that I outspend the Soviet Union 2 to 1, but most certainly do not have even equalforces.

You almost have it. The only thing which you'd be truly lacking versus the USSR is your Navy. Just as Shep, incidentally.

He has submarines, and it wouldn’t take more then a few sunken merchant ships to cause you problems and to shoot shipping insurances rates through the roof. That’ll remain until you sink every last one, and make the shipping companies believe it.

I'm not Great fucking Britain. I'm a continental power. Incidentally, I didn't see Norseman slip into unrestricted submarine warfare, but sure, let him do it. It would be a good task for my Navy, hunting down modern SSKs.

Quite a few because your planes would have made a huge amount of radio chatter to conduct so many refueling over the open ocean without GPS.

Are his SIGINT systems even capable of picking up that chatter at 700 km away from his coastline? Why would they, if they were following in tight formation, and the only planes that were refulled pre-operation were MiG-31s and Tu-22M5s?

This assumes he gets no intelligence at all of so many planes taking off in the first place.

That's assured. The decision was taken in secret by the Supreme Soviet. I have no diplomatic ties, no ties with Astaria at all.

Iraq didn’t have that, and yet we still had to fire 2000 HARM missiles in the Gulf War, at the end of which Iraq still had a number of operational systems.

I fired 1600 in a single raid. That should count for something.

And you assumed it was unescorted which is illogical, you don’t fly radar planes without some kind of support, or else what on earth is the value of flying them?

What a bunch of bullcrap Skimmer. It was escorted, but so fucking what? I pinned it down by long range KS-172 missiles which are specifically designed to kill AEW&C planes from beyond escort engagement range. MiG-31's PESA is more than capable of picking him up at the range.

By 15 minutes he would have abiyt 100 in the air, if not more if they were really on a high alert status.

About 100 of all fighters? Skimmer, he probably has a total of 5-7 fighter/interceptor regiments with the number of fighters he has, depending on how he shuffled them. which means not many airfields to look at. In 15 minutes he could lift around 100 total machines into the air, but shouldn't the airfields come under fire by that time? Once the MiG-31s relay data, Mach 3 cruise missiles are sent against them. That means in the the same 10 minutes missiles from SSGNs and CGNs will start impacting their airfields.

S-300V was even designed with an integral capability to defeat supersonic high flying missile too, owing to the high need to defend against nuclear SRAM attacks. The defenses are specified as on par with Poland in numbers density. Poland in 1989 had 10 brigades with about 300 launchers of heavy SAMs for its air defence forces. He also four more (Poland had 3) army brigades spelled out as existing, abet one is specified as being in his colony. This doesn’t count individual divisions air defence battalions.

I'm more interested in how many radars he has, since radar supression is more important than individual launcher supression. Also, remember that ROE of S-300 is lower than MiG-31s radar detection capability and lower than the Kh-31PD strike capability. Those are dedicated ARAD seekers designed to engage them specifically at oh-150 km.

Furthermore, what on earth is this MiG-31s provide target stuff?

That's the way Russia used them in Chechnya.

They could maybe make radar maps of an airfield, but someone has to go and interpret that data, and then program the locations of things into cruise missiles.

Really? In that case, aren't the bombers with ALCMs totally worthless? I mean, the Tu-160s cruise missiles were designed to be able to use targeting data from Tu-95, Tu-22, MiG-31 and other plaforms capable of being used as R/C craft.

That’s the limitation of cruise missiles, without GPS you cannot just tell them to go to arbitrary locations with any useful accuracy

I presume I could hit an airstrip at the very least, no? After all, there are "Kurs-N"/NM and other targeting complexes present on bombers and EW-modified bombers to provide targeting and command over a bomber wing. Let's say MiG-31s didn't provide guidance for Kh-101s, but Tu-160s/Tu-22Ms and Tu-95s did. Also, even inertial targeting won't suck with missiles such as a Meteorit - it would cover it's distance in 10-15 minutes, allowing for a good CEP. Also, aren't airfields complex objects stretching for 500-600 m wide anyway? As I noted, his IADS is broken up in a few regiments, which means 5-6 airfields/AFBs. A typical airfield is an object 100 m wide and maybe 500-600 m long (50000 m square). Expending 16 high speed missles for greater CEP equates 2 per airfield in the very first minutes of battle - just to cause disruption and slow down his IADS reaction process. When Tu-95 bombers come over, they add some 30x2=60 Meteorit-A missiles, which are of course now guided more precisely, and have a time-to-kill of, uh... around 50-200 seconds, i.e. around few minutes. That would give over 20 cruise missiles per airfield even if some Tu-95s are downed before they release the Meteorit-As, discounting the numerous SEAD missiles which could home on airstrip radar facilities.

The Tu-160s once they enter start spamming Kh-101 missiles, which would also be quite a number, you know - almost 500.

Even with a 500-700 m CEP with purely inertial guidance and no TERCOM, there'd be around 500 slow and 70 high-speed missiles sent to impact those several airfields. Numbers matter.

The warheads in missiles can also be calculated. 400 kg for Kh-101, 1000 kg for Meteorits. A 400 kg BF warhead would have a destruction radius of 1500 m square (like a FAB/KAB-500). A 1000 kg, let's say 3000 m square. The first 16 Meteorit cruise missiles launched will cause explosions on 8000 m square in EACH airfield. The 480 Kh-101 possibly launched will strike 80000 m square per airfield. Additional 60 Meteorit-As will strike 30,000 m square per airfield. End of story, his airfields are burned - a total of 118,000 m square of explosions in a CEP of 500 m. I don't want to underscore the importance of guided munitions, but if I just want to burn his airfields to cinder, bad CEP and overwhelming number of missiles would suffice.

The US most certainly employed mass tactics when it was appropriate, including in one case the simultaneous launch of over 100 HARM missiles into the Bagdad area, which knocked out much less then 100 radars.

So what if you make that tenfold the number? If he has 300 SAM launchers, that means he has 4-6 times less radars for his PVO systems. I mean, fucking 1500 SEAD missiles versus hundreds of radars. Shouldn't that work?

So his radars can see you 350 miles away then

350 miles away? I used the realistic range at which he could do it for his AEW radar, the Shmel, on A-50. It's around 400 km for high-flying targets. As for "350 miles away", let's see. Recently Tu-160s managed to approach Great Britain to be 90 seconds away from it's coastline undetected. At their top speed that's 61 fucking kilometer. Does Britain have good radars?

What I’d REALLY like to know if how on earth you targeted electro optical homing missiles like Kh-101 with a freaking radar equipped interceptor.

I didn't use Kh-101 as SEAD. I used Kh-15P, Kh-31PD, Kh-22P as my SEAD munitions.

[Norseman]

What should also be noted is that the quality of the Astarian military's manpower is described as "conscript-level and poor" by the OrBat Marina compiled for Norse.

That would be the Army, it makes little sense to have the Navy or the Air Defence Force or even the Air Force be all conscript! I mean I can picture it; "Conscript Smith! For the next 11 months you'll be trained to use the MiG-31, and then you'll fly it for a month!" Doesn't really fly.

Also of course I've spent over a year improving on my military. Indeed the reason the Army and Airforce are so limited is that in 2008 they were still undergoing reform and refurbishment.

[Sea Skimmer]

You almost have it. The only thing which you'd be truly lacking versus the USSR is your Navy. Just as Shep, incidentally.

Hardly, the Soviet Union had close to twice as many divisions at some 150, and some 7,000 combat aircraft against my 2,000. As he discussed before, I also don’t have any nuclear forces.

I'm not Great fucking Britain. I'm a continental power. Incidentally, I didn't see Norseman slip into unrestricted submarine warfare, but sure, let him do it. It would be a good task for my Navy, hunting down modern SSKs.

So what, every nation with a sea coast uses maritime trade heavily and will suffer from its disruption.

Are his SIGINT systems even capable of picking up that chatter at 700 km away from his coastline?

Spy satellites pick up those kinds of transmissions from as much as 35,000km away, and in addition you’re flying in-between two areas of Japanistani held land, over the routes most of my navy is busy convoying stuff to the untamed continent. If I picked up any chatter it would be passed right along, never mind the potential for actual radar detection, though I’d assume your planes flew clear of any active radars, which would eat into fuel reserves even more.

Why would they, if they were following in tight formation, and the only planes that were refulled pre-operation were MiG-31s and Tu-22M5s?

That would be a pretty epic feat of coordination and navigation over what is it, three thousand miles?

That's assured. The decision was taken in secret by the Supreme Soviet. I have no diplomatic ties, no ties with Astaria at all.

So that means he can’t possibly have even one plane spotter in your entire nation? And that absolutely no other ship or plane possibly noticed? And that his air defence forces are just brain-dead when they’ve just had a whole modern war to study?

I fired 1600 in a single raid. That should count for something.

It would count for a lot of wasted missiles when a dozen missile a single radar that decided to just turn off, that’s for sure. That’s exactly why the great HARM swarm didn’t knock out all of Iraqs radars, nor those of Yugoslavia.

What a bunch of bullcrap Skimmer. It was escorted, but so fucking what? I pinned it down by long range KS-172 missiles which are specifically designed to kill AEW&C planes from beyond escort engagement range. MiG-31's PESA is more than capable of picking him up at the range.

Whatever, you fucking acted like your planes just swept across the sky with no fighter opposition.

About 100 of all fighters? Skimmer, he probably has a total of 5-7 fighter/interceptor regiments with the number of fighters he has, depending on how he shuffled them. which means not many airfields to look at. In 15 minutes he could lift around 100 total machines into the air, but shouldn't the airfields come under fire by that time? Once the MiG-31s relay data, Mach 3 cruise missiles are sent against them. That means in the the same 10 minutes missiles from SSGNs and CGNs will start impacting their airfields.

You say below the MiGs were targeting SEAD missiles.

I'm more interested in how many radars he has, since radar supression is more important than individual launcher supression. Also, remember that ROE of S-300 is lower than MiG-31s radar detection capability and lower than the Kh-31PD strike capability. Those are dedicated ARAD seekers designed to engage them specifically at oh-150 km.

So what happens when one set of radars shut down, and another set turns on? All your ARMs go to waste, which is why firing off a billion of them in one giant wave doesn’t work. If it did Iraq would have been 100% defenceless in the first 24 hours.

That's the way Russia used them in Chechnya.

Against what? Moving vehicles maybe? And to cue what weapons? Were they actually designating targets to be attacked, or simply finding targets in general terms, which were then identified and attacked used the sensors on the attacking plane?

Really? In that case, aren't the bombers with ALCMs totally worthless?

What bombers and what missiles? A US bomber with AGM-86 ALCMs would in fact be totally worthless without detailed and protracted mission planning. Before GPS removed the need for TERCOM this meant radar mapping the way to the target, and then collecting infrared imagery of specific impact points to program the optical seeker. Like I said, we had to take six months to plan the cruise missile attacks on Iraq in 1991.

This is BTW why so few nations have long range cruise missiles in the real world, despite the technology not being super advanced. They are extremely difficult to employ operationally and require large scale mission planning and reconnaissance AHEAD of time. Heck TERCOM has been around since the 1950s.

I mean, the Tu-160s cruise missiles were designed to be able to use targeting data from Tu-95, Tu-22, MiG-31 and other plaforms capable of being used as R/C craft.

Against SHIPS, sure. Ships are easy distinct radar targets, though long range targeting is still a plague of naval warfare, an airfield is not aside from the runways, but this is why any sane air base has taxiways that can be used for takeoffs too. Coalition attempts to shut down Iraqi and Yugo airfield runways mostly failed, even if you crater a runway, the planes can often just taxi around the crater. The Soviets went even further, and gave airfields hidden runways which had full foundations, but grass surfaces and thus didn’t even show up on most radar images. Nations the world around also build connections to nearby highways to further reduce this vulnerability.

Your claiming to do all targeting on the fly without prior reconnaissance, so you couldn’t even think about optimizing all your impact points.

I presume I could hit an airstrip at the very least, no?

See above, runways are viable targets, but highly wasteful. In Israelis famous 1967 surprise attacks they actually bombed the runways last.

So what if you make that tenfold the number? If he has 300 SAM launchers, that means he has 4-6 times less radars for his PVO systems. I mean, fucking 1500 SEAD missiles versus hundreds of radars. Shouldn't that work?

It would work if every last radar was on, and stayed on. No one is dumb enough to do that, if a bunch of NVA conscripts could figure out that they could flip radars on and off, so too can his men. I’m sure your attack would cause major disruption of the air defence system, but it would not destroy it. A battery face with a clearly overwhelming SEAD attack will shutdown and single a nearby battery to switch on, and then hope none of the ARMs memory modes is good enough to inflict damage. Without GPS those modes just don’t work that well, because an ARM doesn’t really have any means of range finding.

This is all precisely why the US had to fire off 2,000 of them in Iraq, and yet didn’t normally spam them by the thousand, nor wipe out every radar in the country dispite having six weeks to try. Fire one or fire ten at the same radar, the effectiveness will be about the same if you do it all at once. That’s why ARMs are used for Suppression, and other weapons not so easily employed are used for actual Destruction.

350 miles away? I used the realistic range at which he could do it for his AEW radar, the Shmel, on A-50. It's around 400 km for high-flying targets.

With what radar cross section? You can’t see a fighter that far out, but the E-3 could see a large 50-100m/sq target like an airliner, transport or unstealthy bomber at that distance. I was assuming A-50 was not inferior in antenna size and raw power, so it should have a similar maximum range.

As for "350 miles away", let's see. Recently Tu-160s managed to approach Great Britain to be 90 seconds away from it's coastline undetected. At their top speed that's 61 fucking kilometer. Does Britain have good radars?

Not really, the 1980s upgrade program for radars and command link they had was a disaster, and then the Cold War ended and they decommissioned most of the system, and every last SAM battery. NATO has long ceased flying standing AEW patrols. But as is so often pointed out SDN world is not the real world, its more like a Korean DMZ mentality spread to the whole world so people aren’t going to be caught napping as easily, never mind during an actual crisis.

I didn't use Kh-101 as SEAD. I used Kh-15P, Kh-31PD, Kh-22P as my SEAD munitions.

So the MiGs are targeting SEAD missiles? If the launch platform can’t detect the radars then you’d be stuck launching the ARMs without them even having a firm target, just putting them into a basket to find a target themselves basically? That would make ARM spam even less effective as some missiles would fail to guide at all, while others would over concentrate. And if that’s what the MiGs were actually doing, then how did you target the airfields at all, let alone with cruise missiles relying on optical/IR terminal guidance?

[K. A. Pital]

Hardly, the Soviet Union had close to twice as many divisions at some 150, and some 7,000 combat aircraft against my 2,000. As he discussed before, I also don’t have any nuclear forces.

Japanistan's Army only as I gathred: 2,209,741 men active, 1,564,000 organized reserves, 810,000 individual ready reserve. That's 4,583,000. The Soviet Armed Forces were 3,500,000 men in 1991 (including airforce and Navy, discounting reservists).

Spy satellites pick up those kinds of transmissions from as much as 35,000km away

I thought even very powerful nations don't have them here. So it's absolutely irrelevant.

That would be a pretty epic feat of coordination and navigation over what is it, three thousand miles?

Why? There are designated refuelling times for MiG-31s and Tu-22M5s, at which point someone might have intercepted the chatter. But it doesn't explain anything. Other planes remain silent. Also, do cargo bulkers, oil tankers and other vessels so knowing about the unlikely chatter they might pick up, that they'd understand: a) that it's Russian language b) that it's a bomber horde?

So that means he can’t possibly have even one plane spotter in your entire nation?

Skimmer, that means he can't have even a person in my nation. I'm cut off by an Iron Curtain from all nations except the Slavic National Confederacy, and someone from fucking Astaria of all places getting into the CSR in any vinicity of the 37th Air Army which is itself dislocated in various cities, is fucking ridiculous.

And that absolutely no other ship or plane possibly noticed?

I thought other nations won't be keen to warn Astaria of anything. Also, they' have to understand it's Russian, translate and understand that tis' a bomber horde coming for Astaria.

It would count for a lot of wasted missiles when a dozen missile a single radar that decided to just turn off, that’s for sure. That’s exactly why the great HARM swarm didn’t knock out all of Iraqs radars, nor those of Yugoslavia.

Well, sure. But if his radars are off, that means yet more minutes lost and more free-for-all over his nation for my bombers.

You say below the MiGs were targeting SEAD missiles.

MIG-31s which had Kh-31PD missiles WERE targeting them. And?

So what happens when one set of radars shut down, and another set turns on? All your ARMs go to waste, which is why firing off a billion of them in one giant wave doesn’t work.

The initial ARAD action was concentrated to just 10 planes with no more than 60 missiles, you know. They didn't launch the massive salvo. The bomber wave, when it came along, lobbed Kh-15 which they had in thousands. If a radar lit up, it was targeted and a Kh-22P or Kh-15P were sent from either Tu-160, Tu-95 or Tu-22M5.

Your claiming to do all targeting on the fly without prior reconnaissance, so you couldn’t even think about optimizing all your impact points.

I didn't, but I sent lots missiles with low accuracy. How the hell could I behave otherwise? Warning Astaria in advance of an impending bombing run with that would be unacceptable. Yeah, he can pull his planes around the bombed runaways. But the fact is with the number of ALCM my bombers have, he's looking at 120000 m square of explosions for airfields which are around that or smaller, and the missiles withou TERCOM have a bad, but sufficient CEP (though the closer you get, the better it is, but still!). Even with a 500 m CEP (0,001 from distance of say 500-700 km which is standarnd error for modern inertial navigation systems) I would burn his fields. I just need to buy time.

I'm not looking at WEEKS of war, Skimmer. I just need time for THIS run, and if he restores fields, runs planes around them or such later on, that would not matter to me any longer.

Also, look. I'm using the Mach 5 Kh-15P. It's time from launch at 150 km to hit is 88 seconds. Would they be able to effectively go up-down when faced with such an overwhelming attack? I presumed that they would simply down some of their radars for a while.

No one is dumb enough to do that, if a bunch of NVA conscripts could figure out that they could flip radars on and off, so too can his men. I’m sure your attack would cause major disruption of the air defence system, but it would not destroy it. A battery face with a clearly overwhelming SEAD attack will shutdown and single a nearby battery to switch on, and then hope none of the ARMs memory modes is good enough to inflict damage. Without GPS those modes just don’t work that well, because an ARM doesn’t really have any means of range finding.

Well, I said his radars will turn off, but that means yet worse performance for his IADS during the strike itself. I pursue no long-range military goals in Astaria, so it would suffice if I disrupted his defences even for an hour - I won't be fighting a long war or requiring a total assrape of his IADS.

With what radar cross section? You can’t see a fighter that far out, but the E-3 could see a large 50-100m/sq target like an airliner, transport or unstealthy bomber at that distance. I was assuming A-50 was not inferior in antenna size and raw power, so it should have a similar maximum range.

See, it's detection capacity vis a fighter RCS (MiG-29 for general use) is 200-400 km on low altitudes and 300-600 km on high altitudes. A Tu-160 has an reduced RCS on the order of a large unstealth fighter, not a large unstealth bomber - it was specifically designed to lower RCS (and it's Forward Cross Section imitates a B-2 contour). Not 1 m square or lower, of course - but around 5-10 m square.

So the MiGs are targeting SEAD missiles?

MiG-31s are targeting Kh-31P Seads which they carry. Tu-160's and Tu-95's Kh-15 SEADs are targeted by Tu-160s or their ELINT versions. Tu-22M SEADs are targeted by Tu-22 Control Plane likewise.

[Steve]

What should also be noted is that the quality of the Astarian military's manpower is described as "conscript-level and poor" by the OrBat Marina compiled for Norse.

That would be the Army, it makes little sense to have the Navy or the Air Defence Force or even the Air Force be all conscript! I mean I can picture it; "Conscript Smith! For the next 11 months you'll be trained to use the MiG-31, and then you'll fly it for a month!" Doesn't really fly.

Also of course I've spent over a year improving on my military. Indeed the reason the Army and Airforce are so limited is that in 2008 they were still undergoing reform and refurbishment.

Did you seriously think I was implying that every single person in your military was a conscript?

Pilots are almost always officers anyway. But a lot of other positions, and not just the really minor ones, will be taken up by conscripts led by whatever career enlisted your services field. And that will impact the quality of your capabilities.