Modern World STGOD Concept

[TimothyC]

With the addition of Antarctica & Lat/Lon lines, I think I need to move Australius up and Eurasia down (and to the west):

[Thanas]

Please don't move Eurasia any further to the west.

[Thanas]

- superceded by later posts -

[Esquire]

Siege, did you want both of those island groups, or just the one?

[Siege]

Both, I had them drawn in for me. If you want some islands in the vicinity you're welcome to have them added too. Maybe we can have disputes over some of them.

BTW, before I redo my entire orbats again and redo my entire country and economy (again), I want to know the hard limits in this game.

That's understandable. As per one of Steve's initial post we were originally thinking of three tiers, with a top tier of 5 trillion GDP and a lowest tier of 2 trillion. That was only the first idea though. I want to be as accomodating as possible, I'd feel pretty awful if you had to do your OOB over completely or wouldn't be able to play as the nation you want. Can you give some impression of what you think you'd need to see if we can scale accordingly?

Alternatively we could just drop this issue and all agree it's not a big deal and players can have whatever they like. In that case however you are all explicitly giving the mod team the go-ahead to intervene to their heart's content when they feel someone's powergaming. As a result, the bigger you make your nation, the more restricted you will be in what you'll be allowed to do. Tiny states can go on military adventures and no-one will bat an eye; big ones will be heavily scrutinized when they do. This solution would be right up my alley because I hate spreadsheeting, but I just want to make it very clear that if we do, I don't want anyone whining when in the hypothetical future their decision gets overruled by Steve or me.

EDIT: Thirteen Nimitz-class carriers does make me raise my eyebrows though Thanas. I know you're a maritime nation but that's a hell of a lot of firepower.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I like the idea of having a rough tier system. Makes it a bit more even than just letting us have whatever.

And yeah, thirteen Nimitz class carriers? Jesus! And battlecruisers as well.

[Skywalker_T-65]

My rough GDP would put Arcadia middle-of-the-road if we went for 2 at the low-end and 5 on the high side. Which actually fits, I intended for them to be a second-rank power anyway.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Mine would be below the minimum....

And now to say something I often had to say to my parents when i was a student. "I need more money"

[Jub]

I want to be a mid power in spite of the current multitude of issues facing my nation and I think I can make it work. They declined from a US like GDP per Capita to one more like France or Germany over the 35 years since the nation broke apart. It's been stable for the past half decade, but the nation is still in a pace where it's easier for the economy to tank than to recover.

Versahinveld is worse off owing to not having as many large companies or manufacturing plants within her boarders. They have a GDP closer to that of Italy.

Dreisgrond total GDP: $3.11 Trillion
GDP per Capita: $41,000

Versahinveld total GDP: $1.11 Trillion
GDP per Capita: $32,000

Does this seem reasonable?

[Steve]

I'm pretty happy with the territory I've got.

If you think 18 million is excessive, I can go with the original 9 million or something in between.

Edits: And yes, my country will be pretty mountainous. Though that doesn't preclude coastal cities (see Vancouver in the real world).

I don't think it's excessive, I just don't want you to consider yourself forced to adjust your concept if I screwed up your territory allocation.

[Steve]

It is reasonable, Jub.

Ultimately what we want to avoid is having anyone up to US or joint EU levels of power by themselves, which means GDPs can't breach the ten trillion level. Five trillion was the old max GDP limit of SDNW2, I was personally thinking that we could go to about 8 trillion, which is over half of the US GDP, as an absolute max.

[TimothyC]

I was playing around with some plugins I have and:

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

To be more specific, the map would probably look aesthetically nicer of the southern coastal border of the UOCSR were to follow the Russian northern coastline (northern since Russia is flipped upside down) and go eastwards and loop up at some point to the southern border of Russia, leaving some grey areas in the east.

Just to be clear - so far Russia is NOT flipped upside down (only east-west). I can do this, but it will generate coasts that are mirror images of each other.

Ok, Then what I mean is that the southern coast of the UOCSR to follow the southern border of Russia, before looping upwards and coming into contact with the northern coast.

[Thanas]

Both, I had them drawn in for me. If you want some islands in the vicinity you're welcome to have them added too. Maybe we can have disputes over some of them.

BTW, before I redo my entire orbats again and redo my entire country and economy (again), I want to know the hard limits in this game.

That's understandable. As per one of Steve's initial post we were originally thinking of three tiers, with a top tier of 5 trillion GDP and a lowest tier of 2 trillion. That was only the first idea though. I want to be as accomodating as possible, I'd feel pretty awful if you had to do your OOB over completely or wouldn't be able to play as the nation you want. Can you give some impression of what you think you'd need to see if we can scale accordingly?

A clear GDP slide from 1st world to third would help. How long moblization periods will be. What the rules are for sealift and airlift and how long it takes for nations to improve their economic standing.

Alternatively we could just drop this issue and all agree it's not a big deal and players can have whatever they like. In that case however you are all explicitly giving the mod team the go-ahead to intervene to their heart's content when they feel someone's powergaming. As a result, the bigger you make your nation, the more restricted you will be in what you'll be allowed to do. Tiny states can go on military adventures and no-one will bat an eye; big ones will be heavily scrutinized when they do. This solution would be right up my alley because I hate spreadsheeting, but I just want to make it very clear that if we do, I don't want anyone whining when in the hypothetical future their decision gets overruled by Steve or me.

I am not planning on military adventurism at all, for that I have the Likedeeler and Landsknechte so that would work for me as well but only if the other players are ok with it. It would feel unfair to just drop this on them especially if they are limited.

EDIT: Thirteen Nimitz-class carriers does make me raise my eyebrows though Thanas. I know you're a maritime nation but that's a hell of a lot of firepower.

The US currently has 11 operational nuclear carriers (10 Nimitz, one Enterprise) on about 4/5ths the pop of Rheinland with an army that is twice as large and has much more heavy equipment plus strategic forces which Rheinland does not, so the cost savings from that would go into the Navy. Two additional carriers seem small in regards to the cost savings from the aforementioned items, especially as personnel costs will be lower.

[Simon_Jester]

I would like to avoid giving any one country a superpower juggernaut.

Since Thanas's concept is basically "most of Western Europe combined into one big territorial blob," Rheinland is the obvious candidate for becoming such a juggernaut. I like Rheinland, but I don't want it to be uniquely powerful. Having at least one or two other countries as big, and several others at least comparable in size, would satisfy me, though.

I'd be willing to give Thanas an 8-terabuck GDP, on the condition that at least one other country prepared to act as a counterweight receive it, and that a significant number of others get 5-terabuck GDP.
____________________________

For myself, I roughed out Umeria on the assumption of a 3.5 to 5 terabuck GDP, because I knew those were the levels the mods were talking. I compared that to the 2014 GDP of China, and scaled population accordingly- so I get a population of about 400 to 550 million, in a territory roughly the size of India, with the aforesaid GDP figures. I haven't even begun to consider exact orders of battle.

BTW, before I redo my entire orbats again and redo my entire country and economy (again), I want to know the hard limits in this game. Because each change takes me about 16 hours to plan, I don't want to redo it again. I want to know what GDP constitutes first world, second world etc. I want to know how long mobilization is going to take, what the amount of economy entails, how high social systems will impact the GDP - in sort, I want a real set of rules. Otherwise I fear I will think long and hard about things again just to have them scrapped by one or two lines by the mods.

I think we can use "as in real life" for most of this. The issue is just raw GDP, because that impacts size. Especially since you're basically the only country on Earth that started out intentionally expecting to have economic clout comparable to, say, the combined EU or the United States. It makes Rheinland a very, very big player.

Now, if there were one or two similarly big players (say, if we made Umeria the size of IRL China) it wouldn't be such a big deal.

The first/second/third world distinction is mostly a question of per capita GDP, not GDP itself. Luxembourg is a first world country, after all.

Looking at Wikipedia figures from the IMF in 2013, pretty much every country with a per capita GDP above thirty thousand can reasonably be called "First World" as in "developed." Spain at 29500 $/year is a borderline case if we accept that cutoff- then again, Spain's economic problems are large enough that they arguably do not belong among the first rank of nations at this moment in history.
________________

"Second World" is no longer truly, formally defined since it originally meant the Soviet bloc, but it can be repurposed to describe "mostly developed" nations, including nominally developed ones that are in poor economic shape, and countries that are still a bit behind the curve but only a bit. We can start this at Slovenia (27900 $/yr), the Czech Republic (27200 $/yr), Slovakia, Greece, and so on.

If we choose to call those "First World" the next obvious cutoff is 20000 $/yr, with Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Portugal just above it, and Chile, Argentina, Croatia and Russia just below it. And now we're definitely getting into countries whose poverty relative to the most prosperous nations is quite noticeable.

We can keep going down to 15000 $/yr, where we see Mexico and Turkey just above the line. Note that this is where it starts becoming economically sensible to send huge numbers of guest-workers to perform menial labor in highly developed countries. One might possibly model this as a heat engine, the effectiveness of which is linked to the economic "temperature difference" between the two societies. There's not much advantage in sending your son to clean toilets in a country only 10% richer than yours and send back money... but do the same in a country three times richer than yours and you may get back enough money to feed your whole family.
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"Third World" would cover countries that are still seriously nowhere near fully developed. Umeria is busy as a one-handed paperhanger trying to get out of this status, and I would estimate its per capita GDP at around 10-12000 $/yr (on par with Brazil, Iran, and the total world average). This is the 'high' end of the Third World. Note that some European states fall into this range, all in the Balkans: Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, and Montenegro. So do a lot of Latin American states, and some of the Southeast and East Asian countries (Thailand and China are both close to 10000 $/yr).

Down around 8000 $/yr you start to see noticeable numbers of African countries; notoriously poverty-stricken countries are pretty much invariably below 5000 $/yr, with the worst cases being below two thousand or even one thousand.

All this is, again, from the IMF 2013 statistics according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... per_capita



On a side note, Thanas, carriers arguably are strategic forces; the main reason to have them is power projection. For regional defense, a few carriers plus a large fleet of submarines, plus a good-sized force of strike aircraft capable of carrying antiship missiles, will work like a charm.

Heck, the US is spending 4.25% and that is while fighting a war in Afghanistan and paying thousands of mercs in Iraq, having a nuclear arsenal, strategic forces etc.

Is it though? Or is the US affording those wars and all its toys by going into stupendous debt? Now if anyone wants to go down that route AxumFinans will bankroll your military to a point, but they're going to want something to show for it in return .

The US is also refusing to enact anything resembling war taxation. Other countries can and have handled such things better, including "the US from the past." For instance, while the Vietnam War was a staggeringly bad idea, and resulted in roughly twenty times as many dead American soldiers as the Iraq War, plus untold atrocities... but nobody has ever seriously claimed that it bankrupted the US, and it wasn't financed primarily by deficit spending.

4% or 5% GDP spending on the military is sustainable based on historical track record. US expenditures were well above that from the mid-1950s through 1968 or so, and the economy was growing for the vast majority of that time. I could probably cite other countries given digging, those are just the figures at my fingertips.

Now granted, except for the tail end of that time, virtually all that money was being spent on a peacetime military, in other words to pay for employment of great masses of able-bodied young men and to directly stimulate industrial production in high-tech sectors of the economy.

Wars, on the other hand, tend to be expensive wastes, because weapons are bought and troops moved at great expense, and then swiftly destroyed so they have to be replaced. Your guys are fortunate in that they do not finance the cost of wars directly, but rather fight at a pay scale they can set for themselves to ensure a profit.

I like the idea of having a rough tier system. Makes it a bit more even than just letting us have whatever.

And yeah, thirteen Nimitz class carriers? Jesus! And battlecruisers as well.

That's about the minimum necessary to ensure that you can have carrier battlegroups in every part of the Earth where a conflict is likely to occur, at all times, while still providing adequate servicing and training time for the fleet.

On the other hand, it is decidedly not necessary to have so many carrier battlegroups to just sink or cripple any probable invading fleet.

Then again, in the absence of nuclear weapons, ballistic missile submarines are nearly useless. If you took a nation like Thanasia Rheinland, more or less eliminated the army in terms of budget outlay, and spent all the ballistic missile submarine money on more carriers (and maybe on attack submarines)... well, the carrier arm of the US Navy isn't so expensive as to be out of the question. Even for a state with a five-trillion dollar annual GDP, if it's willing to pay seriously for it and regards it as the primary defensive arm of the state.

[Thanas]

I think we need a bit on construction as well, aka how much of your budget can be spend on it and how much needs to be set aside for operating costs. I don't think many recognize how costly it is to operate a carrier.

Easiest rule of thumb would be to take real life construction costs and multiply by two to have operating costs covered.

[madd0ct0r]

I was playing around with some plugins I have and:
snip

awesome!
Any reason we're having antartica? could just have two floating icecaps.

[Siege]

The US currently has 11 operational nuclear carriers (10 Nimitz, one Enterprise) on about 4/5ths the pop of Rheinland with an army that is twice as large and has much more heavy equipment plus strategic forces which Rheinland does not, so the cost savings from that would go into the Navy. Two additional carriers seem small in regards to the cost savings from the aforementioned items, especially as personnel costs will be lower.

So then we're back to your GDP being the problem. I don't want this game to be one where everyone's around 3-5 trillion GDP whilst one nation's at 12, particularly not when the result is such an enormous military in comparison to what everyone else can be expected to field. To put it simply, if you don't plan on using those carriers, there's no point to having them. If you have them, then as one of the people who'll be expected to moderate this game I have to assume you're going to use them.

I can't very well now say 'this is Thanas, I trust him', and then shoot down someone else's superweapon idea later and look even vaguely impartial. I simply don't want to be in that position.

And frankly I dislike the idea of bringing one or two more nations up to pseudo-hegemon status just to counterbalance one. That feels like a terrible idea: you don't solve a problem by introducing more of the problem. We're seeing interesting regional relationships form already, I have absolutely no desire to fuck that up by introducing at this late a stage multiple nations so big they can just sail CBGs into a region and stomp all over whatever emergent dynamic has formed.

As far as I'm concerned everyone's free to have a few carriers, but they should be hugely important white elephants whose presence can shift a situation, but whose loss would be catastrophic. 'But Siege!' you may say, 'the US losing a single carrier would be catastrophic!' Yes, but this is a game and not real life, if you have more than a dozen carriers and lose one you could just dispatch another and justify it in whatever way suits your fancy. I don't want that at game start. If you really want a big carrier fleet then you can embark on a project to build it in game, and other people can develop armored ramming whales or whatever in response, and at that point the moderators will judge your ideas on their merits. But you don't get to have more than a handfull of giant supercarriers at the start, just like you don't get to have orbital death satellites.

[Thanas]

Yeah, understood. I'll modify my nation.

[madd0ct0r]

Thanas, how would your soldiers react to being asked to fire upon sucide bomber dolphins?

just for academic interest

[TimothyC]

awesome!
Any reason we're having antartica? could just have two floating icecaps.

From what I remember of climatology and the like you don't get icecaps forming if you have open water all around - and Tellus' (until otherwise, I'm calling this world Tellus) Antarctica is wide open to the Pacific.

[madd0ct0r]

kinda makes sense - like if you keep pouring ice cubes into a swimming pool they won't all pile up , and the rotational currents throwing ice out from the pole. There'd be sea ice, and small patches a few ms thick but not much more.
BUT It would allow us to sidestep sea level rise as part of global warming...

[Thanas]

Thanas, how would your soldiers react to being asked to fire upon sucide bomber dolphins?

just for academic interest

With utter horror, shock and probably swearing to utterly exterminate every person who was responsible for that.

EDIT: Though it would be very unlikely that any suicide dolphin ever attacked Rheinland, after all, what are they going to do? Swim all the way to Ostrheinland?

[Thanas]

Rheinland, now significantly declawed.

Previous posts:
Rheinland history
Rheinland economy
Geography, Political System, Law, national quirks

Budget and Population
8.000.000.000 GDP upper limit per this posts by Steve
39 million Nordrheinland *20k (Poland level) = 780k
37 Südrheinland*23k (Portugal level) = 851k
60 Westrheinland *11k (Serbia level) = 660k
120 Ostrheinland*10k (China level) = 1.200k
150 Rheinland proper *30,06k= 4509

Basically, this transforms Rheinland into a wealthy modern state at the center and a rather poor periphery. Keeps the industry happy because they don't have to go to foreigners to outsource and puts more strain on the budget. Also fits rather well with the notion of Rheinland still being rebuilding.

Military budget: ~3% of GDP
Thought of putting this higher but the cuts should be enough.

Cuts made to the military forces compared to previous ORBAT:

Army:
Cut down the Army to about a quarter of what the USA has, with an overemphasis on tanks and artillery. Looks like conscription will still be the case as otherwise this is seriously way too little to defend the state with.
Also had the Boxer and Puma (IRL already introduced before 2014) to replace all Fuchs and Marder already in the forces to cut down operating costs.
Cut 240 attack helicopters.
Cut 400 Tanks
Cut 1600 IFVs
Cut 400 SPA
Army now down to 200k active forces, making any invasion of another country very hard.
Scrapped any future projects for the army, equipment circle will probably need to be replaced by 2025.

Air Force:
I have cut down a lot of procurement, especially reducing the Typhoon buy by 400, the F-22 buy by 240 etc.
Active fighters cut by 240, plus procurement reduced by 240
Multirole aircraft cut by ~400 total plus procurement cut reduced by same number Typhoon buy down to 720 from 1200 originally planned.
reserve aircraft generally cut, for example F-14s reduced to 120 from 360 total
Cut 200 tanker aircraft
Cut 200 training aircraft
Cut 100 transport and SAR helicopters

Navy:
- Wasp class reduced from 6 to 1 without replacement
- battlecruisers cut by 3 without replacement and 1 moved to reserve
- number of active Nimitz carriers reduced by 4, the last 4 being laid up only to be reactivated in time of war. This gives Rheinland 9 active carriers.
- corvettes cut by one third without replacement
- aircraft reduced by 600 and active aircraft reduced by 1000 in total.
- number of active cruisers reduced by 20, cutting active cruiser force in half
- 24 AA frigates cut without replacement
- 24 ASW frigates cut without replacement
- 6 Intelligence ships cut without replacement
- 12 large replenishment ships cut without replacement
- 24 class 212A subs cut without replacement
- corresponding cuts in all auxillary forces

Other cuts:
Reduced Landsknechte to half their previous number and cut 16 Likedeeler ships. This shouldn't affect the budget much either way as they are mostly using outdated old equipment anyway and are more private securities for the industry anyway.

Giving the following Orbat:

General facts
Total population: 406 million (60mil Westrheinland, 120 mill. Ostrheinland, 226 mil Rheinland proper)
Total manpower pool (male/female age 18-50): ~160 million out of a total Rheinland population of ~320 million.
Real manpower pool (male/female age 15-50 fit for service): ~140 million
Reservists (as in, planned to be mobilized in case of war, not equivalent to total number of ex-conscripts): ~3.2 mil Army, 1.8 mil Navy, 700k Air Force.

The main issues for the Rheinland Military are the general age of the equipment given to reservists as well as the issue of whether conscription should be maintained or abolished.

Rheinland Heer
Army size: 200k active duty military
The Heer is the oldest of all Rheinland institutions (a fact disputed by the Navy) and has the oldest continually existing formations in Rheinland.
It consists of:

- 4 legions, 6000 men each. The only one of 22 original legions who have never lost an eagle and thus survived to this age. In deference to their seniority, no other unit in the army may carry the Aquila standard (though due to the number of decorations throughout their history each legion actually carries up to eight aquila standards). [Motto: Rhenania invicta]
- The six tercios, 5.000 men each. Originally formed from the southern cities, the tercios are the primary striking force, whereas the legions are the elite. [Motto: Never broken]
The remaining 148.000 men are organized along modern lines, with Rheinland following the Brigade model (Brigade --> Division --> Korps --> Army --> Army Group).

About 80k of regular troops are stationed in Ostrheinland, to defend it against invasion. This task is made considerably easier due to Ostrheinland being a chain Islands, which would make any invasion extremely hard.

Equipment:
The primary armourer of infantry weapons is H&K (I don't want to list all kinds of weapons)

Vehicle List: (active)
~800 Leopard 2 A6 MBT
~ 1.2k IFV Boxer
~1.2k IFV Puma
~800 PzH 2000
~400 MRLS
Plus a lot of air defence, recon etc. vehicles I don't care much to list here. When in doubt, look at what the German Army or USA are using.

Current projects:
none, next equipment cycle planned for 2025


Vehicle List (reserve):
6k MBTs (1k modern, others outdated like Leopard 1 and older tanks)
12k IFV (usually outdated pieces like the marder and Fuchs)
20k artillery pieces of all kinds
Other stuff like armored cars,trucks etc. in the thousands.

Heeresflieger (Army Air Corps)
360 RFW Tiger (Eurocopter Tiger)
usual recon and transport helicopters
drones
hundreds of older types in reserve

Commentary: Cut down the Amry to about a quarter of what the USA has, with an overemphasis on tanks and artillery. Looks like conscription will still be the case as otherwise this is seriously way too little to defend the state with.
Also had the Boxer and Puma (IRL already introduced) replace all Fuchs and Marder already in the forces to cut down operating costs. Cut 240 helis.

Rheinland Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe is the newest member of the Armed forces. Their official motto is "Do you feel lucky, Bomber?", a reference to the days of the eighty years war.
The Luftwaffe is focused mainly on fighters and interceptors designed to defeat any approaching strategic or tactical bomber swarm. Their main weaknesses lie in the fact that they are more of a tactical tool (what with the lack of strategic bombers) and are more concerned with defensive than true offensive actions. As such, they are a good tool to gain air superiority, but critics charge that outside of tactical bombers they don't really know what to do with it once it has been achieved. To that, the Luftwaffe responds that their main purpose is to support the Army and to defeat enemy bombers, not turn into Bombers themselves.

The Rheinland Luftwaffe has two main components, the active, professional force, and the Luftmiliz, mainly secondary and older planes flown by reservists, only ready after a mobilization period. The Luftmiliz planes are usually Rheinland planes being withdrawn from active service near the end of their service life and being stored in depots to be activated during crisis. Critics have called for the Luftmiliz to be abolished as they consider it nothing more than cannon fodder, but the Luftwaffe considers it good to have a pool of experienced pilots around, even if they would be flying outdated planes. After all, old planes are better than none.


Organization:

Luftflotte is the term for the overall command over an area. Currently there are 4 Luftflotten.

Luftlotte 1: Stationed in Rheinland proper, mainly concerned with defending the industrial areas of Rheinland proper.
Luftflotte 2: Stationed in Rheinland proper, primarily concerned with supporting the Rheinland Army. Controls nearly all the bomber aircraft.
Luftlfotte 3: Stationed in Westrheinland, primarily composed of maritime surveillance and long-range patrol aircraft. The smallest of the Luftflotten.
Luftflotte 4: Stationed in Ostrheinland, often considered the stepchild among the Luftlflotten.

Command structure:
Staffel: 12 aircraft
Gruppe: 2-4 Staffeln, 24-48 aircraft
Geschwader: 72 aircraft in 6 Staffeln
Korps: 2-4 Geschwader (144-288 aircraft)
Schwarm: 12 Geschwader (864 aircraft) - currently there are no Schwärme present in the Rheinland Luftwaffe.

The two main manufacturers for military aircraft are Rheinland Flugzeugwerke (RFW) and JHD Flugzeuge. Both are semi-stated owned, with the nation holding most of the shares and the right to block any sale of technology or aircraft.


Aircraft inventory list:

Combat aircraft / ground:
Rheinland RFW Walküre (A-10 Thunderbolt) - primary CAS aircraft 120 active, 240 in reserve role
Rheinland JHD Geier (Gunship) - ground-attack aircraft which slowly is gaining acceptance. 24 active

combat aircraft / multirole / air
Rheinland JHD Tornado (Panavia Tornado) - formerly the top fighter-bomber of Rheinland, now relegated to reserve role. This aircraft was developed in partnership with San Dorado, who provided most of the Electronics, thereby leading to it being the first Rheinland fighter aircraft not being named after a bird. 480 left in reserve role, to be reduced to 120 by 2020
Rheinland Foxhound (Mig-31) - In response to public hyperventilating over new strategic supersonic bombers this aircraft, sacrificing much in exchange for immense speed and range, was purchased from foreign sources. However, the design limitations meant that it never was that popular with the Luftwaffe and it was soon relegated to a reserve role with the advent of the Adler. Rheinland still has a few active squadrons to conduct longrange patrols along their northern border and across the sea. 36 active, 204 in reserve role (generally expected to go completely out of service in both active and reserve role by 2020)
Rheinland JHD Möwe (Harrier) - VSTOL aircraft of Rheinland (numbers see Rheinland Navy)
Rheinland RFW Seeadler (F-14) - former primary carrier fighter aircraft, now in Luftmiliz role. 120 left in reserve role, to be expected to be completely out of service in 2020
Rheinland RFW Adler (F-15) - the primary interceptor aircraft of Rheinland, though it is getting up in age. 360, all active Planned to be relegated to reserve over the next decade, replaced by the Steinadler.
Rheinland RFW Falke (F-16) - the primary multirole aircraft of Rheinland and the greatest export success of RFW in terms of military hardware. 600 active, 480 reserve. Planned to be eased out by 2020 in favor of the Typhoon or Habicht.
Rheinland RFW Seefalke (F-18) - carrier aircraft of Rheinland, for numbers see Navy.
Rheinland JHD Typhoon - new multirole fighter designed to replace the Falke. Though designed entirely by JHD, it carries on the tradition of naming JHD Arcraft after heavy-weather elements after the success of the Tornado. Its purchase became necessary after the design for the Habicht took two decades longer than anticipated. 120 active, 720 total planned by 2020
Rheinland RFW Steinadler (F-22) - the newest aircraft, having just entered production, slated to replace the RFW Adler over the next decade. 120 active, 360 total planned.

In development:
Rheinland RFW Habicht (F-35) - a new multirole aircraft currently being designed to replace the Seefalke and eventually the Typhoon.
Rheinland JHD Kolibri (currently undisclosed)

Transport/Auxilliary Aircraft:
JHD Eule I-IV (several types of AWACS and battle management craft) 36 active, 12 reserve
JHD Seeschwalbe (P-3 Orion) - see Navy
JHD Nestvogel (KC-135 Stratotanker) 420 aircraft
JHD Muttervogel (Airbus A330 MRTT) to replace the JHD Nestvogel completely by 2020
~800 training aircraft
~300 transport, SAR helicopters
several types of Electronic warfare aircraft, undisclosed number
undisclosed number of transport aircraft, enough for major airlift operations and VIP transport. The goal of the transport arm is to be able to airlift one legion and supply it for a month anywhere in the world, as well as service the needs of the diplomatic corps.
Rheinland airforce operates an undisclosed number of drones.

The Air Force was about the same as the USA before, now it is cut down to about half that number. I have cut down a lot of procurement, especially reducing the Typhoon buy by 400, the fighter aircraft active by ~400 and the multirole aircraft by 800 total.

Rheinländische Marine
The Navy is the oldest of all Rhenish forces (a fact disputed by the Army). It is by far the premier branch according to the money spent on it. Their motto is "Schwert und Schild" (Sword and Shield).

A note on prefixes - Ships are usually named RNS X, RNS being Rheinland Navy ship (the preffered prefix RMS was already taken by dastardly Britons). Ships who have distinguished themselves in combat may be designated Imperial Rheinland Navy Ship as a mark of distinction and thus be known as IRNS X.

The free city of Großbremen is the premier producer of warships for the Navies. Its main company, Bremer Vulkan AG (BV) , owns four major drydocks capable of producing 100+k ships and is often claimed to be one of, if not the biggest shipyard in the world. Very rarely is not one of the docks in military use. It's main competitor, Rheinland Schiffbau (RS) holds major facilities in the heart of Rheinland, the ocean-going capability of the Rhein allowing ships to be built even in cities hundreds of miles removed from the coast.


Ship inventory - active

2 Superbattleships (IRNS Delphin, IRNS Elizabeth)
The two Superbattleships were built during the end of the Eighty Years War, to provide Rheinland superiority to Nippon's Yamato and Britonia's Invincible class and are widely considered to be the final evolution of the Battleship. Each measuring over 100.000 tonnes displacement, they were capable of 30+ knots while being armed with 20" guns firing superheavy shells. They proved their worth when during the battle of the mouth of the River Rhine each soaked up more than 13 torpedoes that would otherwise have hit the carriers very hard. Repaired, both took place in the invasion of Nippon, where - in the last clash of battleships - the Delphin broke the back of the Yamato in one savage blow. The Rheinland battleline stopped the Nipponese before it could reach the carriers, who had been out of ammunition. The iconic image of the Delphin and Yamato engaged in combat is often considered to be one of the more enduring symbols of the war.

Nowadays however, the battleships are little more than damage sponges. Plans to modify them have always been put on hold due to any upgrade being impossible due to the armor plating being impossible to bore through. Their high crew costs relegate them to the role of fleet flagships. Though they do look impressive and are still the largest ships in the Rheinland Navy, they are often referred to as Meier's follies. However, they are a considerable factor of pride in the free city of Großbremen, having built them while the rest of Rheinland was under bombardement.

Aircraft carriers
- Pottwal class aircraft carrier (Nimitz class equivalent). 9 active, 4 in reserve.
The Pottwal class CV, also known as Bunte Kuh class aircraft carrier after their lead ship, are the pride of the Rheinland fleet. They are a statement of the might of Rheinland itself. Rheinland strives to have six operational at all times and at least three at sea, usually in one giant carrier group. Due to their value, they are usually not risked by entering foreign waters - that is what lesser ships are for. Bunte Kuh class aircraft carriers are manufactured at Großbremen.

- 1 Buckelwal class Amphibious assault ships (Wasp equivalent) - built by RS.
Capable of landing ~2000 troops each, this class was cancelled at 1 ship. Critics charged that they were a waste of time as Rheinland has been at peace for decades and anybody likely being a target of invasion has more than enough soldiers to deal with the small forces on them anyways. Some say they would best served as converted VSTOL escort carriers. Others argue that at least they provide quick reinforcements in case somebody should attack Ostrheinland. Critics respond to that by arguing that standard transport ships would suffice for that as well as long as the sealanes are secure and cite the high operating costs as a negative. Thus, the Navy decided to not persue any further options in this ship class.

- Derfflinger class battlecruisers - 2 active, 1 in reserve
These ships were ordered for the simple reason of "If other nations have them, then we need them too, and double their number". The Navy fought them tooth and nail, considering nuclear missile cruisers wastes of tonnage considering no mass missile attack has ever defeated a carrier group in any exercise. In fact, the Aegis system makes any such attack an impossibility. The Navy considers this ship to be good only for an attack on land targets, or against other missile cruisers. Nevertheless, the Navy wants more carriers and AEGIS ships instead of these expensive tonnage wasters, no matter how good they might look.

- 22 Orca - class cruisers (Ticonderoga class) - built by RS. Further 20 in reserve. To be phased out, with a decommissioning pace of 1 per year. The fact that the Navy has not yet decided on a replacement has been a criticism by many.
- 82 Tümmler - class destroyers (Burke class) - built by RS. 72 active, 10 in reserve. To be replaced by the Hai-class frigates.
- 38 Schwertfisch - class ASW frigates (modified Brandenburg class) Built by Vulkan
- 48 Narwal - class AA frigate (modified Sachsen class), 48 active
- 6 Scholle-class Intelligence ships (Oste class) - 6 active. To be phased out by 2012. Built by RS. No replacement yet.

- 36 Rhenania-class replenishment ships (Berlin class replenishment ships) Built by RS, 36 active
A number of fleet oilers, minesweepers etc. What is necessary to keep the bases supplied and mine free.


Future projects:
- Piranha - class corvette (Braunschweig class). To enter service in 2003, 24 ships planned, mainly for patrol duties. Built by RS
- planned cruiser design - not built by anyone yet. Design stuck in planning phase for six years now while analysts debate the need of it.
- Hai class destroyer. To enter service in 2016, 72 ships planned. Built by Vulkan
- planned Blauwal class aircraft carrier, built by Vulkan.
(a further evolution of the design to replace the Bunte Kuh class aircraft carrier) The plan is to commission one every four years to replace one Bunte Kuh class carrier, with the plan being able to be accelerated if needed). First service entry is planned for 2012.

The Rheinland Navy has a total of almost 700 ships laid up in mothballs fleets, including 22 battleships and 36 carriers, most of them from the 80 years war. Critics have long called for a massive cleaning house operation with regards to that and it is widely expected that one of the first moves of the new chancellor will be to announce a major scrapping program.

Navy Air Arm
The Rheinland Navy operates close to 1600 aircraft, of which 1400 are carrier aircraft (almost all Seefalke). The remaining are largely long-range surveillance and ASW types. Of those 1600 aircraft only 1200 are active, the others being in reserve role.

Submarine Fleet
The Rheinland Unterseebootwaffe are - although listed under Navy - a seperate arm of the Rheinland military. They, named the "Dolphins", are the pride of the Rheinland nation. In recent years they have become a favorite for women. They have a nuclear and diesel arm, with the latter being favored. Although the Rheinland Navy has great appreciation for the Nuclear arm, and has just approved a new class to be built, they believe that faster Diesel boats are the real future.

Inventory:
36 class XL submarines (Los-Angeles class nuclear submarines) - to be replaced by class L submarines
48 class XLVII submarines (class 212A) - built by RS.
4 - class XLIX class submarines (Seawolf class) - a program cancelled due to high costs, though highly capable ships in themselves.

building:
36 Class L submarine (Virginia class)- built by BV. One to be delivered each year.

Cuts:
- Wasp class reduced from 6 to 1 without replacement
- battlecruisers cut by 3 without replacement and 1 moved to reserve, meaning 2 active BCs remaining
- number of active Nimitz carriers reduced by 4, the last 4 being laid up to be reactivated in time of war. This gives Rheinland 9 active carriers.
- corvettes cut by one third without replacement
- aircraft reduced by 600 and active aircraft reduced by 1000 in total.
- number of active cruisers reduced by 20
- 24 AA frigates cut without replacement
- 24 ASW frigates cut without replacement
- 6 Intelligence ships cut without replacement
- 12 large replenishment ships cut without replacement
- 24 class 212A subs cut without replacement

Special units

Flagship of Rheinland
The Chancellor is allowed to desgnate one ship as Flagship of the entire Rheinland state, thereby making it the ship of state. Since the conclusion of the 80 years war, this honour has been held by the Superbattleship IRNS Delphin. It is from this ship that the annual marriage to the sea is performed.

Rheinland Space Command
Rheinland operates an undisclosed number of satellites (rumoured to be at least three dozen) and is currently preparing towards building its first space station.

No changes there

Mercenary forces
Due to ancient privilege, the free cities of the Empire have been allowed to keep their own armed forces, though only the city of Großbremen is wealthy enough to do so. Despite their official title, these forces are not based in the cities, but are rather semi-mercenary companies (meaning they sell their services to the highest bidder but are not allowed to operate outside Rheinland law or ignore any superseding Rheinland orders.) They are forbidden to act in Rheinland itself unless the Chancellor allows them to. The Chancellor is allowed to grant license to any other mercenary company as he sees fit, though Parliament has to approve any such grant and has only done so in the case of the Black Fleet and the ancient Black Guard.

Schwarze Flotte (Black Fleet):
The black fleet is not under the jurisdiction of any part of the Rheinland military, but answers - like the Black Guard - directly to the Chancellor. It currently consists of 24 RFW Adler and 2 JHD A340. They are the personal Air Guard of the Chancellor and responsible for his transport. As soon as the JHD 380 enters into service it will replace the JHD 340s, if parliament approves the funds. Rumours have it that the Black Fleet also operates a number of other aircraft for covert operations.

Schwarzer Haufen, aka Schwarze Garde (Black Guard):
Motto: classified, rumored to be either "Heeya, heeyo", "to the last" or "Fuck them"
An infantry force, its equipment and composition a state secret. The only force in Rheinland which can go toe to toe with a legionary force. These are the high end guys who sign up for profit and/or professional pride. They usually form the bodyguard of the Reichskanzler and are known for their black uniforms mirroring the 15th century plate armor of the original black guard, a feared mercenary unit form the medieval period of Rheinland history. Answers only to the chancellor and is under his direct command. It is rumoured that they recruit out of the Rheinland Special forces, though others believe a hereditary element to be present as well.

Landsknechte
Motto: Wein, Weib, Gesang (Whine, women and song).
The history of the Landsknechts is both a sordid and a proud one. Landsknechts are the biggest of the three free companies of Rheinland. , numbering about 20-30.000 men at times, with potential enlargement during the case of war. They have proven themselves in the past (e.g. in the battle of Devil's Atoll where they defended a vital arstrip to the last men). Their ethos mirrors that of the tercios (No surrender, no retreat) and they will usually follow orders to the last man. However, their equipment is mostly outdated and their ranks are mostly made up of condemned criminals (any condemned can request death by river or service in the Landsknechte according to the law) and foreign mercenaries. Still, they are a good shockforce if you don't want to waste your more elite troops. They are usually the spearhead of the Empire as well as favorite security units for third world dictators. Rumour has it that if you want to depose a head of state but don't have the troops for it, the Landsknechte are your guys.


Likedeeler
Motto: Jedem das seine (everybody gets what he deserves)
The Likedeeler are the pirate Navy used by the free city of Großbremen to gain most of its current territories. Originally a pirate alliance from the 14th century, they have been kept around by the city of Großbremen for the purpose of providing defence independent of Rheinland. Contrary to the Rheinland Navy, they are not beholden to state companies providing their ships and will often buy older ships discarded by other Navies.

As of today, their fleet consists of:
1 light aircraft carrier (VSTOL and Helo operations)
2 old cruisers (refitted to carry AA missiles while retaining heavy armament for shore bombardement)
8 destroyers of all types and sizes
33 smaller craft (frigates, FACs, various manufacturers)
9 submarines (all diesel, various manufacturers)

As the city of Großbremen is the home port of the Rheinland Battle Fleet, they are considered superfluous since the 80 years war. However, from time to time a war arises in which they will be hired by one or the other party. Their ships are owned by the crews themselves (who may sell the shares to investors). It is rumored the chancellor himself owns several ship shares. Ironically, they are often the favored anti-piracy unit of Rheinland shipping companies. In recent years, there are persistent rumours of ecoterrorists hiring them to go after whalers.


How to buy the services of the Landsknechte or Likedeelers
1. Approach them with an offer
2. Ship/company votes on it
3. If it is outside Rheinland and does not concern Rheinland interests, then proceed provided a deal is struck, otherwise wait for the approval of the city council of Großbremen and the Chancellor
4. For the duration of hostilities, the ships/companies bought will declare themselves independent of the Likedeeler and Landsknechte proper and fight under the colours of the purchaser

Reduced Landsknechte to half their previous number and cut 16 Likedeeler ships. This shouldn't affect the budget much either way as they are mostly using outdated old equipment anyway.




Some PM convos with mods:

This looks acceptable to me. Can you walk me through what you mean with the carrier section though? It says 9 active and 4 in reserve, but I'm not fully familiar with these terms. Does this mean four are mothballed and nine are operational, with six actually deployable at any given moment? If that's the case then given how you need to be able to reach islands half the world away I'm amenable to that.

Reserve, in case of my Navy, means the ships are laid up, with only a skeleton crew (probably 2% of normal complement) aboard to provide maintenance and be the core of the ship crew in case of war mobilization. In case of the nuclear ships, this means the reactor has been shut down or is operating at levels way below normal, meaning it would take a long time to reactivate. (If ships are laid up for a longer period of time they also are not getting modernized, meaning that most of the mothball fleet is out of date - certainly all the WWII vintage ships, less so the modern ships like the carriers and cruisers laid up). This process can probably take 1 month to half a year if the reactor needs refueling, but I'd imagine this having been done before the mothballing. Basically, this means I cannot just go "Hehehe, you sunk one of my ships, no worries, I'll just call one from the reserve", but after a period of mobilization I can call upon my full carrier strength.

In case of carrier reserves, it also means the air group has been dissolved and is now part of the Luftmiliz, meaning it needs to be mobilized as well (though this would take probably less time than restocking the carriers).

The cutdown in active carriers were due to the high operating costs (no way I can operate 13 full carrier complements under the current budget).

The Active carriers operate along the 3-3-3 rule (Meaning a third of the ships is on training/maintenance/ready reserve, a third is in port and a third is active out at sea). That gives Rheinland 3 carriers at sea all time, usually cruising between Ostrheinland and Rheinland proper.

So what would be your defense arrangement with those three, since you say your main worry is leaving Ostrheinland vulnerable to attack. One carrier stationed in the western Pacific, one in the Atlantic, and the third... presumably in the central ocean between those two points?

My defense arrangement is as follows:

1. subs stationed in the Atlantic, central ocean and western pacific, as well as covert OPS and recon satellites keeping an eye on forces of other nations.
2. Attack subs on station at shipping lanes and other possible routes
3. Long range marine recon aircraft patrolling as far away from Rheinland as possible, but not breaching other nations EEZ (this is a problem with Fuso and Hawai'i but they are not huge threats anyway so that will still work)

The above three are to give me plenty of warning to concentrate my carriers and surface action groups. The carriers meanwhile will all operate close enough to each other that they could concentrate within two days and then attack a target. I don't plan to have carriers always on a specific station, rather have them change station very often. That means that at any given time there could be 0 or three carriers somewhere, deployment to mostly match that of other nations.

For example, if Orion were to have all of their three carriers in the Pacific then we would match that deployment. If however they only have 1 carrier there then there would most likely not be a single Rheinland carrier present as 1 carrier isn't that huge a threat.

Consider all previous ORBATs outdated. Comments?

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. Someone destickied all the previously existing STGOD-related threads. That was mostly a good call in my opinion, but I think an exception might reasonably be made for Index Threads, because they allow quick access. It's commonplace, when you have a huge mass of miscellaneous and usually-irrelevant information, to respond by making a single index easily accessible and letting the rest shuffle back into the mists of space time the library stacks.

I think we need a bit on construction as well, aka how much of your budget can be spend on it and how much needs to be set aside for operating costs. I don't think many recognize how costly it is to operate a carrier.

Easiest rule of thumb would be to take real life construction costs and multiply by two to have operating costs covered.

Well, we can still use real life as a guideline.

However, I don't think there is much advantage to such rules, except perhaps to put them up in a sticky as a 'guideline to realism,' and chastise anyone who decides to, oh, double the realistically sustainable armed forces. Or otherwise go far beyond reasonable limits.

It is not in anyone's interests to have elaborate, detailed rules that must be precisely followed dictating what we can and cannot do.

And frankly I dislike the idea of bringing one or two more nations up to pseudo-hegemon status just to counterbalance one. That feels like a terrible idea: you don't solve a problem by introducing more of the problem. We're seeing interesting regional relationships form already, I have absolutely no desire to fuck that up by introducing at this late a stage multiple nations so big they can just sail CBGs into a region and stomp all over whatever emergent dynamic has formed.

Logical enough. My natural instinct is not necessarily the correct one.

As far as I'm concerned everyone's free to have a few carriers, but they should be hugely important white elephants whose presence can shift a situation, but whose loss would be catastrophic. 'But Siege!' you may say, 'the US losing a single carrier would be catastrophic!' Yes, but this is a game and not real life, if you have more than a dozen carriers and lose one you could just dispatch another and justify it in whatever way suits your fancy.

Personally I agree with you, the US losing a single carrier would be a temporary inconvenience, it's just that certain factions of the military-fetishists would squeal miserably.

I don't want that at game start. If you really want a big carrier fleet then you can embark on a project to build it in game, and other people can develop armored ramming whales or whatever in response, and at that point the moderators will judge your ideas on their merits. But you don't get to have more than a handfull of giant supercarriers at the start, just like you don't get to have orbital death satellites.

Well, in my opinion, we might perhaps be able to live with a nation that had a large carrier fleet and effectively nothing else. That would create interesting imbalances that could be exploited in interesting ways, especially in a nonnuclear world where even winning a decisive battle against the enemy air forces doesn't let you lay waste to an entire country.

But I can work with your approach just as well.