Mr Bean wrote:MKSheppard wrote:
Fjell Fortress in Norway achieved firing status in.......one year from the start of construction (late summer 1942 to June-July 1943) despite having to emplace a 1,000 ton turret from Gneisenau.
Which ignores again the fact
There is no infrastructure there
SO FUCKING WHAT.
Not two pages ago you were yammering about possessing a naval base in Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is several orders of magnitude more isolated than this location. In modern times, a pretty nice base was built there, largely from whatever they could float in on a ship.
Concerns about water? Water barges can be used, like with San Francisco for several decades and Alcatraz up until it's decommissioning. Decommissioned Pre-Dreadnoughts can be used to create fresh water on site until a more permanent solution can be found.
"Physical isolation"? Absolutely nothing compared to some real-world military projects. "No Train?"
Kitchener built one mother of a railroad in 3 years across the Sudan. We had somewhat more time than that to work with.
"No reason to do so?" Nonsense. Forgetting for a moment that the presence alone could serve as a deterrence for the entry of Shepistani vessels into the Red Sea, the colony is immediately near two major countries that are filled with co-coreligionists of much of the population. Because of the routine problems the Grand Dominion suffers from native uprisings, it's not unreasonable to assume that they are being instigated by our neighbors, and at some point in the future an uprising could coincide with and actual invasion. In addition, because of the relatively weak nature of the navy, this would be seen as a "easy" way for the "Army lobby" to exert influence overseas.
"This fort is solely to hold the trade routes hostage" Yeah, like Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and Singapore. Are you whining about them as well? Or are you accepting it as the accident of geography that they are?
"You don't have the cash to do so" I could repeat what Shep did, that a stationary fort of mostly rock and concrete is going to be cheaper than a Castle of Steel, but I'll go one better: I am the
ONLY NF 4 that does not have a line ship in commission that has been laid down in the past 10 years. My sole CV comes from the hull of a suspended BC. Just like the US Army in the OTL, guns intended for the original program have found there way into the coastal artillery corps. My AF is maxed out(3+2) but my SML is only 2, which means the trend is that the active military is in garrisons and forts.
"The neighbors won't stand for it!" Why not?
(1)Everyone here has been expressing amazement at the incidents in the Northern Arabian Sea, which makes me suspect that there was no perception of the Grand Dominion or Shepistan being overly aggressive assholes until recently.
(2)In fact, in recent decades
neither country has conquered or otherwise annexed it's neighbors. This cannot be said for some members of the coalition assembling a huge fleet.
(3)The relative weak standing of the GDN despite being a NF 4 should, in fact, have given the neighbors and impression that the GDN has a lackadaisical attitude towards the region, at best.
(4)It becomes an issue of risk theory: Do we WANT to go to war over this? Do we want to spend the blood, sweat, and treasure on a "maybe"? The answer may be yes, but maybe not. Especially given the relative lack of overseas adventurism both countries has expressed.
"You and Shep are just doing this to grief us, your hatred was obviously one of convenience."
(1)Not true.
(2)For those of us keeping score, the talk of calling a time out only occurred
after the majority of the world's countries managed to come to an agreement by telegram, began deploying large numbers of capital ships to the region, and then magically ignoring that the entire economy of the IO should be being twisted in unnatural ways.
(2a)Even with the agreement of all bordering countries, the availability of
fleet anchorages with appropriate facilities will be thin on the ground.
(2b)Constant steaming will screw up maintenance cycles, which will lay up ships. Problem? Even if there are enough spots to pull in to go around, there aren't enough yardworkers. All those yardworkers will have to be shipped in, so housing would have to be found. This will be especially true of specialists.
(2c)Coal and oil prices in the region will skyrocket, no matter how much you try to bring in from home. It's going to happen, and combined with every market being bought out, foodstuff prices will soar as well, and will have to be imported. Probably on refrigeration ships. Ever been in a town off 100,000 or so a week after a CV visited? I have, it looks like the goths took away everything that wasn't nailed down. Make that times 90 or so. Unless you're planning on banning people from liberty, which may fly in some lagoon in the Pacific, but not so much in an urban area. Exceedingly detrimental to morale.
(2d)As operating costs rise so dramatically the budget for the fiscal year is going to wipe out. This is pre-Keynesian economics, so I imagine that there will be a strong disincentive amongst the democracies, at least, to keep chucking money down the hole like that with no shooting going on.
(2e) This is the era of destroyer
squadrons grounding along well-charted coasts,all you people who use different signaling systems should be banging into each other, the ground, and fishing dhows left and right. Which brings me to:
(3)
NONE OF YOU* are showing an inclination for "playing real" for these deployments, and you have the audacity to to whine about something that is
eminently more realistic than what you are treating the effects of your naval deployments?
*Unless someone is writing something up as I post this.
Well, that's some odd balance of power.
