Modern World STGOD Concept

[Steve]

I intend to bring back my fighters from SDNW2, though with higher numbers to reflect this game's Cascadia being larger and likely fielding more designs.

In terms of rough equivalencies, I'll have analogues of the F-14, -15, -16, -18, -23, and -32, as well as a ground strike fighter like the A-10 although probably not quite like it. Strategic bombers will probably be B-1 analogues with some old B-52 analogues. Airlift aircraft are probably things like C-777s and KC-777s. I'm considering an "original design" tactical bomber but I'm not sure yet, and high altitude interceptors in specialized air defense squadrons.

[Siege]

Ok, I'll be working on my OrBat in the next few days. Which is/are the country/countries that are building F-15E, F/A-18, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoons?

San Dorado builds what's essentially a fully modern VTOL Tomcat called the Vixen. It's not very stealthy, but it is very fast and we have kick-ass missiles that go really well with it.

Also is anyone still building/built relatively recently A-10's, AC-130's and Apache helicopters? I think my Air Force needs some of those

Our Apache expy is called the King Lightning; our gunship is the quad-rotor VTOL Basilisk with armament comparable to the AC-130. All for sale of course, but that goes without saying.

[Beowulf]

Ok, I'll be working on my OrBat in the next few days. Which is/are the country/countries that are building F-15E, F/A-18, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoons? And of those, which woudl be amenable to a license-building arrangement with Orion? (For reference, I'm using "license-building" in the way that Japan has their F-15J's).

Also is anyone still building/built relatively recently A-10's, AC-130's and Apache helicopters? I think my Air Force needs some of those

If you want fun with planes that never got a production contract IRL, my air force is full of them. The last version of the Q-7(RL: YA-7F) is actually on par payload wise with the F/A-18E. It's not a dog-fighter though. I also have the AH-56 Cheyenne for sale, as an attack helicopter. It's capable of dive bombing, incidentally.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

He didn't, that is my interpretation. Maybe it is wrong.

Rocky and frosty both imply negative relations. The difference is the activeness of the relations. Komradistan actively dislikes non-commies, even if they did help in overthrowing the prior government. Tianguo helped overthrow a Cascadian allied government, in order to prevent a perceived potential hegemony of the continent. And Dreisgrond had Tianguo meddling in their civil war.

Tianguo is merely passively unhappy about the outcome of the 80 years war, in specific, the annexation of two countries. However, it very pointedly did not participate in the Great War II, prefering instead to remain actively non-belligerent.

I haven't decided on the exact percent of GDP being used by the military. That's why I don't have numbers in my wiki for ships or aircraft.

How anti-communist are you anyway? Say with regards to the UOCSR?

I intend to bring back my fighters from SDNW2, though with higher numbers to reflect this game's Cascadia being larger and likely fielding more designs.

In terms of rough equivalencies, I'll have analogues of the F-14, -15, -16, -18, -23, and -32, as well as a ground strike fighter like the A-10 although probably not quite like it. Strategic bombers will probably be B-1 analogues with some old B-52 analogues. Airlift aircraft are probably things like C-777s and KC-777s. I'm considering an "original design" tactical bomber but I'm not sure yet, and high altitude interceptors in specialized air defense squadrons.

I'm pretty much taking on the UCSR order of battle

[RogueIce]

Ok, I'll be working on my OrBat in the next few days. Which is/are the country/countries that are building F-15E, F/A-18, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoons? And of those, which woudl be amenable to a license-building arrangement with Orion? (For reference, I'm using "license-building" in the way that Japan has their F-15J's).

Also is anyone still building/built relatively recently A-10's, AC-130's and Apache helicopters? I think my Air Force needs some of those

As far as the 5th generation goes, it looks like a number of people are going the "alt" route with the F-23 and F-32. Like I am, and here I thought I was being unique about it. Maybe I won't if everyone else already is... So for F-22s specifically, it looks like Thanas is the major one right now?

As far as everything prior to the 5th generation I'd imagine most people have analogues of the RL designs. You want Russian, go with Fin it looks like. American and maybe some European will probably be close to everyone else.

AFAIK Beo is the only one who's really digging into the various Y- and X- planes that never went anywhere IRL and porting them here. Other than that I'd imagine most people going for 'originality' have something like, "Well roughly equal to [RL Aircraft] but different looking/whatever and I'm not an aeronautical engineer so don't ask for more details beyond that please."

[Thanas]

Ok, I'll be working on my OrBat in the next few days. Which is/are the country/countries that are building F-15E, F/A-18, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoons? And of those, which woudl be amenable to a license-building arrangement with Orion? (For reference, I'm using "license-building" in the way that Japan has their F-15J's).

Also is anyone still building/built relatively recently A-10's, AC-130's and Apache helicopters? I think my Air Force needs some of those

Rheinland builds all these and is also amenable to licensing them (didn't we already agree on the Falke (F-16) thing)? And we also built A-10s, AC-130 but no Apache, for that we prefer the newer and stealthier Tiger.

[RogueIce]

Basically, Eternal_Freedom (and everyone else looking to buy XYZ military hardware) the question is really not, "Who is selling such-and-such model?" Because basically everybody who is somewhere around the First World level with a decent economy will be. And because we're not playing some armchair general game, as a practical matter I doubt there's a massive qualitative difference between Steve's "F-23s" and Thanas' "F-22s" beyond maybe some minor but ultimately negligible quibbles. Because fuck that noise, right?

So really the question you should be asking is, "Who do I want to buy from that makes sense from a geopolitical standpoint?" Because unless you're bitter enemies, everybody in these games is happy to sell their toys to whoever wants because we clearly believe in plenty of free trade when it comes to weapons of death.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok, I'll be working on my OrBat in the next few days. Which is/are the country/countries that are building F-15E, F/A-18, F-22 and Eurofighter Typhoons? And of those, which woudl be amenable to a license-building arrangement with Orion? (For reference, I'm using "license-building" in the way that Japan has their F-15J's).

Also is anyone still building/built relatively recently A-10's, AC-130's and Apache helicopters? I think my Air Force needs some of those

Rheinland builds all these and is also amenable to licensing them (didn't we already agree on the Falke (F-16) thing)? And we also built A-10s, AC-130 but no Apache, for that we prefer the newer and stealthier Tiger.

We did, I couldn't recall off-hand whether we'd agreed on others. Basically I think Orion will be very happy to buy licenses to manufacture from Rheinland for 15's, 16's, 22's and the A-10
a and gunships. The Tiger is something we are likely to be interested in as well.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Personally, I was also going to go digging through prototype planes (and possibly ships) that didn't get accepted for one reason or another.

With the way Arcadia is set up, each island has its own 'National' forces, and that means potential for wildly varying, and perhaps not the most efficient, designs. Of course, that's just more fluff than anything else. I tend to agree with Rogue that most of us will probably just go 'roughly the same as *insert RL design here*' since its easier

Incidentally, Arcadia would certainly be willing to sell stuff to Orion, being as we're already trading partners and all. Makes sense from a political perspective. Presuming of course Rheinland didn't beat us to it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh I'm sure for political reasons we'll be buying from more than one source. Wouldn't want to get too reliant on one nation after all.

Of course, this does bring to mind the rather hilarious fact that you and I will essentially be trading military hardware for nuclear reactor fuel...I thought that was frowned upon these days :

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

As far as fighter aircraft go, I'll be taking a page from Shroomania and fielding the F-15 ACTIVE and F-16XL alongside regular F-15Cs, F-15Es, and F-16E/F Block 60s. I also intend on operating the F-2, as well as the TA-50 and FA-50. As an island nation with relatively little strategic depth, Fuso has no real need for dedicated ground attack aircraft like the A-10 or Su-25. The Republic of Fuso Air Force also fields a small number of heavily modified Tu-95s and Tu-22Ms as its strategic striking arm.

Naval and marine aviation is centered around the AV-8B Harrier II, the F-14 Tomcat, and the various members of the F/A-18 Hornet family. The A-6 Intruder and EA-6B Prowler are also present, but have been relegated to land-based reserve roles. Maritime patrol is carried out by the P-3 Orion (currently being replaced by the P-8 Poseidon) and Tu-142.

The primary helicopter gunship of Fuso's armed forces is the AH-1Z Viper, though there are also a number of AH-64D Apache Longbows in service with the Army. The OH-1 is also in service as an armed scout/observation helicopter.

In general, Rheinland and Cascadia are the two primary foreign suppliers of Fuso's weapons. As for the odd mentions of Soviet equipment, Fuso has a surprisingly good relationship with the UOCSR, or at least that's what Fin and I managed to work out via PM.

[The Romulan Republic]

Do the NPCs near Corona still need to be sorted out?

Here are some suggestions:

Country number 8 is a democracy but it has authoritarian tendencies. However, its pretty peaceful/stable for now.

Country number 9 is a Christian theocracy. Its a source of refugees fleeing to nearby countries including Corona and theocratic supporters of secession in Corona. Corona hates it and is supporting reformers their but doesn't want to go to war. It has a less competent but larger military.

Number 31 is a monarchy. Its like Corona without democracy. Its also tiny (basically a city state). Corona has supported it in the past because it was between them and Omnia, but lately Corona has made it clear that support depends on reform.

Is this acceptable?

Sounds good to me, bit sparse but that can always be developed later. Do you have any names in mind? I imagine that since Corona is next door they'd have a reasonably similar sort of culture, so what names would make sense for them?

As I recall, Corona is Latin, so what about other Latin names for nearby countries?

That said, I'm not very good at coming up with names. If anyone else has any ideas it would be helpful.

[Simon_Jester]

The J-10 has received multiple improvements over the years, from it's first flight in 1961. It reached service in 1964. The first major upgrade program occured in 1974, upgrading the radar to the same as that on the F-14 seen in service in Shinra and Hawai'i. The second upgrade was in 1985, adding the ability to take conformal fuel and sensor packs, amongst other upgrades. The third major upgrade was in 1991, which further improved the radar with a digital backend, and a "glass" cockpit, and the capability to take the new small diameter long range AA missile. By the early 2000's, it's successor was entering service. Foreign sales of the J-10 occured after the majority of deliveries to the Navy completed for each production batch. This was approximately 1970 for the first variant.

Sorry, I missed that.

Assume each upgrade had a new production batch, lasting for several years. As such, the youngest J-10 could be only 15 years old or so. Possibly younger, is someone wants a J-10 with more advanced avionics, like AESA radar. Tianguo would instead be buying the new J-12 aircraft, however.

The Umerians would have bought the Mark III version in the '90s, probably modified to use some of their native avionics and missile systems which were finally getting up to snuff around then. They would not be shopping for the J-12 or other similar stealth fighters, placing all their eggs in their own fifth-generation fighter project's basket. Which more or less worked, though the teething problems were a PAIN.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, is it definite that the game is starting tomorrow?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

As far as fighter aircraft go, I'll be taking a page from Shroomania and fielding the F-15 ACTIVE and F-16XL alongside regular F-15Cs, F-15Es, and F-16E/F Block 60s. I also intend on operating the F-2, as well as the TA-50 and FA-50. As an island nation with relatively little strategic depth, Fuso has no real need for dedicated ground attack aircraft like the A-10 or Su-25. The Republic of Fuso Air Force also fields a small number of heavily modified Tu-95s and Tu-22Ms as its strategic striking arm.

Naval and marine aviation is centered around the AV-8B Harrier II, the F-14 Tomcat, and the various members of the F/A-18 Hornet family. The A-6 Intruder and EA-6B Prowler are also present, but have been relegated to land-based reserve roles. Maritime patrol is carried out by the P-3 Orion (currently being replaced by the P-8 Poseidon) and Tu-142.

The primary helicopter gunship of Fuso's armed forces is the AH-1Z Viper, though there are also a number of AH-64D Apache Longbows in service with the Army. The OH-1 is also in service as an armed scout/observation helicopter.

In general, Rheinland and Cascadia are the two primary foreign suppliers of Fuso's weapons. As for the odd mentions of Soviet equipment, Fuso has a surprisingly good relationship with the UOCSR, or at least that's what Fin and I managed to work out via PM.

I'm actually going to revive some of the old UCSR stuff like stealth fighters and such I worked out with Stas. There will be a PAK-FA and MiG LFI and a heavy fighter bomber version of it, along with some interesting bomber designs Stas proposed the last time round.

[KlavoHunter]

I'm actually going to revive some of the old UCSR stuff like stealth fighters and such I worked out with Stas. There will be a PAK-FA and MiG LFI and a heavy fighter bomber version of it, along with some interesting bomber designs Stas proposed the last time round.

Suits me just fine, I was going with broadly Soviet-style equipment, and that Komradistan is a large exporter. I'll even rush and claim to be the homeland of the AK-47!

I imagine we are sharing most of our weapons projects, either officially or through straw purchases through our mutual allies.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'm actually going to revive some of the old UCSR stuff like stealth fighters and such I worked out with Stas. There will be a PAK-FA and MiG LFI and a heavy fighter bomber version of it, along with some interesting bomber designs Stas proposed the last time round.

Suits me just fine, I was going with broadly Soviet-style equipment, and that Komradistan is a large exporter. I'll even rush and claim to be the homeland of the AK-47!

I imagine we are sharing most of our weapons projects, either officially or through straw purchases through our mutual allies.

Sure we can probably share resources here and there.

One of the first things to ramp up production of new generation S-500F warships which are generally active radar guided missiles (rather than just one active radar guided missile in real life) within the first few game years. Essentially whatever CATO of SDNW2 would be.

[Beowulf]

The J-10 has received multiple improvements over the years, from it's first flight in 1961. It reached service in 1964. The first major upgrade program occured in 1974, upgrading the radar to the same as that on the F-14 seen in service in Shinra and Hawai'i. The second upgrade was in 1985, adding the ability to take conformal fuel and sensor packs, amongst other upgrades. The third major upgrade was in 1991, which further improved the radar with a digital backend, and a "glass" cockpit, and the capability to take the new small diameter long range AA missile. By the early 2000's, it's successor was entering service. Foreign sales of the J-10 occured after the majority of deliveries to the Navy completed for each production batch. This was approximately 1970 for the first variant.

Sorry, I missed that.

Assume each upgrade had a new production batch, lasting for several years. As such, the youngest J-10 could be only 15 years old or so. Possibly younger, is someone wants a J-10 with more advanced avionics, like AESA radar. Tianguo would instead be buying the new J-12 aircraft, however.

The Umerians would have bought the Mark III version in the '90s, probably modified to use some of their native avionics and missile systems which were finally getting up to snuff around then. They would not be shopping for the J-12 or other similar stealth fighters, placing all their eggs in their own fifth-generation fighter project's basket. Which more or less worked, though the teething problems were a PAIN.

No worries. I actually just wrote that yesterday. Mark III would be the second upgrade program? Not the one with the glass cockpit. I'm not sure if Tianguo's ready to sell the J-12 to anyone yet. The Shinra line for it may be though, for other people who are interested. And I think I may have been confused by the tech year being different from calendar year, (2014 tech with 2000 game start?) which would push all those dates down by 14 years.

[Steve]

I thought it was just some 2014 tech, mostly consumer electronics because people don't want to confuse what existed back then with what didn't?

Because if not, then let's just go with 2014 start date, because the entire point of the 2000 start was to give us time before we ran into "speculative" tech and the arguments that raged near the end of SDNW2 about fusion reactors and the like.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Neither option really bothers me overly much. Most of Arcadia's mil-tech is likely to be behind the curve. While I'm still trying to figure out exactly how much stuff I have since I suck at math, I have already decided that, for instance, fighters are all going to be 4th gen, maybe 4.5 at the high end.

Mostly because I think that we don't have the economy to support a fifth-gen program when the Air Force isn't getting the lions share of the budget.

EDIT: As for computer tech and the like, I also thought we just decided that stuff like smart phones and such are ahead of time. Unless I missed that changing.

[Simon_Jester]

The Umerians would have bought the Mark III version in the '90s, probably modified to use some of their native avionics and missile systems which were finally getting up to snuff around then. They would not be shopping for the J-12 or other similar stealth fighters, placing all their eggs in their own fifth-generation fighter project's basket. Which more or less worked, though the teething problems were a PAIN.

No worries. I actually just wrote that yesterday. Mark III would be the second upgrade program? Not the one with the glass cockpit.

Er, no, sorry, I meant Mark IV but lost count. Purchases or license production in the mid-1990s, to both complement the prospective fifth generation fighter and provide backup capability if the design turned out to be a flop.

I'll go into more detail on some of these later, but right now, the Umerian Air Force consists of:

Typhoon: Swept-wing turboprop bomber, a Umerian name for an aircraft purchased from overseas. Inferior to the B-52 in performance. Very old; the recent 'Vimana' program was inspired in large part by the fear that if Umeria had to operate its Typhoon fleet under wartime conditions, the things might physically break apart and fall into the sea even before the enemy started slaughtering them with long range missiles.

Spectre: Swing-wing aircraft otherwise similar to the F-4 Phantom. Again a foreign purchase, but the country the Umerians bought it from has probably stopped making them. Still in limited use because it makes a pretty good 'dumb attack' aircraft.

Comet: The Umerian variant of the Tianguonese J-10. Currently, the entire active force has been replaced by the 'Super Comet,' the updated 90s version of the J-10 with modern avionics. The Super Comet, unlike the J-10D, fires a native Umerian air to air missile.

Snow Leopard: License-produced VTOL aircraft broadly analogous to a 1970s-era Harrier. Dunno where it comes from. Umeria has Issues with mass purchase of a San Doradan fighter or I'd work with Siege to gin up one of theirs.

Chariot: Currently the dominant frontline fighter in the Umerian military. Entered production in the mid-80s, comes in conventional, short-takeoff, and VTOL variants. Probably the Umerians' attempt to get the performance of the Vixen without having to rely on Helix Industries for basic defensive needs.

_____________*: Umerian stealth fighter. Mostly designed for strike, not nearly as hot-shit at air to air combat as, say, the F-22. Umerian military doctrine is of the opinion that the real reason for stealth is to blow up the enemy's stuff on the ground before he even knows you're there; if you find yourself fighting large scale air battles against enemy stealth fighters you're doing something wrong. Entered production around 2005.

Vimana: First Umerian strategic bomber since the Paisley Age. Runs at somewhere north of Mach 2, flies high, swing-wing, big, nasty, pretty. Looks about as much like a Tu-160 as a Tu-160 looks like a B-1, for the same reason: there are only so many ways to design an aircraft with that mission role.

There are about four of them. Hopefully more than four will be finished within a year of game start, but realistically there will never be enough of these to pose a major strategic threat all by themselves in a world without nuclear weapons.

*Don't actually have a name for this one yet; it's driving me nuts.

Everything since the Chariot, the Umerians designed for themselves. It's a nationalism thing. They make an exception for the Super Comet, and it bugs them, and frankly whatever fighter they roll out in the 2020s would probably be something fully capable of replacing it in its designated role of being a helluva fast interceptor.

I'm not sure if Tianguo's ready to sell the J-12 to anyone yet. The Shinra line for it may be though, for other people who are interested. And I think I may have been confused by the tech year being different from calendar year, (2014 tech with 2000 game start?) which would push all those dates down by 14 years.

Yeah, I'm confused too. So far I've been proceeding on the assumption that the game starts in 2014. Any statement I make about the '80s or '90s or whatever is based on that.

Until we get an official timeline (at least a sparse one) in the "mod pronouncements' thread, I'm going to continue with that assumption, and assume that the basic technological level of the world is roughly consistent with that we see in real life in the 2010-2015 timeframe.

Otherwise I might have to revise some of what you see above. The one thing that won't change is the Umerian classroom.

[/me resists urge to ramble from hobbyhorse]

[Siege]

So, is it definite that the game is starting tomorrow?

No we start on the 30th.

[Jub]

I haven't gotten too far with my OOB yet, but I do know that I'm likely going to use a fairly broad range of designs owing to a change in procurement occurring at the end of the 40's. Dreisgrond went from drawing up specifications and asking companies for prototypes to allowing companies to create new designs and present them at biannual demonstration events. This system produced some major innovations and thus was expanded further in the mid fifties to allow for any company that was willing to produce 60% of the parts for their design in Dreisgrond to compete for contracts. Thus paving the way for companies outside of Dreisgrond to get a piece of the defense spending pie.

[Siege]

Snow Leopard: License-produced VTOL aircraft broadly analogous to a 1970s-era Harrier. Dunno where it comes from. Umeria has Issues with mass purchase of a San Doradan fighter or I'd work with Siege to gin up one of theirs.

I'm sure we could work out a licensing deal for production in Umeria if that's the issue. Umeria might not like San Dorado, but San Dorado really doesn't care, especially not if this plane is a hypothetical predecessor to the Vixen. Move the old tooling to Umeria, have you guys produce it, and make money off it anyway: it's a win-win deal!

[Jub]

I'm sure we could work out a licensing deal for production in Umeria if that's the issue. Umeria might not like San Dorado, but San Dorado really doesn't care, especially not if this plane is a hypothetical predecessor to the Vixen. Move the old tooling to Umeria, have you guys produce it, and make money off it anyway: it's a win-win deal!

Would any San Doradan companies have taken Dreisgrondian dollars by setting up some manufacturing there and bidding on military contracts?