2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[The Romulan Republic]

As long as that is the case, I don't believe Corona would object.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Corona's terrorist problems mainly involve pro-secession religious nuts, though I suppose their could be some other terrorists.

Edit: AVALANCHE's involvement and greater support for Orion by Shinra would cause problems for Shinra's plan to send ships to Corona. Corona won't want their ports to be used as a staging area to provide military support to Orion.

They wouldn't be. The port visit - while a genuine port visit - is mainly so that they're in the general area, should the need for them arise.

Which, since we know it's AVALANCHE now, is quite likely. But if we did conduct operations, we'd certainly operate out of Orion's ports. It's the least they could do if we're going to be bombing people and/or sending in the Marines on their (and our, to an extent) behalf.

Y'know, while I appreciate the help and all, I'm not sure how happy my people will be if Shinra starts bombing them with my permission...or if we see armed troops of a foreign power on our soil.

[RogueIce]

Corona's terrorist problems mainly involve pro-secession religious nuts, though I suppose their could be some other terrorists.

Edit: AVALANCHE's involvement and greater support for Orion by Shinra would cause problems for Shinra's plan to send ships to Corona. Corona won't want their ports to be used as a staging area to provide military support to Orion.

They wouldn't be. The port visit - while a genuine port visit - is mainly so that they're in the general area, should the need for them arise.

Which, since we know it's AVALANCHE now, is quite likely. But if we did conduct operations, we'd certainly operate out of Orion's ports. It's the least they could do if we're going to be bombing people and/or sending in the Marines on their (and our, to an extent) behalf.

Y'know, while I appreciate the help and all, I'm not sure how happy my people will be if Shinra starts bombing them with my permission...or if we see armed troops of a foreign power on our soil.

Hey, we weren't going to bomb you just the bad guys, which totally doesn't include Orion in any way.

Honest.

But no, I figured they'd only do their thing if we tracked those mystery terrorists to some South American country that wasn't one of your protectorates or belong to Steve or whatever. You know, one of those NPCs that exist so we can get our bomb on to facilitate good story-writing possibilities.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh well in that case go right ahead. Just don't steam into our (or the Protectorates) waters without permission...bad things tend to happen when people do that. Orion's Belt is always watching and waiting

[That_Guy]

Ahem! I hope Underwood does not come under the term 'protectorate' proudly independent!

Seriously though, if you wish, Underwood offers the use of its ports for terrorist hunting and such, we will be cooperating with Orion for both the clean up and prevention of further terrorist activities. Especially since they could hop the channel...

Just don't bomb us... it would not be wise

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not happy with the history part of my OrBat and we're getting close to the deadline for altering OrBats Steve mentioned, so would anyone mind if I replaced it with an abbreviated version, at least for now?

Edit: When did this world's version of the Second World War happen?

[Steve]

Just tell us what you have in raw numbers, even I've given up on laying out the detail on the rest of my OrBat for a while.

As for the WWII equivalen, the Great War was much longer. I figure most believe it to have started in 1936 when Rheinland, resulting to an outrage against one of their citizens, invaded Britonian and Nipponese-held mainland Eurasia. It ended later around 1953 when broken, battered Nippon was conquered by Rheinland afer years of bloody warfare. The war expanded in 1940 when Nippon brought Klavostan ino the alliance as a means to go after Cascadia and Fuso, expanding the war to the Pacific and North America, resulting in a six year long continental war on the latter continent and ten years of conflict in the Pacific (although the last three years was more of a standoff). At some unknown time Orion was drawn into the war and would end up conquering Britonia's South American colonies, where a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing was enacted on the Brits and pro-Brit native nations.

I believe that around this time there was a second, un-related war with Apelia on one side and Corona and Shinra on the other.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Orion started fighting in mid-41 and we'd liberated the Protectorates by late 47. The removal of Britonian and pro-Britonian elements was complete soon after (almost immediately in Underwood, another year or so for Fortuna and Marden).

Also, I object to the term ethnic cleansing

And no, That_Guy, Underwood isn't counted as a Protectorate but a close and trusted ally. THe other two colonies are semi-independent and were less developed than Underwood was, which is why they have no impact on the world stage, they're still sorting themselves out (with Orion's assistance of course).

[Beowulf]

Just tell us what you have in raw numbers, even I've given up on laying out the detail on the rest of my OrBat for a while.

As for the WWII equivalen, the Great War was much longer. I figure most believe it to have started in 1936 when Rheinland, resulting to an outrage against one of their citizens, invaded Britonian and Nipponese-held mainland Eurasia. It ended later around 1953 when broken, battered Nippon was conquered by Rheinland afer years of bloody warfare. The war expanded in 1940 when Nippon brought Klavostan ino the alliance as a means to go after Cascadia and Fuso, expanding the war to the Pacific and North America, resulting in a six year long continental war on the latter continent and ten years of conflict in the Pacific (although the last three years was more of a standoff). At some unknown time Orion was drawn into the war and would end up conquering Britonia's South American colonies, where a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing was enacted on the Brits and pro-Brit native nations.

I believe that around this time there was a second, un-related war with Apelia on one side and Corona and Shinra on the other.

Also, a third, un-related war between Dreisgrond and Tianguo.

[The Romulan Republic]

Is Corona's official GDP too high? Corona has a relatively small population (less than 20 million people) and is suffering from an economic disaster at the moment.

Secondly, I have no idea what GDP I'd require for the military I have in mind. My military isn't huge, so hopefully its okay, but if anyone feels I'm out of line, please let me know.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Arcadia stayed out of any wars during the twentieth century, at least at the moment.

On a different note, I should hopefully have another post tonight.

[The Romulan Republic]

I have a question for Siege: Are their any San Dorado corporations that would be willing to sell weapons to terrorists? Their are terrorists in Corona and Corona has tight regulations on weapons, so a nearby country without a lot of regulations on its businesses could be a useful source of arms. And it could lead to some interesting conflict between San Dorado and Corona (not necessarily military conflict).

[Simon_Jester]

Regarding orders of battle, I have no intention of making any modifications to my order of battle once it is finalized, but it's nowhere near ready. Again, here are the outlines:

-Three sixty thousand ton steam-turbine carriers*
-One sixty thousand ton helicopter carrier**
-Five quite large nuclear-powered missile-carrying ships. Larger, I say again larger, than a Kirov.
-Escorting surface ships commensurate with all these things, plus change.
-Relatively weak long-range maritime replenishment and support structure; the Umerian Navy is mostly a greenwater service that tries to keep up some semblance of credible bluewater capability in a pinch.

-Something like ten nuclear cruise missile submarines.
-Something like 10-20 nuclear attack submarines.
-Something like 30-40 diesel submarines.

-Large mostly-light infantry army, with a few units of airborne helicopter troops and a modest amphbious landing establishment running out of LSTs that look like escapees from the Great War.
-Modest tank force driving semi-updated but inherently rather obsolete vehicles; think M60/T-72.
-Considerable army engineering establishment with excellent esprit d'corps and broadly trained in a wide variety of civil, combat, and industrial engineering roles.
-Excellently drilled and surprisingly well-equipped artillery arm, including
-Third Guards Artillery Corps, the Umerian ballistic missile force.

-Four high-speed Mach 2+ heavy bombers that look about as much like a Tu-160 as a Tu-160 does like a B-1, or vice versa.
-Something like 100 fifth generation strike fighters that are frankly better suited to the light bomber role than the dogfighting role. Maybe a bit less than a hundred. Or a bit more. I'd have to check.
-An 'appropriate' number of older third and fourth-generation designs; the exact number I simply have not costed out but it'll be in line with what my country could plausibly afford.
-A rather weak (as we have seen) air transport establishment.

*(Spirits, thou hast made this world the shadow of a dream, an' taught by time I take it so, exceptin' always steam!)
**(can fly VTOL fighters. Cannot fly most of the fixed-wing support aircraft that a 'real' carrier can)

Is Corona's official GDP too high? Corona has a relatively small population (less than 20 million people) and is suffering from an economic disaster at the moment.

Secondly, I have no idea what GDP I'd require for the military I have in mind. My military isn't huge, so hopefully its okay, but if anyone feels I'm out of line, please let me know.

To get a rough guideline, divide your GDP by your population. Compare to here

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

Per capita GDP for a reasonably normal prosperous First World country is going to be in the range of 35-45 thousand dollars per person per year. The US is something of a fluke at 50+ thousand and I'm not sure if how things are accounted plays a role in that.

Now, you can get per capita GDP substantially higher than this, but basically the only way to do so is to be a petrostate with a population- selling twenty billion dollars a year worth of oil when there are only four million people in your whole country does your economic statistics a LOT of good.

[San Dorado is not a petrostate but occupies an equivalent position]

If your per capita GDP is less than about 30 thousand a year your country will probably be noticeably 'poor' compared to the most developed nations, even if it has pretty much all the same things those countries have and no one is starving (i.e. Slovakia or Portugal). Below 20 thousand a year you start getting into high-end Third World country territory, below 10 thousand into "is DEFINITELY nowhere near developed" territory, and below five thousand a year is crushing national poverty.

This is oversimplifying but it's not totally out of line.

Now, there are cases where this kind of calculation is simply inappropriate; the obvious example is San Dorado, with a population of fiftysomething million and a staggering GDP. But honestly, measuring the GDP of San Dorado accurately would be very very hard work because the enormous wealth that floods its culture is in large part due to ownership of overseas concerns.

[The Romulan Republic]

Corona's not very well-off but not really destitute, so let's say 25,000 per person. With 18 million people (my likely population), that means 450 billion.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Curious. I'm not sure but I recall that Nuclear Submarine reactors have pretty high levels of U-235 enrichment. Are Thorium reactors up to the job and give the same power to weight ratio?

[TimothyC]

Curious. I'm not sure but I recall that Nuclear Submarine reactors have pretty high levels of U-235 enrichment. Are Thorium reactors up to the job and give the same power to weight ratio?

No, but everyone wanted nuclear warships so we have to handwave that away. As for enrichment levels, you can get away with lower ones if you refuel more often.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I never had any plans for nuclear subs myself. Arcadia doesn't have enough Thorium to spread it around to the whole fleet (plus actual powerplants), so the only ships that have nuclear powerplants are the new carriers, and the new-ish BBs. Otherwise, everything is conventional.

That, and I'm not sure how big of a submarine arm we actually have anyway.

[Simon_Jester]

I've been rationalizing it as "fission just plain doesn't work quite the same way." There's a lot of ancillary crap related to making thorium reactors work that none of us want to bother with, and none of us are good enough at nuclear engineering to make it convincing. Nor, frankly, do we really care.

We just wanted a world with nuclear reactors but no nuclear bombs. So we wrote one.

So I call the reactors 'thorium' and figure that somehow they behave a lot like uranium reactors... but in the limiting case where you try to create a critical mass, you get at most a fizzle or a criticality accident- enough to be messy and unsafe, but not enough to make an effective weapon.

That suits me just fine, and I never had a problem with playing that way. It's less tiresome and unpleasant than trying to figure out what an entire nuclear power infrastructure that runs on thorium and trace uranium would really look like.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Post is up. I'm going to have fun trying to basically juggle four different (and not always agreeing) opinions here.

I left out any mention of the stuff going on in Orion, since I plan on doing that in a different post.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Preliminary Orbat up. Not quite a done deal yet.

[Steve]

Everyone say hello to Mr. Harris, Grumpy old britonian!

[Steve]

BTW, I know we've got like three carriers off Champas, or at least will soon, but is anyone sending a lot of humanitarian supplies? The Cascadian Air Force is maintaining an "Air bridge" via refueling aircraft across the Pacific. If anyone wants to participate we can make it smoother. Refuelers flying from Umeria, for instance, to take the pressure off of the Chuuk-based ones.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What sort of aid that Champa need anyway? Not much by way of official statements has been doled out yet.

[Steve]

What sort of aid that Champa need anyway? Not much by way of official statements has been doled out yet.

I would imagine quite a few towns, even cities have to be evacuated. That means refugees, and thus the need for tents and medicine and food and bottled water and such.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What sort of aid that Champa need anyway? Not much by way of official statements has been doled out yet.

I would imagine quite a few towns, even cities have to be evacuated. That means refugees, and thus the need for tents and medicine and food and bottled water and such.

And probably lots of iodine...