[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Necromancy is usually believed to be a irredeemable tool of evil. Of course if one side believes zombies are fine and dandy then they will use them and the other side won't.

How does that setting manage not to be the aforementioned big dualistic fantasy war? If necromancy is too abominable to use, it's probably too abominable to tolerate, and away we go.

Originally Posted by Lamech

True they could also hire mercenaries. But that would be limited to what mercenaries can offer you.

Mercenaries can very likely offer you battlefield-effective formed units of various sorts. But allies are even better. Especially when you've got some spells to discourage any sort of teachery.

Originally Posted by Lamech

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to use/make crossbow's/bows. But it very well might be one is more plausible than the other.

Crossbows, both by being higher-TL and by being mechanical, would typically be produced in urban workshops...which means the rural masses aren't likely to have them ubiquitously at the relevant TLs. Bows are an ancient technology that typically are made out of local materials, much easier to fit into the traditions of a rural population.

The stereotypical crossbow specialists are commercialist urbanites who have plenty of money and workshops but lack large bodies of traditional warriors. So when they need forces they drill up a militia with high-performance but mass produced and easy to use gear.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How does that setting manage not to be the aforementioned big dualistic fantasy war? If necromancy is too abominable to use, it's probably too abominable to tolerate, and away we go.

Unless it is only abominable for social reasons that do not translate across cultural divides, and lacks an objectively known truth. Lets say society A believes that when a person dies its soul is released from its body and that using its body for military or work purposes is no more disrespectful than in finding an abandoned home and moving in.

While society B believes that upon death that the soul of the deceased is trapped within the corpse and cannot move on until body is destroyed typically by cremation as soon as possible after death. That to imprison a soul into a rotting corpse is highly offensive to its ideas regarding the after life.

While Society C takes a little bit of both A and B's beliefs and allows limited use necromancy and only allow necromancy for certain people. People who are still in debt when they die may be reanimated to provide work/military service until they have discharged their debt/duty. People may sign contracts to have their body reanimated after their death in return for money or other services, and criminal sentences may extend to beyond the prisoners death in society C.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The stereotypical crossbow specialists are commercialist urbanites who have plenty of money and workshops but lack large bodies of traditional warriors. So when they need forces they drill up a militia with high-performance but mass produced and easy to use gear.

Actually to me the stereotypical crossbow specialist tend to the Chinese armies who were using them since 3rd or 4th century B.C. and had no shortages of large bodies of men. Remember typically urban populations typically require much larger Rural populations to support them.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Unless it is only abominable for social reasons that do not translate across cultural divides, and lacks an objectively known truth. Lets say society A believes that when a person dies its soul is released from its body and that using its body for military or work purposes is no more disrespectful than in finding an abandoned home and moving in.

While society B believes that upon death that the soul of the deceased is trapped within the corpse and cannot move on until body is destroyed typically by cremation as soon as possible after death. That to imprison a soul into a rotting corpse is highly offensive to its ideas regarding the after life.

While Society C takes a little bit of both A and B's beliefs and allows limited use necromancy and only allow necromancy for certain people. People who are still in debt when they die may be reanimated to provide work/military service until they have discharged their debt/duty. People may sign contracts to have their body reanimated after their death in return for money or other services, and criminal sentences may extend to beyond the prisoners death in society C.

And again, why is society B ok with societies A and C? If it's not, and throws down in the name of proper treatment of the dead, there's your war. And if it is, how is it going to keep its hard line when constantly rubbed up against and coexisting with the benefits of applied necromancy? Useful technology tends to burn through barriers of custom...

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

Actually to me the stereotypical crossbow specialist tend to the Chinese armies who were using them since 3rd or 4th century B.C. and had no shortages of large bodies of men. Remember typically urban populations typically require much larger Rural populations to support them.

Sure, they work too...but for similar reasons, actually. They've got more people, but the states in question combined a capable manufacturing base with a military that relies on lightly-trained levies.

In Europe, the urban population required the same much larger rural population to support it, but didn't necessarily control the rural population and were often not on good terms with the traditional, trained fighting men.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

And again, why is society B ok with societies A and C? If it's not, and throws down in the name of proper treatment of the dead, there's your war.
And if it is, how is it going to keep its hard line when constantly rubbed up against and coexisting with the benefits of applied necromancy? Useful technology tends to burn through barriers of custom...

But social customs/taboos have remained largely in place even if their abolition would provide a clear advantage that their opponents take repeated advantage of. Think of the limited social status of women even today in several parts of the world for example. Their limited access to education/and the work force let alone military causes clear disadvantages to those societies but are kept in place via strong cultural reasons despite these disadvantages.

Zombies offer some very clear advantages in terms of attrition warfare castle/city assaults but have very low personal initiative are incapable of learning from previous mistakes may be very difficult to keep together in a cohesive manner and may very well increase the propensity of plague developing in the area from their decomposing bodies over all their advantages and disadvantages when taken together may not provide a decisive enough of an advantage for Society B to change its policies regarding necromancy.

Society B might also make the decision that while it finds the Necromatic policies of Society A and C very distasteful that actually going to war with either society is bad for it for several reasons independent of it. Just as in the modern world the United States has several qualms about Chinas Human rights violations and its willingness to allow patent piracy but does not care enough about either of those issues to engage in a war with them despite having what is probably the most powerful military in the world right now.

[David Johnston2]

In a fantasy setting where a lot of magic is used, one thing you can do is bring up the subject of aspected mana. If anything is going to aspect your mana, it's massive use of a certain kind of magic. Thus go wild with necromantic industrialization, and you find your entire realm becoming death aspected. Not only does it get harder to use Healing, Animal and Plant magics, but you might find yourself dealing with other side effects. Increased still births, crop failures, ghosts and feral zombies cropping up.... And yet, necromantic magic becomes so easy... Divide up your magic into different ideologies and and you can end up with White, Green, Red, Blue... nations, each with a strength and a price you pay for that strength.

[DCB]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

And again, why is society B ok with societies A and C? If it...throws down in the name of proper treatment of the dead, there's your war.

How often do nations go to war over differing funerary practices?

A culture may find zombies disgusting or even morally offensive without being willing to wage a costly war over the issue. As a historical example, consider nations which outlawed slavery at different times, but which were otherwise largely on good terms.

And if it is, how is it going to keep its hard line when constantly rubbed up against and coexisting with the benefits of applied necromancy?

The same way nation C foreswears slavery even while its neighbour nation A profits from it?

It's not clear that necromancy is beneficial enough to a nation to force its adoption in the face of cultural resistance, especially if the nation's advantages lie in a different direction. Armies which rely heavily on mobility, for example, may find classic zombies to be of limited use.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Lamech

Umm... whats the setting? This becomes a heck of a lot easier, if there are imbalances on the two sides. Suppose in one country everyone learns how to make and shoot a crossbow as part of a tradition, another army is okay with necromancers, and the third army is from the wizards guild. The first army's levies will be filled with crossbowmen and the second will have teams of zombies, and the last army will have nothing but mage created monsters and the mages themselves.

Or in a sci-fi setting, if one side is invading from space, they probably will want light units, or ones that are easy to land and launch. A lack of heavy tanks, but a preference to super-soldiers since the main cost is moving them; certainly no one without excellent training. The ground people don't need to worry about weight, so they can use tanks, or swarms of less well trained infantry.

Right. Setting. TL6+3^ that I'm redesigning. Some example reasons behind diversity:

The Justicariate is a densely-populated yet small city-state with superior bio-technology and social engineering. The city is an underground arcology, so they have a negligible navy/airforce/motor pool. Since they are pretty cautious regarding population losses, they refuse to maintain a large army. Instead, their defense force is composed almost solely from extensively-modified super-soldiers, raised and trained from childhood, and given the best equipment.

Game effects: the most common units are Fanatical Élite Super-Soldier Riflemen with best equipment, and often with Night, Terrain, and a Neutralize specialization (depending no loadout). Similar Mortar teams are also available.

I'll describe other factions later.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Lamech

I have no idea how hard or easy it is to use/make crossbow's/bows.

Well, I have this nice role-playing rule set... that says that Bow is DX/Average, Crossbow is DX/Easy. A weak person can use a high-ST crossbow, simply by reloading slowly or using a device; he can't use a high-ST bow. This gives me a general idea that using a crossbow is easier.

[Whitestreak]

Originally Posted by Michele

Well, I have this nice role-playing rule set... that says that Bow is DX/Average, Crossbow is DX/Easy. A weak person can use a high-ST crossbow, simply by reloading slowly or using a device; he can't use a high-ST bow. This gives me a general idea that using a crossbow is easier.

Historically, crossbows were easier to use, and easier to teach, than any of the bows, especially the long bow. Among the many requirements for competent bow use are sufficient upper body strength and the ability to account for the oddities of arrow flight to hit a target.

A crossbow is, in modern terms, point and shoot in comparison.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Other possible reasons for diversity, even with the same set of technologies:

1.) Distance from the theater of war. In WW II, the Americans did not field (until the final months of the war) any armored vehicles heavier than the thirty-odd ton Sherman. One main reason is that the war was, from the USAnian standpoint, fought overseas. There were a lot more 35 ton cranes available than 60 ton cranes to load/unload tanks. I also suspect that the Liberty ship would have had more trouble with a 60 ton tank and it's much greater concentration of mass vs. deck or hold-floor space. Also, problem for moving by rail.

2.) Space, the final frontier. When I first read of Ogre in the late 1970s (IIRC) I thought it was neat but made no sense -- why put all your military eggs into one basket? Then decades later, when I was fooling around with some ultra-tech logistics' planning, I realized that there was one aspect where it did make sense -- logistics.

A 25,000 ton Ogre may have the same firepower as an armored battalion (albeit be rather more vulnerable as a unit) but the delivery mass & support tail is going to be a lot less. (Remember a 51 tank battalion will need LOTS of support vehicles, supply transports, and ongoing provisioning for its men; an Ogre with a long-term nuclear plant is pretty much independent. An Ogre is, moreover, with an add-on jump chassis self-deliverable into a system; the battalion will need transports, support for the transports, escort for the transports, support and bases for all the above, etc.

3.) Zombies are great tankers -- was the argument in the Cold War for troops zapped by radiation. (I think that the military was too optimistic, however.) If you have a mana-rich world, some societies will be very opposed to seeing Uncle Mort or Aunt Wilma as a rotting spear-carrier. Perhaps the Grand Autocrat might not want to buy the kind of unrest that could ensue if he starts recruiting the graveyards. (And they can vote, too!) In other societies, with different scruples, perhaps the plebs are happy to see their dearly-departed shouldering arms (assuming that they have arms, or shoulders, by that point) and going off to fight for King, Country, and Undertaker.

As someone noted, there's also the third-party element; while you may not care what your enemy or your civil population thinks of using zombies you may not want to give your enemy this propaganda gift. Remember that unless there are just two nations in contact with each other you have to consider the neutrals.