[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Some trade goes by sea, some goes by air (in our world).

Check the volume, in tons, for each. Seriously. If you were to ignore air freight entirely, it wouldn't make that much of a difference to the total volume. It's an extremely specialised form of transport that is mostly used to move people and luxuries, goods where time is very valuable. Any normal trading relationship between nations will feature more than exhanges of rich tourists and express mail.

Supplying food, fuel, ordnance or raw materials is not economical by air.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Isn't air (or even aerospace) patrol range pretty long by TL9? As in, 'global'?

Not really. At TL8 and probably more so at TL9, you can design aircraft with extremely long range. The thing is, though, that the design features that go into endurance flight are pretty much diametrically opposite the ones that go into air-to-air superiority fighters.

To have a successful platform that can do both, you need to spend so much more money than the other side that the only way you can compete is if you are so much larger and more economically successful that you can afford to field an enormously suboptimal military.

Even the best combat aircraft at our TL8 burn fuel and expend ordnance at prodigious rates and there is no sign of that changing. The side with bases close has an enormous advantage. Since it's 20 times cheaper to move fuel and ordnance by sea than air, any nation with a fleet and aircract carriers will have an advantage over your 'air-power only' nation as long as their own nation is less than 20 times the distance away from the engagement area than your fliers.

The consequence is that the fliers control only their own island and are essentially unable to effectively project power anywhere else, because it's too expensive. If you want that changed, you will have to make them by far the richest faction and somehow explain why they prefer to throw their enormous wealth into the ocean by trying to use aircraft as heavy logistics vehicles.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Are you saying that Submarines (or the Navy in general) can ignore the requirements for Logistics TS, don't lose Logistic TS from Raids etc.? I hope not.

The whole point of nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers is that they include their own Logistics. So, yeah, that is what he is saying.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

What are you trying to say? You keep pointing at the fragility of logistics/merchant vehicles, but they are no less fragile in our world, yet nations trade.

In times of war, though, closing off the avenues of trade for the other side is a powerful economic weapon. Any island nation that has no navy is in the position of a stronghold on a hill that has no access to food and water. No matter how invulnerable they are to assault, anyone patient enough can still defeat them easily.

Without trade, you can't maintain a TL9 economy. You probably can't maintain a TL5 economy. Simply put, the more you trade, the richer you are and the better your technology. A war that turns off all your income will cause your economy to tank and your military to become worthless over time. The higher the TL, the shorter this time is. Hence, a military that can protect your trade lanes is vital.