[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The issue isn't the military logistics...air logistics might not be feasible for truly massive campaigns, but if you aren't doing something like Operation Overlord I wouldn't worry that much. It will be unreasonably expensive but you can potentially absorb that cost.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

However, there has been no point in recent history, possibly in history at all where civilian trade didn't make heavy use of water transport as the cheapest of all bulk transport methods. (I have no clue why Mass Combat sea logistics cost more than land logistics.) Contragrav might be able to upset that, though.

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

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

"Unable to import or export heavy goods at reasonable prices" is not an economic niche I can believe.

That's not what niche I'm proposing. I'm proposing 'imports/exports/transports those goods that are normally transported by air anyway, and has better aerospace technology, thus having an advantage over the competition'.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Well, I thought you said they didn't have naval commerce to speak of, I was aiming for their air commerce instead.

Not much by sea, but it can't be totally zero (besides, there's fishing). Okay, let's look at air commerce.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do they not engage in long distance trade? As a nation in a TL9+ world? That's very hard to credit. If your Khæn have no commerce outside easy air patrol range of their land bases that might protect them from raiding, but it's unbelievable.

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

I get the impression that you're saying that to engage in air trade, a nation must have 'above-average' navy.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Also, naval forces don't so much require a 'logistics trail' as such. They can have one, but they also have internal range and stores to allow them to cruise for long distances and timeframes. A modern SSN (nuclear submarine) can circumnavigate the globe without surfacing, never mind resupplying.

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.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

but when each SAM brings down an airliner or cargo plane and a handful of shells or a torpedo destroys a surface freighter that limit is more than enough to be intolerable.

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.

[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.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Operation Overlord: the Allied invasion of Normandy in WWII. One of the larger military operations of history, I think. Even if the planes to do so had existed, trying to haul the supplies for that by air would probably have bankrupted the US.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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

In addition to Icelander's point about relative quantities, they are not interchangeable. Most things that go by sea wouldn't be worth the cost of shipping by air, and of course if you pay for air shipment it's almost surely because you don't want to allow the time it would take to ship by sea.

In the pretty unlikely case that you were going to not have one of them, it would pretty well have to be air freight.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That's not what niche I'm proposing. I'm proposing 'imports/exports/transports those goods that are normally transported by air anyway, and has better aerospace technology, thus having an advantage over the competition'.

That's not a national economic niche. They need to be able to trade in the...basically everything that gets moved by sea. In theory they could have little to no merchant marine and have all their sea trade conducted by other people's ships, but that only reduces the loss of capital and life they risk to commerce interdiction. It would probably make it harder to keep trade flowing in the event.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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

Aircraft can have global range. Global patrol is more of a problem.

Icelander's addressed the issue with extreme-range action against conventional naval forces. If you're flying from the continental US to hit a carrier in the South Pacific, you're going to be fighting at a huge disadvantage. The other component is actual patrolling, to detect and attack submarines before they kill your merchants. That takes long idle times, and sensors that aren't particularly well suited to aircraft too. The problem there isn't so much range as how much sea area you can afford to continuously blanket in ASW patrol planes.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I get the impression that you're saying that to engage in air trade, a nation must have 'above-average' navy.

To secure global trade of any sort except land against hostile navies, yeah. That's a big part of why Great Britain went for the huge navy back in the day. Being able to protect their trade lanes worldwide was essential for their existence.

Anyone can engage in global trade in peacetime, but in time of war you can be cut off if your navy isn't powerful.

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.

There might be a way to interpret Mass Combat so that it actually makes sense for naval forces. But basically, yeah, many ships (and probably more in the future) can sail to the opposite side of the planet from their base and fight a battle with no logistics vessels anywhere near them.

...just like if you were using Mass Combat to represent a patrolling squad meeting an enemy squad in the jungle, neither has logistics elements in reach of the fighting. Or if you're modeling a fighter duel over the North Atlantic.

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.

These days are peacetime, with a balance of power that makes major wars difficult at best. And the US has a habit of playing world police with its many aircraft carriers, and tends not to approve of disrupting trade.

In the past, powerful nations that relied on sea trade generally built up a navy with which to protect it. And that at much lower (and thus less global-trade-oriented) TLs than your setting.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

It's certainly less economical than by ground. An ×4 cost modifier seems like a lot, but remember that it allows one to not bother with maintaining an ×1 Land and an ×2 Naval logistic force for operations and trade that involves a land path and a sea path.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

First, where are you getting ×20?
Second, it isn't 'air-power only'. It is 'no better than the TL average in stuff other than aerospace stuff'.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

Well, if they are their own Logistics, that just means that the Nuclear Submarine (base TS 48k, cost $150M/6M) simply cannot be raised separately, but must also be 'accompanied' by itself for LS 6k, $60M/$6M worth of navy logistics, plus $12M per month of extra supplies it has for autonomous action.

This is not the same as a unit which has a Maintenance of 0.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

It's not 'no navy', it's 'average navy quality for its TL'.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It's certainly less economical than by ground. An ×4 cost modifier seems like a lot, but remember that it allows one to not bother with maintaining an ×1 Land and an ×2 Naval logistic force for operations and trade that involves a land path and a sea path.

Makes no sense. Absent magic or superscience, air transport is not a replacement for shipping. Mass Combat is supposed to allow GMs some system for resolving battles that impact the PCs, but it is not a world-building system that has a workable economic simulator of logistics.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

First, where are you getting ×20?

The difference in cost between shipping things to the engagement area for both Gulf Wars vs. flying them in.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

This is not the same as a unit which has a Maintenance of 0.

No one suggested a maintenance of 0. Modeling them as having an integral logistics unit makes no sense either. What they can do is operate on internal supplies for a time. They use up supplies as fast as you'd expect, but have reserves that allow them to operate for significant time before needing resupply.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

[ . . . ]Modeling them as having an integral logistics unit makes no sense either. What they can do is operate on internal supplies for a time. They use up supplies as fast as you'd expect, but have reserves that allow them to operate for significant time before needing resupply.

Why not? It is the effect they have:
They have a non-zero Maintenance/Support Cost (be it repairs, supplies, whatever).
They can act for months without returning to a base, ignoring TS losses for lack of support.
...which is possible because...
They have their own storage space, power generator etc. (expressed as Logistics Raise Cost).
They have their own supply of fuel, ammo, food and other resources for several months (expressed as carrying several months of supplies with them instead of steadily picking them from the rear; the price of supplies is expressed as a combination of the unit's and logistics' maintenance cost per month).

How do you propose to express it if not like that?

[downer]

Well, looking at it, the navy of those island people would probably be composed of a lot of small units - corvettes, armed trawlers, submarines. They use these to keep their waterways under control and keep their waters clear of commerce raiders. If anything more powerful - battleships, carrier groups - shows up, they call in the air force, which is based on the islands, with enough range to strike the invader.

That still means that their long-distance trade is open to whatever their enemies want to do to it. Carrying on international trade will be next to impossible with this configuration, if major surface units go after your convois. Submarines might still be kept in check by destroyer and corvette escorts. They might plan for this contingency by holding a unit or several of higly specialized planes in reserve, which are designed to attack such surface units. Basically, large fuel supply, powerful anti-ship weapons, stealth capacity. So when the enemy declares war, they send out these units to sink whatever large commerce raiders they can field, then use their smaller units to keep their convois safe from small-scale commerce raiding by subs and auxiliary cruisers.

It might just work. After all, TL 8 carrier groups are not primarily a weapon of sea warfare, they are a way of projecting air superiority. If that is not what you want, you wouldn't need them. The specialized planes outlined above would be sufficient to sweep the seas clean of battleships and carriers, and might serve as a deterrent to enemy naval deployment, and convoi warfare is a matter of lighter units anyway.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by downer

Well, looking at it, the navy of those island people would probably be composed of a lot of small units - corvettes, armed trawlers, submarines. They use these to keep their waterways under control and keep their waters clear of commerce raiders. If anything more powerful - battleships, carrier groups - shows up, they call in the air force, which is based on the islands, with enough range to strike the invader.

Sounds good.

Originally Posted by downer

That still means that their long-distance trade is open to whatever their enemies want to do to it. Carrying on international trade will be next to impossible with this configuration, if major surface units go after your convois. Submarines might still be kept in check by destroyer and corvette escorts. They might plan for this contingency by holding a unit or several of higly specialized planes in reserve, which are designed to attack such surface units. Basically, large fuel supply, powerful anti-ship weapons, stealth capacity. So when the enemy declares war, they send out these units to sink whatever large commerce raiders they can field, then use their smaller units to keep their convois safe from small-scale commerce raiding by subs and auxiliary cruisers.

It should be noted that as a political entity, they seem very reluctant to participate in all-out warfare. Selling mercs here and there - sure, as long as they don't take it personally. Committing all of their able-bodied population to pursue a political warfare - no way.

Even though on the individual level the Khæn are seen as loud and daring, in the political sense, the Khænish Islands (official name pending) are supposed to embody the 'Beware the Quiet Ones' trope - they're huge (total area and population somewhere between Australia and China, haven't decided yet), larger than any other sovereign state in the setting (not larger than some semi-temporary alliances, though), culturally monolithic (in contrast to the rest of the setting), capable of hive-mind-like coordination in large-scale combat, and very reluctant to take sides in political conflicts.
Most world leaders think that it's best not to anger the sleeping giant, and they're probably right. Truth be told, while the Khæn can probably defeat any confederation and maybe even any alliance in the setting, this is likely to have catastrophic consequences for them in terms of population loss and expenses.

Originally Posted by downer

It might just work. After all, TL 8 carrier groups are not primarily a weapon of sea warfare, they are a way of projecting air superiority. If that is not what you want, you wouldn't need them. The specialized planes outlined above would be sufficient to sweep the seas clean of battleships and carriers, and might serve as a deterrent to enemy naval deployment, and convoi warfare is a matter of lighter units anyway.

I'm not saying they can't have carriers. I'm just reluctant to give them special bonuses in the naval area, since I think a +1 aerospace TL (or nearly so) is pretty scary already.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Why not?

The 'logistics unit' is inseperable, immune to things like Raids, and doesn't do the job of a logistics unit in the first place. A real logistics force keeps your element supplied. The shipboard supplies give the ship a period between going out of supply and being short on supplies, but it doesn't magically fetch fresh munitions when it uses them up. To restock, either the entire ship has to return to a base, or an actual supply vessel has to come out to it.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

How do you propose to express it if not like that?

By not using Mass Combat, or by applying slash and burn to Mass Combat rules until the ones left actually fit the situation.