[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

As part of [re]designing a setting, I'm aiming for making the [para]militaries different from each other. The problem is making sure the differences are at least plausible - traditions, civilian practices and the like can only account for so much weirdness. What ways can be used to plausibly avoid the armies of the world from picking a perfect mix and sticking to it, and make it reasonable for different organizations to stick to very different doctrines. Preferably with bits of 'ethnic badass' units and tactics.

This was a crude attempt of a similar discussion (more specific to the setting, not as generic as this one).

Thanks in advance!

[Anders]

Look at the ancient world: the citizen-states of Rome and Greece produced a strong infantry with a supporting cavalry arm. The aristocratic east produced the persian and parthian cavalry armies with an insignificant infantry component.

[Anthony]

The major cause of army diversity, assuming societies that have enough contact to see one another's technology, is diversity in resources. In the modern world this mostly appears in the form of the relative cost of personnel vs equipment (so first world armies are very different from third world armies), but if there's some other type of unevenly distributed resource, that also works (for example, the English longbow is dependent on having the right type of wood, and Japanese armor is significantly influenced by the shortage of iron).

[Witchking]

There is IMHO no real perfect mix.

The trick is to look at the talent you have...and find a way to maximize what you can do with it. Bonus points if you can find a way to line it up with the other sides weak points.

But since armies are represitive of the Government, Society and People(s) that create them...much like people, no two are the same.

One of my favorites is here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_S..._Service_Force

A unit created for a mission that was never done, to use a vechile that was built at about the Proto-type level, very nearly disbanded and not really wanted when it was sent to combat; magnificent historical irony that it is one of the models for many current special forces organizations...

Edit: Oh and while certainly not history per se the William Holden Film gets most of the major points about right...and is a decent movie too...

[Whitestreak]

Wow, Vicky, you don't ask simple questions, do you? :)

Some of the real life influences on armies have included such things as:

Funding - infantry are cheaper to train & maintain than armor/cavalry units. Certain weapons types are certainly cheaper to produce and maintain than others. The training for certain weapons is easier than for others, for example, the firearm, even in its early stages, was easier to teach than the use of the long bow.

Terrain - broad open spaces with fairly good water sources would cause an army to be more mobile, especially when horses (or their equivalent) are the main form of transport. Mountains or steep hills would work best for infantry, especially lightly armored or skirmisher types. Deserts or badlands would indicate small units, possibly mounted. Temperate forests would be good for infantry, especially heavily armored types. Islands would be the source of marines - infantry trained to operate either aboard ships and/or landing on enemy shores, as well as most of the military would most likely be ships or boats.

Tradition - based on the above terrain ideas, later armies would most likely continue with variations as the tech level increases.

Religion - while there are not many historical examples of religion having a major impact on army forces, a fictional setting could have them. For example, a religion could disapprove of edged weapons for the aristocracy, leading to forces made of nobles relying on maces. In history, for a while, the Catholic church "banned" the use of crossbows on Christians. This didn't last very long, as military forces found the advantages of the crossbow far outweighed the ban.

These are some ideas, at least.

I've seen PCs create super armies that are, for example, immobile. (Try shipping a thousand heavily armed knights across a two hundred mile wide channel using small craft - five knights, their horses and their equipment per boat, because that was all they had. That's 200 small boats that may or may not make it all the way. No support troops, no food. No protective navy, either. It wasn't pretty.) Of course, there are very few units that are perfect - the equipment, the men or the leadership always has a flaw.

Real militaries study their possible opponents, and the terrain they could be possibly fighting over.

[Figleaf23]

I think that if you take a snapshot of any real military organization at any given moment and ask 'Why this?', the answer will fundamentally always revolve around three things -- legacy, purpose (planning/strategy), and resources (including human and intellectual).

Vary those as between the nations, and their militaries will diverge accordingly.

[Nosforontu]

Beyond what Whitestreak wrote their are a couple more reasons for diversity

1: Paranoia: Large well discipline, trained, and armed troops are a godsend in times of war. They are also potential assets that can be influenced by rivals to your leadership by the opposition within your country. The same is true of peasantry that have easy access to weapon. Their familiarity with weapons would let them be trained for warfare quicker in times of war but would also make it more difficult to impose unpopular decisions in times of peace.

2: Population: Smaller populations might very well compensate for a lack of numbers by lavishly equipping each soldier with as much high quality gear and training as possible. While a country who has an overabundance of population might prefer to equip its much larger armies with a much cheaper gear.

3: Sensitivity to losses. The more a country values the life of its soldiers the more it will invest in them as well as pursuing weapons that allow their forces to disengage better or be able to stand off at a greater distance than the enemy. Typically democratic governments will have higher sensitivity to losses than more authoritative governments.

4: Historical Precedent: Governments tend to fight their wars the same way again and again as long as they are successful at it. Its only when they are defeated or suffer phyric victories do they tend to look back at what they did wrong and make the adjustments needed to win the next war.

5: Cult of Personality: In the real world we dont get to see the stats of an army nearly as easily as we can in Gurps and have had to take educated guesses at what will give us the best bang for our buck on the battlefield. Frequently those decisions that we make will have detractors that have valid criticisms of why X is better than Y and what we really need is more W. A popular ineffective army choice is going to be an army that is going to be hard to get rid of for a ruler while a unpopular but effective army choice is going to be very difficult to maintain in peace or even war.

[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.