NationStates Jolt Archive

Modern militaries will rarely (if ever) be capable of sustained operations without a logistical tail built into the operation. Re-read the first post where I describe the needs of a single infantryman for three days of combat.

It is conceivable (though unlikely) that your troops can reduce their food and water logistical needs by scavenging. Doing so will considerably reduce their combat potential (if they spend three days hunting for food, that will be three days they won't be fighting), as well as expose them to partisan activity. You cannot count on supplies to be available, and any suppies you find cannot be counted upon as being safe. Relying on looted supplies invites destruction.


TEO

Modern militaries will rarely (if ever) be capable of sustained operations without a logistical tail built into the operation. Re-read the first post where I describe the needs of a single infantryman for three days of combat.

It is conceivable (though unlikely) that your troops can reduce their food and water logistical needs by scavenging. Doing so will considerably reduce their combat potential (if they spend three days hunting for food, that will be three days they won't be fighting), as well as expose them to partisan activity. You cannot count on supplies to be available, and any suppies you find cannot be counted upon as being safe. Relying on looted supplies invites destruction.


TEO

Of course I did not mean a primary dependace, but more so a supplementation.

Of course I did not mean a primary dependace, but more so a supplementation.

Even that is a practice fraught with military peril. Something a simple as looting the enemy dead of weapons and ammunition ruins unit cohesion, which in turn makes the unit far more vulnerable to enemy counterattack. Enemy commanders might even deliberately leave weapons and other stores scattered in the wake of their retreat, in the hopes that a time-on-target follow-up artillery barrage would shatter any "foraging" units.

Furthermore, plundering the countryside will force you to divert more and more troops to securing that same countryside, since Partisan activity will increase dramatically if your troops are foraging in enemy territory. Surviving locals who might previously have been willing to sit the war out will be left no option but to attack your forces merely to get food.


TEO

tagnizz

Yet another reason why "scorched earth" policies are bad - if you have to retreat that way, what exactly do you eat?

Yet another reason why "scorched earth" policies are bad - if you have to retreat that way, what exactly do you eat?

They work all right for defense, however- providing you have enough territory to trade for time.


TEO

It's probably past time for a little item about Future Tech Logistics.

Spaceships (or starships) have a great deal in common with nuclear submarines: Power is not usually an issue. Most FT nations use some variation of fusion or antimatter power plants, which can deliver practically unlimited amounts of energy with no need for regular re-fuelling. This makes many players happy, because they think they no longer have to deal with pesky logistical concerns.

Sorry to rain on your collective parades, FT nations, but you still have logistics to worry about. A lot of the logistical concerns are deferred- meaning that the logistical details (like re-fuelling) can be dealt with at a greater interval (Star Trek’s ships only needed re-fuelling every five years, for example). There are other logistical issues that even FT ships have to address.

Let’s talk about space (internal space aboard a ship). To quote from the game, Traveller, each human crewmember will require about 4 tons (displacement) of space within the ship (living quarters, bathrooms, passageways, work spaces, etc). This reduces the amount of space available for weapons and drives. This becomes a logistical concern mainly while the space/star ship is being constructed, but is something to think about. You will also need internal space for life-support equipment and stores of food and water. Even if you recycle everything, you will still require food and water aboard ship. Like the wet-navy nuclear submarines, the only range-restricting factor for the vessel is the amount of food that can be carried.

Even Star Trek-style food converters (based on transporter technology) require raw material with which to build food and drink. While this method reduces the space required for food storage, it does not eliminate it. Furthermore, the food converters and raw material storage bays need to be protected from sabotage and enemy attack. This will increase (to a certain extent dependent on the technology in use) the space requirements and decrease the space available for weapons and drives.

Atmosphere is another space issue. Air has mass and takes up space- even if it gets compressed for storage. Storing air takes up relatively little space, but the equipment (ducts, pumps, filters, etc) required to distribute the air throughout the ship will take up a huge amount of space- the more so as it also has to be protected from attack and must be accessible by the crew in the event of a problem. The ship won’t be much use if the crew is dead of hypoxia- or drunk as lords from bacteria in the air vents that release aerosolized alcohol as a waste product.

The atmosphere within a ship also has to be replenished from time to time (actual need for replenishment based on how high-tech the ship is), especially if the ship gets attacked. Punching a hole through the hull will reduce the available atmosphere, which has to be made up from stored air. Imagine taking a missile hit that penetrates the hull of a ship. The resulting explosion makes the hull breach larger, and also damages the ventilation system in the area. Work crews will have to wear pressure suits to make repairs- first to the hull and then to the ventilation system- before the area is safe for unsuited personnel. Before the ventilation is shut off, however, a significant amount of available atmosphere will be vented into space.

There are several cheap and easy ways to make up fuel and atmosphere deficiencies without having to divert to a supply depot or friendly planet. One of the best involves scooping raw materials from the upper atmosphere of a gas giant planet or the tail of a comet. However, the equipment for scooping and refining such raw material (and filtering out harmful biological material and other impurities) takes up more space- again reducing the space for drives and weapons.

I can hear several players out there smugly asserting, “Yeah? Well, I’ve got robots and artificial intelligence networks running my ships!” That brings me to another topic that few people address in FT ships- repairs.

In Star Trek, the Enterprise was full of passageways, elevators, Jeffries tubes, etc- some of which was in place to permit the crew to get from point A to Deck B. A lot of it, however, was there solely for the purpose of what the US Navy refers to as Damage Control. On starships/spaceships, everything is a critical component of the ship. NASA and ESA both use triple-redundant equipment to help reduce the threat of equipment failure, and FT ships would probably have the same safety features built in. But damaged/inoperative equipment should be repaired, just in case the others fail, too. If the artificial gravity generators go wonky on Deck C, crewmen might find themselves swimming through the air (or crushed to a pulp). The back-up circuit kicks in and restores normal gravity, but what would happen if the cause of the initial breakdown continues to damage the back-up circuits. Because of these possibilities, someone will have to put a hand (or whatever) into the guts of the equipment and find out what caused the problem and how to prevent it from happening again.

The example above refers only to breakdowns from normal wear-and-tear. Battle damage is another thing entirely. The power available with FT weapons means that most battle damage will be fairly catastrophic. Whole systems might go offline- even if the shields hold. FT ships will be forced to repair the damage somehow. Even if you have waldoes (remote-mechanical hands) in place throughout the ship for your AI system to make repairs, they would likely be damaged/destroyed by the same weapon that damaged the other systems. Something (or someone) is going to have to go to the damaged area, assess the damage, and start making repairs. The most versatile tool for that sort of task is a human (or equivalent) operator. Robots can be used, if they are sufficiently equipped and properly programmed, but damage-control robots will require access to every bit of critical equipment onboard- just like human damage control crews.

Now that I’ve run that into the ground and barked at the hole, let’s talk about spare parts. Beam weapons, missiles, etc don’t just damage things, they frequently destroy ship components. If the ship can’t fire its weapons without the left-handed particle-shifter, a lucky hit by an enemy (or even just an unlucky mechanical breakdown) could render your ship unable to defend itself. Repairing the damaged unit is possible, but will take lots of time, space to work in, and spare parts (circuits, wires, nanobot doodads, etc) to make the repair. In lieu of component replacement, some critical systems will require replacing the entire unit. That means you have to have a spare onboard, some way of getting it into position (if it was already in place, it would likely be damaged/destroyed by the same weapon that damaged the primary unit), and some way to get the damaged one out. You also have to have a lot of support equipment (tools, nuts and bolts, welders, etc) on hand to do the work.

Aside from the space all of this gear will take up inside the ship, spare parts and tools and replacement components will have to be replaced as soon as possible. This is another reason why your starship/spaceship might have to stop what it is doing and return to base (or at least a nearby friendly planet/space station). The crew will need replacement as well- even if you’re using robots and AI. People get sick, wounded, or killed. Robots get damaged, have programming faults, or get destroyed.

The reason to pay attention to all of this is to enhance your roleplaying. Posting something about the heroic efforts of the crew to save their burning starship will add a lot of drama to the RP. Writing about a pernicious bacterium, which causes problems for some crewmembers but not others, would make a good science-fiction story in its own right. Equipment malfunctions happen, and human errors happen as well. If you take the time to write about these things, your RPs could have more of a punch than they might otherwise possess.


TEO

Since I've been prattling on about Future Tech, how about discussing Information Logistics in FT?

Simply using one of the franchised universes (Star trek, Star Wars, etc) tells us that this is a significant issue. Granted, those shows are not exectly well-known for consistency on this issue (and many others), but the act of getting information from your starbase to the ships patrolling the spacelanes is not an easy proposition. The biggest logistical cost is time.

In RL, radio and lasers carry messages at the fastest speed possible, C (the speed of light, or 297,600 kilometers per second). This is fine when you're dealing with communications across a continent or planet, but starts to cause problems at interplanetary distances. At interstellar ranges, messages sent using standard electromagnetic transmitters will take years to arrive. If you're trying to call Aunt Libby on Proxima Centauri, for example, she won't get the message for more than 4 years, and you won't get a reply for almost 9 years. This is obviously unacceptable for the proper and efficient maintenance of an interstellar empire/republic/whathaveyou.

Now, assuming that your ships are stuck with C as a maximum speed in normal space, they would take even longer to get between the stars. Most FT players use one of the more popular ways of cheating the system. Whether you call this hyperspace, subspace, jump, shift, or PFM, it involves getting around Uncle Albert's pesky physical laws by leaving normal space (also called sidereal or Einsteinian space) and re-entering it at or near your destination. I won't bother going into the various benefits and drawbacks of any given system, but it is possible to carry messages faster than light onboard your ships. This is a fairly cumbersome way to manage an interstellar organization, but better than relying on communications lasers or similar electromagnetic carriers.

"But wait!", I hear you cry. "Star Trek sent messages from Starfleet Command to the Enterprise all the time!" So they did, but many episodes mention that a message would take a significant amount of time to reach its destination. Furthermore, most of those messages were simply that- messages. Conversations were usually not practical (note that I said usually. The show suffered from serious continuity problems during the entire run. We will assume that some means of sending a signal through sub-space was employed).

The Star Trek example I used illustrates my point, but there is a better way. The artist and author Phil Foglio wrote a series of comic strips for Dragon Magazine called "What's New? with Phil and Dixie". One such strip involved a comparison between fantasy games and science-fiction games. The consensus that any differences were purely cosmetic. One example used to prove the point involved communications. A starship commander was informed that his ship was receiving a distress signal from a ship 20 light years away. He asked, "Can they hold their breath for six days?"

Assuming that your FT universe doesn't completely obviate RL laws of physics, you should identify how your empire (or whatever) communicates beteween the stars. There are a lot of easy ways to do this. Assume that your scientists have discovered certain subatomic particles that can be transmitted outside normal space in the same manner that starships are. You could also decide that it is possible to send messages in this manner. This means that your communications will take as long as a ship (or a fairly close approximation) does to get from star to star.

If your ships get from star system to star system in zero time, but then have to travel at sublight speeds from the jump point to the destination planet, so will messages. Your messages will travel from the sending planet (or ship) to a jump point at C, traverse interstellar space in zero time (like the ships), then travel at C from the jump point to the receiving station. Note that- in the absence of simultaneous transmission- conversations will not be possible across stellar distances. Messages will be more like emails are today.

Your choise of communications methods can have interesting game effects. If it is possible to send a message from your home planet to a starship out in the nether reaches of the galaxy, for example, that implies that either your home planet knows where every ship is at every instant, or the broadcast is sent everywhere via sub/hyper/jump/shift space. The first possibility is highly improbable at best. The technology that would permit it would likely make starships unnecessary. The second possibility suggests that it would be possible for anyone with the right equipment to get the message. Imagine the game effects from that. A more plausible scenario involves your home planet sending messages via sub/hyper/jump/shift space to colonies, starbases, etc (which would all have known coordinates) for relay to any of your ships which happened to be in the area. Again, imagine the game effects of how your civilization communicates between the stars. Imagine the implications of the method you choose. It is possible to get a lot of RP ideas out of the logistics of FT information transmission.


TEO

"But wait!", I hear you cry. "Star Trek sent messages from Starfleet Command to the Enterprise all the time!" So they did, but many episodes mention that a message would take a significant amount of time to reach its destination. Furthermore, most of those messages were simply that- messages. Conversations were usually not practical (note that I said usually. The show suffered from serious continuity problems during the entire run. We will assume that some means of sending a signal through sub-space was employed).

And you torpedo your own argument within that statement, since we must ignore all the inconsistant incidences that show it is possible. Further, why stick with Trek? Perhaps you skipped Wars because Star Wars depicts instantaneous communications across an entire galaxy?

Using an 'example' that just happens to support your idea taken from a vast pool of self-contradicting data is meaningless.

And you torpedo your own argument within that statement, since we must ignore all the inconsistant incidences that show it is possible. Further, why stick with Trek? Perhaps you skipped Wars because Star Wars depicts instantaneous communications across an entire galaxy?

Using an 'example' that just happens to support your idea taken from a vast pool of self-contradicting data is meaningless.

I did address a glaxay-wide communications system- without referring to Star Wars directly- by pointing out the implications inherent in such a system:


Your choise <sic> of communications methods can have interesting game effects. If it is possible to send a message from your home planet to a starship out in the nether reaches of the galaxy, for example, that implies that either your home planet knows where every ship is at every instant, or the broadcast is sent everywhere via sub/hyper/jump/shift space. The first possibility is highly improbable at best. The technology that would permit it would likely make starships unnecessary. The second possibility suggests that it would be possible for anyone with the right equipment to get the message. Imagine the game effects from that.

Granted, I could have used more than the two exapmples in the post, but the important point was at the end of the message. I am not putting forward an argument for or against a particular tech level or communications system. I stated at the bottom of the post the purpose for discussing the issue at all.


Again, imagine the game effects of how your civilization communicates between the stars. Imagine the implications of the method you choose. It is possible to get a lot of RP ideas out of the logistics of FT information transmission.


TEO

tag...this will come in handy when i`ll have time to detail my military

All of this is a bit hard to take in. With all of this logistics, does this mean that I'll have to write a twenty-page post detailing how exactly my factories have produced the necessary equipment, how the foreign nations I've bought equipment from produced it, how I got the ships to transport it, how I've paid the troops in order to server, how many packets of food I've prepared..etc..

Obviously that was a tad of an exaggeration. But exactly what is necessary and what isn't when it comes to supplying logistics information in an RP? Do you have to detail everything like it's an accountant's book?

All of this is a bit hard to take in. With all of this logistics, does this mean that I'll have to write a twenty-page post detailing how exactly my factories have produced the necessary equipment, how the foreign nations I've bought equipment from produced it, how I got the ships to transport it, how I've paid the troops in order to server, how many packets of food I've prepared..etc..

Obviously that was a tad of an exaggeration. But exactly what is necessary and what isn't when it comes to supplying logistics information in an RP? Do you have to detail everything like it's an accountant's book?

All depends on who you're RPing with, and how deep they want to go.

I keep a spreadsheet of current forces, their logistical requirements, and cost factors. Do I use it all the time? Hell no - numbers like that are boring. However, should anyone ask "can you do this?" I can go "Yep, see here" and whip out the spreadsheet.

RP's are not meant to bog down - logistics gives a flow of realism.

All of this is a bit hard to take in. With all of this logistics, does this mean that I'll have to write a twenty-page post detailing how exactly my factories have produced the necessary equipment, how the foreign nations I've bought equipment from produced it, how I got the ships to transport it, how I've paid the troops in order to server, how many packets of food I've prepared..etc..

Obviously that was a tad of an exaggeration. But exactly what is necessary and what isn't when it comes to supplying logistics information in an RP? Do you have to detail everything like it's an accountant's book?

For the most part, you'll rarely need to go into the intricate details of your logistical organization. Even war RPs might not require an in-depth discussion of the logistics involved. I do want you to think about logistics when you post, because it will eventually become an issue- even in free-form roleplaying. People who have given some thought to the logistics of an RP are much more likely to be able to gain tactical or strategic advantages as a result of their knowledge- especially in a war RP.

The reason I (and others) have yakked endlessly on this subject is to help players put more depth into their RPs. If you are planning on having your fleet sail out and linger just outside a potential enemy's national waters to express your displeasure at his actions, you could simply start the RP with your Admiral mentioning that he wants a couple of extra oilers and supply ships along in case the operation takes a while. Another post could begin with a character making reference to the fact that he/she was tired from the UNREP (Underway Replenishment) activity earlier in the day. This sort of minor inclusion of logistics helps add realism (for lack of a better term) to your military activity, and could help avoid (or win) arguments.

Don't get into the details unless you need to- but keep the details in mind when you write.


TEO

Armchair Generals study war, but the real genius's study logistics.

Excellent thread.

A lot of information to take in all at once, but very, Very useful.

The 1:10 ratio works just fine for army and marines, where it's all about "I have xx,000 troops"(or xxx tanks, which evens out). But what about the Navy and Airforce? It doesn't matter(to most) how many pilots you have, but how many planes you have. If I had to guess, a two-seat aircraft uses about as much support as a similar one seat design, but the ratio of combat pilots to support personnel is half. Similar thing with ships, but worse. How do you count crew, as support or combat? And things really become convoluted when considering support craft crew. If a 300-man ship can do the job of a 500-man ship, it really messes up the ratio's.

It seems that it would be easier to count AF by personnel per aircraft. Any idea about good values? And I have no idea about the Navy, what do you suggest?

EDIT:

Would a 1:7 ratio be too much for an army (and marine corps) if it is extremely well organized, and some of the combat troops perform logistics support in addition to combat, and are counted rather as combat than support?

Sorry it's been awhile, but I've been getting whipsawed by RL lately.

FWIW, my opinion is that any attention you pay to logistics in your military organization is a good thing. I use 10:1 as a general rule of thumb, and increase or decrease that ratio depending on the type of service I'm working on. If someone cries and complains because you're only using 7:1 for your Marines, for example, explain your reasoning politely. If they don't agree, you can be completely justified in politely inviting that person to enjoy playing with his/her self, and simply avoid any RPs involving this person in the future.

As for Air Force support numbers, I use 12:1 for each aircraft. Once I have a total for all flight-line personnel (including pilots/aircrews and ground crews), I apply a 20:1 for the Aerospace Force as a whole.

Using large, round numbers for simplicity, this means that there are 12 non-flight crew personnel assigned to each aircraft. Assuming that every aircraft has a flight crew of 2, this means that each aircraft has 14 people associated with it. Assume that there are 100 aircraft in the entire Air Force. This means that the total of all flight-line personnel is 1400. I then apply a 20:1 ratio for the rest of the Air Force, using 1400 as the "combatant" number. This gives me an Air Force total of 28,000 personnel.

This example is extremely simplistic, and is intended only to illustrate my personal method for computing combatant:support ratios for my Aersopace Forces. My actual per-aircraft support and aircrew numbers vary with the aircraft. This makes my calculations considerably more involved, but no one should be forced to use my complicated procedure unless they really want to.

I calculate Navy support ratios a lot more simply. I consider everyone onboard a ship to be a combatant, and apply a 10:1 support ratio based on that.

I hope that answers your questions.


TEO

I didn't bother to read everything in this thread, but the first post was quite enlightening...as was the one on AF squadrons. Ouch. I'm writing up an entire document about my nations logistics right now, actually. I've come up with a rather large army for my nations size, but hey, compulsory military service does things for you...

:mp5:
:sniper:

I am a total noob, and this brought me into the know. I hate the other noobs who just "LOL ROFLPWNZORZ I SEND EIGHTFLABIMIJILLLION MEGATANKS AND SPACESHIPS ON TOP OF U CITYS, U DIE AND I MAKE YOUR NATION INTO A BIG CRATER"
They give us honest noobs a bad reputation :(

Excellent post. It really helped me think about and plan out my military.

I'm sorry if this has been addressed before, but when people calculate the size of their air forces do they take into account the number of people and planes needed to train new pilots? I know that when I did that I added about 180 million dollars to my AF budget that only went to buying 5 Hawk trainers.

TEO,

Just want to say, although I don't not do any War RPing, this is a great thread and just tipping my hat off to you about it.
:D :cool:

Can one form the middle ground between on the one hand ignoring logistics completely and on the other figuting out how many support vehicles are needed and such by doing the following?

I sww elsewhere the 2-3% rule for a standing military. So of a population of 6 million, that means a military of 120K-180K total. So if a person from there says his air force has 30K people, can he assign out 25% (7500) to effectives (fighters, bombers, etc) and just leave rest as nebulous Support Personnel & Equipment. I suppose realism would require a similar expenditure for support as the originally listed rules (50% for Army & Marines, 75% for Navy & Air Force go towards support)?

This exercise of teaching and learning logistics is Wawa approved. See here (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=543917) to see who we are. We may also decide to reference some to this thread as well.

An excellant, top class-bannana 5-star article. I have recently been in a long distance conflict and I did heavily consider logistics- but I struggled with the numbers involved. I feel naive now!
This post is helpful to all who read it and wish to fight a war.
Well written!