NationStates Jolt Archive

Hi everyone. I've spent the past few hours poring over the stickies with regards to RP, militaries, setup etc. While the threads provided have been helpful, there are still a few issues I would like help with.

The Democratic Republic of Trivalvia.

Trivalvia is classified as an "inoffensive centrist democracy", and, using the Thinkgeek calculator, has a current defense budget of US$1.6 billion. I'm assuming 1 percent of my population is in the military, so that's 50,000 troops so far (yes, I'm a newbie).

Of these 50,000, we have 7,142 front line troops in all divisions, the rest are support staff (techs, medics, admininistrators, etc). I have not yet decided what proportion of these troops should be assigned to ground, air, or naval forces - that's one of the issues I need help with.

The budget is being split down the middle: US$815 million for purchases and support, and US$815 million for troops; this breaks down to roughly 16,000 per soldier.

I'm assuming a modern-tech / potentially post-modern-tech nation (so present day to 2020).

The territory involved:

Here are political and physical maps of trivalvia:

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/andrewc3/PoliticalMapofTrivalvia2006.jpg

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n26/andrewc3/physicalmapoftrivalvia.jpg

The dots indicate cities with populations up to 100,000. Bivalviaton is roughly 750,000 people, and the capital of Trivalviapolis is 2,000,000. Small towns and villages, as well as side roads, are not depicted (too much work; yes, I'm lazy :D ) Areas listed as "parts unknown" are not part of Trivalvia, but as my population expands, I'll probably use them up.

Trivalvia's foreign policy

Since Trivalvia is a new nation, I'm assuming a cautious policy with regards to other nations; no big wars of conquest here... yet ;). Trivalvia would not be adverse to donating forces to aid in peacekeeping or joint operations; but it's primary concern is defending the homeland and keeping its waters safe from raiders.

Now to my questions:

Based on the territory involved, how much of my military should be ground forces, and how much should be navy (I'm assuming a very small airforce for now).

In a more general sense, what is the cost of building and maintaining a military base? That's something I haven't encountered in any of my reading so far.

Lastly; any recommendations on equipment for purchases, or storefronts I should visit?

Thanks in advance!

Andrew

OOC: Good first post, much more realistic than many others I have seen. You probably want to have a Navy around the same size as your Army maybe 40% Army, 40% Navy, 20% Air Force, although its completely up to you. For the cost of military bases, it's kind of up to you depending on what kind of base and how large it will be.

IC: No Taxes welcomes the nation of Trivalvia to the world stage and we wonder if Trivalvia would be interested in a trade agreement? No Taxes Defence Inc. is also more than willing to help Trivalvia set up military bases and expand its military in general.

OOC: Thanks. I'm going with 45% ground and 45% naval - leaves a very small air force (only 714 pilots/gunners/etc), but again this is a new nation, just starting out.

IC: The Trivalvian government would indeed be interested in trade between our nations. With regards to military equipment, we can dispatch a small delegation at your earliest convenience.

Check the storefront in my siggy, its cheap and the weapons and vehicles are good quality indeed.

Check my storefront.

Nice cheap, effective

Small Arms:
assault rifles (CM-16) $200

Squad Automatic Weapons (CM-26, please state caliber at the moment since a standardised caliber for this gun has yet to be selected) $225

LMGs (CM-249, M-249 knockoff with improvements) $250

Man portable cannons (sniper rifle didn't do it justice, 35 mm CC-35C)

Assault pistols (fully automatic pistols capable of carrying a stock and barrel extension, pistol that is assualt rifle/submachinegun capable) [CCZ-75, currently 9 x 19 mm only] $50 to 75

[B]Tanks:
HT-101 series IFV $750,000
HT-101E8 light tank $1,000,000
HT-106 series MBT $12,000,000

OOC: One wonders how you improve the quality of the M-249 while drastically cutting its costs... Anyway, while I'm at it, I might as well point you towards Pale Rider Arms. Link in my sig, with the Small Arms division being the most up to date on Jolt, and the International Mall branch being the best overall.

OOC: You can check out my storefront if you wish, it's in my signature. The items dependent upon what you get can be on the pricey side, but the quality is first rate.

OOC: I Actaully go with wildly different numbers as Im an Island with 40% Navy, 40% Airforce and 20% on the army, with actaul man power something like 45/45/10, but then again, only having 40 Million active military personell for a nation as big as mine helps

EDIT: Linky (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=495587) to aircraft Storefront-

OOC: One wonders how you improve the quality of the M-249 while drastically cutting its costs...
Well, the quality isn't really improved, in fact, quality goes down noticeably.

First off, the CM-249 has smoothbore barrels with threaded muzzle and reciever.

On the muzzle one may place either a rifled muzzle brake (sucured by bayonet locking lug) or another barrel, which provides a slightly better ballistic performance when using Ultra high pressure test rounds (may destroy gun though).

The ability to slightly improve the M-249's range and cheaper production and maintnance costs may also be considered an improvement.

Join the Griffincrest corporation. As an associate of Griffincrest, your civilians are treated just as if they were employees of the corporation. You will have our full military, awaiting your needs. All we ask of you is to allow us to control your trade, so that your economy will be strenthend under our watch. If you do not believe we are successful, look to Beiraq and Achmara.

((OOC: Exceptionally good first post. It's nice to see you've done your homework. The other guys here seem to have you covered on your questions, but I wanted to say congrats for jumping into the game with a keen head on your shoulders, and I look forward to seeing you RP.))

OOC: I suppose I'll have to set up a factbook to keep things organized, but thanks to recent purchases, here is my current military breakdown (more or less, a few purchases are still in delivery as of this writing):

Infantry forces:
3 regiments of 1000 troops, armed with XM8 assault rifles. Of each regiment, 100 have also been equipped with XM25 grenade launchers.

Armoured Forces:
15 BRT-90 APCs (5 per infantry regiment; this WILL be expanded on in future).
50 PT-91 Twardy Main Battle Tanks, grouped in squads of 5. An additional 25 PT-91's have been set up as reserve/replacement units.

On the to-do list (probably with the next NS year budget):
Patrol Boats, maybe a frigate or two.
IFVs
and some fighter craft for our airforce.

IC: To the Blackhelm Confederacy: the Trivalvian government thanks you for your offer, but we prefer to remain independant and neutral for the immediate future.

IC: To the Blackhelm Confederacy: the Trivalvian government thanks you for your offer, but we prefer to remain independant and neutral for the immediate future.

Damn right!

or just dump airforce and get naval aviation, basicly all the fighters, interceptors, strike-bombers. you just have to sacrafice (sp?) long range stratigic (sp?) bombers (which you wont really need until later because of buget) and naval aviation does not mean carriers, just set up land bases for them, so you can have higher navy and army. but that just my 2 cents.

OOC: Its good to see a newb who thinks about these things.

One other important thing to think about is support. Its far easier to support ground based aircraft than naval ones, but an air force needs a serious amount of support (I generally went with between 10-15 people per pilot) outside of the front line troops. For now, only maintain a handful of aircraft, literally just a show piece. Far better to invest in good anti-aircraft and radar systems for now, its cheaper, and just as effective. Okay, so you lose offensive power, but lets be honest, we're tiny nations, who the hell are we gonna attack?

With the number of islands in the region possibly your first air froce/ naval avaition requirmeent will be for decent maritime patrol craft, these can take many forms ranging from single prop driven cessnas, to light twin engine aircraft like BN-2 Islanders/defenders or CN-212s or even all the way up to big converted jetliners like the Nimrod or P-8A (737 conversion).

My main recomendation would be to aim for the middle of the market in the form of converted Bizjets such as the Embraer P-99 (EMB-145) or a conversion based on one of dassaults models (i use a Falcon-7X derived model). This sort of size of aircraft is still realtively affordable yet offers msot of the capability of much larger aircraft and has the added benefit of being large enough to be developed into an AWACs/AEW&C platform.

Fighters should be a secondary consideration comapred to patrol aircraft, yes you will need them but there is little point in being able to defend your skies when just about anyone can move through your waters without beign noticed.

no i mean let the army or navy have control of the airforce. so you wont have to provide to three different groups.

I'd like to keep my airforce as a seperate division of my armed forces, rather than fold it into one of the other two divisions. Of course, I have no aircraft of any category right now, so it's all academic.

I've decided to place maritime patrol firmly under the jurisdiction of the navy, and that means patrol boats. Sadly, I've been examining the storefronts and most patrol boats are either too small or too expensive to field a proper patrol screen; and my funding breakdown does not let me afford anything bigger (such as frigates and larger classes), so I'll have to wait until either my population grows or my economy strengthens before I can think of buying them.

I've been thinking of designing my own equipment to fill those roles I haven't bought stuff for yet. I'm reading over the more technical aspects of designing vehicles, aircraft, and boats, but I'd like to hear how much of a defense budget should be set aside for R&D, and how quickly (in RP time or NS time) projects can be developed and pushed to production.

More research into army structure - I'm now basing my army divisions off of Commonwealth design, roughly. So, for my Ground Armed Forces:
1 Regiment = 5 companies (640 soldiers), batteries, or squadrons (CO: Lieutenant Colonel)
1 company = 4 platoons, or 128 soldiers (CO: Major or Captain)
1 Platoon = 4 Sections, or 32 soldiers (CO: 1st or 2nd Lieuntenant)
1 Section = 8 soldiers (CO: Corporal to Sargeant)
1 battery = 8 artillery units, roughly 100 men
(artillery batteries are complex groupings. The CO of a battery is a Major. Each artillery gun and crew is commanded by a Sargeant. The Forward Observers (spotters) are commanded by a Lieutenant)
1 squadron = 4 troops (CO: Major or Captain)
1 troop = 5 vehicles (CO: 1st or 2nd Lieutenant)

I'll start worrying about navy structure and airforce structure when I actually have ships and planes to group together. :p

Ooh, I know how to get good fast PT bloats...

Take an LCAC, strap a tank on top of it.

Or, take an LCU or LCM, strap a tank onto it.

Prefferably amphibious tanks...