Shall We Play a Game?

[Executive Minister]

IC: The gods, dreamers, the bodhisattvas and the saints were angry with planet Bob. Many of its denizens had grown ignorant of them, had shunned them from their conscious.

We were wrong to ignore their omens, persecute their prophets and desecrate their Temples. Now, Bob would pay.

At once, Bob was scoured of all living things. The continents, ever complacent in their size and girth, collapsed into a writing, boiling sea. The skies were fraught with rage, burning of crimson flame and yellow sulfur.

But the gods were merciful. They would allow for one final battle, one great cataclysmic struggle so that man may once again regain their masters' pleasure again.

SCENARIO # 1.

OOC to Granite: I am a neighbour that borders you to the east. I secretly want to destroy you and attack the Northern part of the border, trying to drive a wedge through your defenses towards your Capital. We both have equal NS. Assume you are as reasonably prepared as any modern CNRP nation should be with defenses, missiles, AESA radars with back ups etc, and know something's about to happen. Your nation is doing what it would do were an invasion imminent.

I first begin with a massed intelligence denial mission against you. From silos launched from behind my border, I fire several ICBMs into space, that split up and scatter submunitions in order to kill your satellites. Meanwhile, I send my own satellites to gather recon over your territories in order to find important targets of opportunity.

I send hypersonic unmanned aircraft over your border, jamming your radar in an attack on a theatre i will engage you in. It takes only a few of these aircraft each to attack your cities near the border. They are travelling fast, mach 12 lets say. I begin flying sorties of reconnaissance UAVs over the border to begin accurate targeting of your defenses.

I begin to pound areas closest to the border with rocket assisted projectile firing artillery, roughly 70 km in range, and move in troops and armored vehicles into position to get ready for the next stage of my attack.

What have you been doing. What do you do now?

Edited January 26, 2012 by Executive Minister

[Executive Minister]

Before I forget, should anyone else feel a serious need to join, submit scenarios, or responses, please feel free to do so. But no off topic stuff please.

[AironthFlamewing]

Spies inside your Interior Ministries and Government report news of the attack plans before they could occur- (say I win a spy roll giving me preliminary data on attacks) The moment the missile launches were detected, the Strategic Defense Initiative of the nation would attempt to shoot down the ICBMs- Failing that, SM-3 missiles would be launched from naval ships at sea in order to intercept the remaining missiles which were missed by the SDI. In retaliation for the loss of the satellites, our own ASAT missiles would be launched against your nation to wipe out your satellites.

Idea 2. How to counter the UAV's
Say by some miracle some form of my radar detects the UAV's before they officially jam everything (shrug)- A general EMP ordinance strike would be ordered over your nation in order to destroy the electronic circuitry of the control modules of the UAV's forcing them to crash- To handle the Recon UAV's, my airforce would be launched to shoot down the UAVs as well as SAM missiles in order to destroy the recon craft.(assuming that they are also not mach 12)-

My own UAV's and recon aircraft would be in the air watching your troop movements and artillery strikes- They radio locations of your troops/get precise geographic coordinates whereby a strike is ordered from my bomber and fighter aircraft against your ground units. Troops and tanks and artillery and all that happy jazz would also move into position to counter your troops

[Triyun]

Am I allowed to point out why things don't work in the initial attack?

[Executive Minister]

[quote name='graniteknight' timestamp='1327553882' post='2907100']
Spies inside your Interior Ministries and Government report news of the attack plans before they could occur- (say I win a spy roll giving me preliminary data on attacks) [/quote]
A big no-no. While I suppose this could be possible, you don't need to do it, and its a waste of a roll.

[quote]
The moment the missile launches were detected, the Strategic Defense Initiative of the nation would attempt to shoot down the ICBMs- Failing that, SM-3 missiles would be launched from naval ships at sea in order to intercept the remaining missiles which were missed by the SDI. In retaliation for the loss of the satellites, our own ASAT missiles would be launched against your nation to wipe out your satellites. [/quote]

Indeed, you can shoot down these missiles since we are right beside each other... but be careful. An ICBM has three stages, boost (getting off the pad), midcourse (flying through the air, possibly moving around) and terminal (the thing ran out of juice and is now flying only on its momentum with usually no more energy to change its course... usually). The ideal stage to intercept would be midcourse, (IRL this is not true, boost stage interception is best, but I will explain why it isn't better in CNRP now).

If your opponent tries to weasel and say your Anti-ballistic missiles fired from the SDI (typically your longest ranged portion of your SDI system) tried to hit his ICBMs in boost stage, he could argue his own missile defenses could try to stop your ABMs from engaging. If you engage him at terminal stage... you're pretty much too late. In the midcourse stage there is room for ambiguity as to where the missile actually is. Technically your opponent could argue that he is trying to intercept your interceptors, but it would be harder for him than at boost stage, since he'd basically have to chase your ABMs from behind, burning much more energy to compensate for your course corrections.

As for your satellites themselves. You can do several things to minimize your losses.

1) Alter your courses... if a satellite orbiting the Earth boosts itself even a few degrees out of its current orbit, it could potentially cause an attack against it to fail. Insane speeds plus course deviation equals a target that your enemy will have a less than easy time intercepting. Since I need to fire those ICBMs into space, you WILL see them coming and can act accordingly.

2) Better still, have satellites that are 'hardened' against rudimentary shrapnel and have larger stores of motor propellant so they can move and evade more. You could also go a different route and RP your satellites are decentralized networked units (ie: think of a spider web floating in space. A high speed missile will destroy components of it, sure, but there might still be surviving remnants that can continue to do their jobs.)

3) RP having stores of replacement satellites that are cheaper, faster to launch and work in a pinch. This could fill the gap between having no sat coverage and at least having something.

4) Best still, RP doing all three.

[quote]
Idea 2. How to counter the UAV's
Say by some miracle some form of my radar detects the UAV's before they officially jam everything (shrug)- A general EMP ordinance strike would be ordered over your nation in order to destroy the electronic circuitry of the control modules of the UAV's forcing them to crash[/quote]

Okay bad move against these hypersonic high flying UAVs on many parts.

1) These aircraft are flying over YOUR cities. While a high altitude tactical EMP would not do much on the ground, you ARE blowing it above your own territory - this is assuming you try to fire EMP missiles at them in the skies using a guidance system that does not rely on radar seekers. If you aren't firing the EMPs at the aircraft, but at me ...

2)You do not know where my control centers are for my UAVs. You would need to either fire a whole lot of non-nuclear tactical EMP missiles into every part of my territory to be sure (since tactical EMPs are relatively short ranged) OR nuclear EMP me, which would lead to a nuclear exchange ending the war and the scenario as we know it.

A better method would go something like this:

My hypersonic UAVs fly towards your air space. If I am competent, I will give them time to 'rev up' to their cruising speeds over my airspace or neutral airspace before flying towards your territory, since hypersonic propulsion systems have poor acceleration (thrust-to-weight), needing time to get up to speed. Either case would give your Distant Early Warning or Over the Horizon radars ample warning that there is something flying very high, very fast and very hot. Your SDI might even mistake it for a ballistic missile. There is argument you could even use SDI missiles against my UAVs, since those missiles tend to be strategic in size and range, and extremely fast and tailored to engage in uncooperative targets at high altitudes. Hit to kill would be the only warhead you could reliably use against such high speeds, unless you go nuclear like the Sprint Missile of the cold war. One might argue that a hypersonic UAV would be able to evade much better than a ballistic missile in flight, but i doubt it highly. Travelling at such high speeds will break up your air frame if you try to deviate too much off course, if you are any sort of meaningful combat aircraft.

But what of the jamming? There are many ways to counter that. The most obvious being you kill these aircraft with the aforementioned methods before they activate, which would be well within your power to do.

You WOULD need to enlist the aid of Electronic-counter counter measures (ECCM) once jamming starts though.

You could focus more radar energy against the UAVs. The Smerch-A radar of the Mig-25 had a whopping 600 KW to its name. It could reportedly burn through electronic-jamming people threw at it at the time. While jamming has improved since then, so have radars... I said you had AESA for a reason. A ground based system, given enough juice, could burn through an airborne jammer since it has much more radar energy available than the jammer. Pulse compression works similarly, be shortening the duration of your scans, artificially boosting the amplitude and possibly surpassing the level of jamming.

Your radars could begin to 'frequency hop', that is, quickly change frequency (say from 3 cm to 2 cm) in a way that it co-ordinated with your radars over and over. A jammer would not know the sequence you hop to, and would need to expend much more power in order to cover more and more frequency bands. This in turn can be used with the first method to again, overwhelm the jammers. Not all your radars need to be doing the same thing, some can hop, some can compress.

You could also have your radars filter out the jamming, by directing nulls at points of interference (again, the wonders of AESA). You could also change the polarity of your signals, which operates similarly to hopping since a jammer must have the same polarity as your signal in order to be totally effective.

These methods may seem technobabbly, but heck, a lot of technobabble is mere posturing. All you need to know is what to say in order for people to understand what you intend to do, while also looking these methods up further on google, wikipedia or other sources you trust.

The last thing I can think of tonight that you could do is simply first ground launched anti-radiation missiles (ARM) at my drones. You would need strategic SAMs with both speed and the seeker in order to do it (everyone gogogo!) but it is a possibility. Basically, an ARM missile detects the energy my jammer is releasing in order to do the jamming itself, and homes in on it much like a sidewinder missile is a heat seeking missile. ARM missiles are radar energy seeking missiles.

[quote]To handle the Recon UAV's, my airforce would be launched to shoot down the UAVs as well as SAM missiles in order to destroy the recon craft.(assuming that they are also not mach 12)[/quote]

"Yes, but your strategic SAMs like the patriot or S-300/400/500 would be busy with other more important targets like my planes or cruise/ballistic missiles that will soon be headed your way." In a similar vein, your aircraft will be busy shooting at bombers, fighters and other goodies I'll be throwing at you tomorrow or whenever I post another scenario.

Of course, no one uses only one type of SAM, there are several types of surface-to-air missiles out there, heck there are several kinds of air defense out there. No one can use just one type or one system as their whole Air defense. Its important for you to at least mention the different layers in your air defense for a number of reasons.

1) Different targets need different weapons. While this might be obvious to some, I did have someone come up to me asking if his S-300s could shoot down artillery shells. Similarily, I do recall someone shooting at high performance stealth fighters flying at altitude with Stingers, and someone asking about autocannons being used against ICBMs.

2) If people spam you with suppression of air defense (SEAD) attacks, it is unwise to simply shrug off the damage. By RPing an extremely layered defense, you have more you can dispose of. You will seem co-operative by losing hardware, but will also survive mass-sledgehammer style attacks on your air defenses so you can keep shooting over the course of the war.

3) In a similar vein, with more layers, you can get away with doing more damage against incoming enemy ordinance and aircraft. Human beings' brains work wierdly. While any sane man would not spend 200 dollars on a gold encrusted dildo, many casino goers loose hundreds of dollars - lost in smaller increments. Bars have 2 dollar drink days since people are less inclined to see cost when its doled out in smaller increments, opposed to big lumps and will buy more.

If I shoot 100 cruise missiles at you, and you merely say your "SAMs" kill 87, everyone and their uncle will call BS. If I shoot 100 cruise missiles and several dozen are nicked by several layers.... well, it helps a bit, and will be much more likely to go
unopposed.



Generally, these layers will be organized by range, with the shortest ranged weapons being Autocannons, and Phalanx-like systems. These weapons are typically direct fire, line-of-sight weapons and are your last ditch defenses against mortars,artillery shells and rockets. On the other hand, Short-ranged Air defense Missiles (SHORAD) like the Russian [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska-M1#Missiles"]9M311[/url] missile, RIM-66, RIM-116, Pantsir, TOR or Man-portable Air defenses (MANPADs), like the Stinger or Strela are used against helicopters, UAVs, aircraft, cruise missiles, precision guided munitions... A special inclusion would be any directed energy systems like lingering lasers, drill (Lynneth) lasers and microwave beams people like to use nowadays, but that fits in more with autocannons and phalanx systems opposed to SHORAD missiles.

Next you have your tactical air defenses. These are almost all missiles as far as I know and are typically two staged, and may or may not fly in a ballistic arc... or might fly direct fire like the shortest ranged tier. Look for systems like the S-300, MIM-104 Patriot PAC-1 and PAC-2, or older cold war era missiles like the S-200 or Gecko. This layer will be your workhorse, taking the most kills as they are some of the more flexible SAMs out there. They can hit UAVs, helicopters, aircraft and similar targets like the short ranged tier, while also engaging higher ups like stealth bombers, advanced UAVs and even engaging as a last-ditch anti-ballistic missile defense (note, ABM defense does not mean you are necessarily shooting at full sized ICBMs).

At last, you have strategic air defenses. At these ranges and speeds, these missiles all use hit-to-kill warheads, as explosives become moot in this arena - unless you want to go nuclear. You'll want the S-400 or S-500, the PAC-3 or even more exotic missiles like the THAAD. I've even found the cold-war era Sprint missile to be an honest-to-goodness SAM even in this day and age for CNRP despite its flaws. These missiles will be what will try to hit ICBMs first, have the longest ranges and highest speeds, and are probably what constitutes your SDI. These present a formidable wall against your enemies, but dont be cowed. They often require a broad detection sphere you'll need to maintain, and are too big and unwieldy (expensive also comes to mind... but this is CNRP) to be used against lower flying or smaller targets. Again, layers are they key my boy... layers.

In any case, I went off topic.

For low flying units like the Predator, you can use radar guided autocannons firing intelligent bursting rounds (think of each bullet being a shot gun blast), heat, laser or radar guided SHORAD missiles. For higher units like the Sentinel Iran apparently hacked, you can use tactical air defenses like the S-300, PAC-1 or Gecko. Remember though, if i'm jamming you and you're using radar guided missiles the previous methods should be used when guiding your warheads to their targets (or trying to).

[quote]
My own UAV's and recon aircraft would be in the air watching your troop movements and artillery strikes- They radio locations of your troops/get precise geographic coordinates whereby a strike is ordered from my bomber and fighter aircraft against your ground units. Troops and tanks and artillery and all that happy jazz would also move into position to counter your troops
[/quote]

I see nothing wrong with this, but I would try to sound a bit more confident in your narration. Also, remember, you need to tell me how prepared you are for what I might send next. PS: I've gone easy on you and given you what was probably the first PARAGRAPH of a determined attacker's first post attack against you. There will be more stuff coming.

Remember, If you can see me, odds are I can probably see you. Get ready to lose UAVs and redeploy more. I would not use bombers and fighters just yet, since CNRP does limit you on how many you can have, with no regen that i've heard of. You would be best suited to fire "disposable" weapons at me like cruise missiles and short ranged ballistic missiles, rather than risk manned aircraft in such a knee-jerk reaction on your part, unless they are firing stand-off munitions well behind your lines.

Similarily... moving your troops in response to my actions are a good way to get them killed if you are not careful. Troops and equipment out in the open are as good as dead against a competent RPer. You have not told me what will protect them once I see movement over yonder. What you want to do is either have hidden/prepared troops and machines with defenses to shoot at any eyes that try to discern their positions, highly mobile and fluid defensive pickets, or a bit of both. Shooting and scooting will work well here... forget about stationary defenses that you cannot readily pack up and move.

Air assault units are excellent in this regard, helicopter infantry backed by heavy weapons deployment and artillery/guided indirect fire would be an excellent response to any break in your lines on the ground. Helicopter gunships are also good, if used properly. To put in perspective, during the cold war it was said that two divisions worth of Apache helicopter battalions, with three more at corps level, gave a commander had a capability to launch 1,440 hellfire missiles at a threatened breakthrough. Were these missiles launched all at once? Probably not, and silly to think so too.

You might also want to consider a counter-attack of your own. Time and time again i've seen that, while tacky, a good offense is indeed a great defense.

Bedtime now, anyone else can chime in with a scenario or rebuttal. Granite, i've got to say... maybe a D+... you'd definitely be rolled if you hinged your defense on this.You never told me what you were doing prior to my attack (having hindsight for an attack i've initiated is a big help when preparing for said attack!)




EDIT: Spellings

Edited January 26, 2012 by Executive Minister

[Executive Minister]

[quote name='Triyun' timestamp='1327560132' post='2907172']
Am I allowed to point out why things don't work in the initial attack?
[/quote]

Sure, although do keep in mind that those three mini paragraphs are not part of some sort of well thought out invasion plan crafted over days or weeks... just snippets i've recalled seeing in recent conflicts I remember. Indeed, one could say that alone, each sentence constitutes an attack all on its own to be analyzed and discussed.

In any case, i've never claimed to be an expert on military hardware or a master tactician. I have left the door open for others to hop in. This thread is a knee-jerk reaction to a request from Granite.

EDIT: Spellings.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Executive Minister

[Captain Enema]

[quote]Spies inside your Interior Ministries and Government report news of the attack plans before they could occur- (say I win a spy roll giving me preliminary data on attacks) The moment the missile launches were detected, the Strategic Defense Initiative of the nation would attempt to shoot down the ICBMs- Failing that, SM-3 missiles would be launched from naval ships at sea in order to intercept the remaining missiles which were missed by the SDI. In retaliation for the loss of the satellites, our own ASAT missiles would be launched against your nation to wipe out your satellites.
[/quote]

Winning a spy roll would not give you a spy in his interior ministry without rping how you got a spy into the Interior Ministry or having a spy bribe someone from his interior ministry. Both actions would require a bit more than one spy roll.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Tidy Bowl Man

[AironthFlamewing]

EM- I specifically looked up those Anti-Ballistic Missiles, The SM-3 is the only missile that can shoot down an ICBM in all three stages-

[Sands]

Surrender due to gross incompetence at not doing the opening move against an equally strong and aggressive foe.



Or, if this would be a CNRP war, immediately counter attack just as strongly, and ignore using anything that might be destroyed.



Really depends on if its CNRP hypothetical, or realistic hypothetical.

[Executive Minister]

[quote name='graniteknight' timestamp='1327574124' post='2907246']
EM- I specifically looked up those Anti-Ballistic Missiles, The SM-3 is the only missile that can shoot down an ICBM in all three stages-
[/quote]

Mmmhm. But you were vague as to where those missiles might hit. Vagueness is a double edged sword in CNRP. It is something both you, and your opponent can exploit.

[quote name='Sands' timestamp='1327582925' post='2907282']
Surrender due to gross incompetence at not doing the opening move against an equally strong and aggressive foe.

Or, if this would be a CNRP war, immediately counter attack just as strongly, and ignore using anything that might be destroyed.

Really depends on if its CNRP hypothetical, or realistic hypothetical.
[/quote]

Well if i'm talking about CNRP board mechanics, its pretty reasonable to say I'm talking about a CNRP hypothetical.

[Sands]

The my second reply, as that is the accepted and widely used method of CNRP fighting.

[MostGloriousLeader]

[quote]I first begin with a massed intelligence denial mission against you. From silos launched from behind my border, I fire several ICBMs into space, that split up and scatter submunitions in order to kill your satellites. Meanwhile, I send my own satellites to gather recon over your territories in order to find important targets of opportunity.[/quote]

I'm not really sure how this works cause I've never heard of using submunitions in space. I assume they're like micro missiles capable of moving on their own and not bomblets. I was under the impression that most ASAT systems were missiles that relied upon a kinetic kill or high explosive damage although I admit I could be wrong about that Also, you just exploded a crap ton of satellites over his nation and now that there's a crap ton of space debris you're going to move your own satellites into the orbit of tons of high speed space junk? I was under the impression that satellites try their best to avoid this kind of stuff IRL.

[quote]1) These aircraft are flying over YOUR cities. While a high altitude tactical EMP would not do much on the ground, you ARE blowing it above your own territory - this is assuming you try to fire EMP missiles at them in the skies using a guidance system that does not rely on radar seekers. If you aren't firing the EMPs at the aircraft, but at me ...[/quote]

While I agree this isn't exactly a viable option for most people as an EMP over your own country would normally cause an extreme amount of damage to electronic and power infrastructure I can actually see some nations possibly using this tactic mainly because they somehow EMP proofed their whole nation. I mean I don't how much money and resources it would take to do that IRL but this CNRP so it's whatever.

[quote]2)You do not know where my control centers are for my UAVs. You would need to either fire a whole lot of non-nuclear tactical EMP missiles into every part of my territory to be sure (since tactical EMPs are relatively short ranged) OR nuclear EMP me, which would lead to a nuclear exchange ending the war and the scenario as we know it.[/quote]

I know that UAVs are controlled from remote terminals and that they can really be anywhere with the proper minimal infrastructure but it's usually a safe bet that they're going to be located on an Air Force installation. I mean if you were advanced enough I suppose you could have your guys working in the back of a semi-truck trailer but for all practical purposes (at least with the amount of UAVs involved with this kind of operation) it's going to be somewhere the infrastructure readily exists so military installations are more or less a sure bet.

[quote]The whole last bit concerning troop movements and junk[/quote]

I feel the defense posture and movement of your troops depends on A) Size of your forces, B) Capability of your forces, C) Size of your nation, D) Existence of fortifications. Generally if you're forces are smaller than the enemy (at least in theater since you're probably not putting your entire army in the norther section of your country) you're going to want to keep them mobile so they don't get pinned and overwhelmed by a larger force. If roughly the same or larger you have a little more flexibility in how you deploy your troops. The actual mobility capability of your troops also matters a lot. Most people have a mechanized army so that way your units can move fairly rapidly with adequate protection. If you're army is for some reason an entirely infantry based force it's gonna take a bit to get from point A to point B. I agree helicopters would probably be the fastest method but a helicopter borne force can only carry so much equipment and in the presence of heavy enemy AA capabilities and fighter presence you're gonna take heavy losses if you're deploying near the front. Finally, many nations have massive fortification lines built on their borders and if you've done so it can only really benefit you. Remember no matter how much crap you put on the fortification the enemy will almost always eventually breakthrough. A good defense line will help buy you time to mobilize your forces and deploy them accordingly while inflicting damage on the enemy. After this an elastic defense would probably be the best option if you're capable of doing so as fixed lines seem to generally get broken pretty quick unless you have some good power behind it.

It's just my take with this scenario. This scenario could really go either way but you gotta be smart about how you go about it. Discussing this stuff is a good idea and may help newer Rpers with their CNRP warfare adventures.

[Executive Minister]

[quote name='Altarian Republic' timestamp='1327585527' post='2907300']
I'm not really sure how this works cause I've never heard of using submunitions in space. I assume they're like micro missiles capable of moving on their own and not bomblets. I was under the impression that most ASAT systems were missiles that relied upon a kinetic kill or high explosive damage although I admit I could be wrong about that Also, you just exploded a crap ton of satellites over his nation and now that there's a crap ton of space debris you're going to move your own satellites into the orbit of tons of high speed space junk? I was under the impression that satellites try their best to avoid this kind of stuff IRL.[/quote]

Indeed, however the point of this Game is not to debate the actual merits of weapons systems used in CNRP or the tactics used in CNRP... oh no, merely a set of examples and an extremely shallow telling by yours truly about how one could go about reacting to and perhaps even defending against such scenarios. While I do admit that using 'submunitions' is a bit of a misnomer, I will say no more on this matter except that this kind of weapon is indeed in use in CNRP. An ICBM is launched that retains several independently guided 'submunitions' which are infact ASAT missiles. As for what those missiles kill with, I cannot recall exactly what is used off the top of my head, as they are not my weapons. It would be fair to say your impression is correct though.

As for avoiding junk... CNRP mechanics my friend... CNRP mechanics reality is often glossed over in this regard.


[quote]
While I agree this isn't exactly a viable option for most people as an EMP over your own country would normally cause an extreme amount of damage to electronic and power infrastructure I can actually see some nations possibly using this tactic mainly because they somehow EMP proofed their whole nation. I mean I don't how much money and resources it would take to do that IRL but this CNRP so it's whatever.
[/quote]

This is quite like killing a barn full of mosquitos by setting your barn on fire. Lets give you the fact that his electronic and power infrastructure is EMP proofed. Such is the norm amongst modern nations after all, and indeed I do employ strategic SAMs with a nuclear warhead for scenarios in which I'd have no other choice but to use them.

While a non-nuclear (assuming Granite uses one) HPM or EMP warhead blast has a relatively small radius compared to its nuclear cousins, that warhead will fry every active radar within its effective range. Can this be defused by carefully selecting the locations of the warhead blasts... probably, but its far too much undue risk in my opinion.

[quote]
I know that UAVs are controlled from remote terminals and that they can really be anywhere with the proper minimal infrastructure but it's usually a safe bet that they're going to be located on an Air Force installation. I mean if you were advanced enough I suppose you could have your guys working in the back of a semi-truck trailer but for all practical purposes (at least with the amount of UAVs involved with this kind of operation) it's going to be somewhere the infrastructure readily exists so military installations are more or less a sure bet.
[/quote]

We are dealing with CNRP. Everyone is an advanced nation. Assuming that UAV controllers are solely within air force bases is a very... hopeful assumption. Even if you were correct in that regard, imagine the layers of defence (your enemy is a competent one) one would need to pass through in order to hit those -most likely heavily guarded on their own- sites?

A good many of those weapons you launched to disrupt all that jamming will be intercepted... who can say which UAV controllers they actually take out? A modern CNRP often uses UAVs like paper weights... there are no limits to their numbers as far as I can recall. Even if those hypersonic UAVs are limited in some way, there are still all the controllers of unlimited UAVs that an enemy can claim you hit instead.

[quote]
I feel the defense posture and movement of your troops depends on A) Size of your forces, B) Capability of your forces, C) Size of your nation, D) Existence of fortifications. Generally if you're forces are smaller than the enemy (at least in theater since you're probably not putting your entire army in the norther section of your country) you're going to want to keep them mobile so they don't get pinned and overwhelmed by a larger force. If roughly the same or larger you have a little more flexibility in how you deploy your troops. The actual mobility capability of your troops also matters a lot. Most people have a mechanized army so that way your units can move fairly rapidly with adequate protection. If you're army is for some reason an entirely infantry based force it's gonna take a bit to get from point A to point B. I agree helicopters would probably be the fastest method but a helicopter borne force can only carry so much equipment and in the presence of heavy enemy AA capabilities and fighter presence you're gonna take heavy losses if you're deploying near the front. Finally, many nations have massive fortification lines built on their borders and if you've done so it can only really benefit you. Remember no matter how much crap you put on the fortification the enemy will almost always eventually breakthrough. A good defense line will help buy you time to mobilize your forces and deploy them accordingly while inflicting damage on the enemy. After this an elastic defense would probably be the best option if you're capable of doing so as fixed lines seem to generally get broken pretty quick unless you have some good power behind it.

It's just my take with this scenario. This scenario could really go either way but you gotta be smart about how you go about it. Discussing this stuff is a good idea and may help newer Rpers with their CNRP warfare adventures.
[/quote]

You are correct, however please do not assume I am advocating for a one or the other approach to... offensive defensiveness?

Layers are the key to CNRP warfare... whether its intimidating paragraphs making your weapons seem god-like, intricate deployment patterns and engagement systems or both, layers are what govern what makes a good CNRP war post. Do I agree? Yes, along the lines that war in CNRP is actually quite formulaic in its discourse. Would I like to see wars with the fat cut out? Sure. My aim is not to change warring in CNRP in anyway... simply share my insights from what i've read on the boards, helped others with or experienced as either an aggressor (hardly) or a victim.

Does this need for layers constitute what is solely needed to win a war? Hardly not. This is merely needed in order to ensure you pull your own weight should you be faced off fighting a war alone, or in a group. Those that do not layer their war posts often stand out amongst a warring party as someone who's weight needs to be compensated for in my view. Allies certainly help, and given the right set of circumstances quantity may triumph over "quality". "Quality" mixed with quantity is almost always the side that wins (please do not mistake the scare quotes for my disdain or judgement upon such warring individuals and groups, they are merely there so as not to seem like I am advocating nor condemning such conduct).

Any ways, back to your comment.

It is my view from an operational standpoint that stationary defenses are quite useless in CNRP, save for bomb shelters and prepared firing positions. Those who RP enormous Normandy-esque sea walls and ground based 16 inch guns will see them readily destroyed in 1 or two posts if attacked by a competent attacker. On the otherhand, anything that you can throw away to allow you to survive another one or two posts may be of help to you. I must ponder this further

The fact is, the moment a stationary defense is discovered, it is either dead or merely circumvented by the enemy. Of course, what you say is true, having them stay only to soak up a bit of damage before your forces arrive is nearly the only thing they are good for. What I meant to say earlier is that Granite should not put his hopes on castle walls and keeps alone. Layers.

For every stationary defense, there is a mobile equivalent. Be it tertiary Anti-ship ballistic missile silos, Surface to air missiles, gun emplacements, artillery, cruise missiles... I find packs of constantly patrolling and displacing TEL launchers are more than enough to watch a theatre if given ample reconnaissance and threat evaluation capability before hand, be it against ship, satellite, ground or air. But again, never rely on one thing to defend you. Layers.