Republic of Denton: Revisited

[ezgo394]

To clear up any confusion here is my equipment list (of all the branches). When I said comparable in size to the HAF, I was referring to the Active duty. I don't know a whole lot about military stucture, so this may seem a little off.


Active Military Size
Army: 95,000
Air Force: 37,500
Navy: 35,000 + 7,500 MSC
Total Active: 175,000


Army Size:

1300 MBT
500 Large AIFV (CV-90, Marder, M2/3 Bradley, Warrior, YPR-765, BMP-1/2/3)
1000 Tracked APC (M-113, YPR-765, BMP-1/2/3, MT-LB, BTR-50)
1000 Wheeled APC (AIT, Sytrker, BTR)
250 Armored Mortar Carrier (M-113, YPR-765, BMP-1/2/3, MT-LB, BTR-50)
250 Armored ATGM Carriers ( " " " )
80 Armored Command Vehicles ( " " " M577)
950 Armored Wheeled Vehicles (VBL, HMMWV, Cougar)
55 Tracked Medevac (M-113, YPR-765, BMP-1/2/3, MT-LB, BTR-50)
90 Wheeled Medevac (HMMWV, Cougar)
45 AVLB (Biber, Wolverine)
155 ARV (M88, Leopard II Buffalo)
10 Demining Vehicle (MBT)
155 Tactical Ballistic Missile TEL (Scud)
95 Theater Ballistic Missile TEL (SS-23 4-5 axle)
25 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile TEL (Topol-M 7 axle)
135 Rocket Artillery (MLRS, RM-70, WR-40 Langusta)
585 Self-Propelled Artillery (M-109A6, 152mm SpGH DANA, 155mm SpGH ZUZANA)
545 Towed Artillery ()
80 Coastal Defense Guns (A-222 Bereg)
140 Air Defense Missile System (Flakpanzer Gepard, Patriot Missile)
490 Air Defense Gun System (ZSU-23-4, BRAMS, Flakpanzer Gepard)
10 Air Defense Radar(P-19 radar)
8000 SUV/Light Truck (HMMWV, Massif)
660 10x10 Transport Trucks (10x10 Tatra 813, PLS/HEMTT,)
1060 8x8 Transport Trucks (Tatra 813, HEMTT, Maz-537, Maz-543)
1300 6x6 Transport Trucks (M35, M939, Tatra 813, Tatra 111)
320 4x4 Transport Trucks (MAN KAT)

Army Air Arm:
270 Aircraft

120 Utility Helicopters (Huey, S-70, Mi-8)
60 Transport/heavy cargo helicopters (Mi-26, CH-53)
10 Very Large Transport Cargo Helicopters (V-12)
30 Attack Helicopter (AH-64)
20 Large Attack Helicopter (Mi-24)
15 Winged Gunships (AC-130 Spooky)
15 Training Helicopter


Air Force Size:
525 Aircraft

180 Fighter Aircraft (F-14 Tomcat, Panavia Tornado, Mirage, A-7 Corsair, F-4 Phantom)
80 Ground attack Aircraft ( " " " " " )
20 Electronic warfare aircraft ( " " " " " )
30 Large Tactical Transports (C-130)
20 Medium Strategic Transports (An-22)
5 Large Strategic Transports (C-5/An-124)
15 Heavy Bombers (187 Condor)
25 Medium Bombers (Tu-95)
5 AEW&C
8 Aerial Refueling Aircraft
60 Basic Trainer Aircraft (T-6 Texan II) with light attack role
40 Jet Trainer Aircraft (T-2 Buckeye, Hawk 200) with weapons capacity
8 Medium VIP transport aircraft (737, 757, 767)
3 Large VIP Transport Aircraft (747/777)
25 Utility Helicopters (Huey, S-70, Mi-8)


Navy Size:
34 Warships
4 Submarines
65 Fleet Support & Auxiliaries

2 Cruiser
12 Frigates
4 Landing Ship (Tank)
2 Landing Ship (Dock)
5 Landing Ship (Utility)
5 Medium Hovercraft (LCAC/Aist)
4 Large Hover Craft (Zubr)
3 Roll-On, Roll-Off Cargo Ships
4 Diesel-Electric Submarines
10 Mine Hunters
5 Mine Sweepers
12 Fast Attack Craft
8 Patrol Boat
7 Replemishment Oilers
4 Ocean Going Tugs
6 Harbor Tug
5 Fuel/Water Tanker
1 Hospital Ship
4 Oceanographic Research

Navy Air Arm:
72 Aircraft

34 Maritime helicopter
28 Anti-submarine helicopter
10 Maritime patrol (FixedWing)


Coast Guard Size:

12 LifeBoats
6 Bouy Tenders
5 Open Sea Patrol Vessels
32 Coastal Patrol Craft
6 Hydrographic Survey Vessels
3 Icebreakers


Also, after thinking about it last night, I could just go ahead and at least reduce the service time to 1 year, and that will cut my conscripts in half (from 275,000-295,000 to 135,000 to 150,000) unless you know how I could effectively field such a large amount of soldiers. (Of course this is only an idea)

To answer your question, yes this is an island (two main islands and then smaller outlying ones, like new zealand turned on it's side).

I hope this helps clear some of the fog.

[Blackscorpy]

[sarcasm]Woah, an US citizen who supports conscription![/sarcasm]

The whole idea of conscription is to create a large reserve, giving good wartime capabilities with reasonable costs. I personally and quite a few of my friends also view it as a benefit to the society as a whole, but I won't go into that discussion now.

If you're going to have the guys spend 2 years in the military for just a few years in the reserves, you should find them damn good things to do. A fairly effective force can be created in half a year quite easily, with a year being already quite longs for an average infantry guy to some extent. NCOs and officers should have longer service periods, of course, the same for some conscripts who get in specialized positions. Mind you, for a reserve, you need to have additional training after the initial conscript service. For FDF, it's 40, 75 and 100 days (vs service of 180, 270 or 362 days), although the quota is rarely met. I've been literally waiting for the envelope for the past few years now. Luckily we have the "regional troops" now, i.e. our own form of National Guard assigned to work in their home territory; I'm seriously considering joining. Swiss Army has a pretty comprehensive training system for that, I'm quite sure I've mentioned that before.

How does your conscription service take into account the possible differences in life situations? Here in Finland you need to do your service between 18 and 30 years of age; most join in after high school (pre-university that is) at 18 or 19, but some people get an university degree before going to serve. Education counts as a good enough reason to delay the service.

Your calculations for reserve size look pathetic, to be honest. For example, Finland has about 5.3 million people and currently a wartime strength of 350000, getting down to 250000 by 2015. So that's about 1/4th of the fit-to-serve males. Cadre force in the FDF is about 15000. With some 300 female volunteers yearly, compared to 27000 males yearly. During Cold War, the reserves were double the size. Ironically, I know quite a few guys who could easily run marathons just like that, but they've got no wartime unit assigned due to them being over 30. Fancy NATO model... Back to your AU, your reserves for males alone should be past 1.5 million; if females are treated equally and you keep a large reserve, 4 million is a reasonable number.

What kind of terrain does the country have? MBTs are hardly effective offensive weapons in woods and mountain terrain, but in open flats they'd rule. Used more defensively, they can be very efficient, but then again, a large caliber recoilless rifle and AT missiles can wreck havoc in a good defensive position. RPG-29s are man-portable and yet can kill MBTs for fraction of the cost of another MBT.

The size of police corps seems reasonable. I'm assuming your nation is slightly under 20 million people in size. Could possibly be slightly higher, but seems reasonable if they're efficient and your nation is generally of a fairly safe type.

[eswube]

In some categories of equipment it looks bit... much. (especially ballistic missiles)
And in some categories bit... not enought (especially trucks - for every mechanized division You'll need in range of 1,000-2,000 of them, and rear area support will need lots of them too - even more perhaps).

Once again: that 175,000 is what?
a) total number of soldiers in active duty in peacetime, consisting of both career soldiers (for whom it's their full-time work) plus number of drafted conscripts doing their compulsory service;
b) number of career soldiers only, to which these 275,000 must be added to get total peacetime strength?

"Active duty" mean those that are wearing uniforms at daily basis. Career plus serving conscripts.
"Reserve" mean those that no longer serve - former career soldiers and former conscripts that filled their obligation (1-2 years or whatever).

Strength of Hellenic Army (that 156,500) is "A" - both career soldiers and conscripts.

From the number of "available for military service" I assume that Your population is about 15 milion?
Then these 450,000 of "B" option is BIG peacetime army.
In normal circumstances it's assumed that peacetime strength of the military (career soldiers + conscripts) shouldn't exceed around 1% of total population. During Cold War both Warsaw Pact and NATO countries exceeded somewhat that numbers, so does Israel, both Koreas and some other countries in "unsafe environments". But generally it's not good for economy.

In this case total peacetime strength of Your military should be around 100,000-150,000, rather no more than 150,000-200,000. Besides, with an island You don't need even that much (meaning, You can cut the land force), as by definition any opponent will be able to field only limited land army against You, as even US assault capabilities aren't infinite (being limited by number and capacity of amphibious landing ships and transport aircraft).

As for the Blackscorpy's remarks of reserve force of several million - numerically it's indeed the case, although not necessarily the practical solution. Essentially it's not practical even in wartime to have more than around 10% of population under arms. After all, somebody still has to feed all country, supply, provide services to population etc.
So You can have 3-4 milion reserves, but do You really feel the need to buy them arms, uniforms and equipment etc?

Look at Australia - similiar population base and military of around 70,000 (peacetime, plus similar number of reserves) in late 1980s. With peacetime land force of just some 30,000 - single active division plus 2 divisions of reserves.

Maybe before deciding for particular force structure and numbers, You'd write what do You actually need and want and what's Your security environment (perceived threats)?

[ezgo394]

Yeah, TBH I support conscription. Of course I think it works better for smaller countries.

With what you said maybe 1 year is better. Just 4 weeks of basic and then if needed then have 4 weeks of specialist training.

For any higher education, it has to be postponed until after you finish.

The population is 17,500,000. Terrain of the country is like new Zealand. Mountains and hills, few very flat areas.

Thats about all I'm willing to type on my phone. When I get back home I will try to give more information

Thanks for all the feedback!!

Edit: @eswube, I will respond with more information later today.

[Blackscorpy]

@eswube: I'd say it's better have the reserves than not have them. Mind you, my experiences are based on the assumption of a largely defensive war against Soviet Union and nowadays Russia. Extra reserves can be called as needed, material supplies are needed anyways for normal operations (even in peacetime), and older stored ammo can be used in training while newer ammo is stored. While we technically had 750000 men in reserve, perhaps, we never deployed more than about 500000, and some older age classes weren't deployed to the front until the major battles in 1944, and even in then only momentarily.

@ezgo: That of course depends how you divide specialist training and basic training, etc. Ours is 8 weeks for all services, the first 2 weeks involving introduction to military life as a whole and some very basic training. So: signing up, getting the basic kit, learning how the ranks and how to salute etc, some drills, learning how to set up ones personal gear, rifle training, some physical tests, drill, living outdoors with the army kit etc. After that, more training (more shooting, orienteering, PE, more drills, etc) and getting to use them in the forest in 1-2 week camps. After 8 weeks, you should know the basics and after graduating and getting your rank, you get assigned a position for specialized training, be it NCO school, tank driver, or a normal infantry grunt.

How often do the forces take in new recruits? Once per year? Once every 6 months?

I agree with eswube that the army size can be reduced a bit due to the large naval and air components. Army tends to be "conscript heavy" compared to navies and air forces (which tend to be "officer heavy"), since it's a lot easier to train a tank crew than a helicopter crew or a ship crew. I've very little knowledge of our navy practices, but our fairly small naval force trains about twice the number of conscripts compared to the staff, and air force trains about half. For the air force, it's mostly support units: mechanics, truck drivers, cooks, aerial surveillance, electronic warfare, command & control systems, weathermen and the most combat-like force I guess, the MPs.

I also have numbers about the personnel structure if you want to get that close; lets just say that our cadre force has 8500 uniformed and 6500 civilian employees. Add to that the amount of conscripts to get the peacetime strength, taking into account the fact we have two groups of conscripts each year, so only about 50-75% of those should be added to the active number.

[eswube]

@Blackscorpy
Well, yes, it's better to have the reserves than not have them, but that wasn't exactly what I thought. I was more referring to what You wrote later, about the difference between "technical" number of people in reserve and number of actually deployed.
I meant, that while You can have a theoretical manpower pool of certain size, there is no point in having a designed structure for all or most of them, but only for certain precentage (like, for example, those that had their compulsory service within 5 or 10 years).

As for the counting "50-75% of those to the active number" - mind that generally active number (look for example at publications like The Military Balance or Jane's World Armies) means all wearing uniform full-time at any given moment, regardless if they are career professionals with 20 years of experience or fresh recruits since yesterday. They are in the military, period.

Yes, indeed, armies are most "conscript heavy" as navies and air forces tend to use conscripts mostly for those duties where least specialized training is needed (or, like in case of Soviet-bloc navies, they have longer period of service - 3 years instead of 2).
Besides, with island nation there is relatively less need for army in the first place, as 1) not everywhere enemy can invade due to geographical character of coastline, 2) size of the invading force is by definition limited, while defenders enjoy the better situation.

[ezgo394]

First thing. I am going to hit eswube's points and then Blackscorpy's.

I do realize it is a bit much... But it gives me a chance to have a miniature full scale Army.

As I had listed it, 175,000 is the Active Duty for the Army, Air Force and Navy.

Army: 95,000
Air Force: 37,500
Navy: 35,000 + 7,500 MSC
Total Active: 175,000

Makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up. So basically, the 1 year conscripts (changing that now) will be in active duty until they are through with their service and then will be transferred to the Reserves until they are 49.

I realize that the Hellenic Armed forces is slightly smaller, but I did try to even out the numbers so that means that we have roughly the same amount of equipment for a larger Armed forces.

Population is at 17.5 million (and kept steady due to strict immigration laws). With the average age of 80, I just divided the pouplation count by the average age and got the (rough) amount of males and females for each given year.

Being an island means... Water.. No bordering countries. Yeah, I know .
While yes, I do agree that the Army size is optimistic, it does include all of the Marines that are used in amphibious assaults, the strategic missile forces, coastal defense batteries, air defense batteries, etc etc. Oh, and all of the transport and attack helicopters. Plus, I was thinking of completely gitting rid of the NatGuard and incoporating that into the army. But of course, I got no idea.

The civilians under arms thing will be like the Swiss. When the conscripts leave Active service, they will keep their weapon and be required to keep it in their home. They will buy the ammo themselves and be required to have several boxes at least (something like that).

Originally I had a military this size for a population of 10 million and it seemed too huge. Plus, I don't think 1% is too much, although I do realize that most developed countries have militaries below half a percent.

What I need and want: Well I do want to have 10 carriers... Just kidding, just kidding. I'm never dealing with carriers again.
Well, I do want a sufficiently sized force, and I feel that my Navy and Air Force are sufficient and not too large. The Army on the other hand is large, I do agree with that, but I feel that even though I don't have a whole lot of land or any bordering countries, it will still be an asset. If I just had a small army the size of the Air Force or Navy, I would feel woefully underpowered. Plus, having a large force makes a little more sense when considering that all of the arms are produced domestically (I don't want to hear anything about this. I want to design everything that we use, even the guns).

The percieved threats.. Well, the same BS as always, right? National Security and Anti-Terrorism?
I could also go with Piracy in the outlying islands, and in the isolated mountainous areas of the large islands. Maybe also have a large presence in several Wars going on right now, like the Afghan war (although we are now pulling out). Peacekeeping missions, stuff like that.
Basically, like the Imperialist Americans.

That's all I got.

To Blackscorpy

Like I said, I am for conscription because... Well, just look up Conscription in wikipedia, on 'Political and moral motives.' I pretty much agree with that whole thing.

I decided to go with 1 year, basically to halve the number of conscripts.

I was going to basically require all of the conscription to be done between age 18-20, so as to 'get it out of the way.' Afterwards, then they can go into higher education.

The reserve size calcuations... Well, that's why I'm here.

The terrain as stated before has terrain like new Zealand. Mountains and hills, few very flat areas.


Response to the two newer posts:

@blackscorpy

I'm really not sure. I was just thinking of 4 weeks basic, and 4 weeks specialist, but like I said before. I am not an expert.

I was thinking of taking recruits in every year, but it seems that 6 months may be more effective because it will reduce the amount of conscripts in basic training.

Army size, as stated above..

With the personnel stucture, I have no idea what to do there.

For the conscript calculations, I just took the 220,000 males&females and divided that by 65% to get a number on how many conscripts would be coming in yearly.


Of coure, let me remind you that 1.) I accounted tthe 175,000 Active and 87,500 Reserve for a professional armed forces type thing, and 2.) I'm not very knowledgeable on the whole thing, so I won't know everything that's going on.

Thanks for the help!

[eswube]

Of coure, let me remind you that 1.) I accounted tthe 175,000 Active and 87,500 Reserve for a professional armed forces type thing

You should count ALL reserves together - former professionals and former conscripts. If You have conscript army, then separate counting of former professionals is simply redundant and serves totally no purpose.

And in conscript militaries, reserves usually outnumbers active component.

If You have 17,5 million of population, then You can have armed forces of 175,000 active + ca. 370,000-400,000 reserves without resorting to conscripting women. Number of men will be enough to cover that needs. You have around 110,000 young males reaching draft age each year, so assuming that half of them (55,000) will join the force (and other half will be studying, having kids or incapable due to health), with 2 year service You can have a peacetime military of 65,000 professionals and 110,000 conscripts (more Cold War-style) or with 1 year service about 110,000 professionals and 65,000 conscripts (post-Cold War-style, conscripts only on less training-demanding positions).
Note, that most major militaries of the Cold War era had 2-year conscription term. Shorter terms were introduced in the 1990s when there was simply no need for large armies, and generals fumbled, that shorter conscription terms produces less trained soldiers.
Switzerland had short period of service, but extremely frequent refresher training courses.

Btw. - what's the purpose of Your National Guard (as in various countries such formations serve vatious purposes)?

Generally, as for the Navy and Air Force I have no major remarks (maybe only that numbers of aircraft usually don't divide by 5, but rather by 4 for combat planes and usually 3 for special/support planes - with standard late Cold War NATO combat squadron having 18 aircraft - 4 flights of 4 plus 2 in HQ section).

As for the organization of Land Force, there are generally two possible ways:
-organizing everything in uniform set of corps and large divisions (for example 3 corps with 9-12 divisions), plus perhaps smaller formations if there are some isolated islands etc.
-dividing force into two parts - mobile formation and territorial (reserve formation) (for example 1 corps with 2-3 divisions, and 2-3 military districts each with some reserve brigades or sub-districts with autonomous batallions).
First option, for example (as far as island countries are considered) was/is used by Taiwan, second one by Indonesia (of course on a different scales).

Generally, my question about "threat perception" was meant, if You have any particular reason to expect large-scale war with anyone (like, having maritime dispute with China or whatever) or possible large-scale insurgency at home. As it's a major factor regarding force disposition, wether You expect a possible invasion, or rather want an expeditionary army to "introduce democracy with tanks on the other side of the globe".

Still, with Your localization and needs, I'd say that even 1300 tanks are bit much (far less 3000), and I'd cut it at least by half.

We can slowly go into more details, if You say, what You want/prefer.

[Blackscorpy]

As for the counting "50-75% of those to the active number" - mind that generally active number (look for example at publications like The Military Balance or Jane's World Armies) means all wearing uniform full-time at any given moment, regardless if they are career professionals with 20 years of experience or fresh recruits since yesterday. They are in the military, period.

I was referring to the amount of conscripts in the active number - you have 25000 annually, of which most do 6 months of service. About 20% receive NCO training and 5-10% receive reserve CO training and serve 12 months. In addition to that you have the MPs and some more specialized units serving 9 months. Thus, about 75% of the annual number might be in uniform at any given time... well, not accounting for the weekend and other holidays.

EDIT @eswube: I don't think the estimates for the numbers are too high, given the size of the nation. About 80% of males do their annual required service in Finland, with a small but somewhat steady drop in the numbers in recent years, though. Deciding the service time and need for professional staff depends on the structure you have, i.e. how much responsibility is placed on the conscripts and what sort of tasks you give them. Officer candidates can work as platoon 2ICs, and train to be the platoon CO (a 2nd Lt wartime job) with the support of a career officer, with the company having career soldiers as CO and XO. So for a 3-platoon company you technically only need 5 career officers, although having a few career NCOs is always a good idea. Even with 12 months service time you can train conscripts to act as crewmen, mechanics (incl. high tech jets), air traffic/combat controllers, special forces (para/rangers vs "true" SF), electrical warfare etc. Based on what I've heard and read, some forces tend to be kind of "top heavy" compared to FDF, and have stricter hierarchy... whereas I was a corporal and traveled with a major on my way to holidays. Nice fella, I must say.

On a quick glance the numbers seem OK; I'm trying to get info on Singapore now since it has a pretty big air and naval component, with conscription. The Swiss reference was in regard of their basic and refresher training, not specifically to the gun ownership. Off the top of my head, the yearly exercises are a month long and the professional officers are there namely to see that everything is done correctly; even on divisional level the whole thing is run by reservists, IIRC.

The navy seems to be leaning towards force projection a bit atm, as do the ICBM force and the bomber force (depending on what you do with them, of course). The AF also lacks a primary trainer; the T-6 is somewhat more closer to a jet than an entry-level prop thing. Also, the wide variety of vehicles in certain branches is a bit puzzling (i.e. 7 IFVs if BMP-1/2 are counted as one). WIP I assume. Mechanized units in harsh terrains are a bit of a complex thing anyways - the environment might heavily restrict their use, while on the other hand having specialized vehicles might be the only way of moving stuff. I'd suggest you add articulated vehicles and partly reduce the armoured element as a whole.

Going through these things is interesting, since I've been working on my own AU (Korean peninsula sized, Northern Atlantic/European, ~10 Mio people) for quite a long time now and I'm still trying to figure some things out. I'll try to post an initial version in the near future.

(Since I'm searching info and reading stuff while writing, some of the points might've been already covered before I finish writing. Thus the overlap.)

[eswube]

@Blackscorpy
Well, I believe that generally used numbers of total active strength do not care about wether particular solder is in barracks or on leave, but just count the number of personnel list.

Estimates for the numbers may not be too high, but threat perception in various countries results in various structures and organizations. Not all countries feel they need a total defence-style organization like, say Finland (at least used to have). My point was mostly with having Ezgo's AU country in mind.

As for the Singapore, The Military Balance 2010 (p. 425-426) says:
Army - 15,000 career personnel + 35,000 conscripts + 300,000 reserves (2 year service, annual training up to age of 40 for other ranks, 50 for officers),
Navy - 2,000 career personnel + 1,000 conscripts + 5,000 reserves,
Air Force - 10,500 career personnel + 3,000 conscripts + 7,500 reserves.

Total - 27,500 career personnel + 39,000 conscripts = 66,500 active personnel + 312,500 reserves.

Additionaly there is Civil Defence Force of 1,600 career personel, 3,200 conscripts, 23,000 reservists and 54,000 volunteers (?) - total 81,000.
Singapore Police Force (including Coast Guard) - 8,500, 3,500 conscripts, 21,000 reservists.

@Ezgo394
Well, I wrote that I have no particular remarks about Navy and Air Force, but in the navy aviation You wrote: 34 maritime helicopters and 28 ASW helicopters. ASW helos are by definition maritime.

As for the army equipment, I have more reservations (starting with number of tactical and theater missile launchers - these numbers - 155 and 95 respectively, are close to the amount US Army had of these in the height of Cold War, and much more than Polish Army had in the 1980s, when it numbered 420,000; other thing is number of radars - certainly not just 10, and why obsolete P-19 from S-125 Newa - NATO: SA-3 SAM? - of course there's other stuff, but that's more related to particular force structure).