The Campaign Builder's Guild

I just read this: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA512331&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

For those who can't be bothered to read through the whole thing, it discusses how the US army's infantry equipment, training, and general methodology has changed from the first world war to the present, and how it has gone from at first being heavily focussed on precise fire at long range, to being severely limited in its ability to engage the enemy at over 200 metres, without ever having found a workable middle ground. Some solutions are then proposed.

Now, besides the purely military interest of the text, it brought home several factors for me to do with technology, and how and why it, and the accepted doctrine for its use, can change.
The fact that although infantry tactics and equipment have advanced a lot in the last hundred years, this has actually led to detrimental effects to, or neglecting of, certain areas of performance really struck me as illustrative of how complex such matters can be in the real world. The amount of factors, many of them not of a military nature, that affected the American infantry throughout the last century is staggering.

It has inspired me to try to replicate similar complexities in any future world-building, and I'm interested to know if you ever write in similar convolutions and performance exchanges in your worlds? Does not have to be military in nature, could rather be about how the advent of access to a new spice has lead to a drop in the use of other flavourings in a nation's cuisine, as the new flavour is perceived to be better all round than more traditional herbs, when in fact it only works in certain dishes, or whatever....

I spend a lot of time researching even the smallest stuff if I feel it's important, especially when it comes to military material. Things such as the flux in capability and function you mention are something I try to replicate as much as possible, and it happens within a specific faction as much as it does between factions.

One particular example is in my setting Vibrant, where humans have become quite divided on whether to use metal ammunition or energy weapons. In the history, energy weapons were developed to a degree but the major factions deemed it less effective, so they stuck to more-or-less the same design as you see today. Some factions successfully developed energy weapons to where they found them sufficient, especially fringe worlds where the infrastructure was less developed and a weapon whose power reserves could be easily recharged was more useful.

Using a military example from my setting the major powers of my setting have militaries that have grown out of previous conflicts with each other. As one example the prominent Maeri forces are heavily geared towards small specialized foot soldier squads with emphasis on sabotage, hit and fade attacks, and psychological warfare. This is something that has been drawn from their tribal history and fueled by regular inter-tribe warfare ever since. Technology for them has advanced along these lines with the Maeri kingdoms favoring guns, poison, and easily concealed melee weapons (short swords, sickles, punching daggers, etc).

Originally the Maeri tribes used classical warfare with large lines of troops squaring off and charging each other. The specialized units were originally supporters that helped to break the enemies resolve before the battle or demoralize them once the forces were joined. Their effectiveness was quite notable and for awhile there was a long battle of infiltrator and anti-infiltrator continuing to escalate. The tribes still maintain standing armies obviously since infiltrators alone can't conquer an enemy or stop a charge. Yet these are largely simple militia meant more as meat shields than anything else.

Where your noted topic becomes prominent is when you realize that this specialization has given way to certain tactics. The elite squads of the tribes allow an advantage vs enemy scouts and formations and several such groups can seriously damage an enemies resolve before the battle ever begins. Yet the small group tactics and lack of naval focus means that they are local players at best. In a fight against a power like The Pearl Way or the Gerrag their ships would get annihilated by the more naval focused forces of their opponents before they could land. Yet neither opponent would bring the fight to the kingdoms because their elite ground tactics would shred the invaders ground troops.

Quote from: FREAKIN' AWESOME HORSESome factions successfully developed energy weapons to where they found them sufficient, especially fringe worlds where the infrastructure was less developed and a weapon whose power reserves could be easily recharged was more useful.

I'm curious, other than the ammo/power supply issues, does the difference in armament reflect or lead to any contrasting elements of doctrine? For example, does the comparative effective ranges (or something similar) of energy versus projectile firearms lead to differences in training and tactics between energy-infantry and projectile-infantry?

Do any factions use a combination of projectile and energy weaponry? If so, is it within formations, or do some combat arms use energy weapons and others projectiles?

In my InnerSOL setting each of the major Super Powers have opted for radically divergent military doctrines.

The Martian Totality favors massive space superiority in naval battles. To accomplish this, the Totality fields the enoumous Barbarossa-class Mega Carrier, which houses nearly 20 Mobiru (Mecha) and double that number of Space Jets. The costs involved in creating these behemoths has proven a detriment as Mars currently has just 5. This weakness, led the Martians to creating a large number of Light Carriers that can field 4 Mobiru each. Thus the Martian fleet is often organized around one of the Barbarossa-class Mega Carriers and 10 or more Light Carriers. On the Mobiru front, the Martian Totality favors a plethora of units, each with a specialized goal in mind. This each Barbarossa-Carrier can house five or six different types of Mobiru. This is viewed as both a great strength and a great weakness, so in response, the Lighter Carriers utilize a cheap, mass produced, versatile unit.

The Western Alliance's military doctrine has always been about shoot from afar and favors versatility over specialty. Thus, the Alliance fleet is composed of a very well rounded assortment of Carriers ranging from the Jack Eisenhower-class Light Carrier to the Ryan Harper-class Super Carrier. The Alliance favors a larger number of mass produced Space Jets and a smaller number of higher performance Mobiru.

The Russian Federation prefers games of stealth and surprise attacks, and thus fields the largest number of stealth ships in Sol. Most of these ships focus on utilizing black pain scheme, radiation absorbing hulls and a large number of micro-fusion torpedoes. Stealth ships usually employ a small number of steal space jets that allow the Stealth Ship to extend its effective presence over a much larger area. Beyond Stealth Ships, the Russians prefer to not waste money on large ships, thus the Federation chose to field a Navy almost completely devoid of Carriers larger than a Light Carrier. The Russians do possess one Mega Carrier, the Vladimir Putin. Though its size is impressive, the ship is actually composed of a section of an abandoned Stanford Torus (i.e. Space Colony) with 12 Mobiru Bays place around its mid-poit and a massive rocket slapped on the back. The design was very cheap and highly effective as a defensive craft. As for Mobiru, the Russians prefer quantity over quality.

Finally, the Panchinese government (prior to the Battle of Hainan) preferred a fast moving, well rounded fleet that focused on quickly deploying Mobiru any where it needed. Following the battle, the Chinese have favored a much more defense oriented doctrine with bulky, tough-as-nails Super Carriers station in and around the country's various Eath- and pace-based locations.

In the end, we find that each nation prefers a different tactic. During the Ares War, the Martians dominated the skies and space but were unable to capture more than a hand full of locations on Luna, let alone Earth. And even though the Terran (Earth) Powers were larger in number, they still failed in doing much outside of defending Earth (the only battle that took place near Mars turned into a bloody affair for both sides but ended with a successful defense by the Martians).

 

Quote from: Kindling

Quote from: FREAKIN' AWESOME HORSESome factions successfully developed energy weapons to where they found them sufficient, especially fringe worlds where the infrastructure was less developed and a weapon whose power reserves could be easily recharged was more useful.

I'm curious, other than the ammo/power supply issues, does the difference in armament reflect or lead to any contrasting elements of doctrine? For example, does the comparative effective ranges (or something similar) of energy versus projectile firearms lead to differences in training and tactics between energy-infantry and projectile-infantry?

Do any factions use a combination of projectile and energy weaponry? If so, is it within formations, or do some combat arms use energy weapons and others projectiles?

There are some minor changes to the way training takes place depending on what type of weaponry each faction is using, yes. Generally they can reach to more or less the same effective ranges with infantry weapons, but in other fields, such as artillery/air support, the technologies differ more.

I hadn't really considered combinations of the two until you mentioned it. Now that I think of it, I don't believe any human factions currently do, but alien factions of the Praetor or maybe the Grays certainly might. Something to be worked on, definitely.