Sci-fi Military Tactics and Strategy

The bigger the gap the better.

Yep. Ideally you want to outnumber the enemy in most (if not all) scenarios. As Tom said, the golden ratio is a 2 or 3 to 1 numbers advantage.

It may be worth looking up the Soviet concept of the Correlation of Forces (CoF), which was basically an attempt to measure any two military forces arrayed against each other (taking into account qualitative, quantitative, and political factors), and how they tried to tilt it in their favour.

Welp, this thread's been a bit dead.

Just because I'm curious (and to help breathe some life into this... again), do you guys think there would ever be a place for saturation bombing in a futuristic context? Why/why not?

Saturation bombing is usually reserved for when you need a concentration of fire power on certain targets like bunker complexes, supply depots, factory complexes etc. Area saturation bombardment has uses in modern context like with the MLRS systems used to shower a target area in a rain of explosive death. Same for cluster munitions. Bombardment via saturation of the target area.

If you wanted to just flatten a city from orbit you would likely use a form of saturation bombardment.

^ Then there are tactical uses for it too. Want to shunt off enemy movement away from a mountain pass or some other narrow piece of ground? Saturation bombardment.

Area denial is sometimes just as effective as annihilating the enemy.

True bombardment screens to box in or direct enemy forces.

Even the threat of bombardment can have an effect on the enemy. In the Military Thread, every time WWII tanks come up in discussion, it always gets mentioned that regardless of their many problems in terms of reliability, numbers, or logistical support, German armor was pretty much always under threat of Allied air attack or observation, especially after June of 1944 when most of the armored combat in Europe took place, which was not coincidentally while the Allies also had air superiority over the continent. German armor units and their supply trains could not move during daylight without risk of being exposed to air attacks (a very large Panzer column rolling down a highway is simply going to act as blood in the water for Allied ground attack planes once the first sighting gets called in.)

Naval assets can similarly suffer from loss of mobility due to the air attack threat. Japanese shipping was usually limited to scurrying along at night hoping to find a safe port before daylight brought American air patrols. Meanwhile, Allied shipping often had to base their movements and strategies around the threat of German U-Boat attacks (which ranged as far away as the Gulf of Mexico at various points in the war) or the threat of the German fleet making a run for the sea (the Tirpitz had an affect on Allied shipping and even strategic bombing planning simply by existing, despite spending most of the war holed up in Norway).

When the Red Army invaded Afghanistan, they used their Mi-24 and Su-25's to great effect. As shipments of Stinger missiles arrived in The '80s, things changed. The Red Airforce started to lose up to an aircraft a day.

Without their air cover, even SPETNAZ units were chewed up by the mujahdeen.

It just shows what happens when the enemy hits the weakest link.

The Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force (as the Training from Hell page describes it) did make their pilots ninja's with their fighters. But they had no bench, no leave or sending vets to train up the noobs. The US Navy did. So US losses (and there were many due to screw ups and a misunderestimation of the quality of Japanese pilots) were rebuilt. Every time a Japanese pilot was shot down, there went experience.

Don't forget logistics:

• In the book Zero, the author (a former IJN pilot) marveled at the speed at which the US Navy could turn an island into an airfield. Again, the IJN didn't have that, Japanese airfields lost were lost for good. There were even steel mats that could be placed on sand to allow a B-29 to taxi and take off.

• Liberty ships, or the Ur-Example the M-1 Carbine:

edited 22nd Aug '14 8:24:46 PM by TairaMai

Speaking of the importance of logistics, Nose Art on bombers would include icons for successful bombing raids, as well as icons for particularly important targets (other planes shot down, ships sunk, etc.), and would occasionally include things like tractors or bulldozers or other heavy construction equipment given the importance of such equipment in repairing the damage the bomber was causing to their targets.

The OSS would sabotage Nazi locomotives, the tenders and the locomotives that were designed to rescue stranded trains.

Some of my favorite gun cam footage is strafing trains.

Area bombardment by multiple munition types to achieve multiple effects is a viable option as well.

Oh yeah, my favorite ones of those was mixing contact fused bombs with delayed-action bombs of varying fuse lengths.

Fun fact: A bomb that does not blow up on impact does not necessarily leave an impact crater to let you know where it is. It just sort of digs a hole that might get covered up by the other bombs going off. Have fun going out to do repairs.

edited 22nd Aug '14 11:45:46 PM by AFP

^ In some soils such as certain muds or fine sand it'll simply disappear on contact hiding its own existence in very short order.

Of course for best results use on terrain with shallow water such as creeks or drainages.

Mixed fusing is one way to achieve that. I was referring to starting out with something Blast/Frag to break up protection followed up by incendiaries to set alight the damaged target. This was the strategy for strategic bombing by every side. The housing in much of Europe had stone, ceramic, brick, or metal roofing that was very resistant to incendiaries. Using a conventional bombing followed up by a incendiary raid worked more effectively because the explosives removed those protective layers exposing them more directly to incendiary attacks.

You could start out with thermobarics to strip away anything exposed followed by delayed fused for hardened targets followed by something like napalm to seep into the wreckage and prevent immediate effective response.

Shake, break, and bake.

edited 23rd Aug '14 9:21:15 AM by TuefelHundenIV

As long as there are non-discrete targets saturation will always have a place. Large infantry formations are the classic example. It can also be used to literally attack terrain features; the willingness to use high explosives to recast the terrain more to one's liking has been a feature of certain styles of war for decades. Operation Cobra and the Battle of Aachen provide good examples, as does the use of shipboard and land-based artillery during the last stages of the Munda campaign to literally destroy a pair of hills.

Crazy idea, but I'm trying to place my A-20 (successor to A-10 obviously) pilot in a position to attack a carrier.

Would that ever happen or is that Rule of Cool taken to the extreme

If the carrier is close enough to shore it can be attacked by land based aircraft. (It happened a lot in the South Pacific in 1942 and 1943.)

Now as for why a lone A-20 isn't being blasted out of the sky 20 km out by the carrier's escorts using radar guided missiles? That's a bit more Rule of Cool.

Now if it's a standoff fight, the A-20 carrying the equivalent of an air-launched Harpoon or SLAM-ER vs those ships it's a lot more plausible.

Then again, given how the British fleet at the Falklands had standoff capable missiles in the Sea Dart yet was on multiple occasions hit by Argentine A-4 Skyhawk aircraft among others in simple dive bombing raids; it's conceivable the A-20 is using radar-evasion tactics/technology and moving in loaded for bear possibly under the mentality of the pilot having no expectation of returning home alive.

I assume the carrier's CAP has been dealt with one way or another.

edited 4th Sep '14 7:53:49 AM by MajorTom

I was mainly picturing it that the attack was going to start off with hypersonic missiles from a distances where CIWS are pretty much aren't going to hit the plane at all. Then the GAU-8 takes out the officers inside the superstructure

How about the missiles swat the defenses as the plane is coming in for the strike leaving the rest of ship relatively in tact just so they can splat those officers.

An A-20?

If all else fails, go for the old school counter-naval tactics that airplanes used in WWII, and have the A-20 pile on with about 40 of his closest friends. Quantity Has a Quality All Its Own. The use of stand-off weapons (torpedoes, anti-ship missiles, etc.) would also be a force multiplier.

EDIT: A lot of the bigger ships are going to have a fair chunk of their officers belowdecks, in places such as a Combat Information Center (think of the Battle Bridge from Star Trek and you have exactly the right idea). Probably better to hope for the Hypersonic missiles to do most of the damage to the ship itself (internal explosions, hull breaches, interruptions to steam and power and fuel lines), and reserve the gun for strafing the crippled ship.

edited 4th Sep '14 8:04:02 PM by AFP

^ I'd reserve the gun for shooting the shit out of any parked carrier aircraft still surviving the initial missile strike. Carrier hulls and decks are too well-armored and big for even a GAU-8 to do significant damage.

@Tactical Fox:

The AMMO guy is right about officers. About the only guys you'll paste going for the "bridge" on a carrier are the Air Boss and maybe the Captain/Admiral and that's only if he's present. The XO and others are below that. (And if you take the Captain/Admiral out, the XO simply takes over and things keep chugging along.)

Good points overall. Now speaking of WWII the attacking craft could be carrying something like a bunker buster used against a ship. With modern bunker busters a high degree of accuracy and penetration would be easily achievable against ships. In WWII Bunker Buster bombs used against ships were very devastating. The most devastating being the Grand Slam and Tall Boy bombs. They opened up ships like the Turpitz like a cheap ration can.

^ Then there's the classic "bomb down the stack" attack. Hit a sufficiently vulnerable point on a ship and you can cause massive casualties or damage even to the point of sinking the ship. For example a single bomb strike "down the stack" is believed to have set off the USS Arizona's magazine at Pearl Harbor and it pretty much blew the ship out of the water with nearly all hands lost. (The majority of ALL US KIA casualties in the attack were on that ship.)

Point the first:

The Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs are devestating against ships if they can successfully hit their target. Tirpitz was hit by 3 bombs (including a near-miss, which for anti-ship work, is basically a hit) the day she was sunk, and according to Wiki, the RAF had to drop 29 bombs to get that many hits. That doesn't include two previous Lancaster raids, which dropped upwards of 50 bombs and only scored a couple of minor hits or near-misses.

Note: Tirpitz was at anchor on all three occasions. USAAF Experience at Midway showed that trying to nail actively evading ships with heavy bombs dropped from high altitude was a fool's errand, hence the reliance on dive bombers and low altitude bombers in the Pacific theater.

Point the Second: They suspected the Arizona suffered from a bomb in the smokestack, but their investigation showed that the armor grates in the smoke stacks had not been hit by any bombs (yes, they were Genre Savvy enough to plan against such a contingency), and the consensus seems to be that the bomb simply plowed through the deck armor and lit off one of the forward magazines.

Incidentally, among the crew lost aboard Arizona was Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, the first US Flag officer to be killed in combat with a foreign enemy. They ended up naming a class of destroyers after him (destroyers whose features notably included improved air defense systems).

edited 4th Sep '14 9:36:31 PM by AFP

AFP: Which is why I mentioned modern bombs which have guidance packages which drastically improve their accuracy. The reference was for the effectiveness of bunker busters against ships. When they hit, as you noted those bomb examples were not the most accurate, they did a shit load of damage.

Using the MOP in place of the Tallboy or Grand Slam for example would have used a lot fewer bombs. But the RAF didn't exactly have GPS guided bombs. If they had, fewer bombs would have been needed. They would have likely nailed the Tirpitz closer to center line on the first pass.

And a quick dig around on other sources pretty much agrees with the bomb to the magazine. The last bomb to hit appears to have hit around turret #2 and given the location and the time of the magazine explosion that is likely what happened.

Since we are talking about bombing a carrier the Akagi was fatally hit by a single 1000lb SAP bomb in roughly the center of the ship causing raging fires and extensive damage taht sank it. That is just a 1000lb bomb. Another carrier was hit with three of them. Now instead of using dumb free fall SAP bombs replace those with GPS or even laser guided like the GBU-24 Paveway III or GBU-37 GPS-Aided Munition. Either one of those hitting the carrier squarely in the deck is going to fuck up that ship. Even better the laser guided one can be aimed at weak points.

Imagine what a GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

edited 4th Sep '14 11:14:03 PM by TuefelHundenIV