The Military Thread

trying to write about an artisan who is retired military. What kind of military skills would be useful to a master craftsman?

Like, if he made watches, would that mean he built bombs or something? Trying to see all possible skills (and actively trying to avoid bombmaking/disposal).

Probably in a Base Workshop, working on vehicles, stuff like that?

Since apparently we're talking about writing military now, what do people think of a situation where one army ends up practically robbing the supply depot of another army it's technically allied with at gunpoint in order to use a short-lived window of opportunity and launch a successful assault? Is this possible to imagine? How would the joint command react?

Depends on who the "allies" were I'd imagine. Incidents between the Germans and Finns during the Continuation War (fights, murders, plundering etc.) were generally left to the local commanders. The "joint command" was anything but, as the two armies had radically different motivations.

This reminds me of the incident during the invasion of Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, when Chinese troops arrived to help the Koreans, they started burning and looting Korean villages. As you do.

edited 2nd May '16 2:34:11 AM by TerminusEst

The "allies" doing the robbing in this case are, well, special. They are the most competent force in the conflict and the one that's responsible for about 60% of the actual fighting done by its side, but they are also uppity exceptionalist nationalist isolationists from a radically different culture who are basically employed as state-level mercenaries by the government of the army that's been robbed, in the "we will fight your enemies in exchange for new spaceships and preferential trade agreements" sense.

I'd see the local commanders telling them to shoot the mercs on sight from that point onwards. Or cause them to take most of the casualties, by not helping them and so on. The higher-ups might try to ease things up and talk, but the government forces now outright despise the mercs.

Strategic and tactical sensibilities don't always prevail on the individual level.

edited 2nd May '16 3:16:18 AM by TerminusEst

What if the mercs shoot back? And turn out to be better at it?

Then the war effort grinds to a halt as the army starts fighting itself, there's a reason massively powerful merc companies went out of style after the thirty years war, they're bad news for all.

edited 2nd May '16 3:47:57 AM by Silasw

That's not a merc company, though, that's an army of a separate state that has agreed to fight the same enemy as you in exchange for various geopolitical goodies. Think Hungary fighting the Turks and getting Austria to fight alongside it with a lump cash payment and promises of future alliance.

Okay then, in that case our Hungary and Austria stand ins are now at war, at least as far as their militaries are concerned, even if the political leaders deny it.

Any concievable way that this war can stop without the interference of the governments? This is taking place in the "No ansible" setting I described on the last page, the top brass doesn't even know that there was a depot robbery yet, let alone a full-blown friendly fire war. Perhaps if there are sufficiently reasonable commanders on both sides in addition to the ones who think that threatening people with guns is always the best option, they could somehow arrange a ceasefire?

Why would you want to arrange one though?

Because this isn't the first time that a joint venture between the erstwhile grave robbers (they're actually called Sehereti) and some other power breaks down due to crazy idiots in the former's ranks shoving guns in people's faces and the saner people among them realise that they can't afford to piss off any more potential allies.

Well I dunno, that they're willing to attack and steal your supplies to fulfill their own objectives sort of says they aren't potential allies.

The Sehereti society consists mostly of independent clans/city-states with no laws requiring inter-clan cooperation aside from "don't actually fight," so while one commander might be a staunch traditionalist who thinks that non-Sehereti are not worthy of giving a shit about, another one might be smart enough to notice that being assholes for no reason is a rather stupid move, strategically speaking.

Then it's a country far too divided and multifaceted to be trusted. You can't really have a long term alliance without the two nations having centralized control of their territory and stability.

You can't be shaking the right hand while the left one is trying to stab you in the back. Not unless you've got a plan to deal with the left one. Permanently.

edited 2nd May '16 5:30:13 AM by LeGarcon

That's exactly why it's in the interest of the saner members of the Sehereti to appear reasonable and try to pass off the internal conflict as antics of individual stupid maverics who are doubtlessly going to be punished and in no way represemt a significant proportion of their society.

edited 2nd May '16 6:14:53 AM by KnitTie

So they're going to claim that it was a handful of soldiers who were acting out of line?

They're going to have to find some scapegoats fast, and plausibly.

Old Snake is real.

Why am I thinking "if you want looting and pillaging your allies both accidentally and on purpose... and, all the various ways it can go spectacularly tits-up in ways both mundane and magnificent... look to the Crusades for inspiration — any of the Crusades"?

edited 2nd May '16 6:33:09 AM by Euodiachloris

The whole rogue soldier excuse might work once, maybe twice but there comes a point when it doesn't cut it. Either they're lying and using them as a deniable asset or it's really a case of rogue commanders.

Either scenario is gonna tank any chances of an alliance. They'll either betray you or they're so broken that they can't keep control of their own troops.

More like a single commander who was getting too full of himself, with the rest of the officers involved in the attack with stolen munitions claiming ignorance.

Which raises another question: in a very tightly knit, warrior tribe-esque military, who would most likely serve the role of the scapegoat?

This is actually the first time the Sehereti try to control the damage caused by some of them starting to fight their nominal allies. Previously, they just bitched and joined the fight on the side of the trigger-happy radicals.

edited 2nd May '16 6:41:25 AM by KnitTie

Thanks for the input guys.

Honestly, it seems to me the likely scapegoat would be the more moderate guy who is in the best position to call the more radical members out for their antics. Who needs that kind of liability in their ranks?