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Glorious Arstotzka

17 (16%)

Glorious Moskurg

13 (12.3%)

Ingloriously Didn't Play

76 (71.7%)

Total Members Voted: 106

[RAM]

There are several principal issues with airborne assaults.
Mobility: It is extremely unlikely that you are dropping enough vehicles for everyone, or even enough for more than a few small expiditionary forces. Enemy artillery can make advancing pretty-much fatal. And being surrounded means that you can't advance without stretching your lines.
If you can't move then the enemy is free to manoeuvre as they please, which is very very bad for you.
Air power can help a lot here. Acquiring a heavy airfield can increase vehicle supplies as heavier transports can land heavier loads than a pkausible parachute could hope to, and it is probably possible to make kit-transports that can be transported with a very low volume and assembled relatively quickly, provided that you don't mind weaknesses in your armour...
Bombers. especially tactical bombers, can provide cover for an advancing line, counter-firing on artillery and such.
Bombers can also inhibit enemy advancements to help secure your own lines, strategic bombers are more viable here...
But running your entire operation on aircraft is going to burn through a massive amount of oil there will be down-time...

Weight: More mass means heavier armour and bigger guns. This becomes more and more of an issue as range increases. There will pretty much always be a situation where there is a super-heavy tank rocking up on the far-side of a field and nobody can get close enogh to make a dent in it, while it can freely pass the time blowing up bunkers and foxholes while a field of antiaircraft guns behind it make your support forces sad. Your own armour will be ill-equipped to ignore even man-portable antitank-rifles. and while the enemy artillery can blow up a house from the next village over, your mortars will be hard-pressed to blow up a car over a nearby hill.
Aircraft can serve as antitank and heavy artillery, guns generally defeat armour, and we will probably be dropping in wheeled guns(Or perhaps some sort of microtank/self-propelled turret?) in the 160mm-200mm range which can reasonably defeat most armour that will be fielded. But much like a fleet without gunships, you are still unlikely to ever see anything like a line of medium-heavy tanks that can just rock through an opening in the enemy lines and hold a front while infantry moves in to secure it...

Resources: No matter how you look at it, aerplanes are not the most efficient form of bulk-transport and air-based supply-lines have trouble with consistency. The enemy will probably have more of everything...

It might be plausible to visit on occasion, but living there is a very dubious prospect.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

What if we had this as a rough doctrine to invade:
Phase 1: Slowly drop in paratroopers, preferably armed with captured Canallan weapons, alongside other crates.  These crates will be used as an initial supply to arm the Juraki population of the islands which will be stirred into an armed revolution.  Express purpose of the supplies is for capture of an Armory or Ammunition Depot where further supplies will be gained.
Phase 2: Coordinate with the rebellion to launch an attack to capture a Harbor and surrounding area we can deploy our forces from.  Whether this involves direct intervention from the rebels as we land, or through usage of them distracting the Canallan military while paratroopers are dropped to secure the Harbors will be determined.
Phase 3: Use landed forces to secure the surrounding area to form the  beachhead we expand from.

[Strongpoint]

We are way behind in navy, we are behind in artillery, we are behind in light armored vehicles but people discuss paratrooping instead of fixing those serious problems.

[Madman198237]

We're going to be rapidly catching them in naval capabilities. Especially once we fix our torpedo issues and possibly develop some armor-piercing bombs for use against warships. So naval warfare isn't an issue. Since when are we that far behind in armored vehicles? I think our tanks are decent, even if I can't remember what's what through the alphanumeric soup that Arstotzka used last AR.

We're halfheartedly discussing ways to circumvent naval power entirely while waiting for the update.

[VoidSlayer]

What? You cant tell the T2 from the T33 or the T456?

Wait does that last one exist?

Okay you might actually have a point.  We were more interested in death weapons then colorful names.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

We are way behind in navy, we are behind in artillery, we are behind in armored vehicles but people discuss paratrooping instead of fixing those serious problems.

If our deficit of artillery and armored vehicles was signifigant enough, we would not be displaying the performance we are within the north.  If we get transport infrastructure built up to provide the Ore starting next turn, then it will make the B2 Destroyer, the MAT26, the HF-23, the HF-32, and the Wasp Nest all Cheap rather than Expensive, the HAFB and the AS-T33 merely Expensive rather than Very Expensive, and the Death Ball will reduce in cost from National Effort to Very Expensive.

We may not be ahead in individual quality, but we far exceed them in sheer quantity.  As proven by the Americans and Russians during the (coming, form the perspective of Forenia) second world war, quantity has a quality all its own.

[VoidSlayer]

Yes, lets deploy more giant rolling spheres of death.  We certainly will not look like madmen.

[piratejoe]

-snip-

This plan is glorious. Really glorious.

[Madman198237]

Not only does quantity have a quality of its own, quantities of quality are even better! Especially LARGE quantities of quality killing material.

[Chiefwaffles]

We shall make the highest quality of quality quantities of soldiers with quantities of quality.

[Madman198237]

We shall make the highest quality of quality quantities of soldiers with quantities of quality.

Sigged. Thank you! Best use of one of my intentional rambles that I've ever seen.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

-snip-

This plan is glorious. Really glorious.

Weapons delivery is the biggest concern of it, however, if we create a MOAB system where they are deployed out the back of our transport planes by parachutes (on wheeled platforms), that system could possibly used for large supply drops as well if specified as a possibility.  Might be able to supply the rebels with motorcycles as well to amplify their hit and run tactics.

Another route is we use the revision to create gliders that are towed by planes and then released, which would keep the soldiers more organized when they finally land and we could bring along an APC.  However, this comes with the downside that it would also be easier for Canallans to capture the whole crew and all the supplies at once.

As for the landings themselves, a version of Landing Craft - Tanks could be created for an intermediate step to deliver tanks and the such for the push to capture the harbor, as well as create a more controlled resupply method.

Not only does quantity have a quality of its own, quantities of quality are even better! Especially LARGE quantities of quality killing material.

While such a situation would be nice, aiming for the best when merely good will do would likely give us more negatives than positives.  However, with much of our arsenal firmly within the 'Cheap' range, we can easily afford to make exceptional but expensive equipment to compliment our merely good but cheap equipment.

Take the recent firecrackers.  A good, cheap thing that we can deploy enmass.  As such, now is the time we compliment it with a revision of a multiton bomb deployed out of the back of the dedicated transport we create.

[Madman198237]

I agree with the "include some great among the plentiful" but I would definitely not want to try and develop a BLU-82/MOAB-style weapon system. Let's start with more reasonable and useful things, such as a heavy-duty armor-piercing bomb for divebombing attacks on ships. Help nullify their sea power. Then, perhaps a larger bomb capable of making a bigger crater in hostile emplacements.

[Powder Miner]

The multiton bomb seems completely unnecessary to me.

[Madman198237]

Until and unless we need to manually create helicopter clearings or use sheer shock-and-awe warfare tactics, it will be entirely unnecessary.

BLU-82 (I think that's what I'm thinking of), AKA the "Daisycutter", was a Vietnam-era bomb used for the express purpose of blowing up enough forest in a single hit to land a helicopter. Need LZ? Drop bomb. The MOAB was the successor to that, and you will likely never find a similar excess of conventional explosive power anywhere. Because once is enough. Sort of like the slogan for dropping the thing, come to think of it...