Questions about modern warfare

[BlackShip]

Hey folks! I've read your forum for quite a long time. I always valued advice I could find here, and now I have to ask for more direct help. :smallbiggrin: Namely I wish to pit PC's against extradimensonal invasion, but to add some twist, invaders would be from Earth... Nowdays Earth. (something like landbased Final Countdown).
The target world is a kind of steam and disel punk mishmash, with overall tech level around 1940 (without depresion or war). The whole invasion is a plot of Big Bad to measure PC's strenghts and to expose weaknesses to exploit later.
The questions I have: How will such oldfasioned weaponry fare against modern AFV and infratry? (reason: to set overall mood closer to "Enemy on the gates", or to "War of Worlds"?)
Do tanks are lightning proof?? (reason: one of characters is an artificer with many such powers. Of course he is also a GodEmperor of this world so he can edit invaders out of existence. Slowly. One at time.)
Does modern military doctrine allows commander to parley with enemy?
(reason: it is obvious that players will try diplomacy.)
Sorry for my English.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

My gut instinct is that the old-fashioned armies will be easily annihilated. Modern weapons pack far more firepower and armor.

[Ashtagon]

With steampunk technology (up to, say, 1900 AD), a heavy naval gun could hope to reach a dozen miles range, if accuracy is not too important.

Modern navies, those that haven't switched to aircraft carrier bases, get ranges ten times that. Those that have switched to aircraft, probably have an effective engagement range fifty times that.

Things get even more extreme when you consider land-based military.

[Yora]

I think the result will be pretty much the same as we have today when rich industrialized countries invade poor third world countries.

The first priority is usually to get control over the skies by destroying the enemy airforce and aircraft defenses. With decent stealth technology as is available to present day military, this will likely mean destroying enemy aircraft on the ground and destroying aircraft bases, as well as bombing any kind of radar.
This way, the more advanced army can use transport planes and helicpoters to get their soldiers and tanks to any place they are needed and back to the base, as well as moving ammunition, food, and other supplies without much risk of being shot down.
The only thing that does really get dangerous are rockets, which the less advanced army in your scenario may not have, and if they do probably not in big enough numbers. Anti-air guns could still work, but without radar it is extremely hard to hit any modern aircraft, especially at night when you can't even see them.

Against modern tanks, the only things that really work are rockets or other tanks. Steampunk tanks could be a danger to modern tanks, but then you have again the modern aircraft, that can just shot them with modern missiles from a safe distance, making the way clear for the modern tanks.

After a few days or weeks, the less advanced military will likely be reduced to people on foot who sneak up on patrols of the invaders and plant bombs at their bases and armored vehicles. Or if the invaders are moving around on foot, they can set ambushes to shot them dead before they can get some armored vehicles or aircraft to save them. Then the defenders have to get into hiding again quickly, or they get killed from the sky.
The one thing that works to prevent the invaders to just shot with tanks and drop bombs on their hiding places is to hide inside city where the invaders don't want to blow up the homes of the civilians, who are likely even still inside them. If the invaders don't care if civilians die, they can just bomb everything to rubble until there isn't anything left. At that point, the defenders can only hide in caves and underground bunkers that are too deep below the surface to bomb from above.

Basically, the denfenders have no chance to survive in a fair fight and they will have to fight using traps and ambushes and by disguising themselves.

With steampunk technology (up to, say, 1900 AD), a heavy naval gun could hope to reach a dozen miles range, if accuracy is not too important.

Modern navies, those that haven't switched to aircraft carrier bases, get ranges ten times that. Those that have switched to aircraft, probably have an effective engagement range fifty times that.

Things get even more extreme when you consider land-based military.
Old timey Wold War I weapons pack a very serious punch and many of them should have no problem to deal significant damage to modern military vehicles and bases. The problem with aiming.
Modern armies use a lot of radar and computer-targeting that significantly increases accuracy over range. Unless you can mess up the enemies targeting computers and radar, they can hit very small targets at very long distances with very high precision. An old warship can sink a modern one without any problems. But most probably only if the first shot hits and instantly destroys the target, because they will almost certainly not miss when they fire back. And since the more advanced ship has much better radar, they will know you are there long before you are close enough to shot at them, and can just destroy you long before you even get the chance at a first shot at them.
Again, the key is using disguise and traps to get the enemy to a position where you can destroy them before they can fight back.

[Nyt]

How will such oldfasioned weaponry fare against modern AFV and infratry? (reason: to set overall mood closer to "Enemy on the gates", or to "War of Worlds"?)

Yeah, the basic military armor I was issued would be able to withstand sword or bow(crossbow included) without difficulty. It's dagger-proof in the spots that it has plates, and it's gonna take a strong arm to cut through the material in the places it doesn't.

Probably more war of the worlds.



Do tanks are lightning proof?? (reason: one of characters is an artificer with many such powers. Of course he is also a GodEmperor of this world so he can edit invaders out of existence. Slowly. One at time.)

Well that depends. Certain tanks may be equiped for such a danger, but it's not likely. A lightning strike theoretically would probably put an m1 abrams out of comission, if only for the fact that it would likely kill the crew, detonate all munitions within, and make a rather large hole in the composite armor.




Does modern military doctrine allows commander to parley with enemy?
(reason: it is obvious that players will try diplomacy.)

Rules of Engagement say do not fire unless fired upon, basically.Does everyone follow them? Certainly not, but still, if it's American, I would assume it is indeed possible. Also depends on whose the Commanding Officers, and if it's a joint effort between the U.N. and other RoE abiding nations, then yes, there'll be plenty of diplomacy available.


On the otherhand, You're the DM. Who cares about reality? If you want your tanks immune to Lightning, so be it! If you want to have the Americans coming in like a bunch of bloodthirsty orcs, why not?

[Ashtagon]

Old timey Wold War I weapons pack a very serious punch and many of them should have no problem to deal significant damage to modern military vehicles and bases. The problem with aiming.

My point is that an old-time warship isn't even going to get in firing range before it is destroyed. The only way old timers are going to inflict losses at all is if the moderns are at peace time alert status. Even then, many modern navies enforce an exclusion zone measured in miles around their capital ships.

Against that, any kind of line-of-sight targeting will lose horribly.

The only steampunk military that won't get destroyed are the ones that can be hidden as "civilian" items.

[JustSomeGuy]

I would liken it most to the future scenes from terminator 2; both sides are capable of destroying the other, but one is overwhelmingly more effective.

You could also make a comparrison to guerilla/insurgency style 'assymetrical' warfare, or even the rebellion/empire in star wars.

IF the future humans weren't interested in total annihalation, they'd have to set up some infrastructure to maintain a prescence in theatre, and a possibility for a non-traditional battlefield would exist - basically meaning instead of a safe home area, progressive supply lines and depots/stores/workshops, and a front line for teeth arms' combat there would be a big mingled hodge-podge of everything from both sides existing in the same theatre of conflict (although the less advanced side would probably have to hide their assets and work from secret, smaller cells and wotnot).

[Mando Knight]

Yeah, the basic military armor I was issued would be able to withstand sword or bow(crossbow included) without difficulty. It's dagger-proof in the spots that it has plates, and it's gonna take a strong arm to cut through the material in the places it doesn't.

Probably more war of the worlds.
1940s, not 1200s. They're not banging rocks together. Still, modern infantry is wearing armor and WWII infantry for the most part didn't.

As for fighting modern tanks... if the tech is 40s-equivalent, then they're toast. The M1 Abrams tank is about as fast as WWII tanks, but much more heavily armed (the main gun's bigger and has various improved ammunition types) and armored (Chobham composite armor rather than just a steel hull), and has higher operating range than most tanks of the time.

Well that depends. Certain tanks may be equiped for such a danger, but it's not likely. A lightning strike theoretically would probably put an m1 abrams out of comission, if only for the fact that it would likely kill the crew, detonate all munitions within, and make a rather large hole in the composite armor.
I don't know about a single lightning strike defeating an Abrams, since its armor does include metal plates that would likely dissipate the energy and form a bit of a Faraday cage (much like a car). It might ignite the munitions, and that would be the real danger, though the tank is designed to protect against that, too.

[MrLemon]

Well that depends. Certain tanks may be equiped for such a danger, but it's not likely. A lightning strike theoretically would probably put an m1 abrams out of comission, if only for the fact that it would likely kill the crew, detonate all munitions within, and make a rather large hole in the composite armor.
That should be false. Although I'm no expert on tanks, I do believe that the armor plating of a tank is conductive to a certain degree, i.e. out of metal. Enter the Faraday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) cage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi4kXgDBFhw): charge traverses on the outside of the tank.
Works on cars, so it should work on tanks, too.

Note, that peripheral stuff might get destroyed, but I think most of the vital electronics (and the crew of course) are protected

[Trinoya]

How this operates is entirely dependent on which modern military you're talking about, their logistics and supply base, and how they are connected to this world they are apparently attacking.

Modern military doctrine isn't a 'one size fits all' they are going to examine these factors before they conduct any operation at all.

[Alejandro]

The US main battle tank is designed and rated to withstand voltage in great excess of high-volt power lines, depending on what equipment it's been fitted with. Of course, real damage comes from amps, not volts, and lightning bolts are low amp, high volt, which is why people can survive being hit by one.

Mostly, the strike will conduct through the tank and to the ground, as others have already explained. The munitions will likely not explode if they are properly stowed. There many be some communications damage, depending on the individual tank's ABC (atomic biological chemical) equipment set.

[Chilingsworth]

If I may recomend reading Harry Turtledove's World War series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwar)?

It deals with a very similiar situation, although the "modern invaders" are aliens that are less strategically and tactically adept than the humans were.

Also, how much magic exists in your world, and what system are you using?

[BlackShip]

Thank for quick advice. I knew that this idea will give players a challange.

how much magic exists in your world,
World itself is low magic one, save PC's or agents of their enemy. As PCs are concerned one of them is a full blown mage, one is mad scientist, one is jedi knight (in other name, but still), and one straight warrior in power armor.

and what system are you using?
they are playing as Lords and Ladies of Chaos. And "system" if you can call it such is somewhat obscure AmberDRPG.


On the otherhand, You're the DM. Who cares about reality? If you want your tanks immune to Lightning, so be it! If you want to have the Americans coming in like a bunch of bloodthirsty orcs, why not?

Well, its like this is game with high standards - I require players to make a complex characters. They require me to build fairly plausible world

I like the idea that individual tanks are "monsters" only PC's could manage to neutralize.


their logistics and supply base, and how they are connected to this world they are apparently attacking.
Big Bad established a stable connection between this world and one of Earth's war zones. Then he had run a false flag operation to make Earthlings belive that they under a treat.

[Trinoya]

Big Bad established a stable connection between this world and one of Earth's war zones. Then he had run a false flag operation to make Earthlings belive that they under a treat.

What nation is the portal in?


That said, what you describe would likely see a nuclear response. A sudden portal (science far beyond ours) that leads to another dimension that is conducting unilateral attacks? After a proper demonstration is conducted the unconditional surrender of any and all parties viewed as responsible would be requested.

This isn't so much done because of the attack, but because of the demonstrated capabilities (opening stable portals between universes) and the implications there of.

[Alejandro]

I might be confused here, but isn't this modern Earth invading a world with 1940 tech? If so, the world being invaded probably doesn't have a nuclear bomb, and why would the Earth invaders nuke what they are invading, if they want to (I assume) capture it?

[Doug Lampert]

Modern armies use a lot of radar and computer-targeting that significantly increases accuracy over range. Unless you can mess up the enemies targeting computers and radar, they can hit very small targets at very long distances with very high precision. An old warship can sink a modern one without any problems. But most probably only if the first shot hits and instantly destroys the target, because they will almost certainly not miss when they fire back. And since the more advanced ship has much better radar, they will know you are there long before you are close enough to shot at them, and can just destroy you long before you even get the chance at a first shot at them.
Again, the key is using disguise and traps to get the enemy to a position where you can destroy them before they can fight back.

The US ground forces especially will ONLY engage at night if they have any choice about it.

Night vision gear for the win.

Similarly for air attacks on anything defended by AA or for local airforces.


Well that depends. Certain tanks may be equiped for such a danger, but it's not likely. A lightning strike theoretically would probably put an m1 abrams out of comission, if only for the fact that it would likely kill the crew, detonate all munitions within, and make a rather large hole in the composite armor.

You don't NEED to modify a tank to be safe from lightning, the basic structure is already a Faraday cage (which is what you'd do to make it safe). You may well lose the radio, but ammo and fuel storage should be completely safe.

[Trinoya]

I am referring to 'modern earth' conducting a tactical nuclear strike, which isn't nearly as outlandish as it may seem. There is no reason to not utilize every material and weapon advantage that they would have over their new found enemy.

That said, in all honesty the military operation would proceed something along these lines:

Discovery of portal after attack.

Portal is secured by the military.

Small robotic drones (about the size of your average toy wagon) are sent through to collect data. Upon recognizing the nature of the other side of the portal and that it is a survivable transit aerial drones are sent through to begin conducting observation.

Presuming this false flag attack was big enough to warrant attention as something more than 'random terrorist attack' and that the uninformed BBEG is trying to provoke a war from the modern day earth, readily placed evidence leading to 'whom' and 'what' must be invaded would likely have been placed.

Rather than conduct an invasion, drones will serve all the offensive need required early on. Mapping will be conducted and the targets identified. Eventually the technology level will be understood.

A single 10-50 kiloton nuclear weapon will be used... dashing the BBEGs hope of starting an invasion, and in fact causing much larger problems as the unconditional surrender of steam punk worlds unfortunate target is requested. The nuclear weapon has the added benefit of becoming an area denial weapon on the SP worlds side of the portal, you'd likely see deployment of mines, and various other area denial weapons as well (chemical agents most likely).

On the plus side you may end up in a situation where the various powers in SP world are shocked by whatever 'magics' caused the devastation and they ally to some degree... but honestly you wouldn't see mass deployment of soldiers from modern earth, or even tanks. The bio-hazard threat alone would be enough for that to be a 'last resort' option since they don't want to bring back something nasty, or worse yet, bring something nasty along.

[Alejandro]

I suppose that's fair. I understood the OP as describing modern Earth invading because they want to own the target but not obliterate it, IE the Martians of War of the Worlds (just not the Tom Cruise crap.)

[Coidzor]

The questions I have: How will such oldfasioned weaponry fare against modern AFV and infratry? (reason: to set overall mood closer to "Enemy on the gates", or to "War of Worlds"?)

Depends on the armor doctrine that spawned the vehicle and what role it's playing, but, in general the tanks are going to have better firepower and more importantly, targeting capabilities. I don't know the specifics, but one big example that showed up in the first gulf war was the ability of the tanks the U.S. deployed to fire accurately while moving whereas the tanks they were going up against, which were outdated but still newer than 1940s from what I recall, had to be stationary in order to get a good shot off.

Getting shot with a Browning Assault Rifle, an AK-47, an M4A1, or an AK-74 is not going to be fun for a man from the beginning of the 20th century or the beginning of the 21st century.


Do tanks are lightning proof?? (reason: one of characters is an artificer with many such powers. Of course he is also a GodEmperor of this world so he can edit invaders out of existence. Slowly. One at time.)

What are you even asking here? Are you asking if modern tanks are, in general, not going to be destroyed or disabled or have their crews killed or incapacitated by being struck by lightning? :smallconfused:


Does modern military doctrine allows commander to parley with enemy?

Depends on the country, reason for attacking, type of engagement, and a number of other factors that can't be simply summed up as far as I know. Can't really communicate a meaningful surrender to a drone strike after all.

In certain circumstances surrenders can be made and accepted, certainly, as I don't think we've gotten to the point where we generally want to have to go to the trouble of killing our enemies to the last man.

Of course, this depends upon the ability of the less technologically advanced society to communicate and be communicated with, and presupposes that there's no impenetrably magical barrier preventing intelligible communication using either mathematics or x-English pairing up with y-English..

[Trinoya]

I suppose that's fair. I understood the OP as describing modern Earth invading because they want to own the target but not obliterate it, IE the Martians of War of the Worlds (just not the Tom Cruise crap.)

To be fair one nuclear bomb is hardly world ending and even a multimegaton bomb wouldn't destroy a whole lot, all things considered.

[Alejandro]

The US military actually did consider and plan for lightning hitting an MBT. There's mesh protected CFRP tested through being subjected to a 200 hundred thousand amp pulse lasting 50 microseconds. It destroys mesh over a 10 square inch area and delaminates/cooks a short depth beneath the damage.

The tanks are built so ammo cooking off blows out and away. You might have a problem if there was a round in the breach at the exact moment of the hit, but even then it's likely to just fire out the barrel.

All the electronics have grounding equipment and possibly more depending on loadout.

[Alejandro]

To be fair one nuclear bomb is hardly world ending and even a multimegaton bomb wouldn't destroy a whole lot, all things considered.

Right, but we didn't drop nukes on Japan because we wanted to invade it. Kind of the opposite. I suppose if we wanted to invade another world we'd nuke some of it and try to force it to surrender, negating the need for invasion, which is what we did to Japan.

[J-H]

The war will be won or lost based on supply chain and logistics issues. A company of MBTs with no fuel can only cover the area they are sitting in/on/around.

[awa]

logistics is tremendously important. modern armies require vast amount of resources to function depending on how big that hole is it might put a massive strain on their ability to wage war.

night vision is certainly an advantage but my understanding is night vision devices are still a lot less precise then actual vision so might not be quite as overwhelming as you seem to be thinking.

im also not certain nukes would be used quite so cavalierly their is a huge amount of political backlash that would occur from nuking anything populated assuming a western power was the one doing it.

actually i'm not certain how well drones would be able to navigate without satellites providing gps and all that stuff someone who knows more about it would have to comment. on a related though with out our satellites and other communication boosting gear how accurate would modern long range combat be.

[RandomLunatic]

You want details? Okay then.

It really depends on how good the intel and (especially) the logistics train is for the modern force. For the purposes of discussion, I will assume a worse-case scenario of good intel and logistics. And I will refer to the modern force as the "invaders" and their opponents as the "defenders".

It would take a really big shock to trigger nuclear retaliation. Like, one itself on the order of a nuke. So I am just going to assume a purely conventional invasion.

The first stage is air superiority. Sadly, the invaders pretty much have this one in the bag. Historically, BVR missile fire has had an atrociously low kill rate, but they have improved dramatically in the last 20 years thanks to improvements in radar, C3, and the missiles themselves. And WWII era planes lack the EW gear needed to detect and spoof incoming missiles, so the first warning defender fighters will have of incoming attack is their wingman spontaneously bursting into flames. Anti-Radiation Missiles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile) will be used early and often against ground radar stations to blind the defenders to attacking aircraft. Even if the defenders could see marauding aircraft (like, say, the Observer Corps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_Corps)), interception would be out of the question-all but the slowest of modern jet aircraft can fly higher and faster than a piston-engined plane. Not to mention the instant defenders took off, they would be painted by an AWACS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control) that would vector in the nearest available fighters to blow them out of the sky with the aforementioned BVR missiles. Bombing missions will gravitate strongly towards high-altitude raids with precision weapons, since the limits of primitive fire-control on fast-moving targets and the lack of proximity fuses (which were a huge deal when they came out in 1942) will conspire to make AAA almost utterly ineffectual.

Bad as that is, the Navy will have it worse. With their air cover swept from the sky, all they have left is their guns, which max out at somewhere around 25 miles or so for the big guns on the battleships. Anti-ship missiles start at that range, and only go up. And the triple A they carry (which, in 1940, was generally not too much-most ships started WWII with wholly inadequate AA suites) is going to all but worthless against swarms of surface and air launched sea-skimming anti-ship missiles. The submarines will not fare much better-compared to modern subs, WWII boats are slow, noisy (which makes them easy to detect), and armed with pitifully short-ranged weapons (max effective range about 1,000 yards-which is 5 or 6 thousand yards closer than your Gunther Prien-wannabe can ever hope to get to anything important). And I graciously spot the defender subs snorkels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_snorkel) so they do not have to surface to recharge their batteries. Without them, they have to run on the surface about half the time to recharge their batteries, during which time they will be relentlessly hounded by aircraft.

If conquest is the desired objective (rather than just neutralization of power projection ability, which demolition of air and naval forces will neatly accomplish), then it is time to send in the ground troops. What happens next depends on the terrain. For desert, plains, or other wide open terrain that offers little cover from omnipresent invader aircraft, I refer you to Operation Desert Storm. For more built-up terrain that requires the troops to actually go in to find the enemy, things get a bit less unfair. Somewhat. The front of MBTs will be invulnerable to all but the biggest guns (we are talking things like 17-pounder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17-pounder), 90/L53 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannone_da_90/53), or the famous German "88" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37)), and even then it will have to be fired at short range, preferably with an armor-cracking round like sabot or APCR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APCR#Armour-piercing.2C_composite_rigid). Not that in 1940, there are no vehicles that mounted any of these very heavy guns, meaning they would be almost strictly defensive weapons. Contemporary defender tank guns would only have a chance if you somehow managed to sneak up on the MBT from behind. The good news is lighter armor, like IFVs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFV), APCs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_personnel_carrier), and SPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Propelled_Artillery), are quite susceptible to even the puny 37mm guns common to early-war tanks. Of course, the invaders will have much better accuracy, including the ability to consistently hit targets while on the move, which was simply beyond the ability of anything in 1940.

HEAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APCR#High-explosive.2C_anti-tank)-based ordnance will be nearly useless-composite and reactive armors are made specifically to defeat such weapons. Some experts say shaped charges are useless against a current-gen MBT, and they are talking about modern weapons that use tandem charges and other tricks to defeat armor. Not only does this hit guns, but also infantry AT weapons like bazooka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazooka), Panzerschrek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerschreck), and PIAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIAT). Heat-based weaponry, OTOH, will be as effective as ever. If you can somehow get close enough a flamethrower or molotov cocktail on the rear deck, over the engine, may be the best hope of stopping one. I am not really sure what would happen if a tank was struck by lightning-my best guess is "Nothing", although you may get lucky and cook some of the electronics for a mission kill.

Overall, the defender's best hopes lie in heavy forests and jungles that simultaneously nullify both the invader's airpower and armor, and reduce the conflict to infantry actions. Assault rifles will grant the invaders superior weight of fire, although against veteran and elite troops that are less susceptible to pinning effects of so much fire being thrown around, may actually be able to use the better ballistics of the full rifle cartridges their guns use to gain superior firepower.

However, any possible advantage in firepower would pale in comparison to the superior C3 of the invaders. WWII radios were big. bulky, tempermental backpack-sized affairs that were issued one to squad, at best. Less advanced armies had one per platoon or even company. Nowadays, everybody has a radio. This gives the invaders much better coordination, allowing them outmanuever the defenders. If this seems like a minor point, it is not-radios, initiative, and manuever were the three secret weapons the Wehrmacht used to consistantly produce massively disproportionate kill ratios against the Red Army on the Eastern Front. The battle of Kursk, for instance, had about 4:1 casaulty ratio in favor of the Germans. And that was a battle the Soviets won.

International law not only permits but requires troops to accept parley attempts. The white flag is the accepted way to request it, but anything that can be recognized will work in a pinch-hands in the air seems to be pretty universal through most of history. The rules are meant to facilitate surrenders, truces, and cease-fires. Abusing this is a serious breach of the same international law, not only because it is an incredibly ****ish thing to do but engenders a justifiable "once bitten twice shy" attitude in the survivors, meaning future attempts at surrender are likely to be dismissed as traps and thus ignored.

[Mando Knight]

Right, but we didn't drop nukes on Japan because we wanted to invade it. Kind of the opposite. I suppose if we wanted to invade another world we'd nuke some of it and try to force it to surrender, negating the need for invasion, which is what we did to Japan.

If it's America that's assumed to be doing the invading and can get any piece of its might to bear that it wishes, then any 1940s-esque nation is going to be completely at the mercy of its conventional explosives... B-2s will slip in practically unopposed (faster than 40s aircraft, ~Mach 0.85 cruise; reduced radar cross-section to hinder detection, sensor suite to permit night ops to take advantage of black coloring for optical detection) and then drop precision (laser or GPS-guided) bombs... 8 tons TNT-equivalent on a single target are as good as a 10 kiloton TNT-equivalent blast on the target and the surrounding city. Though if total annihilation is required, any nuclear-armed nation on Earth is more than capable of out matching 40s nuclear stockpiles (i.e. multiple high-yield implosion devices rather than one or two implosion devices and a handful of uranium devices, all aircraft-delivered).

[Yora]

The front of MBTs will be invulnerable to all but the biggest guns (we are talking things like 17-pounder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17-pounder), 90/L53 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannone_da_90/53), or the famous German "88" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37)), and even then it will have to be fired at short range, preferably with an armor-cracking round like sabot or APCR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APCR#Armour-piercing.2C_composite_rigid). Not that in 1940, there are no vehicles that mounted any of these very heavy guns, meaning they would be almost strictly defensive weapons. Contemporary defender tank guns would only have a chance if you somehow managed to sneak up on the MBT from behind. The good news is lighter armor, like IFVs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFV), APCs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_personnel_carrier), and SPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Propelled_Artillery), are quite susceptible to even the puny 37mm guns common to early-war tanks. Of course, the invaders will have much better accuracy, including the ability to consistently hit targets while on the move, which was simply beyond the ability of anything in 1940.
That's where close air support comes into play. If the defenders do have armored vehicles that are a serious threat to the invaders light armored vehicles, or even if it's just artillery positions in places that are hard to reach for the invading ground troops, you send in the ground attack aircrafts like A10s, AC130s, and Apaches, or even the older Hind gunships.
They are vulnerable to enemy aircraft and modern anti-air defenses, but in this scenario the defenders wouldn't have either, since their airforces would be taken out as the very first thing. To shot them down with big guns they are too fast, and I think most are pretty much invulnerable to rifle fire. Maybe heavy machine guns and a lot of luck could take one down, but in a large scale invasion, that would not really slow the invaders down in a meaningful way.

[Mando Knight]

That's where close air support comes into play. If the defenders do have armored vehicles that are a serious threat to the invaders light armored vehicles, or even if it's just artillery positions in places that are hard to reach for the invading ground troops, you send in the ground attack aircrafts like A10s, AC130s, and Apaches, or even the older Hind gunships.
They are vulnerable to enemy aircraft and modern anti-air defenses, but in this scenario the defenders wouldn't have either, since their airforces would be taken out as the very first thing.Close air support covereth a multitude of sins, indeed.
To shot them down with big guns they are too fast, and I think most are pretty much invulnerable to rifle fire. Maybe heavy machine guns and a lot of luck could take one down, but in a large scale invasion, that would not really slow the invaders down in a meaningful way.
Machine gun emplacements that fire at the air support make themselves new targets for both the air support and the ground team.

[Yora]

I didn't say they are a solution against ground attack aircraft. :smallbiggrin:
Only a threat to individual pilots.

[Storm Bringer]

to be fair, the small, light 20-40mm cannons often used by ww2 era armies for low altitude air defence would actally be quite dangrous to helicopters.

it may not surive more than one enguagement, but if used well, it could shoot down a chopper or two in that time.



How will such oldfasioned weaponry fare against modern AFV and infratry? (reason: to set overall mood closer to "Enemy on the gates", or to "War of Worlds"?)



oh, war of the worlds, almost certianly. A ww2 army cannot stand against a 21st century army in conventional warfare. any attempt to throw a brigade of nazi german tigers at a battlion of Leopard 2 tanks in modern german army service now will result in a lot of dead tigers and a few Leopards a bit short of ammo.

any effective resistance will be afgan style gurrilla warfare, pure and simple. even then, they are going to have to be willing to exchange thiers lives on a many locals for one invader basis. the trouble is that modern armies currently have a great deal of experenice in counter insurgency warfare, and have lots of specialist equipment and training to be really good at it.

a alternate "modern earth", depending on its history, may or may not have this level of skill in counter insurgency.


but all is not going to be perfect for the invaders


I very much doubt thier is enough military force in the whole of this earth, now, or 20 years ago at the height of the cold war stockpiles, or at any point in history, to conquor and subdue the whole earth at once.


Any invasion will almost certianly bog down, in that the invaders will conquor a HUGE swathe of territory, then find themselves overextended and need to stop/slow down and switch form "warfighting" to "counter insurgency" modes, or, to put it another way, form short term to long term. they are going to be short of almost everything, form new body armour plates, ammo, new boots, batteries for the night sights, screwdrivers, screws....... everything that they need will most likey need to come form thier home earth, on a long and vurnerable supply line.


Hence, any invasion is going to be "bite and hold", that is, a fast, high tempo convetional offense to claim a large, defined and defendable area (for example "north armerica", "europe", "north africa"), then dig in and "convert" that area to your cause (ie expose them to your advanaced tech and culture, in such a manner that they come round to your world view and become allies). this is going to take time, on the order of decades, as Afgan and Iraq show.

It takes time, but it works. you get young locals, brought up with you, willing to fight for you (or at least, police thier home while you move on to the next place). you gain a large export market (just think of how many ww2 people would pay a great deal for a decent pocket claculator, let alone a PC.), you again traction and permancy on the new earth, and you can a secure springboard for the next attack.

i'd say it;d make a perfect adventure setting, with players free to either join the resitance against a foe with massive advantages in just about every area, or become the agents of change, using those same advantages to drag the world kicking and screaming into the future.


Are tanks lightning proof?? (reason: one of characters is an artificer with many such powers. Of course he is also a GodEmperor of this world so he can edit invaders out of existence. Slowly. One at time.)


for all intents and purposes, yes, modern, up to date tanks have enough protection to uneffected. this includes the EMP effect of the lighting on comms and electronics. the only damage i can see is burning out the anntennas of their radios (and ECM, if they have any)


Does modern military doctrine allows commander to parley with enemy?
(reason: it is obvious that players will try diplomacy.)


short answer: yes. they can, given a willing (to surrender) enemy

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah, I feel that guerilla warfare is their best bet. Various cells, located in both urban environments (in which case the cell is made up entirely of locals, with weapons stored throughout about half of the members' houses, making it impossible to hunt down all the members based on having weapons hidden, but also making it so they can't take all the weapons in one fell swoop) and rugged wilderness (mole holes!), with an underground military base located somewhere on the continent.

So... basically a combination of X-COM and Red Dawn.

[genmoose]

I agree with many of the points that Storm Bringer brought up.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the invasion army is the current US Army and the steampunk forces are of the approximate size of (let’s be generous) the Soviet Red Army.

The first point I’d bring up is that there is a great difference between sizes of armies today and in the 1940’s. I wasn't quite aware of how stark the difference was until I did a little research.

Assuming no draft, or large scale mobilization, the US forces that could be committed might be similar to the composition of the 2003 Iraqi invasion force. So about 150,000 men, 200 or so combat aircraft, maybe 400 tanks and AFV’s, 200 or so artillery pieces and depending on the invasion terrain, maybe 70 or 80 ships. (US component only)

Now let’s look at what the Soviet’s could muster in the 40’s. At the start of the war, they had a standing army of about 4.8 million. By the end of the war they had 34 million (6.3M KIA though). In a major battle (like lets say Kursk), they could commit 1.4 million men, 5k tanks, 25k artillery pieces, and almost 3k aircraft.

So from a pure numbers game the invasion force would be facing about 10 to 1 odds.

Then if we look at technology, the invaders obviously have a significant advantage, but there are some drawbacks. For instance the M1 tank is capable of killing any WW2 era tank at ranges between 2000 to 3000 meters. The Soviet T34 could really engage targets at about 500 meters. The German 88 could reach out to 2000 meters but penetration at that distance was limited. So in summary, the M1 can kill anything out there, accurately, on the move, at 2000+ meters. The WW2 alternatives have to stop to shoot, and cannot penetrate the frontal armor of modern tanks. They may get lucky with a shot to the tracks, but chances are any tank battles will be entirely one sided. Hell there’s a good chance even the 25mm autocannon on the M2 could have penetrated most WW2 tank armor (it killed Iraqi T72’s at close range).

So how could a WW2 era folks hope to knock off modern equipment?

M1: IED’s would be very effective (buried artillery shells, raw explosives, etc). Possibly a direct hit from an air launched bomb. A direct hit from heavy (203mm+) or naval artillery would also probably do it.

M2: Everything for the M1, plus close range hits from tank guns like the 88. Possibly heavier rocket launchers like the panzerschreck might work as well.

Fixed wing aircraft: Lucky shot with 20mm or better anti-aircraft artillery.


So I’d think that the modern invaders would be able to wipe the floor with a WW2 era army, regardless of the size. Infantry units wouldn’t have it quite as easy but the combination of accurate artillery support, night vision, body armor, and combined arms tactics should prove fairly effective. However I don’t think the situation would be quite as desperate as a War of the Worlds kind of scenario.

The biggest problem I see with a modern army is its rapid consumption of supplies. If we compare our T34 to the M1 again, the T34 has a range of about 250 miles on 121 gallons of gas. The M1 has the same range but it takes 500 gallons of fuel. A modern military tanker is 2500 gallons so you need one of those for every 5 tanks per day (at least) plus the fuel to drive the tanker, plus the fuel for the tanker escorts. By some figures I’ve read 2/3rds of Army fuel usage is for tankers getting gas to other folks (tanks, trucks, AFV’s, helicopters, etc). So as the army expands from this portal, they’ll have a huge tail of trucks bringing fuel, food, munitions, etc. Without getting too ridiculous, I’d give a modern army about a 500 mile ground combat radius before the supply lines would get dangerously thin. If we're talking about urban terrain it could be a hell of a lot less than that. Aircraft could reach out a lot further to strike key targets, but that leads to another problem.

Intelligence about this ‘new world’ would be severely lacking in the beginning. Compared to any recent or expected war, the invaders would have no maps, no GPS, no satellite imagery, nothing. Sure maps could eventually be made or possibly ‘liberated’ from captured territory, but it would severely limit rapid advancement or accurate air/artillery bombardment.

Another issue is going to be targeting. With any ‘expected’ adversary on Earth, I’m sure the military has a prioritized target list in the event of war (military bases, power plants, C&C centers, bridges, etc). Intel guys are good at looking a little pictures and being able to figure out what’s a power plant and what’s a hospital. But if you’ve got a steampunk, semi-magical setting they’re not going to have a clue what anything is.

Which brings us to the next issue, unless the war starts because of some incredibly devastating strike (multiple cities burning, millions dead), a modern western military (especially the US military) isn’t going to target population centers or even industry. That was fair game in the 1940’s but unless the military knows a target is viable they won’t attack it today. So while it might be devastating to the defenders to suffer B1/B2/B52 carpet bombing of cities, it probably isn't going to happen.

Another point to discuss is your original question about diplomacy. Even with a very pissed off American military (think 9/12/01), they will expend considerable effort to get folks to surrender. Hell if you read about the last two major conflicts, psi ops would pepper an area with leaflets, radio broadcasts, etc that explicitly state “We are going to attack. This is how to surrender. If you surrender, we will provide food, shelter, medical care and bananas. This is how to contact us if you’d like to talk about it.” So I’d think there would be a lot of dialog between invaders and defenders. We’re not talking about a silent advance like War of the Worlds, Independence Day or Battlestar Galactica. This could actually pose a problem to the campaign. If the BBG didn’t somehow plan ahead for it, I think both sides may grind to a halt pretty soon when motivations start being questioned.

One way around this may be to let egos get the better of common sense. IE maybe the American commander lost his family in the initial false flag attack and the steampunkers may be too proud to tolerate ‘a foreign presence on their soil’. Or maybe the American's wipe out some huge cultural monument or kill the royal family during the initial counter attack.

If you want more background, a good story to read is about the Thunder Runs that were made in Baghdad in 2003. Here is the link to one of them (http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm). Apparently there’s also a movie called Thunder Run (although I've never seen it and it isn't on Netflix). It’s a good example of how 1000 US soldiers effectively captured a city of 5 million, but they came close to being overrun at several times. And not by a regular army, but by guys in trucks or folks on in buildings with RPG’s.

[Yora]

Hence, any invasion is going to be "bite and hold", that is, a fast, high tempo convetional offense to claim a large, defined and defendable area (for example "north armerica", "europe", "north africa"), then dig in and "convert" that area to your cause (ie expose them to your advanaced tech and culture, in such a manner that they come round to your world view and become allies). this is going to take time, on the order of decades, as Afgan and Iraq show.

It takes time, but it works. you get young locals, brought up with you, willing to fight for you (or at least, police thier home while you move on to the next place). you gain a large export market (just think of how many ww2 people would pay a great deal for a decent pocket claculator, let alone a PC.), you again traction and permancy on the new earth, and you can a secure springboard for the next attack.
In this case I think we can learn a lot more from the Roman Empire and maybe the British Empire. The Romans would be a model for a long term solution but obviously based on an entirely different social and logistic level, while the British are much more recent and throw more light on mid-term dynamics.

The Americas are not a good example, as disease killed about 95% of the continents population, which allowed for whites and their black slaves to take over the pretty much abandoned territory. Though that would be a perfect example for a more War of the World example with a post-apocalyptic leaning.

[Alejandro]

Actually, the Romans are a pretty good example. Who's to say that the invading modern Earth won't just smash initial military resistance, then say 'we will leave you mostly intact, as long as you give us tribute of oil, gold, and rare earths.'