How would you set out an army?

[EO Violation]

Originally Posted by Anlushac11

Isnt 81mm or close to it still the largest generally considered man portable? I thought most mortars 81mm and larger were usually mounted in light vehicles?

For instance the US Army uses the M106 (M125 for 81mm) family of mortar carriers from the 81mm up to a 120mm version.

IIRC the USMC uses the LAV-M and the US Army is getting the M1129 mortar carrier based on the Stryker.

Well yeah, there are mortar carriers. 120mm isn't exactly something you sling on your back.

However.

The need for weapons such as a 50mm autocannon implies that the survivability of AFVs in this universe of his has greatly increased, as indicated by the need for vastly increased firepower in comparison with contemporary weapons systems. I would then think that 81mm would be quite useless, unless it's some sort of compact tactical nuke.

[Anlushac11]

I remember reading that there was talk of upgrading the cannon on the Bradleys to 50mm or a low pressure 76mm for the sole purpose of providing a more effective HE round for fire support and breeching walls and things. IIRC the 50mm would have been the largest of the group considered that would still have been a auto cannon.

Last i heard the cannon upgrades had been shelved.

[EO Violation]

I've had no issues with the Bushmaster... Very reliable and extremely deadly. Take it from me, that 25mm Sabot has enough power to kill some MBTs. Sure, outdated ones, but MBTs nonetheless.

Personally, if what they want is something to blow down walls and blast HE into buildings, then I'd try and secure a contract for the CV90-40.

[Anlushac11]

I'd just throw a Cockerill Mk3M-A1 90mm gunned turret on a Bradley chassis and call it a day.

This turret
Army Technology - CMI Defence - Weapon Systems for Light Armoured Vehicles

[EO Violation]

Dear God.

And it would be glorious...

Of course, I'd probably never get to touch one, but damn that would be a pretty kick ass weapons system.

[It's Happy Fun Ball!]

Originally Posted by Roaming East

how about some further background? whats the country we are outfitting? relative size, proximity to ocean/seas, geography and temperature, stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Crazy Wolf

Lets say... tropical island nation, no larger than Borneo, no smaller than Luzon.

Still not enough information. Who are my neighbours? How much of a threat are they? My military would be no bigger than necessary to deal with realistic threats. However since I apparently have no limits, it will be big enough for any threat. (Even if I share a border with the United States. )

[Crazy Wolf]

Originally Posted by Killed in First Minute

Still not enough information. Who are my neighbours? How much of a threat are they? My military would be no bigger than necessary to deal with realistic threats. However since I apparently have no limits, it will be big enough for any threat. (Even if I share a border with the United States. )

No nation around you can be trusted, at the first moment they have something to gain by attacking you, they will, currently, the only thing holding back their armies is the fact that you supply 95% of their nations' bubble gum.

[Mr. Pedantic]

That's not enough of an incentive. Ersatz bubblegum, I am sure, will work just as well.

[Crazy Wolf]

Oh, but only you have the lax environmental constraints that allow companies to make bubble gum as cheaply as you do.

[Nemmerle]

My army would start with the implementation of compulsory schooling. People have always looked at homeschooling as a bit odd, and they are reluctant to protect those outside of their culture. Everyone would go to state schools and learn the state's values and norms. After this there would be a compulsory state religion, not as such at first when it would appear as just another religion, most probably among the military who are already trained to obey but it would eventually be made compulsory. This would be a highly militant religion emphasising social solidarity, whereas the bible goes on about turning swords into plows this would take a view somewhat closer to Sikh scripture's ideals: "After the primal manifestation of the sword, the universe was created." A part of this religion would require the training of warfare on weekends. It would not be tolerant of other cultures. Non-state media would be quietly absorbed by the state and then the concept of it would be outlawed. Criminal punishments would be increased, armed theft and the like when proven to a reasonable degree would result in your enslavement, this would be retroactive and it is expected that the prison population would contribute to a healthy boom in the economy at this stage. Some time after this when enough people had been made to conform to the new religion and enough people had grown up knowing it any language other than the language of the realm would be outlawed without a license, and that license would be hard to get, you'd have to be studying the language at university to get it. People with germline genetic disorders of sufficient significance would be sterilised volutarily or otherwise, in order to remove the maladaptive strain from society.
There would be no helpful translations around for other cultures, no tolerance of other religions and beliefs; when in this country you would speak its language, learn its values and work with its people, there would be none of this multicultural bullshit - people would all conform to a single cultural ideal and thus social order would be preserved.

The reasoning for all this is very simple: War is about inducing a very rapid change in demographics, these are made up of culture being the underlying meaning of social interactions and the enviroment, the enviroment itself, and the population of an area as a part of that enviroment. If you lose out on that it doesn't matter how much armed force you have you've still lost. Right now we're being hit by a very powerful weapon: the birth rate there's just more of the non-natives than of the natives and their norms and values are the ones being propogated thanks to a weak state structure. For the time being we control the army but that won't always be the case. Once the demographic shifts even if you've been in symbolic control of a country you've lost after that it's only a matter of time until even the symbol changes. These things are not nice, but they work, they work very well. War is about demographics as much as it's about killing things with nice toys.

My army itself would be divided into two tiers, the regular army used to agressively secure foriegn resources and the Teritorial army used as an extra pool of manpower if the need arose and for a last defence backed up with a nuclear deternet to make invasion very costly and to back up the police in the unlikely case of a large scale civil disorder.

For the Teritorial army I'd go back to the idea of a citizen soldier. Everyone above the age of eighteen would be automatically enlisted in a Teritorial Army unit whether they liked it or not. Training would be centred around the idea of five man units and asymetric warefare with an emphasis on making use of non-military resources where more conventional forces were not available. Counter Insurgency strategies would also be trained, non of this nancy shit going on in Iraq either; the stuff we know is ruthless as hell and works. Intelligent kill squads made up of people who score incredibly high on intelligence and absolutely zero on compassion or personality to destroy local leaderships, (them psychopaths have a use at least,) the calculated destruction of areas that support insurgencies down to the last woman and child, that sort of thing. No holds barred as long as it works efficiently, we'd be going back to the idea that the army are stone cold killers rather than kids playing with guns and prattling on about winning the good fight with their hands tied behind their backs.

A bounty would be paid to those who underwent extra qualifications such as combat medicine or demolotions. If you excelled in one of these areas you could translate that into a higher rank if you decided to join the professional army, healthy cash incentives would be offered for you to do so. It is expected that due to the state religion etc a lot of people would be looking to join the army.

The professional army would be made up of people who were at least twenty and who had no criminal records. They would be trained along much the same lines as the teritorials, and would share some of the same training operations in order to improve coordination between the two groups. The only major difference would be that they would be regularly deployed abroad and that when not in combat they would train much more frequently.
Foriegn policy would dictate expansion, preferably into shitty little countries no-one gives two craps about, probably under the pretext of bringing order or peacekeeping at first. People in those countries would be forceably integrated into the state, their languages, media, schooling, and religions outlawed.

Military structure would be as follows for ground forces

Fire team: Five men under the command of a Sergeant. One sniper/squad support, one medic, one demolitionist, one coms speciality, one fire support guy. Obviously all cross trained.
Platoon: Thirty men under the command of a Lt. Composed of five fire teams and an artilery/heavy weapons attachment.
Company: One hundred men under the command of a Captain. Composed of three platoons and a counter intelligence attachment operating with a degree of independance from the rest of the company.
Battalion: One thousand men under the command of a Lt Col. Composed of nine companys and a special logistics and planning attachment.
Brigade: Five thousand men under the command of a Colonel. Composed of five Battalions.
Division: Fifteen thousand men under the command of a General Major. Composed of three Brigades.
Corps: Fifty thousand men under the command of a Corps General. Composed of three Divisions and special propoganda/politcal attachment to clear up after any major messes that might create a diplomatic incident.
Army group: Two hundred thousand men under the command of an Army General composed of two Corps.

Equipment would consist of rip offs of other countries good guns, at least at first. So they'd be equiped with rip offs of the following equipment:

Standard infantry firearms:
The general infantry rifle would be the G41.
The standard issue side arm would be the Glock 21
The M249 would be used where needed for heavier fire.
The L96A1 would be the standard snipping/squad support level weapon.

Artilerly support:
60 mm mortar at platoon level.
M109A6 155 mm howitzer at company level

(Most fire support expected to be from ships/aircraft)

And misc items such as mines, barbed wire, etc.

You might have noted there are no tanks specified, that's because the era of the tank is quite frankly almost over. If ever armoured divisions start rolling between two countries where it would mean diddly shit the nukes are coming shortly after and then nothing matters. In the mean time they're just going to be taken out by air or used as dug in arty in or around cities as most people do these days waiting for some insurgent with an RPG to pop a very expensive bit of machinery out of existence.

Meh, it's half seven in the morning now I might add more later if I can be bothered