I really should find the time to do that writeup on Naval Logistics
So, like, I've got some...issues with the Karachi sprint.
1)We've been building and putting MARV hubs into operation in three to six months.
We've been putting up phases of fortress towns almost as fast. Then there's arcologies.
And power stations.
GDI construction techniques are not in the league of the Scrin, but they are well practiced at building stuff from scratch.
Nor can we assume they are stuck with early 21st Cen building materials and techniques.I believe its been mentioned we have construction drones in play.
Even with modern day techniques and such, the Chinese have managed to put up ten thousand km of high speed rail in six or seven years.
2)Doing things slowly doesnt make it any less of a threat, it just stretches out the window of vulnerability during which the Brotherhood could attempt to do something about it.
That might lull a low level warlord operatiing out of set of shanty towns, but no middle rank or major warlord will fall for that.
3)I expect a lot of prefab work is going to come in from Arabia and Madagascar and South Africa.
We have the sealift, and if we devote the priority to getting it done, a lot of stuff will be done in parallel with each other.
In addition to that, expect to see a lot of the transport corridor to be built from the Himalayas heading towards Karachi.
Doesnt mean it will finish in three months, just that we can get a whole lot more done than you expect.
OTOH Vehrec, we are not threatening their core territories.
To be fair to Vehrec, we very much are.
However, we have been threatening their core territories for a long time. The Himalayas Blue Zone has been right where its been for decades and represents a chunk of industrial capacity and a forward staging point for GDI fprces. Everytime we've invested in improving logistics to that area, its been a threat to their core territories.
That has never stopped us before.
Allocating enough resources to "complete" the Karachi project in 3-6 months doesn't summon a fully formed 8 lane highway and major freight artery and world-class port from the aether when we get the last progress point, but it DOES mean the engineers have all the machinery and raw materials and funding to build it as fast as humanly possible.
^^^^
In addition to that? The Indian Ocean fleet is going to be tied up for the duration sanitizing the operating area against air and naval threats, and threatening the west Indian coast in order to force any ground counterattacks to either move slowly, or to force them to leave forces home to defend against sea assault.
The quicker we finish with Karachi, the quicker we can release almost all those ships back into offensive duty.
This also holds true for a chunk of the forces we intend to use in Pakistan, which will be coming out of our strategic reserve.
The smaller our free reserve is, the more likely people are to start shit.
But if the reserve is done quickly snd goes back into deserve, they are a threat
In the general case, you have a point.
In this specific case, I don't think this is the right move.
The escort carriers are something we've been told the navy wants heavily in the narration, not just in the "priority system." Furthermore, we've got a very real strategic problem with fleet carrier availability, and the carriers are a big part of our overall naval strategy when they're not hopelessly busy elsewhere.
For instance, think about the first stage, when we take Karachi, or rather, secure a beachhead in Pakistan. We're going to be air-dropping stuff in, doing amphibious landings on the coast... where is the air support coming from? Who's doing air raids to disrupt Nod positions on the coasts, supporting the first waves of troops to hit the dirt, and so on?
This is exactly the sort of thing the fleet carriers are almost certainly designed for, and we won't have as many of them as we'd like for the operation because they're spread out all over the world doing convoy escort and hunting subs and shit like that.
There's a very real reason the Navy asked us to do those, and asked us to do those first, and I think we should respect that priority.
A)Its in my opinion,
Escort carriers seem to be broadly multirole, but frigates?
Frigates are primarily defensive, which is why they are tagged Defensive.
B)Muscat, Oman to Karachi is 870km in a straight line.
I am going to rattle off the combat radius of two RL attack aircraft from the Cold War and one modern day plane for a comparison of what the combat ranges here might be like.
1)The 1972 era A-7E, which saw service in Vietnam and Desert Storm, with 6x500 pounds and 900 gallons of external fuel has a combat radius of between 513nmi/950km and 912nmi/1687km depending on flight profile.
2)The A-6 Intruder II, also a Vietnam War and Desert Storm plane, carrying 18x500 pounds of bombs and 600 gallons of external fuel, has a combat radius of between 403nmi/745km and 809 nmi/1496km depending on flight profile.
3)The F-35A on internal fuel has a combat radius of 669 nmi/1237km while carrying 2x AMRAAMs and 4000 pounds of JDAMs.
And thats before you account for the presence of aerial tankers over the Arabian Sea, far away from stealthed land-based SAMs or Venoms trying to hide in ground clutter to stage an ambush.
TLDR
Landbased air support is well within range. Thats in part why I was comfortable proposing that we go ahead with Karachi.
