Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
Unless the intel changes, Karachi is not a naval fortress that we need attack ships to break. (And we do still have existing ships that are capable of filling offensive roles.)
Even if it was, we can land troops to the west and charge in as well.
The Navy objected to Eastern Paris because they were not confident that they could keep open shipping lanes while supporting the landing at Karachi.
Most of the actual fighting is likely to be in a push up the Indus River, which the Navy cannot help with at all. And some defensive lines along the way, which the Navy only indirectly assist with by having Carriers.
All the Navy will be doing for Eastern Paris is logistics support to get our troops there, some softening of defences as we claim the area and start building, and holding off any naval counter-attacks.
Which isn't to say that their role isn't important, and that I don't appreciate them greatly. Just trying to convey that assault ships are of little use for this operation.
Even if it was, we can land troops to the west and charge in as well.
The Navy objected to Eastern Paris because they were not confident that they could keep open shipping lanes while supporting the landing at Karachi.
Most of the actual fighting is likely to be in a push up the Indus River, which the Navy cannot help with at all. And some defensive lines along the way, which the Navy only indirectly assist with by having Carriers.
All the Navy will be doing for Eastern Paris is logistics support to get our troops there, some softening of defences as we claim the area and start building, and holding off any naval counter-attacks.
Which isn't to say that their role isn't important, and that I don't appreciate them greatly. Just trying to convey that assault ships are of little use for this operation.
Oledoms
Friesmancer
I think it is doable that we can have at least one yard for both Amphibious and Monitor, before Karachi. It does not need to be many, just one or two will help but Zone Armor is still priority.
On the other hand, how many phases of Bergen will be needed before we get upgrades Fusion Power Plants? We really gonna need a lot of power for the ZA Factories
On the other hand, how many phases of Bergen will be needed before we get upgrades Fusion Power Plants? We really gonna need a lot of power for the ZA Factories
- Pronouns
- He/It/Argh!
Hopefully the completion text for Bergen 1/2 (or Fusion Plants) gives us some indication. Regardless of whether we get any info though, I think we should push for phase 3 this Plan.
As a 30R/die project, we aren't likely to be able to afford it early next Plan unless we strictly need it. Unfortunately, I can't see Phase 4 being viable until late next Plan.
As a 30R/die project, we aren't likely to be able to afford it early next Plan unless we strictly need it. Unfortunately, I can't see Phase 4 being viable until late next Plan.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I get the reasoning, but... here's the problem.
The CVLs have a roughly two year build time for the first wave. In even the most extreme aggressive shipyard construction scenarios, the latest we have a reasonable chance of getting LHA yards built is something like 2061Q2 or 'Q3, which means those hulls are barely hitting the water in time for 2063Q4 Karachi.
Now, people have pointed out that you can rush a ship into service fresh out of the yard. For the escort carriers, this is at least sort of viable. Because escort carriers are designed to operate in relatively low-stress stretches of ocean, where Nod mostly fights with light forces and Nod attacks are infrequent. You are more likely to have time to work up the ship's complement, try things out to see if they work, fix any mechanical defects that only show up after the ship hits the water, and debug any impractical aspects of how the doctrine for using the ship interacts with its capabilities, before all these problems become decisive flaws undermining the ship's performance in a major battle. After all, the main function of the CVLs, at least in the first wave, is simply to be there and operate VTOL naval aviation, something we already more or less know how to do.
The LHAs' function is... not like this.
The LHAs are centerpieces for complex and intricate high-stakes operations, because amphibious landings are among some of the most difficult things to get right in all of warfare, and the consequences of screwing up are almost invariably a total disaster for the troops involved. To perform their mission of launching amphibious assaults, these ships' crews and the troops they carry must gain experience with a set of capabilities very different from what they are familiar with. All these capabilities must function together like a well oiled machine. Furthermore, many of these capabilities are out of the direct recent experience of our military, so we'll have to spend time making sure everything works in practice the way it does in theory, or revise our doctrine accordingly.
If these steps are not taken, the LHA project is at risk, because of the very great danger that the LHAs would be sent into battle unprepared, someone would get their wires crossed or a charismatic officer in the program would turn out to have been wrong about something, and we'd end up with a Gallipoli or an Anzio on our hands, instead of a Normandy or an Inchon.
Even using our existing, less capable amphibious platforms and heavy doctrinal reliance on strategic airlift might be better than having a handful of unprepared LHAs. Because at least we know what those things can and cannot do. There is significant practical experience regarding how those things are used, and we can reasonably extrapolate how to deploy them without disaster, or look at the situation and say "this will lead to a disaster, let's not go there." With the LHAs there is far less certainty.
As such, I do not think it likely that we will be able to use the LHAs immediately upon their entering service. Not even for 'basic' operations. Amphibious warfare is simply too complicated for the crews to learn on the job. Carrier operations are too, but at least there we have plenty of sailors experienced in carrier ops on larger ships, so some of the experience is transferable, and the light carriers themselves are under less pressure to do the job perfectly on the first try.
...
So I don't think that, even if we have an LHA yard ready in 2061Q3-Q4, we can rely on having even a few functional, combat-capable LHAs by 2063Q4. The risks associated with rushing the deployment of new, first-in-class ships designed to do something as fraught and challenging as amphibious warfare are simply too great.
So IF we are willing to delay our GO date to, say, 2064Q4 (about as late as we dare given the need to have Karachi Phase 5 done by end of Plan), then maybe, maybe, we could have a meaningful LHA component. Not a handful of demonstration pieces that hopefully won't fuck up while operating their untried-in-practice amphibious warfare tactics and operations manuals under live fire from a bunch of Nod's finest, but an actual force that is capable of being imapctful.
But if we're trying some time between the 2063 and 2064 monsoon seasons? Then I fear all we could hope for from the LHAs is that handful of demonstration pieces. Which might have a chance to at least participate in Karachi, with uncertainty as to whether they will succeed because this would be practically their first battle fresh out of the yard... But not to do much of anything impactful involving the seizure of various minor strategic islands as you outline.
I just don't think we can get this done in time to be impactful for Karachi, which means that while developing and beginning the program matters, prioritizing it the way we do the escort carrier and frigate yards right now is probably a mistake.
You are not wrong.
On the other hand, remember that in this instance, we are unleashing these technologies against a single opponent. And in an offensive targeted against lands that aren't really part of that opponent's core territory.
I think that may actually work to our advantages. First of all, because the other Nod warlords must consider that if we are not, right then and there, launching major offensives into their heartlands... it might be unwise to fire off a death-or-glory attack involving strategic weapons. After all, doing so and failing somehow would be totally disastrous by inviting an overwhelming GDI retaliatory strike that they have no means of fending off.
Some of the warlords might seriously consider "is this a good time to panic and launch an ultimate do or die attack? Or is this a good moment to bide my time and hope to invent my way out of the disadvantage I am now at? Or is this a good time to start negotiating with GDI?"
...
Coming out with both these techs right before a Steel Vanguard offensive would probably have the effect you describe. Nod would start losing in the field so rapidly that they'd have strong reasons to toss strategic weapons at us just to slow us down. But here, most of Nod isn't even affected and isn't losing territory. The one faction that is losing territory is losing peripheral territory, territory they know GDI has a strong incentive to clear.
This reduces the implied threat, while still giving us a significant advantage that will affect Nod's strategic calculations in future (e.g. for a warlord, making it very inadvisable to launch a full offensive against us in 2064-65 to draw off GDI's attention from holding Karachi, no matter how much Nod India asks them to)
As noted above, I am pretty sure it would be very unwise to try this with amphibious assault ships...
Yeah, but if we push having those things, we're going to have to start cutting stuff from other goals on the list. What do you want to sacrifice?
SADN coverage in case Nod replies with strategic weapons?
Active cloak disruption abilities against Nod's cloak bullshit?
Having Orca wingman drones so that our light carriers, which we specifically delayed starting and made to take longer to build so that they could handle wingman drones, will actually have the drones they're supposed to have?
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- Location
- Wall Gazing
Your logic is persuasive and I agree that the current rate of investment in the navy is unsustainable and not something to continue beyond the current set of yards. My concern is in the lead time from yard to ship. We want to start building these ships well in advance of when we think we will need them, as I'm sure you'll agree. That was the problem with the lack of Escorts and Frigates in the opening stages of the Regency War after all. As we are going to want the Assault Ships and Monitors in the future, we need to plan out when we will need them. Even if they are unlikely to be more then a minor roll with Karachi, with the Assault ships at least, we want to start construction relatively soon as it will take time for them to be ready.
The sooner we have that tool in our tool box the sooner we can support things like strikes at Havana and in other Island chains to hunt down NOD ports. That is the way we are going to put a permanent stop to the raiders, by finding and rooting them out. We have not seen the last of them with the current die down we the winding down of the Regency War, and I'm fairly certain they will start up again as we engage in various attacks, like Karachi.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm fine with that, as long as we're clear that this is something we should be trickling dice into on general principles as a long-term investment (the way we should, ideally, have been working on the escort carriers years ago).
Not a major crash program that's preparing us for Karachi, because the LHAs are not effective as a preparation for Karachi in particular.
So focus on the escort carriers and save the LHAs and Monitors for later then.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Doruma and I are both taking it as given that we're going to finish the escort carrier and frigate yards before we begin constructing LHA yards. So, uh... ahead of you there?
Oh right.
Let's not forgot the new laser systems as well.
So how large of a force would we need to take Karachi?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It's not about size- we don't even loosely estimate that ourselves.
It's about what techs and deployments we want to pursue before the operation.
Go further up the thread, maybe a page or two back, and you'll find that I made a list of things I'd like to suggest that we look into and work on That's been discussed rather extensively already, so if it's interesting as a question to you, you might want to start by catching up on that recent discussion.
- Location
- USA
So when things settle down from rushing wingmen and shipyards what should be the appropriate military dice investment?
3-4 dice on a major project/factory/shipyard with the remaining dice spread over the remaining branches to slow walk smaller projects?
Edit: Assuming we aren't using free dice.
3-4 dice on a major project/factory/shipyard with the remaining dice spread over the remaining branches to slow walk smaller projects?
Edit: Assuming we aren't using free dice.
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- Location
- Wall Gazing
Ideally we will have a more reasonable spread. The most expansive category we still have in Military is the MARV Hubs which make up something along the lines of 2/3s of the available progress. If we ignore that though, a somewhat equitable distribution for the progress requirements of our currently available projects would put ~5/20 of our dice into General Military, ~1/20 of our dice in ZOCOM, ~3/20 in the Air Force, ~3/20 in the Space Force, ~4/20 in the Ground Forces, ~3/20 in the Navy, and ~1/20 in the Steel Talons.
Or something along those lines. The Space Force may drop lower and the Navy may increase, with the completion of OSRCT, but there are a lot of other improvements to the smite button which certainly needs some work with the proliferation of Pylons.
Or something along those lines. The Space Force may drop lower and the Navy may increase, with the completion of OSRCT, but there are a lot of other improvements to the smite button which certainly needs some work with the proliferation of Pylons.
I'm somewhat of the mind that, even though they may not arrive in time/numbers to really impact Karachi, we should get those development options and a shipyard each for the two new ship types, or at least for one of them, if we can spare the dice. We've learnt how long it takes to put ships out so while we're focused on the Navy lets really bump it up and get the stock rolling. Just so that when the ships start coming out in significant numbers we can really take the advantage.
- Location
- USA
My own intention is assuming we stay at 8 mil dice is after rolling out the current shipyards (which I am advocating a lot of dice into so we can get the ships out in time for the option to go Karachi year 2 of the plan to relieve the siege) is to do 2-3 dice on laser refit after we finish the shipyards (or as we finish if we need 1 or 2 dice total on shipyards to finish) and then reserve 1-2 dice a turn for naval projects, which yes will take a while for new shipyards to finish but most of those are not urgent and this would let us deal with the rest of the mil force while still keeping constant progress on navy. Because the level of investment right now is not sustainable when we will need free dice in other categories and need to do mil projects for the rest of our military.
Not the Treasury's job. Let the military figure that one out.
Just because Kane is willing to negotiate doesn't mean that the rest of Nod is willing to follow him. And in such a case, it works to our benefit to either have an obviously growing capacity to strike at Nod, or to already have such a capacity ready and available. It's a lot easier to tell Kane and GDI to fuck off when you are certain Kane and GDI can't take you and all your buddies out for being annoying.
So, because I was bored, have a memeplan updated for Q1!
Because ~TENTACLES~!
Is it a good idea? Probably not! Is it fun? Absolutely! Does it have a ~5% chance of giving us over 200 Resources per Turn? That's the point!
[] Plan ~Tentacles~ v2
Infrastructure 6 dice +34 6 dice 90R
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) 220/300 1 die 20R 70%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 3+4) 72/320 4 dice 40R 97%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1) 92/200 1 die 30R 42%
Heavy Industry 5 dice +29 5 dice 155R
-[] Advanced Alloys Development 1 die 15R 30%
-[] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory 0/175 2 dice 40R 50%
-[] Isolinear Chip Foundry Anadyr 85/320 2 dice 100R 8%
Light and Chemical Industry 5 dice +24 5 dice 55R
-[] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2) 276/300 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Civilian Drone Factories 104/380 4 dice 40R 73%
Agriculture 4 dice +24 4 dice 40R
-[] Freeze Dried Food Plants 151/200? 1 die 20R 91%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2) 38/150 3 dice 30R 99%
Tiberium 7 dice +39 7+6 free dice 390R
-[] Harvesting Tendril Deployment (Phase 1+2) (New) 0/1350 13 dice 390R 5%
Orbital Industry 6 dice +26 6 dice 120R
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5) 102/1535 2 dice 40R
-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1+2) 45/265 3 dice 60R 68%
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) 276/310 1 die 20R 100%
Services 5 dice +27 5 dice 75R
-[] Professional Sports Programs 0/250 3 dice 30R 49%
-[] Hallucinogen Development 0/60 1 die 15R 88%
-[] Scrin Tech gacha 0/lots 1 die 30R
Military 8 dice +26 8 dice 90R
-[] Skywatch Telescope System 64/95 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Railgun Munitions Development 38/60 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits 0/350 5 dice 25R 77%
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyard (Nagoya) 171/240 1 die 20R 73%
Bureaucracy 4 dice +24 4 dice + 1 free die + Erewhon
-[] Conduct Economic Census DC 100/150/200/250, DC 250 5 dice + Erewhon die 99%
1015/1020 Resources
Because ~TENTACLES~!
Is it a good idea? Probably not! Is it fun? Absolutely! Does it have a ~5% chance of giving us over 200 Resources per Turn? That's the point!
[] Plan ~Tentacles~ v2
Infrastructure 6 dice +34 6 dice 90R
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) 220/300 1 die 20R 70%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 3+4) 72/320 4 dice 40R 97%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1) 92/200 1 die 30R 42%
Heavy Industry 5 dice +29 5 dice 155R
-[] Advanced Alloys Development 1 die 15R 30%
-[] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory 0/175 2 dice 40R 50%
-[] Isolinear Chip Foundry Anadyr 85/320 2 dice 100R 8%
Light and Chemical Industry 5 dice +24 5 dice 55R
-[] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2) 276/300 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Civilian Drone Factories 104/380 4 dice 40R 73%
Agriculture 4 dice +24 4 dice 40R
-[] Freeze Dried Food Plants 151/200? 1 die 20R 91%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2) 38/150 3 dice 30R 99%
Tiberium 7 dice +39 7+6 free dice 390R
-[] Harvesting Tendril Deployment (Phase 1+2) (New) 0/1350 13 dice 390R 5%
Orbital Industry 6 dice +26 6 dice 120R
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5) 102/1535 2 dice 40R
-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1+2) 45/265 3 dice 60R 68%
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) 276/310 1 die 20R 100%
Services 5 dice +27 5 dice 75R
-[] Professional Sports Programs 0/250 3 dice 30R 49%
-[] Hallucinogen Development 0/60 1 die 15R 88%
-[] Scrin Tech gacha 0/lots 1 die 30R
Military 8 dice +26 8 dice 90R
-[] Skywatch Telescope System 64/95 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Railgun Munitions Development 38/60 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits 0/350 5 dice 25R 77%
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyard (Nagoya) 171/240 1 die 20R 73%
Bureaucracy 4 dice +24 4 dice + 1 free die + Erewhon
-[] Conduct Economic Census DC 100/150/200/250, DC 250 5 dice + Erewhon die 99%
1015/1020 Resources
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- Location
- MSC
Any chance to fit CRP, if they're good enough?
They're CRaP.
That said, they may be worthwhile putting in... we'll see. All plans at this point are tentative, as always.
I just felt like contributing to the Threadicle Madness.
- Location
- his hidden lair
The few times NOD elements have gone rogue against Kane (CABAL notwithstanding) he usually had just suffered a crippling defeat, or was out of commission. Marcion only rose in Kane's vacuum, Alexa did tell Kane to fuck off- but that was tied up in CABAL shenanigans, and Killian was a frame up job: Kane knows it was a frame up job and is furious about falling for it.
For all that GDI has ultimately been kicking NOD around consistently for the Regency War, GDI has only been fighting the Warlords, and the Warlords are explicitly fighting for Kane's approval and legitimacy to become his right hand. Kane right now is promised salvation, not a false prophet to be rejected. Gideon, the guy who explicitly does reject Kane's peace overtures is weaker now than ever before- everyone else is an open ended question but I don't think now is the time any warlord would oppose Kane and GDI.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If, at any point, Kane actually shows up and is willing to negotiate, we will of course re-evaluate all our military priorities. Given the possibility of somehow winding up in a hopefully less stupid and annoying version of Command and Conquer 4, we probably shouldn't completely drop our efforts to maintain an effective high-tech military. However, the prospect of a cease-fire with much of Nod will change the game dramatically.
On the other hand, we do need to be prepared for the possibility that Kane sits on the TCN blueprints for another decade or two, in hopes of waiting until we get desperate enough at the realization that we have no way of controlling the subterranean tiberium threat using only our own resources. In canon he waited until GDI was on the brink of total destruction, even though this presumably meant that GDI had much less population and industry to help him build the TCN with.
Basically, we have to look at both sides' BATNA, or "best alternative to a negotiated agreement." What are the likely scenarios for both sides if negotiations break down or never begin?
Both sides have bargaining chips of varying value.
Kane has the loyalty of Nod, whose military power enables him to obstruct our tiberium-clearing efforts while building his own infrastructure independently of us. Kane has vast amounts of alien knowledge that is probably inaccessible to us unless we can figure out how to re-steal the Tacitus from an invulnerable, unapproachable, and importantly unmapped fortress that Kane controls all the access points to. Kane has the advantage that unlike Kane, GDI actually cares about saving vast numbers of people and not just a tiny core of inner-circle followers. So any evacuation strategy we pursue would have to be done on a prodigious scale, which would itself take much time and/or resources, and would in turn be subject to disruption by Nod and to us just plain running out of time because tiberium is a bastard.
But GDI has bargaining chips too.
GDI has the raw military power to gradually beat Nod down; the longer this goes on, the weaker Kane's negotiating position becomes.
GDI has the industrial base Kane needs, and Kane cannot be sure that an apocalyptic war to seize control of this industry for himself (his game plan in Tib War One) would leave it intact enough to enable him to get the job done even if he succeeded in conquering us.
GDI has the proven power to implement relatively crude tiberium-control measures on a vast scale, such that Kane may not entirely be able to rule out the possibility of GDI saying "screw you, I'm building my own TCN, with blackjack and hookers!" and designing its own dodgy jury-rigged improvisational system based on taking poorly understood Scrin technology that's had the bullet holes crudely patched up and plugging it in backwards, and having it work. Or at least work well enough to buy us time to evacuate the planet.
Come to that, GDI has the power to take real steps towards evacuating the planet, which reverses the roles by giving Kane less leverage and possibly activating his private nightmare scenario where he's left stranded on a tiberium-devoured Earth as it explodes.
...
So with an eye to the possibility of Kane deciding to negotiate, he is most likely to negotiate at one of two points. One is when GDI is losing badly (as in canon). The other is when it looks as if GDI might win, but has not won yet, and has already learned enough that they realize that their victory (be that the final conquest of Nod, or the creation of vast space colonies) will be hollow if they cannot save the Earth.
Since we have already significantly delayed the first scenario- it will probably be at least the 2080s, I hope, before tiberium could even begin to make us as desperate as canon GDI was by 2062- we need to concentrate on the second scenario. Which means continuing to work towards the defeat of Nod-as-we-know it, and balancing our efforts between that and fighting surface tiberium and beginning to probe the underground threat.
Remind me what CRP means?
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- Location
- MSC
Calories reclamation processors?
Thread is calling them CRaP for whatever reason.
Thread is calling them CRaP for whatever reason.
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They are worse then fungas bars. Hands down the name fits. Especially since a decent percentage of the CRP bars are actually soilent green.