- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Frankly, I think that the lack of optimally upgraded tanks and infantry rifles isn't going to be the problem here. The GD-3 is not such an overwhelmingly superior firearm that its presence or absence radically changes what infantry can do. Likewise, I think that the Predator tank will not turn out to be "obsolete" in the sense that they are too primitive to be combat-effective. The Mammoth is struggling more but is also a specialist vehicle. The Predator still has the firepower to threaten Nod vehicles easily, and the survivability to prevent anything but heavy dedicated antitank units from destroying it easily.
The lack of upgraded fighters could easily turn out to be a problem, maybe even a serious one, but that's a single specific program. And, again, to have the Air Force fully equipped with Novahawks that are meaningfully more than just "a Firehawk, but with slightly better systems integration," we'd be getting caught between the twin imperatives of "start this project early," say some time in early 2062, and "but not too early," as in before there were reliable repulsorplate production chains. Not so good. And we've put considerable effort into finding ways to enhance the effectiveness of the Firehawk force, with laser cannons, a large drone force to blunt the edge of enemy attacks and thicken our firepower, a copious stockpile of quick-maneuvering plasma missiles. It's inelegant, but I'm not sure the Novahawk will save us in any situations where that can't.
The thing that's really going to hurt is al-Isfahani slinging around nuclear weapons, and that isn't something we could avoid by being a little more advanced.
MRAPS turns out to be 'useless' mainly in the sense that "oh hey, turns out the game was gonna end in 2065, so we won't see any benefits!" We might have decided we liked MRAPS quite a lot if the game had stretched on another 5-10 in game years. The Islands are in a similar position; any opportunity on our part to try further amphibious pushes against Nod got overtaken by events. Mastodons are a quite small-scale project.
Furthermore, much of the tech we are now relying on to improve old platforms, like neural interface helmets and laser weapons, was developed and pioneered by the Talons. Without significant Talons work done in the late 2050s and early 2060s, platforms like the Novahawk wouldn't even be available to us in a mode that would solve our problems.
Nod seems to be in a similar situation in the air. We almost never hear of them using Venoms or any non-stealth aircraft except xenotech fighters with limited payload. This is because if they used such low-tech aircraft, Firehawks would still rip them apart. The consequence, though, is that they can't keep as many fighters going at once and have to get used to just not having air support.
I may have missed something or sound foolish; my brain isn't quite clicking this morning. But I think this roughly gets across my feelings on the matter.
The lack of upgraded fighters could easily turn out to be a problem, maybe even a serious one, but that's a single specific program. And, again, to have the Air Force fully equipped with Novahawks that are meaningfully more than just "a Firehawk, but with slightly better systems integration," we'd be getting caught between the twin imperatives of "start this project early," say some time in early 2062, and "but not too early," as in before there were reliable repulsorplate production chains. Not so good. And we've put considerable effort into finding ways to enhance the effectiveness of the Firehawk force, with laser cannons, a large drone force to blunt the edge of enemy attacks and thicken our firepower, a copious stockpile of quick-maneuvering plasma missiles. It's inelegant, but I'm not sure the Novahawk will save us in any situations where that can't.
The thing that's really going to hurt is al-Isfahani slinging around nuclear weapons, and that isn't something we could avoid by being a little more advanced.
Could you make a list of the 'useless' tech research? I think it would be very hard to figure out which techs "weren't important" without hindsight. This includes the Talons tech development.
MRAPS turns out to be 'useless' mainly in the sense that "oh hey, turns out the game was gonna end in 2065, so we won't see any benefits!" We might have decided we liked MRAPS quite a lot if the game had stretched on another 5-10 in game years. The Islands are in a similar position; any opportunity on our part to try further amphibious pushes against Nod got overtaken by events. Mastodons are a quite small-scale project.
Furthermore, much of the tech we are now relying on to improve old platforms, like neural interface helmets and laser weapons, was developed and pioneered by the Talons. Without significant Talons work done in the late 2050s and early 2060s, platforms like the Novahawk wouldn't even be available to us in a mode that would solve our problems.
If we hadn't made the 2/turn promise, we'd have gotten a more advanced military at a direct price to the civilian economy. Given how many of our military advantages hinge on us having that civilian economy, I'm not sure that's good. For instance, the Novahawk is a far more capable platform because we were able to invest Heavy Industry dice in repulsorplate technology, but we might have had to postpone or avoid such research if we were instead pouring dice into Military deployments.
The Firehawk is a multirole fighter whose mission is complicated by the fact that Nod has largely stopped contesting control of the sky except for missions flown with a relative handful of craft who have so much xenotech in them that you might as well call them flying saucers. It's a bit like armored tank combat on the WWII-era Western Front. The Germans had proven incapable of contesting the numbers and adequacy of Allied armor because they couldn't match the scale of production. So they deployed limited numbers of hand-built prototype Wunderwaffen and hoped quality would give them a decisive advantage over quantity. This did not work out well. Most of the time the Germans suffered from having a lack of armored support while their Allied opponents had plenty. Even worse for the Germans, even in the occasional battles where the Wunderwaffen showed up, the 'inferior' Allied kit wasn't helpless and did a lot to blunt the edge of the German advantage.
Nod seems to be in a similar situation in the air. We almost never hear of them using Venoms or any non-stealth aircraft except xenotech fighters with limited payload. This is because if they used such low-tech aircraft, Firehawks would still rip them apart. The consequence, though, is that they can't keep as many fighters going at once and have to get used to just not having air support.
I may have missed something or sound foolish; my brain isn't quite clicking this morning. But I think this roughly gets across my feelings on the matter.
