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East Africa 1930: An ORBAT Quest

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So, something like this.

[ ] Plan: Guns on the Table
-[ ] Weapon Testing: Rifles - The Ordnance Office will buy a handful of rifles from around the world and test them until they break. Afterwards, they will make recommendations to the Defence Council on the topic of rifle licensing. (6-Month Investment. Recommendations will be made at the end of this process.)
-[ ] Analysis: Immediate Improvements - Develop and implement 'quick win' organisational changes to improve the Armed Forces. (3-Month Investment.)
-[ ] Reform means Reform - Define a new doctrinal goal for the Regional Carabinieri. Are they police? A military force? The Council must decide. (3-Month Investment. Details will be determined by write-in and further votes.)

I'm unclear on if we need to specify the write-in doctrinal goal now or that's part of the further votes? My preference is towards defining them as a rural-focused military police/gendarmerie with a designated role in times of war as rangers and partisans, but there's several useful directions we can go.
 
Potato Anarchy said:
The last turn is a clear warning sign that we can't count on the world to slow down and stop sending us its toughest battles just because we're trying to be long-term efficient. Reform means reform is also more focus on the Carabinieri, which I don't think the Army leadership values the same way we do.
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RookDeSuit said:
Well yes, but there's an 'obvious,' opportunity and the army is discontent that we didn't take it. We need a little meat on the table to get them to chill even if sticking our business into the rebel army would have been a bad idea.
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I'm worried that the "quick win" isn't actually a win in the eyes of the army, but a win for the government. After all, if the army's been in the position to make these glaringly obvious changes for a while now, why haven't they? Who's to say they'll appreciate us coming in and telling them what to do? These organizational changes could be things like streamlining the bureaucracy or cutting dead weight, which might not make us friends the same way "look, we got you a shiny new howitzer!" will - people don't like it when their friend is suddenly out of a job, even if he was freeloading before. We haven't done Info Review - Army yet, so we'd be going in blind as to if they actually want us to shake up the organization or not.

Also, the dissatisfaction with us not doing anything quick was specifically the government complaining, which may or may not include the armed forces (given that tensions with the armed forces dropped by 5 during the turn where we got that complaint, I'm inclined to believe that they were happy that we didn't come in and mess things up). The government's also gone back to liking us again since we said no to war, so there doesn't need to be a great deal of urgency in proving our worth to them.
Potato Anarchy said:
Rifle testing + reform means reform both seem like good wins for the committed efforts we made! You've talked me out of a short term dip into the .83 Egyptian.
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Dear god, .83 Egyptian.
We've been equipping our infantry with anti-tank rifles.
Potato Anarchy said:
I'd still like to put off the borana horses stuff for another turn or two so that we have breathing room to do the horses stuff well when we do it, since it is in our long-term plan.
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Fair enough! It's not a priority for me (I kinda think it's worthless and we should put the entire thing off until we can invest in trucks and armoured cars).
 
C_Z said:
I'm worried that the "quick win" isn't actually a win in the eyes of the army, but a win for the government. After all, if the army's been in the position to make these glaringly obvious changes for a while now, why haven't they? Who's to say they'll appreciate us coming in and telling them what to do? These organizational changes could be things like streamlining the bureaucracy or cutting dead weight, which might not make us friends the same way "look, we got you a shiny new howitzer!" will - people don't like it when their friend is suddenly out of a job, even if he was freeloading before. We haven't done Info Review - Army yet, so we'd be going in blind as to if they actually want us to shake up the organization or not.

Also, the dissatisfaction with us not doing anything quick was specifically the government complaining, which may or may not include the armed forces (given that tensions with the armed forces dropped by 5 during the turn where we got that complaint, I'm inclined to believe that they were happy that we didn't come in and mess things up). The government's also gone back to liking us again since we said no to war, so there doesn't need to be a great deal of urgency in proving our worth to them.
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What bureaucracy ever got changed that much in three months? :V I could understand putting in for an Info Review instead, but I think whatever of these risks could come to pass are worth the upsides, and I don't think the risks are that considerable.

As for horses, well. They're in our long-term plan. I don't intend to half-ass anything in the long-term plan.
 
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Potato Anarchy said:
What bureaucracy ever got changed that much in three months? :V I could understand putting in for an Info Review instead, but I think whatever of these risks could come to pass are worth the upsides, and I don't think the risks are that considerable.

As for horses, well. They're in our long-term plan. I don't intend to half-ass anything in the long-term plan.
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I mean, we're coming in and making "organizational changes" to improve the Army that doesn't fall under the other categories. I'm a touch concerned that we might have an adversarial relationship with the army right now (especially given how we're patterend after imperial Japan), so I'm viewing that option with pessimism.

Really, as long as my pet topic of "start making better guns ASAP" gets advanced I can live with whatever.
 
Honestly getting as many horses as possible wouldn't be the worst thing cause even if we don't end up using them we can easily sell them to the Allie's or Italians once war starts for cash/industrial equipment(probably outdated but whatever) or military equipment.

As far as rifles go we can't go wrong with 6.5 Swedish Mauser in my opinion given it's used in both rifle and machine guns and opens us up to the Swedish arms market which is about to boom with shit like Bofors and such. Becoming a Swedish arms industry exporter for the African continent might bind our countries closer together and give them a new market to invest into while being hemmed in by axis
 
inbred martian said:
Honestly getting as many horses as possible wouldn't be the worst thing cause even if we don't end up using them we can easily sell them to the Allie's or Italians once war starts for cash/industrial equipment(probably outdated but whatever) or military equipment.

As far as rifles go we can't go wrong with 6.5 Swedish Mauser in my opinion given it's used in both rifle and machine guns and opens us up to the Swedish arms market which is about to boom with shit like Bofors and such. Becoming a Swedish arms industry exporter for the African continent might bind our countries closer together and give them a new market to invest into while being hemmed in by axis
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I'm a fan of the same (or 6.5 mm Arisaka, either works), but I want us to actually test the guns first. We can get a Mauser-action rifle firing pretty much any bullet, too.
 
inbred martian said:
6.5 ariaka doesn't have post war support for weapons development meaning we would have to change but Swede is used and developed till 2000s ish
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By that point, we'll have been producing arms domestically for over a decade. We odn't need foreign support for weapons development, we can do it ourselves.

Also, we'll probably be starting to switch over to an intermediate cartridge then anyways...
 
inbred martian said:
6.5 ariaka doesn't have post war support for weapons development meaning we would have to change but Swede is used and developed till 2000s ish
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Actually according to wikipedia last gun in service to chamber the 6.5X55mm was a version of the FN MAG called the Kulspruta 58 which was replaced by the B variant which chambered 7.62 NATO during 1970s.

But wikipedia also says that 6.5 swedish was still in service with the swedish Home Guard despite being largely replaced by the AK 4 (a gun in 7.62 NATO) but 1995 these swedish mauser sniper rifle's where also replaced by a variant of the AK 4.
 
I'm broadly in favor of starting an armaments test and using our other two points to start deep dives on the army and carabinieri so we have an idea of what we're working with rather than just groping in the dark.

With regard to horses... I still think investing in them in the long run is worthwhile because our country doesn't have very good roads and because it's easier/cheaper for us to breed horses than it is to possibly supply our own nascent auto industry (or import cars).
 
Rat King said:
I'm broadly in favor of starting an armaments test and using our other two points to start deep dives on the army and carabinieri so we have an idea of what we're working with rather than just groping in the dark.

With regard to horses... I still think investing in them in the long run is worthwhile because our country doesn't have very good roads and because it's easier/cheaper for us to breed horses than it is to possibly supply our own nascent auto industry (or import cars).
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To be clear, I'm not strongly anti-horse, I just think it's very low priority.

That said, importing engines then making armoured cars would provide capability that horses do not and are worth considering in the long run. One of Reewin's biggest advantages is that we have steel mines and heavy industry, and we should take advantage of that.
 
C_Z said:
I'm worried that the "quick win" isn't actually a win in the eyes of the army, but a win for the government. After all, if the army's been in the position to make these glaringly obvious changes for a while now, why haven't they? Who's to say they'll appreciate us coming in and telling them what to do? These organizational changes could be things like streamlining the bureaucracy or cutting dead weight, which might not make us friends the same way "look, we got you a shiny new howitzer!" will - people don't like it when their friend is suddenly out of a job, even if he was freeloading before. We haven't done Info Review - Army yet, so we'd be going in blind as to if they actually want us to shake up the organization or not.
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The spirit of the vote is "the Defence Council enacts some small, simple changes without major system reform or overhaul". It's a win for Reewiin, and will improve the military. Your job is to make those changes even if the entrenched school of thought doesn't agree.

Also voting is open to be clear.
 
[X] Plan: Guns on the Table
-[X] Weapon Testing: Rifles - The Ordnance Office will buy a handful of rifles from around the world and test them until they break. Afterwards, they will make recommendations to the Defence Council on the topic of rifle licensing. (6-Month Investment. Recommendations will be made at the end of this process.)
-[X] Analysis: Immediate Improvements - Develop and implement 'quick win' organisational changes to improve the Armed Forces. (3-Month Investment.)
-[X] Reform means Reform - Define a new doctrinal goal for the Regional Carabinieri. Are they police? A military force? The Council must decide. (3-Month Investment. Details will be determined by write-in and further votes.)
 
I would rather analyze the Carabinieri before we get started... but I suppose we do have to figure out our objectives for them.

[X] Plan: Guns on the Table
 
C_Z said:
[x] Plan: Guns on the Table

God I hope "we're getting you new rifles" makes the army happy
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It should, ammunition standardization and transport were specifically called out as some of their main concerns and we're working on both of those. Though, I imagine most of the new guns are going to the Carabinieri, so the Army will probably not like it if they're not also reformed into something more compatible with it.
 
So it's thinking ahead a fair bit, but I recenty went down a rabbit hole that's worth considering - if we want to militarize the carabinieri (especially if we adopt a 6.5 mm cartridge and thus have a relatively weak LMG), we could look into the Type 89 mortar from Japan. It's a compact, cheap, easy to use, and effective weapon for establishing a base of fire when dealing with small units. It'd be useful for the regular army too, but something that light is especially valuable when you've got a force whose effective strength is based on whatever they can fit into their pack.
 
C_Z said:
So it's thinking ahead a fair bit, but I recenty went down a rabbit hole that's worth considering - if we want to militarize the carabinieri (especially if we adopt a 6.5 mm cartridge and thus have a relatively weak LMG), we could look into the Type 89 mortar from Japan. It's a compact, cheap, easy to use, and effective weapon for establishing a base of fire when dealing with small units. It'd be useful for the regular army too, but something that light is especially valuable when you've got a force whose effective strength is based on whatever they can fit into their pack.
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Get rifle grenades. And teach them to jog. And reinvent the bersaglieri :p
 
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