Questions tagged [military]
For questions relating to the structure or relations regarding a fictional military or its parts.
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How would an Army assign troops to units?
The United Commonwealth Army is a full volunteer force, made up of full time professionals, with a large amount of trained reserves that it can call upon in time of crisis.
However, I have been having ...
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Taking the bayonet to its logical conclusion. Or, the pike-rifle
Due to some copious amount of handwavium, projectile weapons are not as effective as their melee counterparts. They are still very useful, but not to the point of replacing close combat. Historically, ...
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Would my Army's Inspectors General be useful?
Within the United Commonwealth General Staff, there is a body known as the Army Inspectorate Board. It is composed of officers from the various combat arms, such as Infantry and Armour, and support ...
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Would having an Army Air Service have any disadvantages as compared to an independent Air Force [closed]
In this world, miltary technology has developed roughly along the same lanes as our own. However, while the main faction, the United Commonwealth, has access to modern aircraft as advanced as ours on ...
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How do I design a main battle tank to fight a tactical nuclear war?
Exactly what it says on the tin: how do I design a tank to fight a nuclear war?
Nukes in this setting are limited to one kiloton yield or below by treaty, with the smallest ones having a yield of ten ...
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Conditions for Modern Trench Warfare
What battlefield/tech conditions would necessitate the use of trench warfare in a modern or semi near future setting? One thing I was considering was the significant advancement of railguns/AT guns ...
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Would women be seen as expendable as men in a world with artificial wombs? [closed]
My world is about 500 years ahead of ours in terms of technology, with a notable bit of tech being the artificial womb. A sperm and an egg are placed in one and a baby develops in their over the span ...
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Millitary Dissolvement
The military in my world makes no sense, as everyone works together. It is formed of three continents and a lot of islands. They all work together in unison, but some smaller islands are archaic. For ...
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Why do the nations in my world use tactical nuclear weapons but not strategic ones while still having both?
Exactly what it says on the tin: why do the nuclear bomb-having nations in my world use tactical nuclear weapons but not strategic ones while still having both?
They're not launching ICBMs at one ...
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What would the utility of commissars be in an all-volunteer & loyal military?
Commissars (Soviet era-type political commissars) typically exist to keep an army loyal to the state and indoctrinate them to the singular party of an authority's state. But with an army already loyal,...
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How do examples of Power Armor stack against that of tankettes, and other small vehicles?
Many a time I've seen someone try to see how Power Armor could be used well, (in combat) they act like tanks on a smaller scale. It got me thinking "If these PA users can take small arms fire, ...
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What would armor designed to withstand a grenade blast in an enclosed space look like?
Let's say that someone throws an M67 hand grenade into a completely enclosed room - i.e. the door is the only entrance/exit.
How would someone build a suit of armor to functionally negate the ...
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What is the best place to sleep health-wise inside an M1 Abrams tank?
There are several characters crossing an NBC-laden apocalyptic landscape in an M1A1 Abrams tank. For various reasons irrelevant to the scope of this question, they cannot leave to set up some kind of ...
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What kind of support forces would accompany a one-noble armored fighting vehicle into the mountains on a propagandized anti-insurgent mission?
So, this country has a caste system. There are some nobles on top, administrators/etc. towards the middle, military/enforcers further down, and the peasant caste on the bottom.
Some of these peasants ...
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What would a one-crew armored fighting vehicle look like with a modern level of technology?
Imagine something like the M2 Bradley, except with no passenger capabilities and a single crew member.
I recognize that having one crew member is rather harmful redundancy-wise, but that's not ...
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non-lethal military force [closed]
A non lethal military force goes both ways, it's not just about not killing the enemy while also capturing them, this is the easy part.
But also about not getting killed yourself, this is the hard ...
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How do you defend against a nuclear torpedo?
For reference: the nuclear torpedo. It is a torpedo with a nuclear munition for a warhead - exactly what it says on the tin.
Range is 100 kilometers at 75 knots; guidance is sonar, with gyroscope ...
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How does a projectile get past a rapid-firing, hyper-accurate point defense system?
Let's say that there's a point-defense system that's very good at hitting targets - as a matter of fact, it hits everything it shoots at. Moreover, it fires incredibly quickly and has, for the scope ...
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What technology would be necessary to allow soldiers to ascend rapidly from deep in the ocean and to the surface?
In my world, submarine technology and ocean exploration is highly sophisticated. A large sub can house hundreds of people in addition to smaller subs and they are used to travel, kind of like ...
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Why would mechs be used in underwater combat but not on land?
In my world, the planet (which is not Earth, but is suitably Earth-like) has been besieged by deadly monsters for about 1000 years. Their initial attack lead to an apocalyptic scenario which took ...
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How does one fight in a perpetual hurricane?
Never mind why there's a perpetual hurricane. This is about fighting in it.
I'm not sure what the terrain of the Sahara is after getting blasted with hurricane-force winds for 2 million years, but ...
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What kind of war would lead to Ultra-Heavy tanks being useful?
Ultra-Heavy tanks are a fun concept. Simply scale up a tank to weigh 1000+ tonnes, add a stupid amount of guns and armour, and you end up with something like the image below.
Of course, this monster ...
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Would an ultra-heavy tank be a resource-efficient zombie-extermination unit for an CBRN-contaminated environment?
The question, before you get into the rest of this textual abomination: with all of the context, objectives, and design features mentioned below, is an ultra-heavy tank a resource-efficient means of ...
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How does one defend a military depot against Nazi-ish Sasquatch-vampires in a continent-sized post-apocalyptic wasteland?
There is a lengthy background to this, which I feel is relevant. Yes, the title is supposed to be somewhat B-movie-esque.
For some reason, there are Sasquatch-vampires (more on their biology later) on ...
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Why would a world empire spend the time/resources to raise an endogamic military class?
In the world I'm creating, there is an empire that has stretched until it's taken over the world, in large part due to it's ability to effectively fight back against very dangerous monsters that are ...
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In an age of aircraft and long-range missiles, what justification is there for battleships?
The title says it all: in an age of long-range force projection, why would battleships still be a thing? Clearly, they're rather obsolete in our world, but I'm not talking about our world; what ...
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What are some reasons that guided munitions are impractical in my world?
Under what set of circumstances do guided munitions become impractical but not impossible (i.e. moon missions are doable, but mass-produced ICBMs or anti-ship missiles are not), while conventional ...
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What are some sociological or military justifications for localized nuclear warfare?
I'm not talking about world-ending, global-scale thermonuclear war, nor about massive salvos of missiles being fired at countries by other countries. I'm talking about, say, a few divisional-level ...
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Weapons that are highly impractical for infantry use IRL but more practical if wielded by something stronger or larger than a human
TL;DR: what normally crew-served or heavy weapons could be used as infantry weapons by something larger and/or stronger than a human?
Let's take the M2 Browning, or, rather the .50 Browning round it ...
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What would the effects of a 25-megaton thermonuclear weapon be on a military vehicle 13.7 kilometers away?
Let's say you have a B-41 nuclear bomb with a yield of 25 megatons.
It ground bursts in the direct center of Madrid, Spain.
A Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multirole fighter is flying directly away ...
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How to justify the rediversification of tracked cannon armed vehicles
While there are currently many frontline combat vehicles. (MBTs, IFVs, ATGM Carriers, etc.) Out of all of them the MBT (Main Battle Tank) is the only tracked cannon armed vehicle that remains, ...
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Plausibility of tank-borne infantry in a world with very short sight ranges and rare, awful radios
This question takes place in the same setting as that of this post (tl;dr: the world is bathed in thick magic fog, the naked eye can't see past a hundred meters, an M4's effective range is 50 meters, ...
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World war-tier weaponry and lackluster electronics in a world with severely compressed effective ranges - how does tactical doctrine change? [closed]
The setting: Every relevant part of the world is bathed in a thick, soupy, magic juice fog (visibility hovers around a hundred meters on most days). Among other effects, it makes firearms extremely ...
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Cryogenic Hydrogen Powered Fighter Jets Design [closed]
A possible future power source for passenger airline aircraft is liquid hydrogen, and assuming we solve the safety and infrastructure issues, it's doable and much less sci-fi, as for example, a Martin ...
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How can nations control large plains and deserts?
How can organized nations in a fantasy setting control large land masses (20-30,000 km²) made of deserts, rocky deserts, and drymuds?
By control, I mean enforcing laws, defending it during conflicts, ...
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What are good alternatives for 'Admiral' in a space force? [closed]
I'm currently writing a far-future sci-fi novel. I have officer ranks and their equivalent positions sorted for my space force, I have decided to follow my in-universe naval rank structure for a ...
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Ancient artillery, throwing bombs with slings [closed]
a sling can throw a projectile up to 400 meters or further, in some cultures children grow up training with slings and in adulthood it develops into an extension of their arm, developing the ability ...
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How to defend a kingdom without killing anyone [duplicate]
What resources, schemes, and strategies does a medieval king need to protect their power without killing or torturing?
user86331
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Why would they use human soldiers over undead ones?
In my setting you can revive people from the dead as long as the brain is intact, though you have to remove all their organs and replace them with a suitable alternative Egyptian mummy style.
The ...
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How would medieval warfare be different when society & armies are led by intelligent dragons?
So here's the parameters: The society is a feudal one where a noble/aristocratic class of dragons rules over humanity, who are legally, culturally, & religiously bound to the dragons' service. ...
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Realistic Rounds for Penetrating advanced body armor? A round for standard infantry against nano-machined ceramics
Ed: This is my first post here so sorry for any mistakes I made. I realize my question was kinda stupid thinking about it.
Here's the gist, I'm having issue coming up with a round for standard ...
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What would replace/be the next evolution of tanks in the future
What would tank design or even replacements look like in the far future. The proposed tech level is something akin to the expanse, but for hand wavy reasons ships in orbit cannot just bombard enemy ...
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How to explain why the humans in my setting limit laser weapons to large anti-tank armaments instead of miniaturizing them
So, in my world, the human’s UEN military mainly uses conventional firearms as their primary infantry weapons. However, they do have one non-ballistic weapon: the heavy, shoulder mounted M/DEW-96C ...
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Minimum force needed for an air strike against a wind farm?
Mission Overview
A long-simmering conflict is about to break into open war in more-or-less modern-day Earth. You are part of the staff of an air force general, who is in charge of planning a wave of ...
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Why would The Machines not hunt humanity?
The Slow War is almost over. The Machines appeared almost twenty years ago, and since then we've all but lost humanity without them firing a single shot. Instead they won through brute industrial ...
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Does microwaves (or other types of wave) be able to disrupt radar signals? [closed]
The idea is that this next generation fighter jet would have some microwave or electromagnetic emitters to disrupt the travel path of the waves radars emits and "disappear" from the map, but ...
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How do I make my soldiers jump higher
I need a mechanical way to make my soldiers who are combat explorers in a forest to be able to jump higher than normal. They will be equipped with a variety of weapons from normal hand held weapons up ...
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Recoilless Rifles vs Bazookas against non Mechanical Targets
I need a weapon that is shoulder fired that can deal with heavy monsters such as a minotaur and the likes, but light enough so that the user can carry at least another small arm without to much hassle....
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Shoulder Mounted Weapon Design in a dieselpunk/ww1 time period
In my setting a large city state has been cut off from the rest of civilization through the appearance of a large alien forest that sprouted up during the medieval times and cut off the city state ...
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What kind of education would telekinetic children get in a modern country?
In this case I'm assuming a low level telekinetics that can do anything they can see. People with Telekinetic skills are not discriminated against too much but they make up a small portion of the ...
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