Hi Folks,
ok, I know I'm wading into a minefield here... but what the heck...
> someone please explain to
Oh? Ever? In all of human history? There have been NO good professional
soldiers, EVER, from Africa - except for the Rhodesians (who were beaten
and lost their country) and South Africans (who collapsed and saw their
enemies elected to the Presidency)?
Ask the British regulars who were wiped out at Isandlawanda. The worst defeat
at the hands of "native forces" the British army faced *ever*. The Zulus has
some very good troops, well trained, well motivated, and pretty
well led - for their era and their technology. Ok, the British beat
them silly once they had their act together, but that was 2000 years of
technological advantage talking, not necessarily just the training, quality
and fighting spirit of the troops. If the Zulus had the same weapons and the
same access to "modern" training, etc., they'd have been plenty to handle for
anyone. Both the Boers and the British army had respect for their fighting
abilities, discipline, etc.
For pete's sakes, the ancient Egyptians hired black African troops as
mercenaries because of their reknowned ferocity in battle, and the armies of
the Pharoah, for that matter, had periods of great success. For their era,
great professional fighting forces. And most certainly from the African
continent...
Or do you mean good quality professional *modern western just-like-us*
militaries?
Your comments ignore all of North Africa, right? Some of the units of the
modern era Egyptian and Algerian armies might be pretty decent - the
Egyptian combat engineers did a pretty good job breaching the Israeli canal
defenses, for example.
The Moroccan army is supposed to have some very good troops, one author I read
called them the best in the arab world (and yeah, I know you aren't exactly
the biggest arab fan, but there are some good units out there... the
Jordanians have some also).
Anyway, ignoring North Africa, and ignoring anything further back than the
past 50 years or so... The ANC fielded some *excellent* fighting units in
their war with South Africa. I got this from a fascinating dinner conversation
I had with a South African (white) paratrooper officer a couple of years back
at the RCMI. He commented that while there were plenty of crap ANC units, some
were very very good. These were incorporated into the SAfrican army wholesale
after Mandela took over. In fact, Executive Outcomes was staffed primarily by
veterans of the SAfrican army's commandos, paratroops, and the ANC field
forces, because these were the best guys available... Remember, the South
African army, as good as it might have been at one time, never actually *beat*
the ANC completely.
He also described a force consisting of black African soldiers from one of
the other countries in the area (ex-Portuguese colony, IIRC) who were
feverently anti-communist, and also very good, hardened professional
troops. They joined up with the SAfricans against the ANC, and fought long and
hard. Eventually, they ended up in SAfrica, but the army there didn't know
what to do with them after the ANC took over, as the ANC leadership *hated*
them passionately (they were Portuguese speakers, were from completely
different tribal backgrounds, and had beat on the ANC pretty seriously,
including being used by the SAfrican gov't in the black settlements while
aphartied was still ongoing).
Africa is perfectly capable of producing good military formations. Certain of
their cultures have LONG warrior traditions; though granted, Africa has
been *seriously* buggered up by colonialism and its after-effects. Will
Africans be able to get their act together again by 2183, and have some
professional fighting forces? Sure, why not? 180 years is a lot of time to
change, and NO culture is fixed in stone. Plenty of European countries in the
past 180 years have had phases of military strength followed by feebleness...
Ok, the military history of Africa in the past century or so isn't exactly
filled with shining examples, but you're condeming an entire continent of
people, for all time, except the white Europeans who settled there... There is
a pretty huge leap of faith to say "they're crap now and that means they'll be
crap 200 years from now because nothing will ever change", don't
you think? Especially if you pull out a book of military history, and
see some of the MANY examples of other countries who have gone through the
boom-and-bust cycle of military success and effectiveness.
***************************************
[quoted original message omitted]
Adrian, KarlHeinz and Eric have all made good arguments. I think it boils down
to: a) what are they like today? Using today rather than AD1880, or AD700, or
2000BC, because that's the closest to 2185 that we know about b) how much
cultral and institutional change do we anticipate will happen between now and
then? c) what does canon say? d) what do the players want?
In 180 years, militaries can change enough that any significant military's
rating could change by several notches up or down.
If you feel that a resurgent Islam and a unified Africa can whip anyone else,
it's not an obvious given from what we see today but it's within the limits of
what my Suspension of Disbelief will handle. However, it doesn't
fit in with canon--by Jon's ex cathedra declaration, NSE ESU FSE and NAC
are "major powers" and by implication everyone else is not, which to me means
that we don't expect the IF army to stand up to equal numbers of NSL
panzergrens.
And we don't want everyone to be identical. When I was designing the IF army,
I wanted them to be large units, low tech, and somewhat brittle
morale--not because I think the Arab culture can't change, but because I
wanted a different set of handicaps, a different flavour than the NSL, the AE,
or the KV. It's easy to say "Our side is the best, we have ubertech and
cyborg'd troops and the most brilliant unit leaders", but it's
boring--you might as well go play Gums Orkshop. It's far more
interesting to design someone who doesn't have all the goodies, who in fact
has severe weaknesses, and see how they get around their problems.
--- Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> Ask the British regulars who were wiped out at
Actually, the Boer War went far worse. After wiping out one column due to
incredibly poor leadership on the part of that commander, the Zulu nation was
more or less wiped out as a fighting force.
Having one good day does not translate into being a credible military power.
> the British beat them
Well, by that standard wolverines and grizzly bears should be on the list.
However, technology does matter. Besides which, they don't seem to have done
much with the technology the Soviets gave them for a song as "fraternal
socialist allies."
> Your comments ignore all of North Africa, right?
Well, they are usually assumed to be IFed rather than PAU.
> Some of the units of the
Whereupon the rest of the Egyptian Army ran into the Israeli Army and got
destroyed as a fighting force. Nice try, though.
> The Moroccan army is supposed to have some very good
Moroccans have this reputation why? Chasing Polisario guerillas? Because they
don't have any conventional combat experience that I'm aware of.
Unless they sent troops to Palestine in 1948 to get kicked apart by Israeli
kibbutzim.
--- Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> Or do you mean good quality professional *modern
-------
I would think this is the basis of comparison, folks that throw spears do not
do well against Powered Armor.
> Your comments ignore all of North Africa, right?
-------
Not exactly facing a fortified line, it was a well executed building exercise.
> The Moroccan army is supposed to have some very good
-------
Most of the 'good' arab troops are the personal guard of the ruler, and a
paranoid ruler does not want the line troops to be too well equipped, because
of the old 'overthrough the ruler thing'.
> Anyway, ignoring North Africa, and ignoring anything
-------
Could that be because the SAA never faced the ANC field force in battle?
> Africa is perfectly capable of producing good
-------
Virtually all 'good' african units are/were colonial
units.
Certain
> of their cultures have LONG warrior traditions;
-------
Tribalism is not an after effect of colonialism. Colonialism supressed
trimalism and brought an (virtual) end to the tribal wars, and established a
system of law for all that had not existed before. Tribalism is now the law of
the (African) land and the rise of slavery can be traced to tribalism and the
end of colonialism and the decline of the colonial law system.
Will Africans be able to get their act together again by
> 2183, and have some professional fighting forces?
Sure, why not? 180 years is a lot of time
> to change, and NO culture is fixed in stone.
-------
I would suggest the the best chance for this to happen would be if a planet is
settled by an individual tribe. The elimination of tribal warfare for
dominance on the planet would provide the best chance for a stable growing
society.
> Plenty of European countries in the past 180 years
> -----Original Message-----
Haven't seen Return of the Jedi, have you? :-)
> --- "Hudak, Michael" <mihudak@state.pa.us> wrote:
> > > Or do you mean good quality professional *modern
I have, the operative word in science fiction,
is fiction. Seen episode 1, where the jedi
are being trashed dark lords minions? These guardians of the republic are
saved by a bunch of efficient clones. Naturally one can ascribe the decline of
the clone force to the old saying; How many times can you make bean soup with
the same bean?
Bye for now,
> At 10:56 AM -0700 8/16/02, John Atkinson wrote:
Agreed, Setaweyo (SP?) himself said that if they won 2 more battles like the
one at Isandlawanda, they were going to loose the war. The further event at
Rourkes Drift underscored the problem of Impis against formed British Troops
with rifles.
"It was a Miracle." "A Miracle and Boxer Henry 45 Caliber."
> Having one good day does not translate into being a
Yep.
"Eric Foley" said:
> Um, don't look now, but that "technological advantage" thing happens to
Sure, a bunch of warriors with spears and loincloths vs. machineguns, no
matter how fierce the warriors, will lose. See the Italian campaigns in North
Africa during the '30's.
But the PAU has faster-than-light starships... They aren't exactly
suffering from that 2000 year tech gap anymore...
Look, the original question was (to paraphrase Beth):
"Why does everyone dump on the PAU and assume they're crap?"
and John Atkinson's response was (again to paraphrase):
"Because Africa has never produced good professional militaries, except the
South Africans"
MY point was that there are, as I and Karl have pointed out, a number of
relatively recent (within the past 200 years) examples of very competent
African fighting forces.
Yes the continent is going down the toilet at the moment. Yes it will take
generations to sort themselves out.
We have *no* idea what African society 100 years from now will look like,
because the effects of the rampant corruption, AIDS epidemics, etc., will have
run their course and they'll have moved into whatever the next phase
of their development is. It might be even worse than now - complete
social collapse. It might be that some of the African countries get their act
together, take advantage of the *huge* natural resource wealth Africa
possesses, works to change the political situation, and develops working
modern infrastructure. We have no idea - 100 years is a *long* time to
predict.
SO, we move into the realm of PHB (same as PSB, but "historical" instead of
"scientific").
I think it is silly to write of 180 years of development of a whole continent
by saying "they're crap now so they'll always be crap". That just ignores lots
and lots of examples throughout history of human societies that changed. Sure,
there are plenty of examples of societies that have got *worse* in that period
of time, or changed very little. But to say "they're crap now and they'll be
crap then" requires some explanation of WHY they are crap in the future. Just
saying "because they're crap now" isn't enough. It is POSSIBLE that they would
be mediocre. It is POSSIBLE that they might even have some very good forces.
We *know* they're not as powerful as the four "first line" nations. We know
they DO participate in "international" affairs, because the timeline says so.
We know they have fleets of faster-than-light starships, which they
manage, somehow, to PAY for and crew. SO, we know they've advanced beyond the
stage they're at now. As to how far...? That's up to you in your version of
the universe.
> The only question that matters is whether you would win a war with X
Ok, but that isn't relevant to the original post, or my response.
I'm not debating that the NAC would smash the PAU into tiny pieces if they
went head on.
The point was whether or not the PAU is capable of fielding competent
professional military forces. I'm saying "maybe, it could, you can make
arguments either way, so whatever suits your vision of the universe... there
is nothing saying that they WILL FOR SURE be one way or the other".
laserlight said:
> Adrian, KarlHeinz and Eric have all made good arguments. I think it
Yes.
I'd add the caveat that point (a) can be influenced by looking at the
historical developments of the various nations - trends. Not because
those trends will necessarily continue, but just that it reinforces the idea
that "stuff changes" and that virtually any nation, under the right
circumstances, could find themselves in a position of fielding very good
military forces.
We have 180 years of history to play with - that's lots of time for
plausible explanations of WHY the PAU has some good fighting forces. Or not.
Whatever one likes...
> And we don't want everyone to be identical.
Nor do we want the NAC to be uniformly good, the ESU to be uniformely
mediocre, and everyone else to suck... There are good reasons why the IF could
field excellent units, as could the PAU. In SG, we're only talking about small
units, and mostly the same for DS also. In a campaign setting, the "good"
units of the IF or the PAU would almost certainly be much smaller in numbers
than the "good" units of the NAC, but there is no reason why you couldn't have
a SG game where the PAU unit on the table is Veteran...
John A said, in response to Karl:
> As to professional troops, various colonial troops
So what?
The question was whether PAU unit will always suck or not.
Karl and I are saying "not necessarily". Maybe they have really good units
that are completely foreign led. Heck, there is an "Afrikaner officer, with
shades and big bush hat, standing with rifle" as part of the PAU SG
line...
Whether or not their foreign led, trained, equipped is mostly irrelevant. In
answer to Beth's original question about why everyone always dumps on the PAU,
it is perfectly plausible for them to have some competant forces... There is
NO kind of historical determinism (or social determinisim, or geographical
determinism) at work here that *guarentees* that just because things are bad
now they will still be bad nearly 200 years from now. Not at the rate of
change possible in our "modern" era.
How they got the competancy - well, maybe a corrupt government paid for
it with stolen wealth... maybe it grew naturally as a result of 180 years of
social change after their current generation of corrupt leadership died out in
the great riots of the early 'teens of the 21st century after they had ignored
the AIDS epidemic for 25 years and people got sick of them... maybe they
manage to muddle through, and invest some of their prescious and limited
resource wealth in hiring some really good trainers as cadre, because someone
is forsightful...
whatever.
The PAU has FTL starships and off-planet colonies... They aren't running
about in the jungle in loincloths with spears. They could have good military
forces too.
In my vision of the GZGverse, they aren't top line military forces either, but
I've played a number of games with PAU forces as "elite light infantry"
(played as Veterans in SG) as part of a larger FSE force, for example. Makes
for interesting story...
> the British beat them
Do wolverines fly FTL spaceships and have off-planet colonies? We're
talking about the capabilities of *people*... who do not remain fixed and
static in time...
> However, technology does
Sure, and they've got FTL spaceships and off-planet colonies...
John Leary said:
> Or do you mean good quality professional *modern
Right, if you're comparing the fighting strength of various modern
militiaries.
But my post in response to Beth's question was addressing the potential of the
PAU nations to produce competent military forces, and I was suggesting that
the human resources of the PAU are more than sufficient to justify having at
least SOME good troops...
The historical examples were not to suggest that spear-throwing Zulus
would do well against PA. But how about Zulus *wearing* PA? Zulus with
training and discipline and morale and experience relatively scaled to match
that of their ancestors at Isandlawanda? Remember, during the British and Boer
campaigns against the Zulus, the British were a 19th century industrialized
force, and the Zulus were what, early iron age? At best? But they still put up
a good fight. Why? Human potential, experience, training, morale, discipline.
Ok, it can't be compared to the Europeans of the time (apples and oranges),
but against people of the same era? The PAU in the GZGverse is NOT at the same
technological disadvantage that the Zulus were when they were stomped by the
British. But the raw human potential is still there.
In 180 years of historical development, it is, I believe, fair to suggest that
they could redevelop the traditions of good military forces.
Not that they *will*, but that they *could*, and the rest comes down to each
person's idea of how the GZGverse works...
> the best guys available... Remember, the South
????
The SAA faced the ANC lots of times, just very rarely in major engagements, in
a European sense.
The ANC were a guerilla army mostly, but they were good at it.
The fact that there were no ANC armoured divisions doesn't take away from the
professionalism of the best of the ANC fighting units.
I wasn't there, but the guy who told me about this was, and as a SAA paratroop
officer who did his bit running about in the field fighting against the ANC,
he should know. The attitude toward the ANC is his, not mine. He didn't *like*
them, be he respected their competency (some of them, anyway).
> Africa is perfectly capable of producing good
See my comments above under "so what"
> Certain
Well, that's a whole different debate. The nature of the effects of
colonialism on the development of modern African culture is, I think, off
topic enough even in the context of discussing PAU military forces that I'll
skip out of this one.
Happy to continue the debate off-list though.
> Plenty of European countries in the past 180 years
Sure, but we're not talking about gaining and losing empires, we're talking
about the potential of the PAU to field good military forces.
> Ok, the military history of Africa in the past
Complete social collapse?
Violent revolution?
Massive foreign intervention to provent more genocide?
The emergence of people who actually care, who are willing to lead the people
into something better?
Who knows how it happens, but we *know* that the PAU is a political force in
the GZG verse. We *know* that they have the technological base and the
economic base to support both FTL space travel and off-planet colonies.
Maybe they didn't develop their own FTL ships, but so what?
What does that say about their current state of decline? It says that
something changes somewhere, right? And if that changes, what else changes? If
the change in their society is sufficient to enable the
support of off-planet colonies and spacecraft, is it not reasonable to
say that the change might be sufficient to enable the development of at least
some effective fighting forces? I think so.
> At 4:31 PM -0400 8/16/02, Adrian Johnson wrote:
Hmm. What if they have bags of meal to hide behind? Oh and some nice Engneers
along?
> But the PAU has faster-than-light starships... They aren't exactly
Heck, 20 years is a pretty significant lag. Especially in terms of war
fighting. Just look at ELINT and its effects on the battle field.
> Look, the original question was (to paraphrase Beth):
And the Rhodesians, while they were Rhodesians. Now there a bunch of land
squatting thugs.
> We have *no* idea what African society 100 years from now will look
Ok, what does St.Jon think? He's written the path for the LLAR so far. Whats
the deal with the PAU?
> SO, we move into the realm of PHB (same as PSB, but "historical"
instead of
> "scientific").
To pull your nation out of 300+ years worth of trouble and problems
requires a very strong organized drive and a strong central organization. Case
in point Meiji Japan. The nation was an illiterate backwater with none of the
assets you'd expect it to need in order to fight 1st world nations on their
own terms.
After examining how each nation handled things and doing everything the
government could, they started beating Europe at it's own game after the pull
on their boots and built an educated work force that could make the required
industries work.
At that point, Japan was one nation. One race of people. One Language. One
government with very strong central authority. It took them 50 years or so to
really start making Europe worry. The final exclamation point of the
reformation was the War with the Russians where the third rate power beat what
was then considered a 2nd to 1st rate power in a series of modern naval and
land battles.
Now, Africa has many nations, many cultures, many languages, many problems.
Many tribes. Tribes that should be living along side each other peacefully are
still hacking each other apart. Zimbabwe's drive to expel white land owners
(not rich land owners) from their land is threatening to turn their once food
wealthy nation into a land that needs to import food.
> just ignores lots and lots of examples throughout history of human
But
> to say "they're crap now and they'll be crap then" requires some
Granted, turning around is possible. They can turn around and become a great
power ala Japan in 1940. Nearly 100 years of work came to fruition when the
attacked the US. Of course it came tumbling down in 4 years of war. At
current, Africa has basically the same situation that Japan did in it's feudal
period before Tokugawa brought everything together under the rule of one. One
could say Africa is worse off because they have many languages and cultures to
try to homogenize and integrate. Until they do so, they are going to have a
hard time getting things to work. There are too many conflicting petty agendas
for each petty despot, warlord and dictator to get them together and agree on
one direction.
> We know they have fleets of faster-than-light starships, which they
The Dutch have a fleet of ships. They don't have many, but they have some
modern warships. Could they come close to prosecuting a war with any major
neighbor? France? the UK? The US? Not even close.
> >The only question that matters is whether you would win a war with X
So they have a fraction of the power base that the NAC has. They purchased it
from outside. How did they get to the point they are then (in 2183)?
> I'm not debating that the NAC would smash the PAU into tiny pieces if
Likely a marginally competent force with some good technology and some decent.
The average should be below the 1st powers and leading second powers. They
likely don't have an American 1812 navy with the best that congress could
purchase by investing in a smaller number of
better trained/equipped/manned ships. The US was well off because it
took
> Nor do we want the NAC to be uniformly good, the ESU to be uniformely
Nonsense. You've got the OU, (likely good but compact) the FCT (good,
moderately sized and very well led due to ex NAC doctrine, training, NCOs, and
Technology). Plus a lot of other nations.
> The question was whether PAU unit will always suck or not.
Everyone sucks. For example, CNN Sucks on huge high traffic days. We just suck
less. (You can't quote me on that, but thats how it all works).
> The PAU has FTL starships and off-planet colonies... They aren't
African nations have warships too. They don't have Aircraft carriers, large
missile cruisers and Air forces with more than a squadron or two. They also
have hand me down technology.
Likely the PAU has the same kind of Battle ships that were handed over to
other nations post WWII. Many ships got some pretty good hardware for the
time. They still have the hardware. The General Belgrano is a good example.
Ships like that work well for other small nations, but when they try to fight
with the big nations those ships end up as graves.
> Do wolverines fly FTL spaceships and have off-planet colonies? We're
Can they handle long term protracted operations outside of their immediate
space? There is more to having a navy than having the ships. Argentena could
barely project power a few hundred miles off their coast. Most of it was Air
power. Their Naval forces sat things out when their flag ship was sunk with
technology from its era by a 40 year younger vessel.
Could Argentena project its power beyond its immediate area and prosecute a
war in the North Atlantic? Not likely. They need logistics ships. There is
more to fighting a naval war than having the ships. You have to be able to
supply them and fight them for extended periods of time.
> > However, technology does
And 3rd world nations have F4s (the prop kind and the jet kind). They also
have tanks and other things. They still have a significant distance between
them and the curve.
I'm ending this here as this thread is far too long already...
--- Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca>
wrote:
> We know they have fleets of faster-than-light
Actually, their battleline seems to be composed of
ex-ESU handmedowns, shades of Soviet "Fraternal
Socialism" that bankrupted several African nations
buying T-55s and MiG-21s.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> Actually, their [PAU} battleline seems to be composed of
Er... well, yes, at least if you consider five brand new Rostov-class
BDNs delivered straight from the spaceyards to be "handmedowns"...
Regards,
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
At least as much so as I consider the T-72Gs the Sovs
sent Iraq to be "ex-Sov handmedowns".
It implies they either cannot produce capitals, or cannot produce them at a
rate sufficient to make up for losses.
> At 8:51 PM +0200 8/19/02, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
Were these the ones that didn't pass the quality control
(*cough*northseanukesubfleet*cough*) exam after construction?
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
The Rostovs were the most modern ESU capital ship class at the time of the
sale to the PAU. The T-72Gs weren't exactly the best Soviet tank
available
at the time :-/ (And for Ryan: If those five ships hadn't passed the
tests, the VKF admiralty probably wouldn't've been *quite* so irate with the
ESU leadership for selling them to the PAU...)
The PAU navy is described as "rapidly expanding and modernizing" in the late
2170s, so whereas John's description is probably apt for the previous
period it probably doesn't hold too well in the FB1/2 period (ie. the
2180s
and -90s).
> It implies they either cannot produce capitals, or cannot produce them
It implies that they couldn't produce (enough) capitals in the 2170s. In
the 2190s... who knows? In order to "expand and modernize" your navy you
need to expand the infrastructure to support it as well.
As for "ESU hand-me-downs" - judging from the pictorial evidence, the
Kinhasa (destroyed by the KV in 2183) seems to have been a former *NAC* ship
<g>
Later,
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
This assunes that the ships built for export carry the same equipment that the
building powers ships carry. Not a good assumption!
Bye for now,