From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 16:27:10 -0500
Subject: Mercs, yet again
John A replied to my post, and I reply to his: 'm assuming that most mercenary units will probably not be hired by central governments of major powers. They will be hired by breakaway colonies, regional governors, and communities on balkanized planets. [Tomb] A regional governor is a representative of a major power. And there is plenty of modern evidence that PMCs are being retained by major governments to fight or aid in the fighting in situations they don't want to participate in. And the ONLY way the UN will allow a Mercenary Charter to come into being will involve the mercenaries that are chartered from not participating in insurgent operations to destabilize a national government, on that you can depend. So those doing that will be doing it unchartered (quite probable) or very carefully and quietly. > NO soldier in his right mind is content You'd be surprised. Hell, take a look at Market Garden. [Tomb] They did not plan to fail. They made mistakes, but they did not knowingly go in with the expectation of failure. And they were, in the sense I described following, participating in their own suicide. So this is not precluded by anything I have said. It should just be very rare. Also, these were not mercenaries either, who are even more eye-open because of the corporate focus of their work. Think of mercenary formations this was: Less averse than national forces to small casualty counts (it is a risky business, recruiting will fill the gaps, no flag wrapped coffins on the news) and far more averse to unit-destroying actions (no national interest, a lot harder to put together a decimated or annihilated unit). It's really capital-intensive to start a spacefleet. [Tomb] I wonder if buying a corvette is more expensive than equipping a Division? It also requires highly trained personell-- you can run a small-scale training platoon in your merc batallion. [Tomb] Look at the size of the Big4 fleets alone. Their are plenty of veterans to draw from. Though I will admit groundpounder merc units will be far more common. You can't run a training ship in your destroyer squadron. It's too dangerous to have untrained personell aboard a fighting warship. [Tomb] Most modern fleets do on-board training. And modern simulators are getting very cheap and effective for the shore- bound part. I don't forsee this as a major issue actually (having worked on next-gen sims for the Canadian Air Force and for bid to a very interested USAF - we also had CP Rail and some other military and civilian industries looking at our tech). I can't recall a single instance of a modern naval or aviation (excepting Executive Outcomes with a handful of Hinds, bought cheap from the South African government after they captured them.) mercenary unit. [Tomb] As pointed out earlier, the situation is very different in the future of the GZGverse. Today's world is "small". Space is not (at least not with GZGverse tech). Privateers aren't required because big powers are not slugging it out (they are mostly just beating up little guys with no commerce to attack) and most won't engage in anti-shipping activity because the situation of today allows the nations the luxury of being "generous" and "compliant with Int'l Treaties". The GZGverse seems to feature more heads-up fights between major powers in a very very very much bigger playing field with far scattered outposts. This would seem to favour just the type of space-capable mercenary force I've discussed. The time of privateers and letters of marque was the time when the only expense in converting a merchantman to a warship was cutting holes in the side and mounting cannon (Yes, I know purpose- built warships were better. But they weren't required.) [Tomb] And you can make ad hoc warships in GZGverse by removing some cargo spaces and installing weapon spaces in a fast freighter. The rules don't preclude this at all and neither, AFAIK, does the universe. Yes, purpose built warships are better. That is still the same.