Confederation Army: Hearts of Iron reflections
Though I disagreed with a given interpretation of Advanced and Primitive variations of technology, I had a look over my designs, and thought, that would require a great deal of recalculations, time to play something else.
Had a look through the games library, limited as it was, and loaded up Hearts of Iron; as usual, I picked the British.
The problem the British player has is limited manpower, in the Confederations' case, more suitable volunteers with the requisite and preferred pre military technical skills, physical condition and mind set, which would be rather high in order to fully utilize the capabilities an interstellar military can bring to bear, though to be honest, when you have a population pool of billions and trillions, probably not an issue with the numbers shown to be recruited.
The primary purpose of the British Army is the continuation of Metropolitan France as a cohesive continual state: as long as France is under Allied control, it acts as a buffer against other continental powers, so that the Home Islands really don't have to be defended.
Since you have small numbers, and you want to prevent dilution of the pooled experience and expertise, as well as maximizing their tactical, operational and strategic movement, so that you can pick and choose where to deploy and commit your limited number of troops, motorize and mechanize your forces, with heavy artillery support and a hard crust of armoured fighting vehicles. ALso, lots of medical and logistical support units to keep the men and machinery running at optimal levels.
To balance off the heavy mechanized forces, ten percent of the Confederation Army will be better trained and conditioned Paratroopers, whose primary mission is to establish planetary beach heads and secure important infrastructure, communications, command, energy et cetera nodes in the early stages of an operation; actual decapitation and let's say hostage rescue, covert infiltration, would be carried out by Special Forces, which would be one percent of the Army.
The Confederation Marine Corps, SCMC, under the direct control of the Navy, would be more highly trained and number one twentieth of the Confederation Army.
While not directly mentioned, twenty percent of the Confederation Army would be medium armed formations, specialized in rear area security operations and counter insurgency, which would be like colonial units; anyone can garrison and patrol a geographical area, for the Confederation Army, these formations would actively engage with the local populations, and through all means, including psychological operations, influence hearts and minds preferably, but have access to more than enough military force to contain and eliminate security threats. Assets would include cyber warfare, civilian relations officers, counter intelligence, criminal investigations, law enforcement and interrogators, that sort of ensures that Confederation Army commanders have actual raw data they can analyze, not only information that would get digested and filtered through Solomani Security.
Logistics heavy units don't play well in low supply areas, which would be one area that local militia, specifically recruited or existing, or seconded Home Guard units, local or imported, would be deployed, paired with Special Forces units trained to interact with and guide indigenous forces.
Since I more or less decided just to use my dockyards to build convoys in the opening stages of the game, I had more than enough transports to move around my units, though experience has let me to station them along the French and Italian border region, to act as a line in the sand; apparently, the French are really bad at defending their own borders, and whereas you might think the danger area are the Low Countries and the Maginot Line, it doesn't matter if the the Alps get crossed in a reverse Hannibal, and since I'm playing ahistorically, the Italians and Germans mass there.
This is similar to the Aslan border, those buggers are going to try their luck and set up their litter boxes on the wrong side of the fence, and you don't want to commit Confederation Army garrisons on non essential planets, spreading your forces too thinly, besides how much that would probably take out of the operating budget; only when an infestation becomes too ingrained and cannot be contained by local Home Guards, should you call in a brigade or division of the Confederation Army, which would in any event, take a while to arrive.
With the Royal Navy npminally in command of the sea, I can pick and choose where to invade, and if the Germans and Italians make the cardinal mistake of reinforcing Ethiopia, I send in the Marines to take over their ports when their units are engaged elsewhere and cut their supply lines, though any unit can perform this, tge Special Forces aspect just make them logistics light.
These incursions should be initially dealt with local planetary forces, and then a rapid response from the Navy with complimentary Marine contingent, who could also find the staging areas that these colonization efforts begin from, and shut them down.
So I was in the middle of the South East Asian jungle, where my Motorized units weren't making much progress, when I received a notice that Hearts of Iron just had a massive upgrade, should I choose to want to pay for it; and since I only add to my games catalogue when on holiday, I thought screw this.
