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Granadia at the very least engaged in colonial expeditions, the plan was for some of their ex-colonies to be on the south of the Australia continent. I'd like to keep the number of colonies on our continent relatively limited though, we're not Africa after all. Could the Rheinlander colonies have been located on the South American continent? Or alternatively the Rheinlander colonies that were taken over by Britonia were subsequently taken over by Granadia, creating an interesting clusterfuck of a situation in the south.

Cascadia colonized Fuso for a time and probably had enclaves on that southern continent that will probably be made up of NPCs. Or even treaty ports in Umeria, or near Umeria (a neighbor for instance).

I would point out that we have a stonking great continent next to me. I established in my historythat there were 4 Britonian colonies there, perhaps there were more from other empires too? It's a big empty space on the map right now.

License-building is unusual for a nation of Orion's size and industrial scale. It's more common for the nation to take an existing design and work together with the manufacturer to modify it for their use. Examples:

Mitsubishi F-2, an F-16 derivative for Japan
Mitsubishi F-15J, an F-15 derivative for Japan
F-16I Sufa, an F-16 derivative for Israel

Israel is a much smaller country than Orion; Japan is larger and richer but has a disproportionately small defense industry owing to its post-WWII disarmament. In both cases it is more sensible for them to co-develop a variant tailored to their interests and needs, and perhaps perform final assembly in their country, than to simply buy a license to make copies of the plane.

Good point. The F-16I and the F-15J were what I was thinking of, I just wasn't sure what the term was.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:I would point out that we have a stonking great continent next to me.

Indeed, hence my suggestion to maybe place some Rheinlander colonies there.

I'm assuming we leave painting our suggestions into the map in the competent and capable hands of TimothyC? If he "Old George'd" Steve and me into moderatordom it would only be fair we "Old George" him right back into a position of official cartographer .

Off the top of my head suggestions so far have been:

* A large terra incognita that takes up (most of) the middle of 'Australia';
* Grenadian ex-colonies on the south of the same continent;
* Rheinlander colonies on either the same continent or on 'South America';
* Perhaps some former colonies of Tianguo (that may or may not have been independent for significant amounts of time) on 'South America';
* Communist states for Klavo to organize a worldwide overthrow of capitalism with, no location specified yet;
* Location(s) for Sorchus;
* Treaty ports for Cascadia, although I wonder if these wouldn't be better placed on the southern continent.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: A personal suggestion would be to divide upside-down India at the top of 'Australia' into various tiny city-states and princedoms ala India back in the days of yore. Some poor, some rich, some capitalist, some communist, some free cities, some treaty ports, you name it. Then Klavo and Fin can jointly scheme of a total commie takeover of the subcontinent while us depraved capitalist warmongers make a literal killing off the inevitable strife and the Umerians develop headaches because the sheer untidyness of it all doesn't fit into their models .

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Actually I wasn't talking about the carriers, but rather some fighter planes. Or rather, a license to build the design in Orion for our own use.

Sure, either that or you can modify the designs for your own use as Simon suggested. We could do some batch things - like first batch delivered and manufactured by Rheinland, subsequent batches modified and built in your own country by your own factories. I can't imagine you'd want to go all the way back to Rheinland to purchase replacements but rather buy copies of the production line and then manufacture them yourself.

Might work nicely with the electronics trade we got going on as well (good way to mask the sale of fighter electronics - bury them under hundreds of other mainboards or so in containers).

As to the location of former Rheinland/Britonian colonies (now NPCs) I really don't mind where they are, just that their location would be somewhat sensible. It makes little sense for Rheinland to have had colonies on the opposite of the planet where all shipping would have needed to go directly past Britonia. But in the end, I don't mind that much.

Thanas wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Actually I wasn't talking about the carriers, but rather some fighter planes. Or rather, a license to build the design in Orion for our own use.

Sure, either that or you can modify the designs for your own use as Simon suggested. We could do some batch things - like first batch delivered and manufactured by Rheinland, subsequent batches modified and built in your own country by your own factories. I can't imagine you'd want to go all the way back to Rheinland to purchase replacements but rather buy copies of the production line and then manufacture them yourself.

Might work nicely with the electronics trade we got going on as well (good way to mask the sale of fighter electronics - bury them under hundreds of other mainboards or so in containers).

Sounds good to me

I'll do some thinking about Apelian OOBs and trade balances after work today, but I know we're going to need some top-quality attack helicopters. Would anybody like to have been part of a joint design project in the recent past?

Esquire wrote:I'll do some thinking about Apelian OOBs and trade balances after work today, but I know we're going to need some top-quality attack helicopters. Would anybody like to have been part of a joint design project in the recent past?

I'd be up for that. We need decent choppers to support our assaults and hunt down dissidents, uh, I mean, communists.

Are you going for western or eastern style helicopters, aka more the Tiger/Apache route or the Mi route? Rheinland manufactures the Tiger.

EDIT: Apache carries more weaponry and is larger, Tiger has longer range, speed and better stealth.

Since we're advertising our wares, here's (some of) what's currently used by San Dorado. None of it's a direct copy from existing gear, although the influences will probably be obvious. All subject to change, of course.

Stormsprite
Scout / light transport helicopter. Crew of two. Carries four mercenaries internally. Usual armament: rocket pods, chainguns, guided anti-tank missiles.

Tempest
Transport / attack helicopter. Crew of two. Carries ten mercenaries plus their gear. Usual armament: rocket pods, chainguns, 30mm autocannon, door guns.

King Lightning
Attack helicopter. Crew of two. Usual armament: rocket pods, guided anti-tank missiles, light anti-air missiles, 30mm autocannon.

Manticore
Tiltrotor transport / support. Crew of two. VTOL capability. Active countermeasure suite. Carries three squads plus gear. EW/ELINT variant. Usual armament: dual barrel autocannon, retractable rocket pods or guided missiles.

Basilisk
Quad tiltrotor heavy transport / gunship. Crew of four. VTOL capability. Active countermeasure suite. Carries eighty mercenaries plus gear, four light utility vehicles or two IFVs. Occasionally used to drop very large conventional bombs on fortified positions. Gunship variant is armed with retractable rocket pods and/or guided missiles, a side-mounted howitzer cannon and twin chainguns.

• Black Basilisk top secret stealth variant used for classified operations. NOT FOR SALE.

Vixen
Supersonic fighter with VTOL capability. Crew of two. Twin-engined. Can launch and land from sufficiently converted cargo freighters. Designed around high speed high altitude engagements with long range smart missiles. Equipped with internal anti-missile missile pods.

Fakir
Supersonic tactical bomber. Crew of two. ‘Bomb truck’ designed to carry large amounts of a wide variety of standoff, direct attack and anti-air munitions. Recon/ELINT/EW/tanker variant.

Thundershock
Long range ground effect transport vehicle. Amphibious. Crew of three. VTOL capability. Capable of internally carrying two standard intermodal containers. ASW variant. Notorious for its capability to use the ground effect to fly very low and stay under most radars. Frequently militarized by smugglers, pirates and outlaws.

Wait, launch from cargo freighters? That conversion must be damned costly. Why would anybody sane ever purchase that?

Simon_Jester wrote:Well, that was pre-industrial times. I was thinking in terms of the industrial era, when the French, Spanish, and to a lesser extent the Germans, Dutch, and Portuguese all had substantial networks of far-flung colonies around the globe.

A good portion of those got setup in the 17th and 18th centuries, though, I thought.

Thanas wrote:Wait, launch from cargo freighters? That conversion must be damned costly. Why would anybody sane ever purchase that?

SANDEX has a handful of ships, some of them very large, that are specialized for delivering directly into active warzones. They found that being able to launch a few heavily armed fighters helps prevent 'accidental' damage to their assets. Also, privateers like Nightfall operate 'budget carriers' that are basically repurposed cargo ships. It's not cheap, but costwise it still beats the hell out of building and operating a dedicated carrier. Anyway, the Vixen was designed to be compatible with that sort of setup. And conveniently this also allows it to fly from the tops of most of the Downtown skyscrapers. You know, just in case.

*Shrug* Hey, if you want to make the kind of tradeoffs in aircraft performance to make that work, fine with me. But really, all that air fuel storage, munition storage, gear.....might be cheaper and better to just purchase dedicated military cargo carriers either. Especially as launching fighters is only half the issue - radar coverage, range, dedicated CIC...at that point, to have the fighters stand a fighting chance against any serious opposition you'd be building a warship anyway.

Unless this is intended as a sort of deterrent when supplying things to third-worlders or into potential combat zones, not as a serious counter to airpower.

Thanas wrote:*********************
Hey Fin, could you have been the source for the Migs bought in the 70s by Rheinland?
*********************

Sure.

I can't help but notice one thing. How come you aren't using much by way of Eurofighters?

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:

Thanas wrote:*********************
Hey Fin, could you have been the source for the Migs bought in the 70s by Rheinland?
*********************

Sure.

I can't help but notice one thing. How come you aren't using much by way of Eurofighters?

I am? I got the JHD Typhoon replacing the RFW Falke (F-16) as primary multi-role fighter because the Habicht (F-35) isn't getting off the ground as expected and thus the air force need a stopgap measure. Pretty costly one, but we need new planes right now.

Incidentally, I've put up some aircraft notes.

Currently the best planes Granadia's got are fourth-generation, with only a smattering of 4.5 Gen starting to enter service.

Thanas wrote:Unless this is intended as a sort of deterrent when supplying things to third-worlders or into potential combat zones, not as a serious counter to airpower.

The main defense of a SANDEX ship is the fact that it's a SANDEX ship, and its owners have a reputation for doing terrible things to the people who damage their assets. The fighters and frigate escorts and so forth are just an added deterrence.

Ultimately San Dorado never fights its enemies directly. We don't even have a military. You tangle with us, we preclusive purchase and blacklist you into the ground, or dump your T-Bills, or do various other things that will bring your economy to a grinding halt.

Ah, so it is like Venice in that regard, only without the military.

Not just treaty ports. We might have had a colony entirely, reasonably along the northwestern tip of the continent (plus the mini-Falklands). They would have been granted independence in the post-bellum era under plebiscites ordered by the anti-imperialist governments of the war.

My only overseas territories will be the atoll of Chuuk, between Fuso and Timothy's EEZs, and an island between America and Eurasia that is a Cascadian state and served as the forward staging ground for invading a Britonian dominion (New Britonia perhaps) that existed on the eastern end of Eurasia (probably the eastern peninsulas, the Kamchatskiy peninsula turned upward and the bit to the south of it until you get to the neck. This would have been our main Pacific land campaign, resulting in the decision to simply reduce Nippon with a bomber offensive after its Navy was defeated in the fighting at Fuso; also thus weakening them up some more to ensure Rheinland's later success in its trans-oceanic invasion of Nippon.

Arcadia had colonies, but they broke away back in the early 1600s due to the fact the Kingdom didn't 'unite' until a hundred years later and the divided islands didn't have the manpower to hold onto them, while also glaring at each other.

So, it's possible there might be an Arcadian descended colony out there, but far more likely that any former colonies got absorbed into another nations efforts.

EDIT: As for ships/planes and such, I'll get that up later today.