Rise Of The Reds: Warzone - Map & Military Reform

It has come to my attention that people are becoming tired of the current status of the RP, how battles are decided under dubious circumstances. An example of which was the destruction of 5000 Hopper tankettes by The GLA during the opening stages of Operation Lightning. While the number of tankettes is not impossible to produce, the T-34 tank having had over 84,000 units produced, the issue is how they magically arrived without any reference as to the sheer logistical nightmare of transporting all these vehicles, their crews, spare parts, fuel and other pieces of equipment.

In light of this, I wish to broach the following suggestions to reinvigorate the military side of the roleplay.

1. Maps & Battles
The first is that the world map has its countries divided into sectors/regions/states/counties, the reasoning behind this is to prolong battles and assist in providing context when roleplaying them.



As an example, here’s Jamaica. Currently, not divided into any sectors. At this moment, we have very little context as to how we could RP the invasion/defence of the island. However…



Here’s Jamaica, now divided into east and west. Now, there’s a little bit more context for the RPers to use. For example, one could RP that their forces landed in the eastern sector of Jamaica with the intent to conquer the rest. But…



What if we now have some strategic locations? The capital, Kingston, the Jamaican Defence Force Barrcks at Moneague, the port of Port Antonio, the railyards of Catadupa… We now have some context as to what we can fight for while conquering the island. It also helps prolong the battle for a country because it’s now going to be about the conquest of these six strategic points instead of just moving in and saying there was a big battle. Now, we can actually describe how Chinese tanks rolled through the streets of Kingston, hunting for American defenders in the rubble covered landscape.

2. Troop Numbers
Another issue I’ve seen is that of the actual amount of troops a faction can train/build and possess. Well, my solution to that is thus…

Actually limit the amount of troops a faction can have, depending on the territory they possess. The standard amount of soldiers a country has is usually within the region of 1-2% of their total. So, to use a large country as an example, specifically China, let’s do some number crunching!

1,378,499,000 is the total provided by most sources for the total population of China, quite a lot, isn’t it? Regardless, dividing this number by 100 or multiplying by 0.01 will give us an idea of the amount of people could theoretically be in their armed forces. The number is 13,784,990, a staggering amount to say the least, but how do we actually divide that up into something we can use in military planning? The answer to that query is the division, a formation of troops that can number up to 15,000. Ergo, let’s divide the current number and see how many divisions China can train in theory!

13784990 / 15000 = 919 Divisions

At this point you’re thinking “Fuck that, China will be SO OP that the entire RP will be broken”, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d abandoned reading this post, but please continue, there is a solution for this issue. As we all know, it takes time to train an army and it needs somewhere to train. Well, let me show you something on the Jamaican map I presented.



Notice how one of the six strategic points is a soldier, Moneague. This place is a barracks/garrison and can train a single division, ergo, having two barracks’ would mean you can build two divisions at the same time and so on. As for the capital, Kingston, it can also train a single division, this is so that if the entire country was to fall, they would still possess a way to train troops to hopefully hold off the aggressors.

“But what about training?” I hear you wonder. “How long do we have to wait for lots of troops to play fun war games with!?” Well, to answer that question, not so long. The United Kingdom can train a member of the Yeomanry/Territorial Army/Army Reserve (Pick whichever name you like) in a total of 3 weeks, while the Russians can train a man in 7. So, to strike a balance, 5 weeks should be sufficient, which for a faction that possesses many barracks strategic points, can develop a large army very quickly.

So, to summarize, Jamaica could theoretically build 2 divisions every five weeks to a maximum of 2, as shown by the calculations of:

2,800,000 (Total Population) / 100 = 28,000 (1% of the total)

28,000 / 15000 = 1.86 AKA 2 (Rounded up/down to nearest full integer)

3. Troop Movements

Lastly, which I mentioned at the beginning, is the movement of troops. Well, my answer is far less complex than the previous two points. In terms of troop movements, a record should be kept of your troops, what’s being trained and were the trained troops are. Here’s an example from The United Kingdom sub-faction.

In Training:

1st Yeomanry (Armoured) Division - 3 Weeks
2nd Yeomanry (Armoured) Division - 3 Weeks
3rd Yeomanry (Infantry) Division - 3 Weeks (Commences after 1st Yeomanry Division completes)
4th Yeomanry (Infantry) Division - 3 Weeks (Commences after 2nd Yeomanry Division completes)
5th Yeomanry (Infantry Division - 3 Weeks (Commences after 3rd Yeomanry Division completes)
1st Commando Regiment - 28 Weeks

Home Command:
(United Kingdom)

5th (Infantry) Division
    - 7 Infantry Battalions and 42 Mortar Tracks (Taken for taskforces for Mediterranean Command)

Mediterranean Command:
(Gibraltar, Malta, North Iraq & North Yemen, Cyprus Sovereign Bases Of Dheklia & Akotiri, British Indian Ocean Territory)

Gibraltar Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks
Malta Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks - Enroute
Iraq Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks
Saudi Arabia Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks
Yemen Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks - Enroute
Dheklia & Akotiri Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks - Enroute
British Indian Ocean Taskforce:
    1 Infantry Battalion & 6 Mortar Tracks - Enroute

Americas Command:
(Bermuda, The Falkland Islands, Belize, Jamaica, British Virgin Islands, Anguila, The Cayman Islands, South Georgia & The Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Ascension, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands)

Far East Command:
(Malaysia, Pitcairn Islands)

British European Expeditionary Force (George Algernon Pound ): To be disbanded and dispersed upon arrival in The UK - 1 day
(Seconded to The ECA)

1st (Armoured) Division
2nd (Armoured) Division
3rd (Infantry) Division
4th (Infantry) Division

To break this down, the list, also known as an Order Of Battle (OOB), has a number of Commands, which represent the factions military presence in a particular territory or a large force that’s on loan to another faction. The divisions that are assigned to those commands or smaller formations if they’ve been split up, like the taskforces that have been created from the 5th Infantry Division for Mediterranean Command.

The result of this is that the faction leader can keep a record and control the training and distribution of their forces around the world and keep track of which of their generals control what.

“What if there’s no generals, like The GLA!?” You ask. Well, in that case, the faction leader will exercise control over any and all units that are not under the command of a general.

“You said this was about moving them, where’s that bit!?” You cry out. Well, now that we’ve got a record of where our forces are located, let’s consider this. The British OOB shows that it has the remnants of a division still in England, suppose I get the gut feeling that Gibraltar is going to be invaded and I want to dispatch that force there.

Well, the answer is to calculate the distance between England and Gibraltar by sea and how long it would take. This Calculator, when you put in that you start in Dover and then travel to Gibraltar at a speed of 20 knots, an average speed of military transport vessels, you get an answer of 3.1 days. Rounded down, that means it would take 3 days for the rest of the 5th Infantry Division to arrive in Gibraltar, if the destination were to be attacked before they arrived, then tough cookie, defending side.

But what about travel over land? Well, we can use Google Maps. Let’s head back to Jamaica, I finish up the conquest of Moneague and decide to make a mad dash to Kingston. Google Maps calculates that it would take an hour and 19 minutes. Which in essence makes it rather pointless. However, what if it was a much further distance? Say for example, The GLA sends the bulk of its armies to South Africa to finally push out the rest of the fascist imperialist pigs, but suddenly, The ECA and China invade Morocco and Libya respectively. Now, we have something decent. The commander splits his army into two and dispatches them from South Africa to Libya and Morocco, the total time for each is 8 & 7 days respectively. A much more harrowing scenario since it means that the two invading forces have a week to race through what few defending forces had been left behind.

In summary, the three suggestions I have provided will:

1. Give RPers more to work with by having them RP the battles over multiple important locations before they can say they have conquered a territory.
2. Make the number of troops finite and limit the amount that can be created to increase the total of active troops simultaneous. This forces the faction leaders and their generals to be far more careful in terms of how they place their troops across the globe, lest they lose all they’ve conquered.
3. Make the movement of troops actually require time for them to arrive, which also plays into the second point. Focusing all your troops into one big blob will leave large spaces that other factions can invade due to you being hundreds of miles away. 

Thank you for reading and if this is implemented… Enjoy the fun of Command & Conquer.