Designing drone army defence for a loosely populated planet

[Czcibor]

Setting info - take it as granted. Strategy - treat it as an open issue, if you see an alternative solution, please suggest it.

Setting - natural conditions
Planet to defend - Earthlike, tidal locked around red dwarf, water world, cold, 3 atm
Main weakness point - gates - that allow teleportation between worlds, indestructible (but all area nearby can be ex. mined)

Setting - social/political conditions
Technology - not much better than early XXI century, except weak AIs (like self driving cars), mostly tech stagnation, jets and nuclear technology exists only in archives (if necessary it would be possible to recreate them but cost would be too high)
Population a bit less than 10 mln
Political system involve mixture democracy, technocracy and Brave New World totalitarianism. (the only setting where population freely voice its outrage concerning Big Brother system cost overruns... no, it's not fully sane place...)
Assets - well educated masses, low corruption, effective state, industrial base, surveillance systems, plenty of time for preparation and testing.
Weakness - because of lack of known enemies, there would be an awful pressure to keep military expenditure really low; no real enemy means that the equipment or tactics is not tested in combat conditions.

Setting - main points worth defending
Main city and surrounding area (over 90% of population)
Mines / dams spread all over planet
Transport routes (mostly sea / river) and electricity lines

Setting - potential invader - unknown
-there may be even more crazy group that survived and dream about conquest
-there may be also some refugees / explorers / diplomats trying to cross gates, so shooting without asking question would be unwise

Strategy
-keep microscopic standing army, invest most of money in building huge supplies of weapons (just in case rely on conscripts)
-hide those weapons underground, to avoid easy targetting
-use passive multistatic radar arrays (hard to detect, don't use much electricity)
-give up any idea of fighter jets, just invest in SAMs (yes, poor man way of denying one air superiority) and medium range A2A missiles
-use production lines for civilian equipment for dual use (like only slightly modifying civilian planes or using the same chassis both for tanks and bulldozers)
-make all drones cheap (simple design, standardized, cheap materials, long series), with intention to beat any enemy with Zerg rush tactics
-continue production in spite of having huge reserves in order not to lose expertise (yes, it would lead to huge armies in long run)
-get a few standardized weapons and use it for all purposes (so one heavy cannon for tanks, ships, fortresses, etc)
-use mobile phones electronics to create cheap smart bombs
-encircle all gates with barbed wire and wide minefields, make un-mined exit routes with auto-turrets
-near each mine/dam put an airport ( both for evacuating staff and for being able to use it for bombardment)
-surround all valuable objects with heavy fortifications, bunkers, mine fields, turrets, etc. In case of the capitol - with multiple lines
-spread in random places some SAM, or anti air machine gun turret
-invest in high redundancy of electricity grid to prevent easy destructions
-put redundant communication cables between bases, in case of destruction use expendable balloons (like those of google) for communication grid
-using mobile phone net to get a cheap equivalent of GPS system
-make aircrafta able to refuel in air to be able to fight a war on the other side of the planet
-send on a front line a cheap army of drones first, something in this price range, but armed with a few cheap rockets:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dova_DV-1_Skylark
(it cost 1.5 Stinger, so using anything more expensive than Stinger to shoot it down may be a bad business)
-stockpile insane reserves of materials, like fuel, spread it around (this can be justified to society as precaution for natural disaster)
-make tiny quadcopters armed with modified pistols - in huge quantities and use to fight enemy infantry. Separately a caring copter and an armed immobile "egg" armed with gun. Everything fed with base ships where "birds" can replace batteries. Sell the same (unarmed) drones to public to provide them with fun and recoup part of R&D cost.
-use small (one metre tall) drones on chassis armed pending on variant with machine gun / small cannon / rockets mortar.
-standard terrain car with rockets turned into something like more mobile and more precise Katyusha (an expendable nightmare for enemy tanks)
-provide citizens with very realistic computer games where they may be leading a squad of drones. Make a competition, fund a cup and keep in database who can do it well...
-as last resort have stockpiles of guns to be handed to all citizens to make a last stand in capitol (mostly to have last argument while suing for peace)

Suggestions concerning strategy? Would you prepare differently under such conditions?

 

[Khashishi]

How big is a gate? Are we talking Stargate sized? Can you see through the gate? Does the gate just link 1 place to 1 other place, or is it 1 to many? How many gates are there? Can new gates pop up?

 

[Czcibor]

How big is a gate? Are we talking Stargate sized?

No, it a kind of space time anomaly that is a much bigger. Different size, from a few hundred meters to round 10 km. It exact position may also move slightly. They can also be ex. 10 km above surface or below sea level.

Can you see through the gate?

A normal person would not see a gate, that's not being used at specific moment. Psions could see through it, if had plenty of time may try it. But it would inform them about general conditions on that planet (pressure, temperature, toxicity of atmosphere), not whether they would not be welcomed with hail of bullets.

Does the gate just link 1 place to 1 other place, or is it 1 to many?

1 to 1, in same cases gate are more or less one direction.

How many gates are there?

A bit tricky question - theoretically located in database - a few hundred. But such number would include ephemeral ones, or ones that lead to planets which conditions seem outright lethal for humans. The good ones, marked as real threat - a few dozens.

Can new gates pop up?

Yes, or especially annoying type are ones that appear from time to time, without detectable pattern.

The population are descendants from Earth inhabitants who were evacuated through one of such anomalies. Their anomaly was an ephemeral one and appearing a few kilometres over ocean. The only way was to use it was sending passenger aircraft, make a parachute drop on land (3 atm helps ;) ) and send it through anomaly back before it runs out of fuel.

 

[Drakkith]

Some questions/comments:

Why would they be so prepared for war when they have few enemies and practically no experience?

Is the industrial and technological base of a society of 10 million people really capable of what you're trying to do? For example::

-make aircrafta able to refuel in air to be able to fight a war on the other side of the planet

-use passive multistatic radar arrays (hard to detect, don't use much electricity)

-near each mine/dam put an airport ( both for evacuating staff and for being able to use it for bombardment)

These things (among others, both mentioned and unmentioned) require pre-existing infrastructure to support, which means that your idea of a 'microscopic' army isn't realistic since it takes money and materials to train the personnel and maintain the equipment and infrastructure. Warefare is not cheap. Plenty of wars have been won and lost primarily because of the cost of waging those wars.

Suggestions concerning strategy? Would you prepare differently under such conditions?

It's hard to say. You haven't given us a lot of context. I mean, do these people know that they are going to be attacked? How much time do they have to prepare?

 

[Czcibor]

Some questions/comments:

Why would they be so prepared for war when they have few enemies and practically no experience?

Paranoia would be a bit too strong word, however... This "no experience" is a problem in keeping weapons really effective, not in investing in them. They have mankind history quite well archived, so preferred being prepared.

Is the industrial and technological base of a society of 10 million people really capable of what you're trying to do? For example::

Under setting conditions they had well selected people and 80 years to rebuild /redesign industrial base. They are desperate in preserving high tech society, even at high cost. Like one size fits all microprocessor, one size fits all mobile phone, etc. All jars have a few gov approved sizes to facilitate recycling... It's absolutely not maintaining such system for free... Their impressive aircrafts use piston engines that are also used for lorries. (which makes getting spare parts easy and cheap, while some officers got annoying feeling that aircraft that barely achieves 500 km/h would not impress any aggressor with supersonic jets)

These things (among others, both mentioned and unmentioned) require pre-existing infrastructure to support, which means that your idea of a 'microscopic' army isn't realistic since it takes money and materials to train the personnel and maintain the equipment and infrastructure. Warefare is not cheap. Plenty of wars have been won and lost primarily because of the cost of waging those wars.

Warfare isn't cheap? Well they try being terribly un-American with respect to that. ;)
[EDIT] If you think by American standards, they don't build an army out of B-2, but out of Liberty Ships :D [/EDIT]

Most of infrastructure is dual use (like airports, which are needed to transport workers), so from perspective of low military spending is not a problem.
Maintenance cost? Drone army, undergoround shelter, mothballed.

It's hard to say. You haven't given us a lot of context. I mean, do these people know that they are going to be attacked? How much time do they have to prepare?

Not specially expect that. However, when I started doing any math and included high GDP per capita, low unit purchase cost and decades of stockpiling weapons, the result of spending meagre 0.5% GDP was a huge drone army.

 

[Drakkith]

Paranoia would be a bit too strong word, however... This "no experience" is a problem in keeping weapons really effective, not in investing in them. They have mankind history quite well archived, so preferred being prepared.

I don't think the designers of aircraft, tanks, artillery, missiles, and other weapons would agree. Experience doesn't just apply to the people fighting, it also applies to the people designing and building the weapons. Also, you can't just leave equipment sitting around for years at a time and expect it to work when you pull it out. Planes, ships, and other equipment in mothballs require periodic testing and maintenance. Things like oil and lubricants need to be replaced regularly. I've worked on cruise missiles for the US Air Force, which get stored in storage structures for years at a time. It requires a shop of hundreds of people to maintain a few hundred of them, along with multiple back shops for more in-depth work, logistics support, and more. And keep in mind that the reason these were developed in the first place was because of the cold war. Without an immediate threat people just don't want to spend a lot of money on a military. You can, of course, go against that logic, but you're going to need to have some very good reasons that make sense in the context of the story.

Just try to ask yourself, "What would these people do" instead of "What do I want them to do".

 

[Czcibor]

I don't think the designers of aircraft, tanks, artillery, missiles, and other weapons would agree. Experience doesn't just apply to the people fighting, it also applies to the people designing and building the weapons. Also, you can't just leave equipment sitting around for years at a time and expect it to work when you pull it out. Planes, ships, and other equipment in mothballs require periodic testing and maintenance. Things like oil and lubricants need to be replaced regularly. I've worked on cruise missiles for the US Air Force, which get stored in storage structures for years at a time. It requires a shop of hundreds of people to maintain a few hundred of them, along with multiple back shops for more in-depth work, logistics support, and more. And keep in mind that the reason these were developed in the first place was because of the cold war. Without an immediate threat people just don't want to spend a lot of money on a military. You can, of course, go against that logic, but you're going to need to have some very good reasons that make sense in the context of the story.

Just try to ask yourself, "What would these people do" instead of "What do I want them to do".

From that what I found - liquid fuel missiles require huge amount of maintenance, while solid fuel - very tiny. Which of course gives me an answer which one to use. With the sociological aspect I don't agree - level of paranoia / spend more because of perceived missile/bomber gap, is somewhat subjective. As I mentioned the spending would be in relation to GDP a few times smaller than of modern democratic country, thus do not seem excessive to me.

OK, but a question for you - how would you design army under such restrictions? How would you suggest to cut corners? Modify equipment to get very good value to money and be able to mothball it?

 

[mfb]

As I mentioned the spending would be in relation to GDP a few times smaller than of modern democratic country, thus do not seem excessive to me.

Then you cannot have all that stuff you mentioned.
Take a country here on Earth with a population of 10 million, reduce its GDP because your population cannot trade with others, and see how much it can spend on military. Then try to defend a whole planet with that. It won't work.
Even 21st century computers (which you certainly need for the AI) are tricky. Modern semiconductor factories cost several billions - if you just have a single one it gets even more expensive as every part would be unique. Electronics would get much more expensive.

Is there a way to increase the population significantly? That would help. Also, internal conflicts on the planet could justify larger military budgets.

 

[Czcibor]

Then you cannot have all that stuff you mentioned.
Take a country here on Earth with a population of 10 million, reduce its GDP because your population cannot trade with others, and see how much it can spend on military. Then try to defend a whole planet with that. It won't work.

Cut from trade, but had enough time to create substitutes and boring technologies. Build surplus of industrial facilities and utilize their production in something like 10%. And whole planet of cheap natural resources (for example - very cheap hydropower).

Even 21st century computers (which you certainly need for the AI) are tricky. Modern semiconductor factories cost several billions - if you just have a single one it gets even more expensive as every part would be unique. Electronics would get much more expensive.

I've tried here to do some googling some time ago. Yes, they cost so much but produce enough processors for whole continent. I failed to find how it scales down, I doubt that works well, but I also doubt that's impossible. However, there is one more serious difference - in real life, after a less than decade you trash whole microprocessor factor because its outdated, in that setting one continues production of them and brags that he streamlined the production process.

Anyway, in RL my country produced some computers during communism, when the Party insisted on autarky-like economics. Nothing special those Odra computer, but not so outside of range of possibility.

Electronics as such would have moderate price (think marginal cost), just there would be a nightmarish initial R&D and construction cost that would have to be paid by taxpayers. Yes, taxes would be really high and all citizens would be asked for clearly unfair share.

Is there a way to increase the population significantly? That would help. Also, internal conflicts on the planet could justify larger military budgets.

So for small military what would you advice for defence of planet?

 

[mfb]

I don't think it matters what your 10 million population planet tries to come up with, a country significantly larger and at the same technological level will easily defeat it in a classical combat. To make it worse, why should it have a similar technological level? Your planet basically gave up in terms of science, the invasion army could be decades or even centuries ahead.
You can still try guerilla warfare. What would invaders want from the planet? Ressources? Exploiting the economy? Something else?

 

[Czcibor]

I don't think it matters what your 10 million population planet tries to come up with, a country significantly larger and at the same technological level will easily defeat it in a classical combat. To make it worse, why should it have a similar technological level? Your planet basically gave up in terms of science, the invasion army could be decades or even centuries ahead.
You can still try guerilla warfare. What would invaders want from the planet? Ressources? Exploiting the economy? Something else?

One thing - I'm somewhat malicious here. I'm asking here not how to win such war against overwhelming enemy, but what to prepare not knowing the enemy. The later part of the story involves actually facing a real enemy and discovering serious mismatch between that what army was prepared for and actual fight.

The aim of facing a more technologically advanced / numerous enemy does not have to be a victory. Being able to achieve a "Winter War" equivalent would still count as a success.

Concerning military aims. Resources / land - not really worth a war. Conquest and exploiting economy - it would be a worthy aim.

 

[rootone]

... what to prepare not knowing the enemy..

Spies? scouts? (reconnaissance units), preferably undetectable ones.

 

[Czcibor]

Spies? scouts? (reconnaissance units), preferably undetectable ones.

For story reasons I prefer making isolation almost perfect for long while to let a few states evolve their way.
In their case it would involve some mixture of gate instability, vanishing without a trace of at least one team reconnaisance team, internal politic reasons making using psions hard (hiring someone of clearly low loyalty to his state for a secret project - hard) and popularity of theories saying that such crossing of gate is terribly easy to detect.

 

[Drakkith]

One thing - I'm somewhat malicious here. I'm asking here not how to win such war against overwhelming enemy, but what to prepare not knowing the enemy.

Now this is a totally different question that what you started with. To start, I'd forget about high-tech weaponry. As has been pointed out already, your planet simply doesn't have the capability of producing mass quantities of drones, aircraft, and other similar equipment at a price cheap enough to take up only a small fraction of their GDP.

The basic problem is that your population has basically no infrastructure that can produce these things. A small population, clustered around a single, large city, with only scattered settlements elsewhere has little to no reason to produce things like airliners and other large aircraft, which means that building modern military aircraft is MUCH more expensive and difficult than you might think. The modern aviation industry has a large civilian market in addition to its military market in which to pull income from. A small market prevents the industry from taking advantage of economies of scale, which can greatly increase the cost of each aircraft or piece of equipment. This is one reason that military hardware is so expensive even today. The main reason a B-2 bomber costs 2.1 billion dollars per aircraft is because we only built 21 of them!

In addition, you're also facing a bottleneck in experienced engineers engineers, technicians, and other experts which you need to design, build, and maintain aircraft, drones, tanks, etc. One reason the U.S. is capable of sustaining such a large, modern military is because we spent a vast amount of money back in the 40's creating a massive military and its industrial foundation, much of which was converted from our already massive pre-existing civilian industry, and then spent the money needed to keep this foundation AND upgrade it over time. This includes all the specialists I mentioned above. Schools to teach them, an economy with jobs for them, etc. The European countries have been fighting each other for millennia, and so their militaries and economies evolved hand in hand to support each other.

That leaves you with equipment that would be considered low tech. Rifles, artillery, and basic, unarmored/lightly armored vehicles would probably be be acceptable. Tanks and other heavily armored vehicles might be possible, but would almost certainly lack the sort of features found in modern AFV's, such as composite armor, reactive armor, depleted uranium armor/projectiles, advanced alloys, and the wide variety of advanced electronics equipment in use today. Even then, their prohibitive cost would severely limit how many can be produced.

Basically the best they could probably hope for is to use guerrilla tactics with infantry.

Concerning military aims. Resources / land - not really worth a war. Conquest and exploiting economy - it would be a worthy aim.

There's not really any separation between the former and the latter. The economy of a country is directly tied to its resources in most cases (land can be considered a resource).

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I think your dystopian future has too much technology as well, without a large population to sustain an economy and armies of workers, building drones might be important for a while, but then get replaced with more primitive needs such as farming and building. There is a quote from Einstein that I've always really liked that's relevant: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

I think most of the advanced technology may still be archived somewhere, but that's pretty useless without someone who knows how it works. When the USSR and the Americans conquered Germany, we got their scientists, the USSR just got the rockets. It took quite a while to reverse engineer them and figure out the technology, and that was with the scientific community and the budget of the most powerful nations on earth. It took decades, trillions of dollars, a quarter of the juice of the USA, and the world's most brilliant minds to go from nuclear weapon theory to actually building it. Our scientific books may be held onto and a small group of scientists will keep the tradition of science alive, but without the experience and numbers, I don't think your world could have even the most simple nuclear technology. Perhaps your AIs could, as long as humans knew how to maintain those, they could handle the rest, they'd probably end up treated like a slave labor force. If civilizations fell apart, the ones that would probably do the best would be those with access to lots of obedient AIs.

 

[snorkack]

Look at realistic comparisons.
Magnitude of 10 million people?
Fairly technically developed and urbanized population?
Heavily concentrated in and around a few big cities?
Huge sparsely settled areas used for resource extraction?
Australia, population
2011 - 22,3 millions
1959 - 9,95 millions
1945 - 7,35 millions
1939 - 6,94 millions
Canada, population
2011 - 33,5 millions
1945 - 12,1 millions
1939 - 11,3 millions
1929 - 10,0 millions

 

[snorkack]

your planet simply doesn't have the capability of producing mass quantities of drones, aircraft, and other similar equipment at a price cheap enough to take up only a small fraction of their GDP.

The basic problem is that your population has basically no infrastructure that can produce these things. A small population, clustered around a single, large city, with only scattered settlements elsewhere has little to no reason to produce things like airliners and other large aircraft,

Original post did specify no jets.
Yes, that´s a contrast with Australia - Australia does have multiple large cities. Sydney, Melbourne - but moderately sparsely settled countryside in between. Also Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. Canada is similar.

But still. 90 % in or near one big city means 1 million people scattered in Outback. If, say, 500 000 are scattered in small stations then there could very well be another 500 000 in small cities - say 50 cities of 10 000 people each, near mines, dams etc. Compare Yellowknife (2011 population 19 200), Alice Springs (2012 population 28 600), Mount Isa (2012 population 22 800)

And airliners DO now serve Yellowknife, Alice Springs and Mount Isa.

which means that building modern military aircraft is MUCH more expensive and difficult than you might think. The modern aviation industry has a large civilian market in addition to its military market in which to pull income from. A small market prevents the industry from taking advantage of economies of scale, which can greatly increase the cost of each aircraft or piece of equipment. This is one reason that military hardware is so expensive even today. The main reason a B-2 bomber costs 2.1 billion dollars per aircraft is because we only built 21 of them!

In addition, you're also facing a bottleneck in experienced engineers engineers, technicians, and other experts which you need to design, build, and maintain aircraft, drones, tanks, etc. One reason the U.S. is capable of sustaining such a large, modern military is because we spent a vast amount of money back in the 40's creating a massive military and its industrial foundation, much of which was converted from our already massive pre-existing civilian industry, and then spent the money needed to keep this foundation AND upgrade it over time. This includes all the specialists I mentioned above. Schools to teach them, an economy with jobs for them, etc. The European countries have been fighting each other for millennia, and so their militaries and economies evolved hand in hand to support each other.

That leaves you with equipment that would be considered low tech. Rifles, artillery, and basic, unarmored/lightly armored vehicles would probably be be acceptable. Tanks and other heavily armored vehicles might be possible, but would almost certainly lack the sort of features found in modern AFV's, such as composite armor, reactive armor, depleted uranium armor/projectiles, advanced alloys, and the wide variety of advanced electronics equipment in use today. Even then, their prohibitive cost would severely limit how many can be produced.

On the other hand, there IS a clear and obvious need to develop, and cheaply mass produce, civilian transportation vehicles suited for large sparsely settled areas.
It was Canadian Bombardier who invented and developed snowmobile. Another obvious thing to develop and produce is bush planes. Most of the world market for seaplanes is in Canada... and they are built and developed for that market (by de Havilland Canada).

There's not really any separation between the former and the latter. The economy of a country is directly tied to its resources in most cases (land can be considered a resource).

In case of that type of population distribution, the separation is very real. What do you think was the war aim of Japanese agains the far less populous Australia in 1942? Marching in and occupying Sydney and Melbourne? Or just landing and settling at Darwin, something like 500 km from Timor across sea, but 3000 km from Sydney across desert?

 

[Drakkith]

Original post did specify no jets.

Re-read the thread. One of the OP's ideas, the part about mid-air refueling and global reach, requires jets or other similar large aircraft.

And airliners DO now serve Yellowknife, Alice Springs and Mount Isa.

Australia is not an isolated world. The airliners you're referring to would almost certainly not exist were it not for the global aviation industry evolving to serve a world of billions.

On the other hand, there IS a clear and obvious need to develop, and cheaply mass produce, civilian transportation vehicles suited for large sparsely settled areas.

This I agree with.

It was Canadian Bombardier who invented and developed snowmobile. Another obvious thing to develop and produce is bush planes. Most of the world market for seaplanes is in Canada... and they are built and developed for that market (by de Havilland Canada).

I could see small to medium size aircraft being available, as these would actually have a purpose. I just don't see them being available in large enough numbers to make any real impact in the story in any strategic way.

In case of that type of population distribution, the separation is very real. What do you think was the war aim of Japanese agains the far less populous Australia in 1942? Marching in and occupying Sydney and Melbourne? Or just landing and settling at Darwin, something like 500 km from Timor across sea, but 3000 km from Sydney across desert?

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

[snorkack]

Re-read the thread. One of the OP's ideas, the part about mid-air refueling and global reach, requires jets or other similar large aircraft.

What is true is that airplanes get more fuel efficient with size.

Australia is not an isolated world. The airliners you're referring to would almost certainly not exist were it not for the global aviation industry evolving to serve a world of billions.

"Global aviation industry" evolved to serve First World of a couple of hundreds of millions. USA was 130 million people in 1940, plus the more affluent/less damaged countries of Western Europe.
Canada did develop Avro Jetliner. Netherlands had Fokker.
The reason Australia is not producing jetliners is precisely because Australia is not an isolated world. If Australia were isolated world, they´d likely have airliners - although perhaps with price and quality (and originality) of Rombac 1-11.

I could see small to medium size aircraft being available, as these would actually have a purpose. I just don't see them being available in large enough numbers to make any real impact in the story in any strategic way.

Available vs. completely absent does make major strategic differences.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Then compare Spanish Indies.
As per Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain owns almost the whole New World (a small part of Brazil and half of Greenland belong to Portugal).
Yet Spaniards were concentrated in certain parts of Indies. The rest was sparsely settled or left to Indians altogether.
Well, various nations encroached on these regions. Englishmen grabbed Malvinas, British Guyana, many Lesser Antilles, Jamaica, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Virginia and Oregon. Portuguese took well over their share of Brazil. Frenchmen took French Guyana, Haiti, many Lesser Antilles, Louisiana and Canada. Dutch took Suriname and many Lesser Antilles. Americans took Florida, Texas, New Mexico and California.
Note that these tend to be the regions which were sparsely settled by Spaniards. Main centres of Spanish populations, like Mexico, are still settled by Spaniards!

 

[Drakkith]

What is true is that airplanes get more fuel efficient with size.

Of course. But what's that have to do with what we're talking about? Large aircraft require a very technologically advanced industry, and making them cheap enough to actually mass produce requires that the market be MUCH greater than 10 million people and 1 major city.

"Global aviation industry" evolved to serve First World of a couple of hundreds of millions. USA was 130 million people in 1940, plus the more affluent/less damaged countries of Western Europe.
Canada did develop Avro Jetliner. Netherlands had Fokker.
The reason Australia is not producing jetliners is precisely because Australia is not an isolated world. If Australia were isolated world, they´d likely have airliners - although perhaps with price and quality (and originality) of Rombac 1-11.

I don't agree at all, for reasons that have already been mentioned in-thread.

Available vs. completely absent does make major strategic differences.

Again, I don't agree. Whether you have a few (or even a few hundred) small to medium sized aircraft isn't going to make any meaningful difference against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent who crushes your military without breaking a sweat. Which is what the OP is going for as far as I can tell.

Then compare Spanish Indies.
As per Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain owns almost the whole New World (a small part of Brazil and half of Greenland belong to Portugal).
Yet Spaniards were concentrated in certain parts of Indies. The rest was sparsely settled or left to Indians altogether.
Well, various nations encroached on these regions. Englishmen grabbed Malvinas, British Guyana, many Lesser Antilles, Jamaica, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Virginia and Oregon. Portuguese took well over their share of Brazil. Frenchmen took French Guyana, Haiti, many Lesser Antilles, Louisiana and Canada. Dutch took Suriname and many Lesser Antilles. Americans took Florida, Texas, New Mexico and California.
Note that these tend to be the regions which were sparsely settled by Spaniards. Main centres of Spanish populations, like Mexico, are still settled by Spaniards!

Instead of typing up another scenario, just explain the first one. I still have zero idea of what you're getting at.

 

[Czcibor]

Now this is a totally different question that what you started with. To start, I'd forget about high-tech weaponry. As has been pointed out already, your planet simply doesn't have the capability of producing mass quantities of drones, aircraft, and other similar equipment at a price cheap enough to take up only a small fraction of their GDP.

I already forgot about specially high tech. ;)

The basic problem is that your population has basically no infrastructure that can produce these things. A small population, clustered around a single, large city, with only scattered settlements elsewhere has little to no reason to produce things like airliners and other large aircraft, which means that building modern military aircraft is MUCH more expensive and difficult than you might think. The modern aviation industry has a large civilian market in addition to its military market in which to pull income from. A small market prevents the industry from taking advantage of economies of scale, which can greatly increase the cost of each aircraft or piece of equipment. This is one reason that military hardware is so expensive even today. The main reason a B-2 bomber costs 2.1 billion dollars per aircraft is because we only built 21 of them!

I specified no jets. (in first and third of my post)

As the biggest aircraft I think about something a bit better than "Boeing 377 stratocruiser", a great design from 1947. With reuse of piston engines that would normally be installed in lorries, just combined together. Plus better (read: XXIst century) electronics and carbon fibre (or is carbon fibre too complicated for production?)

What for such plane for civilians? Place of mining is determined by place of ore. Sea/river transport is very cheap, thus selecting a mining site even on an other continent is not a big deal (comparing to laying 1000 km of rail ;) ). However, it means that you need to transport workers between the capitol and their place of work. Doing that by ship that uses slow steaming to save fuel would be a nightmare.

In addition, you're also facing a bottleneck in experienced engineers engineers, technicians, and other experts which you need to design, build, and maintain aircraft, drones, tanks, etc. One reason the U.S. is capable of sustaining such a large, modern military is because we spent a vast amount of money back in the 40's creating a massive military and its industrial foundation, much of which was converted from our already massive pre-existing civilian industry, and then spent the money needed to keep this foundation AND upgrade it over time. This includes all the specialists I mentioned above. Schools to teach them, an economy with jobs for them, etc. The European countries have been fighting each other for millennia, and so their militaries and economies evolved hand in hand to support each other.

I assume here high spending on STEM education. And in the moment when they were constructing first reasonable aircraft, there were still accessible (but in retirement age) last aircraft engineers that were trained on Earth. Plus mechanics that repair such engines, coders who deal with drones, and freshly trained interns who as kids loved to play with tiny remotely controlled aircrafts.

I assume this country to be a clear outlier concerning organization. Companies in style of Mittelstand, high quality compulsory education, gov controlled mass media spreading education TV, Flynn effect continued a bit .

That leaves you with equipment that would be considered low tech. Rifles, artillery, and basic, unarmored/lightly armored vehicles would probably be be acceptable. Tanks and other heavily armored vehicles might be possible, but would almost certainly lack the sort of features found in modern AFV's, such as composite armor, reactive armor, depleted uranium armor/projectiles, advanced alloys, and the wide variety of advanced electronics equipment in use today. Even then, their prohibitive cost would severely limit how many can be produced.

Concerning armour - I highly value thick layer of steel with fiberglass and as advanced defence tech - slat armour.
But if one pick cheap equipment I don't see some serious prohibition if one already had caterpillar track for construction equipment, standard engine or two, to add simple light armour and a big gun.

Basically the best they could probably hope for is to use guerrilla tactics with infantry.

I should also think about utilizing that.

Re-read the thread. One of the OP's ideas, the part about mid-air refuelling and global reach, requires jets or other similar large aircraft.

What prohibits combination piston engine + mid-air refuelling?

Because I though about using one big plane (like mentioned Boeign 377) converted to a flying tanker and a dozen of bush planes, armed with machine guns / bombs / missiles. It would allow those small planes to not to take a lot of armament, while having very good range.

There's not really any separation between the former and the latter. The economy of a country is directly tied to its resources in most cases (land can be considered a resource).

In this case the are plenty of empty, uncultivated land. Not a really a subject of scarcity, thus as would not valued much. Just the tiny used part would have to be defended heavily.

 

[Drakkith]

Plus better (read: XXIst century) electronics and carbon fibre (or is carbon fibre too complicated for production?)

Well, you're going to run into the same problem we already mentioned. The cost of producing 21st century electronics and carbon fibre are most likely too high for what you specified. The cost of a modern semiconductor fabrication facility is on the order of 2-4 billion US dollars. And that's before you take into account that we already have existing infrastructure to produce the hazardous chemicals and other material needed by the plant.

However, since you're righting for a future time, you could always handwave this away with the claim that a new, easier, cheaper way of fabricating semiconductor materials has already been discovered. You don't even need to go into detail about it, if you mention it at all.

What for such plane for civilians? Place of mining is determined by place of ore. Sea/river transport is very cheap, thus selecting a mining site even on an other continent is not a big deal (comparing to laying 1000 km of rail ;) ). However, it means that you need to transport workers between the capitol and their place of work. Doing that by ship that uses slow steaming to save fuel would be a nightmare.

I think it's entirely feasible to transport workers by air. I just don't think you can produce large amounts of transport aircraft at a price cheap enough for your conditions. Without knowing the nitty gritty details of your planet and its people it's hard to do anything but generalize. In the end, if you want them to be transported by air, go right ahead.

I assume here high spending on STEM education. And in the moment when they were constructing first reasonable aircraft, there were still accessible (but in retirement age) last aircraft engineers that were trained on Earth. Plus mechanics that repair such engines, coders who deal with drones, and freshly trained interns who as kids loved to play with tiny remotely controlled aircrafts.

Okay.

Concerning armour - I highly value thick layer of steel with fiberglass and as advanced defence tech - slat armour.
But if one pick cheap equipment I don't see some serious prohibition if one already had caterpillar track for construction equipment, standard engine or two, to add simple light armour and a big gun.

Sure. Just realize that such vehicles will fair VERY poorly against modern armored vehicles (which may be just fine for your story).

What prohibits combination piston engine + mid-air refuelling?

Apparently nothing. I thought that modern tankers were all jet powered, but it turns out I was wrong. The KC-130 is a propeller driven tanker used by the U.S. military and appears to work just fine.

Because I though about using one big plane (like mentioned Boeign 377) converted to a flying tanker and a dozen of bush planes, armed with machine guns / bombs / missiles. It would allow those small planes to not to take a lot of armament, while having very good range.

Planes that aren't designed for war will perform poorly at it. I'm not even sure you could convert the smaller planes unless the government spent a substantial amount of time and money ensuring that the missiles and bombs could actually interface with the electronics on board the aircraft. Perhaps each plane has to be 'standardized' so that it can be quickly reconfigured using pre-fabricated components? Still, that's no small task, and may not even be worth the time, effort, and money. A couple of modern fighter aircraft would dominate the skies vs slow, prop-driven planes that have been reconfigured from a civilian role to carry weapons.

But hey, if your story is going to see them crushed in a conflict anyways, why not?

Also, note that we're extrapolating from conditions here on Earth. I honestly have little idea how an atmospheric pressure of 3 atm would impact planes performance. It's possible that slow, prop-driven planes would perform better under most conditions compared to jet-aircraft.

 

[GTOM]

I also think about a planet (started as the colony of Earth, but became a state on its own) with 10 million population, although they can trade with others, and have hundred or thousand robots for every people, most times, people only have to maintain and oversee them.
I think the question is, how big is the amount of automatization, how big firepower they can have?About dense atmosphere, i think modern planes could go into the stratosphere and operate as normal, although flying high can make radar detection easier.

 

[snorkack]

Well, you're going to run into the same problem we already mentioned. The cost of producing 21st century electronics and carbon fibre are most likely too high for what you specified. The cost of a modern semiconductor fabrication facility is on the order of 2-4 billion US dollars.

The cost of a competitive one, seeing that semiconductors are sold on a world market.
If a 2 billion dollar semiconductor fabrication facility can produce semiconductors at 100 % market price, what would be the production price in a 1 billion dollar facility? 110 %? 150 % 200 %? 500 %? Infinite?

I think it's entirely feasible to transport workers by air. I just don't think you can produce large amounts of transport aircraft at a price cheap enough for your conditions.

USA mass produced 10 000 DC-3 planes in a few years. At a fairly cheap unit price. And both Soviet Union and Japan copied DC-3.

Planes that aren't designed for war will perform poorly at it. I'm not even sure you could convert the smaller planes unless the government spent a substantial amount of time and money ensuring that the missiles and bombs could actually interface with the electronics on board the aircraft.

How about designing and standardizing planes to drop parachute humans and supplies, firefighting water... and, as necessary, also bombs?

A couple of modern fighter aircraft would dominate the skies vs slow, prop-driven planes that have been reconfigured from a civilian role to carry weapons.

High speed fighters often have trouble against slow and more maneuverable ones.

 

[Drakkith]

The cost of a competitive one, seeing that semiconductors are sold on a world market.
If a 2 billion dollar semiconductor fabrication facility can produce semiconductors at 100 % market price, what would be the production price in a 1 billion dollar facility? 110 %? 150 % 200 %? 500 %? Infinite?

Not sure.

USA mass produced 10 000 DC-3 planes in a few years. At a fairly cheap unit price. And both Soviet Union and Japan copied DC-3.

Irrelevant. This world is not the USA. It might have somewhere around 1% of the USA's GDP.

How about designing and standardizing planes to drop parachute humans and supplies, firefighting water... and, as necessary, also bombs?

Well, airdropping people and small amounts of supplies probably wouldn't be a problem. Bombs would be though. You'd need to fit civilian aircraft with bombsights, laser guidance, radar, and other things that you need to actually hit a target.

High speed fighters often have trouble against slow and more maneuverable ones.

No, speed is extremely important in dogfighting. Plus, reconfigured civilian aircraft are NOT going to more maneuverable than actual fighters.

 

[Czcibor]

Not sure.

Honestly speaking neither I know, whether I really requested an impossibility, or an idea like transporting oil in tank trucks on mass scale (expensive, ineffective but feasible). For story reasons I treat it as the second.

In RL no-one may try it because it could be just a poor business.

Well, airdropping people and small amounts of supplies probably wouldn't be a problem. Bombs would be though. You'd need to fit civilian aircraft with bombsights, laser guidance, radar, and other things that you need to actually hit a target.

I more thought about radio controlled missiles, which would only use its own optical recognition in last phase (as contrast seeker it would work fine, for other purposes nothing special).
I also thought about fighting as an "collective" of AIs, with good coordination, sharing discovered targets.

I've read an interesting article concerning Serbian SAM (using mainframe produced by Polish People Republic) vs. might of US army. It seems that an outdated SAM with well trained and organized team (not ex. Arabs ;) ) is able to be a serious threat for much more modern aircraft. That would be the main way of trying to make any aircombat not so one sided.

In open combat aircraft is intended to use A2A rockets. Any victory would require huge numerical superiority and accepting huge losses.

One question - would speed difference be somewhat leveled in case of an air combat in mountains?

Sure. Just realize that such vehicles will fair VERY poorly against modern armored vehicles (which may be just fine for your story).

The question is not how to actually win with a much more modern and numerically superior invader, but what would be realistically prepared. (In the same way the US army prepared B-52 for bombing with nukes, what influenced later combat in Vietnam jungle.)

Very poorly? So would you advice giving up idea of making tanks and instead go more terrain cars with a bundle of anti-tank rockets? I mean if after a first shot such tank would be eliminated, then better make something cheaper and more mobile?

No, speed is extremely important in dogfighting. Plus, reconfigured civilian aircraft are NOT going to more maneuverable than actual fighters.

They would be good at two things:
-flying below radar and making sudden attacks (on for example on testing how well guarded are supply lines)
-fly above range of manpads and check whether adversary is willing to sacrifice a SAM (you know, letting enemy to shoot down a cheap bush plane drone by something as expensive as ex. a PAC-3 missile may be a perverted way of winning a war of attrition) or face a few explosives that were transported

I've read that during cold war West Germans had a tiny civilian helicopter fitted with anti-tank missile. So such idea here is not so off charts.

 

[GTOM]

I read that a new thing from a hungarian technican helped shot down stealth bombers above ex Yugo. Czibor you have talked about blimps. I think they are low tech and quite stealthy, maybe they could be used for recon, and probably making unexpected missile strikes.

 

[Drakkith]

The question is not how to actually win with a much more modern and numerically superior invader, but what would be realistically prepared. (In the same way the US army prepared B-52 for bombing with nukes, what influenced later combat in Vietnam jungle.)

Yes, I know that. But I'm not the writer. I don't know any of the details of the story. Feel free to have them produce thousands of mediocre tanks. It's a perfectly reasonable if that's all they can afford.

Very poorly? So would you advice giving up idea of making tanks and instead go more terrain cars with a bundle of anti-tank rockets? I mean if after a first shot such tank would be eliminated, then better make something cheaper and more mobile?

Not really. I'm just saying that if you go the route you suggested, which was making lightly armored vehicles with big guns, then you're going to have a 'glass cannon' vehicle. Such vehicles are tank destroyers. There's not really anything wrong with them except that they're designed solely to take out armored vehicles, whereas main battle tanks are capable of taking on a wide range of targets and performing multiple combat roles. Just realize that without the protection offered by friendly tanks they are very vulnerable to a combined arms force. Much more so than a tank would be.

Of course, there may not be anything wrong with forgoing armored vehicles and focusing on fast-striking, unarmored vehicles using guns/missiles. Do what you want to do, just realize that everything has a trade-off, and you've already specified that cost is very important.

They would be good at two things:
-flying below radar and making sudden attacks (on for example on testing how well guarded are supply lines)
-fly above range of manpads and check whether adversary is willing to sacrifice a SAM (you know, letting enemy to shoot down a cheap bush plane drone by something as expensive as ex. a PAC-3 missile may be a perverted way of winning a war of attrition) or face a few explosives that were transported

No, re-purposed civilian aircraft aren't going to be good at any kind of attack without the kind of serious modifications I mentioned earlier. Air to ground attack is not simply "strap some guns on the plane and go". And from the information I've gathered so far, there's no way they are going win a war of attrition. They don't have the manpower or resources for it so there's no real reason they would even plan to use this tactic.

I've read that during cold war West Germans had a tiny civilian helicopter fitted with anti-tank missile. So such idea here is not so off charts.

Perhaps, but I think the better question is whether such a vehicle was actually effective or not. There are LOTS of ideas and one-off weapon systems out there and there's a reason many of them didn't become mainstream.

But again, I can only give you suggestions. If you think the people on the world could build an effective weapon out of a small helicopter, go ahead! This isn't a war documentary, after all. It doesn't have to be super realistic, merely believable by the readers.

Edit: Fixed grammar errors caused by staying up much too late.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

There is one precedent of a "modern" nation with a population close to 10 million that doesn't trade much with anyone else. It's called North Korea. Population 25 million, GDP $12.5 billion. For a nation like that to afford a good aircraft carrier it would have to spend ~1/3rd of its GDP, and that is if it bought one from another nation. If it had to build the infrastructure to manufacture the carrier itself it would cost a lot more (as Drakkith has been rightly saying repeatedly).

EDIT: turns out I'm wrong on the NK front, they actually do trade a fair amount with other Asian nations with trade taking up a large portion of their GDP, that's even worse for a hypothetical 10 million pop isolated 21st century nation.

Edit 2: More info on NK's trade, that website could be useful for you for looking at countries and seeing what they need to import.

Oh and btw you mention a population of 10 million, how many do you think can actually work in your economy? In the western world the employment rate is on average 70% meaning that 3 people in every ten don't work (because they're sick, children, elderly, housewives/husbands etc). Note that this is calculated differently to the unemployment rate, ER is simply the proportion of your population that is working, UR is the number of people actively looking for work that do not have it.

I think there are only two ways you can solve this:

1) Go low tech. Drop the requirement for them to have 21st century technology, it's simply too expensive for them to afford. Drop it back to early 20th or lower, perhaps with a few interesting tweaks that would come from being able to redesign 20th century technology with 21st century knowledge.

2) Go high(er) tech. You've mentioned weak AI and drones so build on that. Have the economy heavily dependant on drone labour with robotic factories, farms, even offices. In this scenario machines aren't as capable as humans so the inhabitants will all have jobs supervising, controlling and maintaining the drones. This way you may be able to have an effective working population much higher than your human population, giving you a larger economy.

 

[Czcibor]

Not really. I'm just saying that if you go the route you suggested, which was making lightly armored vehicles with big guns, then you're going to have a 'glass cannon' vehicle. Such vehicles are tank destroyers. Their's not really anything wrong with them except that they're designed solely to tank out armored vehicles, whereas main battle tanks are capable of taking on a wide range of targets and performing multiple combat roles. Just realize that without the protection offered by friendly tanks they are very vulnerable to a combined arms force. Much more so than a tank would be.

Of course, there may not be anything wrong with forgoing armored vehicles and focusing on fast-striking, unarmored vehicles using guns/missiles. Do what you want to do, just realize that everything has a trade-off, and you've already specified that cost is very important.

Good point with vulnerability to combined arms.

No, re-purposed civilian aircraft aren't going to be good at any kind of attack without the kind of serious modifications I mentioned earlier. Air to ground attack is not simply "strap some guns on the plane and go". And from the information I've gathered so far, there's no way they are going win a war of attrition. They don't have the manpower or resources for it so there's no real reason they would even plan to use this tactic.

I tried to look at DC-3 variants. It seems that US built a gunship (AC-47D) out of it and Russians (including my compatriots under Russian occupation) even a bomber (Li-2). But sure, a military version should be tougher, with higher level of redundancy, what would immediately ask for a stronger frame. And that would ask for better engines, just to keep the starting speed.

"Win"? I think that you express here a bit narrow definition of victory. Like a total war, until complete destruction of one side. No ex. sabre rattling with limited clashes, in which one could convince enemy, that victory would be too expensive to be worth it.

Anyway. I think that you here operate under one incorrect assumption. That I need such cheap army to win a war with a modern military power. No. Think other way. There is some industrial potential. There is some human capital. There are some vehicles that can be converted. There is public opinion worried that country would be defenceless and tasty for any invader, so even some meagre money budgeted. Just what to buy to have any firepower?

There is one precedent of a "modern" nation with a population close to 10 million that doesn't trade much with anyone else. It's called North Korea. Population 25 million, GDP $12.5 billion. For a nation like that to afford a good aircraft carrier it would have to spend ~1/3rd of its GDP, and that is if it bought one from another nation. If it had to build the infrastructure to manufacture the carrier itself it would cost a lot more (as Drakkith has been rightly saying repeatedly).

I don't think that a communist country is a good example. As my compatriots were joking during communist regime, that if you let communists govern on Sahara, then within a few years you'd have a deficit of sand ;)

If anything, I think that better idea are Iranian, who because of sanctions designed and manufactured dedicated CNG engines. Creative, moderately high tech and using local resources.

1) Go low tech. Drop the requirement for them to have 21st century technology, it's simply too expensive for them to afford. Drop it back to early 20th or lower, perhaps with a few interesting tweaks that would come from being able to redesign 20th century technology with 21st century knowledge.

2) Go high(er) tech. You've mentioned weak AI and drones so build on that. Have the economy heavily dependant on drone labour with robotic factories, farms, even offices. In this scenario machines aren't as capable as humans so the inhabitants will all have jobs supervising, controlling and maintaining the drones. This way you may be able to have an effective working population much higher than your human population, giving you a larger economy.

I mostly implemented "idea 2" with serious corner cutting.

Anyway, not all challenges require so high technology, just better organization. For example standardized enterprise software in all business, connected to gov, would cut many administrative jobs. Or enforced standardization of financial services could have made them provided online, through some comparison software. Part of public notary services could be provided online by a web page, if the law allowed and all citizens had recognized by law electronic signature.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

I don't think that a communist country is a good example. As my compatriots were joking during communist regime, that if you let communists govern on Sahara, then within a few years you'd have a deficit of sand ;).

I agree, taking a modern country in a modern setting is misleading. If you put communist North Korea in a different world, they'd be fine, bring the most powerful economic systems from yesteryear to modern society and they'd collapse. Economies have to adapt for their situation.

I agree, if you let a communist regime govern the Sahara, in a few years you'd have a no more sand.
But, if you let a capitalist regime govern the Sahara, in a few years a handful of people would own all the sand and you've have a population that were in sand debt.

To have a small country perform very well over a long period of time, you need competition, but you also need something to prevent groups from getting powerful enough to destroy their competition before it starts. Again, I would recommend allowing your story's AI control the economy.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I don't think that a communist country is a good example. As my compatriots were joking during communist regime, that if you let communists govern on Sahara, then within a few years you'd have a deficit of sand ;)

I think that's a limited view, in many ways communist countries achieved great things in the time they had. Moreover China retains a very different system to both it's Maoist origins and western capitalism but is a very real super power. In any case...

If anything, I think that better idea are Iranian, who because of sanctions designed and manufactured dedicated CNG engines. Creative, moderately high tech and using local resources.

Bad comparison, Iran has over 70 million people and whilst it has a trade surplus its economy is still reliant on over 50 billion dollars worth of imports. Particularly metals, machines and chemicals. On top of that they export a huge amount of oil products to bring money in, your isolated society isn't going to have anyone to sell to in order to buy things it doesn't' have. It literally has to provide everything for itself which means it's more akin economically to a large region (North America, EU+extras, East Asia etc). And none of those in real life have gone for regional autarky because it's inefficient.

I mostly implemented "idea 2" with serious corner cutting.

Anyway, not all challenges require so high technology, just better organization. For example standardized enterprise software in all business, connected to gov, would cut many administrative jobs. Or enforced standardization of financial services could have made them provided online, through some comparison software. Part of public notary services could be provided online by a web page, if the law allowed and all citizens had recognized by law electronic signature.

Standardisation can be incredibly inefficient because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. On the one hand you can expect efficiency gains because interactions between groups will be smoother but on the other hand you're going to be lumping certain groups with protocols inappropriate for them. I have some personal experience with this; a few years ago I worked in HR for an organisation that wanted to standardise its software and protocols across three departments: Staff HR, Volunteer HR and Fundraising. This was to address the fact that there was overlap between these departments (volunteers that were also funders, events requiring staff and volunteer organisation etc). However when the new software was implemented it massively increased the work of some people, me included, because many features weren't appropriate to the tasks we had to do.

You could argue around this by proposing better software design but it's the policies and procedures that matter as well. Unless you're going to propose some omnicompetent software that can both tailor for situations and be transferable you will create inefficiencies all over the shop. I'd say just stick to having more automation, readers will accept that better than if you delve into the intricacies of an economic bureaucracy that doesn't make much sense.

 

[Czcibor]

I agree, taking a modern country in a modern setting is misleading. If you put communist North Korea in a different world, they'd be fine, bring the most powerful economic systems from yesteryear to modern society and they'd collapse. Economies have to adapt for their situation.

I agree, if you let a communist regime govern the Sahara, in a few years you'd have a no more sand.
But, if you let a capitalist regime govern the Sahara, in a few years a handful of people would own all the sand and you've have a population that were in sand debt.

To have a small country perform very well over a long period of time, you need competition, but you also need something to prevent groups from getting powerful enough to destroy their competition before it starts. Again, I would recommend allowing your story's AI control the economy.

Concerning competition, you haven't mentioned the biggest nightmare here. Monopolies. I mean for such country for many markets there would be barely place for one company. The solution that I thought would be ringfencing the activity that has to be a monopoly, and making it as PPP with controlled price. The rest of activities - a private business, with enforced competition. For example - processor factory owned in such way. But it has to auction all its production in fully open way to any company willing to use its processors. Or big part of its labour force come just from outsourcing, where is effective competition. Anyone (with money for guarantee) can win the contract for managing that processor production company, so its income is kept within line.

Except from automatic auction system on gov organized stock exchanges (like ex. determining price of electricity) I'm far from direct AI control of economy. It's not good enough. I mostly play here with a mixed economy. Strong gov (for both good and bad) and heavy property tax keeps even oligarchs in line. Add to it meritocratic system of governance (yes, only those who pass test can vote), bbc style main media and very competitive political system. ("competitive" - a few major parties, high turnover of them)

I think that's a limited view, in many ways communist countries achieved great things in the time they had. Moreover China retains a very different system to both it's Maoist origins and western capitalism but is a very real super power. In any case...

You know, my country needs still a few decades, after we fully rebuild after those "achievements". Concerning China A.D. 2015 - they are as communist, as Great Britain (or Sweden) is ruled by hereditary monarch. ;) I mean China for all practical purposes a single party state with capitalist economy. (it has huge gov owned entreprise, poor property rights, but from capitalist things - safety net in style of XIXth century)

Standardisation can be incredibly inefficient because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. On the one hand you can expect efficiency gains because interactions between groups will be smoother but on the other hand you're going to be lumping certain groups with protocols inappropriate for them. I have some personal experience with this; a few years ago I worked in HR for an organisation that wanted to standardise its software and protocols across three departments: Staff HR, Volunteer HR and Fundraising. This was to address the fact that there was overlap between these departments (volunteers that were also funders, events requiring staff and volunteer organisation etc). However when the new software was implemented it massively increased the work of some people, me included, because many features weren't appropriate to the tasks we had to do.

Thanks for suggestion, I'd use something in that style. ;)

You could argue around this by proposing better software design but it's the policies and procedures that matter as well. Unless you're going to propose some omnicompetent software that can both tailor for situations and be transferable you will create inefficiencies all over the shop. I'd say just stick to having more automation, readers will accept that better than if you delve into the intricacies of an economic bureaucracy that doesn't make much sense.

Omnipotent? No. Having tech lag which allows for a few decades of tinkering and optimization - yes.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Concerning competition, you haven't mentioned the biggest nightmare here. Monopolies. I mean for such country for many markets there would be barely place for one company.

My last paragraph was about monopolies. I mentioned a regulatory system that would prevent monopolies. Increasing tax brackets are usually the most effective way to prevent things like that. The problem is gradualism and human tendencies on average. People tend to not care about things that don't directly impact them in the immediate future and they also tend not to change things that are already established, they will simply extend it. There would have to be something powerful keeping society from changing too much, it won't keep itself that way.

 

[Czcibor]

My last paragraph was about monopolies. I mentioned a regulatory system that would prevent monopolies. Increasing tax brackets are usually the most effective way to prevent things like that. The problem is gradualism and human tendencies on average. People tend to not care about things that don't directly impact them in the immediate future and they also tend not to change things that are already established, they will simply extend it. There would have to be something powerful keeping society from changing too much, it won't keep itself that way.

One more thing. I don't play with income tax, but with property tax. A rising star businessman would appreciate that, while old money - not specially. ;)

I actually include quite serious social changes within 80 years. It's a lot of time. I think that USA from 2015 would put on a sanction list a country like USA from 1935 ;) (No foreigner blasting, my country at that time was as democratic as nowadays Putin's Russia, what in that era looked even quite well in comparison to totalitarian regimes on borders)

The starting setting is a well selected group of evacuees under dictatorial emergency powers. When dust settle, no longer typical republic are being rebuilt. There is a kind of autocatalysis within the system. Good education with very serious indoctrin... civic education, causes people to agree with general principles of the political system. Just they may be somewhat disappointed by actual implementation, so vote for someone who would really provide what they were taught to believe.
I also include here one more feature. Those who were evacuated were very well educated (high number of people to choose from). Within that few generations, the society evolved a bit. No utopia, but social capital would be really high. High following of rules, good tax compliance (but with nervous discussion concerning gov spending), low violence, high compromise seeking within society, high acceptance of gov supervision with keeping gov abuse low. To make it a bit less nice under facade people accept really intrusive gov behaviours like total surveillance, mild eugenics, etc.