Command: Modern (Nerv) Operations

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Ave Omnissiah
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Command: Modern (Nerv) Operations

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Postby Ave Omnissiah » Sat Jun 11, 2022 12:58 pm

Command: Modern Operations is a "game" in the loosest sense of the terms that is mostly an offshoot of a series of military simulation engines used by NATO, think tanks, and defense industrial corporations.

So naturally I decided to apply it to a scenario never meant for this level of granularity and tried to build a model of the Tokyo-3 defenses in Command. The configuration is mostly based on the Rebuilds, although I have picked a few bits from the original series and EoE.

The Pieces
We start our adventure by figuring out what pieces we have to work with. The geography is thankfully quite easy since Tokyo-3 is, as I assume is common knowledge, located in/instead of the city of Hakone. How to fortify this location requires a bit of careful inspection, but I narrowed it down to a couple key components.

Fortifications
Things that shoot or do something useful without moving around.

SPOILER: Show
  • Oto-Melara 127mm/54 Compact- One of the bread and butter weapons appearing in the Rebuilds in Tokyo-3, this is an automatic cannon used by navies around the world on a dazzling variety of destroyers and frigates. Most notably it is the heavy gun armament on the Kongo- and Takanami-classes of guided missile destroyers used by the JMSDF. Capable of firing a wide variety of US-standardized five-inch ammunition at up to 40 rounds per minute, these are highly effective so far as naval guns go, with modern ammunition and fuzing providing capabilities not normally associated with naval cannons such as (with luck) missile interception. The requirement for water cooling does complicate the terrestrial mounts seen in Eva; but Nerv is building Eva-scale infrastructure so I presume they can get some plumbing done.
  • 12.7cm/50 3rd Year Type on Twin Mount Type B- Although only explicitly depicted in a pair of shots during 1.0, I am going to assume for my own sanity that the several appearances of undetailed twin-gun turret fortifications are also these mounts. This is the primary weapon and mounting for the Ayanami-subgroup of Fubuki-class destroyers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, so points for the reference. Unfortunately this is where the positive list ends- operating these would be a logistics nightmare while providing only tactical drawbacks. Being a dual-purpose gun designed in the late 1920's, finding any of the components or ammunition for the 3rd Year Type would be nigh-impossible. Nerv had to fabricate new spare parts and ammo for these guns, and they aren't worth the effort, especially when compared with the ubiquitous Oto-Melara also in service. While they are dual-purpose guns, meaning they can shoot at surface and aerial targets, they are also hand-loaded with two-piece ammunition- the propellant is loaded in a bag after each individual shell. This can only be done with the guns within about ten degrees of the horizontal, cutting their high-angle rate of fire as the guns must be re-trained after each shot. Even in ideal situations the twin gun mounts struggle to get off ten rounds per minute, and the ammunition options are hideously obsolete. Unfortunately, because they were used on a series of ships that were all converted to fish housing by the end of the 1940's, I also do not have access to them in Command. I have substituted a similar series of French twin 5" guns that are, frankly, probably much better in performance.
  • Mark 41 Vertical Launch System(VLS)- Despite only making a momentary appearance towards the end of 1.0, these launchers end up being a key performer in the defense network of Tokyo-3 (at least in the Command simulations.) Used by navies around the world, these come in a number of sizes- the ones in Eva are the 16-cell variety fitted to some frigates and used as self-defense mounts on the Hyuga-class helicopter carriers of the JMSDF. The missiles fired do not bear the appearance of anything that is normally used in a Mark 41, so I have opted to give Nerv's launchers the RIM-66K Standard Missile-2 Medium Range Block III, an anti-aircraft missile with a secondary surface-to-surface mode that is in common use with the JMSDF. Since these missiles have a semi-active radar terminal phase, meaning they need something else with a radar to point at what they're supposed to hit, each installation has also been allotted the necessary AN/SPG-62 illuminating radars.
  • MIM-104 Patriot- Only appearing once in 1.0 nestled atop a rather ludicrous carousel building, this system of anti-aircraft missiles also provides a disproportionate amount of use to the simulated Nerv defense by providing some badly needed sensor coverage in the form of the AN/MPQ-65 radar that provides guidance for each battery. Despite a limited combat history mostly against theatre ballistic missile threats, the Patriot has a reputation as one of the best medium to long range anti-aircraft systems in the modern world. In the Command model I have armed Nerv's Patriots with a mixture of MIM-104E PAC-2/GEM+ missiles for anti-aircraft performance and the MIM-104F PAC-3 for countering high-speed ballistic missiles, as is used by period JASDF Patriot batteries.
  • 46cm/45 Type 94- Famously the largest guns ever fitted to a battleship, these huge cannons are briefly seen firing in a split-second shot in 1.0. Although the depiction is clearly that of their only deployed use on the Yamato-class battleships the setup in Eva incorrectly portrays a trio of three-gun turrets in increasing superfiring positions- on the actual Yamatos the highest superfiring turret, with the characteristic stereoscopic rangefinder on top, is a triple 15.5cm turret as a part of the secondary battery. While the massive size and throw weight of these weapons cannot be overstated, it is important to note that all the problems present on the 3rd Year Type guns are massively magnified for them as well. They are incredibly cumbersome to aim and fire one to two rounds per minute at best. Additionally every extant example of this gun and its ammo is currently rusting at the bottom of the ocean, meaning everything must be hand-made by Nerv to keep them operating. Also because of this they are not available in Command so I have substituted the 16" guns from the Iowa-class battleships, which only survived into the 1990's for the unglamorous task of shelling beaches for naval landings.
  • 80cm Railway Gun "Schwerer Gustav"- Oh boy. Why is this thing even here!? Two of them make a brief appearance in 1.0, and they really shouldn't. While using the largest guns to ever fire in combat sounds like a good idea, they ended up being a demonstration of Nazi megalomania and little else. Firing shells that weighed five tons up to 30 miles, Schwerer Gustav also required something like a battalion of support personnel, four parallel railway tracks installed in a curve for aiming (since the gun was fixed the entire carriage had to be adjusted to aim,) and its rate of fire was approximately 14 rounds per day. The two that were made saw limited service in World War II against Soviet fortifications before being disabled by their crews as Germany collapsed. Thus there are precisely zero currently in existence and for the colossal effort that would be taken to build new ones and their associated materiel, Nerv could have made huge amounts of anything else and got more for their money. Also they are, unsurprisingly, not featured in Command for this reason- the nearest I could find was the armament of an old Finnish coastal fort with 12"/52 cannons. While the shells are much smaller they also will fire more than once every 45 minutes, which will make them much more useful.
  • J/TPS-101 Radar- Since sensors are not as interesting in media as weapons there are very few portrayals of the necessary intelligence gathering apparatus for a large fortification like Tokyo-3. (Perhaps this lack of representation explains how something as big and slow as an Angel gets to effectively knife-fighting range before the alarm is sounded.) In EoE the JSSDF is briefly shown destroying a radar station with a Smerch MLRS, and it appears that this is a J/TPS-101 system. This is a 3D radar (it can tell both altitude and distance to a target, unlike older radars which did one or the other) that entered JASDF service in the early 1980's and is emplaced at several bases throughout Japan. Interestingly, in the scene where the system is shown the close up shot of destruction that follows shows an entirely different vehicle that I suspect is the fire control system for the Type 81 Tan-SAM, although this is unclear and no launchers are shown.
  • VLS Housing Structure- Another brief appearance in 1.0, this is a large building that holds multiple "cassettes" of four-cell vertical launch systems. The short screen time and oblique angle make it impossible to determine the loadout, but based on the size of the cassettes I tentatively put forth that they may contain the BrahMos anti-shipping missile, a large supersonic turbojet-powered missile developed in a partnership between India and Russia. The Soviet-era P-700 Granit may also be a possibility.


Two notable systems will not be appearing due to their sheer impracticality- the "Large Caliber Automatic Cannon Platform Structure" that seem to be somewhere in the 200cm range of chambering, and the massive lateral missile launchers that show up for a split second in 2.0. Both of these have scaling issues that would make them impossible to construct in real life (Schwerer Gustav burned out its barrel after about 250 shots, and these were spread out over multiple years- the oversized autocannons would almost certainly strip the rifling out of their barrels in the first few seconds of firing.) They also have no real-world analogues so they cannot be simulated in Command, which is not much of a problem because these weapons would also be of almost no use against any target smaller than an Eva or Angel- the sheer scale (and seeming lack of detailed fire control) makes acquiring and targeting any conventional force difficult to the point of uselessness.

Mobile Units
Shooty stuff that can move.

I'm not going to go into as much detail here, as basically anything mentioned in the Real World Vehicles page will likely show up in some form or another, excepting things like the T-80U that are not present in Tokyo-3. However, I will go over briefly a few of the fictional vehicles and the real-world equivalents I use in the model.

YAGR Series/Heavy Fighter-Jet VTOL

SPOILER: Show
I'll be honest- these things are not good. They seem to offer no advantages over extant attack helicopters with many drawbacks. At least by the -6D model in 2.0 the UN/Nerv figured out that they should reconfigure them as UCAVs so they stop wasting pilots. Firstly, while they do seem heavy, they aren't fighters by armament or design- obviously intended to replace helicopter gunships, they are only ever depicted as armed with a mix of Soviet-era S-8 and US Hydra 70 rocket pods. These are unguided rockets fired en masse against soft or area targets, and moreover both of these systems have a different ballistic drop. (This possibly explains why the YAGR-6s tend to close to suicidal ranges to engage.) This is a mundane armament that would be at home on helos from the 1960's, let alone anything in service today. The lack of long-range anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) or air-to-air missiles common on current attack helicopters only compounds their survivability issues. Combine this with the ungainly size- bigger is not better on attack helos, and the seeming lack of any aeronautic capabilities beyond conventional aircraft, and I suspect the YAGR series was a UN pork barrel project rather than an earnest attempt to replace the legions of Hinds, Cobras, and Apaches they should have at their disposal. For modelling purposes I will be using the mixture of JGSDF Cobra and Apache Longbow gunships that are currently in service.


An-71MD Strategic Bomber, carrying GBU-120/B Super-Sized Annihilation Bomb

SPOILER: Show
I will say I am much more of a fan of these guys even if they only show up rarely. While the airframes are very aerodynamically noisy and have inverse gull wings for no reason I can figure out, they do look kinda cool and accomplish their task of dropping a really big bomb from outside the target's reach. Their fire control must be pretty good as well, since even with the retarding fins on the GBU-120/B such large ordnance will have a Circular Error Probable measured in the hundreds of meters without a guidance kit (laser designating, GPS/GLONASS location, IR/radar homing, or something even more exotic.) Unfortunately someone didn't really put the annihilation in the "Annihilation Bomb"- while it seems to feature several submunitions based on the detonation profile, the area of effect shown is quite small compared to a conventional bomb. For comparison, the GBU-43/B MOAB (which the -120 is likely based on) creates a 300-meter diameter fireball and can damage or destroy structures up to a mile away with the blast wave. Given the mission profile shown, the Command model equivalent will be the MC-130H Combat Talon II carrying the aforementioned GBU-43/B MOAB.


So there are the pieces we have to play with. Next time- Assembly!

Ave Omnissiah
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Re: Command: Modern (Nerv) Operations

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Postby Ave Omnissiah » Sat Sep 03, 2022 11:51 am

Quick update- I'm not dead, and neither is this project! I just finished moving, so hopefully in the near future I will have the time to sit down and write out everything I've set up, but for now here's a quick look at how the model is shaping up!
Image
https://imgur.com/IKx0POW


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