Author Topic: Document 332938: An Analysis Of Rastal Battle Tactics (IC Lore)  (Read 320 times)

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ApatheticExcuse

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Document 332938: An Analysis Of Rastal Battle Tactics (IC Lore)
« on: January 16, 2017, 11:47:09 pm »
Jerry,

Thought I'd throw you some selected sections from a UTAF summary that we scored a while back. Might be stuff you mostly know already since most of it is pretty in line with what our own analysts have come up with, but figured it might be a good primer if whoever they stick you with on that upcoming op isn't too versed in what you might be facing.

Still gotta get together for some range time, bud!

Cheers,

Franky


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*DISSEMINATION OF THIS DOCUMENTS OR EXCERPTS THEREOF TO NON-AUTHORISED ORGANISATIONS OR PERSONNEL IS PUNISHABLE ACCORDING TO UTAF MILITARY LAW*
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An Analysis Of Rastal Battle Tactics
Prepared by...

You don't really care about the details, do ya Jer? It's been prepared by a bunch of dudes from a million after action reports. I'll throw you the whole doc if you want it, but I've edited this down to make it a little shorter and sweeter than the 500 page manual it started as. - F

...in summary, while the Rastal military capabilities are intimidating, the above mentioned documents paint a clear picture that they can be defeated on tactical, operational, and strategic levels with proper planning, logistics, and battle plan implementation, which should become evident to the reader shortly.

3. GENERAL STRATEGY

Much like our own forces, the Rastal make use of mixed-arms approaches to most problems, and while a somewhat rigid overall strategic doctrine does limit their tactical flexibility, the average Rastal soldier is a well-performing fighter capable of sound tactical planning, particularly on the squad level. Despite this, a typical Rastal course of engagement can usually be broken down into several phases.

PHASE 1

In the first phase, the Rastal will commence multiple small scale assaults backed by armour and air support, relying on training and equipment quality to simply outperform a lesser enemy. The low-level tactics utilised are very similar to our own "Shock and Awe" approaches, relying on an overwhelming display of mechanical force to demoralise and potentially route the enemy force, followed by the small infantry assault squads performing cleanup where resistance is still met, and occupying key objectives.

While this is a very effective tactic against irregular or poorly trained forces, as evidenced in the suppression of the rebellion listed in source document 27, and in our own experiences prior to and during the Unification War, it is generally less effective on professional, well trained and supplied military forces. Standard operating procedure suggests simply digging in and presented hardened resistance will likely cause the Rastal to push to another phase.

PHASE 2

Should the initial "Shock and Awe" assault fail, the Rastal will typically withdraw, working to minimise losses, and spend a brief period preparing defences for a counterattack. It has been theorised that this work is begun before the Phase 1 assault begins as counterattacks will typically be met with resistance far beyond what is normally expected. While standard operating procedure generally calls for a rapid attack to be made, it is the opinion of this officer that a better course of action will be simply to maintain positions around the objectives and allow the Rastal to commence the offensive component of the second phase.

The offensive component consists of what we have deemed "infiltration tactics". The Rastal will begin moving up as many personnel as possible without engaging the opposing force. Once positioned, the Rastal force will reveal itself, appearing to come from every possible direction, and attempting to overwhelm the defender via surprise and highly concentrated fire. As with phase 1, this assault is accompanied by heavy use of armour, as well as air support. While this tactic works excellently against lesser opponents, and can present a serious danger to proper, modern forces, intelligent fire concentration can typically halt the assault in key locations, allowing at best a partial success and leaving the Rastal open to counterattack. Evaluation of the battlefield is essential at this point, as a fallback may be required. Counterattacks should focus on concentrating at weak points along the line, as an effective defence will have left easily exploitable openings even if a general retreat is required.

Should this phase succeed in securing the objectives in a meaningful fashion, the Rastal will typically repeat phases 1 and 2 until the enemy is defeated.

In studied cases where the technological superiority of the opposing force has caused a disruption of this form of battle plan, such as was documented in the conflicts versus the Norenfal, the Rastal will dig in much as in phase 1, and move to phase 3.

PHASE 3

Phase 3 demonstrates one of the greatest strengths of the Rastal military - a fanatical mindset geared towards victory, and a much, much larger potential manpower pool than any other species in the galaxy. During this phase, the Rastal will commence what amounts to a war of attrition, somewhat similar to the trench warfare of the First World War. While it is rare for this phase to be reached, it is easily identifiable by short, numerically overwhelming assaults, supported by armour and air support much as in the previous phases. As the enemy begins to withdraw, aerial attacks bordering on reckless will be made in an attempt to eliminate a maximum number of hostile combatants.

In addition to this, attacks consisting mostly of mechanised and armoured elements will be made with regularity along the frontline, with the goal of creating a breakthrough point from which attacks can be launched on the enemy's flanks and logistical system.

While this method of offense is simple and results in high losses on both sides, it is very difficult to actively defend against unless a large pool of reserves can be quickly brought into action, or some other form of disproportionately effective firepower is present. At present, few effective defenses have been presented that are realistically capable of defeating this attack.

There are two cases of note that should be mentioned as having been somewhat or very effective in causing less than a total loss on the part of the defender.

Firstly, the border conflicts versus the Talen present a case of unexpected tactics resulting in a very high Rastal loss. In so far as our analysts have determined, this marked the first time in recent history that the Rastal were faced with an opponent that could not easily be harmed via conventional means. While the specifications of a mechanid combat suit are, at this time, unknown, what intelligence has been gathered indicates that the majority of the combat suits are somewhat immune to Rastal small arms. Though rough approximations can lead us to assume the Talen did suffer considerable losses, which caused their withdrawal from the disputed area, the Rastal appear to have suffered such a disproportionately high casualty rate that they may have considered withdrawing, and appear to have halted further aggressive action into Talen space. This may change in the near future as intelligence has reported the development of several high-tech weapons designed specifically to assist the Rastal in fighting opponents such as the Talen.

The second conflict of note is more a series of conflicts, known generally as the First Rastal-Norenfal War. Though examples can be pulled from countless skirmishes before, during, and after the war, the best example of what could be considered Rastal defeat comes from the battle of S-122, an unnamed system located on the border between the two empires. S-122 was mineral poor and, though containing a single planet more or less habitable by both species, was not seen as desirable for settlement. Despite this, S-122 was excellently located to act as a staging base for invasions into either side's territory, and acted at the focal point for both the beginning and end of the war. Reports indicate that both sides claim the other was using it in preparation for just such a thing, but it is heavily suspected the Rastal were in truth the real aggressors, though it is, in the end, somewhat irrelevant.

While the lack of Norenfal contact with humanity has caused ascertaining their military capability and technological level to be somewhat difficult, most information points to the early Rastal successes as being caused more by a lack of experience and preparedness on the part of the Norenfal than anything else. This came to a head at S-122 as the Norenfal presented a serious resistance, likely due to the Rastal's obvious plans to actually bring the fight into Norenfal space.

Though the war spanned the extent of both's sides territories, S-122 contained the bulk of high intensity fighting. Though the Rastal initially maintained the upper hand, the Norenfal managed to deploy their forces far more quickly that the Rastal appeared to expect, and the battle quickly shifted to a stalemate. From this point, the Rastal began their typical strategy of overwhelming force, but seemed to further underestimate the military technologies and capabilities of their opponents. Much like the Talen, the high level of technology used by the Norenfal seemed to be unexpected by the Rastal, and most victories began to come at increasingly high costs. Though the conclusion to this battle makes ascertaining casualties with any degree of certainty somewhat impossible, and there exists no accurate estimation of Norenfal losses beyond "very high", agents within the Rastal government have indicated that the losses experienced by the Rastal forces at S-122 far exceed the combined losses of any other military conflict they have engaged in in over 100 years. While experiencing incredibly lopsided losses, it does appear as though the Rastal may have been able to simply wear the Norenfal military out with enough time had the Norenfal not made a singular, very effective strategic decision.

Though the Rastal fleet is arguably the largest in known space, it is comprised of a huge range of ships, some of which are outdated even by our standards, and the best appear to be only slightly more advanced than our own designs. The Norenfal fleet, on the other hand, while small, appears to use technology far beyond our understanding, and is likely one of the most advanced currently fielded. Throughout most of the conflict, the Rastal maintained superiority over S-122's orbit, as well as those of many other battlegrounds, simply because they could field a dozen ships for each Norenfal vessel. The Norenfal appeared to understand that achieving a victory while actively engaging the Rastal wherever possible was not likely, and pulled their fleet support from just about every other theater, throwing their combined might at S-122. While this caused losses on every other battleground, it would appear to have been the decisive moment of the war, as they seized control of S-122's orbit, and held it for the duration of the conflict.

This had the effect of preventing further Rastal re-enforcement. While it is logical to assume the Norenfal would have scored a sound victory at this point, the Rastal appear to have deemed this unacceptable. Though it is hard to find concrete evidence of the exact course of events which occurred next, it would appear that this marked the first and only recorded Rastal use of their system denial weapon, also known as the Proxisnyk. This resulted in the total destruction of the S-122 system, and eliminated it as a strategic asset or liability for either side. Though the evidence is anecdotal at best, it would appear the local commander of the Rastal forces contacted the Norenfal, and may have brokered a ceasefire in order to allow both sides to evacuate before the weapon arrived. If this is true, this unnamed individual is likely responsible for preventing the destruction of the majority of the Norenfal fleet, and the cold war that has existed since S-122's destruction.

With the essential causus belli for the conflict removed, and with both sides fearing continued use of weapons such as the Proxisnyk, a general ceasefire was declared, though the war is technically not over and tensions remain high.

This guy won't say it, and I bet neither will anyone else in the UTAF, but if that's true, it's also pretty likely that this unnamed Rastal dude is responsible for our continued enjoyment of freedom and life. I mean, imagine if the Norenfal *hadn't* won, or had their fleet wiped out at S-122? Do you really think it's likely humanity could beat 150 billion angry commies when a race so far ahead of us couldn't? Thinking about where we might be right now if they weren't still distracted and scared of the Norenfal isn't a nice thought. -F

The lessons taught to us by these events are rather valuable. Firstly, though it may be beyond our current abilities, it is possible to defeat the Rastal on the ground so long as the primary engagement occurs in space. A not insignificant portion of our resources have been dedicated to improving the construction and quality of our fleet should this become required. Secondly, it confirms that one of the best defences humanity has in this brave, new galaxy is the constant threat of mutually assured destruction, and that a stockpile of weapons capable of this sort of destruction should be maintained.

5. INDIVIDUAL CAPABILITIES AND EQUIPMENT

While it's very easy to fall into the mindset that humanity is somehow a biologically superior race, most of our pre-intersteller media saying exactly that, as well as our status as the alpha species on Terra, this is a dangerous line of thinking that is patently untrue.

The bad news is that contrary to what videogames and television shows have preached for decades, being "clever" or "adaptable" or any of the other things our race is proclaimed "the best" at will not carry the day and result in a victory. We are not a significantly powerful race, biologically speaking, and many of the threats we face are far better equipped and designed to engage in combat than we are. While this has been said in other documents of this nature, it is imperative that it is repeated, and made clear to the men under the command of the reader. Lives depend on it.

Because media is also incorrect about us simply outnumbering all other life in the galaxy, we accordingly cannot afford to throw lives away as some of our opponents can.

The good news, in the context of this document, is that the average member of the Rastal species is not inherently designed for combat either, and on an individual level presents no more of a threat to a person than any human would. As mentioned in section three, the only distinct advantage they have over us is sheer numerical superiority and what we have estimated to be a very slight technological edge in some areas.

This means that in estimating the individual capabilities, we really only need to look towards examples provided by our own soldiers. The factors involved in ranking the typical Rastal soldier can be considered identical to our own - the threat presented is based on training, equipment, and leadership. While two of these things will be touched on in a later section, a brief rundown on what we can expect the average Rastal troop to be deployed with provides information to users of this document who engage them in direct combat.

Typically, a Rastal soldier will be equipped much like our own. We can expect that our combat units will face an individual equipped with:

- Quality personal armour
- Effective personal weapons
- Night fighting capabilities
- A linked information network
- Squad-level anti-armour capabilities.

Beyond this, it is safe to assume most Rastal units are supported by indirect fire weapons, armour, and aerial vehicles, and a logistics system comparable to our own.

Of these items, there is little to be said. Of  specific note are the armour and personal weapons, both of which are, objectively speaking, marginally superior to our own in some regards. The current generation of armour is, much like our own, capable of providing a good level of protection against the ballistic weapons in our inventory, and can be difficult to deal with using the standard S.I.R. laser rifle. Though most personal weapons are based around relatively simple ballistics, they do present a very real threat to our men on the ground, and are generally of high quality and construction. At present, the Rastal do not appear to make use of directed energy weapons.

The logistical and general electronic equipment used by the Rastal would appear to be very similar in basic design, quality, and utility to our own. Of note is their communications technology. Though graphical interfaces such as the HUD system built into our Mark I armour system at less common outside of special units, both this and general communications equipment are theorized to operate at marginally longer distances than ours, without the use of GPS or transmission satellites. While we are presently developing our own versions of this technology, it is uncertain exactly how the Rastal achieve this, but can obviously be credited to a much longer history as a space faring race.

Other equipment often carried consists of relatively unremarkable mortar systems, shoulder fired rockets, land mines, and other slightly more exotic weapons. Generally, these weapon systems are neither inferior or superior to our own. Intelligence reports have brought rumors that new, considerably more advanced weapons are in development (the SPW-113 coilgun being a confirmed example), but it would appear that this process is not a rapid one, and it is unlikely that we will encounter any new systems in significant numbers for at least several years.

6. BASIC ORGANIZATION

Yet another subject in which the Rastal are very similar to our own military, the Rastal military generally consists of two simple categories into which most of their military organization can be divided - basic conscript units which make up the bulk of their fighting force, and professional units which deal with more advanced systems, act as an officer corps, and operate the majority of Rastal equipment such as starships, aerial craft, and the like. Beyond this, it would appear the Rastal military is broadly organized as follows:

I'll try again to see if I can get the attached chart to resend at some point, but it's summarized anyway. - F

As you can see, the entire armed forces (deemed the Rastal Guard) falls under the command of a single council of generals, before branching into the land component, aerial component, fleet component, and naval component, which in turn break down into their own command structures. While it is impossible to estimate how many active troops are available to the Rastal at a given time, most estimates suggest at least a billion soldiers are available during relatively peaceful times. Of these, it is believed the majority serve in the land forces, followed by the space fleet. It is somewhat interesting to note that the Rastal do maintain a navy (though it is suspected to be orders of magnitudes smaller than the other branches), as this is something that appears to be fairly uncommon among most of the other races we have encountered.

Though our understanding of the upper levels of their organization is somewhat unclear, with most sources inside the Rastal Guard being fairly insignificant, low ranking deserters, a look at the lower levels of organization suggests that the structure is similar to our own. From this, we can extrapolate the following:

I really gotta get IT to look at this piece of shit computer. Basically, from the highest level down:

Army Group - up to 10,000,000 men
Army - up to 2,00,000 men
Corps - up to 500,000 men
Division - up to 100,000 men
Regiment - up to 50,000 men
Brigade - up to 30,000 men

It's worth noting the chart states it's unclear if regiments and brigades are actually functionally different, have different average troop numbers, or are just different names for the same thing depending on equipment - i.e. an armoured brigade might have the same manpower as an artillery regiment, which might have the same manpower as an infantry brigade, or if the 222nd Infantry Regiment is actually the name of a brigade, etc. etc.

Battalion - up to 10,000 men.
Company - up to 5,000 men
Xidsharxanya - up to 1,000 men. This rather ugly word appears to translate to "detachment", and is apparently the equivalent of one of our companies. It's likely the standard operational unit used.
Platoon - up to 100 men
Section - up to 24 men
Squad - up to 12 men
Cell - up to 6 men
Fireteam - up to 3 men. As with some of the above, it's a little uncertain if these positions actually exist, probably because commies, even space commies, never seem to be able to grasp small unit tactics.

Like the paper says, it's pretty much the same kind of organization the UTAF uses, just bigger. Just one gal's thoughts here, but if the layout does look like this, it's pretty impressive that the Rastal can maintain communications and logistics support with any level of efficiency.


As with our own forces, the organization varies somewhat, as a special intelligence division may be attached directly to an army group HQ, and it would appear divisional level forces often have specialized battalions or companies attached to them, such as an armoured battalion being attached to an infantry division.

At all levels, leadership quality appears to be generally good, as most Rastal officers are drawn from the highly-trained professional military component. Though the training quality of the conscript components is difficult to gauge, owing to a lack of significant conflict between their forces and our own, it is likely they are still reasonably well trained based on the equipment issued to them, much like our own conscripted forces. While strictly professional forces are assumed to exist, it is unlikely they comprise the majority of the force available, and are likely organized as division-strength units which could be seen as a special forces element.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2017, 01:21:01 am by Discord »
Gone. Cheers guys.

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RedVulnus

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That was a fun read, you should write more lore for all the races if they all end up being that well written.

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ApatheticExcuse

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Updated with a couple new sections, detailing (roughly) force organization and personal equipment.
Gone. Cheers guys.

 

NOCTIFER IS A FAGGOT