Re: No one's a third rate power....

----- Original Message -----
From: <kaladorn@magma.ca>
> KHR said:
> If you take present-day forces as a rough guideline, I don't see why
> LLAR should rate lower than African ones. Note also that LLAR troops
> provide large numbers of mercenary forces, and would warrant 'Average
> mercenary' status. My inclination would be to place LLAR as 3rd rate
> and PAU as 4th
>
> [Tomb] First, the LLAR is only a shadow of its glory-days self. It
> lost (in a BIG way) the war with the NAC. Those few LLAR that
> struggled offworld surely lost a lot in terms of resources, history,
> institutional knowledge, etc. And they have the almighty whomping of
> a defeat on their records with all the long term morale effects. And
> their economic base has been severely attrited. I think LLAR
> mercenaries are average-poor (with the occasional good unit). IMU.

As to long term morale effect, note that the loss of the LLAR Earth
territories was in 2100, over 80 before before the 'present' in GZG
history.
There have been nations that recovered from disaster in shorter times:
Germany between the World Wars, France from Revolution to Napoleon,
Russia
from the revolution 1918 to 1945, Prussia from 1806 to 1815....

My main problem was not with a low rating for the LLAR as such but that
I
didn't see a plausible reason for grading them lower than the PAU.

> KHR said:
> Scanfed. Either raise the Scanfed to 2nd rate (my preference) or move
> the Swiss down for the same reasons as the Scandinavians.
>
> [Tomb] That might be a valid point. I'm basing my opinion of the
> Swiss on a older period and on a more romantized view of their
> historical (and I mean a while back....) capabilities. Probably not
> in line with today. You make a very good point.
>
The main problem I had here is that your arguments appear to be quite
arbitrary (to which sentence you could answer with another raspberry, if
you
insist on uncivil manners). You give the Swiss credit for past glories,
but
downgrade the Scandinavians for their present situation. You could
equally
well argue the other way around. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the
Swedes fielded a pretty impressive army and fought some far-flung
campaigns.

As to peacekeeping experience...
I know that peacekeeping is not warfighting. But I think that, in terms
of
operational experience, it beats driving around exercise areas. There's
real
logistics operations, perhaps over long distances, living in the rough,
scouting, security tasks, mineclearing etc that all get used in a
sharper
manner than in exercises at home. Especially if there is still some
low-level violence to deal with.

Greetings