The Modernization; November 1st

I glanced around the war room, the cadre gathered here today to discuss… spending credits.

Quite a few of the officers gathered here seemed surprised by their presence. Many high level meetings like this didn't include them, and frankly… that was because I'd been focused on my ground commanders. Colonel Thomas in particular, he was often 'informed' afterwards, his own opinions rarely asked for. Quite a shame, I'll try to give the Airforce some more attention in the future.

"Sir… if all we are doing is purchasing new equipment… why do you need logistics present?" Colonel Tanya asked.

"I want as complete a modernization of our forces as possible, and that includes our vast fleet of logistical support." I replied, looking at the other officers present. Ivanov was shuffling a few reports, Colonel Thomas was casting tentative glances at the shop list, trying to see what was available for purchase. General Joseph was leaning forward, writing some notes in the margins of his report. Colonel Natasha was browsing the artillery section of the catalog. 

"Alright, it's about time we stop skimping on equipment to save a couple credits, I have millions to spend, all those BTR60s are getting replaced, the T72m… find an alternative. Our MiG 23s… I want something that isn't hopeless against an F35… Colonel Natasha, if you could provide a few options to mechanize our artillery…"

The officers nodded. Joseph stood, clearing his throat. "General Reichenbacher, I'd recommend replacing our BTRs with the BMP3… the Premier's request to stand up a national guard… I'm against giving them the same level of equipment… maybe passing our old equipment on to them, or giving them a mixture of the BMP1 and BMP2 instead."

"Why would we insist on having formations deliberately weaker than the rest?" I asked, eyes narrowed slightly.

"Sir, we can't assure the loyalty of those you don't summon…" Ivanov spoke up.

"You don't trust the citizens?" I asked.

"Quite frankly… no sir, especially not with them beholden to the Premier over yourself…" Ivanov replied.

"Do the rest of you hold the same opinion?" I asked, slowly looking at the silent agreement of my officers.

I sighed, slightly disappointed in my officers. I doubted I would be able to get that out of them. I glanced over at Colonel Thomas. "Do you have a preferred replacement for our Mig 23s?"

"The Su-33 sir, if not air superiority it should enable us to contest the enemy in the air… it is also the best aircraft we can get." he replied after a moment.

"Alright, we have 4 squadrons… 12 aircraft each… that's what? 48 planes?" I asked while I flipped through the tabs.

"That is correct sir… if we could get some extra airframes…" Thomas asked.

"Sixty should suffice for now? Actually…. Fuck that, eighty. Hopefully I won't be replacing airframes as often if I just frontload you extras?" I asked while casting the colonel a glance. The aircraft would cost a cool 36,000 credits.

"Alright… Luka isn't here, so we'll have to come to a consensus on what to replace our armor with…" I broached the next subject. Our fleet of T-72ms… quite a number of them were currently littering interstate 5 as well as the Bay metro area.

"The T90 is our most modern option." Tanya offered after no one said anything.

"We should keep the General's Spetsnaz brigade with our most modern equipment." Ivanov said, Joseph raised an eyebrow and bit down his reply.

"General, do you have a differing opinion?" I asked Joseph.

"I want my soldiers to have the best equipment available Sir, but I do understand Colonel Ivanov's position." he replied.

"Would you propose a comparative alternative then?" I asked, glancing at the officers around the table.

"The T-72BU… it is for all intents and purposes an early version of the T-90, similar capability at a cheaper price while still reserving the T90s themselves for the Spetsnaz." Ivanov said with a small smile.

"The Spetsnaz can make due with their brand new T80s for now… so the T72BU you said?" I asked while scrolling through the store page until I found it. 230 credits a tank compared to the 400 credits of the T90… there really wasn't much difference between the tanks… might as well go with the cheaper alternative, the savings would just be going into buying more supplies anyway. So we had 800 tank hulls… 184,000 credits to replace all the T72Ms with the T72BU.

"Sir, since we're basically replacing most of our vehicles, why not reorganize our battalion tactical groups while we're at it?" Natasha asked.

"What do you have in mind Colonel?" I asked.

"Well sir, we can strip out all our towed artillery, organize them into independant artillery battalions, and fill their positions with self propelled pieces. For example we'd pool all our D-30s into independent battalions we can then assign to the divisions to increase their firepower and fill their old positions with either Akatiya or Giatsint self propelled guns." she offered.

"That's not bad, bringing up an overhaul to our units…" I nodded.

"We can replace the trucks towing the D30s with the MT-LB tractor, there's a variant that carries a mortar, so we could also replace our mortar batteries." Natasha said with a small smile.

"The mortar is smaller than our current pieces, but we can reorganize our current mortars into a regimental level asset instead." she continued.

"You've been thinking about this for some time haven't you?" Ivanov asked.

"It would increase the firepower available at all levels of organization. And by replacing our gaz trucks with the mt-lb our combat units will be able to cross rivers where they please" Natasha replied.

"General Luka ironically proved that when he crossed the San Joaquin how valuable it would have been, follow-on units were delayed at the bridges for hours." Tanya spoke up.

Well shit. This was… the MT-LB was cheap as shit… this might not be too bad… there were a lot of trucks to replace though… add the variants… medical, mortar, an absolute fuckload of standard mt-lbs to use and modify…the supply companies couldn't be replaced, but everything else could… looks like I could cut supply trucks out of expansions for a while… god, I didn't want to do the math for how many i'd need, lets just go with far more than i'd likely need, then push extras into storage so 5,000 of these tractors… 137,000 credits between all the variants.

Okay, before I forget, let's add those BMP3s to the list… around a thousand of the damn things… 75,600… far cheaper than I'd have thought… then again I wasn't trying to replace almost every vehicle in the army here. Eh, I'll grab a couple companies worth of BMP1 and 2s, a trifling 8,100 credits.

"Colonel Natsha, how many self propelled guns would we need?" I asked, flipping over to the artillery tab again.

"We currently have 480 howitzers spread across the motor rifle divisions sir." she replied quickly. Okay… replacing all those D30s with Akatiya at 210 credits each… another 100,800 credits

"Does anyone have any other propositions for our equipment?" I asked.

"Is it possible to get every man a set of nvgs?"

I started searching through the catalog… there, I wasn't going to need to give literally everyone a set… let's go with 45,000 night vision sights… god damn… 180,000 credits? The hell were they so expensive? Shit, let's just add it and worry about the soldiers attaching them to their rifles later…

"Well, I added 45,00 of the PN113 night sight. The troops are just going to have to figure out how to mount the sights themselves…" i replied looking at my shopping list. Now to add the mres, ammunition to replenish the stockpiles, fuel… wait, no fuel… that would reset progress on the quest again, all i had to do was not buy fuel for 90 days… alright, my total was no sitting at a slightly eye watering 1,721,500 credits… resupply was always so god damn expensive.

Time to clear out the parking lot. Reequip all the soldiers with new gear, and generally create another massive headache for the logistical personnel. Let's get this ball rolling.