"Hardcore" Modern Army

SeanB

Here's a little question that popped into my head while I was listening to a bit of metal.

Historically, and even in today's world, Armies tend to be a bastion of traditionalism, with anthems and marching songs that reflect this and their countries heritage. That is generally what they're fighting for, after all, to protect their individuality as a people.

Today, and in democratic nations in particular, armies like to think of themselves as a kind of gallant liberator rather than an overpowering war machine. Naturally, this hasn't always been the case. Nations such as Nazi Germany, which glorified war, often adopted notably sinister iconography, such as the skulls on the uniforms of the SS.

Yet, the Nazis were also quite heavily wrapped in tradition. You need but listen to many of their anthems, to see their Leader's obsession with the likes of Wagner, to know this. That isn't what I'm looking for.

I want an army that glorifies war, revels in conquest and domination, and wishes to strike terror into it's enemies and is viewed by it's own populace as, for lack of a better term, completely 'badass'. And I want them to adopt a wordless heavy metal song as their anthem. Something that gets the blood pumping and gets you in the mood to raise some hell. They don't care if their conquered people think they're the 'good guys', just so long as they know never to screw with them again.

With the proper POD, with the proper nation, would it be possible to have such a military by the modern day?
 

RosoMC

Heavy metal is too fresh to be adopted as any anthem. Songs adopted by army reflect hundreds of years of tradition - such as "British Grenadiers". Same with all iconography, banners, flags etc. Sure, heavy metal gets your blood pumping but it's not good for military parades or tattoos.
Besides, army is not about being badass.. It's about protecting what you hold dear. Even Wehrmacht thought itself as a representation of Germany.
 

Andy42

SeanB said:
Here's a little question that popped into my head while I was listening to a bit of metal.

Historically, and even in today's world, Armies tend to be a bastion of traditionalism, with anthems and marching songs that reflect this and their countries heritage. That is generally what they're fighting for, after all, to protect their individuality as a people.

Today, and in democratic nations in particular, armies like to think of themselves as a kind of gallant liberator rather than an overpowering war machine. Naturally, this hasn't always been the case. Nations such as Nazi Germany, which glorified war, often adopted notably sinister iconography, such as the skulls on the uniforms of the SS.

Yet, the Nazis were also quite heavily wrapped in tradition. You need but listen to many of their anthems, to see their Leader's obsession with the likes of Wagner, to know this. That isn't what I'm looking for.

I want an army that glorifies war, revels in conquest and domination, and wishes to strike terror into it's enemies and is viewed by it's own populace as, for lack of a better term, completely 'badass'. And I want them to adopt a wordless heavy metal song as their anthem. Something that gets the blood pumping and gets you in the mood to raise some hell. They don't care if their conquered people think they're the 'good guys', just so long as they know never to screw with them again.

With the proper POD, with the proper nation, would it be possible to have such a military by the modern day?
Click to expand...

The heavy metal song really limits you to the eastern, possibly Japanese and also Russian cultures?

Just choose your on-line combat game of choice and gather the clan (your "nation"). NEETs sound the ideal sort for your purposes, as long as you stick to the Internet for your wars, of course. They will be available pretty much 24/7/365 after all, they are not going anywhere as they sit in their bedrooms using a computer bought for them by mummy and munching on snacks.

Now off you go and conquer your virtual world, with bad-ass metal music and avatars etc. as desired. One of the Warhammer universes, perhaps?.

Job done.


As to real life - look at the Congo or nearby for inspiration, but heavy metal is out. (C)rap would be more likely.
 

Willmatron

Banned
I agree you don't need heavy metal as cool as it is. But perhaps a private professional army who's loyalty is to itself and to its client would fit in.
 
Dan

Dan

Or Finland.

A country that enters Lordii into the Eurovision Song contest, (and wins it), is capable of anything. :D
 
Napoleon53

Napoleon53

Russia.

They do choreographed shirtless jumping jacks in 10 degree weather while drinking their own pee as an energy drink. :D
 

ingemann

Banned
SeanB said:
Here's a little question that popped into my head while I was listening to a bit of metal.

Historically, and even in today's world, Armies tend to be a bastion of traditionalism, with anthems and marching songs that reflect this and their countries heritage. That is generally what they're fighting for, after all, to protect their individuality as a people.

Today, and in democratic nations in particular, armies like to think of themselves as a kind of gallant liberator rather than an overpowering war machine. Naturally, this hasn't always been the case. Nations such as Nazi Germany, which glorified war, often adopted notably sinister iconography, such as the skulls on the uniforms of the SS.
Click to expand...

The skulls and black uniforms in SS came from the Black Brunswicker:

The-Black-Brunswicker.jpg


So it was part of the German tradition, not just an attempt to look cool, but a way to say that Nazi Germany fought for the glory and liberation of the German people (in their own eyes).
 

MikeTurcotte

Difficult, but fun!

OK, you need an earlier POD (which makes the heavy metal tougher, but we'll get there soon), and a change in attitude.

The real issue is that no one - not even the 'bad' guys (Iran, NK, Saddam's Iraq, etc) advertise themselves as 'conquerors' any more - modern mores demand that armies are for 'defense' as opposed to offense - even if your form of 'defense' is to invade someone else to pre-empt them doing something to you.

Here's my try:

POD: Hitler never gets gassed in WWI.

Handwaving away, Hitler still takes over Germany per OTL.

WWII goes worse for the Allies. The Japanese are crazier, the Nazis are even more insane, Stalin gets bit by the batshit bug too.

Hitler breaks out the gas in 1939, first against the untermensch Poles, and then against the Maginot line (makes blitzkreig even better). The WAllies follow suit, as do the Japanese in China. The Battle of Britain goes as OTL, but with the added joy of gas attacks over London, which the RAF responds to over Hamburg and Berlin.

The Germans gas their way through Yugoslavia to rescue Mussolini in Greece in 1941, and have no hesitation about it at all when the hit Russia. Stalin reciproactes, and casualties are intense. One thing that starts to happen is mass armies are expensive to protect from gas, especially given WWII delivery technology (i.e. Stukas and Sturmoviks with gas canisters) so tactical formations become smaller and deadlier - more elite.

The US is stocking up (and even more isolationist than in OTL due to mass civilian gas casualties), when the Japanese hit Pearl with bombs, torpedoes, and gas canisters. The US enters the war.

In 1942, butterflies cause another influenza epidemic - starting in Russia - and with social support networks even more devastated, the casualties are extreme. Stalin resorts to gassing whole cities in an attempt to contain the disease. When it hits occupied Europe, the Germans do the same - not in Germany - but in other places.

The disease spreads rapidly through Africa/Eurasia. The Americas are hit as well, but better able to contain it because their infrastructure is intact.

The disease burns itself out by 1944. European, Asian and African populations are down by almost 50%; America is largely OK. While most are willing to consider a negotiated peace (Europe and Japan are depopulated, bombed out, gassed out wastelands), Stalin is not; he continues to drive at the remaining German Army. This in turn drives Hitler even further over the edge, and he authorizes a Submarine gas attack on New York City. The attack is largely unsuccessful, but several thousand unfortunate residents of Long Island are killed when a u-boat runs aground near the Hamptons.

An explosion of anger grips America. The United States is relatively much stronger than in OTL, and the US Army builds up in Europe, and destroys the Nazis.

The war ends in 1945 when the US Army occupies the ruins of Berlin, and Japan surrenders after the a-bomb attacks.

The US - basically the only intact industrial power left - basically rules the world. The the demonstrated power of the 'big three' (Nuclear, Biological and chemical) weapons, the US resolves ' never again ', and maintains a military no one else in the world can even begin to hope to compete with.

Over time, the US Military evolves into a different animal than we are used to; no Marshall Plan means a very slow recovery, and periodic outbreaks of warlord-like violence, coupled with a willingess to use gas means that the US maintains a huge navy, large airforce, and specialized army, designed to go in, crush a warlord, and remove any WMDs found.

Technical agility is the phrase that pays for this smaller US Army, and the mission profiles - highly dangerous, high-intensity forays into chemical wastelands - breeds a certain look and attitude. Destroying the bad guy quickly - before WMDs can be deployed - is the mission, supported by a terrified US public.

A young man's game, the US Army becomes obessed with rapid conquest; Heavy Metal music is patriotic and considered the theme of a bunch of highly trained killers who show up, smash the bad guys, and then leave - no nation building here.

How's that?

Mike Turcotte
 

Life In Black

Mosshadow said:
By "hardcore" would an army like it look like Big Boss's army from MGS PeaceWalker ?
Click to expand...

Kind of what I was thinking. You would need a sort of "soldiers" military, one that glorifies war, while at the same time ensuring that its soldiers are taken care of. Have a small company like Militaires Sans Frontières be formed in the '70s, perhaps out of the remnants of the Rhodesian Light Infantry (hey, you got to start somewhere :D) and Vietnam vets, and by 2012, you could have a pretty powerful Soldier's State, which exists solely for itself.
 

Orville_third

Banned
I do have a scene in the works for someone's TL, in which a major unit of a country's AF has a strong influence from a certain heavy metal band. They even have CDs with appropriate background music for strikes on various nations (not to mention aliens and monsters).
 
Kome

Kome

Mosshadow said:
By "hardcore" would an army like it look like Big Boss's army from MGS PeaceWalker ?
Click to expand...
Life In Black said:
Kind of what I was thinking. You would need a sort of "soldiers" military, one that glorifies war, while at the same time ensuring that its soldiers are taken care of. Have a small company like Militaires Sans Frontières be formed in the '70s, perhaps out of the remnants of the Rhodesian Light Infantry (hey, you got to start somewhere :D) and Vietnam vets, and by 2012, you could have a pretty powerful Soldier's State, which exists solely for itself.
Click to expand...
Things do become a lot easier when you remove the civilian element of the equation.
 

gladius

So your looking for a large scale mercenary force, loyal to a state until the war is over, then move on to the next nation?

You'd probably have to go back to before the Napoleonic wars. During the 30 years war, wars were largely waged by professional captains, who would gather independent companies into an army for the campaign.

Instead of these loose collections of mercenaries falling out of favour, what if they consolidated and formalised into permanent, professional organisations, which have survived to the present day?
 

Bergil

Essentially, what you'll want is a nation that makes a general aesthetic choice of "coolness" at the expense of "respectability". Logically and observably, concern for respectability would be concentrated in those involved in the Establishment. As such, you're looking at a nation that's trying to cast itself as populist and anti-establishment. It would also help if there was at least some degree of truth to these claims (I.E., people in high positions who were actually non-Establishment at some point), as people in general aren't good at emulating little details of other mindsets, so a bunch of people with Establishment backgrounds pretending or even genuinely holding populist beliefs wouldn't think that the people they're trying to impress don't care about respectability, and indeed probably wouldn't think that their inclination against the Rule of Cool was a desire for "respectability". History seems to support this, with both Communists and (as you mentioned) the Nazis being very willing to discard respectability, and both being systems that gained power very quickly. So said army would be the product of a revolution, or some other quick takeover.

However, there's another thing. Modern democratic revolutions and such tend to incorporate a lot of emulating of the United States, (or emulating someone who is emulating them , or etc.), and as such tend to, to a degree, make their new democracy the Establishment, both by choosing it because so many respectable nations are democracies, and by basing their system on one where democracy is The Establishment and one that is very small-L legalistic. So I'm afraid that this bad-ass army would almost definitely be fighting against democracy, unless it was fighting for a democratic ideology not influenced (and probably strongly rejecting) the ones that are the current status quo. Of course, had history gone differently (Successful French revolution that never became a dictatorship, perhaps), we might perhaps have ended up with a world consensus in favor of democracy that did not value respectability as much, but that would probably require changes before 1900.

This is all, of course, just my observations and personal theories. I can't back it up at all. I doubt anybody's done any serious research into this sort of thing.
 
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