I imagine most of the conflict going on in the world being small scale, raids on isolated villages, interception of trade ships by pirates or privateers, fighting over newly discovered pre-war salvage and so on. Most of these battles might look something like those we see in game, skirmishes between small numbers of airships, or like what we've seen from co-op so far with the involvement of some larger ships, carriers and planes attacking or defending more important objectives.
But what about when city states or the major factions go to war. What kind of forces do they assemble to attempt to conquer the cities of their enemies? Have full scale invasions even existed since the end of the great war?
Some thoughts:
Armies:
None
Traveling by land with any significant force is far too difficult. The broken (more literally than usual) ground severely limits the use of land vehicles and the barrenness of the land means those who do travel it are more concerned with carrying food and water than weapons and ammunition.
Instead:
Air marines
Elite and well armed forces carried by air ship to their destination and set down a short distance from the target or even parachuting directly onto it. Their goal would be to destroy critical defenses or simply to provide the manpower to subjugate a city without reducing it to rubble from the air.
Air Fleets:
The most important part of any force of course.
The main body of any fleet would be a large number and variety of ships similar to those we use in game. I imagine depending on the faction there might be a 1/3 : 2/3 split between more heavily armed military ships and conscripted merchant ships (IMO these are the ships we have in game, merchant ships heavily armed for self defense and raiding ships limited to similar weaponry to allow for stolen cargo). I think around 100 ships would be a very large force; at 10 crew per ship (the 4 we play as + some actual greasers, powder monkeys etc) with more for the larger ships, fighter pilots, marines and support personnel it would be around 2000 people. For a post apocalyptic world with a smaller population, greater difficulty mobilizing a large force and no real use for conscripting large numbers of foot soldiers this seems like a sensible number for an invasion force.
Supporting the smaller ships would be a few of the larger "boss" ships and carriers, all the planes of the force would be carried to the battle, the distance between cities is too far without the efficiency of lighter than air travel. Also possible is some kind of floating artillery (much more so than in game 'sniper' builds) to use against opposing fleets and fortifications. Also following the fleet but not involved in battle would be some dedicated supply ships.
Sea Fleets:
Maybe?
There are a few small intact ships on water hazard that are probably for fishing, so we can conclude sea going vessels still exist. However with widespread development of airships i don't think sea going warships would get enough development to become viable (and having no coast the yeshans and arashi would have no part in this either way). Some unique or salvaged ships might be used, a large AA/artillery barge for mobile defense/sieges maybe?
Defenses:
Very powerful
Between the vast wastelands between settlements, superior numbers of planes that can be launched from the ground than from carriers and the presence of ground based anti air guns a fortified settlement (ie almost all of them) would be a very difficult target to attack. I think even a medium sized city would take a very large force to take by direct assault making these full scale invasions less common than raiding and piracy. To capture a medium city at reasonable cost or a large one at all would require prolonged raiding or even a siege/embargo to deplete their food and other supplies and draw out and destroy their planes and airships (or just not crashing your painstakingly salvaged and rebuilt leviathan into the dunes). This is why (semi) independent city states proliferate and the large factions don't control the majority of the world.
What do you think?
