A bit of analysis: Posleen War

[Ahriman238]

Fleet headquarters is built over the ruins of Fredericksburg. A shuttle flight from Earth to Titan (primary shipyards) takes 4 days at closest approach, and a bit over a month when the two bodies are opposite the sun. This at least gives us a ballpark figure for Galactic sublight speeds.

...Those numbers don't add up.

Saturn is only about 20% farther from Earth at conjunction (other side of the Sun) than it is at conjunction. While I accept that the shuttles can't fly extremely close to the Sun and that this forces a funny-shaped trajectory on their flight path, they should still take less than, oh, twice as long to get to Saturn when Saturn is in conjunction. More like eight days, less like thirty.

:checks astronomical data:

You're right. By definition, barring extremes of orbit, the orbit of earth around the sun shouldn't add much more than 2 AUs of distance. Saturn is 8 AUs from earth, so a straight line course should take 25% longer. Of course, they'll have to go around the sun, maybe a long way around the sun. They might follow Earth's orbital track around, roughly, not seeing any point in getting closer to the sun when they'll already have to go much further out on the other side? Likely not much closer than Mercury, anyways.

Keep in mind that violence is not generally a Galactic thing, the one military concept they do really well with is that of Scorched Earth. The Darhel can apparently sacrifice one button-pusher to fire a planet-killer. Any sohon mentat is capable of starting a chain reaction that will eventually destroy a galaxy. It will take several centuries for said reaction to reach its conclusion, but they can do it. It is apparently one reason sohon apprentices are very. very carefully screened.

[Ahriman238]

I had a flight yesterday, and took the opportunity to read the much despised Watch on the Rhine. I'm sure I'll never hear the end of this but I didn't think it was all that horrible. Bad yes, but not as horrible as some other books, it's more general baen bad. It's sort of like the last 2 Harry Potter books in that there are some coherent ideas and good scenes thatm ostly get lost in the muddle of mediocrity and occasional insanity.

In terms of continunity, despite not being that internally consistent it's even an improvement over the mainline books.

Right, I don't have a ton of time so I'll just give quickly the most salient points and maybe a proper update tonight. The Darhel here engineer a vast conspiracy to politically cripple the mobilization and armament of Germany, using their pawns the Green Party. The insanity of the Greens here is a whole 'nother debate. Later. They also leak valuable tactical and strategic informations to the Posleen. This is implied to be the reason for China's quick fall in the main books, as well as the Posleen hacking AID communicaitons in the last 2 books. It also provides a nice correction for an in-book goof, wherein the Posleen can access data on European history before they even reach the Solar system (this could also be explained as data sent by the scouting force.)

The Tiger III tank is like a much more conservative, and thus sane, version of the SheVa. It mounts a 12" gun without extensive barrel lengthening or cantilevering. The gun also fires a DU sabot round (with electro-plasma propellant) with an antimatter charge. The power of the round is adjustable, though if I understand the mechanism for doing so it cannot use less than a third its antimatter. The lowest yield, besides completely inert is 0.1 KT. This is apparently usually enough to destroy a Posleen ship if it can penetrate the hull. Lampreys can be killed with inert rounds. C-Decs sometimes take 2 or 3 shots with active charges, to bring down but usually die with the first shot.

The tank itself is 12 meters wide by 31 meters long (compare with the SheVa being over 100 meters in every dimension.) No word on height, but it apprently recalls the line of a Merkava tank, so I doubt its too insane. Described at one point as a tank the size of a light cruiser. Roughly 1700 tons in weight. MBA reinforced armor, so idea what the base it's reinforcing is though.

There are 2 models of Tiger III, the Tiger IIIA and IIIB. The IIIA design runs on natural gas and fires as described above. It carries 50 rounds in a 'carousel' magazine. The Tiger IIIB uses the same 'pebble-bed' nuclear reactors as the SheVa, and uses a retro-fitted railgun salvaged from a Posleen ship, it carries over 400 rounds with the same yield as the As. Other salvaged Posleen weapon batteries are fitted as fixed anti-ship batteries.

Both Tigers have relatively sophisticated earth-built AIs.

[Connor MacLeod]

Purely in terms of Kratman novels, Watch on the Rhine is not the worst. It's probalby one of his better offerings (I've read reviews of some other Kratman novels and they get far less appealing.) But in terms of the Posleen series itself (or Baen in general) it leaves much to be desired.

[jollyreaper]

Honestly, I think this whole series would have gone easier if Ringo ha just ripped off the chtorr war.

1. Start it in the modern day so there's no need for world-building.
2. Alien invasion is unguided terraforming project.
3. Lots of crunchy bugs come out of the infestation zones to colonize new territories.

This explains why the enemy is mindless and also how ridiculous firepower is a sound strategy. Use tanks to run over aliens, canister shot to take out clumps, happy clusterbombing.

Keep the story tongue-in-cheek so people smile and go along with the silly bits. We all know it's a giant exercise in shooting guns and blowing bugs into shards of chitin and ichor.

The worst part about this series is its earnest cheese like Spinal Tap singing about Stonehenge and being completely straight about it. I mean yeah, that's the joke for the film but Ringo isn't playing the role of a libertarian military writer as parody.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Jollyreaper

He pretty much does start in the modern day, or what was the modern day when he started writing the novels. Obviously the timeline diverges because in real life we weren't dealing with alien invasions in the 2004-2008 timeline.
________________________

Re: others

Kratman is, from what I know:
-Less bad when he's paired with Ringo. Ringo is a Republican, not a Nazi, so he acts as a moderating influence on Kratman.
-Getting worse over time. Publishing more novels makes him more confident in his Naziism; Watch on the Rhine was his first.

And yes, the "Tiger III" is probably the best thing ini the book because it makes damn sense- indeed, it's such a good idea it takes an awkward explanation to justify the US not having done the same thing. The only real limitation of the design is that it lacks the raw punch of a SheVa round- but that punch is purchased at so much extra cost in logistics nightmares that I can't see it being really justified. I'd rather have four tanks and need to shoot C-Decs twice than have one and need to shoot it once.

If it's built like a scaled-up Merkava, going by the length and width... it's about eight meters tall, and SHOULD tip the scales at around 65*27 ~=... yep. 1700 tons. Wow.

[PeZook]

And of course they name it the Tiger III because modern Germans are soooooo eager to reminescence their dark past

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. It's all Kratman- I don't think he quite grasps how modern Germany works, so he just fills in the blanks in his head with stereotypes: modern German military standing around and being ineffectual, rampaging raving lunatic godless corrupt homobortionist librul communist green tree-huggers, people sunk into decadence until they no longer make an intelligent attempt to defend themselves from being destroyed, sheep-like masses finally having to turn to the far right and cry "save us!" at the price of abandoning all that 'change' that's happened since the mid-twentieth century, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Once you've heard him ramble about the Menace of Post-Nationalism or whatever once, the rest becomes predictable.

[jollyreaper]

I meant set it in the modern day and ignore all the scifi tech. Just human guns blowing up bugs. Try to keep the ideas just this side of "wait that couldn't really work? Well, maybe."

Regarding sheva, just look at the history of tank development. We had theories to justify light, medium, and heavy tanks and tried building ultra-heavies but we realized that you couldn't build a tank big enough to survive all attacks and it was more sensible just to have more regular tanks with good guns. The modern mbt is sort of like a heavy.

While I am of course a fan of land ships and giant crawlers, they make about as much sense as gundams. Sure, you can put them in your story but they are fantasy like dragons.

If you ever played the alien shooter games, I think that's really the sort of thing he should have run with, screw the aliens thing. And thinking about him writing that Cally character is creepy. You get the sense she's his ideal woman.

[Simon_Jester]

I meant set it in the modern day and ignore all the scifi tech. Just human guns blowing up bugs. Try to keep the ideas just this side of "wait that couldn't really work? Well, maybe."

It's a bit difficult to justify this when the enemy has the high ground- unless they're totally unwarlike and don't bother with orbital bombardment or the like, you need a space presence, which means you have SF elements whether you want them or not.

Ringo, of course, also had a political soapbox to get on, with the political implications of the Galactic hierarchy and the "pacifism=deep weakness" of the Galactic races.

Regarding sheva, just look at the history of tank development. We had theories to justify light, medium, and heavy tanks and tried building ultra-heavies but we realized that you couldn't build a tank big enough to survive all attacks and it was more sensible just to have more regular tanks with good guns. The modern mbt is sort of like a heavy.

The superheavy tanks of Ringo's series mostly come from the fact that a 70-ton MBT platform cannot carry an Earth-tech weapon large enough to threaten Posleen spaceships. If you want a gun that big, it's gonna have to go on a platform in the hundreds or thousands of tons, or it won't be mobile.

To avoid them, he'd either have to remove the spaceships, or introduce widespread use of SF-type weapons (like the terawatt laser) that could take down the spaceships on a platform the same size as a modern tank.

Doing the latter would contradict one of your guiding principles by making people rely more on SF weaponry to do the job. Doing the former might work- but, again, it requires totally abolishing the enemy's attempt to use spaceborne weapons, or even airmobile tactics.

[Ahriman238]

Oh, and the Tiger IIIs have 2 secondary weapons, which I believe to be more standard 4" guns. Which shows a lot more foresight than the SheVa designers. They also have the same camo-foam system as the SheVa, which might actually accomplich something on an object only 8 meters tall.

[jollyreaper]

By going with bugs I meant that the initial landings are just like meteor showers and what hits are the spores. Everything proceeds from there. No mother ships or anything like that. So you are dealing with enemies a lot like zombies where a couple can be taken on by a solider, a hundred can swarm you and the best way to deal with them is massed firepower. They're not strong like xenomorphs, they have to swarm to kill and of course they're satisfyingly large to make for big splats, from the size of small birds up to elephants. Splat splat. Lots of bugs. No real technology per se. Areas infested with the bugs sprout weird plants and fungi and show an alien ecosystem taking hold. Like I said, war against the chtorr with more explosions.

I understand the reasoning that went into the sheva system, I'm just saying it couldn't be. Hilt even if we wanted to. It's sort of like with submersible aircraft carriers, a neat idea but impossible. I mean yeah, you had the Japanese attempts but they were useless compared to real carriers. We're taking about trying to turn the NASA crawler into a weapon.

[Simon_Jester]

I agree that you could do it, jolly. But you'd have a... well, I think you'd have a less interesting and poorer setting, because there's no interaction, no idea that the human struggle fits into a broader galactic context. As it is, the Posleen Wars setting has a lot of potential that Ringo is unfortunately mediocre at mining.

Just having a war against Terraformers From Space is possible (see "Von Neumann's War" for what happens when Ringo tackles it in a single novel; it may not be what you want to see). But I don't think it's the class of story Ringo wants to write, with the conflict in the novel boiling down to "humans versus faceless menace that sent the terraformers." There's no sense of an expanding role for the protagonists and their role in the larger interstellar environment; they're just the tribe that happens to be trying to stop bulldozers from intruding on their territory.


As to SheVa, I think you could make SheVa a weapon, in the sense of "can cause harm to the enemy," just not a very useful one. Mounting the gun itself is not impossible, what's impossible is making it mobile enough to be a tank, as opposed to a stationary artillery platform with the ability to trundle slowly between firing positions.

A less insane 'supertank' (like, yes, the one in Watch on the Rhine) is actually more plausible- we didn't build them in real life for reasons that wouldn't necessarily apply in a different context. One such supertank is very unlikely to be its match for its weight in MBTs, which is why we never built them historically, but then it's not being built to fight its weight in MBTs in the first place.

[Ahriman238]

And of course they name it the Tiger III because modern Germans are soooooo eager to reminescence their dark past

Modern Germans, no. Krautman, yes.

I freely admit I don't know a lot about the Green Party in Germany, I somehow doubt they wield anything like the power or influence they do in the book, and I'm just about positive that they aren't actually batshit insane enough to want to destroy the human race to preserve the enviroment. If I'm wrong on either of these points, feel free to correct me.

See, when the Chancellor says that their destruction is absolutely certain, and that no less desperation would inspire him to revive the SS in any way, shape or form, I can buy that. Leaving aside the ethical, morale, and purely practical issues (is it even worth it to bring back experts in 1940s military hardware?) it would be political suicide.

2 out of 3 of the named SS men in the book are actually good people... It may be a stretch, but I can live with that. I don't think everyone who wore the uniform was a monster. The story of the lieutenant joining the Foregin Legion after the war, then deserting to join the Israelis as a form of penance for the crimes he allowed to happen rings oddly true. The twist at the end of that plot thread killed any credit it got from me, though.

When the German Parliment agrees to rejuv the old SS men on the ocndition that the unit they are used as cadre for should all die in a loud, grotesque, military manner, I don't buy that. Politicians cannot promise the destruction of a friendly military force, especially not in what appears to be an open session (though it is never stated one way or another.) Setting the condition that they all be in same unit, segregated from the rest of the military was also incredibly stupid. If there is a single SS man in a group of a thousand men, he is largely harmless. Putting all the SS men in one place, with orders to organize themselves is asking for trouble.

Also, despite mentioning, once, to Muhlenkampf that all the old slogans and songs are banned, no real effort is made to enforce the ban, and it is immediatly ignored.

In the main books, the US is undergoing critical shortages of rejuv, yet the Germans have enough to use on their aging servicemen, the surviving Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, and still have enough left over for the SS? How precisely does that work, especially given how hostile the local Darhel factor is to the Germans?

We have more ancient conspiracy stuff from the Indowy. Atlantis as a base for resistance against the Darhel. In truth, I found it hard to care.

I do really like the idea of salvaging Posleen ship weapons to use as ground batteries though.

I also like the idea that despite courage, technology and resolve, they still lost. The end is the SS covering the final evacuation of Germany into Scandanavia, and breaking up to retreat with them.

The book also deals a lot more with the idea of denial. In the main books, this occured in the US, but mostly as an outlier. In this book, we have large, organized protests to the war from people who don't believe in aliens, don't believe a space-faring civilization could eat people, don't think anything is worth using nukes for, or bringing back, in however limited a form, the SS. And politicians saying similar things, albeit most of them as Darhel mouthpieces.

[PeZook]

I freely admit I don't know a lot about the Green Party in Germany, I somehow doubt they wield anything like the power or influence they do in the book, and I'm just about positive that they aren't actually batshit insane enough to want to destroy the human race to preserve the enviroment. If I'm wrong on either of these points, feel free to correct me.

Wait, what?

I didn't read Watch On The Rhine, but I was under the impression the greenies betrayed humanity in exchange for passage off planet (guaranteed by the Darheel, so it would be still stupid, but hey...)

Them doing it to protect the environment when the Posleen will eat the ecosystem, replace it briefly with their own before nuking it all into oblivion...I don't know the right word that would accurately describe how dumb that is.

See, when the Chancellor says that their destruction is absolutely certain, and that no less desperation would inspire him to revive the SS in any way, shape or form, I can buy that. Leaving aside the ethical, morale, and purely practical issues (is it even worth it to bring back experts in 1940s military hardware?) it would be political suicide.

Without doubt it would. The funny thing is, of course, that the SS wasn't even all that good. A select few units were pretty badass, mostly because they tended to fight to the death (but that was due to their comittment to the Nazi cause and implication in war crimes, which...won't exist here), but the vast majority were gloriously murdering unarmed peasants and guarding death camps throughout the war, hardly assignments that required tremendous martial skills.

The motivation part would be taken care of by the fact the Posleen eat their fucking prisoners, so realistically most recruits would be quite comitted enough. And you'd need to redo their training for modern hardware anyways. Combat experience won during WWII would be next to worthless against an enemy from outer space.

The book also deals a lot more with the idea of denial. In the main books, this occured in the US, but mostly as an outlier. In this book, we have large, organized protests to the war from people who don't believe in aliens, don't believe a space-faring civilization could eat people, don't think anything is worth using nukes for, or bringing back, in however limited a form, the SS. And politicians saying similar things, albeit most of them as Darhel mouthpieces.

Well, obviously anyone who disagrees with some of the decisions is an antihumanist traitor. Actual non-alien mouthpiece humans couldn't possibly hold dissenting opinions all on their own!

[Thanas]

Besides, you could just as well recreate the elite Wehrmacht formations instead of the SS.

[Thanas]

I had a flight yesterday, and took the opportunity to read the much despised Watch on the Rhine. I'm sure I'll never hear the end of this but I didn't think it was all that horrible. Bad yes, but not as horrible as some other books, it's more general baen bad.

Your taste needs reeducation.

[Connor MacLeod]

Wait, what?

I didn't read Watch On The Rhine, but I was under the impression the greenies betrayed humanity in exchange for passage off planet (guaranteed by the Darheel, so it would be still stupid, but hey...)

Them doing it to protect the environment when the Posleen will eat the ecosystem, replace it briefly with their own before nuking it all into oblivion...I don't know the right word that would accurately describe how dumb that is.

I havent read the novel in years, but Kratmans' handling of the green party was pretty much a grotesque and probably inaccurate cariacature. SB has a few reviews of his books including quotes, and the way he portrays US Liberals (contrasted with say "NOBLE TEXANS') and other groups he hates is pretty bad and hamfisted.

[Sea Skimmer]

And of course they name it the Tiger III because modern Germans are soooooo eager to reminescence their dark past

It really should have been Tiger IV anyway since the Nazis actually had two or three different Tiger III's designed on paper.

The superheavy tanks of Ringo's series mostly come from the fact that a 70-ton MBT platform cannot carry an Earth-tech weapon large enough to threaten Posleen spaceships. If you want a gun that big, it's gonna have to go on a platform in the hundreds or thousands of tons, or it won't be mobile.

With yields being cited at low as .1kt.. that doesn't make a lick of sense. We could get more firepower then that out of the vaunted 105mm Atomic Field Artillery Projectile... and fire it from an M48A5 if we wanted or heck, certain amphibious tanks. Compared to the nuke any firepower out of the actual cannon isn't very much at all.

Doing the latter would contradict one of your guiding principles by making people rely more on SF weaponry to do the job. Doing the former might work- but, again, it requires totally abolishing the enemy's attempt to use spaceborne weapons, or even airmobile tactics.

Or, assuming a direct fire Sprint is not allowed, you could just use a recoilless gun consisting of a giant tube and not much else. We already know that's possible on 70 tons because the Soviets actually built a 406mm recoilless rifle that could fit on something smaller, they also had a 305mm one they wanted to put on a WW2 destroyer (five of them no less) never mind that crazy 1950s self propelled 406mm nuclear gun on which admittedly had no armor for the gun crew. Producing such a recoilless weapon would take months, as opposed to about four years to build battleship caliber cannons again... and that assumes some already had the machinery and facilities setup to do it.

Even if 16 inch recoilless cannon tank needed a second tank to drive behind it and handle reloading this would still be absurdly more practical then a 250 ton tank, let alone the numbers being thrown around for Tiger III and up... which would basically just sink into dirt fields unless an army of bulldozers prepared the way ahead of them by scraping down to firmer soil. Small numbers of superheavy tanks with one giant gun also kind of have that pesky problem of what happens when a small caliber enemy projectile damages the gun barrel and makes the whole thing worthless.... Even the thickest gun barrel is not exactly overwhelmingly armored; though I suppose you could reinforce the barrel to support weight of additional armor to make it a little more respectable.

http://imageshack.us/f/242/735035ix.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/242/734976tr.jpg

Commie 305mm recoilless gun from 1930 for reference.

[Ahriman238]

Wait, what?

I didn't read Watch On The Rhine, but I was under the impression the greenies betrayed humanity in exchange for passage off planet (guaranteed by the Darheel, so it would be still stupid, but hey...)

Them doing it to protect the environment when the Posleen will eat the ecosystem, replace it briefly with their own before nuking it all into oblivion...I don't know the right word that would accurately describe how dumb that is.

Sort of. They wanted to betray and destroy the vast majority of humanity so the few enlightened (meaning, of course, them) could start over and do it right, with respect for the enviroment, in the unihabited Eden that would be left after the Posleen War.

I did say it was batshit insane.

The motivation part would be taken care of by the fact the Posleen eat their fucking prisoners, so realistically most recruits would be quite comitted enough. And you'd need to redo their training for modern hardware anyways. Combat experience won during WWII would be next to worthless against an enemy from outer space.

Well, some people wet themselves and head for the hills, and just about everyone's combat experience is insuffcient for fighting the Posleen. I won't say completly useless though. Both in Watch and the main books desertion is met with the typical draconian measures, except now they're mostly taken in the field.

At one point, a group of Tigers has to herd fleeing infantry at the Posleen.

Well, obviously anyone who disagrees with some of the decisions is an antihumanist traitor. Actual non-alien mouthpiece humans couldn't possibly hold dissenting opinions all on their own!

There are some, and they are generally treated as idiots or 'sheltered.' About a quarter of Watch follows a frenchwoman who was passionatly in denial as she flees paris with her 2 sons for the safety of the restablished Maginot Line, and eventually into Germany and then into Scandanavia. Her eldest son even joins the SS, against her wishes.

This same woman is in the Hedren War book, only now the SS have established their own colony in the hinterlands of Germany, and she's their Chief Medical Officer.

Besides, you could just as well recreate the elite Wehrmacht formations instead of the SS.

From what I understand, they did rejuv surviving Wehrmacht as cadre, and were at the begining debating whether or not to extend the rejuv program to the SS. The other WWII vets are less influential, because they were scattered about, while all the surviving SS were in the 47th Panzergrenadier Korps.

Also, the Chancellor eventually uses the SS to throw a coup de main, arresting the treasonous Parliment members and dissolving that corrupt body. Hurrah for freedom and democracy! Oh wait, that's something else. What's it called again?

As a reward for helping him to overthrow the duly elected government, Herr Kanzler allows the SS to wear their old uniforms and insignia. That seems like a bad message to send right after declaring yourself dictator.

I will note, though, that Germany in this book did not institute a general draft until after the first non-scout landing. At least a year after the US. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, good or bad, it just struck me as anomalous.

[jollyreaper]

I agree that you could do it, jolly. But you'd have a... well, I think you'd have a less interesting and poorer setting, because there's no interaction, no idea that the human struggle fits into a broader galactic context. As it is, the Posleen Wars setting has a lot of potential that Ringo is unfortunately mediocre at mining.

I dunno. I liked the idea of the stories from the blurbs before I actually read them. I saw where he was going with the space elves and just stopped caring. I mean hell, if we're talking humans as badasses settings, I prefer Alan Dean Foster's Star Control rip-off, the Amplitur books. Some of the aliens could actually fight but they were nowhere near as good at it as hummies. And so we get recruited. Was great fun reading it as a kid. Doubtless it doesn't hold up now.

The whole bug idea on my part was just a mental exercise in thinking of the most transparent excuse for shamelessly kicking ass. For example, I think Shoot 'Em Up is probably one of the finest action movies ever made because it is completely insane and is aware of it. It's meant to be cheesy. Contrast that with the Transformers movies where I do believe Michael Bey can't even manage to pace the action so you get a few exploding robots and endless dick and fart and pissing/leg-humping robot jokes. And giant robot testicles. And jive-bots. Ugh.

The whole Posleen thing falls apart because Ringo is both trying to be DRAMA while also being CHEESE. Can't be done.

Just having a war against Terraformers From Space is possible (see "Von Neumann's War" for what happens when Ringo tackles it in a single novel; it may not be what you want to see). But I don't think it's the class of story Ringo wants to write, with the conflict in the novel boiling down to "humans versus faceless menace that sent the terraformers." There's no sense of an expanding role for the protagonists and their role in the larger interstellar environment; they're just the tribe that happens to be trying to stop bulldozers from intruding on their territory.

I see it more as an excuse for humorous smash and bash. It's only boring if the characters are boring. But it would all come down to the execution, obviously.

As to SheVa, I think you could make SheVa a weapon, in the sense of "can cause harm to the enemy," just not a very useful one. Mounting the gun itself is not impossible, what's impossible is making it mobile enough to be a tank, as opposed to a stationary artillery platform with the ability to trundle slowly between firing positions.

Yeah. The enemy would have to be quite obliging for that gun to menace them.

A less insane 'supertank' (like, yes, the one in Watch on the Rhine) is actually more plausible- we didn't build them in real life for reasons that wouldn't necessarily apply in a different context. One such supertank is very unlikely to be its match for its weight in MBTs, which is why we never built them historically, but then it's not being built to fight its weight in MBTs in the first place.

It's the hitting power. If size confers survivability, there's an incentive to get bigger. It worked that way in the age of sail. The bigger the ship, the more survivable. Little ship can't smash big ship. Worked that was in the early ironclad era and got all ruined with torps. Now shitbox boat can smash battleship. Oops.

Right now infantrymen can plink tanks. There was a thought that tanks might be rendered obsolete, too big and vulnerable. If systems like Trophy can work as advertised, anti-tank missiles could be nullified. If that happens, then even choppers and most aircraft can't kill a tank. You're back to needing something that can't be effectively shot down, sabot or A-10 30mm.

And if the defensive systems got good enough to reliably intercept 120mm sabots and stop them cold, tanks may well need a new primary armament or just a bigger, faster, more awesomer gun. And that might justify getting bigger again.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of giant land battleships. I wish we could build crap like the bosses from 1980's Japanese arcade games. It just doesn't work.

[Ahriman238]

I had a flight yesterday, and took the opportunity to read the much despised Watch on the Rhine. I'm sure I'll never hear the end of this but I didn't think it was all that horrible. Bad yes, but not as horrible as some other books, it's more general baen bad.

Your taste needs reeducation.

I am always happy to take literary recommendations, if you feel a need to cast pearls before swine and point me the way of the good stuff. But I'm a funny person like that, I liked the Honor Harrington and 1632 books as a whole, even if some part grated. You may want to PM them to, rather than clutter the thread.

With yields being cited at low as .1kt.. that doesn't make a lick of sense. We could get more firepower then that out of the vaunted 105mm Atomic Field Artillery Projectile... and fire it from an M48A5 if we wanted or heck, certain amphibious tanks. Compared to the nuke any firepower out of the actual cannon isn't very much at all.

I don't think it was so much a .1kt explosion that killed the ships, but a .1kt explosion occuring inside the heavily armored ships. Much discussion is had during the design phase of all the things they can't do and still have the shot penetrate.

Also, the Tiger rounds sometimes kill Posleen ships in one shot and sometimes don't. You can say that about a lot of weapons, though.

I havent read the novel in years, but Kratmans' handling of the green party was pretty much a grotesque and probably inaccurate cariacature. SB has a few reviews of his books including quotes, and the way he portrays US Liberals (contrasted with say "NOBLE TEXANS') and other groups he hates is pretty bad and hamfisted.

I completly agree about the books' skewed politics, though as I said I'm unsure how much influence the Greens have in German politics, I doubt it's the 'Illuminati conspiracy' levels of control here.

These reviews sound interesting. Could I trouble you, good friend, for a link?

[MKSheppard]

And of course they name it the Tiger III because modern Germans are soooooo eager to reminescence their dark past

I dunno, it does keep in mind with German armor naming schemes of using 'big cats' for armor:

Tiger → Panther → Leopard

They've reused Puma as a name for their new IFV after using it in WWII for a heavy wheeled armored car; so recycling Nazi names is not too egregrious.

Also, naming it Tiger III could also be a conscious nod at redemption -- "this time we get to save the world!"

I mean, in a book where SS Mann get rejuved enmasse; the name of a tank is not exactly high on my "eternal hate for" list.

[MKSheppard]

Honestly, I think this whole series would have gone easier if Ringo ha just ripped off the chtorr war.

Or just done it like the RDA should have done it in Avatar:

Alien Spacebattlesheps show up in LEO, brush aside the few ships the Galactics can give us, vaporize the ISS; before turning their HYPERSPACESPECTRAL MAIN DRIVES onto earth in a FIERY TORCH OF BURNINATION.

...or launch so many nuclear cluster bombs that each square mile of inhabited land gets hit by a 1 kt alien nuke.

THEN you send in the mindless ravening alien hordes. Suddenly, humanity teetering on the brink of exinction suddenly makes sense, as does the Sub-Urbs, etc....

[PeZook]

I dunno, it does keep in mind with German armor naming schemes of using 'big cats' for armor:

Tiger → Panther → Leopard

They've reused Puma as a name for their new IFV after using it in WWII for a heavy wheeled armored car; so recycling Nazi names is not too egregrious.

Thing is, the Tiger is pretty much a symbol of the WWII Panzerwaffe. Nobody has ever heard of some stupid armored car named Puma

Also, naming it Tiger III could also be a conscious nod at redemption -- "this time we get to save the world!"

Yeah, well, once you accept they actually agreed to rejuv ssmen, then the name really isn't that bad, this much is true.

[Thanas]

At one point, a group of Tigers has to herd fleeing infantry at the Posleen.

Which is freaking insulting, considering the unit in question is actually one of the formations we Germans consider elite. Likewise, another elite German unit does not have the stones to blow up a bridge later on.

But yeah, the glorious SS has no problem doing either.

From what I understand, they did rejuv surviving Wehrmacht as cadre, and were at the begining debating whether or not to extend the rejuv program to the SS. The other WWII vets are less influential, because they were scattered about, while all the surviving SS were in the 47th Panzergrenadier Korps.

Ah yes, because suddenly the Germans are idiots.

As a reward for helping him to overthrow the duly elected government, Herr Kanzler allows the SS to wear their old uniforms and insignia. That seems like a bad message to send right after declaring yourself dictator.

Kratman is a loathsome and insane Nazi fetishist.

I will note, though, that Germany in this book did not institute a general draft until after the first non-scout landing. At least a year after the US. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, good or bad, it just struck me as anomalous.

It is also idiotic, seeing as we would be the European nation most likely to draft all able-bodied males as we had plenty of plans to do so in case the Soviet horde attacks. Also, all male citizens coming of age are registered and catalogued according to their usefulness in a wartime situation. It would be trivially easy to get enough men in the field, the only bottleneck would be finding arms for all of them.