SD+SB in Middle Earth

[Edi]

I would think that we would need to buy or trade for them anyway. We do have people that could start playing with making our own blades but it would be a project that would take a while to produce a sword that would be equal or better than the local ones.

If we have a decent machine workshop and a supply of steel, manufacturing blades won't be all that difficult. If you have a powerful enough press, all you need to have is a suitably shaped starting block of steel, squash it flat, fold, stamp it again, repeat, say 20 times, and you will have a ready, cold-forged Damascus-steel blade. A little experimentation on that should give the best length and shape of the initial block, and it wouldn't be that difficult.

I didn't just pull this out of my hat, one time when I was going home on the metro, this skinny-looking, garrulous guy sat down opposite me and started talking, he was a smith, had been for 45+ years and talked my ear off, and described having made knives like that, from discarded pieces of steel. Usually people like that annoy me, but he talked on an interesting topic, knew a shitload of stuff and was funny to boot. His musculature, what I could see of it, also backed up his claim of being a smith, I mean he was a whiplash type build, but you could see the way the tendons and muscles and everything on his hands were that he'd probably have been able to break your neck very easily.

There's been a lot of talk on metal armor and all that, well, imo hard boiled leather is better. It's tough, light, allows for pretty flexible movement and doesn't slow you down. It's easier to maufacture than metal armor too. A friend of mine has a suit made by another friend's father, and it'd take a seriously strong thrust with a knife or a sword to go through it, they tested it with a knife. Bent the knife blade and just nicked the armor.

As for metal armor in general and plate in particular, it's not justthe Swiss pike that made it obsolete, the longbow did, there was a reason why the French lost at Crecy and Agincourt. Read up on your history, people.

Edi

[Keevan_Colton]

I would think that we would need to buy or trade for them anyway. We do have people that could start playing with making our own blades but it would be a project that would take a while to produce a sword that would be equal or better than the local ones.

If we have a decent machine workshop and a supply of steel, manufacturing blades won't be all that difficult. If you have a powerful enough press, all you need to have is a suitably shaped starting block of steel, squash it flat, fold, stamp it again, repeat, say 20 times, and you will have a ready, cold-forged Damascus-steel blade. A little experimentation on that should give the best length and shape of the initial block, and it wouldn't be that difficult.

I didn't just pull this out of my hat, one time when I was going home on the metro, this skinny-looking, garrulous guy sat down opposite me and started talking, he was a smith, had been for 45+ years and talked my ear off, and described having made knives like that, from discarded pieces of steel. Usually people like that annoy me, but he talked on an interesting topic, knew a shitload of stuff and was funny to boot. His musculature, what I could see of it, also backed up his claim of being a smith, I mean he was a whiplash type build, but you could see the way the tendons and muscles and everything on his hands were that he'd probably have been able to break your neck very easily.

There's been a lot of talk on metal armor and all that, well, imo hard boiled leather is better. It's tough, light, allows for pretty flexible movement and doesn't slow you down. It's easier to maufacture than metal armor too. A friend of mine has a suit made by another friend's father, and it'd take a seriously strong thrust with a knife or a sword to go through it, they tested it with a knife. Bent the knife blade and just nicked the armor.

As for metal armor in general and plate in particular, it's not justthe Swiss pike that made it obsolete, the longbow did, there was a reason why the French lost at Crecy and Agincourt. Read up on your history, people.

Edi

the very best damascus blades for combat use are pattern welded steel....where you take as many small strands as possibly and weave them together, then fold and hammer it together....this produces a "self sharpening" blade...as the blade is damaged in combat the threads hammered into it fray at the edge, causing a nasty serrated style edge....

The most beautiful blades use slightly different shades in the threads to produce designs that pass through the entire blade.

As for the armour, I still advocate a modern take on brigandine using high impact plastics and spectra or kevlar threads. It wouldnt likely stop bodkin arrows but it'll give you very good protection from swords without too much weight.

[Perinquus]

As for metal armor in general and plate in particular, it's not justthe Swiss pike that made it obsolete, the longbow did, there was a reason why the French lost at Crecy and Agincourt. Read up on your history, people.

Edi

Problem with the longbow is that there were never really all that many longbowmen. It took literally a lifetime of training, as well as tremendous upper body strength to use one of those things. As time went by, it became harder and harder to find quilified archers. By Henry VIII's day, this was actually becoming a concern. They passed laws forbidding the playing of football and other games on Sundays, in order to make people practice archery. Didn't work.

The musket, on the other hand, was a weapon you could teach just about anybody how to use in a matter of weeks, so while the musket was not as effective as the longbow, you could field a far, far larger army of musketeers than you ever could of longbowmen.

And speaking of muskets... You guys are wasting time with all this talk of swords, and how to get the best ones. Once this force shows up with firearms, and knowledge of how to make them, the sword will begin its inevitable slide into obsolescence. You only have so much training time in which to train your men, and there are frankly a lot more useful ways to spend it than to train and equip men with a weapon that is on its way out. There are lots and lots of other skills they can better use the time training up on, like land navigation, how to direct artillery fire, first aid, camouflage, radio procedures, grenades, how to deploy and clear mines, rifle and pistol marksmanship, physical fitness training and lots, lots more.

You also can only load the grunts down with so much gear, and a sword and scabbard could be better replaced with a pistol, or a hundred more rounds of rifle ammo. At the same time, get to work on making steam engines and machine tools, and turning out muzzle loaders, or better still, making a simple, easily manufactured breech loader, like the Remington rolling block for example (though this also means you have to learn how to draw brass and form it into cartridge cases). Then start to recruit and train locals.

If anyone really needs swordsmanship skills, it would only be your advanced scouts, who may have to operate away from the main body of your forces, and their job will be to avoid combat anyway. The few swords you might need for them, you'd be better off obtaining locally.

[Cpt_Frank]

And speaking of muskets... You guys are wasting time with all this talk of swords, and how to get the best ones. Once this force shows up with firearms, and knowledge of how to make them, the sword will begin its inevitable slide into obsolescence.

I absolutely concur. If we equip our militias with caplock muskets and bayonets which we'd easily be able to manufacture in reasonable numbers we'd be unstoppable.
We could teach the local smiths how to make them and how to produce blackpowder, however they'd receive the percussion caps from us which would make them dependant on us.
Building up a force of 1000 musketeer within a year won't be a problem.

[Vympel]

On the muskets issue- so who here knows how to build a musket? Really.

[Knife]

As for metal armor in general and plate in particular, it's not justthe Swiss pike that made it obsolete, the longbow did, there was a reason why the French lost at Crecy and Agincourt. Read up on your history, people.

Edi

Problem with the longbow is that there were never really all that many longbowmen. It took literally a lifetime of training, as well as tremendous upper body strength to use one of those things. As time went by, it became harder and harder to find quilified archers. By Henry VIII's day, this was actually becoming a concern. They passed laws forbidding the playing of football and other games on Sundays, in order to make people practice archery. Didn't work.



.

Agreed, if it comes to it a crossbow or a musket would be better.

And speaking of muskets... You guys are wasting time with all this talk of swords, and how to get the best ones. Once this force shows up with firearms, and knowledge of how to make them, the sword will begin its inevitable slide into obsolescence. You only have so much training time in which to train your men, and there are frankly a lot more useful ways to spend it than to train and equip men with a weapon that is on its way out. There are lots and lots of other skills they can better use the time training up on, like land navigation, how to direct artillery fire, first aid, camouflage, radio procedures, grenades, how to deploy and clear mines, rifle and pistol marksmanship, physical fitness training and lots, lots more

Again, agree. But the whole idea of the sword is to take the place of say a bayonet or combat knife and give the scouts/whoever a little more reach in CQB. If shit goes bad, I don't want to have to deflect a sword using my knife, I'd rather deflect the sword with my sword. At any decent range of more then five meters, I'll just shoot the fucker.

[Keevan_Colton]

I think its best summed up in the notion of....

If the shit hits the fan big style while scouting and you end up in a close engagement....do you want a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other....or a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.....?


Also for anyone intrested I am starting on a fic based on this....I'd like to know who wants to be in it....

[David]

Hmmmm I'm going to be lazy and not read the last 40 someodd pages ok?




All we would need is one low yield thermonuclear explosive, preferably strapped to MK's back. Then tell him Sauramon (sp?) is going to take hius guns. Sit back and enjoy.

[Keevan_Colton]

Hmmmm I'm going to be lazy and not read the last 40 someodd pages ok?




All we would need is one low yield thermonuclear explosive, preferably strapped to MK's back. Then tell him Sauramon (sp?) is going to take hius guns. Sit back and enjoy.

Hmm....that works....we're allowed a backpack each....bring a suitcase nuke.....
Get out sunglasses and cocktails.....

[Ren]

You people seem to think that we should go this alone, be stealthy so no one knows we are there, not even those that would be our allies. That you can take Mordor by yourselves without a strach on you.

We don't need to assault Mordor at all if we can destroy the Ring by ourselves. This is why we must take it, and we can't bullshit around with asking them, because they won't give it to us.

Are the methods that we are suggesting so horribly complex that the can only be carried out at our base? Things like melting the ring with a blowtorch can be carried out by anyone, anywhere you don't have to be holding the Ring your grubby little paws to try to destroy it that way.

Of course they won't give it to you, but that doesn't mean that they won't see if your methods can destroy it, or leave it in a vulnerable place. Your objects can be completed by talking to Gandalf with a very high probablity of success, why risk it all on some raid?

This is probably not the case, without allies we would quickly become lost trying to get anywhere or starve to death trying to farm our own food.

Oh come on, farming won't be that difficult. The locals do it, and we have among us several who are knowledgeable of farming techniques which are much more advanced than those of the locals.

And these people by themselves will do all the farming work for everyone else? Farming seems to takes alot of time and effort, especially since you probably won't know what you will be growing before you get there or the conditions of the ground around the base. Farming just eats up resources and time, why not just ally yourselves with the powers that already exist in middle earth instead of trying to become your own power.

Face it we need allies and the way to make allies is to help them out, show them that you are reasonable and on their side, and work with them, not robbing them and then trying to force them to help us later.

Of course allies would be nice, and we're not going about this with the intention of alienating ourselves on purpose. But the fact remains that securing the Ring is more important than the political consequences of securing the Ring. It's called compromise.

Yes you are, the only reason to conduct the raid is so you can have the Ring, and those that desire the Ring are not to be trusted. You can accomplish your objectives of attempting to destroy the ring or keeping it safe without the raid and so the benifits of the Raid are moot, you are performing an action soley to risk alienating our allies.

Additionaly, Gandalf is in many ways more importantant than the Ring, he can provide us with supplies, guides, and many additional allies. Have a plan that you think will work, but requires the Riders of Rohan, talk to him, if it is a reasonable plan, he can get them for you.

We won't be devoid of diplomatic skills without him.

The basis for your plan is that you can't even convince someone who has all the reason in the world to help you to do so, I would call that lack of diplomacy skills.

So what if he wants to keep the Ring in Rivendell if it turns out we can't destroy it, it's going to be just as safe as in our base, if we want to move it and he refuses he probably has a good reason.

First of all, no, Rivendell is not as safe as our base (unless Rivendell has machine gun turrets that I'm unaware of). Second of all, why should we take Gandalf's word that his reasons are good?

We don't have to take his word that the reasons are good he probably has evidence to back them up, that's usually how such things are supported. As for the security of Rivendell, it does not matter if they can't stop us from taking the Ring but Sauron and Sarumen, and seeing as how they figured they could do it for a long time. Rivendell is probably safe enough. Remeber if Sauron is assulting Rivendell then Gondor and Rohan have been crushed even with your aid (if you give them any) and since you want your base in that region it has also been destroyed or seiged, in either case it is only a matter of time before Sauron has the Ring.

Remember Gandalfs mission is to destroy Sauron and the Ring, not screw us, if we can convince him that our intentions are good he can help secure a swift and low causulty victory.

How is the solution we're presenting not swift and low casualty? And how could Gandalf provide that one? The swiftest and lowest casualty victory lies through taking the Ring from Bag End, transporting it to our base, and destroying it or protecting it there. I remind you that the game is over once we destroy the Ring, and there aren't any good reasons why thermite won't work.

If thermite will work it will work equally well in both the Shire and the base and the commando raid is not needed, if it will not work it can just as easly be defended by others as by ourselves and then the commando raid is not needed, the only purpose the raid serves is the possible alienation with your allys.

If we try to screw him over and he catches wind of it he can make it a long and costly fight. He probably has tons of good advice, this is his world, after all. If you think you have a good plan you can run it by him and he can point out problems that you would never have known about until it was to late, so what if we are not calling all the shots, or mission is not to boost our ego's but to help destroy the ring.

Nobody is saying that Gandalf wouldn't be a valuable ally. But if he's going to stand in the way of us taking the Ring and destroying it, then so be it.
Also, remember that among our number are quite a few Tolkienphiles, so we're not devoid of knowledge of Middle Earth.

Why do you want to take the ring so bad? The two things you can do with it are try to destroy it, which you can try anywhere or even instruct others on how to do it, or guard it, which others can also do with equal chance of success.

As for the tolkienphiles they may know the genral lay of the land and the history of some of the regions, but there is a huge amount of stuff that are not in the books such as the way through some of the regions, those big white spaces on the map aren't just flat planes you know, they are wildreness filled with valleys and hills and grasslands. Knowing the way around them can be invaluble.

[Cpt_Frank]

I think its best summed up in the notion of....

If the shit hits the fan big style while scouting and you end up in a close engagement....do you want a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other....or a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.....?


Also for anyone intrested I am starting on a fic based on this....I'd like to know who wants to be in it....

Though I don't think in the end our swordsmanship will be decisive.
Better is we plan our actions thoroughly so that there won't be any need for us to use meele weapons.

[Keevan_Colton]

I think its best summed up in the notion of....

If the shit hits the fan big style while scouting and you end up in a close engagement....do you want a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other....or a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.....?


Also for anyone intrested I am starting on a fic based on this....I'd like to know who wants to be in it....

Though I don't think in the end our swordsmanship will be decisive.
Better is we plan our actions thoroughly so that there won't be any need for us to use meele weapons.

You are right its best for us to avoid melee combat.
Though using swords has its place....incoming sword stroke from an orc...parry and....riposte *bang*....parry with the sword and riposte with your off hand weapon....the pistol....

[Cpt_Frank]

You are right its best for us to avoid melee combat.
Though using swords has its place....incoming sword stroke from an orc...parry and....riposte *bang*....parry with the sword and riposte with your off hand weapon....the pistol....

The bayonet will do for the average soldier. We should only teach those how to use the sword who want it, for the others it would probably be a waste of time.

[Knife]

You are right its best for us to avoid melee combat.
Though using swords has its place....incoming sword stroke from an orc...parry and....riposte *bang*....parry with the sword and riposte with your off hand weapon....the pistol....

The bayonet will do for the average soldier. We should only teach those how to use the sword who want it, for the others it would probably be a waste of time.

Teaching basic moves with a bayonet and teaching basic moves with a sword are about the same thing. You teach those in need of those skills some basic moves, if need be, you can add on to those skills as you go.

[Cpt_Frank]

Teaching basic moves with a bayonet and teaching basic moves with a sword are about the same thing. You teach those in need of those skills some basic moves, if need be, you can add on to those skills as you go.

What I wanted to say is that these things should be low-priority.
Once we arrive there most members need basic military training and that'll take several weeks. After that, we can move out and search for allies, start building muskets, learn how to use the sword or whatever.

[Knife]

You people seem to think that we should go this alone, be stealthy so no one knows we are there, not even those that would be our allies. That you can take Mordor by yourselves without a strach on you.

We don't need to assault Mordor at all if we can destroy the Ring by ourselves. This is why we must take it, and we can't bullshit around with asking them, because they won't give it to us.

Are the methods that we are suggesting so horribly complex that the can only be carried out at our base? Things like melting the ring with a blowtorch can be carried out by anyone, anywhere you don't have to be holding the Ring your grubby little paws to try to destroy it that way.

Of course they won't give it to you, but that doesn't mean that they won't see if your methods can destroy it, or leave it in a vulnerable place. Your objects can be completed by talking to Gandalf with a very high probablity of success, why risk it all on some raid?

This is probably not the case, without allies we would quickly become lost trying to get anywhere or starve to death trying to farm our own food.

Oh come on, farming won't be that difficult. The locals do it, and we have among us several who are knowledgeable of farming techniques which are much more advanced than those of the locals.

And these people by themselves will do all the farming work for everyone else? Farming seems to takes alot of time and effort, especially since you probably won't know what you will be growing before you get there or the conditions of the ground around the base. Farming just eats up resources and time, why not just ally yourselves with the powers that already exist in middle earth instead of trying to become your own power.

Face it we need allies and the way to make allies is to help them out, show them that you are reasonable and on their side, and work with them, not robbing them and then trying to force them to help us later.

Of course allies would be nice, and we're not going about this with the intention of alienating ourselves on purpose. But the fact remains that securing the Ring is more important than the political consequences of securing the Ring. It's called compromise.

Yes you are, the only reason to conduct the raid is so you can have the Ring, and those that desire the Ring are not to be trusted. You can accomplish your objectives of attempting to destroy the ring or keeping it safe without the raid and so the benifits of the Raid are moot, you are performing an action soley to risk alienating our allies.

Additionaly, Gandalf is in many ways more importantant than the Ring, he can provide us with supplies, guides, and many additional allies. Have a plan that you think will work, but requires the Riders of Rohan, talk to him, if it is a reasonable plan, he can get them for you.

We won't be devoid of diplomatic skills without him.

The basis for your plan is that you can't even convince someone who has all the reason in the world to help you to do so, I would call that lack of diplomacy skills.

So what if he wants to keep the Ring in Rivendell if it turns out we can't destroy it, it's going to be just as safe as in our base, if we want to move it and he refuses he probably has a good reason.

First of all, no, Rivendell is not as safe as our base (unless Rivendell has machine gun turrets that I'm unaware of). Second of all, why should we take Gandalf's word that his reasons are good?

We don't have to take his word that the reasons are good he probably has evidence to back them up, that's usually how such things are supported. As for the security of Rivendell, it does not matter if they can't stop us from taking the Ring but Sauron and Sarumen, and seeing as how they figured they could do it for a long time. Rivendell is probably safe enough. Remeber if Sauron is assulting Rivendell then Gondor and Rohan have been crushed even with your aid (if you give them any) and since you want your base in that region it has also been destroyed or seiged, in either case it is only a matter of time before Sauron has the Ring.

Remember Gandalfs mission is to destroy Sauron and the Ring, not screw us, if we can convince him that our intentions are good he can help secure a swift and low causulty victory.

How is the solution we're presenting not swift and low casualty? And how could Gandalf provide that one? The swiftest and lowest casualty victory lies through taking the Ring from Bag End, transporting it to our base, and destroying it or protecting it there. I remind you that the game is over once we destroy the Ring, and there aren't any good reasons why thermite won't work.

If thermite will work it will work equally well in both the Shire and the base and the commando raid is not needed, if it will not work it can just as easly be defended by others as by ourselves and then the commando raid is not needed, the only purpose the raid serves is the possible alienation with your allys.

If we try to screw him over and he catches wind of it he can make it a long and costly fight. He probably has tons of good advice, this is his world, after all. If you think you have a good plan you can run it by him and he can point out problems that you would never have known about until it was to late, so what if we are not calling all the shots, or mission is not to boost our ego's but to help destroy the ring.

Nobody is saying that Gandalf wouldn't be a valuable ally. But if he's going to stand in the way of us taking the Ring and destroying it, then so be it.
Also, remember that among our number are quite a few Tolkienphiles, so we're not devoid of knowledge of Middle Earth.

Why do you want to take the ring so bad? The two things you can do with it are try to destroy it, which you can try anywhere or even instruct others on how to do it, or guard it, which others can also do with equal chance of success.

As for the tolkienphiles they may know the genral lay of the land and the history of some of the regions, but there is a huge amount of stuff that are not in the books such as the way through some of the regions, those big white spaces on the map aren't just flat planes you know, they are wildreness filled with valleys and hills and grasslands. Knowing the way around them can be invaluble.

Ren does have a small point in there, even if doesn't know it. We could take a termite gernade with us and do a raid with the mission being to see if we can destroy the Ring on site. If this fails, we can still remove the Ring to our base.

Ren, you seem obsessed with inserting you and us into the current sequence of events in ME. If you do that, then it automaticly changes the sequence of events and we can no longer predict what will happen. In that case, I would prefer to have the Ring since it is our mission to destroy the thing. If we try to become part of the Fellowship, we can not predict the results and we stand a chance of lossing everything and we still won't have the Ring. If we take charge and take the Ring, we can destroy it and there won't be a war to get involved in.

On the flip side, if we can't destroy the Ring we can then start to make the alliances that you seem to want anyway. Nobody knows we have the thing so they won't be anymore mistrustful of us than normal. If we must revel that we have the Ring, then the advantage is still with us because we actualy have the damn thing. We must control the situation not manipulate events as best as we can and hope for the best.

[Ren]

You people seem to think that we should go this alone, be stealthy so no one knows we are there, not even those that would be our allies. That you can take Mordor by yourselves without a strach on you. This is probably not the case, without allies we would quickly become lost trying to get anywhere or starve to death trying to farm our own food. Face it we need allies and the way to make allies is to help them out, show them that you are reasonable and on their side, and work with them, not robbing them and then trying to force them to help us later.

Additionaly, Gandalf is in many ways more importantant than the Ring, he can provide us with supplies, guides, and many additional allies. Have a plan that you think will work, but requires the Riders of Rohan, talk to him, if it is a reasonable plan, he can get them for you. So what if he wants to keep the Ring in Rivendell if it turns out we can't destroy it, it's going to be just as safe as in our base, if we want to move it and he refuses he probably has a good reason. Remember Gandalfs mission is to destroy Sauron and the Ring, not screw us, if we can convince him that our intentions are good he can help secure a swift and low causulty victory. If we try to screw him over and he catches wind of it he can make it a long and costly fight. He probably has tons of good advice, this is his world, after all. If you think you have a good plan you can run it by him and he can point out problems that you would never have known about until it was to late, so what if we are not calling all the shots, or mission is not to boost our ego's but to help destroy the ring.

Three words moron.

Armour piercing rounds.

What types of armour to Mordor use? Heavy plate mail. Oh dear. watch as armies of Mordor are filletted right as they step out the door, where's your large army to threaten the gang then?

Also, if they have the ring then why do they need allies?..automatic weapons fire is pretty damn protective and isn't running in short supply, somehow I doubt the BOP is going to get threatened, much less assaulted due to noone knowing where it is and noone being able tp approach.

You spend what time's left going out and getting pissed while the sci guys dissolve the damn thing.

If you are going to destroy the ring with science then you can do so in the Shire without conducting the commando raid, and if it turns out you can't in your scenerio you are screwed, unless you happen to have more bullets than all the orcs and trolls and other assorted beast in Mordor and the East and the South and you manage to kill one orc per bullet, and they never get the drop on you, remember the black gate and how the area it's in is riddled with hundreds of caves, get to close and pow instant melee, and if you don't get close you don't get into Mordor. And even if you do manage to take them all out that's that many bullets lost and men lost, and you still need to take out the force defending the gate directly. You may be able to do it but you are talking potentially heavy casulaties here.

As for the base assuming it is invincible is just plain stupid, if all else fails they can simple seige you and starve you out.

[Knife]

Teaching basic moves with a bayonet and teaching basic moves with a sword are about the same thing. You teach those in need of those skills some basic moves, if need be, you can add on to those skills as you go.

What I wanted to say is that these things should be low-priority.
Once we arrive there most members need basic military training and that'll take several weeks. After that, we can move out and search for allies, start building muskets, learn how to use the sword or whatever.

Basic military training that involves defending yourself in CQB against enemies that utilize bladed weapons. Some traing has to be given to defend against that threat since it is real.

I am not talking about making everyone a swordmaster, rather teach everyone a few basic defensive moves and a few offensive moves and drill them in it so if they ever get in the situation, they have some sort of chance.

[Keevan_Colton]

You people seem to think that we should go this alone, be stealthy so no one knows we are there, not even those that would be our allies. That you can take Mordor by yourselves without a strach on you. This is probably not the case, without allies we would quickly become lost trying to get anywhere or starve to death trying to farm our own food. Face it we need allies and the way to make allies is to help them out, show them that you are reasonable and on their side, and work with them, not robbing them and then trying to force them to help us later.

Additionaly, Gandalf is in many ways more importantant than the Ring, he can provide us with supplies, guides, and many additional allies. Have a plan that you think will work, but requires the Riders of Rohan, talk to him, if it is a reasonable plan, he can get them for you. So what if he wants to keep the Ring in Rivendell if it turns out we can't destroy it, it's going to be just as safe as in our base, if we want to move it and he refuses he probably has a good reason. Remember Gandalfs mission is to destroy Sauron and the Ring, not screw us, if we can convince him that our intentions are good he can help secure a swift and low causulty victory. If we try to screw him over and he catches wind of it he can make it a long and costly fight. He probably has tons of good advice, this is his world, after all. If you think you have a good plan you can run it by him and he can point out problems that you would never have known about until it was to late, so what if we are not calling all the shots, or mission is not to boost our ego's but to help destroy the ring.

Three words moron.

Armour piercing rounds.

What types of armour to Mordor use? Heavy plate mail. Oh dear. watch as armies of Mordor are filletted right as they step out the door, where's your large army to threaten the gang then?

Also, if they have the ring then why do they need allies?..automatic weapons fire is pretty damn protective and isn't running in short supply, somehow I doubt the BOP is going to get threatened, much less assaulted due to noone knowing where it is and noone being able tp approach.

You spend what time's left going out and getting pissed while the sci guys dissolve the damn thing.

If you are going to destroy the ring with science then you can do so in the Shire without conducting the commando raid, and if it turns out you can't in your scenerio you are screwed, unless you happen to have more bullets than all the orcs and trolls and other assorted beast in Mordor and the East and the South and you manage to kill one orc per bullet, and they never get the drop on you, remember the black gate and how the area it's in is riddled with hundreds of caves, get to close and pow instant melee, and if you don't get close you don't get into Mordor. And even if you do manage to take them all out that's that many bullets lost and men lost, and you still need to take out the force defending the gate directly. You may be able to do it but you are talking potentially heavy casulaties here.

As for the base assuming it is invincible is just plain stupid, if all else fails they can simple seige you and starve you out.

The notion of seiging the base is ridiculous....with the range of the weapons to defend the base you need to create your perimeter miles out....meaning unless you commit many thousands to it you wont be able to create a strong perimeter....we would be able to sweep through quickly with hummers and break up the besieging force.....

50 cal has a lot more range than a bow....

[SylasGaunt]

Well I don't bring too much.. I'm a fairly decent shot, I know how to make Phosgene, and I THINK I can remember how to do homemade napalm.

[Knife]

You people seem to think that we should go this alone, be stealthy so no one knows we are there, not even those that would be our allies. That you can take Mordor by yourselves without a strach on you. This is probably not the case, without allies we would quickly become lost trying to get anywhere or starve to death trying to farm our own food. Face it we need allies and the way to make allies is to help them out, show them that you are reasonable and on their side, and work with them, not robbing them and then trying to force them to help us later.

Additionaly, Gandalf is in many ways more importantant than the Ring, he can provide us with supplies, guides, and many additional allies. Have a plan that you think will work, but requires the Riders of Rohan, talk to him, if it is a reasonable plan, he can get them for you. So what if he wants to keep the Ring in Rivendell if it turns out we can't destroy it, it's going to be just as safe as in our base, if we want to move it and he refuses he probably has a good reason. Remember Gandalfs mission is to destroy Sauron and the Ring, not screw us, if we can convince him that our intentions are good he can help secure a swift and low causulty victory. If we try to screw him over and he catches wind of it he can make it a long and costly fight. He probably has tons of good advice, this is his world, after all. If you think you have a good plan you can run it by him and he can point out problems that you would never have known about until it was to late, so what if we are not calling all the shots, or mission is not to boost our ego's but to help destroy the ring.

Three words moron.

Armour piercing rounds.

What types of armour to Mordor use? Heavy plate mail. Oh dear. watch as armies of Mordor are filletted right as they step out the door, where's your large army to threaten the gang then?

Also, if they have the ring then why do they need allies?..automatic weapons fire is pretty damn protective and isn't running in short supply, somehow I doubt the BOP is going to get threatened, much less assaulted due to noone knowing where it is and noone being able tp approach.

You spend what time's left going out and getting pissed while the sci guys dissolve the damn thing.

If you are going to destroy the ring with science then you can do so in the Shire without conducting the commando raid, and if it turns out you can't in your scenerio you are screwed, unless you happen to have more bullets than all the orcs and trolls and other assorted beast in Mordor and the East and the South and you manage to kill one orc per bullet, and they never get the drop on you, remember the black gate and how the area it's in is riddled with hundreds of caves, get to close and pow instant melee, and if you don't get close you don't get into Mordor. And even if you do manage to take them all out that's that many bullets lost and men lost, and you still need to take out the force defending the gate directly. You may be able to do it but you are talking potentially heavy casulaties here.

As for the base assuming it is invincible is just plain stupid, if all else fails they can simple seige you and starve you out.

We are not srewed. You assume that even if we fail to destroy the ring or if we are discovered in the act of stealing the Ring, ALL IS LOST. It is not, they will have no idea who we are or where we are from let alone our capabilities. You are prescribing cognitive and precognitive abilities to the people of ME that they do not have and you are not realizing that a point destruction raid and/or snatch and grab raid is well with in our ability.

And a seige against a force with modern ranged weapons we not be a very long seige. With a proper defensive plan utilizing a denfense in depth and all sort of nice surprises with improvised munitions. I don't necessarily want our base discovered by the enemy but if they come, they really don't stand much of a chance.

[Faram]

About defence:

Mines and barbed wire is the ultimate area denial weapons.

With the chemical labs it would be a easy thing to make some mines in quantity.

Even the dumb orc’s and uruk-hai are going to notice that when they arrive at some barbed wire with the sign mines on it is a really bad idea to try and walk through that area.

It might take a minefield or three but eventually they are going to get the idea that mines are a really bad idea to mess with.

If we put up a couple of minefields as defence and leave one or two corridors to pass through any area we chose to defend will be much easier.

About the manufacture of mines:

Once we have some sort of production of nitro-glycerine it is a relative easy thing to mix it and get dynamite.

All we need to add is some sort of precursor and we have a simple pressure mine that easily blows of a leg.

The problem would be to make them in quantity.

Barbed wire is really easy and is also an excellent area denial weapon; no one is going to walk through a fence of barbed wire.

[Typhonis 1]

What will happen IF Sauron learns we have the ring? Hoew large an orc army could he send against us? And by the way Sauron has a few Thousand orcs to spare he has the Goblins of Moria and the Misty Mountains to send against us.

[Perinquus]

I think its best summed up in the notion of....

If the shit hits the fan big style while scouting and you end up in a close engagement....do you want a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other....or a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.....?


Also for anyone intrested I am starting on a fic based on this....I'd like to know who wants to be in it....

For the grunts, the sword is still a waste of time. Let's say we're talking about our main force - our main, assault rifle wielding force - the firepower advantage we'd wield over sword-wielding infantry would be so huge it wouldn't even be funny. Swordsmen wouldn't even get close enough to take a swing 99% of the time. As for the 1%... well you can't have evertything, but the allocation of training time to sword practice and the extra weight of the sword are not worth trading off for the very rare instances when a sword would be useful. You just can't have everything.

And let's say we raise and equip a local force using rolling block breech loaders, or even percussion rifles. The British fought sword wielding Scots in their numerous border clashes. And the vast majority of the time, the redcoats, with smoothbore brown bess muskets, that couldn't hope to hit a man past 80 yards except by luck, beat the boots off the Scots with their claymores and shields. Even in close combat, the British infantry stood up quite well to the Scots. They had the tactic of keeping a tight formation, and each man in the line would thrust, not for the man in front of him, but for the man to his right, in front of his mate in the line next to him. This had the effect of striking a Scot on his unprotected right side, which the shield didn't cover. The long brown bess with an 18 inch bayonet on the end, also had more reach than the claymore (and this is the one-handed, basket-hilted broadsword, as opposed to the long, two-handed claymore proper).

Bear in mind, that was with short range, smoothbore muskets. The development of the Minie Ball in the 1850s permitted muskets to be rifled, and still maintain a faster rate of fire than the older, solid ball firing rifles. Now, instead of 80 yards range, a soldier could shoot accurately out to 500. This was the primary weapon of the American Civil War, and it made close quarters combat very rare. Attacking formations were decimated before they ever got close, a la Fredricksburg; ir if they did manage to reach your lines, as the Confederate troops did during Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, there were so few of them left by the time they got there, they lacked the strength to take and hold your positions. Bayonet wounds were exceedingly rare in during the Civil War, because the soldiers almost never got close enough to fight at close quarters anymore. The long range rifle had opened up ranges tremendously.

I'm telling you folks, as a former infantryman in the U.S. army, swords will simply not pay enough dividends to make the training time they demand, and extra weight penalty they carry a worthwhile trade off.

[Malecoda]

welding would be interesting without a power source or gas or spare parts