Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[Stuart Mackey]

What ever the case, just because its in a museum does not always mean it can just be back in service in a day or so, or that its in good condition. Indeed, time to service may be years, it may be easier to build a new one, people need to remember that.

Indeed.

BTW Stuart, I was wandering around and visiting a static air display - Specifically a number of WWII planes.

We built over 18,000 B24 bombers in two years during WWII. 12,000 B-17s. Tens of thousands of other planes. We're talking about planes with 4 or 5 turrets.

We should be able to build something like that, just updated in many respects without difficulty. snip

But what is the real utility of doing that when existing designs can do the job, more or less, and we do not have to recreate the tooling, already have the skilled people able to do the job and thus the ability to train more ? The skill base for those types of aircraft is very, very, limited and while recreation of those sorts of aircraft is possible, it would be an unnecessary diversion of resources away from what is doable and effective now.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

snip

Unfortunate. BB-60 survived Katrina with a minor list and just had 4 million in repair work done on her, so she and BB-55 will be the ones we'll add to our battleship force, then, most likely.

It may be doable, but it will require years to get them up to standard when you recall the era in which they became museums. The Iowa's must be the priority and the others may only have real utility as spares bins to keep the Iowa class operational, depending on condition and considering the industrial ability produce parts for them.

All you really need against Harpies are plenty of autocannons. In some way, a lot of WW2 technology is more useful.

[Stuart Mackey]

snip

Unfortunate. BB-60 survived Katrina with a minor list and just had 4 million in repair work done on her, so she and BB-55 will be the ones we'll add to our battleship force, then, most likely.

It may be doable, but it will require years to get them up to standard when you recall the era in which they became museums. The Iowa's must be the priority and the others may only have real utility as spares bins to keep the Iowa class operational, depending on condition and considering the industrial ability produce parts for them.

All you really need against Harpies are plenty of autocannons. In some way, a lot of WW2 technology is more useful.

I dont doubt it, but thats not the issue. The question is the ability to return them to a condition that they are mechanically sound enough to be actually used, assuming that seaworthiness of the hull is not an issue. The Iowa's shouldn't pose a problem, they have been required to be preserved in such a way that they can be returned to service and have not that long been out of service, or have been preserved with modern methods. The others could be a nightmare to a degree that they are not viable as sea going vessels (static AA batteries is another thing entirely).

[Sidewinder]

All you really need against Harpies are plenty of autocannons. In some way, a lot of WW2 technology is more useful.

That reminds me: can CIWS, e.g., the Phalanx mounted on US warships and the Goalkeeper mounted on Dutch warships, be manually aimed and fired? That may be necessary to give the ships flexibility against Baldrick tactics, e.g., having Leviathans launch a surface attack or having Harpies swim towards a warship before launching themselves into the air to surprise the seamen.

[Lonestar]

That reminds me: can CIWS, e.g., the Phalanx mounted on US warships and the Goalkeeper mounted on Dutch warships, be manually aimed and fired?

Yes.

[Shroom Man 777]

Christ. That thing in Uriel was fucking creepy. And, at least, I am glad that this isn't just Military Guns versus Roaring Demons and Dumb Satan. With that Uriel thing, this really gets me a... Vertigo/Gaimany vibe that really suits the whole deal. It's bloody fantastic! It's like a militarized Constantine story or something.

[Robo Jesus]

Emim: The long-necked ones. I honestly don't know what to make of that.

I think the Emim were "The fearful ones"(?), and it's the Anakim that are "the long necked ones", though I could be wrong about that.




An additional, and much bigger picture as well.


Essentially, the Anakim seem to be what the MP Evangelions in EOE were based off of when they were designed.

[Sea Skimmer]

I have no plans for Texas; it would be utterly impossible to restore her, and completely pointless. I was talking about BB-55, BB-59, and BB-60. USS North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Alabama respectively. They all have compatible main gun ammo, they have the speed to keep up with amphibious task groups and OHPs, and they have the raw deck space to be used for masses of anti-aircraft cannon.

Like I said in my first post on the issue, I’d favor bringing back all ships with big guns, even if only at floating battery status. If we can’t use some ships because of corrosion ect… it may still be possible to use the guns on land. It’s a sure thing that every nation that can will be reactivating old coastal batteries, forts and bunkers.

If the random Baldrick attacks grow in strength, say whole legions coming through, then we may start seeing the construction of fieldworks around, and subdividing, cities as well. But that’s and a if an when kind of thing really, and something that if necessary can be carried out by the volunteers.

What about fuel-air bombs?

They have serious reliability problems and they aren’t the most effective possible weapon for slaughtering infantry in the open. The filler of a shell is awful small for a fuel air bomb anyway, the proposed cluster bomblet shells would be more useful, and something like 23,000 rounds of 16in Armor Piercing and High Capacity explosive shells are already in the inventory.

[MKSheppard]

With that Uriel thing, this really gets me a... Vertigo/Gaimany vibe that really suits the whole deal. It's bloody fantastic! It's like a militarized Constantine story or something.

pfft. We'll give Uriel a nice heavy dose of BZ, so much that he forgets what he's doing, and cant remember how to do things; and is completely useless; and he'll start trying to eat rocks, and then suffer from heatstroke since he can't sweat.

The chemical warfare agent 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (QNB, BZ) is an anticholinergic agent that affects both the peripheral and central nervous systems (CNS). It is one of the most potent anticholinergic psychomimetics known, with only small doses necessary to produce incapacitation. It is classified as a hallucinogenic chemical warfare agent. QNB usually is disseminated as an aerosol, and the primary route of absorption is through the respiratory system. Absorption also can occur through the skin or gastrointestinal tract. It is odorless. QNB's pharmacologic activity is similar to other anticholinergic drugs (eg, atropine) but with a much longer duration of action.

The basic signs of acute exposure outlined in the Army factsheet are increased heart and respiratory rates, pupil dilation (involving contraction of the dilator muscles), paralysis of eye muscles used for near focusing, dryness of skin and mouth, elevated body temperature, impaired coordination, flushing of skin, hallucinations, stupor, forgetfulness, confusion. Within 15 minutes and up to 4 hours after exposure, the principal effects are dizziness, dry mouth, and elevated heart rate. These are followed by restlessness, involuntary muscle movements, rear vision difficulty, and total incapacitation. The final symptoms occur 6-10 hours later and are listed as "psychotropic in nature." Full recovery is expected after 4 days

Ketchum describes the first stage of BZ incapacitation, which lasts up to 4 hours, as characterized by feelings of discomfort and apprehension, manifested through extreme restlessness, muscle spasms in the extremities, and "bird-like flapping of the arms". The second stage lasting from 4 to 12 hours is marked by a sedated, stuporous inactivity. Individuals may sleep or appear to sleep and respond only to forceful stimulation, and alternatively may grope or crawl spontaneously after periods of lying still. The most extreme effects occur 12 hours after exposure: hallucinations take over individual perception and real events and objects are either ignored or grossly misinterpreted. Complex paranormal hallucinations continue 24 to 48 hours after exposure which can be merely amusing or intensely frightening. Attempts to converse with people not actually present can occur, and vertical objects can be misinterpreted for people. Ketchum concludes that there is "little difference how intelligent, adventurous, self-confident or competitive the individual might be; the agent apparently disables the strong and weak impartially without prejudice"

[Shroom Man 777]

What's BZ?

And why can't we just napalm the demons? Send them back to hell, figuratively.

Napalm. That's what's for dinner. In hell.

[MKSheppard]

See above, I edited my post. ANd here's a wiki on it

Link

BZ produces effects not just in individuals, but also in groups. Sharing of illusions and hallucinations (folie à deux, folie en famille, and "mass hysteria") is exemplified by two BZ-intoxicated individuals who would take turns smoking an imaginary cigarette clearly visible to both of them but to no one else.[2] [Clarification] When one observed subject mumbled, "Gotta cigarette?" His delirious companion held out an invisible pack, he followed with, "S'okay, don't wanna take your last one." In another test it was reported two victims of BZ played tennis with imaginary rackets.

[Shroom Man 777]

That is so awesome!

Man, that would be such a shitty way for Uriel to get captured. Like, him naked and urinating in public.

How...ignoble.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hallucinogenic drugs might be real useful not only for nabbing individuals, but also convincing whole pieces of a demon army to surrender. You’d need a whole shock and awe/propaganda operation to go with it to get the proper effect, basically terrifying demons into giving up, but this is what we pay the PSYOPS guys to plan. I’m sure anything is an option when it comes to getting live prisoners.

Say you find the small already shattered moral wise remnant of a legion and start playing with it. Fire artillery all around but not on them, drop propaganda leaflets (we had have a proud history of pictogram leaflets!), hit them with BZ gas, chase them around with choppers while they hallucinate, have a couple jets cracking sonic booms at 1,000ft, and then role up with a whole armored cavalry squadron and is if they aren’t so scared and disoriented as to forgot to put up a fight or just plan kneel down and await death.

Some kind of giant stun grenade might also be an option, and the actual capture might be accomplished using some kind of glue gun. The US military did actually develop a very effective glue gun (the glue was a sort of foam IIRC) for riot control, but ultimately decided the glue presented too much risk of suffocation. The glue worked so well you literally had to cut the person out of there cloths after hitting them.

[R011]

Like I said in my first post on the issue, I’d favor bringing back all ships with big guns, even if only at floating battery status.

That would be a very major effort and would probably not be possible for the remaining NC's and SoDaks. They had to strip parts from them to reactivate the Iowas twenty years ago. As has been noted, bringing the newest BB's back would take about two years. Recall too that in the eighties,, the main reason they brought back the Iowas was as nuclear capable Tomahawk Land Attack Missile carriers, not for the guns. That requirement faded away as once TLAM was modified to be used from VLS, any Tico, Spruance, or Burke could use them.

If you want a cheap bombardment capability quicker, then build arsenal ships: merchant-type hulls with lots of VLS cells filled with Tomahawk or navalized MLRS.

[Col. Crackpot]

Like I said in my first post on the issue, I’d favor bringing back all ships with big guns, even if only at floating battery status.

That would be a very major effort and would probably not be possible for the remaining NC's and SoDaks. They had to strip parts from them to reactivate the Iowas twenty years ago. As has been noted, bringing the newest BB's back would take about two years. Recall too that in the eighties,, the main reason they brought back the Iowas was as nuclear capable Tomahawk Land Attack Missile carriers, not for the guns. That requirement faded away as once TLAM was modified to be used from VLS, any Tico, Spruance, or Burke could use them.

If you want a cheap bombardment capability quicker, then build arsenal ships: merchant-type hulls with lots of VLS cells filled with Tomahawk or navalized MLRS.

I agree. If Massachusetts is any indication of the condition of the Museum BB fleet, then refitting the North Carolina's and South Dakota's is a far fetched fool's errand.

[Chris OFarrell]

There just isn't any reason to look at heavily investing in the Navy as yet, the Baldriks just haven't shown any enormous naval force, let alone the ABSURD amount of resources you would need to invest to rebuild anything but the Iowa's...and even the Iowas would take consderable effort, despite only having left the service a couple of decades ago and been maintained in an on again / off again fashion.

Add to that the fact that the Navy does NOT have the manpower to crew the things (and the costs in time, money and manpower of massive retrofits to rebuild them with technology to reduce their crew would be staggering in of itself) then frankly, its just a waste.

If you want to build some kind of 'flack' cruiser against the chance of mass Baldrik raids, then frankly I dare say its going to be cheaper and easier to build a modern ship with modern weapons and modern technology from the ground up, then to take even the Iowa class BB's, somehow make them fully combat and sea worthy again, utterly retrofit their technology, rip off its guns to install heavy AAA and all the systems to run them...

And using them as gun platforms is a little absurd. Unless your damn lucky enough to have a Baldrick army a few dozen miles from the coast of where a Baldrick army is massing, then the odds of them being able to affect ANY battle are slim to none, especially when humanity is in the fight of its life and there are FAR more valuable things to spend these industrial resources on.

By all means, expand Burke class production, pack the US CVN's with full fight complements any way you can, be it grabbing fighters from the boneyards or expediting Super Hornet production as fast as possible, but reviving Battleships?

While some of the Greater Demons, the Heralds, could swim in water, I very much doubt Hell has a large number of seaboarn demons to worry about....and based on how much the most powerful demon HATED active sonar, well, just have a convoys escorts go continual pinging on them if they show up again.

[dragon]

So I wonder whom is going to get the pleasure of hunting down Uriel?
Especially if the order is to capture him alive.

[gtg947h]

“London Military this is X-Ray Hotel 558, requesting permission to climb to flight level thirty and proceed on flight plan, over.”

The UK uses flight levels down at 3,000ft? Or is this a typo? 30,000ft would be FL300.

[Firethorn]

But what is the real utility of doing that when existing designs can do the job, more or less, and we do not have to recreate the tooling, already have the skilled people able to do the job and thus the ability to train more ?

I think that you might or might not be mistaking me. I'm not talking about resurrecting those ship classes, much less looking to put any back into service.

I'm talking about what's effectively a new class of plane. Just maybe a step back in capabilities. We still have people with experience designing internal combustion engines, both for cars and planes. Not needing the ability to go supersonic results in far less stress. Less stress means less reinforcing/structure and skin work. Less reinforcing/structure means we can build them faster and cheaper.

I say this because I'm somewhat doubtful that jet engine manufacturers can keep up with even a few auto factories transferring over to building planes. So we use the engine makers as well, they start producing engines for props.

We use our CAD and computer testing/simulations to design a bomber/gunship of a sort, with a number of turrets to enable it to shoot down attacking harpies from any direction.

The skill base for those types of aircraft is very, very, limited and while recreation of those sorts of aircraft is possible, it would be an unnecessary diversion of resources away from what is doable and effective now.

I'm not trying to take any resources away in recreating them. I'm saying 'We managed to, with a fraction of the population, build over 30k bombers alone in WWII'. Let's take that design philosphy and put it to work here.

Like I mentioned earlier, it's probably far easier to transition a manufacturing plant making engines over to making engines for propellors than making turbines for jets.

As to why I'd look into doing it? The development cost could be as low as that of building a single new F22. The planes themselves could be an order of magnitude cheaper, and they'd ultimately be more useful, being designed to fly in while harpies are still active and drop loads on the armies, taking out harpies while they're doing it.

[Ma Deuce]

Man, I can't believe I missed this gem for the month and a half it's been up, even given my reduced participation in the board as of late. Well, that's what I get for ignoring the fanfic board. Anyway, I've finally gotten through all the chapters, and it's been a good read so far. I'll try to limit my comments to contents of the most recent chapters to avoid retreading old ground.

One particular mental image I had was that of a baldrick appearing in a newly rejuvenated factory in Ohio and running roughshod in there, since you went to the trouble of describing the industrial rejuvenation in the first place and even naming some characters.

Funny you should mention that, I had a similar idea, only set in the nearby GM Oshawa autoplex whilst being converted to produce war materiel (it is after all the largest auto plant in North America). Unfortunately, I am not very skilled at writing fiction so I doubt I'd be able to contribute any sections either, and in any case I have little knowledge of the interior of the plant, even though I'm very familiar with the outside layout, given by necessity several public roads run though the plant's boundaries.

[JN1]

I am surprised that the House was prorogued, as it was kept in session during WW2 to ensure parliamentary supervision of the war.

All of our Cold War plans, which the Coalition government is using as a template, assumed that Parliament would be prorogued and the members would disperse to their consituencies (MPs) and country seats (Lords). Those plans were written with the assumption that the Soviets would soon reduce the Palace of Westminster to a cinder, along with the rest of Greater London.
In this scenario keeping all of the UK's parliaments and assemblies in session would have made more sense (unless a baldrick appears in one), but the planners have looked at the last set of plans from '92, noted that it included 'Parliament to be prorogued' and figured it must have been done for a good reason. It probably won't be too long until someone thinks 'hold on, that was written in the expectation of a nuclear attack' and the plans are changed.

I don't know what the condition of her engines would be, I believe they are still there, but would not exactly have been preserved to museum standards during her long period alongside, but her boilers were removed for classrooms (I asked them).

From what I've seen in Brown's 'The Grand Fleet' her engines are still there and are still in reasonable condition. Probably best just to use her in her current role, though.

The UK uses flight levels down at 3,000ft? Or is this a typo? 30,000ft would be FL300.

That's a mistake on my part. I'm not 100% familiar with the terminology for flight levels.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There just isn't any reason to look at heavily investing in the Navy as yet, the Baldriks just haven't shown any enormous naval force, let alone the ABSURD amount of resources you would need to invest to rebuild anything but the Iowa's...and even the Iowas would take consderable effort, despite only having left the service a couple of decades ago and been maintained in an on again / off again fashion.

Add to that the fact that the Navy does NOT have the manpower to crew the things (and the costs in time, money and manpower of massive retrofits to rebuild them with technology to reduce their crew would be staggering in of itself) then frankly, its just a waste.

If you want to build some kind of 'flack' cruiser against the chance of mass Baldrik raids, then frankly I dare say its going to be cheaper and easier to build a modern ship with modern weapons and modern technology from the ground up, then to take even the Iowa class BB's, somehow make them fully combat and sea worthy again, utterly retrofit their technology, rip off its guns to install heavy AAA and all the systems to run them...

And using them as gun platforms is a little absurd. Unless your damn lucky enough to have a Baldrick army a few dozen miles from the coast of where a Baldrick army is massing, then the odds of them being able to affect ANY battle are slim to none, especially when humanity is in the fight of its life and there are FAR more valuable things to spend these industrial resources on.

By all means, expand Burke class production, pack the US CVN's with full fight complements any way you can, be it grabbing fighters from the boneyards or expediting Super Hornet production as fast as possible, but reviving Battleships?

While some of the Greater Demons, the Heralds, could swim in water, I very much doubt Hell has a large number of seaboarn demons to worry about....and based on how much the most powerful demon HATED active sonar, well, just have a convoys escorts go continual pinging on them if they show up again.

You're not thinking like an in-universe person here, who has no idea of the capabilities of Hell. In that context, large-scale expansion of the Navy WILL be authorized.

And, anyway, you do realize that manpower is not an issue? Just trained manpower; and we can bring the old geezers who can't fight again back to handle basic, at least, and there's a couple years of training time while the ships themselves are restored.

May it very well be unnecessary? Certainly; the same is true with all the old reactivated aircraft.

Are we sure of that?

No.

Can we do it?

Yes.

Therefore, we are going to do it, because we DON'T know the full capabilities of Hell yet.

[consequences]

Am I the only one who's thinking that Yahweh has been massively setting Lucifer up for failure here for quite some time?

We've got the majority of Berserker incidents being his fault, and Uriel and who knows who else wandering about doing their thing. It would be very difficult for him not to have had a better intel picture than Satan's hordes have been using as their working model.

[JCady]

There just isn't any reason to look at heavily investing in the Navy as yet, the Baldriks just haven't shown any enormous naval force, let alone the ABSURD amount of resources you would need to invest to rebuild anything but the Iowa's...and even the Iowas would take consderable effort, despite only having left the service a couple of decades ago and been maintained in an on again / off again fashion.

Add to that the fact that the Navy does NOT have the manpower to crew the things (and the costs in time, money and manpower of massive retrofits to rebuild them with technology to reduce their crew would be staggering in of itself) then frankly, its just a waste.

If you want to build some kind of 'flack' cruiser against the chance of mass Baldrik raids, then frankly I dare say its going to be cheaper and easier to build a modern ship with modern weapons and modern technology from the ground up, then to take even the Iowa class BB's, somehow make them fully combat and sea worthy again, utterly retrofit their technology, rip off its guns to install heavy AAA and all the systems to run them...

And using them as gun platforms is a little absurd. Unless your damn lucky enough to have a Baldrick army a few dozen miles from the coast of where a Baldrick army is massing, then the odds of them being able to affect ANY battle are slim to none, especially when humanity is in the fight of its life and there are FAR more valuable things to spend these industrial resources on.

By all means, expand Burke class production, pack the US CVN's with full fight complements any way you can, be it grabbing fighters from the boneyards or expediting Super Hornet production as fast as possible, but reviving Battleships?

While some of the Greater Demons, the Heralds, could swim in water, I very much doubt Hell has a large number of seaboarn demons to worry about....and based on how much the most powerful demon HATED active sonar, well, just have a convoys escorts go continual pinging on them if they show up again.

You're not thinking like an in-universe person here, who has no idea of the capabilities of Hell. In that context, large-scale expansion of the Navy WILL be authorized.

And, anyway, you do realize that manpower is not an issue? Just trained manpower; and we can bring the old geezers who can't fight again back to handle basic, at least, and there's a couple years of training time while the ships themselves are restored.

May it very well be unnecessary? Certainly; the same is true with all the old reactivated aircraft.

Are we sure of that?

No.

Can we do it?

Yes.

Therefore, we are going to do it, because we DON'T know the full capabilities of Hell yet.

We know there are amphibious naval baldricks.

[Academia Nut]

If I could guess, I would say that Yawheh has seen that humans are growing out of control, so his plan may be to unleash Hell on humanity and let them fight it out. If Hell wins, no big deal, he can either honour his word or take them out after, depending on how badly they get mauled. If the humans win, then they've just annihilated a major rival, and then he can come swooping in, claim that it was all a test from the beginning, and then start purging the unbelievers. Now he has absolute control of the situation instead of having to compete with Satan for souls, and he can exert more direct control, getting rid of all those dangerous things like free thought, rationalism, the scientific method, and all the stuff that goes along with it.

Of course, if humanity thrashes Hell with minimal losses and then doesn't buy his shit, Yawheh may find that he has now given humanity cause to hate him and the technology to fire missiles at right angles to reality, but somehow I think he's the sort of arrogant douche who wouldn't consider that a serious possibility.

Also, anyone think it would be awesome if we caught Uriel in a nuke strike and after confirming his death, someone uttered, "Now we have become Death, destroyer of worlds"?

That line will be used by someone the first time nukes get deployed however. Too well known to not be used.