Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[tim31]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the aftermath. Civies will be screaming for all forces to come home for interdiction.

[Stuart Mackey]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the aftermath. Civies will be screaming for all forces to come home for interdiction.

Don't underestimate civvies in total war. Most will be very well aware that the best way to stop shite like this is by a good offensive to prevent it from happening in the first place.

[JN1]

Just how old is Tom Sullivan in the previous chapter? Every fit individual between 19 and 55 should be in uniform, not walking through the Lake District. I suspect that those between 16 and 19, or in Reserved Occupations, would be 'encouraged' to be in the Home Guard. That does also beg the question as to how old those in the Youth Hostel were?

I don't think the UK is quite that pervasively mobilised. For one thing, it doesn't look like massive hordes of light infantry are going to be that useful anyway. My guess would be that more people are going to get drafted to produce guns and tanks than drafted to serve on the front lines, and I don't think there will be a blanket ban on taking holidays (though as you saw, people will have to settle for a walk in the countryside and a stay in a shared bunks, rather than a jet flight to Spain and a luxury hotel).

I can see your point, but I'm not sure I full agree. At the moment we don't know quite what we need. If we mobilise a million men then discover we only need half of them, then so much the better, then we can demobilise them. We've also seen earlier that a lot of the National Servicemen are going to be armoured and mechanised infantrymen, and RAC crewmen and gunners, not to mention engineers (which we may need a lot of) REME techs and RLC loggies.
IMVHO the UK is going to look at creating a deployable army as least as big as the 2nd Army of 1944/45, though I doubt we'll have a 7-8 million man army as in 1918.
During the last couple of world wars a lot of munitions production (AFAIK) was done by those who were either kept out of the front line (women), or those already in the industry, or unfit to serve in the military. Sending a fit and healthy 25 year old to a tank factory when a 56 year old can do that job, is, IMVHO, a bit of a waste. From the looks of Sheffield we may need lots of troops for Home Defence.
Out of interest just how manpower intensive is munitions manufacture these days, does it still need lots of people, or have large parts of it been automated?

Stu, well done on catching that all UK police helicopters seem to have '9-9' as part of their call-sign; btw I'm sure I've seen that chopper on TV, though I thought it only had one letter before the '99' (for some reason Oscar 9-9 seems to come to mind, though that might be another ASU). All that time I've spent watching 'Cops with Cameras' type shows has paid off.
Poor old Sheffield, though. If it is not getting nuked (twice) then it is getting hit by hellfire.
Btw the Hawks don't, or didn't use the same gun pod as the RAF Phantom fleet, but a 30mm ADEN gun pod. The SUU-30 might fit on a Hawk though.

The fires and structural damage will certainly give the New Dimensions equipment bought for the fire brigades a good work out. Time to send every available High Volume Pump up to Sheffield and get what remaining Green Goddesses are left out of storage.

The Dublin Fire Brigade helped out after the Belfast Blitz. They dug out one resident who was puzzled by the strange accents and uniforms and asked who they were.

"We're the Dublin Fire Brigade." One fireman replied.
"That must have been one hell of a bomb!" The householder is reputed to have exclaimed.

Brown was more inclined to assign the twit to making tea, but alas one had to accommodate political realities.

Best line of the story IMVHO. He'd probably cock it up an' all.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I love that part about Abrigor, and I totally dig those two - the Samurai and the Spartan! They should have buddy-cop moments together! The Samurai and the Spartan - IN HELL!

Everyone Wuvs Abby!

And Luga!

^__^

Shouldn't that be Abby-kun and Luga-chan, Shroom-kun?

It's so much more kawaii.

^__^

PS: God I make myself sick sometimes...

[JN1]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the aftermath. Civies will be screaming for all forces to come home for interdiction.

Don't underestimate civvies in total war. Most will be very well aware that the best way to stop shite like this is by a good offensive to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Agreed, just look at the reactions on both sides to bombing in WW2. After the initial shock wore off people wanted their governments to hit back at the enemy.
People will be shocked by the Sheffield attack, but will soon be calling for some sort of retaliation against Hell.

[Starglider]

Damn, 3 miles? It did more damage than I was expecting.

Sketch of Sheffield after one hour (though it's actually dark of course);

I wonder if they have to close this portal to open the next one,

No. Closing portals is actually a lot harder than opening them. Belial has lots of spare volcanoes.

Disaster movie time! I hope we get extensive sympathetic POVs of the people in Ground Zero.

Stuart brought the PM scene forward a little for clarity, but some ground zero stuff is coming next.

From the looks of Sheffield we may need lots of troops for Home Defence.

Yes, several things are likely to change after Sheffield.

Out of interest just how manpower intensive is munitions manufacture these days, does it still need lots of people, or have large parts of it been automated?

See earlier in the thread for an example of brass casing manufacture. The thing is, building those tools takes time, and if the time to train people is shorter than the time to equip factories then in the short term you can substitute manpower for capital equipment.

Stu, well done on catching that all UK police helicopters seem to have '9-9' as part of their call-sign; btw I'm sure I've seen that chopper on TV,

The helicopter is real; I saw it on one of those cheap and nasty 'police camera action' type shows.

Shouldn't that be Abby-kun and Luga-chan, Shroom-kun?

You know I was planning a wild Euryale/Belial make up sex scene but I don't know if it would get past the editor.

[tim31]

Sheffield's going to make for good farming land

[Cecelia5578]

I know its been gone over ad nauseum why nukes aren't a good thing to use now (and I agree) but this calls for some sort of retaliation. At the very least, Abigdor hopefully will supply who/what/where caused this, and perhaps a few PGMs could be used to take out Belial. Given the human OOB that's forming up in Hell, obviously the Demon's days are numbered, but still, something will lhave to be done.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I have a feeling Norman and the rest of DIMO(n) are going to be having fits and trying to figure out a way to prevent it. Hell has just effectively demonstrated he can take tactically nuke any city without warning, and we have no way of knowing how fast he can do it or how often.

I bet people start waking up with nightmares about a glowing New York City.

[Edward Yee]

You know I was planning a wild Euryale/Belial make up sex scene but I don't know if it would get past the editor.

Was this involving any other participants?

Re: the sketch of Sheffield T+1 (hour)... shaite.

[JN1]

The helicopter is real; I saw it on one of those cheap and nasty 'police camera action' type shows.

Yeh, I think Oscar 9-9 is the Dyfed Powis chopper. I saw the South Yorkshire chopper on 'Road Wars' on Sky if memory serves.
That map of Sheffield looks pretty nasty, at least we don't need to worry about fallout anyway.

[NecronLord]

Poor Belial. I predict some pretty vile chemical weapons will be headed his way as soon as Abigor grasses him up.

Or, if we're being nice (and we seem to be) the paras or the marines showing up on his doorstep with a lot of the newest guns.


After all, the most effective way to prevent them keeping this up is to immediately abduct or kill everyone involved.

[The Vortex Empire]

Baldricks don't know the mistake they just made.

[Wyrm]

There will be blood, Mr. Fibuli! There will be BLOOD!!

[Adrian Laguna]

Poor Abigor, he's going to have to answer lots of hostile questions. Maybe he can get away with, "I thought you knew, it's not the first time they do this."

If the arrows part of 300 was true, then plausibly Aeneas would know what was meant; just because archery (and cavalry?) may or may not have been in the Spartan TOE/OOB doesn't mean that they have to be unaware.

A spartan would know dammed well what bow and arrow are, the issue is that he would understand the act of using it as "shooting" not "firing".

[Darth Wong]

I have a feeling Norman and the rest of DIMO(n) are going to be having fits and trying to figure out a way to prevent it. Hell has just effectively demonstrated he can take tactically nuke any city without warning, and we have no way of knowing how fast he can do it or how often.

I bet people start waking up with nightmares about a glowing New York City.

Given the fact that almost everyone here immediately thought of Sodom and Gomorrah as a possible example of Heaven/Hell strategic weaponry, I would have been quite surprised if Allied Intelligence hadn't thought about it too, and asked Abigor about it before this happened. The fact that they hadn't publicized the possibility of this type of attack doesn't necessarily mean it hadn't occurred to them; there would be little point publicizing it because they haven't got a countermeasure yet, and they weren't about to pre-emptively take out Tartarus with nuclear weapons and tip their hand.

However, now that the demons have escalated the conflict, I'd say that Tartarus has a big fat bullseye painted on it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I have a feeling Norman and the rest of DIMO(n) are going to be having fits and trying to figure out a way to prevent it. Hell has just effectively demonstrated he can take tactically nuke any city without warning, and we have no way of knowing how fast he can do it or how often.

I bet people start waking up with nightmares about a glowing New York City.

Given the fact that almost everyone here immediately thought of Sodom and Gomorrah as a possible example of Heaven/Hell strategic weaponry, I would have been quite surprised if Allied Intelligence hadn't thought about it too, and asked Abigor about it before this happened. The fact that they hadn't publicized the possibility of this type of attack doesn't necessarily mean it hadn't occurred to them; there would be little point publicizing it because they haven't got a countermeasure yet, and they weren't about to pre-emptively take out Tartarus with nuclear weapons and tip their hand.

Given that the 'soddomizing' of a city was considered a party-trick by the demons, Abigor may not have felt it very consequential, or he simply might not have been privy to the specifics of what or how it was done. Even if he did, that sort of damage has an unrealism of theory to it (which stuart spoke about earlier), and the ability to see pictures of what's really happened and know it could be D.C or Paris just as easily is probably panicking quite a few people.

It seems to me the only way this could be prevented is to fire a nuke THROUGH an open lava gate before it starts venting, but that would be almost impossible to do unless you knew about it ahead of time.

[Sidewinder]

Wow. That was quite a blow.

As for countering another such attack... Well, the data from the RF-111s should include the location(s) of the volcano(s), so if we keep recon assets, e.g., UAVs in its vincinity, and launch attacks when the nagas assemble for another portal-based attack...

Civies will be screaming for all forces to come home for interdiction.

Many people have commented that the civvies will demand a nuclear attack on Hell in retaliation. Even if nukes aren't used, it's probably safe to say Belial's domain will become a priority one target for the human forces in Hell. Belial is probably going to get an up close and personal look at what happens in an air strike.

[Eulogy]

Given that the 'soddomizing' of a city was considered a party-trick by the demons, Abigor may not have felt it very consequential, or he simply might not have been privy to the specifics of what or how it was done. Even if he did, that sort of damage has an unrealism of theory to it (which stuart spoke about earlier), and the ability to see pictures of what's really happened and know it could be D.C or Paris just as easily is probably panicking quite a few people.

It seems to me the only way this could be prevented is to fire a nuke THROUGH an open lava gate before it starts venting, but that would be almost impossible to do unless you knew about it ahead of time.

Or they could ask Abigor who did this, and then sodomize Belial and his toadies with bombs (hurr hurr!).

As bad as this attack is, the demons have tipped their hand. I very much doubt that given the slow speeds of the demon army (and how big Hell is) Belial will be able to pour more lava through before his nagas get shredded and the scream of bombs is the last thing he ever hears.

And their enslaved humans will be shocked indeed.

[Darth Wong]

I don't think the UK is quite that pervasively mobilised ...

I can see your point, but I'm not sure I full agree. At the moment we don't know quite what we need. If we mobilise a million men then discover we only need half of them, then so much the better, then we can demobilise them.

That sounds logical until you remember that massive mobilization takes resources away from the rest of the economy, including the industrial output that is needed to keep up the war effort. If you over-mobilize for no apparent benefit, then you just wasted a lot of money, time, and resources, which could have been better-spent in other ways.

[Starglider]

and perhaps a few PGMs could be used to take out Belial.

Note that MKSheppard is acting as military consultant for the follow-on arc.

Given the fact that almost everyone here immediately thought of Sodom and Gomorrah as a possible example of Heaven/Hell strategic weaponry, I would have been quite surprised if Allied Intelligence hadn't thought about it too

I originally put the Project STAR GLIDER scene three days after the attack on Sheffield. I'm pretty sure that kind of contingency planning was the (in universe) reason why Stuart moved it up; it didn't get such a high priority just because we might need to close the hellmouth.

Well, the data from the RF-111s should include the location(s) of the volcano(s), so if we keep recon assets, e.g., UAVs in its vincinity, and launch attacks when the nagas assemble for another portal-based attack...

Unfortunately for the humans, it isn't quite that simple.

It seems to me the only way this could be prevented is to fire a nuke THROUGH an open lava gate before it starts venting, but that would be almost impossible to do unless you knew about it ahead of time.

That would be a very, very bad idea, for reasons discussed in Dr Kuroneko's first scene.

[Darth Wong]

Given the fact that almost everyone here immediately thought of Sodom and Gomorrah as a possible example of Heaven/Hell strategic weaponry, I would have been quite surprised if Allied Intelligence hadn't thought about it too, and asked Abigor about it before this happened. The fact that they hadn't publicized the possibility of this type of attack doesn't necessarily mean it hadn't occurred to them; there would be little point publicizing it because they haven't got a countermeasure yet, and they weren't about to pre-emptively take out Tartarus with nuclear weapons and tip their hand.

Given that the 'soddomizing' of a city was considered a party-trick by the demons, Abigor may not have felt it very consequential, or he simply might not have been privy to the specifics of what or how it was done.

It doesn't matter if he thought to bring it up himself. The people interrogating him should have thought to ask.

Even if he did, that sort of damage has an unrealism of theory to it (which stuart spoke about earlier), and the ability to see pictures of what's really happened and know it could be D.C or Paris just as easily is probably panicking quite a few people.

Oh yes, of course the morale issue is different. I'm just saying that the intelligence people should have asked Abigor about the Sodom and Gomorrah story, whether it was true, and whether he knew how it was done. Even if he has only vague information on how it was done, it would have helped them immensely. Especially since it appears to be common knowledge in Satan's court that Belial did it last time.

It seems to me the only way this could be prevented is to fire a nuke THROUGH an open lava gate before it starts venting, but that would be almost impossible to do unless you knew about it ahead of time.

It would be much more logical to take out Belial's operation using the forces already in Hell.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I know its been gone over ad nauseum why nukes aren't a good thing to use now (and I agree) but this calls for some sort of retaliation. At the very least, Abigdor hopefully will supply who/what/where caused this, and perhaps a few PGMs could be used to take out Belial. Given the human OOB that's forming up in Hell, obviously the Demon's days are numbered, but still, something will lhave to be done.

Not nukes.


Gas.

The Russians probably have enough stockpiled that they never actually destroyed to smother the entirety of that army coming up to attack them.

[Scottish Ninja]

You know I was planning a wild Euryale/Belial make up sex scene but I don't know if it would get past the editor.

Put that in the Director's Cut.

[Enforcer Talen]

Global security says the Russians have 40,000 tons of gas, 80% of which is nerve gas.

Sarin

Soman

VX