Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

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dragon
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Post by dragon »

Sea Skimmer wrote:
dragon wrote:Out of curisioty how would a spectre gunship rounds do as there small claiber but fire alot of them.
All the small caliber guns are long gone off the AC-130s, the 7.62mm weapons died off while Vietnam was still ongoing, and even the 20mm galtings have not been used in some time.

The current armament fit of most AC-130s is 1 x 25mm galting, 1 x 40mm Bofors and 1 x 105mm. However an upgrade program was recently launched which involves replacing the 25mm and 40mm guns with a pair of 30mm Bushmaster chainguns. The USAF is also looking into replacing the 105mm howitzers with 120mm mortars (which could fire a new GPS guided 120mm mortar round the army has) but that idea is still being developed and has little relevance in this scenario. The plane has the firepower and ammo to be pretty effective, but it’s slow and at least somewhat vulnerable to harpy attack, which greatly limits its utility over the battlefield.
Cool didn't realize that the weapons had been switched out, and your right about it being a big slow target. However once we get kill all the harpies then we probably could use it.

Would thermobarics warheads work as the Russians have some in mortar form, and the us in a missile. But with demons being from hell would fire be all that effective? Hell we even have thermobaric grenades the XM1060 which had been used in Afghanistan.



Also the story mentioned something about the demons needing something from the humans to transcend. Transcend to what? Their version of an afterlife?
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Post by Sea Skimmer »

dragon wrote: Would thermobarics warheads work as the Russians have some in mortar form, and the us in a missile. But with demons being from hell would fire be all that effective? Hell we even have thermobaric grenades the XM1060 which had been used in Afghanistan.
Therombaric weapons have high dud rates, and they aren’t an ideal open area anti personal weapon to start with. You get a considerable air blast, though one which is not particularly intensive (it won’t shatter concrete ect…), and little to no fragmentation. Baldricks might well be able to survive the blast from small therombaric warhead. Reality is even a human being actually has a considerable ability to survive a being hit by a blast, within limits. Its just that blasts normally have fragmentation along with them, and if you don’t have a gas masks your lungs will be burned.

The ideal kind of projectiles to use against bladricks are cluster bombs/DPICM shells, along with plain old HE-FRAG bombs and shells. Shrapnel shells may also make a comeback, they are highly lethal against infantry in the open, and they require less explosives then HE-FRAG shells which may become important. Shrapnel historically died off after the end of WW1 because it was ineffective against troops in trenches or with any kind of overhead cover, but Baldricks physical size and bronze age tactics make them perfect targets.
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Post by MKSheppard »

Stuart wrote:The logic behind bringing an F-84 like aircraft back is impeccable but the problem is that same logic identifies many better clients for the role.
Well, there's no reason to let the tooling go to waste; you can farm it out to a smallish company to develop on a shoestring basis, and see what the end result is.
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Post by Starglider »

MKSheppard wrote:Well, there's no reason to let the tooling go to waste; you can farm it out to a smallish company to develop on a shoestring basis, and see what the end result is.
Unless the US runs out of skilled machinists before it runs out of more modern tooling for them to use. I imagine the really old production lines are significantly less automated and efficient than modern ones, which could exacerbate the skilled manpower crisis if you try to reactivate them all.

Of course one option is to relax the immigration laws and import skilled workers from wherever you can find them. After all, there's quite a bit of empty housing (fully furnished...) and spare infrastructure capacity in the bible belt right now.
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Post by gtg947h »

Would there be any logic in eventually developing a purpose-built anti-baldrick light fighter? I'm picturing a small straight-winged single seat aircraft, carrying a pair of 20-30mm cannons and 4-6 Mk-82s or rocket pods. Throw a low-bypass turbofan in, some rough-field landing gear, and simple avionics. And make the design no more complicated than the average homebuilt kit. Put a simple WWII bomb/gun sight in, and off you go.

Of course, the Hawk may already be filling this role...
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Post by DarthShady »

Also the story mentioned something about the demons needing something from the humans to transcend. Transcend to what? Their version of an afterlife?
Yes, they need human souls to power their trip to the afterlife.

I was wondering, is it wise to open another portal to hell without knowing exactly where it will open?
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Post by dragon »

DarthShady wrote:
Also the story mentioned something about the demons needing something from the humans to transcend. Transcend to what? Their version of an afterlife?
Yes, they need human souls to power their trip to the afterlife.

I was wondering, is it wise to open another portal to hell without knowing exactly where it will open?
It would be interesting to see what their afterlife is like. I thought they were going to open the portal to the location where the dead pilots are?
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

It will also be interesting to see just how survivable the environment of hell is for the living. If you have to spend your entire time in NBC gear, that could be problematic.
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Post by R011 »

MKSheppard wrote: Well, there's no reason to let the tooling go to waste; you can farm it out to a smallish company to develop on a shoestring basis, and see what the end result is.
Or you could have that smallish company build something else, even Hawk parts. A company big enough for an aircraft production line (which would also involve a number of sub contractors) is too large to be reserved for this. They could be making Hawks or Hawk components. Not to mention that even if F-84 production is as easy as hoped, training, maintenance and support infrastructure issues are still enough, IMO, to disqualify it.
JCady wrote: Because the Vickers is even more reliable than the Ma Deuce in the sustained-fire role, and more rugged to boot. It's quite simply the best machine gun ever built for the role of mowing down hordes.


Perfect is the enemy of good enough and the M2 is more than just good enough. John Browning's five-oh has a well deserved reputation for reliability - hence the fact it's been in production in one form or another since 1921 and why new and "better" fifty-cal designs tend not to get many orders. Water-cooled Brownings could be placed into production as soon as existing lines are modified to add water jackets and new lines could be opened. There would be no need for reverse engineering, finding old plans, or adapting modern machine tools to produce a weapon out of production for about seventy years.

The basic formula for maximizing wartime production was set by the US and the USSR in the 1940's. Start with what's on hand and stick with it as far as possible. Over a hundred thousand Shermans and T-34's ended up beating about forty thousand Pzkw II,III,IV,V,VI, and 38(t).
gtg947h wrote:Would there be any logic in eventually developing a purpose-built anti-baldrick light fighter?
If we had a few years of warning, we could prepare a nice assortment of anti-demon systems. The problem is that we need this stuff now. In a week or two, we'll be facing an even greater host of demos, then a bigger one and so forth. Hell has an army of forty-five million in existence now, even if mostly reservists. We can't wait for specialized weapons to be develo0ped and produced from scratch. We can, though, make use of systems in current use with minor modifications. The .50 BMG and the Hawk in the West and the KPV and the SU-25 in the East are good examples of weapons that are quite good enough, should be relatively easy to get into increased production, and are for which service, support and training are reasonable well available. Small arms are a bit different. Had we been facing human opponents, then I would prefer building millions of AK and M16 clones. Unfortunately, neither 7.62 x 39 nor 5.56 NATO are very suitable, hence the talk here of .500 Beowulf and .458 cal.
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Post by JCady »

gtg947h wrote:Would there be any logic in eventually developing a purpose-built anti-baldrick light fighter? I'm picturing a small straight-winged single seat aircraft, carrying a pair of 20-30mm cannons and 4-6 Mk-82s or rocket pods. Throw a low-bypass turbofan in, some rough-field landing gear, and simple avionics. And make the design no more complicated than the average homebuilt kit. Put a simple WWII bomb/gun sight in, and off you go.

Of course, the Hawk may already be filling this role...
The Hawk, or as I suggested, the Folland Gnat.
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Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

I think I've found a use for the F-84 toolings:

Give them to the Texas State Penitentiary System, as an experiment in seeing of convict labour can be used to build complex war-machines for the mobilization. If they succeed in building workable, flying examples, they can start mass production not only of the F-84K but of other combat equipment. If they don't, no skilled labour potential has been lost in the experiment.
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Post by Stuart »

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

The six members of Recon Team Tango-one-five crouched behind a large rock outcropping beside high walls that separated the Sixth Ring from the Fifth. On the other side of the rocks was the gate, no less than fifty feet high, and probably much higher. It was open, and a steady stream of Baldricks was pouring out of the Sixth Ring, and setting off across the Fifth to where a distant set of gates offered access to the Fourth Ring. . Kim looked over to McInery and hissed, “What’s your count, Mac?”

“I’m at five thousand two hundred twenty, ell-tee. Twenty-nine. Thirty-eight. …”

“Aye. Forty-seven now. How many command units?”

Gerald “Bubbles” Tarrant chimed in. “That’s a little more than seven battalion-sized units, and we’ve seen eight big guys on huge-ass rhinolobsters. I think they’re battalion commanders, ell-tee”

Kim nodded. That made sense. And they were still pouring out from the city in ranks of nine abreast, with no end in sight. It was like being caught at a crossing by a two hundred car train … her gaze softened as she started to think about the wide skies and waving grain of her Midwestern ho—

She slapped herself softly. No thoughts of home now; she was in hell, and she had a job to do. Fifty-seven sixty, fifty-seven sixty-nine – “Mac? How many?”

“Five thousand seven hundred seventy eight and counting, ell tee.”

“Bubbles?”

“Here comes the ninth big rhinolobster; this’ll be nine battalions of 81 nine-baldrick platoons.”

They kept counting for another couple of minutes, and then there were no more baldricks. As the tramping feet died off into the mists of the Styx, Kim looked over at McInery. “You have 6,666 baldricks, including the command groups?”

“Aye, ell-tee. Right in line with what Bubbles has got.”

“Damn. That’s a whole brigade.”

There was silence for a minute, then Bubbles asked, “So, ell-tee, what are we doing now?”

“Now, we move away from the city, stay in the region, and find a relatively safe place to get some rest and wait for more contact.”

“Aye, sir.” They darted one-by-one from boulder to boulder, heading away from the city across the coffin-dotted plain. Around them, the groans and cries of the damned rose into a haunting chorus as the unquenchable flames – What powers them? wondered Kim idly for a moment before pulling herself back to the present – balanced by the supernatural healing powers of their new bodies.

Nearly an hour later, they were again at the shore of the Styx. The soft mud oozing gently through their toes belied the roar of the waterfall ahead, and the thick pea-soup fog was getting heavier as it mingled with the mist thrown up by the falling water. There was a horrible stench in the air, and the mist tasted of sulfur.

Kim led Tango-one-five toward the cliff. The mud thinned at last and gave way to rock; the land rose into a jagged, twisted badland around the river basin as the river gained speed heading toward the gorge. They clambered over the slick rocks and around monolithic boulders, until Kim stopped.

They were standing on a low peak with a commanding view of the surrounding terrain, at least as far as the mist let them see. Ahead of them, the broken terrain dived down into dimness; to the right, the Styx plunged down the gorge; to the left, the cliff edge stretched off into the mist, with a subtle curve that just evaded the eye; and behind them, the badlands stretched for what must have been several miles. They were surrounded by a ring of low, jagged boulders.

Kim nodded. “Here is where we make the base of operations. We’re staying here until command contacts – ” Her eyes defocused, and she relaxed visibly.

McInery was next to her, and grabbed her muddy shoulder. “Ell-tee? Ell-tee??”

She tensed up again with a start. “That was the brass in Washington. They’re going to try to get us some equipment.”

Lieutenant Kim? It was kitten again.

Kim tried her best not to fade out and lose the contact. Yes? “Mac, I’m still talking to them. Hold on a second.”

General Schatten is wondering if where you are is a safe place right now?

Yes, we’re safe enough.

Okay, good. We’re going to try an experiment here. If it works, I’ll see you in a moment. Or something will be happening.” Kim felt a giggle in kitten’s voice. Nobody is quite sure what.

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I’m through Sirs.” kitten spoke with an unaccustomed level of authority in her voice. “Lieutenant Kim says they are in a safe place right now.”

The attending scientist nodded. “Are you ready?”

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes tightly, kitten nodded.

“We have kitten’s signal recorded and digitalized?” The question was a rhetorical one only. Nevertheless, one of the electronic techs checked the files in the signals analysis computer.

“Confirmed, we have it. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before but we do have it.”

From his pocket, the scientist pulled what looked like a TV remote and hit a couple of buttons. Across the room, the digitalized version of kitten’s bio-electrical signal was being fed into an amplifying system that had been modified from a deception jammer. The result as the technologists started to increase the output power was immediate. kitten began to shake visibly, rattling the chair she was lounged on. The tendons in her neck were standing out in strain. Her boyfriend held her tightly, and was about to say something when everyone in the room jumped. A black ellipse was staring to form in the room. It was hard to say where it was, it seemed to be at once parallel with the floor and perpendicular to it. It was also hard to say what it was, it seemed black and almost infinitely absorptive yet it also glared and irritated the eyes. A shining shadow didn’t make sense yet that was what they had created.

“What is that?”

“Must be a projection of something our senses can’t cope with so they’re doing the best they can.”

“Hurry up can’t you?” kitten’s boyfriend almost snarled out the words. “Can’t you see how much you’re hurting her?”

Still not quite believing his eyes, Randi picked up the paper airplane he’d brought and threw it; it traveled through the portal and vanished. A split second later it came back out, stained and smelling of sulfur.

General Schatten didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a Barrett M107 rifle from the pile of military shiny toys, a bag of electronic equipment, then tossed a “Warhol, grab some more and follow me” over his shoulder before stepping into the shadowy circle and vanishing.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

Kim suddenly felt awake again, but the daydream wasn’t gone. In fact, it seemed to be superimposed on her vision. She passed a dirty hand over her eyes and squinted, trying to get it to go away; her mind was playing tricks on her, she got the sense that something was forcing its way through to her. Then, a black ellipse started to form, one that defied easy description. “Hold on still, guys. I think I’m still hallucinating.”

“You too?” asked Bubbles, who was blinking rapidly.

Kim spun around and looked at her surroundings. All normal, and she was feeling fine. Then she turned back again, and there was the tunnel. “You guys see it too?”

“Yes,” said the others at once. As they did so, a paper dart flew through the ellipse and hit Kim on the forehead before fluttering to the ground. Perplexed, she stooped and picked it up: a paper airplane? Then the anvil dropped and she threw it back through the ellipse. After a few seconds, a man stepped through, an M107 Barrett over one shoulder, a large bag in one hand. Kim and her companions snapped to attention.

“Lieutenant, you’re out of uniform.” General Schatten looked around, a foul, stinking swamp covered with a yellowish mist that stunk of sulfur and fouler things. He was standing on a rocky outcrop amid an atmosphere of desolation and misery that told him, more clearly than anything else could, that he was truly in hell.

“Sorry Sir, that joke was old the first time I heard it. Anyway, this is the uniform of the day around here. Skin and mud.”

“You need uniforms? We’ve got a lot to get through to you and we’re not sure how long we can hold the portal open for at any one time.” Another figure emerged. “This is Major Warhol, Special Forces. He’ll be liaising with you and providing technical and operational assistance.”

“Welcome to Hell Sirs. First thing, intelligence, we’ve counted five brigade–sized units moving out of the lower reaches of hell, heading upwards. There’s a lot more baldricks coming your way Sir. How’s thing going out there?”

“Dave Petraeus is doing a number on the invasion force. He’s literally shredding them with artillery and armor. The baldricks are losing in six-digit numbers.” Schatten paused for a brief second. “Their command structure is shot to hell, you and your team mates did a damned fine job.”

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

Major Warhol was already on the other side of the portal, and the military personnel were forming a line and starting to hand off crates of ammunition and explosives, piling it through the portal as fast as discipline and urgency could make possible.

“All hands to the pumps. Get this stuff through as quickly. Maximum urgency.” Randi looked at where kitten was shivering on her couch, obviously in great distress. “Everybody, this isn’t just a military business. Throw stuff through if you can’t hand it.” He paused for a second. “Is it safe to throw Semtex?”

“Sure is. Thank’s for the help.” The stream of equipment being passed through picked up speed.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

“All of you, stand to, and help us unload these supplies,” Schatten snapped, then turned and passed his rifle to Kim. “It’s an M107, hot from the production line. We got you Semtex instead of C-4, its 30 percent more powerful. She, in turn, handed the rifle to McInery, who leaned it against a boulder. The stack of equipment grew until they had received six webbings to carry things in, two slightly modified 0.50 calibre assault rifles, 30 crates of ammunition, 180 kilograms of Semtex with all the requisite electronic fusing, two dozen M24 claymore mines, the same number of AT-4 anti-tank rockets, six pairs of night-vision goggles, and twelve outfits of dark combat fatigues.

Behind them, the portal started to shimmer, Schatten guessed that kitten was finally losing her grip. “Anything else you need Lieutenant?”

“Yes Sir. We need to change our allocations so our dependents get all of our salary. We don’t need money here.”

“But you’re dead.”

“With respect Sir, the contract with the Army says nothing about ‘til death us do part’ and obviously it hasn’t. Sir, this is hell, we are not short of lawyers down here.” Kim grinned broadly, perfectly well aware of the size of the demolition charge she’d just thrown into the Army bureaucracy.

Schatten returned her grin. “Lieutenant, you’ve enabled me to fulfill a life’s ambition. When I hand your – perfectly reasonable – instructions over to the proper authority, I can finally make those REMFs at Pay Corps suffer as much as the troops on the front line. Good luck Lieutenant and kick some ass down here.” Then he and Warhol stepped back through the portal and were gone.

Kim surveyed the equipment and smiled. “Okay, guys. We don’t have to eat. We don’t have to sleep. We heal ten times faster than ordinary humans. We’re the United States military.” Her smile widened into a full-toothed grin. “Let’s go blow up some baldricks.”

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I’m losing it!” kitten’s wail cut across the room. The elliptical portal started to shiver as General Schatten and Major Warhol stepped out. A second or so later, it collapsed completely. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be my dear.” Schatten’s voice was comforting and quiet. “Look, we got all the stuff they needed through to them, they passed some intelligence that was very important back to us and, above all, we’ve made solid contact. You did better than we had any right to expect, so you go and have a rest. You deserve a medal for what you did today.”

“Sir, you should have let me go through first.” Warhol’s comment came as kitten and her boyfriend left the room.

“Major, sometimes a commander has to lead the way. Try it with noodles one day. Try to push a cooked noodle across a plate, then try and pull it across. See which one is easier. We’re going to be literally asking men to go into hell itself. Now, when we do ask, they’ll know that we went first.” Schatten brushed at his uniform, it was covered with foul-smelling mud and a disgusting greenish slime. “I’m going to wash and change. If this smells as bad as it looks.”

“It does.” Said Randi reassuringly.

“Then that’s an early order of priority. I guess the Lab boys will want to analyze this stuff as well.”

“I brought some samples Sir.” Warhol held up what looked suspiciously like a jam jar filled with the mud from hell.

“Well done. And that applies to everybody here. We’re in a position to strike back at last.”

Defense Perimeter Delta, Hit, Western Iraq.

“What the blazes is that?”

The first layer of buildings was acting as a sieve, forcing the Baldricks to break up into small groups as they forced their way through the alleys and narrow streets before breaking out into the open ground that marked the gap between the now-fallen Perimeter Charlie and the disputed Perimeter Delta. That open ground, traversed by a divided-lane highway, was the new killing ground and the carpet of black bodies was growing as the 10th Mountain Division’s armored cavalry units swept it with fire. The problem was the steadily-growing number of bodies in Army camouflage that were joining the baldrick dead. Now, there was something different happening, a white pick-up truck was tearing down the roadway, swerving around the bodies that littered it and heading straight for a large group of baldricks that had just emerged from the buildings.

The Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans of 10th Mountain guessed what was about to happen, they’d seen exactly the same tactic tried out on the Bradleys and Abrams tanks as they’d done their thunder runs through Baghdad. It had failed then but the baldricks didn’t have heavy armor supporting them. The suicide bombers them had died screaming “God is Great” but it was unlikely that they made the same call now. “Death to God” was more likely. It made little difference, the truck plowed into the group of baldricks and exploded, scattering fragments of steel and baldrick for dozens of yards around. Even here, in Delta, the blast was stunning.

“Come on, follow me.” Links screamed out, the last baldrick push had sized a building that was a Delta strongpoint and it was up to him to retake it. While everybody was stunned by the suicide bomber’s blast was as good a time as any. He was pressed up against the wall one side of the door, he swung past and kicked it open. Ina well-time drill, two of his men threw a pair of hand grenades each inside, then the other pair raked it with fire from their M16s. Links rolled through the door, two of the baldricks inside were dead or dying on the floor, two more were still standing although obviously torn up by grenade fragments and bullets. Links pushed up to his feet and slammed into the nearest baldrick, knocking the wounded monster off its feet. He and three of his men piled on top of it, pinning its arms down, slamming their K-bars into its eyes. The baldrick screamed and threshed, one of its clawed feet catching an infantryman in the stomach and disemboweling him.

Across the room, the remaining badlrick turned and ran, out of the door and into the open ground beyond. He made a few yards before smoke trains erupted around him and he vanished into the concussion of RPG-7 warheads exploding. The irregulars in Hit had joined in the fight and the RPG-7s they carried in place of rifles were lethal. Links looked up, the terrific noise of the firefight was joined by something else, a rhythmic throbbing that shook dust from the ceiling and caused the shelves on the wall to bounce. Over his head, the sky suddenly turned black and red as a hail of unguided rockets passed overhead to slam into the buildings opposite.

“It’s the Apaches!” Links’ voice was triumphant as the four helicopters swept low overhead, their 30mm chain guns hammering at the baldricks caught in the open. All along the line, the AH-64Ds of the aviation unit were sweeping the killing zone with gunfire and rockets while overhead, F-16s prowled, ready to take down any harpies that appeared.

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Hit, Western Iraq.

Abigor watched the human sky chariots pouring fire into his troops. Some of them were simply saturating the area with fire lances, others were using a magic fire lance that would turn in the air to follow its prey. Seeker lances he thought, what else could they be?

“Sire, our demons are falling back.”

“What?” Abigor contained his urge to destroy the messenger. He had learned how futile that could be.

“They have lost eight in ten of their number Sire and the humans will not retreat from us. They cannot hold and now the sky chariots have arrived, the iron chariots will not be far behind. It is over.” The messenger bowed his head and waited for death.

Abigor looked across the roofs of Hit where the sky chariots were attacking the remnants of the legions deployed here. He had had such hopes of this outflanking move but in his heart he guessed the humans had been ahead of him all the time.

“Yes, it is over. Spread the word, order the legions to fall back and regroup.”

Regroup with what? the messenger was tempted to ask but he held his tongue. Surviving this message was good fortune enough for one day, no need to tempt fate.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

The baldrick attack was collapsing, General Petraeus could see the truth now, unfolding on the giant screen before him. He had raw video up, it showed the black line that had pressed up against his defenses melting away, beginning to stream to the rear as it collapsed. Up at Hit the issue had been close for some hours and the brigade holding the city had been battered but they had held and now the enemy was in retreat there as well. Petraeus switched over from raw to synthetic video, the pictures of the battle replaced by blue and red military symbols moving slowly as the baldricks retreated and the human formations started their advance.

Not that there was anywhere for the baldricks to retreat to. The armored spearheads had already linked up behind their lines and blocked the retreat to the hellmouth. The back door had slammed shut, there was nowhere for the baldricks to run to.

Commendations to Surlethe who wrote the first part of this section
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Post by Starglider »

R011 wrote:In a week or two, we'll be facing an even greater host of demos, then a bigger one and so forth.
Hell doesn't operate on that kind of tempo. The whole realm is at least the size of the continental US, probably more like the size of pangea including the sparsely inhabited outer provinces, and it has no trucks, no railroads and a huge (by modern human standards) delay in orders filtering down the chain of command to the point where grunts start to move. I strongly suspect it would take weeks (at best) just to assemble another force of the size and composition we just saw.
Hell has an army of forty-five million in existence now, even if mostly reservists.
As the author has noted, we haven't seen anything like the demon's best units yet. Abigor's army was a reprisal force sent to exterminate uppity vermin. The big guns of the Great Celestial War have yet to be seen; that angel gave a hint of what to expect.
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Post by pdf27 »

R011 wrote:Perfect is the enemy of good enough and the M2 is more than just good enough. John Browning's five-oh has a well deserved reputation for reliability - hence the fact it's been in production in one form or another since 1921 and why new and "better" fifty-cal designs tend not to get many orders. Water-cooled Brownings could be placed into production as soon as existing lines are modified to add water jackets and new lines could be opened. There would be no need for reverse engineering, finding old plans, or adapting modern machine tools to produce a weapon out of production for about seventy years.
Talking at cross purposes here - the Vickers discussion started from trying to work out what the UK would use in place of their current FN-MAG GPMGs and SA80 rifles. My suggestion was Vickers machine guns rechambered for .338 Lapua, in common with FN-FAL rifles chambered to the same calibre.
There is no existing production line for the M2 in the UK, and given the world situation it's highly unlikely that anyone would sell us the numbers we'd need. The effort involved in setting up a new line to produce Vickers guns in .338 is little different from that in setting up a new line to produce M2s, so we may as well go for a weapon that suits us better (common ammunition, lighter and better reliability with a good enough round).
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

Excellent chapter, I was half-wondering if they were going to be sending spec-ops troops on permanent detachment to hell.
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Post by Kodiak »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Excellent chapter, I was half-wondering if they were going to be sending spec-ops troops on permanent detachment to hell.
If people get killed in Hell, would they know they're dead?
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Post by R011 »

pdf27 wrote: There is no existing production line for the M2 in the UK, and given the world situation it's highly unlikely that anyone would sell us the numbers we'd need. The effort involved in setting up a new line to produce Vickers guns in .338 is little different from that in setting up a new line to produce M2s, so we may as well go for a weapon that suits us better (common ammunition, lighter and better reliability with a good enough round).
The post to which I was responding suggested Vickers MG's in .50 BMG. The FN M2 HB QCB is currently in service with the British forces as the L111A1 and is under production in the UK by Manroy (link). The .50 BMG also seems to have been in production in Australia, Belgium, South Korea, and Sweden - as well as the USA.
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Post by pdf27 »

Yeah, it's a bit of a muddle. To make it worse the .50 Vickers ammunition isn't the same as .50 BMG - so I'd have to say that there is no way a .50 Vickers would be built.

My bad on there not being a UK producer of the M2 - I was under the impression we bought all of ours direct from FN Herstal in Belgium. The Manroy website isn't terribly clear either - it looks rather like they mainly do mountings, in which case they may be authorised importers/modifiers of M2s rather than original manufacturers of the whole weapon.
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Post by R011 »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:I think I've found a use for the F-84 toolings:

Give them to the Texas State Penitentiary System, as an experiment in seeing of convict labour can be used to build complex war-machines for the mobilization. If they succeed in building workable, flying examples, they can start mass production not only of the F-84K but of other combat equipment. If they don't, no skilled labour potential has been lost in the experiment.
Leaving aside the fact that the TX corrections system could be producing things immediately that a mass mobilized world army would need, like uniforms (TCI products), the end product would most likely create more problems than it would solve.
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Post by Surlethe »

Kodiak wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Excellent chapter, I was half-wondering if they were going to be sending spec-ops troops on permanent detachment to hell.
If people get killed in Hell, would they know they're dead?
People die in hell, they die for good (as far as we know). They're just much harder to kill because they heal so much faster, and they don't need to eat or sleep.
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Post by Ace Pace »

Nice, I'm interested in how much data they can extract from that single portal opening.
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Post by R011 »

pdf27 wrote: The Manroy website isn't terribly clear either - it looks rather like they mainly do mountings, in which case they may be authorised importers/modifiers of M2s rather than original manufacturers of the whole weapon.
Wikipedia (I know) says the L111A1 is made by Manroy, and other parts of the Manroy site say they make them, but you could be right. At any rate, if the UK is currently having them made in Belgium, I see no reason why FN wouldn't continue. The Belgians can't need that many, especially compared to a larger force who is already engaging Hell.
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

Surlethe wrote:
Kodiak wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:Excellent chapter, I was half-wondering if they were going to be sending spec-ops troops on permanent detachment to hell.
If people get killed in Hell, would they know they're dead?
People die in hell, they die for good (as far as we know). They're just much harder to kill because they heal so much faster, and they don't need to eat or sleep.
But what if its someone who walks from earth to hell, and so hasn't yet died once. Does being in hell automatically confer 'hellish' qualities to a living being?
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Post by JCady »

pdf27 wrote:
R011 wrote:Perfect is the enemy of good enough and the M2 is more than just good enough. John Browning's five-oh has a well deserved reputation for reliability - hence the fact it's been in production in one form or another since 1921 and why new and "better" fifty-cal designs tend not to get many orders. Water-cooled Brownings could be placed into production as soon as existing lines are modified to add water jackets and new lines could be opened. There would be no need for reverse engineering, finding old plans, or adapting modern machine tools to produce a weapon out of production for about seventy years.
Talking at cross purposes here - the Vickers discussion started from trying to work out what the UK would use in place of their current FN-MAG GPMGs and SA80 rifles. My suggestion was Vickers machine guns rechambered for .338 Lapua, in common with FN-FAL rifles chambered to the same calibre.
There is no existing production line for the M2 in the UK, and given the world situation it's highly unlikely that anyone would sell us the numbers we'd need. The effort involved in setting up a new line to produce Vickers guns in .338 is little different from that in setting up a new line to produce M2s, so we may as well go for a weapon that suits us better (common ammunition, lighter and better reliability with a good enough round).
It would seem to me to make more sense to adapt the existing .50-cal naval Vickers to .50 BMG; the Vickers is big and heavy enough that it's not really ever going to be anything but an HMG even in a lighter calibre, and it would not seem to be too huge a conversion.
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Post by Academia Nut »

The demons were asking why their commanders kept blowing up before. Now they're going to be asking why their bridges are blowing up and their commanders have holes in their heads that they shouldn't have.

And if Abigor's army was sent as a retaliation force, then could all the other demons being rallied simply be a mop up force for the expected victories. I doubt Hell even knows that the army they sent out to completely crush the human resistance is currently facing total annihilation of the likes not seen since Napoleon marched on Moscow. That or the baldricks on the move are a pacification force meant for another continent. Still, the massive logistical foul up waiting to happen won't be pretty.
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