Potential Middle Earth STGOD.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Perhaps...if we're going on the assumption we can manufacture fuel for them though...if not..they'll turn into paperweights rather quickly unless used as base 'turrets'

Well, we have the basic capability to manufacture fuel for them. But we might not be able to manufacture enough, and have to look for alternatives. Or other obstacles may arise.

It's one consideration..

[Patrick Ogaard]

Perhaps...if we're going on the assumption we can manufacture fuel for them though...if not..they'll turn into paperweights rather quickly unless used as base 'turrets'

Well, we have the basic capability to manufacture fuel for them. But we might not be able to manufacture enough, and have to look for alternatives. Or other obstacles may arise.

It's one consideration..

Fuel should not be a near-term problem, though it would certainly be a long-term problem. Of course, if one figures a scenario duration of up to twenty years, the impossibility of getting replacement tires will make it a moot point. Eventually any tires in storage will get brittle and useless, no matter how well protected.

Ignoring that long-term problem for the moment, though, the vehicles under consideration, particularly the humvee family, run on diesel fuel. Food grade vegetable oils, including rapeseed oil, will run in all but the latest electronically snazzed up diesel engines. Often without the need for engine modifications. Worst case, one might just have to take annual tribute of vegetable oil from those towns and villages enjoying "protection."

[Patrick Ogaard]

As a possible premise for the whole thing, why not rip off mass-produced fiction? David Eddings, Michael Moorcock and that fellow who wrote the Thomas Covenant stuff have all put forth variations on the concept that the local creator gods can not directly influence their creations once everything is set in motion. This means that they have to ask favors of the gods next door to send someone to intervene appropriately when things get screwed up. In this case, it would be a lot of someones.

So...

Eru decides that he doesn't like Sauron screwing things up and is worried that maybe all that prophecy stuff won't work out, totally screwing up his plans for Middle Earth. Therefore, he asks one of his buddies to send a littel help his way.

The help turns out to be 400 to 500 assorted people selected primarily on the basis of their showing interest in the matter (as fiction) in a selected online forum. Arrangements are made, and all the "volunteers" are conned into attending conventions, going on vacations in the back country somewhere, or just stepping out the front door with a well-stuffed duffel bag and some carry-on baggage.

Just to make things difficult...

Each character, whether intentionally or due to subliminal prompting, is equipped as well as he or she could arrange. An overall weight limit of 100 kilograms (or 220 pounds) should probably represent the absolute upper limit on what the participants can show up with. That includes comfort items, clothing, guns, creative cutlery, specialist toolkits, computers, or whatever else seems appropriate.

The taxi from LAX drops you off at the address outside of Huntington Beach, but it's night time, and seriously foggy, and now you're on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The taxi is gone, and now you're standing in front of what looks like a firebase right out of Apocalypse Now. Better read the fine print on that invitation to the writers' conference.

And what's up with all those other geeks over there, the ones standing around in the midst of huge piles of suitcases, duffel bags, steamer trunks, backpacks and other junk? Some of them look pretty weird. One looks like a refugee from an SCA/NRA fusion fashion show, complete with full plate armor and an AR15. And that woman wearing the helicopter beanie and the temperate woodland pattern battledress uniform...

[Patrick Ogaard]

The awe-inspiring citadel (a proposal, open to criticism):

A rectangular enclosure 200 meters along its short side and 400 meters long along its long side, divided into two square sections 200 meters on a side.

One section is the shop and motor pool area, while the other is the enclosure for personnel. There are four outside gates, two per section of the enclosure. An identical gate joins the two sections.

A ditch two meters wide at the top and two meters deep separates the enclosure from the surrounding countryside, and an earthen rampart backs the ditch with a firing step at its back. The outer face of the rampart is sloped slightly and has three consecutive single strands of barbed wire running along it at about knee level to slow attackers. The top of the rampart is protected by an ordinary barbed wire fence constructed of wooden posts with three strands of barbed wire strung between them. It's nothing particularly unassailable, merely designed to keep an attacker struggling along slowly at a range where a defender with a rifle just can't miss.

At each of the four corners of the rectangle, as well as at the two points of the perimeter where the two sections join, there is a gun tower. The gun tower is a simple reinforced concrete pillar about a meter in diameter, about five meters high, and with a square, reinforced concrete platform three meters on a side on its top, supported by a frame of steel beams incorporated in the floor slab. The walls of the platform are made of regular concrete 10 centimeters thick (or about 4 inches), with two shuttered windows per side (with shutters of commercial steel diamond plate) and two loopholes in the wall on each side, as well as two floor loopholes (with covers) per side. The windows have sills set up to accept a post mount for a light or medium machine gun. Access to the platform is by means of a steel ladder inside a tube of heavy gauge galvanized sheet steel, so that a climber can get to the platform from the fighting step of the rampart without someone outside being able to observe that.

The concrete roof of each tower slopes slightly toward the center. The center is flat, and supports a gun pit just under a meter wide and 1.2 meters high (with a 10 cm thick concrete wall around it. A metal ring around the perimeter allows the twin .50 M2HB MGs mounted there to be fully traversed, though engaging aerial targets at close range is tricky, and enemies that get too close can become impossible to engage. Since the guns can strike down targets around a mile away, that may not be a huge problem. A ladder/hatch inside the gun pit allows access to the inside of the tower platform.

The actual gates are about five meters wide, standard sliding steel gates about 3 meters high and reinforced on the outside by a layer of 2 cm thick steel diamond plate welded onto the gate. The outside gates are each flanked by two U-shaped concrete bunkers of two-story construction, three meters wide and three meters deep. The lower story is half below ground level and allows for an exceptional field of fire. The upper story is the regular guard level and is fitted with a short set of stairs and a conventional steel door. The upper story has a limited number of small loopholes. The flat concrete roof of the bunker is protected by the curved portion of the bunker wall, which runs about fifty centimeters higher than the roof. A Mk19 40mm grenade machine gun is mounted on a swivel mount on the roof, with the gunner protected by a makeshift gun shield fabricated from 2cm thick steel diamond plate.

The fixed mount weapons (.50-caliber and 40mm machine guns) are securely and generously welded into their mounts at all possible points. Somehow this was done without destroying the weapons. Any attempt to remove the weapons with the available tools will ruin major components, with at best 50% of the weapons recoverable to usable form if the weapons are removed.

Still, that's a lot of firepower: 6 twin-.50s and 8 single 40mm grenade MGs. It might be reasonable to reduce the number of grenade machine guns to just one per gate, for a total of 4.

The base would be incredibly difficult to take on using Middle Earth military technologies, but not completely impossible. Ultimately, an isolated gun tower could have a bonfire started at its base to smoke the defenders out, and in a concerted suicidal charge by ten thousand orcs, a few hundred would probably make it over the ramparts and inside the compound.

[Straha]

Hmm, prehaps a sprinkler system could be installed to get rid of the smoke problem? My problem is, however, what if they use siege weapons, or dragons? Though we could protect the compound with anti-aircraft guns we'd need some decently ranged air vehicles to stop attacks pnt the villages we are protecting.

EDIT: Also I think it would be better if we could make the entire home base mobile, that way we could choose our fights, and not get boged down too greatly in bad situations.

[Sea Skimmer]

The original post on SB put the base on a river that was out of the way; I can't dredge the name out of memory. Anyway, perhaps if it was cited there, the need to build up a power-projection capability to influence the "historical" events of the Middle Earth would compensate?

It was at the month of the river Isen. However in our thread few people liked that location. It is pretty remote. Other ideas that I can reall where the Lonely mountain, southern Mirkwood, somewhere along the river running or shores of the Sea of Rhun and Fangorn forest. Another idea was along the Andyun river. A location on its northern reaches would proivde access to all places of important fairly quickly while keeping us away from Mordor and Isenguard.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmm, prehaps a sprinkler system could be installed to get rid of the smoke problem? My problem is, however, what if they use siege weapons, or dragons? Though we could protect the compound with anti-aircraft guns we'd need some decently ranged air vehicles to stop attacks pnt the villages we are protecting.

EDIT: Also I think it would be better if we could make the entire home base mobile, that way we could choose our fights, and not get boged down too greatly in bad situations.

Dragons are extremely rare and only a few live in the Northern wastes. They also have very soft underbellies unless they happen to sleep on piles of gold for decades. Smog was killed by a single arrow, though it hit his heart IIRC. Still a burst of gunfire should drive one off if not kill it outright and our fire could easily tear up their wings as well.

A mobile base wouldn't' be practical, we need a vast fleet of HMETT sized fuel trucks numbering into the thousands.

[Straha]

Hmm, prehaps a sprinkler system could be installed to get rid of the smoke problem? My problem is, however, what if they use siege weapons, or dragons? Though we could protect the compound with anti-aircraft guns we'd need some decently ranged air vehicles to stop attacks pnt the villages we are protecting.

EDIT: Also I think it would be better if we could make the entire home base mobile, that way we could choose our fights, and not get boged down too greatly in bad situations.

Dragons are extremely rare and only a few live in the Northern wastes. They also have very soft underbellies unless they happen to sleep on piles of gold for decades. Smog was killed by a single arrow, though it hit his heart IIRC. Still a burst of gunfire should drive one off if not kill it outright and our fire could easily tear up their wings as well.

What about those things the wing-wraiths flew in the Two Towers? (I read the books when I was five or six, can't remember much from it)

A mobile base wouldn't' be practical, we need a vast fleet of HMETT sized fuel trucks numbering into the thousands.

True, how about a mobile section that could create a small ad hoc command location in a seperate area? Wouldn't need to be big, maybe just a couple Mobile homes, and a couple hummers with Anti-Aircraft guns on them?

[Sea Skimmer]

What about those things the wing-wraiths flew in the Two Towers? (I read the books when I was five or six, can't remember much from it)

They only show in small numbers during the war of the ring, so we won't need to worry about them for seventeen years. They should be easy to kill, while fear inspiring they don't seem to have any form of "armament" and like Smog one was brought down with a single arrow.

True, how about a mobile section that could create a small ad hoc command location in a seperate area? Wouldn't need to be big, maybe just a couple Mobile homes, and a couple hummers with Anti-Aircraft guns on them?

Good luck moving one of those though Middle Earth. If you want something that small, we could simply send twenty people out on horseback to build one. And that could be done without having to carve a trail of destruction though the terrain that anyone could follow.

[Straha]

What about those things the wing-wraiths flew in the Two Towers? (I read the books when I was five or six, can't remember much from it)

They only show in small numbers during the war of the ring, so we won't need to worry about them for seventeen years. They should be easy to kill, while fear inspiring they don't seem to have any form of "armament" and like Smog one was brought down with a single arrow.

Okay, still it never hurts to think of a worst case scenario, also it would be rather fear inspiring to see air planes with machine guns blazing coming at you.

True, how about a mobile section that could create a small ad hoc command location in a seperate area? Wouldn't need to be big, maybe just a couple Mobile homes, and a couple hummers with Anti-Aircraft guns on them?

Good luck moving one of those though Middle Earth. If you want something that small, we could simply send twenty people out on horseback to build one. And that could be done without having to carve a trail of destruction though the terrain that anyone could follow.

Fair enough.

[Setzer]

Where do we find out who the top 400 posters are?

Instead of grabbing the top 400 and leaving everyone else out, why don't we split the group up into bands. One can aid Aragorn's diversionary strike on Mordor, some can help garrison Minas Tirith, some can assault Isengaurd alongside the Ents, etc.

Or we could create our own scenarios outside of LOTR canon.

For example, a guerilla campaign against Saruman's thugs in the Shire (How long did Frodo ,et al, take to get home?)

[Sea Skimmer]

Where do we find out who the top 400 posters are?

The member list button, have it sort by total posts, each page is 50 accounts.

As for splitting up, we have something like seventeen years before the war of the Ring starts. That would be something that would evolve during the STGOD.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Hmm, prehaps a sprinkler system could be installed to get rid of the smoke problem? My problem is, however, what if they use siege weapons, or dragons? Though we could protect the compound with anti-aircraft guns we'd need some decently ranged air vehicles to stop attacks pnt the villages we are protecting.

EDIT: Also I think it would be better if we could make the entire home base mobile, that way we could choose our fights, and not get boged down too greatly in bad situations.

The smoke problem would only be a problem if the base is partially overrun, so sprinklers probably wouldn't be a big priority.

Siege weapons would not be much of a problem. Even the most insanely optimistic ranges for torsion-powered stone throwers max out at 700 to 800 meters. The .50 caliber guns can easily manage twice that, and can, in a sustained fire fight, send dozens of very big bullets out to that range every minute, for hours on end. The torsion catapults would have a rate of fire measured in shots per hour or, for the big weapons, hours per shot. Machine guns elevated sufficientliy can also establish so-called beaten zones, large oval areas in which the bullets rain down from the sky as deadly hail, so large, packed troop formations could be dispersed before they get close enough to be a threat.

Hydrogen-filled airships would be a relatively trivial thing to construct, though insanely dangerous for crews trying to use firearms from the small airships that could realistically be produced.

The twin-fifties should serve adequately as antidragon weapons. A steady stream of 12.7mm bullets should discomfit any dragon, and should also handily outrange its flaming breath if a fire drake. Worst case, the machine gunners run a track of tracers toward the eyes or open mouth. A blind dragon choking on its own blood would be an ineffective opponent, and even a fast dragon is unlikely to be able to manage sufficient speeds that even an amateur machine gunner could not register hit after hit.

For the outlying villages and towns, active and aggressive patrolling of the surroundings would be the ideal method of dealing with problems. Substantial bodies of troops moving on foot, horseback or wargback simply cannot move covertly for an extended period of time, so that patrols and regular interviews of locals will find those enemies out. A patrol of just eight or so trooops armed with automatic and semiautomatic weapons should, unless embarassingly ambushed at close range, be able to deal confidently with a hundred or more orcs. Lookouts with binoculars and walkie-talkies would make covert enemy movement almost impossible during daylight hours.

Basically, once things get set up properly, a large portion of the base population should be busily improving the capabilities of the force and the protection of the base. The rest should be out and about, patrolling, gathering intelligence, ambushing minor enemy forces, training friendly locals in the use of advanced weapons and tactics, and generally paving the way for decisive action. Just one squad of rifle-armed troops would make a palisade-enclosed friendly village almost unassailable by casual raids, and radio contact would make help available quickly if the enemy force proves too strong.

Ultimately, of course, the idea is to not ever have to rely on the defenses of the main base. The patrols, lookout posts and fortified friendly villages should allow any major enemy incursion to be stopped cold by massed firepower before that force gets anywhere near the base. Although...you never know.

[Straha]

How would we be formulating ourselves, a protector of people who pay us, or the new regional super-power and just rulers of those who are beneath us?

[Patrick Ogaard]

For the power supply of the base, what about a combination of a hydropower unit and a block-type thermal power station? It would require some mechanically competent people, but it would solve a lot of problems.

Block-type thermal power stations are basically just relatively small generators that make use of the generator's waste heat for heating purposes by means of heat exchangers. These sorts of power stations could theoretically work with almost any heat source, but natural gas is apparently the favorite choice because of its efficiency. So…

A group of 400 to 500 people will produce lots of waste on a daily basis, waste that has to be got rid of. Let's just say that the "harvest" of the latrines is used to generate methane, that methane is stored in tanks, and the generators purr along. A few pre-filled tanks serve to keep the system going until everyone's done his or her duty at the latrines. The solid wastes left over after the methane is generated could then also be burned in a secondary generation system that burns wood and other solid combustibles to generate steam and heat to run the power stations.

Each of the two sections should have a pair of small power stations, contained in a small double building with large methane tanks behind it. Damage to one half of the building should not adversely affect the other half of the building, and just one of the four power station should be enough to keep the installation running at minimum power.

A grid of buried concrete tubes supports the electrical and heating utilities of the base. The district heat lines are run in stainless steel pipes bedded in insulation inside the concrete tubes. Running alongside these tubes are well-insulated power lines and also a base-wide computer and telephone network. Every bunker and gun tower has network connections, as do all buildings on the installation. Connections should even be available every few meters along the defensive rampart. Even if it is just a phone plugged in there, it all forms part of a comprehensive communications system that allows faster, more coordinated action than the enemy. At least so long as activities are confined just to the main base.

[Patrick Ogaard]

How would we be formulating ourselves, a protector of people who pay us, or the new regional super-power and just rulers of those who are beneath us?

A regional superpower, no matter how well-equipped with advanced weapons and other technological toys, does not consist of four to five hundred people.

I'd want to say that initially it would be a matter of keeping a low profile and acting mysterious. If Sauron could play the Necromancer we could certainly play the Lords of Kobol, the Postmen...

...or just call the area claimed by us the Autonomous Principalities of the Artificer-Mages.

I could certainly see Mike Wong dressed up in an appropriately theatrical set of Sith robes, playing the role of the Lord High Artificer.

[Straha]

How would we be formulating ourselves, a protector of people who pay us, or the new regional super-power and just rulers of those who are beneath us?

A regional superpower, no matter how well-equipped with advanced weapons and other technological toys, does not consist of four to five hundred people.

I'd want to say that initially it would be a matter of keeping a low profile and acting mysterious. If Sauron could play the Necromancer we could certainly play the Lords of Kobol, the Postmen...

...or just call the area claimed by us the Autonomous Principalities of the Artificer-Mages.

I could certainly see Mike Wong dressed up in an appropriately theatrical set of Sith robes, playing the role of the Lord High Artificer.

Rohan had how many men, and they were sill able to defeat Sauron at Helm's Deep. We could do much better with modern equipment, and complete knowledge of the area, besides do you think that not one power would become slightly bothered with us and try to get rid of us?

[Setzer]

Aww Fug, I'm number 207. Damn my Silent-Bobbian tendencies!

[Setzer]

Must boost post count....

[Patrick Ogaard]

How would we be formulating ourselves, a protector of people who pay us, or the new regional super-power and just rulers of those who are beneath us?

A regional superpower, no matter how well-equipped with advanced weapons and other technological toys, does not consist of four to five hundred people.

I'd want to say that initially it would be a matter of keeping a low profile and acting mysterious. If Sauron could play the Necromancer we could certainly play the Lords of Kobol, the Postmen...

...or just call the area claimed by us the Autonomous Principalities of the Artificer-Mages.

I could certainly see Mike Wong dressed up in an appropriately theatrical set of Sith robes, playing the role of the Lord High Artificer.

Rohan had how many men, and they were sill able to defeat Sauron at Helm's Deep. We could do much better with modern equipment, and complete knowledge of the area, besides do you think that not one power would become slightly bothered with us and try to get rid of us?

The question in a massed battle, especially against orcs, could quickly become one of how many can you mow down before they come close enough to skewer you? Trapped Red Army battalions on the Eastern Front during WW2 fairly regularly ran night time suicide charges against Wehrmacht machine gun positions. They knew they would die regardless and decided to at least try to do something. The next morning the Wehrmacht relief troops often found the machine gun team stretched out behind the machine gun, with bayonets stuck in their chests. The entire battalion would be wiped out by the fire, but one or two always seemed to live long enough to insert a bayonet.

Helm's Deep, while nearly pivotal, was not exactly the biggest battle of LOTR, and a sufficiently large force attacking a defensive position can eventually overrun it so long as the attackers have no regard for their own casualty rates. Thus, the folks with the machine guns might eventually bleed Sauron's forces white, weakening his military power, but that does the dead machine gunners no good. The ideal scenario would be for 90%+ of the 400-500 to actually get home in one piece (or with only a few small pieces missing).

Initially, if keeping a low profile, the little fortress would be likely to escape notice for some time. News would slowly leak out to the local powers, but ideally the fortress would by that time have produced a few flashy demonstrations to cow the local authorities, possibly even going so far as to propose mutual protection. As in: in return for being allowed to remain where our glorious leader, Emperor Palpatine, chose to place us, we will keep this area inviolate, and we won't destroy your castle the way we destroyed that bandit stronghold in the hills (the one that's now a blasted, smoking ruin). If placed in a slightly out of the way area, even that might not be necessary since the locals will pay lip service at best to the guys in the castles a fortnight's walk away.

[weemadando]

For our fortress I'd recommend:

Killing field No.1, 1-2 km of cleared level ground around.

Perimeter of razor wire with trip flares and claymores. 600m to a side.

Dead ground/killing field No.2, 200m of cleared level ground.

Curtain wall, probably a wooden palisade or similar with walkway allowing us to fire from elevated position, 400m to a side.

Vehicle yard/shop area etc. Inside curtain wall, but outside main fort - this is as far as ANY outsider would be allowed. Effectively this is our trading area, if we haven't established a remote trading post for that.

Main fort. Concrete stronghold, where our gun turrets are. Walls 200m to a side.

"Keep", main barracks and armoury location. Also the location of libraries etc. ONLY our personel are allowed within the Main Fort.

[Lonestar]

I suppose there wouldn't be much room for a USN Cryppie in Middle Earth.

[Sea Skimmer]

For our fortress I'd recommend:

So basically something that is invincible?

Why don't we just add a triangular moat 30 feet deep, with flanking galleries armed with GAU-19's firing down the lengths of them? A couple elevated copulas for French mle1897 75mm guns could complete our totally invincible defenses.

Better yet lets just have on the Liege forts. One would provide space for most of what we need, while the armament could repulse any attack. However because of its nature, rather heavy guns mounted in armored copulas, we couldn't even think about removing them. Or perhaps one of Durer's planned works but located in the Northern wastes to keep such a massive fortress from attracting too much attention.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Better yet lets just have on the Liege forts. One would provide space for most of what we need, while the armament could repulse any attack. However because of its nature, rather heavy guns mounted in armored copulas, we couldn't even think about removing them. Or perhaps one of Durer's planned works but located in the Northern wastes to keep such a massive fortress from attracting too much attention.

Keep it simpler. A Vauban with twenty seventeen pounders and fifty Vickers emplacements

[Sea Skimmer]

Keep it simpler. A Vauban with twenty seventeen pounders and fifty Vickers emplacements

The problem with his works is that there are so many facets you need a lot of men to man them, your proposed armament would require more then half our force to man even on a vert limited scale. Really even with the whole 400 person force wouldn't be enough to service all the guns.

I'm semi serious about the Liege fort if people want something invincible or close to it.