Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[Firethorn]

I can only assume that the brass cartridge is made by taking a brass disc and repeatedly punching it into a die and then stress relieving it until it's drawn out to the full length, because that's the method that leaps to mind as the most obvious one.

Close, but from checking up, they use sheet metal(normally brass). There's normally three or more stampings to make a case.

Still, I'll point out that the manufacturing of brass cartridges predates WWI. Thus, while I'm sure the process has been highly automated and improved since then, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the machines making it are operable without computerized controls.

It also means that almost ANY stamping machine capable of working brass(not difficult) can be retasked to making cases if necessary. Think toy factories and such.

you can bet every military garrison in the world is now keeping its AFVs armed and fueled.

And if they're following regulations, they're keeping them much more separated as well. Heck, smart commanders might be posting fast reaction forces to speed response time.

[MKSheppard]

Different filtration requirements though - radiators require relatively low speed air which can be quite dusty, while turbines or piston engines require high quality, filtered air.

Except that the radiator air needs to be filtered very well:

The pumice in the air is the real problem. It mixes with moisture and oil to form a cement that really blocks the weapons up.

For maximal performance, radiators have to be kept relatively clean; how well do you think reject heat when covered in that cement?

[Sea Skimmer]

And if they're following regulations, they're keeping them much more separated as well. Heck, smart commanders might be posting fast reaction forces to speed response time.

But that assumes they have enough secure space to actually have sufficient separation, which was not the case at Doha, you don’t want to go parking armed and unattended vehicles just anywhere after all. Unfortunately the armor on an M109, and several other vehicles used and still used by the US Army isn’t thick enough to contain the fragmentation of onboard ammo detonations.

[Darth Wong]

Different filtration requirements though - radiators require relatively low speed air which can be quite dusty, while turbines or piston engines require high quality, filtered air.

Except that the radiator air needs to be filtered very well:

The pumice in the air is the real problem. It mixes with moisture and oil to form a cement that really blocks the weapons up.

For maximal performance, radiators have to be kept relatively clean; how well do you think reject heat when covered in that cement?

They can still handle far dirtier air than what you allow inside the engine. Nevertheless, when dealing with very dirty atmospheric conditions, what you need to do is increase the size of the intake grilles. You can't make magic filters that don't gum up, and if you allow the filters to severely restrict air intake, the engine will foul up or even stall. So the solution is to modify the vehicle to have a huge air intake, so that the vehicle's air filtration needs are spread over a much larger surface area.

Another possible workaround is to use a large durable pre-filter. A strong steel pre-filter (preferably designed for maximum ease of access) could probably keep enough of the heavy particles off the secondary filter to extend its operational lifespan, and the steel pre-filter could be removed and cleaned in the field, and then re-installed, even if heavy residue builds up on it (unlike the finer filters which are basically rendered worthless and must be replaced outright when they cake up).

[Sea Skimmer]

The ATG-1500 already has a precleaner before the filters, but its more of a FOD screen then anything that will stop dust,. Some Abrams tanks have been fitted with a pulsejet air system, which can blast sand out of the filters from the inside. On tanks with this system crews aren’t ever supposed to remove the air filters for cleaning, least dust get inside the system. On unmodified tanks filters have to be removed and cleaned after every major movement during desert operations. The engine even has a little ‘air filter’ light it can turn on when it starts feeling the choke.

[pdf27]

Different filtration requirements though - radiators require relatively low speed air which can be quite dusty, while turbines or piston engines require high quality, filtered air.

Except that the radiator air needs to be filtered very well:

The pumice in the air is the real problem. It mixes with moisture and oil to form a cement that really blocks the weapons up.

For maximal performance, radiators have to be kept relatively clean; how well do you think reject heat when covered in that cement?

Not quite - the radiator itself needs to be kept relatively clean. That's a relatively easy problem, already solved multiple times - the electrostatic precip plates in a power station for instance have exactly this problem, and there are plenty of other ways such as blowing it clean with compressed air every now and again.

[NecronLord]

As for Belial's targetting problem. Wouldn't he be most likely to try and narrow it down by interrogating the recently dead?

[Starglider]

As for Belial's targetting problem. Wouldn't he be most likely to try and narrow it down by interrogating the recently dead?

We have a winner.

Belial does have a vague idea that the humans might well have some weapons caches in secret caves or isolated castles. However, he doesn't consider this a priority, because;

a) Satan told him to destroy two cities so that's what he's going to have to start with,
b) the humans couldn't be keeping the bulk of their weapons too far from their troops, because it would take too long to march over and retrieve them plus the caches would become vulnerable to being plundered by enemy humans
c) most of the stockpiles have probably already been emptied, given that the humans seemed to be fully mobilised and prepared when Abigor encountered them. Stopping further production is a higher priority (and an easier targeting challenge than locating armies in the field).

[Edward Yee]

Belial does have a vague idea that the humans might well have some weapons caches in secret caves or isolated castles. However, he doesn't consider this a priority, because;

a) Satan told him to destroy two cities so that's what he's going to have to start with,
b) the humans couldn't be keeping the bulk of their weapons too far from their troops, because it would take too long to march over and retrieve them plus the caches would become vulnerable to being plundered by enemy humans
c) most of the stockpiles have probably already been emptied, given that the humans seemed to be fully mobilised and prepared when Abigor encountered them. Stopping further production is a higher priority (and an easier targeting challenge than locating armies in the field).

Isn't it also less priority because those in Hell believe (to varying degrees) that Abigor did actually fuck up the human armies only to choke at the end?

[Instant Sunrise]

As for Belial's targetting problem. Wouldn't he be most likely to try and narrow it down by interrogating the recently dead?

Would he even have access to the recent dead TO interrogate them? I mean, Belial didn't exactly sound like he had much sway in Hell. At least, not enough influence to get access to the recent dead to find out that kind of information.

Plus, I can see one big objection in Hell's political structure regarding interrogate and torture for information. The biggest one being that, it would give away to the "primitive humans" that Satan and Hell are NOT all seeing and all knowing.

Of course the other problem with trying to interrogate the dead, is that the demons have perfected the art of torture over the millenia. However, hells minions are good at torture for its own sake, as opposed to extraction of information. So, all the problems that come with that are going to rear their ugly head. So if Belial tries it, he's going to end up with loads of false, contradictory and misleading information about Human assets. Of course, I don't think that the demons are going to realize it until well after the fact.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Instead of torture, what if he offered to take people OUT of their everlasting torment in exchange for consistent, reliable information? Sad to say, but if I'd been flayed alive every day for ten years, I might sell out humanity for a blanket on a stone floor and one meal a day.

[Instant Sunrise]

Instead of torture, what if he offered to take people OUT of their everlasting torment in exchange for consistent, reliable information? Sad to say, but if I'd been flayed alive every day for ten years, I might sell out humanity for a blanket on a stone floor and one meal a day.

IF the demons thought to do that, it might work. However, their MO for the past 6000 years has been been to torture somebody for information. Once again, the problems of gain false information form torture are not going to make themselves apparent until it is too late.

Add on to that the thousands of years experience telling the demons that, if they give wrong information during torture, torture harder. IF they can break out that mindset, IF they can devise a method of being able to get actual, factual answers out of the dead humans, than yeah, they have a shot. Trouble is, they have to go against what thousands of years of personal experience is telling them to do.

[gtg947h]

I don't think breaking out of the torture mindset is something that will happen quickly... remember how shocking it was to Abigor to find out that the humans weren't torturing the captives? And he seems to be one of the quicker ones.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I don't think breaking out of the torture mindset is something that will happen quickly... remember how shocking it was to Abigor to find out that the humans weren't torturing the captives? And he seems to be one of the quicker ones.

We may be surprised. It only took demons a massive ass-kicking to learn compassion for their fellow demon. Its entirely possible that Belial may think far enough outside of the box to consider rewards instead of punishment.

[JCady]

Remember that he erroneously believes humans have been stockpiling weapons for thousands of years in anticipation of this conflict. He must be looking for some kind of vast storehouse of weapons. He might think that a boneyard fits the bill. I'm not sure he would even recognize what a munitions depot is.

Preindustrial mindset; we must have been stockpiling for centuries to have such huge numbers of extremely advanced weapons.

[Junghalli]

Instead of torture, what if he offered to take people OUT of their everlasting torment in exchange for consistent, reliable information? Sad to say, but if I'd been flayed alive every day for ten years, I might sell out humanity for a blanket on a stone floor and one meal a day.

Or just have a telepathic Demon mindfuck them. There aint no tinfoil hats in Hell.

The Demons a pretty massive source of intelligence on the modern world available to them if they think to use it. If Belial has even just a couple of hundred human captives odds are at least a couple of them will have died relatively recently. The odds of there being, say, a General or something in there are relatively low even if he has many thousands but he could probably learn a lot about the general shape humanity's capabilities and vulnerabilities just by interrogating some random people, especially ones with low-level military experience or who used to be engineers. The biggest difficulty might be seperating the ones with valuable information from the ones whose knowledge is hopelessly out of date. It would help if Hell kept records of which souls arrived when.

[NecronLord]

IF the demons thought to do that, it might work. However, their MO for the past 6000 years has been been to torture somebody for information.

I wouldn't think so. With humans, they probably just line up a hundred, and offer to let the first one to sell out with effective information be sold into slavery somewhere. The rest go back to their burning coffins forever, or so on.

Much less effort that way.

[Admiral Valdemar]

So, basically, dying is only going to feed Belial's forces with better chances of learning and adapting if he can interrogate the dead effectively. Which means you either don't die (I imagine many go about this philosophy almost always), don't disseminate too much information about certain installations that may be keystone pieces to the military-industrial complex, or, my favourite option, go into Hell and retrieve the deceased before anyone gets a hold of them.

Course, you'll need engines that don't clog up then and a guarantee that you can return back to our realm, else it's just making things worse.

On the engine side of things, aside from EVs powered by lithium cells, there's superflywheels (bulk weight being the problem), supercapacitors (explosive nature being a problem) and possibly some Stirling engine variant, though the only way I can think of using one without combustion is by using a nuclear pile for a thermal source. Bolo, anyone?

[NecronLord]

So, basically, dying is only going to feed Belial's forces with better chances of learning and adapting if he can interrogate the dead effectively.

If he comes up with this idead, he almost certainly can get as many as he needs. Just go out to where those 20% (or was it ten?) of worldwide religious people are being processed and put to torment, have ten thousand taken out, have heralds shout "Who among you knows of human weapon production?" and make hideous examples of any whom he deems to be lying.

The dead are not a scarce resource in hell. Even if he's not got vast torture fields of his own, it shouldn't be too hard to gain access to them, by proclaiming to the local guards that they are needed to fulfil Satan's personal command.

[Setesh]

Or just have a telepathic Demon mindfuck them. There aint no tinfoil hats in Hell.

Actually I've noticed a significant lack of the demons even attempting this on the 'Liberation', IIRC they only seem to use the abilities on each other in hell, it may be the human dead in hell are no longer readable. It may in fact be a side effect of why they can't leave hell.

As for Belial, I suspect he will look for a hidden fortress with a large cash of weapons based on the few descriptions they have from the survivors of past battles. Even if he hits multiple targets that look to him like weapon cashes, he is more than likely going to hit one of the hundreds of depots filled with obsolete ordinance. The US alone has several bases that are nothing but warehouses filled with obsolete equipment both ours and captured. (My uncle had a rather amusing experience at one of these where he turned a corner and found 400 SA-2's captured during the vietnam war, that weren't on the inventory.)

[Darth Wong]

The vast majority of recent dead are going to be poor people, mostly not even from first-world nations at all, never mind being part of its military. Look at the demographics of death around the world. I suppose one might be able to find someone sooner or later, but this seems like it would be very time consuming to release captives and interrogate them, and Belial doesn't have a lot of time. Worse yet, you can expect pretty much 100% of captives to claim that they have some knowledge because people under torture invariably say whatever people want them to say, so they're going to get 99.9% garbage information. For every bona fide member of the military-industrial complex who talks, you're going to get ten bus drivers from the Midwest, a hundred African viilagers, and who knows how many more assorted, all of whom will say that they have the information you're looking for.

[Darth Wong]

As for Belial's targetting problem. Wouldn't he be most likely to try and narrow it down by interrogating the recently dead?

We have a winner.

Belial does have a vague idea that the humans might well have some weapons caches in secret caves or isolated castles. However, he doesn't consider this a priority, because;

a) Satan told him to destroy two cities so that's what he's going to have to start with,
b) the humans couldn't be keeping the bulk of their weapons too far from their troops, because it would take too long to march over and retrieve them plus the caches would become vulnerable to being plundered by enemy humans
c) most of the stockpiles have probably already been emptied, given that the humans seemed to be fully mobilised and prepared when Abigor encountered them. Stopping further production is a higher priority (and an easier targeting challenge than locating armies in the field).

Item c seems like a huge leap in logic on his part. He has absolutely no way of knowing the ratios of production to stockpiling to use in the field. He doesn't even have a way to guess.

[Firethorn]

The vast majority of recent dead are going to be poor people, mostly not even from first-world nations at all, never mind being part of its military.

Assuming more or less random distribution of the dead, there's reasons I figure that you'd have to free 200 or more in order to find 1 former 'modern' military member, and that's with me being generous and counting anybody who was part of a military that used breech loaders. Think Civil war and later.

Now, while US spending is through the roof, we actually have fewer people under arms, percentage wise, than most.

In the past, population levels were lower, military percentage much higher. Yet we have ~1 Million under arms now, have for years. 300 million population - now that'd normally give you 1/3% military. Yet, the 300 million includes retired military that aren't 'in' anymore. Consider, 70 year lifespan, 20 year career(average). I wouldn't be surprised if the US 'military or former military' rate exceeds 1%. Some countries come close to 50%(all able bodied males, and some females, have to serve a term in the military). So, when digging up people, I figure AT LEAST 1 out of 100 should be useful. Former police can probably be recruited.

Due to the joys of geometric growth we've encountered in the last couple hundred years, most people in hell are actually probably within the last couple hundred years.

edit - aw crud, just had a thought, when thinking about population levels through history.

Where's all the babies? I mean, the majority of babies used to die before their first birthday. It was so bad that some cultures had a tradition of not naming their babies until they survived their first year.

[Darth Wong]

Keep in mind, however, that it's not enough to find someone who happens to be a member of any modern country's military. You need someone with reasonably up-to-date information on weapons stockpiles and other logistical high-value targets in the Middle East, which is what Belial needs to hit in order to aid Satan's war effort and prove his value in the royal court. That is a much smaller figure than what you're guessing at.

And there's still the problem of garbage information from all of the irrelevant people you dig up, who will all say anything to please their torturers. Even those who honestly try to give useful information might give garbage.

"So, have you interrogated the humans?"

"Yes. Many people born in the last century, who lived in this place called 'America'"

"Ah, good. And where do they get this thing they call 'ammunition'?"

"A place called Wal-Mart".

And that's for the demon who was lucky to get a batch of modern humans from America for some reason.

[Edward Yee]

The best part about such a conversation would be if a "recon by fire" did find a Wal-Mart with ammo, the humans interrogated having left out (or been ignorant of) the caveat that it only stocked, say, 9x19mm.