Armageddon???? (Part Fifty Up)

[dragon]

Hum well since the demons has sworn fealty to the humans, not only do they have sources of information but also some nice firepower of their own. Imagine giving Abigior some human made weapons that have been sized up to fir him, ie. 20mm chain guns and coat him in cmposite armor that will negate the lighting and then send him after that one angel thats running around killing people, or send him back to hell to kill satan.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Hum well since the demons has sworn fealty to the humans, not only do they have sources of information but also some nice firepower of their own. Imagine giving Abigior some human made weapons that have been sized up to fir him, ie. 20mm chain guns and coat him in cmposite armor that will negate the lighting and then send him after that one angel thats running around killing people, or send him back to hell to kill satan.

Wow, an extra Bradley, except it can't carry troops.

[Crayz9000]

Hum well since the demons has sworn fealty to the humans, not only do they have sources of information but also some nice firepower of their own. Imagine giving Abigior some human made weapons that have been sized up to fir him, ie. 20mm chain guns and coat him in cmposite armor that will negate the lighting and then send him after that one angel thats running around killing people, or send him back to hell to kill satan.

Havokeff needs to illustrate that concept.

[Sidewinder]

Hum well since the demons has sworn fealty to the humans, not only do they have sources of information but also some nice firepower of their own.

And give up one of the greatest advantages humans have over demons and angels? I think it'll be a LONG, LONG TIME before that happens. Of course, if Abigor can stomach holding an iron or steel sword, he might get one. I doubt General Petraeus or any other human military leader will trust Abigor with a long-range weapon, other than the lightning bolts the demons can shoot.

[JN1]

Much the same is true of the TA - the universal comment you hear is that the TA learn much, much faster than the regulars. One caveat though - the TA are volunteers who really want to be there and are willing to give up their free time to do so. That won't be true of the conscripts.

I've read that on many occasions that they give the ARABs pause for thought. They also bring a lot of skills from civilian life that can be useful; I've read of a TA infantryman who was a mechanic for Mercedes Benz fixing a Chief tan and another who worked for BT setting up a comms net for his unit.
The shortage of officers might also be critical, to some extent the army can look at promoting some NCOs and officers to fill positions above their existing ones, UOTCs might also be a potential source of NCOs and officers. We might need to create officer producing units as in previous world wars and expand courses for administrative staff, which was a critical shortage in WW1.

Ummm... be a bit careful on that one, the Baldricks have no anti-armour capability at all so far as we've seen, so there may be a preference for light armour over heavy (MUCH cheaper and easier to make). The advantage heavy armour has had to date is that it carries heavier firepower - a legacy of it's previous task of fighting other heavily armoured vehicles. Something designed from the ground up to fight Baldricks won't have the armour although it may have the firepower.

I was thinking in terms of replacing Saxons and 'Bulldogs', which have little anti-baldrick capability with Warriors. The number of armoured infantry battalions converted to mech, and light configuration must mean that there are quite a lot of Warriors in storage.

[K. A. Pital]

That Bush-Putin conversation was ... fun Gigs.

But, can't wait for invasion of Hell. What would be the name Abigor gets, leader of "Commitee Free Hell" and "Union of Demon Officers" (as the Commitee Free Germany and Union of German Officers in WWII)

[Lonestar]

That Bush-Putin conversation was ... fun Gigs.

But, can't wait for invasion of Hell. What would be the name Abigor gets, leader of "Commitee Free Hell" and "Union of Demon Officers" (as the Commitee Free Germany and Union of German Officers in WWII)

The "Demonic National Congress".

[Darth Wong]

The Demonic Peoples' Front. No, the Peoples' Front of Demons! What about The Popular Front?

[Mr. Coffee]

The Demonic Peoples' Front. No, the Peoples' Front of Demons! What about The Popular Front?

Oh, he's over there.

SPLITTER!

[pdf27]

I was thinking in terms of replacing Saxons and 'Bulldogs', which have little anti-baldrick capability with Warriors. The number of armoured infantry battalions converted to mech, and light configuration must mean that there are quite a lot of Warriors in storage.

Whack an RCWS on top of a 432 and it'll do the job quite happily. Taller and less well armoured, but that doesn't really matter any more.

[JN1]

I was thinking in terms of replacing Saxons and 'Bulldogs', which have little anti-baldrick capability with Warriors. The number of armoured infantry battalions converted to mech, and light configuration must mean that there are quite a lot of Warriors in storage.

Whack an RCWS on top of a 432 and it'll do the job quite happily. Taller and less well armoured, but that doesn't really matter any more.

We'd need something with a longer range and more hitting power than a Browning, IMVHO, though it would be better than a Gimpy. I wonder if any of the 13 FV432 RARDENs survived? Might come in handy if they could be given the Bulldog treatment and put back in service.

[Surlethe]

I don't think heavy armor is going anywhere; it may not be produced in proportionally as large quantities, but it wouldn't be wise to completely retool production lines currently devoted to tanks. Human militaries will need to look forward to after the Celestial War concludes, when they will still need to contend with each other.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I do have a thought. Rahab mentioned that living humans had come to Hell before. We do not know if demons can open portals underwater (it hasn't been demonstrated yet), though that is less relevant to the consideration that follows--they had to get there somehow. Did they use nephilim like kitten? Possible, but unlikely--they may be able to summon demons but it's MUCH harder to go up against the gradient, and without boosting equipment even the most powerful of nephilim like that can likely not pull it off.

The other option is that there's a permanent link to Hell. In fact, the swimming demon headed to London might well have come through it, as we know that in all Mediterranean mythology, the portal to Hades or Hell is beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Now, it may be located in deep water in the mid-Atlantic ocean at the moment, but if there's a permanent portal it probably wanders in relation to the magnetic field rather than staying in one place, so like the magnetic pole, it's wandered off of land and into the sea (in the same way that the Demonic armies arrived in western Iraq instead of on the Plain of Jezreel in Israel where they were prophesied to arrive). This would also explain how Demons have similar DNA to us; they could have evolved from terran creatures which moved through the portal inadvertently in their migration patterns.

[Kuroneko]

Look, if we build this large wooden badger... .

Well, the first of the argument against not dissecting Lugasharmanaska is now void, although the others remain. I hope she avoids any such repeated attempts to by Surlethe to do so, if there are any.

This would also explain how Demons have similar DNA to us; they could have evolved from terran creatures which moved through the portal inadvertently in their migration patterns.

That makes a lot of sense, although if some of the comments in the story about the time scale are at least somewhat accurate in their implicatures, the path of initial migration is likely to be the reverse. (This is far from completely clear, since a fair amount of metaphor is used.)

[JN1]

Has anybody thought what might be happening in Ireland? I presume that the country will have lost the same proportion of its population post-Message as most other European countries, but now is looking to mobilise as many able bodied men and women into the Defence Forces.
The thing is that Ireland has no tradition of conscription (it was never introduced in WW1), so are they going to follow the British and American example, or stick with voluntary recruitment even in this greatest of crisis?

Weapons wise I think that the Irish might piggy-back themselves onto British programmes. Light industry in the Republic can probably be re-tooled into making things like small arms for the IDF, though I don't know if they have the industrial capability to make larger things like armoured vehicles.

[Adrian Laguna]

So far, Satan is behaving very much like a WW1-era monarch. If the first wave is wiped out, punish your generals and order them to try harder, with more men.

Except for the part that generals were quite content to try harder with more men regardless of whether their monarch had any say in military matters, or even existed at all. Witness the Battle of the Somme by the British and the Nivelle Offensive by the French (which was a big enough mess their Army almost mutinied).

[JN1]

Except for the part that generals were quite content to try harder with more men regardless of whether their monarch had any say in military matters, or even existed at all. Witness the Battle of the Somme by the British and the Nivelle Offensive by the French (which was a big enough mess their Army almost mutinied).

The difference being that the British changed tactics after the first day of the battle, decentralised command to brigade and battalions and relieved some of the senior commanders. Satan does not seem to have done this yet.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Except for the part that generals were quite content to try harder with more men regardless of whether their monarch had any say in military matters, or even existed at all. Witness the Battle of the Somme by the British and the Nivelle Offensive by the French (which was a big enough mess their Army almost mutinied).

The difference being that the British changed tactics after the first day of the battle, decentralised command to brigade and battalions and relieved some of the senior commanders. Satan does not seem to have done this yet.

Actually, Satan uncritically accepted the part of Abigor's report where he presumably detailed his action of extending his lines to reduce the concentration of his forces and make it possible to outflank the enemy. That implies that such tactics are now acceptable in Hellish armies when fighting humans. The same thing is implied by Satan ordering the ridge seized in the first place--even though it was clearly just an attempt to get Abigor killed, he did seem to indicate that he realized already that warfare must now involve the seizure of objects rather than simply marching out and stomping on the other side. Those are two huge improvements already, and asking for more without further conflict with humanity is quite implausible.

Expect in the next round to see Demonic armies starting to fight in lines only a couple ranks deep, like 18th century musketry armies, and relying on their tridents, for it to be permissable for the men to seek cover, and for combat objectives to be based around seizure of geographic points rather than simply fighting with no real purpose except "win". That still leaves them at an enormous disadvantage at every level, but far less of one.

[Junghalli]

I think Dagon should have an army of fish-man demons.

This would also explain how Demons have similar DNA to us; they could have evolved from terran creatures which moved through the portal inadvertently in their migration patterns.

'
That would mean that they might actually be a hominid offshoot descended from some band of early Homo Sapiens or Neandertals that wandered into Hell, which would explain how they're interfertile with us. Although the distinctly unhominid features of Demons (horns, hooves, wings) would be rather difficult to explain under this theory.

[PainRack]

Given demon politics, is it even conceivable that Satan can be overthrown?

[JCady]

Except for the part that generals were quite content to try harder with more men regardless of whether their monarch had any say in military matters, or even existed at all. Witness the Battle of the Somme by the British and the Nivelle Offensive by the French (which was a big enough mess their Army almost mutinied).

The difference being that the British changed tactics after the first day of the battle, decentralised command to brigade and battalions and relieved some of the senior commanders. Satan does not seem to have done this yet.

Actually, Satan uncritically accepted the part of Abigor's report where he presumably detailed his action of extending his lines to reduce the concentration of his forces and make it possible to outflank the enemy. That implies that such tactics are now acceptable in Hellish armies when fighting humans. The same thing is implied by Satan ordering the ridge seized in the first place--even though it was clearly just an attempt to get Abigor killed, he did seem to indicate that he realized already that warfare must now involve the seizure of objects rather than simply marching out and stomping on the other side. Those are two huge improvements already, and asking for more without further conflict with humanity is quite implausible.

Expect in the next round to see Demonic armies starting to fight in lines only a couple ranks deep, like 18th century musketry armies, and relying on their tridents, for it to be permissable for the men to seek cover, and for combat objectives to be based around seizure of geographic points rather than simply fighting with no real purpose except "win". That still leaves them at an enormous disadvantage at every level, but far less of one.

Satan didn't say anything one way or the other about Abigor's tactics, but neither did he order or even encourage the other generals to emulate them. Given the hidebound conservativism of Hell, I would expect the new army to use little, if any, of the lessons Abigor learned other than "humans have dangerous toys".

[Darth Wong]

Satan concluded that Abigor's army failed due to a lack of courage, ie- they were annihilated because they lost discipline, broke, and ran when they were on the verge of breaking through the human lines.

Like Hindenburg exhorting the German people to victory through sheer martial spirit, it seems that Satan thinks the solution is simply greater numbers and greater courage, and I doubt that any of his generals will contradict him.

[Edward Yee]

Satan concluded that Abigor's army failed due to a lack of courage, ie- they were annihilated because they lost discipline, broke, and ran when they were on the verge of breaking through the human lines.

This is the same impression I had too, although I don't recall the impression given being that Abigor's army choked, just that they were (as they were really) mudstomped.

Like Hindenburg exhorting the German people to victory through sheer martial spirit

Where was this? I'm reminded of the Japanese (official/institutional) reactions to the 1853 Perry voyage and the assumed invasion of Japan (just the idea, not Operation Downfall itself) near the end of World War II.

[Darth Wong]

Like Hindenburg exhorting the German people to victory through sheer martial spirit

Where was this? I'm reminded of the Japanese (official/institutional) reactions to the 1853 Perry voyage and the assumed invasion of Japan (just the idea, not Operation Downfall itself) near the end of World War II.

WW1. Many other Germany leaders felt that sheer martial spirit could overwhelm the enemy, irrespective of the way the situation seemed to stack up on paper. As Germany's fortunes declined, rhetorical exhortations to fortify the martial spirit only increased. I suspect General Lee thought the same thing at Gettysburg.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That's kind of an exagerration. The Germans were by far the best and most professional army on the continent, and they were winning right up until Belleau Wood, in about every category imaginable. Nobody really realizes that if American hadn't entered the war, the Germans would have had it locked up handily. They just had to sit and wait while the allies bled themselves white, and they were very good at that. It was the American entrance that forced their hand into trying to win before American troops arrived, which meant the exquisitely planned offensives of Operation Michael, with Bruchmueller Artillery tactics and stosstruppen smashing through the allied lines like a knife through butter.

Offensive esprit d'corps really did win them those battles through the use of highly disciplined and extremely motivated infiltration troops who would crawl through the dark to advanced positions and after an extremely short but incredibly intensive shock bombardment on the front line directly ahead of them, rise up and roll in with grenades, machine-pistols, and picks to kill in hand to hand fighting while the barrage then shifted to the rear areas to keep the enemy from bringing in reinforcements. This did, after all, entirely collapse the Italian Army at Caporetto and net the Germans and Austrians 300,000 POWs and 11,000 dead Italians with 2,500 Italian artillery pieces captured or destroyed, and brought the Austrians within a hair's breadth of capturing Venice. The results of Michael were of a similar magnitude, costing the allies 255,000 troops, 1,300 guns, and 200 tanks. Had it not been for the Americans arriving in significant numbers (and to some real extent, Ludendorff's foolishness in not concentrating his attacks on Amiens), the war would have been won for Germany.

Before this, 1917 was largely a period of the Germans on the defensive (as had been the case in 1915), bleeding the allies white. The only real other exception to German defensive strategy in WW1 after the initial maneouvre period was Verdun, which Falkenhayn quite honestly admitted was a meatgrinder; the Germans had more meat to be ground, and in short the whole purpose of the battle was to systematically cripple the manpower and morale of the French army, which actually succeeded in the mutinies of 1917, and which had they been better exploited might have seen the Germans carry the day as well.

One thing that's obscured in most studies of WW1 is that German casualties, due to their methods of casualty reporting, were consistently much less than those of the allies, who interpreted German weekly casualty lists against their own battle-based casualty lists.

The American units arriving in 1918 actually fought as frontal shock troops in a rather primitive fashion like the armies of 1914, they simply had the advantage that the Germans were so exhausted and worn down and they fresh and unused to the slaughter of the trenches that they were able to stand the incredibly stiff casualties required and maintain the spirit required for carrying home frontal assaults at cost. It's important to remember that in basically six months of full combat the AEF sustained 120,000 fatalities, or more than 650 dead per day.