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I wonder if a high-powered radio transmitter broadcasting the right signal could give harpies an incapacitating headache, in much the same way that high-volume directional sonic weapons can incapacitate people.

Stuart wrote:

Darth Wong wrote: PS. Stuart, I believe that "more than 1,250 miles per hour" figure is a typo, and should be "more than 250 miles per hour".

The terminal velocity of a MOP is 2,750 mph but there isn't enough altitude for it to reach that speed. From 29,000 feet, it actually hits somewhere between 1,100 and 1,250 mph, way supersonic. It's not the first bomb of its kind to do that; the WW2 Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs also arrived supersonic (they had the same problem, not enough altitude from drop to build up to maximum speed.

That's pretty damned cool.

Darth Wong wrote:I wonder if a high-powered radio transmitter broadcasting the right signal could give harpies an incapacitating headache, in much the same way that high-volume directional sonic weapons can incapacitate people.

Probably, but since demons in general seem to have weird allergic reactions to concentrated radiation, it may be just easier to hit them with high-amplitude radio waves.

By the way, the 250 mph number was based on the erroneous 880 m height figure. If you crunch the numbers for the actual height, you get about 830 mph if dropped from rest.

Stuart wrote:“Way to go fly-boys.” Her voice seemed to blend in with the rumble of the collapsing rock. “That’s the Air Farce, go straight for the top with the biggest bombs they can carry. B-2s I guess, or B-1s.”

I think you meant Air Force....

Air Farce

Too funny...

Otherwise awesome chapter! Its great to see another chapter...

Lieut. Col. Jackson doesn't know quite what relationship Caesar has with US higher command. He doesn't know what will happen when Caesar protests to Petraeus. Indeed, it looks very much like he and his bosses have been preempted. The whole idea was that as a British NATO senior officer, he could politely intimidate a very junior American NATO officer into giving him command. He's now been trumped by someone with legitimate claim to equal a three star who seems to have American support. In fact, GJC has just used this as as the opportunity to take command not only from him, but from Kim as well - though I'm not sure she's quite realized it. Certainly her bosses haven't yet, but will soon.

As for not telling Coalition command, I would be astonished if that hasn't been done. Probably they told higher that their sources have found the threat and they have 2 PARA available to sent immediately even before they told 2 PARA. By the time US command could react, the order to 2 PARA Battle Group would be given. I doubt Petraeus has a whole lot of inclination to do urinatory combat at this time either.

Even if Coalition command is aware that Julius Caesar is present on-site, that doesn't necessarily mean they will anticipate his moves. For all we know, they heard that he was present and just thought it was cool, without ever seriously considering the possibility that he would angle for power over their modern and superior troops.

fusion wrote:

Stuart wrote:“Way to go fly-boys.” Her voice seemed to blend in with the rumble of the collapsing rock. “That’s the Air Farce, go straight for the top with the biggest bombs they can carry. B-2s I guess, or B-1s.”

I think you meant Air Force....

Air Farce

Too funny....

No, that's definitely a deliberate misspelling on Stuart's part and mispronunciation on Kim's.

R011 wrote:Lieut. Col. Johnson doesn't know quite what relationship Caesar has with US higher command. He doesn't know what will happen when Caesar protests to Petraeus. Indeed, it looks very much like he and his bosses have been preempted. The whole idea was that as a British NATO senior officer, he could politely intimidate a very junior American NATO officer into giving him command. He's now been trumped by someone with legitimate claim to equal a three star who seems to have American support. In fact, GJC has just used this as as the opportunity to take command not only from him, but from Kim as well - though I'm not sure she's quite realized it. Certainly her bosses haven't yet, but will soon.

She very much realizes it. It's said that she knows that her Free Hell has just become a Roman province. And she seems rather relieved that it's now Caesar's and Lt. Col Johnson's problem.

So we used a supersonic bomber with huge vacuum bombs to destroy Satan's palace? Why such overkill, to ensure the death of Satan I presume.

I think it was more to send a message to the other demons, that repeating Sheffield and Detroit would be a very bad idea.

Darth Wong wrote:A feat which is, in turn, insignificant next to the power of those bombs.

Nowhere did I say that it was more significant than the bombs that brought down the house on him - literally.

It's possible, but there's no particular reason to think it is so.

Actually, there is very much reason to believe it is so - allow me to quote.

There was no hope for those under the ruins, they were either being choked by the dust or crushed by the constantly-settling rock. With another flash of insight, Belial realized that the demon’s superb resistance to wounds and infection was going to be a terrible curse here, death was inevitable but the process of having life crushed out of them was going to take much longer.

Belial, a demon himself and thus someone we can reasonably expect to accurately guess what is going on, suggests that they won't die down there immediately, even if they are buried and crushed.

Satan, being a baldrick of size and strength surpassing that of any other Demon yet mentioned (Save for the huge bastards like the Heralds, and Satan's personal legion of demons who are that size), could be reasonably expected to survive an indirect hit that made the roof fall in on him, most likely.

Satan has previously been demonstrated as having quite tremendous telekinetic abilities, and thus could likely dig himself out even if he were pinned in a position that was shitty for leverage.

I don't know about you, but that quote from Belial's thoughts sounded to me like 100% foreshadowing.

AWESOME!!! I wonder if you'll add some scenes from the POV of the unfortunate demons who survived the bombing but are now buried under the rubble, waiting for (and desiring) their own deaths.

Stuart wrote:The terminal velocity of a MOP is 2,750 mph but there isn't enough altitude for it to reach that speed.

Just out of curiousity, from what altitude must a MOP be dropped to reach terminal velocity? (I'm considering a sci-fi story where the world militaries have access to single-stage-to-orbit aircraft.)

KlavoHunter wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:A feat which is, in turn, insignificant next to the power of those bombs.

Nowhere did I say that it was more significant than the bombs that brought down the house on him - literally.

It's possible, but there's no particular reason to think it is so.

Actually, there is very much reason to believe it is so - allow me to quote.

There was no hope for those under the ruins, they were either being choked by the dust or crushed by the constantly-settling rock. With another flash of insight, Belial realized that the demon’s superb resistance to wounds and infection was going to be a terrible curse here, death was inevitable but the process of having life crushed out of them was going to take much longer.

Belial, a demon himself and thus someone we can reasonably expect to accurately guess what is going on, suggests that they won't die down there immediately, even if they are buried and crushed.

Satan, being a baldrick of size and strength surpassing that of any other Demon yet mentioned (Save for the huge bastards like the Heralds, and Satan's personal legion of demons who are that size), could be reasonably expected to survive an indirect hit that made the roof fall in on him, most likely.

Satan has previously been demonstrated as having quite tremendous telekinetic abilities, and thus could likely dig himself out even if he were pinned in a position that was shitty for leverage.

I don't know about you, but that quote from Belial's thoughts sounded to me like 100% foreshadowing.

Hey, No-Limits Fallacy much? This is much akin to Trekkies claiming that just because the Borg can adapt to the phasers of the Enterprise, they can adapt to the orders of magnitude more powerful turbolasers from a Star Destroyer. Or, for a less esoteric example, claiming that just because the .357 Magnum is really, really good on people, it'll stop a charging rhino dead in its tracks.

The problem is that the pressure wave travelling through the walls and floors of Satan's palace will create a hurricane of debris traveling at extremely high velocities. This is to say nothing about the internal organ liquefying overpressure generated as the energy from the pressure wave is transmitted into the air (or why those poor sentries are lying dead with blood leaking from their mouths and noses.)

Satan would be crushed once by the pressure wave, then riddled with shrapnel up to the size of houses, and finally crushed when the rubble from his palace comes down on top of him. The first two occurring well before the nerve impulses telling him that something is horribly wrong will get to his brain, and most definitely before he can start thinking "WTF?"

Rather unfortunately, the laws of physics would tend to suggest that Satan's end was probably quick and painless. Especially given that the undoubtedly massive demonic construction would doubtlessly serve as very efficient conductors of those debris-producing pressure waves.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote: Rather unfortunately, the laws of physics would tend to suggest that Satan's end was probably quick and painless. Especially given that the undoubtedly massive demonic construction would doubtlessly serve as very efficient conductors of those debris-producing pressure waves.

It depends entirely on his placement in the structure, which by all accounts was sprawling--I'm sure that 2 - 3 demons managed to survive completely unarmed in the extremely distant wings of the palace by a mixture of placement and luck, and many more uninjured, out of a likely residence on the order of 3 - 5,000 demons and slaves in the entire structure alone, and possibly more like 30,000, I would assume several thousand (in the later case, a couple dozen in the former) survived with various degrees of injuries. So it completely depends on where Satan was--if he was in the throne room, he's very dead, but what if he has some sort of harem he spends a great deal of time in for obvious reasons?

We don't have enough data to make any determination yet.

Brovane wrote:However the fact that the British are doing this without checking with the US is very unusual. I imagine that when this little coup attempt by the British comes out the US is going to be very pissed off. I would imagine the next time that the US reaches out to contact Lt Kim for a resupply there is going to be some interesting commentary on her part. I can see some pissed off 5-star general marching over to the British command.

After losing sheffield I doubt that the US would take the Brits out behind the shed, I do imagine though that they are going to make sure it does not happen again.

Declan

I'd expect that the Romans are probably sad that it's not 3 PARA.

I'd imagine that the British command has done what Lt. Colonel Mitchell did before re-entering Crater District. Send the US command a message giving their intentions and saying unless permission is denied they'll carry them out, and make sure that delivery of the message is not delivered until 2 PARA are on their way in.

Maybe sending B-52s/Tu-95s full of heavy bombs into Hell might be the correct decision? Dis will be decimated, in fact we could decimate any command center, any city or palace, or castle, that Hell's armies have.

Their medieval structure here is an advantage of course, no operative centralized comms and the deomns can still command their hordes each on their own.

"Once, in the great feasts at Tartarus, one of his minions had said that nobody could call themselves drunk unless they couldn’t lie on the floor without holding on. "

It may be trivial but I am surprised no-one noticed this. Stuart, wasn't this Dean Martin's definition of being really and I mean really pissed?

Otherwise, who knows if Satan is tough enough and well enough positioned to survive this attack. Even if he survives his reputation has taken a very solid hit. He would have to, by fair means or foul, re-establish his hold over Hell, though it will never again be as absolute as it has been for millenia.

As for Ceasar taking control, Brovane is right. He may keep his networks but when the US and the Russians et al decide that he is in the way, he is outa there. 2 million armed with sticks and rocks do not compete with those who have trashed Satan's palace etc etc ... You get my drift.

Your Grace, if we are to build NEW ships, then maybe we can whilst they are abuilding develop more potent forms of the classic M2 etc, as has ben suggested. Apart from that, your review of ship armament is fascinating and many thanks for the effort.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Rather unfortunately, the laws of physics would tend to suggest that Satan's end was probably quick and painless.

Look on the bright side. The persons incarcerated in his ever-deeper-dungeons probably benefitted from the same.

As for the demons surviving crushing; I got the impression that this was about the fallen debris from the destroyed spur, and those underneath it, rather than anyone who happened to be in the palace at the time.

Yeah...I would have told Ceaser to go to hell (well a different part of it anyway).

He has not the slightest rank or authority to order anyone to DO anything. While Kim is dead, she is also an 'active' dead soldier in the US army, which has a still intact chain of command. The Brits and US forces have a long history of joint operations and commands for that matter as well as a current unified command, even if this was a bit of a political act.

They are also modern soldiers able to seamlessly mesh in with the current Peoples Front forces.

Ceaser's idea of waging war, no matter what he says, is VERY different to the way its done today. Have him as an adviser, sure, by all means, welcome him in that way. But bowing to his demands to put himself in command is just stupid. Who cares if he has more people under arms, his arms suck ass. He has no idea how air power works, the use of armor or modern artillery and most critically, modern communications.

A few days reading a few books or watching a few DVD's just doesn't help THAT much. Sure, give him a year or two to study up and he might turn into something special. MIGHT, but we have Generals who have been doing this their entire lives who would eat him for breakfast.

Chris OFarrell wrote:Yeah...I would have told Ceaser to go to hell (well a different part of it anyway).

He has not the slightest rank or authority to order anyone to DO anything. While Kim is dead, she is also an 'active' dead soldier in the US army, which has a still intact chain of command. The Brits and US forces have a long history of joint operations and commands for that matter as well as a current unified command, even if this was a bit of a political act.

They are also modern soldiers able to seamlessly mesh in with the current Peoples Front forces.

Ceaser's idea of waging war, no matter what he says, is VERY different to the way its done today. Have him as an adviser, sure, by all means, welcome him in that way. But bowing to his demands to put himself in command is just stupid. Who cares if he has more people under arms, his arms suck ass. He has no idea how air power works, the use of armor or modern artillery and most critically, modern communications.

A few days reading a few books or watching a few DVD's just doesn't help THAT much. Sure, give him a year or two to study up and he might turn into something special. MIGHT, but we have Generals who have been doing this their entire lives who would eat him for breakfast.

It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, militaries exist to serve people, not the other way around. If Caesar is an effective leader of the people in Hell (which he will probably be), and the militaries are there in part to liberate those people, then they must deal with him. Modern technology dick-waving aside. His millions of followers make him the largest de facto leader of any human faction in Hell, period. You don't just throw somebody like that aside because you have superior firepower, not if you have any intention of building anything meaningful down there.

Of course, you could ignore the lessons of Iraq all over again ...

fusion wrote: I think you meant Air Force.... Air Farce Too funny... Otherwise awesome chapter! Its great to see another chapter...

The U.S. Army and Navy habitually refer to the U.S.A.F as "the Air Farce". When they're feeling in a good mood that is.

JBG wrote:As for Ceasar taking control, Brovane is right. He may keep his networks but when the US and the Russians et al decide that he is in the way, he is outa there. 2 million armed with sticks and rocks do not compete with those who have trashed Satan's palace etc etc ... You get my drift.

And GJC knows it. He's manoeuvering to get control of the growing free (and armed) human presence in Hell without staging a confrontation of that magnitude. At the moment, he's positioned himself as a leader of Free Hell in support of the U.S. In other words, GJC is back to his old tricks again, he's manouevering his opposition into untenable positions without losing their services. His Gallic Wars gives a good (if self-serving) account of this.

JN1 wrote:I'd imagine that the British command has done what Lt. Colonel Mitchell did before re-entering Crater District. Send the US command a message giving their intentions and saying unless permission is denied they'll carry them out, and make sure that delivery of the message is not delivered until 2 PARA are on their way in.

Exactly, old, time-honored and trusted military strategem.

Sidewinder wrote: from what altitude must a MOP be dropped to reach terminal velocity? (I'm considering a sci-fi story where the world militaries have access to single-stage-to-orbit aircraft.)

Barnes Wallace planned to have the Grand Slam precursor dropped from 45,000 feet which would allow it to reach terminal velocity. Since no existing bomber could carry it that high, he designed one that could (the Victory Bomber). All Grand Slams dropped in anger were released from around 16,000 feet. Based on that, I'd guess that the terminal velocity release height is in excess of 60,000 feet.

chris o'farrell wrote:Yeah...I would have told Ceaser to go to hell (well a different part of it anyway). He has not the slightest rank or authority to order anyone to DO anything. While Kim is dead, she is also an 'active' dead soldier in the US army, which has a still intact chain of command. The Brits and US forces have a long history of joint operations and commands for that matter as well as a current unified command, even if this was a bit of a political act.

There's also the "civilian control of the military" thing which is very deeply ingrained into all Western (Anglophone anyway) armies. GJC is apparently the head of the free human civilian authority in hell, thus has jurisdiction over the military forces. It's an incredibly complex situation, one which the British didn't fully understand before getting themselves into. Note this is not the first time this has happened; we've had an authority line clash right at the start of the rebellion in Hell with the confrontation between Rahab and Kim. This is the same thing, just moved up to a higher level.

There's a point here that's important, who is going to rule in hell after the shooting's over? Living humans or dead humans? And where do the surviving baldricks fit in

Stuart wrote: There's a point here that's important, who is going to rule in hell after the shooting's over? Living humans or dead humans? And where do the surviving baldricks fit in

Or those orcs you mentioned that had lived in Hell previously before the Demon occupation.

EDIT:

My Navy Recruiter used to refer to the Air Force as the "Chair Force"

In the most abstract sense, yes soliders exist to serve people, but but operationally, they exist to follow the Chain of Command and the orders handed down from THEIR people in THEIR Government, not another. The PM of Canada can't give orders to a US division at the North Pole for example. By that same Token, Ceaser has not the slightest authority to tell anyone from Earth to DO anything.

Beyond that, look at his current situation. Ceaser is in 'allied Earth peoples' teratory that the Earth units have claimed and fortified, he is just a guest of Kim at this point, not its leader. He holds no teratory of his own in fact, he is the leader of a clandestine group of people who have been dodging demons for a long time. Raab IIRC during the earlier chapters and Ceaser recently talked about thousands of people 'under arms', not millions of civilians he leads. He is also very much acting as a *General* of an army he lets people join, not as the leader (elected or otherwise) of a population of *civilians*. He can't have it both ways.

Is he someone we have to deal with? Certainly. But he is either a foreign dignitary who we will say General Petraius and the UN will be delighted to have a talk with after the battle and please get lost for now, or, he is a local resistance leader with no troops under arms at this point and not the slightest idea how to FIGHT the battle coming up so give advice when asked, but stay out of the way. I mean hell, its probably been 2000 years or so since his last stand up battle of this scale anyway.

He has no grounds to claim he owns hell, he is at best a minor local resistance leader, not the Emperor of millions. And he is most surely NOT in the Chain of Command of Kim or the Limey. And unless I'm mistaken, neither the US nor UK recognize Ceasers claim to hell at this point, so his response SHOULD have been 'I'll talk with my Government after this battle and let the Foreign Ministry handle this, please excuse me for now Sir'. After all, the allied Earth powers have declared War on hell and are going to take the place for themselves, thats policy from the top until the top changes it.

The way he walked up and said that this Colonel only commands 700 people where as he commands several thousand, thus he is top dog is just pure idiocy to bow to, commands are not surrendered to non formally allied units, especially led by someone who is frankly, not competent to lead them simply because they say so...

I can't wait for Satan to emerge from the rubble, all Metal Gear Solid style, screaming shit like "IT'S NOT OVER YET!" or "I'M NOT DEAD YET!" and stuff

This is totally awesome.