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You can't use an ominous quote like that more than once in the same circumstance, and Oppenheimer beat us to it.

Oppenheimer said "I have become death, destroyer of worlds", and the reason it would be used is because he used it. The sentiment would be of course that humanity has transcended the gods, for we can call down fire that not even they can withstand.

Academia Nut wrote:Also, anyone think it would be awesome if we caught Uriel in a nuke strike and after confirming his death, someone uttered, "Now we have become Death, destroyer of worlds"?

That line will be used by someone the first time nukes get deployed however. Too well known to not be used.

Meh. It sounds a little pretentious to me, especially given the fame of the earlier quote. This is 2008, afer all. I envision someone saying something more along the lines of "Paybacks are a bitch."

Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

Darth Wong wrote:Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

In fact, judging by appearances, while they may be psychically more powerful, they seem physically not as robust as baldricks, given the slender build of the emissary who talked to Memnon in Iraq. The humans may not need large hunting rifles to take one down entirely.

Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

We don't know what type of angels have been encountered/killed though so any comment on their power is a bit premature. There's a clear difference in toughness and killing power between different types of demon and I'd expect the same for angels.

The emissary took a round of 120mm canister to the chest and was still kicking afterwards, he had to be finished off by a 25mm autogun. Memnon would have been splattered by the first one alone.

Surlethe wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

In fact, judging by appearances, while they may be psychically more powerful, they seem physically not as robust as baldricks, given the slender build of the emissary who talked to Memnon in Iraq. The humans may not need large hunting rifles to take one down entirely.

Appearances may be deceptive. The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later. But at any rate, they certainly aren't orders of magnitude tougher than demons. Shoot them, and they will bleed.

And as Arnold says, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

Darth Wong wrote:

Surlethe wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

In fact, judging by appearances, while they may be psychically more powerful, they seem physically not as robust as baldricks, given the slender build of the emissary who talked to Memnon in Iraq. The humans may not need large hunting rifles to take one down entirely.

Appearances may be deceptive. The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later. But at any rate, they certainly aren't orders of magnitude tougher than demons. Shoot them, and they will bleed.

And as Arnold says, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

Well, even if they heal much faster and are more resilient to damage and packed with muscles, they're not going to weigh much--I'd guess 150lbs maximum for the largest, and more likely only 100lbs--they have wings, they fly, that means they have to be pretty, well, hollow. So while a big bore hunting bullet won't kill them, it's going to knock them on their ass pretty damn hard in a way it wouldn't with a Baldrick. Stopping power in this case. And while they're regenerating the damage and trying to get back up to fight, we can hit them again and again and overwhelm them.

Darth Wong wrote:

Surlethe wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:Anyway, angels are clearly more powerful than demons in this cosmology, but they're not invulnerable. A tank took one out earlier, and several of them were killed by Broomie's squad in Hell. There's no reason why you should need a nuke to take out Uriel.

In fact, judging by appearances, while they may be psychically more powerful, they seem physically not as robust as baldricks, given the slender build of the emissary who talked to Memnon in Iraq. The humans may not need large hunting rifles to take one down entirely.

Appearances may be deceptive. The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later. But at any rate, they certainly aren't orders of magnitude tougher than demons. Shoot them, and they will bleed.

And as Arnold says, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

True, but the angel seemed to be using something akin to aikido -- skill and technique, not so much raw power.

JCady wrote:True, but the angel seemed to be using something akin to aikido -- skill and technique, not so much raw power.

Skill and technique allow you to avoid hits. But he got hit with a 120mm shell and survived, albeit mortally wounded. That takes more than skill; it takes extraordinary toughness.

JCady wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:

Surlethe wrote: In fact, judging by appearances, while they may be psychically more powerful, they seem physically not as robust as baldricks, given the slender build of the emissary who talked to Memnon in Iraq. The humans may not need large hunting rifles to take one down entirely.

Appearances may be deceptive. The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later. But at any rate, they certainly aren't orders of magnitude tougher than demons. Shoot them, and they will bleed.

And as Arnold says, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

True, but the angel seemed to be using something akin to aikido -- skill and technique, not so much raw power.

Are they?
Well at any rate we are doing a bit better than Aikido..speed, surprise, aggression and force of arms plus every dirty trick in the book, all of which is skill in itself.

Darth Wong wrote: Skill and technique allow you to avoid hits. But he got hit with a 120mm shell and survived, albeit mortally wounded. That takes more than skill; it takes extraordinary toughness.

120mm canister, which has a rather large degree of dispersion so as to scythe down a nine man squad with body armor in a triangular formation (actual design requirement) using about 1,100 tungsten balls. That means the emissary was only being hit by a fraction of the firepower a 120mm tank gun can actually produce. I’m sure a direct hit with 120mm HEAT would have simply blown the thing into pieces.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Darth Wong wrote: Skill and technique allow you to avoid hits. But he got hit with a 120mm shell and survived, albeit mortally wounded. That takes more than skill; it takes extraordinary toughness.

120mm canister, which has a rather large degree of dispersion so as to scythe down a nine man squad with body armor in a triangular formation (actual design requirement) using about 1,100 tungsten balls.

Does this mean 00 buckshot is effective against Baldricks, or this feat that require weapons too large for human hands to wield?

Darth Wong wrote:Appearances may be deceptive. The angel who talked to Memnon also effortlessly kicked his ass when Memnon got uppity, and I believe it took quite a bit of firepower to kill him later.

I had thought that the angel used a bit of mind control on Memnon to do the dirty work of throwing him around; is it practicable for a being of that build to be able to exert that amount of physical force?

But at any rate, they certainly aren't orders of magnitude tougher than demons. Shoot them, and they will bleed.

And as Arnold says, "if it bleeds, we can kill it."

Too true. At any rate, the guns the humans are building aren't going to hurt their cause, so whether the good guys are overequipped to deal with angels is sort of a moot point.

Chris OFarrell wrote: Add to that the fact that the Navy does NOT have the manpower to crew the things (and the costs in time, money and manpower of massive retrofits to rebuild them with technology to reduce their crew would be staggering in of itself) then frankly, its just a waste.

Wow, so we have a manpower shortage when talk of a 25 million man army larger then US mobilized in WW2 has been going on for about forty pages? Wow, yeah, good logic. You also seem to be insisting on examining this issue from OUR standpoint, and not the standpoint of the humans in the story, which know almost nothing about hell. The 1980s reactivation of USS Iowa, after nearly 25 years in mothballs, took less then 18 months from Congressional approval of funding and cost less then an FFG-7 frigate. That is not a waste for a ship that could utterly destroy an entire demon army. The main batteries could be restored to serviceability in a matter of weeks. A demon army is simply the greatest target ever for heavy gunfire.

If you want to build some kind of 'flack' cruiser against the chance of mass Baldrik raids, then frankly I dare say its going to be cheaper and easier to build a modern ship with modern weapons and modern technology from the ground up, then to take even the Iowa class BB's, somehow make them fully combat and sea worthy again, utterly retrofit their technology, rip off its guns to install heavy AAA and all the systems to run them...

Actually I never once suggest removing even one heavy gun, and automatic weapons can literally be bolted to the deck and are ready to go. It’s not like they actually designed Iowa to mount over one hundred automatic guns, and yet she carried them just fine.

And using them as gun platforms is a little absurd. Unless your damn lucky enough to have a Baldrick army a few dozen miles from the coast of where a Baldrick army is massing, then the odds of them being able to affect ANY battle are slim to none, especially when humanity is in the fight of its life and there are FAR more valuable things to spend these industrial resources on.

Something like a half billion people live within range of 16in gunfire using the WW2 era ammo, even more if production was restarted on the 35nm extended range shell that was briefly used in Vietnam. In the 1980s a 13in sabot shell was test fired as well, range over 70km, but development was not completed so I’d discount it as serious possibility for now. What’s more, since hell isn’t likely to have naval mines or much of any ability to return fire at all it’s perfectly possible to sail the battleships up major rivers to even further extend the area they can cover. This was actually done in the Korean War too with an Iowa entering the Han river to support an attack on a particularly tough hill.

I'm not trying to get in between, but I think Chris was talking about skilled manpower.

The main issue of bringing back battleships talked before was crew skill I believe; when they brought them back in the 80's, they had to bring old timers to train the new crew. Unless the 80's operators can "pass the torch," skilled manpower might still be a valid concern.

I would rather see a Zumwalt than a battleship, even if they're longer in coming. Not just one Zumwalt, but fucking thirty-two Zumwalts, sailing through a gate to Heaven established somewhere in the Pacific. I hope Stuart writes in a gap between the war in Hell and Heaven, or even a multi-year gap.

I changed my mind about the war being over in months. The idea of Bush remaining Commander in Chief during the victory and taking full credit with mission accomplished Mk. II is distasteful. If nothing else, Obama's speeches are better. I am also hoping that Rumsfeld or Cheney get in on it again with Bush and try and convince him to use the Rumsfeld doctrine, to send a small tiny force into the center of hell, or even heaven, which promptly gets annihilated due to Bush's arrogance. Since Gates is gone it seems Bush is not paying attention to elder Bush's wisemen and he will inevitably fall back on his old circle of idiots. Also, it might be too much for this story, but I'm kind of hoping Bush tries to usurp the Presidency, and gets his ass stuffed full of shit by the military when his term's up.

brianeyci wrote:I changed my mind about the war being over in months. The idea of Bush remaining Commander in Chief during the victory and taking full credit with mission accomplished Mk. II is distasteful. If nothing else, Obama's speeches are better. I am also hoping that Rumsfeld or Cheney get in on it again with Bush and try and convince him to use the Rumsfeld doctrine, to send a small tiny force into the center of hell, or even heaven, which promptly gets annihilated due to Bush's arrogance. Since Gates is gone it seems Bush is not paying attention to elder Bush's wisemen and he will inevitably fall back on his old circle of idiots. Also, it might be too much for this story, but I'm kind of hoping Bush tries to usurp the Presidency, and gets his ass stuffed full of shit by the military when his term's up.

Take your political axe and go grind it somewhere else, fucker.

brianeyci wrote:I'm not trying to get in between, but I think Chris was talking about skilled manpower.

The main issue of bringing back battleships talked before was crew skill I believe; when they brought them back in the 80's, they had to bring old timers to train the new crew. Unless the 80's operators can "pass the torch," skilled manpower might still be a valid concern.

I would rather see a Zumwalt than a battleship, even if they're longer in coming. Not just one Zumwalt, but fucking thirty-two Zumwalts, sailing through a gate to Heaven established somewhere in the Pacific. I hope Stuart writes in a gap between the war in Hell and Heaven, or even a multi-year gap.

I changed my mind about the war being over in months. The idea of Bush remaining Commander in Chief during the victory and taking full credit with mission accomplished Mk. II is distasteful. If nothing else, Obama's speeches are better. I am also hoping that Rumsfeld or Cheney get in on it again with Bush and try and convince him to use the Rumsfeld doctrine, to send a small tiny force into the center of hell, or even heaven, which promptly gets annihilated due to Bush's arrogance. Since Gates is gone it seems Bush is not paying attention to elder Bush's wisemen and he will inevitably fall back on his old circle of idiots. Also, it might be too much for this story, but I'm kind of hoping Bush tries to usurp the Presidency, and gets his ass stuffed full of shit by the military when his term's up.

Dude. Seriously. We have an entire board of political peeps, and we all keep in N&P. Let the story be, its a good read.

KlavoHunter wrote:Take your political axe and go grind it somewhere else, fucker.

What? Fuck you! How is suggesting a potential plot point a political axe?

Apparently you didn't even read my paragraph at all, and decided to knee jerk. Well whop de do to you -- the difference between me and whoever was criticizing Patraeus before is I framed my words not as a criticism of the story, but as a suggestion of what I hope happens. Apparently you're too blind to see the difference.

brianeyci wrote:

KlavoHunter wrote:Take your political axe and go grind it somewhere else, fucker.

What? Fuck you! How is suggesting a potential plot point a political axe?

Apparently you didn't even read my paragraph at all, and decided to knee jerk. Well whop de do to you -- the difference between me and whoever was criticizing Patraeus before is I framed my words not as a criticism of the story, but as a suggestion of what I hope happens. Apparently you're too blind to see the difference.

Im going to disagree with this one. The WH peeps as represented have already shown that they dont approve the Rumsfeld doctrine, mentioning that going in without the information you should have and relying on faith is pulling a Rumsfeld. Additionally, they arent playing around; they used 150,000 troops just on the first wave, and are going on a complete war footing. Its completely nonsensical to suggest they would send a few thousand troops when they are calling up tens of millions.

I will say the election makes an interesting point, although one wonders if it would suspended for the duration of the (legitimate) emergency. However, jumping in the thread and saying "Hurr, Hurr, Bush r stupid" is counterproductive. We know. We get it. The Iraq War is a disaster. Okay. Now keep it out of the thread, we're fighting baldricks.

Enforcer Talen wrote:Dude. Seriously. We have an entire board of political peeps, and we all keep in N&P. Let the story be, its a good read.

Well that is true. The intention was not to talk politics though, but to talk about something funny and insane happening, and to give a suggestion of a potential subplot allowing the demons a minor victory.

But the main intention was to talk about the coolness of 18x155mm guns times 30 blasting a demon army .

What brianeyci was clumsily trying to say was that it would be interesting to see some incompetence from the White House. The fact that they are now in a state of total war does not mean that the bureaucratic incompetence and insularity which has characterized this White House for a long time will disappear overnight.

In every prior war in our history, there have been terrible fuckups, whether they were caused by politicians or professional soldiers themselves (yes, even a professional soldier can fuck up). This one should not be an exception, although so far the demons have not done anything that left a whole lot of room for fuckups.

I have no doubt there will be set backs. Stuart's stories always have frameworks being in the wrong place, and faulty decisions being made from them. We might get cocky from beating hell, and then heaven stomps us one. We'll see.

However, going in and saying Bush is Retarded, isnt necessary to the story and doesnt help the plot. His characterization *hasnt* been shown to be acting on random intelligence, blowing up random countries, or doing excessive shows of force. I dont expect him to do so in the future, either.

Darth Wong wrote:What brianeyci was clumsily trying to say was that it would be interesting to see some incompetence from the White House. The fact that they are now in a state of total war does not mean that the bureaucratic incompetence and insularity which has characterized this White House for a long time will disappear overnight.

In every prior war in our history, there have been terrible fuckups, whether they were caused by politicians or professional soldiers themselves (yes, even a professional soldier can fuck up). This one should not be an exception, although so far the demons have not done anything that left a whole lot of room for fuckups.

That would be an interesting plot development, yes. I think it would be closer to his real world aspects, as well. Love of secrecy, blithe confidence, etc. Perhaps that can go with the frameworks concept mentioned above.

brianeyci wrote:I'm not trying to get in between, but I think Chris was talking about skilled manpower.

Not an issue, plenty of battleship crewmen going all the way back to WW2 are still alive. Almost all of them would be too old for other forms of military service, particularly service in frontline ground units, so they can be freely called back to help train a new crew. What’s more since the USN has been scrapping ships left and right for the last 15 years, and has properly preserved only very small numbers of ships in category A mothballs, its very likely that a mobilization is going to turn up way more navy crewmen and officers then we have ships to man. Anyway, as has been point out this is way more realistic then throwing old aircraft into combat.

I would rather see a Zumwalt than a battleship, even if they're longer in coming. Not just one Zumwalt, but fucking thirty-two Zumwalts, sailing through a gate to Heaven established somewhere in the Pacific. I hope Stuart writes in a gap between the war in Hell and Heaven, or even a multi-year gap.

The 155mm guns are nice, but the long range GPS guided shells won’t work in hell, and the normal 155mm rounds travel no further then 16in shells, with far less firepower. Building a Zumwalt takes three years, and its basically the completed opposite of a mobilization design so this is not a one or the other kind of situation. We can go and build new Zumwalts, but Iowa’s are a much more immediate solution. Building 32 of the things is really not even on the radar, it could ten years.

Another possible source of extra naval fire support would be to start reactivating non VLS Spruance’s, if any are in good enough shape, most have been scrapped IIRC, and fitting them with the 8in lightweight gun the design was always intended to take.