Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Given Martin Bormann's general personality, and totally self serving nature (even for a NAZI), I suspect that his new home will be a shallow grave. NO one will trust him here.

Unfortunately for his rivals, too many 'ordinary' members of the NSDAP know about the fact that Adolf Hitler, before his death, named Bormann the executor of his estate and Party Minister for the National Socialist Party. That meant Bormann was shrouded in some of der Führer's legendary aura and represented, to a degree, continuity with the NSDAP that many of the ASN colonists belonged to and considered the legitimate source of authority in Germany, more so than the Black Order of the SS.

Himmler was able to resist Bormann's initial claim to ultimate power on the basis of Bormann being 'Hitler's heir' and Himmler having formally been stripped of all duties and offices by the Führer, before his death, but having Bormann killed would risk alienating a lot of sincere Nazis who revered Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP. So Bormann agreed to giving up any claim to formal power in the government of the Antarctic Space Nazis and to help smooth over the minor obstacle of Himmler no longer having any authority valid under either German law or the Führerprinzip and in return, got some minor concessions for himself and his family.

So Bormann received a large estate near Wahr Wewelsburg and estates for each of his children, even though they were below the age of majority. He agreed to retire to his farm and was able to negotiate a deal where 'farm' meant the effective control of enough prime farmland to live in considerable luxury. All the same, having given up claim to formal authority, surely Bormann could no longer pose a serious threat...

Of course, the NSDAP still operates as a political party and even though Bormann has sworn not to seek any offices that carry with them authority over any part of ASN government, he's still allowed to organize within the Party. If Bormann had immediately gone about some scheme that seemed designed to challenge the SS domination of the Neue Reich, Himmler would have had no choice but to have him murdered, but Bormann seemed genuinely to accept retirement and threw himself into the life of the steward of a vast estate and a loyal SS man, confining his organizing to integrating the SS landowners, who were Himmler's chosen aristocracy, into the structure of the NSDAP.

Of course, Bormann could not seriously mount a leadership challenge. He was a poor public speaker and had no personal following, no charisma and no support among the ASN military. So Bormann didn't try to become the new Führer. He merely set about using his undeniable administrative and organizational skill to ensure that the NSDAP remained important to the ASN power structure and started building a political power bloc of SS Junkers, the most powerful landowners in ASN society. And look for a charismatic leader of the future to cultivate, form and influence.

[adm]

I can see that working.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

I can see that working.

Not for long, it shouldn't. :-)

Well, there was a unifying sense of purpose in the early years of ASN settlement, as the enormous challenge of rebuilding the TL7 industry and economy the settlers had left behind meant that regardless of personal politics, there were simple priorities and apolitical tasks that the ASNs could throw themselves into.

Not to mention that few societies in history have had such a high proportion of highly intelligent, educated and practical administrators, scientists, engineers, experts, technicians and managers. Remember, the small SS conspiracy that planned for the Neue Reich was forced to recruit at least some experts in various fields from the beginning in 1943 and by the time the ASNs left Earth at the end of April 1945, SS men were actually a minority among them and slightly more than half of those who were evacuated to the new world were not even members of the Nazi Party.

Yes, nearly all leadership roles were in the hands of SS men, who were without any doubt the most powerful single bloc of ASN settlers, and yes, even those settlers who were not actually members of the Nazi Party will have been unlikely to oppose it openly and many of them agreed with some or even many of their policies.

Even so, the planners of the ASN deliberately targeted brilliant minds, scientists, researchers and capable engineers, administrators and managers from such places as Peenemünde, Mittelwerk, the Zeppelinwerke in Friedrichshafen, Watten, and all the Wunderwaffen projects overseen by Hans Kammler, not to mention the civil engineering and industry under Franz Xaver Dorsch, the vast SS construction and industrial empire under Oswald Pohl, and a range of the best German engineers and industrialists with firms that had connections with the SS or some other ASN leader on some level.

The ASNs tried their best to obtain the leading physicists of the Uranverein at the end of the war, just before they left for their new homes, but that effort had a comparative tiny staff and was to a great extent independent of any organization infiltrated by the ASNs. Hans Kammler, for example, did not have direct authority over the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council) and the Uranverein was largely outside his influence, even when he had control over nearly all other Wunderwaffen projects at the end of the war.

The rate of university education among the original settlers of the ASN was well over an order of magnitude higher than that of the ordinary German population, itself regarded as one of the most educated and technologically sophisticated populations in the world at the time. And those of the ASN settlers who weren't university educated tended to have vocational degrees, experience in technical professions or both. Pretty much the only exceptions were SS men chosen for loyalty and racial purity, but these were ultimately only a fraction of the final numbers of settlers.*

So, yeah, ASN society somehow, amazingly, worked quite well as long as everyone was working toward the same obvious goals and the situation of their new society was precarious enough for internal rivalries to be reduced in importance 'for the duration', as many senior German figures had also had to do during the war years.

But as is becoming more and more evident, ASN society is every bit as rivalry-driven, byzantine and fundamentally schismatic as the society of Nazi Germany. Now that ASN society is no longer threatened by extermination from more primitive natives, as their technological base and economic infrastructure has expanded at record rates and they are now so much more powerful than any of the native polities that the constant wars no longer require much manpower from the ordinary ASN citizens, the long-buried political and personal rivalries that formed part of the foundation of ASN society are beginning to reemerge, often in surprising and strange ways.

Standing outside the occult inner circle of the SS, Bormann had no way to extend his lifespan as some of their leadership did, at least not during the first years. He did not trust the SS rune magicians of the Armannenschaft and he certainly didn't like or trust Karl Maria Wiligut or his Irminist priests.

As for the Lords of the Last Waste, Bormann was not even supposed to know anything about them and even if he had managed to find out all sorts of things, without personal magical ability, Bormann had no way to make contact with any Things from Beyond, even if he'd been willing to trust any of them.

Technically, Bormann could have bought alchemical elixirs from the allies from Svartálfrheim, the Aryan Secret Masters of Agharta, but as with everything else, Bormann was far too suspicious of their motives to put his life into their hands that way.

It wasn't until Bormann was almost seventy that he had managed to arrange to have a young geweckt boy raised on his estates educated as a Zauberkünstler, under the tutelage of men Bormannn trusted as much as he could trust anyone not under his total control, and once that worthy had finished his education, Bormann could finally get a steady supply of alchemical elixirs that he felt he could trust were not designed to poison him, affect his mind or enslave him to the brewer.

As a result of these concoctions, Bormann survives in the Year 51, but due to the late date he started taking them and the relatively low power of his trusted alchemist and magician compared to some of the true masters among the ASNs, let alone the Aryan Secret Masters of Agharta, Bormann is not as spry and healthy as those inner circle SS leaders who have used more powerful elixirs ever since they arrived in the Neue Reich. At age 95, Bormann looks not a day over 90, but that's not much of an improvement.

Bormann's mind is as sharp as ever and he still weaves complex webs of conspiracy and influence, however. While many of the original inner circle of the SS leadership continue to fear, hate and mistrust Bormann, most of the SS Junkers who were young during ASN settlement, as well as most of the generations of SS men born in the new worlds, consider him absolutely trustworthy, a benefactor of the new aristocracy and one of the leading landowners at the heart of SS power around Wahr Wewelsburg.

Bormann has become a political institution, an indefatigable champion of SS Junker rights and a friend and mentor to most of the richest and most influential men of the modern SS. He has also managed to retain a position as a quintessential fixture of the NSDAP, someone no faction within the Party can afford to ignore or offend. Even without any formal government position or even a high Party office with any real power, beyond a few secretarial sinecures, Bormann extends tendrils of influence into nearly every mainstream ASN political faction.

But Bormann isn't even the greatest threat to the current regime among the ASN. Aside from the everpresent threat inherent in the Faustian bargain with the Lords of the Last Waste and the simmering secret wars between occult factions of the inner circle of SS membership, the greatest threats are probably irreconcile differences between the reactionary SS Junkers and some of the most progressive wings of the NSDAP, whether those are the socialists, the Celtic rights campaigners or the flat-out abolitioners.

Neither Christians nor Bolshevics are much of a threat, consisting mostly of politically marginalized groups or rebellious teenagers. When those teenagers get older, however, some of them might follow a war hero using Christian imagery or a NSDAP agitator for land reform. Or perhaps the greatest danger is the burgeoning Neo-Nazi movement, which has strong support among native-born peasants and factory workers, and who preach a return to the Führerprinzip and a strong national leader to curb the economic inequalities, the excesses of the SS Junkers and the factional rivalries of the SS elites.

Bormann might, however, well end up being the old political operator who thinks he can manipulate one of the young ASN firebrands who might grow into the next Führer, like Cicero thought he could manipulate G. Iulius Caesar Octavianus.

*Well, living SS men were. The primary combat formation of the original ASN settlers was the SS-Sturmkampfgruppe Totenkopf, but its members were no longer quite human by the time of settlement. Their primary political role was ensuring the supremacy of the SS faction of the ASNs, despite their smaller numbers, and freeing up ASN settlers for industrial tasks, scientific agronomy and management roles, as the thousands of Kadavergerhorsamen stormtroopers could handle security, bear most of the burdens of constant warfare and ensure that no slave rebellion had a chance of success.

[adm]

Better and better.

[johndallman]

Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a key ingredient of all common explosives, even black powder. The nitro (NO2) and nitrate (NO3) groups are the key ways of providing oxygen, and the nitrogen also contributes, because forming an N2 molecule from two N atoms releases a lot of energy. The downside of that is that splitting up the N2 molecules in air requires you to put in a lot of energy. So nitrogen that is not in gas form is very useful for all sorts of things.

The major use today is in fertilizer, but the ASN don't need it for that. They do need it for explosives and propellants. Nitrate beds only form in very dry climates. The ASN need sizable supplies of “fixed” nitrogen, and the first step in that is getting ammonia.

Let's look at getting or making a few tonnes per day of ammonia. If there was a magical way of doing it in quantity, that would be excellent.

Ammonia
The Frank–Caro process needs huge amounts of both heat and calcium carbide, and making the calcium carbide needs large amounts of electricity. It was commercially viable on Earth until the Haber process took over.

The Birkeland–Eyde process is very inefficient, and uses ludicrous amounts of electricity.

The Haber process needs to run at between 150 and 250 atmospheres, which is very hard work for apparatus that has to dismantle into fairly small pieces.

Ammonia is a by-product of making coal gas and coke, and that doesn't need high pressures or temperatures, or lots of electricity, although we're going to have to make a lot of coke and coal gas to get enough ammonia.

“… in 1910, production of fixed nitrogen from coke ovens totalled 230,000 tonnes, while Chile exported around 370,000 metric tonnes.”

So we need to have coke production of about 0.2% of Earth's coke production in 1910. That's quite a bit. However, producing heat is a win in itself for the ASN, because their supernatural patrons demand it. I can't find, so far, details of the historical process for extracting ammonia, but it was practical in 1900-1910.

The ASN's engineers will want to set up a Haber process works as soon as possible, but it needs a lot of high-quality steel production, as well as catalysts and pumps. They'll want to design this works in advance and bring through many of the smaller parts and control equipment, and a good supply of the catalysts.

The coke works should be able to carry them through, if they're careful with ammunition expenditure.

Nitric Acid
Made from ammonia and air by the Ostwald process, which needs significant pressure and heat, but not nearly such extreme conditions as the Haber process. However, platinum is necessary for catalysts. Again, a pre-planned plant, with small parts, control equipment, and catalysts brought through.

Sulphuric Acid
Sulphuric acid is made by the contact process. That needs sulphur, air, water, an initial supply of sulphuric acid, vanadium pentoxide as a catalyst, and quite a bit of plant for intermediate purification.

The older and simpler lead chamber process requires a supply of nitrogen oxides, which they're short of, so the contact process seems like a better bet.

Sodium Hydroxide
The easiest way is the chloralkali process: electrolyse a solution of common salt in water, which gives you sodium hydroxide, hydrogen and chlorine. Usefully, the gasses come off at separate electrodes so they are easy to separate. However, you need to either use them immediately or store them under pressure.

The ASN would need salt anyway, and will have to mine it since they aren't going near the sea, but for this, they'll need a lot more. The diaphragm cell process is probably the best bet, which needs asbestos for the diaphragm, a non-reactive metal such as platinum or gold for the anode, and nickel for the cathode.

Double-base powder
Nitroglycerine needs glycerol, nitric acid and sulphuric acid. Glycerol is easiest from soybeans, which the Nazis were keen on anyway. You need sodium hydroxide to produce glycerol from the triglycerides in soybeans.

Nitrocellulose needs nitric and sulphuric acids, and cellulose. That can be extracted from wood pulp with sodium hydroxide and acid. The ASN will need wood pulp for paper-making anyway.

They'd also like Centralite (1,3-diethyl-1,3-diphenylurea) as a stabiliser for their powder, but that is made from aniline hydrochloride and urea, and that starts requiring a lot of chemistry. They may have to settle for using the fresh-made powder quickly, and keeping their German-made stuff as the reserves.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a key ingredient of all common explosives, even black powder.
[...]
They do need it for explosives and propellants. Nitrate beds only form in very dry climates. Guano islands take tens of thousands of years to form. The ASN need sizable supplies of “fixed” nitrogen, and the first step in that is getting ammonia.

Are there any bats in Central Asian climates that could have left accumulated guano in caves for thousands of years? The kind of guano that would be useful for nitrate extraction?

Because the Svartálfrheim allies sometimes keep bats as pets and familiars and they'd be able to locate any caves that might have sheltered bat colonies for centuries or millenia.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Let's look at getting or making a few tonnes per day of ammonia. If there was a magical way of doing it in quantity, that would be excellent.

Unless there is no way to do it industrially at the current levels of economic and infrastructure development, magic tends to be suboptimal for making large quantities of anything. Magicians and alchemists are very much artists, not people applying scientific, replicable scientific principles.

You could have every alchemist and magician among the ASNs and their Svartálfrheim allies extract ammonia or even alchemically distill saltpeter directly from some natural source, but you'd still only get a few tons a day, and it's almost certain that there are more valuable uses of the time of people who have capabilities that technology simply can't match.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Ammonia
[...]

Ammonia is a by-product of making coal gas and coke, and that doesn't need high pressures or temperatures, or lots of electricity, although we're going to have to make a lot of coke and coal gas to get enough ammonia.

[...]

So we need to have coke production of about 0.2% of Earth's coke production in 1910. That's quite a bit. However, producing heat is a win in itself for the ASN, because their supernatural patrons demand it. I can't find, so far, details of the historical process for extracting ammonia, but it was practical in 1900-1910.

Yeah, they'll need to make massive amounts of coke and produce massive amounts of energy from the coal fields they have access to. This way, at least they'll get some valuable byproducts as well.

That being said, how many people do you think were working in coke production on Earth in 1910?

Even in Year 51, the ASNs will probably not have more than about 100,000-200,000 adults working full-time at coal fields, doing all that they need done in terms of coal, coal gas, coke and ammmonia and any other valuable byproducts. Though I guess they could augment that number some with allied tribesmen who want to earn more money than TL2-3 economies tend to offer for most types of work, but don't have the skills and/or capital to be a warrior.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The coke works should be able to carry them through, if they're careful with ammunition expenditure.

I'm getting the feeling that smokeless powder will be extremely expensive in comparison with black powder, especially in the first 20-30 years, as it requires lot more precise chemistry and the ability to refine the incredients a lot more. By contrast, more-or-less naturally gathered components are adequate for making black powder and with a bit of know-how, even fairly high-quality TL5 black powder could probably be produced by trained locals, with just a few TL7 overseers and quality control inspectors.

SWAG, how much more expensive should smokeless powder be in comparison with the equivalent amount of black powder (i.e. as much smokeless powder as is needed to match, but not exceed, the velocity of a round that exists in both versions)?

Originally Posted by johndallman

Sodium Hydroxide
The easiest way is the chloralkali process: electrolyse a solution of common salt in water, which gives you sodium hydroxide, hydrogen and chlorine. Usefully, the gasses come off at separate electrodes so they are easy to separate. However, you need to either use them immediately or store them under pressure.

Cool.

I think that magic might have some applications as far as making pressurized containers, at least until industry catches up on mass-manufacturing them.

Originally Posted by johndallman

The ASN would need salt anyway, and will have to mine it since they aren't going near the sea, but for this, they'll need a lot more. The diaphragm cell process is probably the best bet, which needs asbestos for the diaphragm, a non-reactive metal such as platinum or gold for the anode, and nickel for the cathode.

Fair enough.

Note that with access to the Rhine and the Weser, going to the sea is not a problem, if it should be necessary. It's just that settling there will require defeating the natives that already live there, a process that will take a very long time if the natives abandon mass battles after the first few defeats and switch to guerilla raids of small settlements and isolated groups of travellers. Especially if the natives use boats to carry the raiders near the sea, from bases a short sail away in various coastal areas and islands off the coast, and the continental tribes raid the supply routes on horseback, meaning that the ASNs would need to provide security the entire length of the river from their main settlements to the sea.

The ASNs managed to thoroughly alienate not just a couple of tribes, but an entire macroculture that shares certain religious principles (and normally fight among themselves as much as any human tribes that share similar cultural identifiers do, e.g. Eurupean history, but can now all unite in hatred for the invaders). And while there are other cultures living on the shores of the ocean, the mouths of the analogues to the Rhine and the Weser are within pretty easy raiding distance from some of the more enthusiastic enemies the ASNs have made so far.

That would make establishing any kind of permanent settlement in the area pretty costly in terms of forts, military presence and garrisons along the rivers. The ASNs will do it one day. But probably not until they've attended to a lot of vital infrastructure projects closer to home.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Double-base powder
Nitroglycerine needs glycerol, nitric acid and sulphuric acid. Glycerol is easiest from soybeans, which the Nazis were keen on anyway. You need sodium hydroxide to produce glycerol from the triglycerides in soybeans.

Let there be soybeans, for big booms!

Originally Posted by johndallman

Nitrocellulose needs nitric and sulphuric acids, and cellulose. That can be extracted from wood pulp with sodium hydroxide and acid. The ASN will need wood pulp for paper-making anyway.

Yeah, Nazis or not, Germans are going to want a lot of printing presses. It's amazing how much stuff the Early Modern people living in the Germanies absolutely had to get printed, pretty much as soon as printing presses existed in Europe.

Before anyone thought of Germans as efficient, soldierly or organized, all of Europe knew them as people who really loved the technology that made it possible to spread stories, rumours and gossip, argue philosophy, politics or religion and publish the long, detailed and intricately organized treatise on their favourite subject (with an even longer and more comprehensive title) that seems to exist in potentia in every German breast.

On one hand, widespread literacy and proliferating small presses that make censorship extremely hard to enforce will tend to encourage a native political awakening. On the other hand, the best-funded and organized publishers will be printing Nazi propaganda, unleashed on a population that still hasn't evolved the stronger cognative 'immune system' against memetic campaigns, of cynicism and skepticism, that are a part of TL4+ cultural memeplexes.

Without outside interference, the world of Germania Hyperborea is going to get a lot worse before it has a chance to get any better, if only because natural human tribalism is going to get a huge boost in the form of toxic racialist theories, fascist nationalism, völkisch mythography and other pseudoscientific belief systems emphasising the subhumanity of anyone who is different from your own tribe.

Even cultures that somehow achieve TL4+ over time without being allied with or subordinate to the ASNs are probably going to be as influenced by fascist and racialist worldviews as real-world cultures outside Europe have been influenced by modern Western thought and the memeplexes of Christianity.

Originally Posted by johndallman

They'd also like Centralite (1,3-diethyl-1,3-diphenylurea) as a stabiliser for their powder, but that is made from aniline hydrochloride and urea, and that starts requiring a lot of chemistry. They may have to settle for using the fresh-made powder quickly, and keeping their German-made stuff as the reserves.

What's "quickly", in this context?

For black powder that is sold to the allies in Svartálfrheim or used by Treckbauern living far from the main ASN settlements, anything that doesn't last at least a year is far less valuable and useful, as neither group can really guarantee resupply on a monthly basis and both would like the possibility of bringing powder that would last until the next time they visit an ASN settlement, whether that's a season or three. That is, the Svartálfrheim allies will have military expedititions and garrisons that will not be resupplied that frequently from a settlement with access to gate-based trade, but expected to obtain supplies from TL3 locals.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Are there any bats in Central Asian climates that could have left accumulated guano in caves for thousands of years? The kind of guano that would be useful for nitrate extraction?

Probably, but a given cave tends to contain a few hundred tons, rather than thousands. Incidentally, seabird guano doesn't contain useful amount of nitrates, although bat guano does.

That being said, how many people do you think were working in coke production on Earth in 1910?

Interesting question. Quite a few, but the ASN will definitely save on people by having just a few huge plants, rather than the thousands of small local ones that supplied town gas to towns and cities across the world in 1910.

SWAG, how much more expensive should smokeless powder be in comparison with the equivalent amount of black powder (i.e. as much smokeless powder as is needed to match, but not exceed, the velocity of a round that exists in both versions)?

A factor of ten or more, until the industrial base catches up to full TL6.

For black powder that is sold to the allies in Svartálfrheim or used by Treckbauern living far from the main ASN settlements, anything that doesn't last at least a year is far less valuable and useful

Black powder stability is a different problem from smokeless, and smokeless is what needs the fancy stabilisers. My guess would be that it's good for a year or two without them, but much above that risks degradation.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Probably, but a given cave tends to contain a few hundred tons, rather than thousands. Incidentally, seabird guano doesn't contain useful amount of nitrates, although bat guano does.

Few hundred tons here, few hundred tons there, pretty soon you're talking real piles of bat dung.

If the allies in Svartálfrheim make a point of having a sorcerer, with a bat familiar who'll ask the local bats about all suitable caves, with the leadership of every army as they emerge from their fastnesses and conquer their TL2-3 neighbours like it's the Musket Wars on a much larger scale, they'll at least be able to start up their own black powder industry. And if they can find enough such caves as they conquer the lands of millions of people over the next two generations, they might even export some of the saltpeter to the ASNs in exchange for technology to make their armament industry more advanced and more efficient.

Sure, there is little chance that the armies of the Aghartans will move away from black powder in the foreseeable future, but there is a world of difference between poorly mixed and low quality TL3 serpentine powder and TL5 finely grained powder that gives predictable results.

High-tech measuring equipment and various industrial chemistry tools of TL5 would really improve the military position of the Aghartans and allow them to conquer their neighbours even faster. As will getting a good supply of late TL5 firearms, whether that's muzzle-loading 'Minié' ball rifle-muskets, breech-loading rifles with paper cartridges (e.g. Dreyse rifles) or even repeating rifles with metal cartridges (e.g. Mauser 1871/84). Not to mention black powder artillery, once they are making enough black powder to make that worthwhile.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Interesting question. Quite a few, but the ASN will definitely save on people by having just a few huge plants, rather than the thousands of small local ones that supplied town gas to towns and cities across the world in 1910.

ASN society has about 10% of its people working on the coal fields or in industry directly linked to coal, gas and byproducts.

This is, of course, made possible by not needing 90% or more of their population in agricultural work, but instead less than half, which is solid latter half of the 19th century, industrial era demographics.

Originally Posted by johndallman

A factor of ten or more, until the industrial base catches up to full TL6.

Black powder stability is a different problem from smokeless, and smokeless is what needs the fancy stabilisers. My guess would be that it's good for a year or two without them, but much above that risks degradation.

I love it when 'realism' (given the presence of magic and Antarctic Space Nazis, probably not exactly the right word) gives me the paradigms that I really want, i.e. elite Antarctic Space Nazi formations of commandos and stormtroopers who are kept supplied with outrageously expensive ammunition for their WWII vintage weapons, but most of their society using technology and weapons allowing 19th century African adventures (but in prehistoric Europe), complete with TL4-5 Treckbauern in the role of TL4-5 Boers living almost completely out of reach of the increasingly more advanced cities of the Industrial Revolution and TL2-3 cattle-herding warrior tribes in the role of... the same thing, just blonder for the ones the ASNs meet.

Amusingly, the Ridley Scott movie The Gladiator used actual Zulu chants for the TL2 Germanic tribesmen shown in the movie, chants which were originally recorded for the film Zulu. I'm not the only person to note the very similar societies of pre-Roman Iron Age Celtic and Germanic tribesmen and the Nguni group of the Bantu people during their great expansions.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Double-base powder
Nitroglycerine needs glycerol, nitric acid and sulphuric acid. Glycerol is easiest from soybeans, which the Nazis were keen on anyway. You need sodium hydroxide to produce glycerol from the triglycerides in soybeans.

Nitrocellulose needs nitric and sulphuric acids, and cellulose. That can be extracted from wood pulp with sodium hydroxide and acid. The ASN will need wood pulp for paper-making anyway.

Single-base powder is an option.

For high-explosive filler, picric acid is probably the way to go - it requires phenol, but you get that from coal/coke and coal-gas production, and as this will be needed for many other processes, phenol probably won't be a problem.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Single-base powder is an option.

What are the pros and cons of each possibility, single-base and double-base powders, for the ASNs?

Double-base powders are slightly more powerful and, at least as far as I know, significantly easier to store and handle.

What benefits do single-base powders have in comparison? Principally, I guess, the benefit of not having to use some scarce or hard-to-manufacture chemical that the ASNs might not have in enough quantities.

What chemicals are those and what would the ASNs need instead (in greater quantities) for equivalent amounts of single-base powders?

Originally Posted by Rupert

For high-explosive filler, picric acid is probably the way to go - it requires phenol, but you get that from coal/coke and coal-gas production, and as this will be needed for many other processes, phenol probably won't be a problem.

That sounds good. What would be an approximate REF for the explosive filler you'd expect them to make from picric acid?