Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

I'd think they would avoid using SMGs like the Sten if ammunition is difficult to come by, the Mauser is more economical. Also, if the TL 3 opponents are armored, pistol caliber rounds might have difficulty doing enough damage. Another weapon to consider are flamethrowers, if the Nazis have a supply of hydrocarbons the ammo is easy to make, and they have a terror effect as well.

An excelleent idea, which somehow got lost in the weeds of a fast-moving thread.

How difficult and expensive, in terms of opportunity cost, would it be for the ASNs to manufacture fuel for flamethrowers and/or other incendiaries? They have plenty of access to hydrocarbons, but decisions made by the engineers who planned the bootstrapping process designed to use the supplies they brought over to build up a TL7 society again have prioritized other concerns over constructing an oil industry or petroleum refining plants on anything like the scale seen at mature to late TL6 and onward on Earth.

At the start of settlemement, their major source of power was coal, due to massive coal fields with easily accessible coal on the surface. Even by Year 51, the ASNs rely on coal and coal gas for a lot of their energy needs (though they might have more effectice coal power plants) and still use steam engines in many applications, although for more important projects (or anything owned by sufficiently rich elites), magitech engines called Elemental Furnaces, which are closed-cycle steam or caloric engines powered by bound elementals, might be used instead.

Vital petrochemicals are extracted as part of a much smaller scale industry than the vast coal fields, but if low numbers of TL7 engineers and technicians in charge of much greater numbers of low-tech natives could have economically extracted enough fuel from tar pits to use flamethrowers and incendiaries, I love the idea.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

As far as maintaining an advanced civilization, there are many high tech advancements that do not require any raw materials to maintain. Much of TL 7 medicine would still be available. Many drugs might be difficult to manufacture, but knowledge of anatomy, surgical techniques, and the germ theory of disease require no real industrial base. Just knowing that it is important to keep operating rooms clean would be important.

All true.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

And I'd assume that the Antarctic Space Nazis would be masters of phrenology---their phrenology could easily be twice as accurate as it was in the 1940s. (Two times zero is still zero, right?)

Ah, but in a magical world, RPM divination can make phrenology actually effective. Even if the scientific principles are non-existent and the justifications surrending the answers will be non-sense, an Antarctic Space Nazi phrenologist who happened to have magical gifts and occult training could use phrenology as the focus to perform divinatory rituals and get useful answers, albeit ones he'd dress up in a lot of racialist theory.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I had in mind that they were using a Solothurn S-18/1000 on AA mount, one of a few such rifles the ASN still have in service. This particular rifle was classified as a 2cm Panzerabwehrbüchse 785 (h) in Germany service after they acquired it from Hungary and, indeed, was not in front-line service when a senior member of the conspiracy that became the Antarctic Space Nazis acquired it from a Waffen-SS armory in early 1944 in order to transport it to Jötunheim, where it would be used for base security for the research outpost there against the local fauna.

That probably includes some privately owned big Mausers intended for African game then. They were quite a common rifle in Africa, being more affordable than the big English doubles.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That probably includes some privately owned big Mausers intended for African game then. They were quite a common rifle in Africa, being more affordable than the big English doubles.

Indeed it does. Somewhere in this huge thread there are mentions of it. Some of the privately owned rifles were chambered for larger or more powerful rounds than the standard 7.92x57mm; e.g. the .30-06 U.S., 8x60mm (.315), 9x57mm (.355), 9.3x62mm (.366), 10.75x68mm (.423), .404 Jeffery (.404 Eley Magnum) and 12.7x70mm Schüler (.500 Jeffery). Most of the larger caliber hunting rifles were Mauser actions. Note that I'm not mentioning any smaller calibers, which obviously were taken along if someone had them handy, but are generally inferior to military rifles for monster hunting.

Most owners of private rifles in non-standard calibers would have to arrange their own reloading when they had fired their stock of ammunition. For the more popular cartridges, no doubt a small cottage industry in reloading components developed. I expect that once the local industry was quite far along, the more popular civilian rifle calibers might have seen commercial sales, either by a division of an expanded Mauser Werke or other armament company associated with the ASN elites or by newly founded arms manufacturers.

I'm quite prepared to believe that the 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer and the 7x57mm Mauser, for example, retained some measure of popularity and the owners of fine rifles in these calibers continued to handload for them and eventually welcomed a new commercial supply of ammunition. I'm also pretty sure that 9x57mm Mauser rifles remained popular among farmers and hunters who owned one and that they could be kept in ammo using reloaded military casings, being essentially modified 7.92x57mm cartridges necked up for larger bullets.

Two larger sporting cartridges that actually are part of military supply chain of the ASNs are the 9.3x62mm Mauser and 12.7x70mm Schüler, as both were adopted for limited use by Untierejäger of the Waffen-SS. New rifles were made in limited numbers by skilled ASN gunsmiths, using spare Mauser actions, locally sourced wood and partly hand-made and partly machined components. Dies, tooling and most of the machinery to make new 9.3x62mm Mauser ammunition had been brought from Mauser Werke and only the simpler, bulkier parts of the machine needed building.

As a consequence, 9.3x62mm Mauser ammo could be supplied fairly easily, if much more expensively than would have been the case on Earth, where primers, high-pressure cases and smokeless powder were not scarce and made only with great difficulty. The 12.7x70mm Schüler rounds have always been harder to supply, as the ASNs only managed to bring copies of dies and some parts for a small and bespoke loading press, which they had to build almost from scratch and which was only designed for limited volumes. Still, the manufacturing is enough to keep the relatively small number of rifles fielded by the elite units armed with them in specialty ammo, designed to exploit the weaknesses of various supernatural critters.

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How difficult and expensive, in terms of opportunity cost, would it be for the ASNs to manufacture fuel for flamethrowers and/or other incendiaries? They have plenty of access to hydrocarbons, but decisions made by the engineers who planned the bootstrapping process designed to use the supplies they brought over to build up a TL7 society again have prioritized other concerns over constructing an oil industry or petroleum refining plants on anything like the scale seen at mature to late TL6 and onward on Earth.

...

Vital petrochemicals are extracted as part of a much smaller scale industry than the vast coal fields, but if low numbers of TL7 engineers and technicians in charge of much greater numbers of low-tech natives could have economically extracted enough fuel from tar pits to use flamethrowers and incendiaries, I love the idea.

I would think that the ASNs with knowledge of TL 7 chemistry would be able to make something similar to Greek Fire. Even unrefined crude oil might be usable in a flamethrower. It looks like the flash point of crude oil varies, but is generally less than 38 C, compared with jet fuel having a flash point of above 38 C. That means light crude oil might be able to be used without refining in a flame thrower if it is aerosolized enough, perhaps with preheating.

Even if raw crude oil is not flammable enough at room temperature to be of use in a flamethrower, the sort of small scale refining described in the Dirty Tech sidebar in High Tech could probably create enough fuel for a small number of flamethrowers. It would certainly be easier than making ammunition for firearms. The ASNs probably don't want too many flamethrowers, as firearms are generally more effective, and I sure wouldn't want to use a flamethrower on a hydrogen filled zeppelin. However a handful used as terror weapons could be very effective.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Though as the PCs managed to get the schooner airborne and moving faster than the zeppelin using powerful magic, before the ASNs actually got any closer than about 6-7 km, maybe they escaped just before a lower velocity autocannon like the MG FF in 20x80mm started firing, hoping that some shots would reach because of the altitude.

Actually hitting things at those ranges becomes extremely challenging. You're looking at -21 for range at 7,000 yards, with Acc limited to the SR of the ASN airship, which will be no better than 4, unless they have a stabilised mount (which is heavy, and TL7). Really big monsters and ship-sized vehicles can be hit by a skilled gunner, but 20mm SAPHE won't necessarily kill those targets with single shots.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

1) Pseudo-Celts
2) Not-Phoenicans
3) The Peoples Influenced by Minoans or Pelasgians

The Gemanics might call these cultures by names that translate as "torc-people", "sea-merchants" and "mystics".

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Actually hitting things at those ranges becomes extremely challenging. You're looking at -21 for range at 7,000 yards, with Acc limited to the SR of the ASN airship, which will be no better than 4, unless they have a stabilised mount (which is heavy, and TL7). Really big monsters and ship-sized vehicles can be hit by a skilled gunner, but 20mm SAPHE won't necessarily kill those targets with single shots.

Yeah, hitting is quite difficult. The impacts that the PCs witnessed never got closer than 100 yards from them, but that was because they took off just before the ranging shots would have been able to reach them. Once they were in range, by no means all the shots would have hit even near where they were aimed.

Rules-wise, the 'Acc limited to SR' rule doesn't work. It makes the effective range of an MP-5 and a .50 BMG on an unstabilized tripod the same. It also means that SEALs on a small boat or Delta snipers on a helicopter have no reason to prefer accurate rifles with good optics over pistols or AKs. This is obviously unrealistic. Hans Christian-Vortisch has said that modelling any kind of modern military vehicle in reality is made impossible using this rule.

What is needed is rather a fixed penalty somehow linked to SR, so that small, unstable firing platforms are difficult to shoot accurately from, but more accurate weapons, bracing and better optics still actually matter. In this specific case, of course, such a rule wouldn't help much, as an AT rifle used for improvised indirect fire is nowhere near being as accurate as any kind of sniper rifle with good optics.

The fire the PCs took was scary not because there was much chance of hitting a point target, but because if the schooner Rocinante had remained stranded on the ground, the zeppelin Amfortas could have found a range where they could put most of their rounds somewhere on the grounded schooner and then just circled while subjecting the PCs and Sky Pirates to about twelve 20mm rounds a minute. Or, you know, circled at even closer range, bringing machine guns and any hypothetical autocannon into play. Or made a bombing run at altitude.

The scary part wasn't so much the individual ranging shots, it was what they represented, i.e. the Amfortas had far more range than any weapon the PCs carry*, let alone the TL4 Sky Pirates, and it also had the high ground and total control over engagement distance while the Rocinante remzined grounded.

*They have one, count it, one rifle and that is a .577 Tyrannosaur elephant rifle, hardly the best ballistic coefficient for long-range sniping.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The Gemanics might call these cultures by names that translate as "torc-people", "sea-merchants" and "mystics".

I like that. Use terms connected to the material culture. I'll go play with proto-Germanic roots and any words known from or reconstructed as part of a pre-Roman Germanic language, see if I can twist them into something that sounds good.

I'm not sure about 'Mystics', though. Both the Germanics and every other culture they are familiar with have a tradition of special people who mediate with ancestors, gods and the spirit world, as well as various professions incorporating a connection with mystical forces or powers, rituals meant to invoke magical effects, prophets and seers, etc.

It's just that the people influenced by Minoans or Pelasgians have a specific body of such knowledge connected to a caste of people who preserve cultural and linguistic markers that seem related, even as people of that caste belong to tribes whose daily languages are obviously unrelated. Yes, the religious class are mystics, but that is not what makes them different from other cultures they Germanics know.

Perhaps the comparatively much greater apparent authority of women in Minoan/Pelesgian influenced cultures is a point the Germanic tribes might seize on.* It certainly struck the ASNs, so much so that they probably exeggerated it into imagining that these cultures were 'ruled by women'. The Germanics have female priestesses and female wielders of various traditional magics, but the overt authority of women, certainly over warriors, is minimal in their culture.

Various pseudo-Celts have very different levels of female participation in political life, but in general, the more influence from the Aegean/Balkan cultures and the religious practices of the Minoan/Pelasgian strata they show, the greater the role of women in making decisions even outside spheres that the ASNs consider appropriate to the female sex. And it is striking to note the cultural differences among various steppe cultures or Thraco-Dacian tribes where there are not such distinct religious elites preserving a language distinct from the rest of the tribe.

Many 'Cimmerian', Scythian or Thraco-Dacian tribes dominated exclusively by a male warrior elite fight bitter conflicts with ethnically related tribes that have been influenced to a greater extent by the Minoan/Pelasgian cultural memeplex and where various mystery cults or orders of priesthood open to or even exclusively consisting of women have a role even in overt decision-making about traditionally manly spheres. In fact, there are many less materially developed Paleo-Balkan cultures that apparently reject this and display what almost seems to be a self-conscious exaggeration of male authority and idealized masculinity as part of religious iconography.

Among them are the various barbarian tribes and kingdoms located where the ASNs would have expected to find Ancient Greece, as there are numerous very early Iron Age cultures there that seem to reject the authority of the Minoan/Pelasgian educated elites. In fact, some ASN ethnographers, philologists or just amateur historians spend considerable time gathering news of the warfare taking place in that part of the world, looking for anything that sounds like it might be an army of 'Acheans' or 'Myceneans' setting out to besiege a city in Asia Minor, influenced heavily by the Minoan/Pelasgians.

Another point that might be seized on is that the Minoan/Pelasgian strata exhibits a marked preference for chtonic divinities and that many, but by no means all, religions that seem to derive from it feature serpent or snake iconography. Other common features include a preference for subterranean places or caves as sacred places, sensual or sexual rites as part of rituals closed to outsiders, ecstatic worship and divination and a marked degree of secrecy about religious activity.

The bull is a special case, in that the ASNs have encountered many cultures incorporating bull imagery in their religions without any apparent link to the Minoan/Pelasgian strata, but it is certainly a fact that bulls are popular sacrifices among tribes that do show such influence and bull imagery is probably proportionally much more common among them than with the average tribe of any other culture.

*Well, by the time they get to know such tribes as anything other than exotic parts of the pseudo-Celtic world. At the time of settlement, no Germanic-speaking tribe lived anywhere near the Balkans or the Black Sea, nor the Mediterranean, even. They had stories of various parts of the world, but mostly through second- or third-hand, as they traded with various pseudo-Celts who, in turn, traded with other cultures. I'm guessing that the first extensive contact that the native Germanic speakers had with Minoan/Pelasgian influenced cultures was as soldiers in Waffen-SS Freiwilligen formations who still retain their native language or by allied and auxiliary tribesmen fighting with the ASNs, such as the 'Goths' which they'll no doubt dispatch to settle the shores of the Black Sea.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

I would think that the ASNs with knowledge of TL 7 chemistry would be able to make something similar to Greek Fire. Even unrefined crude oil might be usable in a flamethrower. It looks like the flash point of crude oil varies, but is generally less than 38 C, compared with jet fuel having a flash point of above 38 C. That means light crude oil might be able to be used without refining in a flame thrower if it is aerosolized enough, perhaps with preheating.

Even if raw crude oil is not flammable enough at room temperature to be of use in a flamethrower, the sort of small scale refining described in the Dirty Tech sidebar in High Tech could probably create enough fuel for a small number of flamethrowers. It would certainly be easier than making ammunition for firearms. The ASNs probably don't want too many flamethrowers, as firearms are generally more effective, and I sure wouldn't want to use a flamethrower on a hydrogen filled zeppelin. However a handful used as terror weapons could be very effective.

Yes, if it was cheap to make the fuel, even from the start (and even if such fuel would make the flamethrowers less effective than the latest TL7 models in WWII), I imagine that the early wars against the natives of Germania Hyperborea, let alone the attempts to clear away the awful fauna of Jötunheim, might have benefited from copious applications of stuff that burns.

[Icelander]

For how long might a bronze helm, breastplate, spear or sword remain in use as a prized heirloom?

And would this be the same or a different duration for steel arms?

I mean, even with maintenance and the occasional repairs by an adequately skilled smith, there has to be a limit for how long a metal object can remain in heavy use and still retain full functionality.

I know several generations are no problem, but without any more data than gut feeling, I could imagine that by the time no one living knows how old an object is, only that there are stories of heroes using it and different clans seizing it from the corpses of their enemies from other clans going back ten generations or more, it's more likely to be a prized trophy than still used in active warfare.

I mean, at some point there has to be accumulated battle damage, some weakening of the metal, environmental damage or something, which nothing except a rebuild would fix completely.

What do forumites reckon would be about the oldest material artifacts* that the Antarctic Space Nazis might encounter 'primitive' tribesmen still using in battle?

Maybe 200-300 years? More than that?

*Magic aside, that is. There might well be magical artifacts older than this still in use among the natives, but I'm asking in the sense of non-magical archaeological artifacts.