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Old 01-30-2019, 01:22 PM   #61
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

Guns can be reported destroyed by police when they are actually 'acquired' by police (it is depressingly common in the USA). Alternations to the official records (or deliberate misreporting of the serial numbers) can result in a gun disappearing from the official record. In addition, it was quite easy for collectors and enthusiasts to purchase kits before WW II and make their own guns, which would not appear in any official records.
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Old 01-30-2019, 01:23 PM   #62
johndallman
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

A couple of books that may be helpful with this:

Textbook of Small Arms is a British publication from 1929, which includes a fairly detailed outline of how mass-production of ammunition is done at TL6.

Hatcher's Notebook has some material on TL6 small arms manufacture, among a lot of interesting anecdote.
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Old 01-30-2019, 01:33 PM   #63
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Default Re: REALLY Heavy Rifle for Antarctic Space Nazis

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
We've decided … settle a new world, a Last Redoubt for Nazism until it is time for the Final War.

In any case, great numbers weren't necessarily as vital as they might have been in settling empty worlds, given that the Antarctic Space Nazis had already found one world with blond and blue-eyed barbarians of TL2, with admirable Aryan skull structure and women of surpassing beauty, which would provide a fine breeding stock of future Aryans, admixtured by the blood of the leaders of the German Volk
There are a couple of substances which have the potential to cause conflict among these Antarctic Space Nazis:

One is antibiotics: Karl Gebhardt was an influential SS doctor who'd been very much opposed to them. Since there is a definite potential for the ASN to be exposed to new diseases on the world of blond barbarians, the decision on taking antibiotics with them, or otherwise, may be quite important.

The other is tobacco. Hitler was a strong anti-smoker, but most men in Nazi Germany smoked quite a lot. If the ASN don't take tobacco with them, and grow it, they may be without it for a long time.
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Old 01-30-2019, 02:15 PM   #64
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Default Re: REALLY Heavy Rifle for Antarctic Space Nazis

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
There are a couple of substances which have the potential to cause conflict among these Antarctic Space Nazis:

One is antibiotics: Karl Gebhardt was an influential SS doctor who'd been very much opposed to them. Since there is a definite potential for the ASN to be exposed to new diseases on the world of blond barbarians, the decision on taking antibiotics with them, or otherwise, may be quite important.
Ouch.

Dr. Gebhardt was not only a part of the original conspiracy, he still survives half a century later, as some twisted, inhuman thing. Technically, he's not among the absolute highest authorities in the militaristic enclave of the ASNs, being outranked by roughly a dozen 'people', but when it comes to medical matters, his influence is vast.

Unless Himmler or someone else in the absolute inner circle overruled Dr. Gebhardt in 1945, it looks like the ASNs remain solidly TL6 in the field of antibiotics, i.e. effectively without them.

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The other is tobacco. Hitler was a strong anti-smoker, but most men in Nazi Germany smoked quite a lot. If the ASN don't take tobacco with them, and grow it, they may be without it for a long time.
Yeah, looks like the unfortunate true believers will have to do without. Technically, smoking was never banned among the ASN, just smoking on duty, but once the smokers ran out of tobacco they brought along, they'll have had to do without.

The slave farms around the Last Redoubt are prosperous, but the climate is an idealized German one (Westphalian), which I imagine will not serve for tobacco.

I imagine that hardy ASN homesteaders might do a Trekboer thing to reach areas of their new world more suitable to tobacco (growing it in another world is possible, but would require official investment in permanent gates, unless one of the industrial sites happens to be in a tobacco-friendly climate), but in the first decade or two, there's little chance that such freebooting ways would be tolerated (as every TL7 person is urgently needed) and while that might be relaxed as the home world grows more prosperous, I don't know how much demand there would be for tobacco if no one had gotten any for years.

Likely enough other vices replaced tobacco in the first generation. Whatever could be grown easily in an idealized Westphalian climate with extremely nutritious soil. Maybe they are weed-smoking ASN?
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Old 01-30-2019, 02:15 PM   #65
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Default Re: REALLY Heavy Rifle for Antarctic Space Nazis

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(SNIP)

The other is tobacco. Hitler was a strong anti-smoker, but most men in Nazi Germany smoked quite a lot. If the ASN don't take tobacco with them, and grow it, they may be without it for a long time.
The tobacco thing could really suck, too. As someone who grew up in a tobacco state, I remember that was not easy. The plants are really fragile, when they first sprout, and everything wants to eat them.

Just getting them to grow is labor-intensive. The harvest isn't bad, but tobacco rapes the soil almost as badly as cotton.

So, successful tobacco cultivation needed lots of land and cheap labor -- which meant plantations, early on.

(By the time I was a kid, it had gotten somewhat easier. Artificial pesticides and fertilizers meant Mr. Bunch could handle his small allotment without too much help.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_of_tobacco
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Old 01-30-2019, 02:41 PM   #66
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Default Re: REALLY Heavy Rifle for Antarctic Space Nazis

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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
The slave farms around the Last Redoubt are prosperous, but the climate is an idealized German one (Westphalian), which I imagine will not serve for tobacco.
Southern Germany can grow tobacco, as can France.
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Old 01-30-2019, 02:49 PM   #67
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Default Re: Tobacco for Nazis

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The tobacco thing could really suck, too. As someone who grew up in a tobacco state, I remember that was not easy. The plants are really fragile, when they first sprout, and everything wants to eat them.

Just getting them to grow is labor-intensive. The harvest isn't bad, but tobacco rapes the soil almost as badly as cotton.

So, successful tobacco cultivation needed lots of land and cheap labor -- which meant plantations, early on.

(By the time I was a kid, it had gotten somewhat easier. Artificial pesticides and fertilizers meant Mr. Bunch could handle his small allotment without too much help.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_of_tobacco
Well, as much land as they want is easy and everyone who isn't working in a vital industry or currently performing military service is meant to run a family farm. The abundance of slave labour even means that those farms can be plantations if they want, and, in fact, I imagine them working somewhat like Roman latifunda with at least TL6 knowledge of acriculture. Artificial nutrients and pesticides would be available, but farm machinery would lag behind their knowledge for the first generation or two, as there are too many strategic needs, too little infrastructure and too few educated TL7 people.

The problem is that the 'completely safe' Last Redoubt has a Westphalian climate, albeit one where most seasons are 'good' seasons, in terms of the suitability of the climate for the kind of crops German farmers tend to grow. And the area where the ASNs take their TL2 'Aryan' slaves is North European, mostly, with endless misty ancient forests of the sort that covered Europe north of the Rhine in Roman times.

There are other sources of slaves located in areas of another world where there are still hostile tribes of TL0-1 people and even kingdoms of TL2-3 people at war with the ASNs (who can't win a final victory over a whole world without a larger industrial base and a much larger mechanized military). There are warmer and drier areas there, but not ones without angry raiding barbarians living near and while the ASN could easily set up a secure base, the opposition of the Reichsführer to smoking means that a tobacco farm eould not enjoy any official support.

So for the first few years, at least, there would probably not be any good way to have the permanent protection of the ASN military at any location with a climate even close to any area in the real world where tobacco grows. Of course, it may be possible to grow tobacco in a mild Westphalian climate, just not ideal. As for that, I truly have no idea.

Edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Southern Germany can grow tobacco, as can France.
Well, there we are.

So I guess that anyone willing to travel some distance from the otherworldly Wewelsburg can grow tobacco. Of course, that might not be available as an option during the first few years, when everyone with personal TL7 was urgently needed for communal tasks, but as soon as the first crunch was over, I expect that brave homesteaders struck out to set up tobacco plantations outside the perimeter where the ASNs can guarantee absolute safety.

By 'some distance', I, of course, mean something like 500 miles. And by 'can't guarantee safety' I mean that at this early time in the process of building up a full TL7 society again, the ASNs can't really provide any useful assistance at all that far out. So those had better be some really courageous and independent Trekboers, eh, Antarctic Space Nazi pioneer homesteaders, because they'll absolutely face raids by (understandably) hostile natives of TL0-3.

At least all the ASNs likely to strike out as frontier farmers will have military training and experience, not to mention a Karabiner 98k for every reservist (who is everyone, at least at first), and the responsibility to train all sons in military skills before they start formal education. Which really drives home the need for a lot of Mauser KKW training rifles in .22 LR and probably more firearms than the early infrastructure can handle making smokeless ammunition for. So, almost certainly, the Mauser 1871/84 in 11mm Mauser is making a comeback, or at least a simplified copy of one that is easy to manufacture.
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Old 01-30-2019, 02:56 PM   #68
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Default Re: REALLY Heavy Rifle for Antarctic Space Nazis

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post

(SNIP)

So for the first few years, at least, there would probably not be any good way to have the permanent protection of the ASN military at any location with a climate even close to any area in the real world where tobacco grows. Of course, it may be possible to grow tobacco in a mild Westphalian climate, just not ideal. As for that, I truly have no idea.
Kentucky has a humid subtropical climate, with lots of rain and thick, fertile soils. It's about as far north as tobacco can be grown, profitably.
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Old 01-30-2019, 04:01 PM   #69
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

It is not like the Nazis will have the industrial base to produce artificial fertilizers or pesticides (you are talking about a massive industrial base equal to pre-war Germany to make such things without trade). They would only be able to do TL5 agriculture until their industrialized population reached tens of millions.
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Old 01-30-2019, 04:57 PM   #70
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

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It is not like the Nazis will have the industrial base to produce artificial fertilizers or pesticides (you are talking about a massive industrial base equal to pre-war Germany to make such things without trade). They would only be able to do TL5 agriculture until their industrialized population reached tens of millions.
Fair enough.

In total, I guess that the Antarctic Space Nazis were able to take with them about 30,000 short tons of machinery, tools, supplies and equipment from 1944-1945 Earth. The castle and surrounding structures were not made by them with mundane methods and are not counted in this total, while raw materials like coal, iron and such come from the industrial sites and are not part of it either. Single items heavier than 400 lbs. would be a major hassle to get through, unless they could fly under their own power and fit through gates that were too small to fit any decent military airplane.

Obviously, taking tools and equipment that makes it easier to make other necessary things would be a priority, but as the planners knew they'd have to survive while they built infrastructure and that it might be decades before they could manufacture many things in the new world, they'd have taken as much of the most vital equipment as they could. That included lots of weapons and ammunitions, I imagine, but also a lot of precursor chemicals and everything necessary to keep those industries judged absolutely critical functioning.

When the ca 500 SS men and their ca 500 dependents arrived in the Zentrum der neuen Welt, World 1, there were about 125,000 hectares of prime Westphalian-esque farmland waiting for settlers, in perfect conditions to start farms. This would have been in a demiplane with no other people, except the roughly thousand 'Aryan' slaves that were to be developed into good Nazis and maybe a couple of thousand other slaves for ordinary labour. Also another two thousand slaves with little initiative, low IQ, but neither the ability to rebel nor need for food in the traditional sense.

There would also have been a couple of thousand stormtroopers (who didn't need food) for keeping the slaves docile and handling the constant influx of new ones, from the ca 2,000 stormtroopers and few dozen special forces warring in Germania Hyperborea, as they call World 2.

World 1 is not actually a whole planet, just a small demiplane, and while it does grow slowly, it is still only about 3,000,000 hectares of farmland now (about a 60 mile radius circle around the mystical castle), 50 years later. Once the Antarctic Space Nazis, their new Aryan citizens and their slaves had filled out all of the good farmland on World 1, they'd start setting up farms on Germania Hyperborea, World 2, which is a whole world.

The rest of the stormtroopers and a few hundred Antarctic Space Nazi engineers, technicians and miners would have been engaged in setting up the industrial and resource-excavation site at Jötunheim, World 3 (later on more worlds), along with a few thousand more slaves, some needing food and having intiative, others... not.

The Nazis can trade, actually, but only with a TL3 fantasy society, which we'll call Svartálfrheim, World 4, though the trading partners aren't really elves. The Nazis are, however, fairly firmly allied with their trading partners in Svartálfrheim and have accepted the risks involved in teaching them various TL4 and higher things, though there are certain TL6-7 technologies they will be trying to keep military secrets. Still, that's a society of some hundreds of thousands that they could trade with from the start.
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