WWII + Supers = ???

[angel_lord]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are great examples of how secret weapons win wars.

As for how useful a super would be in a war Like WWII would depend, IMO, on how many there were for each side and how they were used.

If a group of super tanks, like the SH Colossus had been available to use at Normady for instance, how much smaller would the allied casualties have been. Send in the Tanks first to clear out the landing area bunkers, followed by waves of regular soldiers whicvh were used in the RL first attakcs.

How about using flight capable supers to guide in the Airbourne gliders so that they aren't scattered from here to kingdom come? Or sending them in first to secure bridges and then dropping airbourne after?

WHat if German submarine warfare was suplimented by an aquatic super who could smash through ship's hulls?

More importantly, what if one of the german metahumans was involved int he first Plot to assasinate Hitler - and it was successful becuase of it. Someone LIke ROmmel comnes to power, and the German Army begins to be used both intelligently and resourcefully. Russian isn't attakced, but the treaty is shored up until the rest of EUrope is dealt with - Jews aren't hunted down. ( I actually ran this as a campaign, so that is where the immediate idea comes from)

What if all governments mysteriously and benevolently decided not to used their supers against each other, but only to counter enemy supers. (as if dropping the A-bomb doesn't somewhat negate this reality).

There are a lot of things that could be changed depending on how supers are used and viewed.

[Saint]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

. . . I'm looking for "realistic" global repercussions from making about 1 in every 1,000 people Super. The average would be 250 points, the exceptional would be 500 points, and a small few would be 700+ points. . .

If you haven't checked out the Wild Cards series, you might take a gander at it. The first volume alone starts just after World War II and encapsulates about 40 years of the history of an alternate Earth where supers are real. In the earliest volumes of the series, the authors do a great job of depicting just how different things might be. In particular, the short story about the Four Aces (can't recall the title) illustrates how a small team of supers can change history.

Having said that, back in the day I ran a GURPS Supers game set the IST world's WW II. We decided to scale the game down to the 250 pt. "realistic" level, and the players took on the roles of members of Project Los Angeles: Lucifer (blaster), Sergeant Strike (tank), The Gadgeteer (erm, a gadgeteer :P), etc.

Looking back the psis, skulkers and gadgeteer types had the most impact on the game. At 250 pts. under 3e, the combat types could easily be killed by normal troops.

Although I like your numbers better - a batallion of Sergeant Strikes might have had a real impact on the war ;)

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Argent

What about at Hiroshima?

I stand by my statement. The secret weapon did not win the war - but it underscored the point.

Arguably SDI helped win the cold war, but I would draw a distinction between a secret weapon and an idea for one.

GEF

[Gef]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k

Perhaps, but the Enlarged Wizard would have...

I do not argue that an enlarged wizard is of no value, only that to use him in your strategy (not merely your present tactics), he should be affordable, replaceable, and available in quantity, not a prima donna of nearly unique origin (the Enlarge spell has many prerequisites). Failing that, they should offer a capability that no other troop type has.

A "tank" superhero does not have a significant battlefield capability that an actual tank does not. Oh sure it has differing characteristics that may suit it relatively for some missions, but the capacity to shoot and be shot at are not unique, and the actual tank has the property that you can make several just alike, train ordinary men to use them, and replace losses to each. If there is a strain of mutants who all have the same characteristics, then they become much more useful to a strategist.

Now suppose I have a super with capabilities that technology cannot yet reproduce, like mind-reading. Should I send a mind-reader to the field, or to the lab? My hopes might fail in either case, but the potential pay-off from the lab, a mind-reading technology that ordinary men can use, is greater than the payoff from using him as a spy, especially given what spies can uncover without mutant powers.

GEF

[Gef]

Originally Posted by zogo

You see to me this gets to the heart of a particularly important issue. That is the difference between Supers and a Neorealism* that includes superhuman.

In the former Supers don't change the history of WWII so much but its because they cancel out...

Neorealism is what you get with the point totals proposed in the original post. You want supers bouncing the weapons of war and not merely "bulletproof" against handguns, then you need more points.

As for Allied and Axis supers cancelling each other out, that's not a logically certain conclusion, just an easy one for background purposes. Suppose the Nazi supers are 10% more (quality or quantity, it doesn't matter), then after a series of clashes the Allied supers are all dead but 10% of the supernazis and SSS are still alive. Analogous to air supremacy, supers supremacy is now achieved, what is the consequence for the endgame? Anticipation of Normandy? The assassination of Ike? Fimbulwinter in Britain?

Furthermore, you can imagine significant changes in history without altering the actual outcome of the war. What if the terrible conditions of the concentration camps induced a higher proportion of metahuman manifestations? If Mengela's experiments determined that only Jews demonstrate this extreme stress response, what would be the consequences for the acceptance of Nazi ideas? What would Israel have become? You get the idea. I think the presence of supers more or less evenly distributed among the participants would be unlikely to head off the eventual Allied victory but would have extreme consequences that would have been subtle to start.

GEF

[maximara]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

ok, here's my dilemma, while planning a new campaign based around the start of the second World War, the question came up of what would happen if Super Humans were introduced into the mix...

I'm looking for "realistic" global repercussions from making about 1 in every 1,000 people Super. The average would be 250 points, the exceptional would be 500 points, and a small few would be 700+ points.

Is the war over in a week?
Does it go on for decades?

Any help/suggestions/comments would be appreciated.

First off you need to figure out what powers are available. Certain combinations whould end the war real fast which is why DC created the Spear of Destiny and Holy Grail (though why it was in Japan and worked in an country that has one of the smallest ratio of Christians on the planet was never explained) to keep the Earth-2 JSA heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern from pounding the Axis powers into mush. Later the Spear of Destiny was used to explain why the JSA which still had a Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and as well as a new group called the Freedom Fighters didn't go and power the Axis powers into mush (The Holy Grail has seemingly disappeared as a DC WWII plot device)

Over at Marvel (then Atlas amoung other names) things were a little easier for not only was the list of superheroes much smaller, and their powers were more at the Mystery Man level (Human Torch was a noted exception), but the Axis Powers had people like the Red Skull, Agent Axis, and Baron Zemo to bedevil the Allies' heroes.

The IST world follows the Marvel example somewhat - few powers available and very few supers in general. This effectively limits what the supers can do and how either side would use them.

[the adventurer]

Godlike is the diffinitive book on this subject (and is a badass game with a badass rules set to boot) Plentiful numbers of Supers of varring power levels on both sides cancel each other out. And making them non-genetic (in Godlike all Superpowers are drived from reality warping Psi) means you elliminate the logistics of extencive Breeding Programes and Biological Testing, getting your supermen to the front that much faster.



PS: GODLIKE is owned and currently published by Arcdream publishing, not Pagan Press. Though they did the first Printing of the core book.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Saint

In particular, the short story about the Four Aces (can't recall the title) illustrates how a small team of supers can change history.

The Short Story is "Judas Ace".

[torin]

For more flavor, you might check out Thor meets Captain America. Not quite the same but it could give you ideas.

[Digganob]

The backstory of the MMORPG City of Heroes is based on the political, social, and military acceptance and usage of Supers throughout history starting in the 20s.

And yes, They were used as "Super-Soldiers" in WWII.

Here's a link:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/features/fiction.html

Check out the timeline.
Use the "Navigate Backstory" pulldown thingy and read the "War Begins" and "War Continues" sections if you just want the WWII stuff. But I reccomend reading the whole thing to get the entire picture.

This seems to me like a very "realistic" take on what would likely have happened.

The following is an excerpt from the "Cold War" section, but could be modified and used earlier:
"In 1956, Congress passed the Might for Right act. This law proclaimed super-powered individuals and vigilante heroes a valuable national resource subject to draft without notice into the service of the United States government."