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Old 03-15-2019, 11:15 AM   #411
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

Radar advanced rather quickly in WW II, one or two of the early smallish obsolete Airborne units might have been grabbed for a pattern to use later.
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Old 03-15-2019, 03:28 PM   #412
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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
The ASNs obviously took all plans and blueprints for radars along, because they had access to them and microfilm doesn't weight very much, but you are right in that they would not have seen much need for such technology in the early years of settlement.

On the other hand, I don't know how much work is involved in making new small radars that fit in airships and can be used for air defence against low-flying threats. Fifty years is a long time and the ASNs may not be up to WWII numbers and infrastructure yet, but they do have significant resources.
I suspect that the ASNs started with fewer electronics people than they did metallurgists, miners, and weapons engineers. The electronics companies of Germany would not have expected to be suppressed to the same degree as the arms industry, and the original ASNs may not have had that much to do with electronics. There were never Waffen-SS air or naval forces, and the army never got radar, which was always a Luftwaffe thing.

Given the lack of aerial enemies until they got to Kadath, I suspect that there's had to be a sudden period of re-learning how to build and operate radars. So I think they'll have something very basic, capable of warning that there are flying things on the way, but nowhere near accurate enough for gun-laying. Just knowing which way to point the searchlights is a major advantage.
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Old 03-15-2019, 03:49 PM   #413
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I had been explicitly leaving out RADAR, because (1) it was high-tech and in demand in the old Reich and far beyond the new Reich's capacity to build and maintain, and (2) that makes a TPK even more likely, especially if it is accurate enough to lay guns.
If you know how, you can make a simple radar if you can make a half-decent radio. Certainly, one suited to detecting airships with sufficient accuracy to start looking for it with searchlights (i.e. not very) would be fairly simple, as these things go.

A gun-laying radar, or even a searchlight directing one, is a different matter. In WWII German radar terms, a Freya search radar is a much easier thing to make than a Würzburg gun/searchlight laying radar.
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Also, I am not sure how well it would work on flying beasts.
Badly, unless it's a fairly good centimetric radar.
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Old 03-15-2019, 03:50 PM   #414
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

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I suspect that the ASNs started with fewer electronics people than they did metallurgists, miners, and weapons engineers. The electronics companies of Germany would not have expected to be suppressed to the same degree as the arms industry, and the original ASNs may not have had that much to do with electronics. There were never Waffen-SS air or naval forces, and the army never got radar, which was always a Luftwaffe thing.
You're dead right about electronics people being proportionally fewer among the ASNs. According to Wikipedia, though, there were Heer designs of AA radars, specifically designed for ground defence and working with flak. I'm aware that Luftwaffe personnel were often used to man AA defences later in the war and maybe the Heer radars were uncommon, but I could find references to Heer models of radar.

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Given the lack of aerial enemies until they got to Kadath, I suspect that there's had to be a sudden period of re-learning how to build and operate radars. So I think they'll have something very basic, capable of warning that there are flying things on the way, but nowhere near accurate enough for gun-laying. Just knowing which way to point the searchlights is a major advantage.
Well, the Dreamlands aren't the only world with flying monsters. The ASNs have faced such threats since they started exploring the World Tree and radar would have been useful for their airships from the start (though not practical or even possible until some time after mature Elemental Furnaces).

If the ASNs have built radar at all, it was probably for their shiny new Parsifal-class airships, like Amfortas, in fact. Those and maybe whatever even huger model of airship they use to explore Jötunheim, which has monstrous pterosaurs and even scarier monsters.
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Old 03-15-2019, 04:22 PM   #415
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Default Re: Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

One thing about airships, is that while they have the same sort of severe issues with excess weight, they can afford large antenna installations without having a huge set of 'horns' sticking out into the air and ruining their streamlining. A terrain avoidance (in the sense of detecting mountains in the dark and in bad weather) and relative altitude measuring set would be fairly easy to design and build into an airship. One suitable for combat operations, especially vs animals (being non-metallic they're much harder to detect, and require much shorter wavelengths than aeroplanes or airships) is a much more difficult thing to design and manufacture.
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Old 03-16-2019, 03:59 AM   #416
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Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
You're dead right about electronics people being proportionally fewer among the ASNs. According to Wikipedia, though, there were Heer designs of AA radars, specifically designed for ground defence and working with flak. I'm aware that Luftwaffe personnel were often used to man AA defences later in the war and maybe the Heer radars were uncommon, but I could find references to Heer models of radar.
Do you have a link for that? The WWII Luftwaffe, unlike most air forces, was responsible for most ground-based AA defence. To the best of my knowledge, at the start of the war they were responsible for all of it except the organic light AA of Heer units.
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Old 03-16-2019, 04:45 AM   #417
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Do you have a link for that? The WWII Luftwaffe, unlike most air forces, was responsible for most ground-based AA defence. To the best of my knowledge, at the start of the war they were responsible for all of it except the organic light AA of Heer units.
Just Wikipedia:

"There were three users of radar in Germany during the war: the*Luftwaffe*(Air Force), the*Kriegsmarine*(Navy), and the*Heer*(Army)."

"Requiring only one operator, the*Würzburg*came to be the primary mobile, gun-laying system used by the*Luftwaffe*and*Heer*during the war."

"Under an internally funded project, the firm Lorenz AG developed a pulse-modulated set.*The*Heer*contracted for a few sets for*Flak*(anti-aircraft) support, but then this mission was transferred to the*Luftwaffe."

In any case, it's relatively unimportant which service was responsible for the radars. At the end of the war, the ASNs clearly had the chance to remove any small radars deployed at places like Peenemünde, Der Riese compound and possibly even close to their bunker in Berlin, as well as any other site under senior SS command or supervision. Though, obviously, they'd only have done so if it was easy and convenient, as I can't see air defence radar as being considered a vital need in their new homes. Well, not unless it worked against the flying monsters of Jötunheim, but was nevertheless beast-portable in easy pieces.

It's probably more likely they took a few small sets designed for aircraft to fit into their eventual airships, for navigation in poor visibility.
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Old 03-21-2019, 01:50 AM   #418
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In any case, it's relatively unimportant which service was responsible for the radars.
Absolutely, I had just not heard of Heer radars.
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It's probably more likely [the ASNs] took a few small sets designed for aircraft to fit into their eventual airships, for navigation in poor visibility.
They did not have ground-mapping radars as of 1945, AFAIK. They had concentrated on air-intercept and air defence radars. They'd take small radars and plans, but given their shortage of electronics people, they'd have had to do some re-development, once their electronics components industry had been built up.

So they'll have an air-warning radar on the Pillar, but finding a place to put it is a problem, given the crane needs to swing around, and the whole space is only 10 metres diameter. I think the crane has to move to point 1 on the pentagram, which gives it better access to the airship, and the radar's rotating antenna has to go on top of the heated hut. This means that radar coverage will be reduced while the crane is in use, but that can't be helped. A radar antenna which will fit in the space isn't going to be good enough for gunnery control with vacuum-tube technology, but it will do for early warning.

The radar on the airship also has a placement problem. The best place to put it on a non-rigid airship is inside a gas cell, but the metal framework of these airships makes that fairly useless. So it has to go on the nose, with fairly limited angular coverage. If there are aerial opponents that are faster than the airship, they'll be able to approach from behind without showing up on radar.
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Old 03-21-2019, 04:48 PM   #419
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Default So... PCs, ha.

Hilariously, the PCs did not fly directly at the gate pillar and neither did they land the Rocinante and walk through tunnels infested with ghouls, nightgaunts and Nazi guard posts.

Obviously, they drew on vast reserves of Cold One derived magic stored in captured diamonds and created an enormous enchanted carapace of burrowing insect shape around the Rocinante and then 'flew' it through the ice of Kadath.

This collapsed several tunnels, which did not worry the extremely tough carapace, but was rather harder on some ghouls. And then they hit a ghoul warren, which was an experience rather like driving an industrial harvester into a herd of sheep, if the sheep were Mythos horrors and the industrial harvester was driven by a thousand unearthly furies.

Now the Rocinante-cum-ice-horror-insect is skittering across the black stone of a buried monument of sunken Kadath while the survivors of the ghoul warren (and a few dozen nightgaunts) are in hot pursuit. Two PCs are firing MG42s at the pursuing Mythos horrors while two sky pirates with a crash course in Gunner/TL7 are acting as loaders. They are firing through ports in the carapace, cunningly placed somewhere in the rear, likely at some place inviting juvenile humour.

And 'Nonc' Morel is working on a 210 energy ritual that will collapse thousands of tons of ice on the pursuing horrors.

I guess the ASNs on the surface are waking up to some strange trembles and will soon experience a very hard quake.
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Old 03-21-2019, 05:35 PM   #420
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I guess the ASNs on the surface are waking up to some strange trembles and will soon experience a very hard quake.
I do believe the PCs are getting the hang of throwing loads of magic around. I wonder if they'll replace the ASNs in the Cold Ones' affections?
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