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MarkSheppard February 27th, 2016 12:59 PM

WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
continued from

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...009#post833009

to avoid more off topic stuff.

I actually have a folder in my Steel Panthers mod work folder titled "World_War_Mod", along with a early attempt at a SPWW2 OOB for the Race; so this isn't exactly new for me.

There's also been a kind of "spiritual clone" of this for John Tiller's Campaign Series (Matrix) with the K'talan Mod (google up the name).

Story background:

The WORLDWAR timeline is contained in two book cycles plus one standalone book.

The first cycle began in 1994, with releases on a yearly basis until 1996; when the first cycle concluded. This cycle is essentially 1942-1944 or 1945(?)

The second cycle began in 1999 when the first book in the COLONIZATION cycle was released and concluded in 2001. It runs from 1962 to I think 1965ish.

The standalone book was published 2004 and runs 1972-2031.

Abbreviated in-universe timeline on what matters to us:

Sometime c~ 1121: The RACE's probes arrive in earth and surveil the planet; before returning home.

Sometime in 1921: The RACE's conquest fleet departs for earth.

December 1941: The RACE's conquest fleet arrives in Earth Orbit.

May 1942: After six months of reconnaissance, the decision is made to invade Earth anyway; despite apparent technological disparities.

30 May 1942: After detonating nukes high in the atmosphere for EMP to try and neutralize communications; the RACE invades.

1945ish: Race agrees to a truce and to withdraw from certain areas they control; but in the end they control large portions of Africa, South America, Asia etc.

Fast Forward to...

1962: The Colonization fleet arrives, some twenty years after the Conquest fleet. The expectation was that the Tosevites (their name for us) would have been conquered by now.

Whoops!

Eventually there's a short but brief European war between Poland and Germany in about 1963 or 1964 with the Race kind of in the middle of it all.

I'm flipping through some copies of the books I have and looking for tech hints; they're buried throughout the text.


RACE LANDCRUISERS:

metal/ceramic composite armor.
Automatic Loader
Crew: Commander, Gunner, Driver

4 to 5 inch gun firing Tungsten Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds + Coax MG

Through his periscopes, Ussmak saw flame leap from the muzzle of the gun. Armor shielded him from the roar of the report. Recoil made the landcruiser seem to hesitate for an instant. The aluminum sabots fell away from the tungsten penetrator arrow. Ussmak did not see that, of course. A heartbeat later, he did see the turret leap off a Tosevite landcruiser. “Hit!” he yelled, along with Votal and Telerep.

The Lizard tank was not much bigger than its English foes, but looked more formidable. Its armor was smooth and beautifully sloped, so that it brought to mind the “cars of the future” magazines sometimes hired artists to draw. As for its cannon -- “If that’s not a four-inch gun, or maybe a five -- , I’m a Lizard,” Goldfarb said. “I wonder if the shell would even notice one of our tanks on the way through.”

Missiles on landcruisers which can act as SAMs against 1940s aircraft.

"The Stuka pilot couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters off the ground when he pulled out of his dive. Two of the Lizard panzers fired their guided rockets at him but the missiles shot harmlessly past his plane. He skimmed away, his landing gear just above the waving grass of the steppe."

Armor can defeat at least 100-125mm of KE penetration frontally:

A shell knocked down a tree behind the Panzer IV. When the Lizards missed, it was commonly because they couldn’t see well. Their panzer did move out into the open. The Tiger fired at it. The 88 scored a clean hit, but the Lizard panzer kept moving. It was unfair, how tough they were.

But is vulnerable to maybe 75mm PAK from the sides:

“Truth,” Ussmak said. Deutsch antilandcruiser guns could wreck you if they caught you from the side or rear.

They have thermal imaging:

“Superior sir, should we consider a night advance?” Skoob asked. “Our vision equipment gives us a great advantage in night fighting.”

Even with infrared gear, Tosevite forests were frightening places at night for males of the Race.

Earthmoving blades are used as attachments:

A male with fancy body paint ran up to the landcruiser, waving his arms. “Driver, halt,” Nejas said, and Ussmak did. The male clambered up onto the landcruiser. Ussmak heard Nejas open the cupola lid. The male shouted, his voice deep with excitement. “Yes, we can do that, superior sir,” Nejas answered him, “provided you have a clearing blade to fit to the front of the vehicle.”

RACE TROOP CARRIERS

Carries a small automatic cannon in a small turret.

Jäger recognized the ones with small turrets as troop carriers, on the order of the German SdKfz 251 but far more dangerous--they could fight his panzers on largely even terms.

Somewhere up there in the woods, a machine gun began to chatter. Bullets spanged off the transporter’s armor. Its own light cannon returned fire, filling the passenger compartment with thunder.

Armored against small arms fire, but not heavy weapons. A US bazooka round can defeat the frontal armor of a troopcarrier.

Troop carriers were armored against small-arms fire but, unlike landcruisers, not against heavy weapons.

A Lizard tank’s frontal armor laughed at the shaped-charge head of a bazooka round, but not an armored personnel carrier.

Has a three man crew.

But a mechanized combat vehicle was not a landcruiser, nor was it armored like one. Flames and smoke shot from the turret, and from the door by which the infantrymales had exited. Escape hatches popped open. The three-male crew bailed out. One of them managed to reach the second combat vehicle. The Big Uglies shot the other two on the ground. A moment later, the stricken combat vehicle brewed up.

RACE VEHICLES

The RACE has about 65% fully tracked mobility -- all their tanks and APCs are tracked; as are a lot of their supply vehicles.

The fleetlord knew Kirel could not possibly answer a question like that. Even if he could have answered it, responsibility still rested with Atvar. The Race’s landcruisers and troopcarriers, of course, were tracked. They managed after a fashion, even churning through sticky mud. Most supply vehicles, though, merely had wheels. Back before Atvar went into cold sleep, that had seemed sufficient, even extravagant. Against spear-carrying warriors riding on animals, it would have been.

Suhiir February 27th, 2016 09:34 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
I think the whole reason Turtledove had the invasion in 1943 was so the economies of Earths nations were pretty much already in a full wartime footing. Had the invasion been earlier Earth could never have fielded enough force to even slow down the invaders.
Also pretty much everyone was on the edge of releasing 2nd gen equipment in 1943, a Tiger or Panther would fare far better then a PzKpfz III-G.

lukerduker123 February 28th, 2016 06:20 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Ah man, you're making me break out the books for this. You think we're going to have gunships/transport craft as well?

I can't remember the exact quotes, but the Race did have gunships, as one managed to ambush and put several rounds into Rance while he was leading a raid. As well, the Race (this is going off of memory here) had transport shuttles. I believe they used one to take Liu Han up to one of their orbiting spacecraft. If I can dig around and find the books again, I'd gladly help out!

MarkSheppard February 28th, 2016 07:52 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by lukerduker123 (Post 833030)
You think we're going to have gunships/transport craft as well?

They had gunships and maybe transport helicopters.

The gunships were described as having "stub wings"; so basically maybe a mix between AH-1 and AH-64?

Said gunships were also capable of being shot down by IIRC a P-40 in a single pass, so that gives you an upper bound on their durability - maybe slightly improved over the early AH-1 Cobras, but not as much as the AH-64?

MarkSheppard February 28th, 2016 08:00 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
I was also thinking about the best way to do this. I think it would be possible to use X3 radio codes in the OOB to include 1942-1945 AFVs and infantry formations for the major combatant powers (US/Germany/Japan/UK) and then use the BUY -> SET CAPTURED trick in the scenario editor to then buy the WW2 formations -- to keep the mod as self contained as possible.

Suhiir February 28th, 2016 09:20 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
When were Turtledoves books written? I's use whatever was current tech for the US (Europe?) then for The Race.

MarkSheppard February 28th, 2016 09:43 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir (Post 833035)
When were Turtledoves books written? I's use whatever was current tech for the US (Europe?) then for The Race.

The race is advanced in some areas well ahead of current 1994-2015 world technology -- they use clean burning hydrogen engines for virtually everything -- significantly easing their logistics burden, but in others, they're clearly not ahead of c.1990s world.

MarkSheppard March 2nd, 2016 11:08 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
To avoid cluttering up the Mods forum thread with more stuff; things I've played around with/toyed around in the past are:

SPWW2 "Dixie" (Essentially American Civil War II similar to Turtledove's TL-191); just theoretical scribblings to develop the OOB; such as:

Both sides should be developing two different types of tanks:

Heavy/infantry tanks for the 'Eastern Front' near Richmond/DC; where maneuver is limited and losses are likely to be heavy.

Cavalry Tanks for the 'Western Front' out on the Plains states; where maneuver is fluid.


SPWW2 Draka (A large total conversion similar to DAS REICH). This got pretty well developed but it never really approached 100% completion -- I did some EXE editing to change the names of countries in the game; and developed new flags, etc. It used WinSPWW2 (but I did some development work on earlier DOS versions).

SPMBT Twilight 2000: I got as far as gathering information on this and making a few side profiles.

SPMBT Operation Danube 1968: This one was mainly gathering photographic evidence, to help develop a set of icons for scenarios, because when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, their equipment had a lot of aerial recognition markings on it for ID purposes.

troopie March 3rd, 2016 03:30 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
I've done a few mods, actually OOBs. There was the WW2 Atlantis mod for SPWW2, An Atlantis Obat for SPMBT. It hasn't been worked on for years. I've toyed with the following SFnal OOBS. Co-Dominium for MBT. All sides in that basically use 1970's-80's military technology. Suid Afrika and the Empire from Robert Frezza's series. Light infantry and light armor. UFP and Euskadi Obats from Etxeberria's Irrintzia. I couldn't make a dual purpose multible warhead anti-aircraft, anti-armor missile. I don't know if I still have those.

troopie

lukerduker123 March 3rd, 2016 06:19 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 833077)

SPWW2 "Dixie" (Essentially American Civil War II similar to Turtledove's TL-191); just theoretical scribblings to develop the OOB; such as:

Both sides should be developing two different types of tanks:

Heavy/infantry tanks for the 'Eastern Front' near Richmond/DC; where maneuver is limited and losses are likely to be heavy.

Cavalry Tanks for the 'Western Front' out on the Plains states; where maneuver is fluid.


If you decide to go after this, I will throw as much support as I can at you.

MarkSheppard March 4th, 2016 05:54 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
2 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by troopie (Post 833080)
I've done a few mods, actually OOBs. There was the WW2 Atlantis mod for SPWW2, An Atlantis Obat for SPMBT. It hasn't been worked on for years.

Ahem.

MarkSheppard March 4th, 2016 07:19 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
[quote=lukerduker123;833082]
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 833077)
If you decide to go after this, I will throw as much support as I can at you.

I've actually been at this on and off for 10 years :p

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=31982

I'm leaning towards an "inspired" mod; rather than a direct lift of Turtledove's 191; as a lot of things just don't make sense in TL-191.

Some more of my scribblings?

CSA could adopt 4x4 and above heavy armored cars to make up for lack of industrial capacity.

lukerduker123 March 5th, 2016 01:29 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
More than a few things make no sense. A complete lack of armored cars, the fact that the Confederate navy is near non-existent save for a few submarines, the complete and utter lack of any other forces save a single British plane that strafes a boat? There's so much here we can make ourselves rather than relying on Turtledove!

MarkSheppard March 5th, 2016 10:46 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by lukerduker123 (Post 833110)
More than a few things make no sense.

I wrote something six years ago on TL 191's inconsistencies: LINK to it, to avoid cluttering up this thread.

I actually might use the 1976 SPI "Dixie" as some inspiration for the timeline; as it aligns closely with my thoughts in many ways:

Quote:

The Course of the Battle...

On 2 July 1863, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of General Meade, suffered a disastrous defeat at the battle of Gettysburg. The Army of Northern Virginia, under General Lee inflicted some 38,000 casualties upon the superior Northern army. After the Republican loss of the '64 presidential election, President McClellan negotiated an armistice with the Confederacy, which eventually led to the Treaty of Halifax in 1865. As a result of the weakened state of the two Americas, sectional forces in the far west asserted themselves, and. by 1876, the Western American Republic was a recognized independent nation An uneasy peace prevailed in America through the CSA-French partition of Mexico, into the industrialization of the South, through the years of non-intervention as Imperial Germany triumphed in the Great War and up to the point of the worldwide economic depression of the thirties.

It was a time of stress and disorder for both nations, with millions out of work and subterranean swells of radicalism. The shaky governments attempted to deflect the wrath of their peoples onto some exterior scapegoat. 1936 saw the rise of People's Capitalism in the United States, a home-brewed response to the twin tides of Communism and Fascism and the economic hemorrhaging of the Great Depression. "Shares" were issued to every U.S. citizen, and Southern holdings in the U.S. were nationalized. The CSA strongly protested. The small Federal holdings in the CSA were seized. Border incidents flared up. The South threatened to organize a force for a punitive strike across the border. The USA hastily mobilized to meet the threat.

Obstinacy and hysteria won its usual victory over common sense and reason: a major war erupted between the two Americas. The Western Republic wisely declined to get involved. The CSA was better organized and prepared for the war CSA forces crossed the border in strength and made twin drives in the direction of Omaha and Detroit. Federal forces were poorly positioned and sluggish to respond to the CSA thrusts.

Nevertheless, by the seventh week of the war, the situation stabilized into a slugging match along the Missouri River and in central Illinois-Indiana. Both sides were committed to nothing more than holding actions in the easily defended eastern front. A vigorous CSA offensive in the tenth week turned the USA flank at St. Louis and resulted in the virtual destruction of a Federal Army Corps. Quick exploitation of the resultant gap allowed the CSA to cut the Union forces in two. But the over-extension of the salient put the CSA spearhead in a precarious position about 100 kilometers south of Chicago.

Time was running out for both armies Neither side could sustain the conflict at full pitch for very long. At the end of the fourth month, the CSA accepted favorable terms from the USA. including return of nationalized property, trade concessions, reparations (in hardgoods). and destruction of the Missouri Fortified Line in return for Southern withdrawal from the U.S. and a reduced tariff on goods transported down the Mississippi.

troopie March 5th, 2016 02:53 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 833105)
Quote:

Originally Posted by troopie (Post 833080)
I've done a few mods, actually OOBs. There was the WW2 Atlantis mod for SPWW2, An Atlantis Obat for SPMBT. It hasn't been worked on for years.

Ahem.

There are 2 weapons in the WW2 orbat that will NOT work in WinSPWW2 because of code changes. The first is the Samhara (Darter) surface to air missile used on the Samhara SAM launcher and Lohanastra(Metal Arrow) gun/missile system. The second is the Falkhata (Broadsword) ASM. The code for these weapons has been removed. The weapons types say Unused. I am not going to ask for the code to be restored.

troopie

MarkSheppard April 11th, 2016 09:17 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
I started to look at the SPWW2 OOBs to get a general idea of what I would want to port over to MBT; and one thing hit me -- the Race invades on 30 May 1942, dramatically diverging the history of aircraft and fighting vehicle design for everyone; in particular the United States.

For example, one reason the Sherman was kept so long was that shipping space and landing craft design mandated something relatively light (30-35 tonnes) which let more be fit onto cargo ships or could be loaded onto landing craft that could use non-strategic materials.

But if the US is fighting against the Race in the Continental United States; then that suddenly means that the US heavy tank line that stagnated historically; jumps to the front -- within limits of course -- because if the US is now fighting tank battles in CONUS, then that means the Sherman can't be killed off right away, because it's in production and it would take too long to retool the factories.

Suhiir April 11th, 2016 11:39 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Porting over to MBT makes the best sense, and won't be to hard for the most part as the 1946 equipment/OOBs in MBT are pretty much the same as those used during WW II.

As to a heavy US tank, while the Pershing might be accelerated it also has LOTS of teething problems and given the supply/maintenance problems an invasion of the US would cause I really doubt they'd trade in reliable and numerous Shermans for unreliable and rare Pershings.

Imp April 12th, 2016 08:21 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir (Post 833613)
Porting over to MBT makes the best sense, and won't be to hard for the most part as the 1946 equipment/OOBs in MBT are pretty much the same as those used during WW II.

As to a heavy US tank, while the Pershing might be accelerated it also has LOTS of teething problems and given the supply/maintenance problems an invasion of the US would cause I really doubt they'd trade in reliable and numerous Shermans for unreliable and rare Pershings.

My understanding mirrors Suhiir, reliability was a priority.
Of course the Sherman was good enough for the job as it was mainly facing infantry or tanks with supply issues so a change in threat might have shaved a few months off the R&D.

MarkSheppard April 12th, 2016 05:45 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir (Post 833613)
As to a heavy US tank, while the Pershing might be accelerated it also has LOTS of teething problems

Actually, the M6 Heavy tank was what I was thinking of.

Suhiir April 12th, 2016 06:36 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 833623)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir (Post 833613)
As to a heavy US tank, while the Pershing might be accelerated it also has LOTS of teething problems

Actually, the M6 Heavy tank was what I was thinking of.

Even worse :D
There was a reason the H6 was never fully developed.

MarkSheppard April 12th, 2016 06:49 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Suhiir (Post 833626)
There was a reason the H6 was never fully developed.

I've seen the actual message transcript in the US National Archives about the Army asking Eisenhower if he wanted the upgunned/uparmored M6A2E1 with 190mm frontal glacis and a 105mm HV cannon for dealing with the Siegfried Line. :D

Suhiir April 12th, 2016 10:09 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
As I recall in at least one spot on the Siegfried Line someone pulled a self-propelled 203mm howitzer up and after hitting one of the major concrete emplacements a couple times the Germans inside surrendered.

I gather that while the HE rounds weren't all that effective (they'd have blow a hole clear thru eventually tho) the concussion inside was unbearable.

MarkSheppard April 14th, 2016 06:23 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
1 Attachment(s)
Here's an adaptation of the Race Flag created by a Deviant Art Member:

Race Flag on DeviantArt

Calls for the Race Empire to adopt its own flag at least in Tosev III have forced the Emperor to decree in order to have the Empire its identity, the Domains of the Ssumaz will fly a flag. It is very simple in description, and also meant to be distinctive to the Tosevite flags. Adopted in 1985, the flag is vertical. The brown parts represent the mainly desert vegetation of Home, the green its people.

While many of the Race resented in having to have a Tosevite borrowing such as a banner, the Race eventually grew fond of it, seeing as a powerful symbol of their species.


Canonically, the Race has been united for so long that they don't even have a unifying flag or symbol, but I needed one for the mod; and using the generic YELLOW flag from early SPWW2 sounded a bit cheap (if keeping in line with the orange-y color that everyone used for the Race on world maps on deviant art)

MarkSheppard April 14th, 2016 06:55 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Current spec-cing:

Landcruiser: 110mm gun; 5 to 6mm caliber coaxial, SAM on side of turret. Visually very similar to the AMX-40 or OF-40; at about 43 to 45 metric tons combat weight. Armor protection of around mid production T-55 to early T-62 level -- because its stated canonically that a 88mm L56 can't penetrate it frontally, they're still vulnerable to side shots from PAK guns. Plus, by the 1960s, German tanks are pretty much at parity (or close to it) with the Race; something not possible if it was a blinged up M1A1(HA) equivalent. Autoloaded gun, due to the need to economize on manpower in conquest fleet.

Troopcarrier Something roughly analogous to the Argentinian VCTP (aka TAM), with a 20mm or 25mm cannon + SAM.

Artillerycarrier: Analogous to the TAM VCA artillery, but in 100-120mm instead of 155mm. The Race is physically much smaller than humans, so I don't think they can easily manhandle 155mm rounds around.

Mortarcarrier: Analogous to the TAM VCTP mortar carrier variant. 80mm caliber or thereabouts.

Missilecarrier I'm not sure whether to include this. If the tanks have built in integrated SAM defenses (and radars), then why would there be a separate vehicle for carrying SAM systems not organic to the main tactical unit of operation?

MarkSheppard April 16th, 2016 07:02 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Zingiber said, “If you can’t send landcruisers, send helicopters to help me take out some more of the Tosevites’ armor.”

Rethost made up his mind that if Zingiber made one more such idiotic request, he’d relieve him. He hissed angrily before he pressed the TRANSMIT button. “We have fewer helicopters than landcruisers to spare. The miserable Tosevites have learned something new.” They’re faster at that than we are. The thought worried him. He made himself continue: “They’ve brought their antiaircraft artillery as far forward as they can, towing it with light armor or sometimes even with soft-skinned vehicles. The helicopters are armored against rifle-caliber bullets. To armor them against these shells would make them too heavy to fly.”


-------------

The more he thought about it, the more it worried him. The Lizards didn’t have numbers going for them; their strength had always lain in their guns: their tanks and self-propelled pieces; if they were easing off with those …

-----

“Indeed so, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. “To that end, we have recently converted a munitions factory we captured from the Français to producing artillery ammunition in our calibers. The Tosevites manufacture the casings and the explosive charges; our only contribution to the process is the electronics for terminal guidance.”

---------

More shells whistled overhead, these southbound from Bloomington. Mutt hoped they were registered on the Lizard guns, but they probably weren’t; the Lizards outranged American artillery.

---------

“I dunno,” he repeated, “but it does, somehow.” Just then, the Lizards started shelling the front part of Danforth again, probably sowing their little artillery-carried mines to keep the Shermans from pushing farther south anytime soon.

---------

As she approached the Lizards’ artillery position, she got down below treetop height. Some of those gun stations had tank chassis with antiaircraft cannon mounted in place of big guns protecting them. If she spotted one of those, she’d sheer off. A hit or two from their shells would turn the U-2 to kindling. She deliberately thought about it in terms of the aircraft rather than herself.

---------

The airplane passed overhead, almost close enough to touch. In spite of everything, Jäger stared at it in disbelief. It was almost the size of a medium bomber, and had no propeller he could see. It bore neither the German cross and swastika nor the Soviet star; in fact, it bore no device at all on its camouflaged wings and body. And it did not roar like every other airplane he had ever known—it shrieked, as if its motive power came from damned souls.
Then it was gone, vanishing into the east more swiftly than any fighter Jäger knew. He gaped after it, mouth fallen open in most unofficerlike fashion. One pass, and half his company was flaming wreckage.


(Lizard aircraft firing standoff ATGMs at Panzer column)

---------------

“It’s even worse in those places than in the United States, because they don’t need to wreck their roads to make us go into the mud. As soon as it rains for more than two days straight, the roads themselves turn into mud. Why didn’t they pave them to begin with?”

The fleetlord knew Kirel could not possibly answer a question like that. Even if he could have answered it, responsibility still rested with Atvar. The Race’s landcruisers and troopcarriers, of course, were tracked. They managed after a fashion, even churning through sticky mud. Most supply vehicles, though, merely had wheels. Back before Atvar went into cold sleep, that had seemed sufficient, even extravagant. Against spear-carrying warriors riding on animals, it would have been.


--------------

Just then a Lizard troop carrier that had lain low opened up with a rocket and took out a panzer less than a hundred meters from Jäger’s. By luck, he was looking through the periscope that showed where the rocket had come from. “Panzer halt!” he shouted, and then, “Armor-piercing!”

-------------

“Tell me about that thing, will you?”

Ristin turned one eye turret toward it. “That? That is a skelkwank sight, I think maybe from a bomb. Artillery shells use a smaller model. Skelkwank in your language is . . . is—” He paused and fluttered his lingers, a Lizardy way of showing frustration. “I think your language has not this word. Yep, that is what! think.”


(Laser guided weapons)

-------------

Try as they would, the Race’s pilots and missile batteries and artillery had not managed to knock out the Big Uglies’ manufacturing capacity.

---------

Teerts had two pods of rockets mounted under his killercraft. They were some of the simplest weapons in the arsenal of the Race. They weren’t even guided: if you saturated an area with them, that did the job. And, because they were so simple, even Tosevite factories could turn them out in large quantities. The armorers loved them these days, not least because they had plenty.

-------------

The Lizards’ advance positions, being lightly held, were soon overrun, though not before one of the aliens turned a Panzer IV to Jäger’s right to a funeral pyre with a rocket.

---------

It steers on the same principles as our machines, but it’s a lot easier to drive: the steering is power assisted and the gearbox shifts automatically.”

-------

Then he noticed the turret had no loader’s seat, just as there’d been no hull gunner’s position in the Lizard panzer’s forward compartment. Did the gunner or commander have to load shells, then? He couldn’t believe it. That would badly slow the panzer’s rate of fire, and he knew from bitter experience the Lizards could shoot quicker than their German counterparts.

Some of the gadgetry that filled the turret without crowding it had to be an automatic loader, then.


(Aha, they have Autoloaders)

MarkSheppard April 16th, 2016 11:40 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
His engines changed pitch as they breathed thicker air. Servos squealed, adjusting the sweep of his wings.

(Killercraft have VG wings)

-------

Teerts raked the stampeding herd of aircraft twice more before his ammunition ran low. Rolvar and Gefron had also done all the damage they could. They streaked for low orbital pickup; soon enough, the Race would have landing strips on the ground. Then the slaughter of Tosevite aircraft would be great indeed.

(Killercraft can go to low orbit.)

----

Like all starships of the invasion fleet, the 67th Emperor Sohrheb drew its primary power from an atomic pile. But, like most of the ships that landed on Tosev 3, it used a fair part of the energy from that pile to electrolyze water into oxygen and the hydrogen that fueled the Race’s air and ground vehicles.

(The Race's aircraft are LH2 powered)

MarkSheppard April 17th, 2016 12:00 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
1 Attachment(s)
First attempt at a Killercraft. Used the SPCAMO Tu160 icon as a starting point; reduced # of engines to two, and made it a semi-tailless design -- the two vertical tail(s) are directly above the engine pods in a similar vein to the way the F7U Cutlass had twin vertical tails.

This way, the flight control system isn't overburdened by having to do a pure tail-less design, while the rudders are protected from re-entry heat (it's a semi orbital design) by the wing below it.

It's a big plane -- but that's what you get for a liquid hydrogen powered design.

CL-400 SUNTAN -- despite having a 360Klbf MTOW, (vs the B-52's 488K MTOW); and a mere 2 man crew and 1,500 lb payload; the thing was nearly over twice the length of a B-52.

Suhiir April 26th, 2016 10:39 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Good documentary on an alien attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lj2afg31oU

MarkSheppard May 11th, 2016 04:11 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Another mod idea I came up with a while ago, after I bought John Tiller/HPS' Sealion '40 was....

AIRSTRIP ONE

Since you could legitimately do an invasion of Airstrip One (UK) in the 1984 universe. :p

Karagin April 26th, 2020 10:22 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Since we are talking about the Alien Space Bats stuff. :D Mark, I would be interested in your old Draka stuff. I too have been working on a Draka OOB for SP series since I got SP1. Always looking for a need of ideas and such as I am looking to balance them out.

MarkSheppard April 26th, 2020 11:43 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Give me a moment to dig up my Draka stuff.

Here's some more notes from the DIXIE mod scratchpad

Tank Names/Designations:
United States: "Mx" numbers, e.g. M2 Light Tank.
CSA: Names; as in "Longstreet"

Gun Designations:
USA: German style; as in 75mm Gun.
CSA: UK style; as in 6 Pdr Gun.

Rifle Designations:
Both US and CSA go by armory; e.g. Springfield 1903 and Tregedar 1905.

Karagin April 26th, 2020 12:12 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 847380)
Give me a moment to dig up my Draka stuff.

Looking forward to it

MarkSheppard April 26th, 2020 12:40 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
So here we go. Be gentle...

Drakafic mod for SPWW2 v7.0 DOS

You'll need to run it in DOSBox.

It's ugly, crude; and no scenarios.

I have a WinWW2 version built on v1.0 WinWW2, but I don't know how to distribute it because I was a CD Owner right from the start, and my modded version is based upon a CD install that has the CD files in it that unlock "extras".

I basically zipped these up back in 2012 for storage, and the last modification date for the OOB in SPWW2 v7 DOS version is February 2006.

MarkSheppard April 26th, 2020 01:06 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Regarding DIXIE:

Ten years ago, I wrote regarding Turtledove's TL-191:

Quote:

...the kind of aircraft that the USA and CSA would build in a sane universe would be very large, very long legged aircraft, due to the much greater distances in North America.

From the western border of Germany to its eastern border, it's about 450-500~ miles. From Savannah to Dallas, it's 900~ miles; and many states are several hundred miles tall or wide. The sheer distance means that the USA and CSA are going to trend towards much heavier and longer ranged aircraft than the European norm.
Basically, instead of Ju-87 Stukas, you'd see something similar to SB2A Buccaneers -- capable of flying a 500 lb bomb to 1,100 miles (combat radius of around 500 miles).

Either that, or you get twin engined ground attack aircraft.

I actually found something in the National Archives, where the AAF seriously asked for:

continued production of P-51A (Allison) engined mustangs as "A-36" strike aircraft

or

production of P-38s with no turbochargers as ground attack aircraft.

Karagin April 26th, 2020 05:26 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 847382)
You'll need to run it in DOSBox.

Right now I need to see if the Ommissah is going to let DOSBox and I work together or not. So far it's been on the NOT going to happen side.

Karagin April 26th, 2020 06:23 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 847382)
So here we go. Be gentle...

I have read your Draka stuff over on SSBStarDestroyer and had been working some of the ideas there into my version, more for the POST WW2 side as well as the WW2 side. Looking back at my notes, I have stuff for them being WAY over the top or so underrated. It will be interesting to see your stuff in this format.

I tried to stay true to the novels as far as weapons went, but I do like the stuff you came with though for the breakdown for your setting.

MarkSheppard April 26th, 2020 07:35 PM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard (Post 833658)
Current spec-cing:

Landcruiser: 110mm gun; 5 to 6mm caliber coaxial, SAM on side of turret. Visually very similar to the AMX-40 or OF-40; at about 43 to 45 metric tons combat weight. Armor protection of around mid production T-55 to early T-62 level -- because its stated canonically that a 88mm L56 can't penetrate it frontally, they're still vulnerable to side shots from PAK guns. Plus, by the 1960s, German tanks are pretty much at parity (or close to it) with the Race; something not possible if it was a blinged up M1A1(HA) equivalent. Autoloaded gun, due to the need to economize on manpower in conquest fleet.

...

Artillerycarrier: Analogous to the TAM VCA artillery, but in 100-120mm instead of 155mm. The Race is physically much smaller than humans, so I don't think they can easily manhandle 155mm rounds around.

So let's see...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-5TS
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2-62

115mm gun 2A20 (L/52.6)
Maximum muzzle energy is 6.96 MJ
3BM3 Sabot: 5.5 kg projectile out of a 22 kg shot weight, 1615 m/sec muzzle velocity.
3UOF HE Frag: 14.86 kg projectile out of 28 kg shot weight, 905 m/sec muzzle velocity

From my website:

http://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Ballis...ights_Calc.htm

Scaling down the T-62's gun to 110mm gets us:

Sabot: 4.81 kg projectile and 6.28 MJ muzzle energy at 1,615 m/sec.
HEF: 13 kg projectile and 5.33 MJ muzzle energy at 905 m/sec

Dropping back to my website again:

http://alternatewars.com/BBOW/Ballis...stics_1-07.htm

and plugging in:

110mm Proj Diameter
13 kg projectile mass
905 m/sec initial velocity
45 degree departure angle
0 m fire/target altitude
G8 Drag Model with a form factor of 1.0
0.1 integration interval
Ballistic Trajectory Evaluation

Gets us:

Maximum Range: 15,500 meters, with a time of flight of 67 seconds and a fall angle of 66 degrees

This isn't actually bad. You could get it up to maybe 19-20~ km with rocket assisted shells (wild *** guesstimate, not scientific analysis).

Bonus of using the same gun in your tank and SP howitzer (albeit in different mounts, allowing different elevations):

Resupply problems are dramatically eased for ammunition and spare parts -- important if the Race can only bring the ammo it needs on the ships it departed with.

As for AP penetration, you can just close your eyes and imagine pretty much the same performance as the 115mm:

3BM4 (1963 Steel) 228mm @ 1000m
3BM21 (1970s Tungsten) 360mm @ 1000m

Albeit with tungsten as the main weapon, since the shipping costs of a 4.8 kg sabot projectile across interstellar distances is so high that why not bring the best -- even if it's solid gold?

Depleted Uranium, I don't think the Race would use it -- due to their "long view" tending to avoid messy contaminated battlefields or carcinogens in conquered races.

One thing you'd have to do is have multiple landcruiser slots filled in the OOB representing:

1.) The initial invasion fleet, 100% tungsten sabot rounds, 100% MANPADs

2.) A year or two in, where you're forced to use earth-made steel sabots since you expended a lot of your tungsten rounds in the initial fighting.

MarkSheppard March 21st, 2021 10:12 AM

Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod
 
Some more thoughts...

I'd rather use SPWW2 because that gives us all the OOBs, Icons and stuff already preloaded for WW2, saving development time vs porting SPWW2 stuff to MBT.

But this would require some changes to the Turtledovian "Race" OBAT.

In his classic OBAT, everything has built in MANPADs; capable of shooting down helicopters to fighters; but there's no built in MANPAD or SAM weapon class for SPWW2.

We can just abstract the lack of SAMs away; by explaining that the heavy SAM stuff (S-300-PMU equivalent) is kept well away from the frontlines, and assigned to guard supply depots, using their extreme range vs low flying, low performance WW2 planes to shoot down stuff like paratrooper transport formations from 200 miles away.

What we could do is do some more "thonkery" and modify things a bit; and keep things in line with Turtledove's "roads less travelled" path that he likes to do.

Since 1945, everyone from time to time keeps proposing autocannons for coaxial armament in tanks (Centurion prototypes in 1945, AMX-30 early run, and serious proposals to have the M1 armed with 105mm and a 25mm Bushmaster).

So what if the Race did that? I mean, we already have real world examples with the BMP-3 weapons module which has a 100mm gun plus a 30mm autocannon.

The way it could be explained is that they could use advanced blue force networking so that a group of tanks can slave their autocannons together and pre-slew their turrets so as to deal with incoming enemy aircraft.

So you'd have weaponclass 4 "AA Capable FLAK MG/AUtocannon" as the coaxial on their tanks, and as a primary weapon on their IFVs.

Since we're drifting from Turtledove's original concepts, we could have their 30mm stuff firing advanced combined VT/time fuzes to increase their efficiency vs aircraft or against ground targets such as infantry in foxholes via airburst, or delayed detonation to kill targets behind walls. So the 30mm autocannons would have about 20-25% more HEK than what they normally would have for their calibre.

Further, since we're drifting even further, what if for large caliber guns such as tanks or artillery, they use liquid propellant since rate of fire will be low enough with those that refilling it between shots won't be bad, and it will ease the resupply burden of these 4.5 foot lizards loading their tanks.


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