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Old February 27th, 2016, 12:59 PM
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Default 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.
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  #2  
Old February 27th, 2016, 09:34 PM
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Default 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.
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Old February 28th, 2016, 06:20 PM

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Default 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!
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Old February 28th, 2016, 07:52 PM
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Default Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod

Quote:
Originally Posted by lukerduker123 View Post
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?
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Old February 28th, 2016, 08:00 PM
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Default 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.
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Old February 28th, 2016, 09:20 PM
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Default 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.
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Old February 28th, 2016, 09:43 PM
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Default Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod

Quote:
Originally Posted by Suhiir View Post
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.
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Old March 2nd, 2016, 11:08 PM
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Default 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.
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Old March 3rd, 2016, 03:30 AM
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Default 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.

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Old March 3rd, 2016, 06:19 AM

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Default Re: WORLD WAR (1942-1964) Mod

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkSheppard View Post

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.
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