That was literally the only thing I liked about this book- the super-tanks. I love that kind of absurd scale. Shame literally everything else in the book was trash.
This book really is the low point of the series. Which is unfortunate because it could have been so much better if it were handed off to someone more competent. I wish we could have gotten a good book showing how other parts of the world were dealing with the invasion and all the new technologies made available by the Galactics. We mostly only get a few glimpses throughout the series of how things are going in places that aren't America.
That was literally the only thing I liked about this book- the super-tanks. I love that kind of absurd scale. Shame literally everything else in the book was trash.
It's hilarious how bad this is in every respect to Baneblade and Shadowsword by Guy Haley. Difficult choices due to horrible opponents? It's the Imperium of Man. Great tank on tank, tank on infantry, and tank on "This is why we have giant tanks"? More porn of that than a year's subscription to Pornhub. Interesting characters? We don't even meet get names for half the tank crew in this, while Guy Haley gives us fleshed out crews and replacements for multiple tanks and then some. Horrible people as major characters? Welcome again to the Imperium of Man. Sympathetic antagonists with understandable motives? Guy Haley's got you there
Ringo may he more technically skilled, but him politics are almost as odious as Kratman's. If you read The Last Centurion you'll see what I'm talking about.
Ringo may he more technically skilled, but him politics are almost as odious as Kratman's. If you read The Last Centurion you'll see what I'm talking about.
One could--and people have--defend Ringo by saying that the initial premise is intriguing, and that he could have imagined that Kratman would have made something different than what he actually vomited forth unto the world.
Keeping the partnership going tears that defense to pieces.
So I got a bit bored/annoyed and wanted a nice visual of what's going on; I've whipped up a quick map of named Posleen landings in Germany as well as our SS protagonist's doings and will update it as things go on. Please note just how absurd the drive to Hammelburg is given the landing right above them (plot relevant in later chapters) and the successful landing and destruction of resistance at Aschaffenburg, a location that is not only closer to them than the ones they are sent to (which are still resisting, though losing), but also threatens Frankfurt.
Mind, the fog of war is a thing - if they are a reserve/fire brigade formation they may be unhitched from a position in the path of an enemy if other defenders are expected to handle it, to go and reinforce failing positions elsewhere.
And once a battalion is on the march it is generally not the best idea to turn it around and send it in another direction entirely.
That said, going up and around the Fulda gap seems a bit...
Mind, the fog of war is a thing - if they are a reserve/fire brigade formation they may be unhitched from a position in the path of an enemy if other defenders are expected to handle it, to go and reinforce failing positions elsewhere.
And once a battalion is on the march it is generally not the best idea to turn it around and send it in another direction entirely.
That said, going up and around the Fulda gap seems a bit...
To be fair, up and around as shown on the map is merely the fastest route from where they were to where they went, per Google Maps, though I'm not sure how else they would get there.
To be fair, up and around as shown on the map is merely the fastest route from where they were to where they went, per Google Maps, though I'm not sure how else they would get there.
It has been two days since the Posleen landings, two days since the 47th Panzer Corps arrived at Hammelburg and deployed in such haste that they ran over fleeing civilian, under orders to relieve the towns of Würzburg and Schweinfurt and destroy the invading aliens.
Two days in which they have done absolutely fuck all. They have simply sat there, unmoving underneath some camouflage, while their recon brigade plays footsie with the invaders. This "establish defensive positions and wait for the enemy to obligingly waltz into them" is a fairly persistent tactical set up by Kratman in his works as far as I can recall, and I can't help but think that it's why he never was trusted with any sort of real command position: He's simply an incompetent officer.
Speaking of incompetence, his knowledge of German geography is rather off.
The only really bad news was at the northern Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, which had seen all her citizens erased, along with the better part of a Korps of infantry. All that stood in the way of the Posleen victors of that slaughter were some much-despised relics of a half-forgotten war—those, and the young men they had been allowed to contaminate with out-of-date views of the world . . .
Looking at the map posted previously and referencing the previous chapter, we'll note certain important facts:
1. The 47th Panzer Corps is not, in fact, standing in the way of the Posleen victors of Aschaffenburg. They are blocking a northward movement of the landings at Würzburg and Schweinfurt (and are supposed to be attacking and relieving pressure on those cities defenders), but cannot in any sense be said to be standing in the way of the Posleen from Aschaffenburg from either rampaging through the nearby city of Frankfurt or of linking up with the aforementioned landings.
2. There is a mountain range in between Aschaffenburg and Hammelburg.
3. Even a memetic second lieutenant on a land nav course could do better than this.
"Sixty-seven landers just over the horizon, heading this way," announced Brasche's 1c, or intelligence officer, from the station where he did dual duty as that and as close-in defense gunner.
"What kind?" Brasche demanded.
"A mixed bag, mein Herr. Brigade Florian Geyer can barely make out rough shapes in all this snow. Even the thermal imagers are having problems. What we have seen indicates as many C-Decs as Lampreys."
"Will they see us here, under our camouflage foam?" wondered Brasche, aloud.
Though the question was rhetorical, the 1c answered, "Florian Geyer appears still alive and still broadcasting. Perhaps the enemy isn't any better at dealing with this white shit than we are."
"Perhaps not," mused Brasche. He repeated on the general circuit, "All panzers, hold fire until my command. Boys, we're going to play a little trick. . . ."
Now, it's easy to repeat details too often. Turtledove is infamous for how often he describes, for instance, a particular character's tendency to sunburn. Here, Kratman commits the opposite sin: Never once describing what it is that they're facing. Through the glory of Google, I am able to find out just what in the world these are.
Lamprey: Landing craft that looks like a giant floating skyscraper, armed with fun heavy toys like plasma cannons.
C-Dec: Giant twelve sided dodecahedron (hence the name) that is an honest to goodness starship, forms up with a bunch of others like Voltron to form a B-Dec, and is armed with heavy "interstellar weapons."
These are the principal enemies of the Tiger III and yet are curiously undescribed in this book. Go figure.
Despite all of these giant skyscraper sized weapons batteries, the Posleen have only engaged in unsupported frontal horde attacks for the past two days. Why? Absolutely no reason is given. But now, they're finally coming forth to screw with humanity.
But what is this brilliant plan, which Brasche quickly concocts to deal with the 5:1 odds against them? Why it's simple: They'll let them fly over them and shoot them in the back. Yes, that's right, rather than shoot and scoot between the defensive positions that they've had two days to prepare,engaging at range and utilizing their heavy armor and defensive works help buy them time and kills, they're going to allow the aliens with superior technology and unknown sensor capability to literally pass over them and hope that they don't spot them or get too inquisitive about the giant white mounds in their path. Bad as this is, it actually manages to get worse. How? It's simple: They switch over all their rounds to anti-lander munitions: Depleted uranium sabots with an anti-matter burster charge.
"But wait, I thought the German government was staunchly opposed to antimatter?" you may ask, and you'd be entirely correct. That did not stop the BND, the German foreign intelligence agency, from engaging in a massive multimillion (or probably multibillion) dollar racket to secretly develop and purchase such weapons from an American company in what would be a massive violation of approximately every law. So, in a grand puncture of all the suspense that might come from being hobbled, some jackass decided to give the fucking Nazis weapons of mass destruction. How it is that these weapons are funded, developed, produced, shipped several thousand miles, entered into the logistics system, issued in mass quantities, and the troops trained on them without anyone ever becoming the wiser is an exercise best left to the reader because Kratman sure as shit didn't think about it.
Of course, Kratman just has to get in a screed against environmentalists while discussing these rather absurd tank shells.
As for the DU penetrators themselves, the left would have shrieked their fury to a ritually denied Heaven could they have known how the otherwise simple rounds had been modified . . . and why. The use of depleted uranium itself had been a close run thing in the Bundestag, the German Parliament. "Ecologically unsound. Environmentally unsafe. Polluting . . . filthy." Aesthetically unappealing. Heretical. Upsets me at my vegetarian breakfast. Forces me to contemplate that which must be denied.
Because as we all know, the only basis by which someone might object to the use of twelve-inch rounds of depleted uranium is aesthetics. It couldn't possibly be something like "Holy shit, the heavy metal pollution of that will be insane!" or "This has negligible benefits compared to using tungsten" or anything like that. There couldn't even have been someone pointing out that using high velocity sabot rounds against flying skyscrapers makes absolutely no sense. No, as with everything else in this terrible atrocity upon the English language, everything is simply subjected to being a flat one dimensional strawman for Kratman to jerk himself off about.
Ironically, Kratman gives the precise reason why the Left, and anyone with half a brain for that matter, would have viciously objected to the German anti-matter weapons program:
Thus thirteen Panzerkampfwagen VIII As, colloquially known as Tiger IIIs, loaded between them enough antimatter to flatten a small city, even a stone-built German small city.
Yes, truly it is a wonder why a nation where the distances between tons was measured in kilotons rather than kilometers might have an objection to such weapons running around in profound quantities.
Incidentally, despite the fact that anti-matter is, by its nature, fundamentally unstable in a baryonic environment, do we ever see giant detonations of it when a Tiger III bites the dust? Of course not.
As a pedantic aside, there's absolutely no reason for the German military to have returned to the Nazi tank designation system and there was already a Panzerkampfwagen VIII: The Maus of ill-repute.
"Achtung! Panzer! Boys, crank 'em and turn 'em around one hundred and eighty degrees. We're going to follow these bastards, shooting them in the ass all the way, until none are left. Kill them from the rearmost forward. Kill them as you bear."
Ahead at the driver's station Krueger gave off an evil laugh. Likewise did most of the men. Only Schultz, face frozen to his gunner's sight, did not.
The tank began to hum as natural gas from its two main fuel cylinders began feeding the huge Siemens electrical generator that drove the engines. A steady vibration arose as Krueger applied the power and twisted the steering column. From outside the panzers it looked like thirteen small avalanches as the snow-covered foam cracked, tore and powdered. The well-trained Schultz was already twisting his gunner's spade to turn the multihundred-ton turret to line up the huge 12-inch smoothbore cannon on the nearest of the enemy.
"Gunner!" ordered Brasche, "Sabot! DU-AM . . . point one kiloton. C-Dec!"
"Target!" answered Schultz, as one finger dialed the charge in the penetrator down to one tenth its potential power.
Take a shot for the gratuitous German. For those of you with a functioning liver, we're up to 11 shots and a full bottle by this point in the Let's Read. I'm pretty sure that spade isn't actually the right word here, but I'm not a tanker. Perhaps @Athene could clarify this one.
And so, having let the enemy ride over them, they proceed to engage the enemy landers with their vulnerable rear armor facing them, because of course they do. Luckily for them, despite the fact that the Posleen's sensors do in fact pick them up, the Posleen don't bother engaging thanks to plot armor tunnel vision and poor communication. Apparently the destruction of their landers is just completely unnoticeable to them unless you stand in front of them while doing it.
While all this is happening, we're treated to the perspective of one Pieter Friedenhof, an infantryman with the 165th Infantry Division at Marburg an der Lahn, who just got dumped by Gudrun. He does not take the "Dear John" letter terribly well and the timing is rather unfortunate as they're going into combat that day against the Posleen horde.
Coming through the hell of lead and fire the defenders poured forth, the Posleen next hit a thin line of the mines called "Bouncing Barbies." These devices, accidental byproducts of an impromptu experiment gone badly awry at distant Fort Bragg, North Carolina, years before, waited patiently for the sense of the enemy sufficiently close and in sufficient numbers.
A knot of twenty Posleen, perhaps as much trying to avoid the worst of the shell and machine gun fire as to close with the humans, activated a Barbie. The mine used a small, integral antigravity device to lift itself one meter into the air. It then put out a linear force field to a distance of six meters. Eleven Posleen fell immediately, alive but legless, their stumps waving helplessly in the air while they shrieked and sprayed yellow ichor into the air and onto the ground.
Its work done for the nonce, the force field shut off to conserve power even as the mine's antigravity propelled it sideways to cover another small piece of the front. Amidst the yellow blood, the mine's yellow plastic casing quickly became indistinguishable.
It had only been through the last-minute agency of the Americans that the Germans even had Barbies. Their own political left, or so much of it as the Darhel had been able to suborn, had prevented development of any such unpalatable devices as new mines on their own. As they had prevented the development of usefully small and clean nuclear weapons . . . and poisons . . . and anything that smacked of militarism. "No threat can justify the development of such horrid arms," had been the cry. "No threat could possibly justify . . ."
Thus, despite last minute emergency deliveries, the German army had but few Barbies, and fewer nuclear and antimatter munitions.
Take a shot for the phrase "for the nonce" which Kratman just absolutely loves in this work for some reason. The "Barbie," which is objectively worse than existing bounding mines in every way that matters, is actually Ringo's fault and really makes you wonder what the advantage is of having ex-military write mil sci-fi. Take another shot for the one dimensional strawmanning, yet again, of the left by Kratman.
Pieter eventually decides to bail after his sergeant gets headshot with a railgun while calling him a pussy. Through the power of narrative, this causes a cascade effect and a general collapse of the line. This will be later presented as entirely Pieter's fault in later chapters, despite the fact that we have already seen everyone, including armored units, break and flee under Posleen fire (with the exception of the Tiger units who have been sitting pretty in heavy armor), the routine fact of infantry units getting ripped to shreds by the Posleen, and the fact that if a unit is routing like that, the most he can do as numero uno is to influence the timing of it somewhat. Sadly, running doesn't do him any good and he winds up chopped up by a galloping Posleen anyhow.
Shot count: 12 and a drink.
For those interested, in two chapters we have some straight up Nazi propaganda (and solutions) presented, though not of the anti-Semitic type.
Attack="Move up and dig in" doesn't sound like the kind of behavior Armor or Cab fosters among the O-ranks. It does sound reasonable for infantry, maybe arty (and honestly, I'd classify the anti-lander role as a specialist Arty role rather than an armor job).
Attack="Move up and dig in" doesn't sound like the kind of behavior Armor or Cab fosters among the O-ranks. It does sound reasonable for infantry, maybe arty (and honestly, I'd classify the anti-lander role as a specialist Arty role rather than an armor job).
It's reasonable, in my opinion, for infantry and artillery, against such a threat though rather less so when they were specifically ordered to relieve pressure on the defenders of their town, something that "dig in and wait" can't really do. The fact that it's an absolute constant by Kratman in his writings and self-inserts is why I suggest that it's simply a mark of him being a piss poor officer.
As for the anti-lander role, it honestly seems like the perfect role for the American tank destroyer battalions.
It's reasonable, in my opinion, for infantry and artillery, against such a threat though rather less so when they were specifically ordered to relieve pressure on the defenders of their town, something that "dig in and wait" can't really do. The fact that it's an absolute constant by Kratman in his writings and self-inserts is why I suggest that it's simply a mark of him being a piss poor officer.
Oh, defo not appropriate for the whole force to dig in of tasked to relieve pressure. But I'd say maybe the POV is with part of the Korps tasked to be backstop while other elements of the Korps engages.
Posleen can switch direction quickly so it makes sense to leave a backstop for friendly units to pull back behind or to catch leakers, or serve as a reserve to be called on when needed.
We start this chapter having lost contact with the floating alien skyscrapers somehow. Despite destroying 49 of 67 landers, following them the whole way, they have lost contact with them. This probably wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the 47th Panzer Corps seemingly doesn't exist and the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion is all on its lonesome. Somehow, this lets the Posleen floating skyscrapers double back and sneak behind one of its companies.
Brasche acted instantly. "All units, action left. Move it boys, Number One company's in trouble."
Without waiting for the order, a cursing Krueger cranked the steering as hard as it would go. With both tracks spinning in opposite directions at nearly top speed the Tiger's turn was almost immediate. Even deep in the crew center the men could hear the high-pitched squealing of tortured tread. A few muttered prayers: Please, God, don't let us throw a track.
The sudden turn tossed Harz from his seat to the metal floor and then bounced him across the deck. He gave off a painful grunt as the turn slammed him into the opposite side of the crew compartment. Harz managed to rise to his knees just in time for Krueger's next maneuver, the sudden launching of the tank forward in its new direction. This sent him rolling to the rear.
Krueger demonstrates that he's not only a terrible human being, but also a terrible tank driver. Seriously, why in the world was this guy rejuvenated?
There's a couple snippets of Gudrun and her family desperately trying to flee the Posleen breakthrough: Spoiler, they don't make it.
Helpless and alone, afraid beyond terror, the girl began to weep softly. The sound of her quiet sobs attracted the attention of a Posleen normal. It approached.
"No . . . please no," Gudrun pleaded. "Please? I have so many reasons to live. Don't hurt me. Don't eat me, please?"
The normal was unmoved. Nothing human could move it. Its needs were simple: food, work within its limited skill set, service to its God. At the moment the greatest need was food. Standing over Gudrun it drew and raised its boma blade.
The girl—innocent, bright, the "battle maiden" who would never hurt a soul—gave off a final scream. "Dieeeterrr!!
This isn't literature, this is bad comedy. Speaking of which:
East of Paris, France, 29 March 2007
Isabelle fled mindlessly, driving the family auto in a dream-state. Better said, she drove through a nightmare and dreamt of a time it might be over.
She had waited for a day or more, eyes fixed to the television, hoping to discover from the news some route of escape for herself and her boys. In that time two things had been made clear. The first was that the old line of fortresses to the east, the ones facing Germany and misdubbed the "Maginot Line," were holding out well for the nonce, and butchering the invaders in the process. The second was that the French Army was holding open, however tenuously, an escape route from Paris to the east.
Sound carried poorly through the densely falling snow. Light was diffused. Nonetheless, so intense was the fighting some miles to either side of the road on which Isabelle drove that some must leak through.
Some even leaked through a brain gone on autopilot with terror. She kept her foot on the accelerator, moving as fast as snow and the traffic would permit.
First off, take a shot for "for the nonce." I'm tempted to take another for the fact that the entirety of Europe is seemingly snowed in. That said:
WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS STRATEGY IS THE MAGINOT LINE REACTIVATED FOR?! And why is she being evacuated to it and the French Army and government evacuating folks to it?
Seriously, the basis of the American defense planning in this series was heavily fortified underground fortress cities charmingly called "Sub-Urbans." We know Kratman is aware of this because the Spanish are mentioned as retreating to them in the Pyrenees. Paris is the absolute perfect city for this: There are already hundreds of kilometers of catacomb tunnels which can be repurposed and utilized for this. The Maginot Line? Incredibly decrepit at this point in time, nowhere near anything that needs to be protected, and doesn't have the capacity to feed and house millions of refugees. The only reason for it is one of three reasons:
1. Kratman is incredibly ignorant and somehow doesn't know of the Paris catacombs.
2. Kratman is in fact dumb enough to believe that this is somehow a plan that the French government would enact.
3. It's simply a set up so that Kratman can jerk off the Nazis later in the book and resurrect another SS division.
While all of the above are probably correct, and certainly plausible, the most correct answer is 3 as we will see later in the book.
Back to the tanks:
I mentioned before that the tanks are extremely widely dispersed, beyond any ability to support each other. We see that this has bit them in the ass, as expected, as "Number One company" is several kilometers removed from any support and takes more losses, though conveniently the rest of the battalion is able to mass together and hide behind some terrain features.
Three Tigers, sixty-nine of my men, lost irredeemably, fumed Brasche, a newfound hatred for his foe growing in his heart. He recognized the hate, recognized that he had felt it grow before—against Russians and Vietnamese and some few others. He recognized, too, that the hate was the steel his soul needed to do that which could brook no soft and tender feelings.
Twenty three men per tank, we have names for maybe four people in the HQ tank, and I honestly have no idea what most of those guys are doing. Do they honestly have more than a dozen guys whose sole job is to fire remote weapons stations?
Then, there it was, the outline of the top of one of Number One company's two remaining Tigers breaking the outline of the ridge. The tank crossed over and stopped just Brasche's side of the topographical crest. It stopped to fire and the sheer shock of firing was like a dual slap to Brasche's face.
He watched the turret turn, and then fire yet again. Hans assumed, from the lack of any antimatter or secondary explosion, that both shots were misses.
All these years of training and yet they somehow manage to miss a flying skyscraper. How?!
This actually brings up an interesting question and another reason why anti-matter is a terrible idea for a weapon: Battlefield cleanup. Conventional weapons are bad enough; it's been more than a century and portions of France are still off-limits due to unexploded munitions. How are you supposed to deal with what is essentially a very unhappy small nuclear bomb? It can't be detonated in place, can't simply be defused and disposed of later, and has a most definite potential for randomly detonating at any point in time.
One more heavy tank is lost retreating from the Posleen before the trap is sprung, wiping out the remaining landers.
All in all, a fairly boring chapter.
Chapter 9 skips three weeks ahead
Giessen, Germany, 22 April 2007
Dieter Schultz had held out hope, even after the news of Giessen's fall and the resulting massacre had come. But day after day passed with no news from his beloved Gudrun. Dieter began to believe that hope was forlorn.
Each new day had brought a new fight for the Korps and for the Schwere Panzer Battalion 501(Michael Wittmann). Each day brought new losses. The battalion dropped to eight Tigers, then seven. With each loss twenty-three valiant souls had flickered away in the wind.
Dieter the gunner had had the privilege of painting markings amounting to no fewer than eighty-eight kills—eight broad rings and eight narrow—on the barrel of Anna's twelve-inch gun. With no word of Gudrun, the painting was a thankless, even an unhappy, task.
Briefly there was a respite as one new and two reclaimed Tigers joined the ranks. Then again the steady drain began, replacements never quite equaling losses. Brasche commanded a mere five tanks by the time the last infestation had been cleared from central Germany, said final infestation being the command of the senior God King, Fulungsteeriot, in and around the nearly scraped away ruins of the town of Giessen.
As briefly, Dieter Schultz felt a moment's respite as the long-delayed field mail caught up with the often moving Tiger Battalion. The letter he received held something potentially grand for Dieter: a small wallet photo of Gudrun, looking much as she had the one night they had met; a short handwritten note, lightly scented; a small pack of golden, silken hair. He hoped with all his heart it was not a message from the grave.
Despite the "last infestation had been cleared" being a past tense statement, it's actually the focus of this chapter. We've got ourselves a master of the English language on our hands here.
Thierville is 150 kilometers northwest of Paris and nowhere near Ouvrage Hackenberg which is 350 kilometers east of Paris, near the village of Veckring, and about 20km away from Thionville.
Meticulously.
Researched.
The car had long since given up its ghost to lack of fuel. The reeling army had had fuel, of course, but had steadfastly refused to turn over so much as a liter to any of the begging, pleading refugees who had then to take to their feet. Isabelle had briefly thought of selling herself for some gasoline to save her boys. She had thought about it and then, realizing that younger women and girls could make better offers than she could, she had rejected the notion.
Instead, repacking down to true minimum essentials, the family had left the auto abandoned by the road and trudged the last few hundred kilometers afoot.
How they managed to run out of fuel hundreds of kilometers short of their destination when it was only 350 km away to begin with is a truly impressive feat. One does begin to think that Kratman never bothered to even consult a rudimentary atlas when writing this. Certainly what little editing Baen does appears to have been limited to running it through a spellchecker.
Back in Berlin, the Darhel representative is worried that he'll have salary, stock options, and bonuses cut thanks to his poor performance. Faced with monetary loss and dishonor from demotion, and in consideration of the fact that the Nazis are starting to roll up his information sources (something that is profoundly contrary to the actual reality of Nazi intelligence and counterintelligence in WWII), he says to hell with it and dumps everything onto the Posleen connected "Net," cheerfully burning his sources in the process. Günter, after all, had only asked for protection for his family, not himself…
From his thresh-built, gravelike shelter Fulungsteeriot cursed sibilantly. To fall so low, having come so high; this was the stuff of tragedy.
But there was nothing to be done for it; the enemy ring had grown tight around this little enclave of Posleen-hood. Information gathered from the Net told of an encircling ring of fire and steel, even now closing about the throats of the People. Already the wrecked outskirts of the ruined town were, for the most part, back in the possession of the natives. And the natives seemed curiously effective and eager to flush away the last of the Posleen. Why, it was almost as if they took things personally!
Three times Fulungsteeriot had sent his people against the ring of steel enchaining them. Not one breakout attempt had succeeded and the last attempt had not even reached the hated thresh before being broken to bits by their artillery.
Not gonna lie, I absolutely cannot stand Kratman's idea of witty characterization and prose and it's why I've mostly been skipping the Posleen interludes.
Marburg and Giessen were apparently subject to the main Posleen landing which, as usual, makes absolutely no sense and makes the routing of the 47th Panzer Corps to relieve pressure on the other two German towns make even less sense.
The Posleen are prepping for a breakout attempt, though God alone knows where they are attempting to break out to. Thanks to the Darhel actively sabotaging the German war effort and dumping all of their data into the "Net", they identify that one of the blocking units is, surprise surprise, the remnants of the 33rd Infantry Corps, which they previously routed and chewed up (and had Dieter's girlfriend's boyfriend in it). Take a wild guess as to where the Posleen will be concentrating their main efforts.
But now we get straight into actual Nazi mythology and propaganda as Dieter is sad over his one dance stand being dead.
Stroking the shielded picture within his breast pocket as was his wont, Brasche's heart went out to the boy, as did that of nearly every man of the crew.
"Why?" asked the boy. "Why?"
Krueger, who felt no sympathy at all, answered harshly from the driver's station. "Because some pussy in uniform ran, boy. Read the after-action reviews; they are available on the Net. Because some little pansy took to his heels rather than face the danger, your little girl died. We don't know who it was. We don't know exactly where it began. But someone ran and started the panic.
"It was quite predictable, the way the pussy politicians shackled everyone's hands but ours," Krueger finished.
Schultz looked towards Brasche's command chair. Though he loathed his driver thoroughly, Brasche had to admit, "Yes, Dieter."
"But what can one do?" asked Schultz, plaintively.
Krueger answered, "You kill 'em when they run, boy. Give 'em no choice but to stand and fight. Hang the cowards—low or high—and let 'em kick and dance some if you have time. Shoot 'em otherwise." Krueger felt a little shiver of delight at an old memory—the kicking, jerking feet of a sixteen-year-old coward of a Volksgrenadier, cruelly suspended a mere foot or so above the ground, the noose placed behind the neck to make sure the boy could see how close salvation lay. The memory brought the same laugh Krueger had given off then, his joy in watching the coward's futile struggle undiminished by time.
Brasche nodded, hating to agree with Krueger but knowing that Schultz needed the lesson. "It's true, Dieter. The rot must be stopped as soon as it starts. Sometimes, if you train them right, the rot doesn't start for a long time; maybe not until the war is over. But when you have as much rabble in uniform as Germany today has, you don't have much choice but to use harsh measures."
This is part and parcel of the stab in the back myth created following the German loss in WWI. "The First World War was lost in 1918 because thousands of shirkers wandered around behind the lines instead of joining the fighting troops as their duty commanded. Such conditions cannot be allowed to be replicated in this war" wrote one judge when sentencing a man to death for desertion [Welch, 377-378]*. One of the first acts of the Nazi Party after seizing power was to re-establish the military justice system, formerly abolished, and staff it with their own sycophants. An extremely strict system was imposed and the rights to appeal removed and procedures simplified to speed up court-martials. Within the first six months of WWII, five times as many German soldiers had been executed as during the whole of WWI.
Krueger's statement is almost verbatim from Hitler's Mein Kampf:
If you want to hold weak, wavering or actually cowardly fellows to their duty, there has at all times been only one possibility: the deserter must know that his desertion brings with it the very thing he wants to escape. At the front one may die; as a deserter one must die. Only by such a draconian threat against any attempt at desertion can a deterring effect be obtained, not only for the individual, but for the whole army.
The statement by Brasche is not far removed from the commentaries that "the deserter type is the expression of a certain degenerate personality" or that the death penalties imposed are "a cleansing task, carried out with a great sense of responsibility, [a cleansing] not only of elements which undermine the soldierly spirit but of elements which are plainly asocial" [Welch, 382]. How of the April 1940 sentencing statement: "At a time when Germany is struggling for its existence and every German must pledge his blood and his life for his fatherland, desertion represents such a betrayal of Fuhrer, people and fatherland and the deserter places himself in such a case so far outside every community of the German people that he must be liquidated." Take out the word Fuhrer and it fits perfectly within this chapter.
The Nazi military was absolutely barbaric towards its own troops. During WWII, Britain, France, and the US executed a total of 288 soldiers. Britain didn't execute a single person for desertion, France didn't have any info on whether any of their 102 executions were for desertion, and only a single American soldier was executed for desertion, Private Eddie Slovik. But the Nazis? Approximately 33,000 executed of whom 16-18,000 were for desertion. They executed more men than the US even found guilty of desertion. For all the memes about NKVD barrier troops or Imperial Guard commissars, the Nazis were actually doing it and doing it starting with the invasion of Poland.
Anyhow, the 501st comes up to and blocks the way of the fleeing 33rd Infantry Corps, initially firing in front of them (with no other warning or audible instructions) and Kratman gives this wonderful example of his rather disturbed inner psyche
Each man of the mob—for that is what they were now—thought only safety, safety at the sight of the immovable mass of the Tigers. Each man was shocked quite speechless when that fortress-gate-of-security, mama's proffered—milk laden—breast, began to pour fire into those foremost in flight.
Some of the fugitives assumed, indeed had to assume, such was the innocence of their childhood upbringing, such had been the kidskin gloves approach to their military training, that the Mauser light cannon fire devastating the knots of those closest to the Tigers could only be a mistake. That was their mistake . . . and the last many of them ever made.
Others, no less spoiled by mama's teat and weakened military training, went into momentary shock, freezing in place.
Remember folks: It's somehow the sign of being coddled to be surprised or shocked that your own side is deliberately firing upon you.
We then end up getting a pornographic description of canister shells being used against the Posleen. In a fine tribute to his career in the infantry, Kratman forgets how to math and that terrain features are in fact a thing. 100,000 Posleen in a single square kilometer are wiped out by a single salvo with 4,000 iron ball bearings. Now, quite aside from the plausibility of that dispersion (it isn't) or the requirement that each iron ball bearing maintain the momentum to kill 25 Posleen each, there is of course the rather slight problem that this requires a square kilometer that is essentially nothing but Posleen.
Giessen, Germany, 1 May 2007
"Todt durch den Strang." Death by the rope.
This was the verdict of the drumhead court-martial, issued en masse to two hundred thirty-seven of the two thousand three hundred and fifty-nine cowards who had sought shelter for themselves under the Tigers' protective glare, while contributing nothing to the fight.
The Jugend Division had found them, passed them, and noted them for the next echelon, which arrested them. Then several days had followed wherein certain elements within the government had demanded the cowards' release. Mühlenkampf had refused. Much to his surprise, the overwhelming bulk of the Bundeswehr had agreed with him, going so far as to refuse to obey any orders issuing from the Chancellery that might have led to such a release.
From the over two thousand, only ten percent had been chosen to expiate the sins of the rest.
"We can hang you all," the court had announced. "And you all deserve it. Yet we find it expedient for the Fatherland if the deaths are more drawn out, and contribute more. Ten percent seems enough to remind the rest of your future duty."
Drumhead court-martials, in the finest traditions of the SS, such as when they, in the last days of the never to be sufficiently damned Third Reich, simply went and shot any young man not in uniform who was of military age. Kratman's love of ignoring civilian leadership and of despising the very idea of a justice system is on full display here one that, as we saw from earlier, comes straight from Nazi ethos.
Speaking of which, there's this lovely line at the end:
There were other infestations, course. Yet the enemy was plainly on the defensive over a swath running from the old Maginot line (where the remnants of the French Army had used the hastily restored fortifications to stop the enemy cold, in the process saving several million French civilians who huddled within it and behind its "walls") to the River Vistula (where German and Pole had fought like brothers together, as few would argue they should have fought together—almost seventy years earlier against the menace to the east).
Emphasis in the original. There are no words for just how revolting that last line is given the reality of the Nazis.
We finish the chapter with some memories of Hans Brache, recuperating in Vietnam from wounds suffered fighting for the Legion, deciding to emigrate to Israel to fight in its independence wars; Chancellor Palpatine praising the R&D division bringing about the "Tiger III Ausf. B" and the 47th Panzer Corps, who, despite all evidence to the contrary, is feted as the group that had fought on every front and "been the rock against which the Posleen assault had dashed in vain;" the Darhel bail on Germany; and Paris is the scene of a victory feast for the Posleen.
And with that, fuck the drink count, I'm going to go off and find something appropriate to wipe the taste of this bullshit from my mouth.
*Welch, Steven R. "'Harsh but Just'? German Military Justice in the Second World War: A Comparative Study of the Court Martialling of German and US Deserters." German History 17.3 (1999): 369-399.
The bit about the Maginot line is baffling considering that it's famous for being render ineffective by people going around it. Yet here the aliens are attacking it head on. Is there any reason they don't just go over it?
dial a yield nuclear weapons work because if the material inside isn't introduced or positioned in a precise manner, it will not become part of the reaction and will instead just be vaporized.
how the fuck does dial a yeild anti-matter work!? there's no way only part of the anti matter would encounter its own opposite particle.
dial a yield nuclear weapons work because if the material inside isn't introduced or positioned in a precise manner, it will not become part of the reaction and will instead just be vaporized.
how the fuck does dial a yeild anti-matter work!? there's no way only part of the anti matter would encounter its own opposite particle.
A solution was found to the problem of variable yield, although it was not a solution without its costs and complexities. That solution was a dual containment field. The primary field, which normally held all the antimatter, was very strong, strong enough, indeed to withstand the explosion of a portion of the projectile's antimatter right next to it. The secondary was weaker, and rather unstable, relatively speaking.
It was possible, with the device, to dial a given amount, up to roughly thirty percent of the antimatter contained in the primary field, into the secondary. Any greater amount would destroy the primary and create a very large, antimatter-driven, explosion. But with the lesser, the primary field would hold even as the projectile, now given a substantial boost by the lesser explosion, drove through the far wall of the enemy lander. A timer would detonate the remaining antimatter when it was high enough not to appreciably affect the Earth.
There are so many problems with that. Like so many. Also why the hell do you want an anti matter sabot? The idea of a sabot is a kinetic projectile to punch through armor. Antimatter seems highly unnecessary. Like I could understand antimatter HE, but sabot. Were they using it as some sort of makeshift anti-matter shaped charge? Also how does the field generating technology withstand the antimatter explosion . . . gah, it is just really stupid.
edit: also an antimatter anhilation reaction would produce almost entirely gamma rays so I'm not even sure modeling it like a normal explosion even makes sense.
There are so many problems with that. Like so many. Also why the hell do you want an anti matter sabot? The idea of a sabot is a kinetic projectile to punch through armor. Antimatter seems highly unnecessary. Like I could understand antimatter HE, but sabot. Were they using it as some sort of makeshift anti-matter shaped charge? Also how does the field generating technology withstand the antimatter explosion . . . gah, it is just really stupid.
It makes sense as the burster charge to a traditional AP shell, though you might as well just use it as a "common" shell since a burst on the target will destroy it as well as one in the target. A DU sabot makes no sense in this context however (the behind armor effects would be rather unlikely to disable or destroy the lander) and then the whole variable yield anti-matter charge it is just compounded weirdness.
edit: also an antimatter anhilation reaction would produce almost entirely gamma rays so I'm not even sure modeling it like a normal explosion even makes sense.
True of a fission or fusion bomb too though, right? It's just that most of them interact with surrounding air or other material and get converted into the fireball and shockwave that were familiar with.
It makes sense as the burster charge to a traditional AP shell, though you might as well just use it as a "common" shell since a burst on the target will destroy it as well as one in the target. A DU sabot makes no sense in this context however (the behind armor effects would be rather unlikely to disable or destroy the lander) and then the whole variable yield anti-matter charge it is just compounded weirdness.
True of a fission or fusion bomb too though, right? It's just that most of them interact with surrounding air or other material and get converted into the fireball and shockwave that were familiar with.
Not exactly. Only a small fraction in nuclear bombs is released as gamma rays between 15-30%, the rest is imparted into newly created particles in the form of kinetic energy. This compares to 100% in an annihilation reactions. I'm not sure if the modeling would be the same.
The bit about the Maginot line is baffling considering that it's famous for being render ineffective by people going around it. Yet here the aliens are attacking it head on. Is there any reason they don't just go over it?
