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Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

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Canon Omake: Old Crows, Chapter 1
  • Sidestory
    • Old Crows, Ch. 1​

    Executive House
    Chicago, Illinois
    Commonwealth of Free Cities

    PoptartProdigy said:
    You can't strictly complain about how Ron's been passing information back to you.

    You man's reports have been detailed, complete, accurate as far as he can tell, and above all, concise. Furthermore, you haven't needed to prompt him for them once. You get one once a day, every day. You are fully informed. The President of the Commonwealth cannot complain that her General does not talk to her.

    And yet...

    The young woman who spent weeks in the wilderness shooting Nazis wants to be out there. The angry officer who stormed the camps wants to pick up a rifle and shoot. The firebrand, tiring every day but never going out, who kept Chicago on its feet through the worst of the Collapse wants to not have to rely on a pre-Collapse officer who's spent his days one step ahead of the next air strike. You don't want to hand things over to him. You want to get out there and fight.
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    Dear Madame President:

    We have met the enemy and they are ours. Six divisions, three brigades, one navy, and approximately two hundred and thirty assorted aircraft.

    Yours with great respect and esteem,

    R. J. Burns

    ...
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    "Shut up, Sara," you growl as your friend howls with laughter in her chair.

    "Sorry, not sorry!" she cackles, wiping away a tear. "Oh, this is glorious!"

    "I prefer informative," you say, trying to suppress a smile. "But yes, I'm glad to have all we've achieved set out like that. It was beautifully presented. Shut up."

    She subsides, waving you on while still grinning. You sigh and return to the report.

    Now, you'll have heard the broadcast I approved, but the man who gave it was not trying to paint a complete picture of the military situation. Fair's fair, he did not have a complete picture of the military situation.

    I, on the other hand, do. We made contact with the first Victorian assault at 0821 on Sunday    ...

    ...
    ...
    ...

    Madame President, I can confidently report that our operations have been a total success. We have fallen back to the Huron Line, and all units remain ready for combat. Losses are sustainable. Barring disaster, we have won the battle.

    With that in mind, I turn to how we intend to do that...

    ...
    ...
    ...

    The situation is developing, and I will apprise you of our plans as my office develops them.

    Respectfully Yours,

    Ron J. Burns    .
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    From the sound of it, Ron Burns has done well, better than you'd dared to hope for. Someone has, he has, you have, all of you, finally given Victoria the first of so many, many kicks in the teeth. The kicks it so very much deserves.

    And somehow that makes you wish, more than you did half an hour before, that you were there.

    You look at Sara. She looks back. You have this in common, like so many other things in your parallel lives. Her eyes are glistening, just a bit. Her teeth skin back from her lips in what most people wouldn't call a smile. But today, you would, knowing what's on her mind.

    "It's happening again."

    Her voice has a faint lilt to it, one you've heard before, on special occasions. You've been there for every real victory in her life, and she for yours, and most of them were shared. So you recognize her tone from four decades' experience.

    You speak the words, and if the tone of your voice isn't the same, the tone of your thoughts must surely be. "It really is."

    "We're doing this."

    "All the way."

    "You wish you were there."

    "You wish you were there."

    "Hell! Shouldn't at least one of us be?"

    She's right. You know she's right. But it can't be you, not right away at least. Too much on the schedule, and probably a lot of outsiders and foreigners to sweet-talk. They'll be wanting statements.

    When you were a little girl you never really expected to be quoted in the New York Times. Now, you probably will.

    But Sara? Sara's the one who can visit troops in the field on a day or two's notice.

    How does she manage to catch so much of the fun parts?

    "You already have an excuse."

    "...It's a good one. Besides, you wouldn't have thought of one. You never had to talk your way out of a suspension."

    You surely look smug. "That just means I never got caught. Anyway. Out with it." You wave, mock-imperiously. "Answer your president!"

    Sara bursts out laughing again, but gets a grip on herself this time.

    "It's about the new steel shells."

    "Oh." You frown. The Army and Navy had been using brass shell casings. Easier to work, grips to the steel chamber of the gun better without jamming in the breech, less likely to rust.

    Then some legendary strategic genius- you shoot a half-deserved glare at General Burns' report- let the Victorians steal a march on Chicago's diplomatic outreach in the Lower Peninsula. And the Upper Peninsula. And, essentially, everywhere that wasn't Detroit. They even managed to badmouth you in St. Louis.

    You didn't even know the Victorians talked to St. Louis.

    So a lot of things you'd taken to importing... aren't there anymore. Copper is, to put it mildly, not as available as it once was. Zinc, even less so. Now, Chicagoland can scrimp. Save. Recycle. Bring back spent cartridge brass to remake as new cartridge brass.

    What you once in a very long and unguarded while still think of as the Glorious Republic of Greater Chicagoland, while thanking any supernatural creature that cares to listen that Sara didn't get to name the Commonwealth, has gotten good at recycling.

    But while you were never really an artillery kind of girl back in the War on Nazis, it has come to your attention that artillery goes through a great deal of ammunition. Sometimes, so fast that you're pretty sure the gun crews are just picking up the shells and hitting the Vicks over the head with them or something, because nothing with a blast radius should take that many shots to stop an army.

    You know better than to think such things, but you're not in a mood to be charitable. You glare at Burns' report again.

    In any case, for now you've gone back to making shells out of steel, instead of brass. Steel, you have. And how that will turn out? Well, you don't know, you can only hope... and come to think of it, going to Detroit to look around at how the gun crews are doing with them is far from the worst reason for Sara to go out there and come back with a fresh crop of secondhand- maybe even firsthand- war stories.

    Her having been there will... not be as good as you having been there. But it'll be something.

    You nod slowly.

    "We do have a mini shell crisis on our hands. Or we might. You... should look into that."

    Sara smiles. "It'll be a nice break from yelling at the foundries for wanting to keep things nice, slow, and peaceful." She rolls her eyes, and speaks as if reciting: "If any mourn us in the workshop, say- we died because the shift kept holiday. Rudyard Kipling, Batteries Out of Ammunition."

    You pause. "Are we actually running out of shells?"

    "... ...No."

    "Right, then. No bullying the co-ops. Well. Not too hard." You try to look entirely serious, instead of half-serious.

    And Sara? Sara's face is utterly serious, for a change. For a very rare change. "I always ask myself before I put on my war face with them, are they handling things badly enough to get George to be sarcastic with them?"

    You knew George. That's good enough, though your face falls just a little as the reference reminds you of Drake-

    "Sorry."

    "No, no, it's fine. George could be very sarcastic. I wish he were here to see this."

    "Me too..."

    The two of you fall silent, remembering lost loves- not one of the things you're happy to have in common, but one of them all the same.

    Sara breaks the silence.

    "Anyway, between the shells and some of the reports I'm reading about IED deployment, there may not be good reasons for Madame President to go check things out, buuuut for the Assistant Secretary of War-"

    "Defense." You wave a finger at her.

    "Right. Assistant Secretary of War Excuse Me Defense For Munitions... hm, I like the sound of that... Well, anyway, Madame Assistant Secretary has cause to stretch her legs, no?"

    "Fair point. It may be good for morale with some of the old militia."

    Sara snorts and thumps her hand on the report. "If they're still feeling low after this, they don't need a morale-building tour. They need anti-depressants." Another old reference, though you smile a bit when you remember that some of the pharmaceutical makers do work on that these days.

    Little by little.

    You look back to Sara, and you can tell she's thinking her words over. "Now that I think about it, they've done a lot of backing up. It may seem more like a win from an armchair than from the ground."

    "Yeah. Some of them will still want Aunt Crazy to tell them it's all a master plan to punch Nazis."

    Sara grins. "Cousin Crazy, coming right up."

    "Talk to Daria when you get there."

    Sara nods somberly. "I will."
     
    Last edited:
  • Sidestory
    • Simon_Jester said:
    Old Crows, Ch. 1​

    Executive House
    Chicago, Illinois
    Commonwealth of Free Cities



    "Shut up, Sara," you growl as your friend howls with laughter in her chair.

    "Sorry, not sorry!" she cackles, wiping away a tear. "Oh, this is glorious!"

    "I prefer informative," you say, trying to suppress a smile. "But yes, I'm glad to have all we've achieved set out like that. It was beautifully presented. Shut up."

    She subsides, waving you on while still grinning. You sigh and return to the report.

    From the sound of it, Ron Burns has done well, better than you'd dared to hope for. Someone has, he has, you have, all of you, finally given Victoria the first of so many, many kicks in the teeth. The kicks it so very much deserves.

    And somehow that makes you wish, more than you did half an hour before, that you were there.

    You look at Sara. She looks back. You have this in common, like so many other things in your parallel lives. Her eyes are glistening, just a bit. Her teeth skin back from her lips in what most people wouldn't call a smile. But today, you would, knowing what's on her mind.

    "It's happening again."

    Her voice has a faint lilt to it, one you've heard before, on special occasions. You've been there for every real victory in her life, and she for yours, and most of them were shared. So you recognize her tone from four decades' experience.

    You speak the words, and if the tone of your voice isn't the same, the tone of your thoughts must surely be. "It really is."

    "We're doing this."

    "All the way."

    "You wish you were there."

    "You wish you were there."

    "Hell! Shouldn't at least one of us be?"

    She's right. You know she's right. But it can't be you, not right away at least. Too much on the schedule, and probably a lot of outsiders and foreigners to sweet-talk. They'll be wanting statements.

    When you were a little girl you never really expected to be quoted in the New York Times. Now, you probably will.

    But Sara? Sara's the one who can visit troops in the field on a day or two's notice.

    How does she manage to catch so much of the fun parts?

    "You already have an excuse."

    "...It's a good one. Besides, you wouldn't have thought of one. You never had to talk your way out of a suspension."

    You surely look smug. "That just means I never got caught. Anyway. Out with it." You wave, mock-imperiously. "Answer your president!"

    Sara bursts out laughing again, but gets a grip on herself this time.

    "It's about the new steel shells."

    "Oh." You frown. The Army and Navy had been using brass shell casings. Easier to work, grips to the steel chamber of the gun better without jamming in the breech, less likely to rust.

    Then some legendary strategic genius- you shoot a half-deserved glare at General Burns' report- let the Victorians steal a march on Chicago's diplomatic outreach in the Lower Peninsula. And the Lower Peninsula. And, essentially, everywhere that wasn't Detroit. They even managed to badmouth you in St. Louis.

    You didn't even know the Victorians talked to St. Louis.

    So a lot of things you'd taken to importing... aren't there anymore. Copper is, to put it mildly, not as available as it once was. Zinc, even less so. Now, Chicagoland can scrimp. Save. Recycle. Bring back spent cartridge brass to remake as new cartridge brass.

    What you once in a very long and unguarded while still think of as the Glorious Republic of Greater Chicagoland, while thanking any supernatural creature that cares to listen that Sara didn't get to name the Commonwealth, has gotten good at recycling.

    But while you were never really an artillery kind of girl back in the War on Nazis, it has come to your attention that artillery goes through a great deal of ammunition. Sometimes, so fast that you're pretty sure the gun crews are just picking up the shells and hitting the Vicks over the head with them or something, because nothing with a blast radius should take that many shots to stop an army.

    You know better than to think such things, but you're not in a mood to be charitable. You glare at Burns' report again.

    In any case, for now you've gone back to making shells out of steel, instead of brass. Steel, you have. And how that will turn out? Well, you don't know, you can only hope... and come to think of it, going to Detroit to look around at how the gun crews are doing with them is far from the worst reason for Sara to go out there and come back with a fresh crop of secondhand- maybe even firsthand- war stories.

    Her having been there will... not be as good as you having been there. But it'll be something.

    You nod slowly.

    "We do have a mini shell crisis on our hands. Or we might. You... should look into that."

    Sara smiles. "It'll be a nice break from yelling at the foundries for wanting to keep things nice, slow, and peaceful." She rolls her eyes, and speaks as if reciting: "If any mourn us in the workshop, say- we died because the shift kept holiday. Rudyard Kipling, Batteries Out of Ammunition."

    You pause. "Are we actually running out of shells?"

    "... ...No."

    "Right, then. No bullying the co-ops. Well. Not too hard." You try to look entirely serious, instead of half-serious.

    And Sara? Sara's face is utterly serious, for a change. For a very rare change. "I always ask myself before I put on my war face with them, are they handling things badly enough to get George to be sarcastic with them?"

    You knew George. That's good enough, though your face falls just a little as the reference reminds you of Drake-

    "Sorry."

    "No, no, it's fine. George could be very sarcastic. I wish he were here to see this."

    "Me too..."

    The two of you fall silent, remembering lost loves- not one of the things you're happy to have in common, but one of them all the same.

    Sara breaks the silence.

    "Anyway, between the shells and some of the reports I'm reading about IED deployment, there may not be good reasons for Madame President to go check things out, buuuut for the Assistant Secretary of War-"

    "Defense." You wave a finger at her.

    "Right. Assistant Secretary of War Excuse Me Defense For Munitions... hm, I like the sound of that... Well, anyway, Madame Assistant Secretary has cause to stretch her legs, no?"

    "Fair point. It may be good for morale with some of the old militia."

    Sara snorts and thumps her hand on the report. "If they're still feeling low after this, they don't need a morale-building tour. They need anti-depressants." Another old reference, though you smile a bit when you remember that some of the pharmaceutical makers do work on that these days.

    Little by little.

    You look back to Sara, and you can tell she's thinking her words over. "Now that I think about it, they've done a lot of backing up. It may seem more like a win from an armchair than from the ground."

    "Yeah. Some of them will still want Aunt Crazy to tell them it's all a master plan to punch Nazis."

    Sara grins. "Cousin Crazy, coming right up."

    "Talk to Daria when you get there."

    Sara nods somberly. "I will."
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    Nice. Canon! :D
     
    Canon Omake: Old Crows, Chapter 2
  • Sidestory
    • Old Crows, Ch. 2​

    Midway International Airport
    Wednesday, March 27, 2075

    Once, when she'd had hair as black as night and her little girls really had been little, Sara Goldblum had asked a question after a presentation. She'd walked up to the man at the podium, the man who would one day hand command of the Chicago Air Patrol over to Daria after his heart attack. The attack that she still believed was a spy's poison.

    And she'd said "I thought jet planes ran on jet fuel, and propeller planes ran on gasoline. How does diesel fit in?"

    And he'd shrugged and shook his head and said "Traditionally, it doesn't. Back in the day, they'd have mostly said that just because you can make an airplane run on diesel fuel doesn't mean you should."

    Suddenly understanding, she'd smiled and replied. "And just because you shouldn't, doesn't mean you don't have to."

    She missed Colonel Montenegro; he'd been one of the oldsters who really understood. Rolled up his sleeves and got shit done.

    And that was when Project Phoenix was born. Over the years, Project Phoenix had turned into Project Raven. As the old Game of Thrones fans finally started to retire or die off, that had turned into Project Garbage Bird Or Officially Messenger.

    They'd learned or relearned a lot about aluminum recycling. And about high-power lightweight diesels, even if the things were still temperamental handbuilt prototypes from the Windy City Engine and Parts Combine.

    The Messengers- or Garbage Birds, she grinned to herself- might just be the best symbol she could have chosen for Chicago after the Collapse.

    They weren't easy to build. The Commonwealth had few to its name. They stank of exhaust from the diesel fuel Chicago made from some of the crudest, dirtiest oil in North America. And most of the plane's hull was made from garbage. Real garbage. She'd looked it up. About a quarter million old heavy-gauge pop and beer cans, dug out of some old turn of the century landfill, had been briefly resurrected, then died bravely for the greater good of Chicagoland, in order to make this plane, and fly.

    But so what?

    The Messengers had a certain sleekness that was beautiful when they caught the light right, and they could chug along at around two hundred miles an hour for seven hours on a pair of thousand-horsepower diesels. She didn't get to fly often, but never felt cheated when she got a chance to go up in a Messenger.

    Seated in the main compartment in front of several bags of mail and case upon case of medical supplies, Sara Goldblum smiled to herself despite the sudden surge of vibration. The big diesels roared to life, belching dark smoke as the big propellers ran up to speed. And the Commonwealth's pet garbage bird built up momentum and got ready to fly.


    Detroit
    Two Hours Later

    The copilot leaned back out the door and shouted over the noise of the diesels. "Hey ma'am, if you look out the left windows, you'll see our escort!"

    Escort? A jumble of emotions mixed within Sara's heart and mind, and she rose, crossing the cabin to look at the plane that had taken up position on the transport's eight o'clock.

    She looked like a World War Two fighter, because she probably was. She was big and blocky and an ugly shade of yellow and and Sara recognized that plane. Recognized it as only someone who'd personally seen it dump four rocket pods into some Immortan Joe role-player's motor pool could.

    That was Dump Truck. A real Chicago Air Patrol warbird! And still flying.

    Maybe, she thought somberly, the only one.

    She tried to wave out the window, and probably wasn't noticed, but Dump Truck waggled her wings anyway. She could squint and see the pilot, whose name danced frustratingly at the tip of her tongue. She's read it in a report- no, she'd met the woman, after that rocket pass. Wendy Har-a-something.

    She'd seen forlorn hopes that had gone as badly as the air force's over Lake Erie. She'd even joined one, once. Thirty years later, she still woke up in a cold sweat on some nights, wondering how she'd managed to dance between the bullets when better people than her had died.

    There hadn't been time to organize a ceremony, for the survivors of the Air Patrol. Not yet, not in the three mad weeks of fighting for Detroit. Maybe that could be Sara's chance to get out here, Goldblum thought to herself. God knew there was room to hand out medals. Room to invent medals.

    Those thoughts rode her heavily as she re-crossed back to her seat and squinted, raising a hand to keep the sun out of her eyes as she looked south. Detroit looked a lot like Chicago from this altitude- buildings that seemed normal until you looked closely and saw their ruined condition, others being kept up passably. Out to the south the outskirts of the city trailed out into woods and fields she could hardly make out from the shallow angle.

    Occasionally she saw a flash on the horizon, though the diesels utterly overwhelmed any sound of the guns, if it could be heard at all from here.

    The Messenger dropped lower, the Huron Line sinking below the horizon. Dump Truck circled the transport plane once, veering away to orbit the field while she made her landing.

    If Sara'd come here a month ago, the Skyraider might have peeled off to the north. The old Air National Guard station at Selfridge had housed fifty planes, then. The lights were off there once again, now- no point in bothering, not with five.

    Sara Goldblum shook her head sadly as she looked out over Detroit in the afternoon light, watched the ground come up to meet her, felt the shock of landing. Her eye flicked to sandbagged AA mounts as the plane rolled slowly to a stop, taxiing off to one side. She retrieved her own duffel lashed to the seat, thank you very much, and made her way off the plane by the stairs at the rear.

    A dark stranger with a charmingly journalistic air about him walked towards her across the pavement, with a disarming smile and a limp he carried gracefully.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Simon_Jester said:
    Old Crows, Ch. 2​

    Midway International Airport
    Wednesday, March 27, 2075

    Once, when she'd had hair as black as night and her little girls really had been little, Sara Goldblum had asked a question after a presentation. She'd walked up to the man at the podium, the man who would one day hand command of the Chicago Air Patrol over to Daria after his heart attack. The attack that she still believed was a spy's poison.

    And she'd said "I thought jet planes ran on jet fuel, and propeller planes ran on gasoline. How does diesel fit in?"

    And he'd shrugged and shook his head and said "Traditionally, it doesn't. Back in the day, they'd have mostly said that just because you can make an airplane run on diesel fuel doesn't mean you should."

    Suddenly understanding, she'd smiled and replied. "And just because you shouldn't, doesn't mean you don't have to."

    She missed Colonel Montenegro; he'd been one of the oldsters who really understood. Rolled up his sleeves and got shit done.

    And that was when Project Phoenix was born. Over the years, Project Phoenix had turned into Project Raven. As the old Game of Thrones fans finally started to retire or die off, that had turned into Project Garbage Bird Or Officially Messenger.

    They'd learned or relearned a lot about aluminum recycling. And about high-power lightweight diesels, even if the things were still temperamental handbuilt prototypes from the Windy City Engine and Parts Combine.

    The Messengers- or Garbage Birds, she grinned to herself- might just be the best symbol she could have chosen for Chicago after the Collapse.

    They weren't easy to build. The Commonwealth had few to its name. They stank of exhaust from the diesel fuel Chicago made from some of the crudest, dirtiest oil in North America. And most of the plane's hull was made from garbage. Real garbage. She'd looked it up. About a quarter million old heavy-gauge pop and beer cans, dug out of some old turn of the century landfill, had been briefly resurrected, then died bravely for the greater good of Chicagoland, in order to make this plane, and fly.

    But so what?

    The Messengers had a certain sleekness that was beautiful when they caught the light right, and they could chug along at around two hundred miles an hour for seven hours on a pair of thousand-horsepower diesels. She didn't get to fly often, but never felt cheated when she got a chance to go up in a Messenger.

    Seated in the main compartment in front of several bags of mail and case upon case of medical supplies, Sara Goldblum smiled to herself despite the sudden surge of vibration. The big diesels roared to life, belching dark smoke as the big propellers ran up to speed. And the Commonwealth's pet garbage bird built up momentum and got ready to fly.


    Detroit
    Two Hours Later

    The copilot leaned back out the door and shouted over the noise of the diesels. "Hey ma'am, if you look out the left windows, you'll see our escort!"

    Escort? A jumble of emotions mixed within Sara's heart and mind, and she rose, crossing the cabin to look at the plane that had taken up position on the transport's eight o'clock.

    She looked like a World War Two fighter, because she probably was. She was big and blocky and an ugly shade of yellow and and Sara recognized that plane. Recognized it as only someone who'd personally seen it dump four rocket pods into some Immortan Joe role-player's motor pool could.

    That was Dump Truck. A real Chicago Air Patrol warbird! And still flying.

    Maybe, she thought somberly, the only one.

    She tried to wave out the window, and probably wasn't noticed, but Dump Truck waggled her wings anyway. She could squint and see the pilot, whose name danced frustratingly at the tip of her tongue. She's read it in a report- no, she'd met the woman, after that rocket pass. Wendy Har-a-something.

    She'd seen forlorn hopes that had gone as badly as the air force's over Lake Erie. She'd even joined one, once. Thirty years later, she still woke up in a cold sweat on some nights, wondering how she'd managed to dance between the bullets when better people than her had died.

    There hadn't been time to organize a ceremony, for the survivors of the Air Patrol. Not yet, not in the three mad weeks of fighting for Detroit. Maybe that could be Sara's chance to get out here, Goldblum thought to herself. God knew there was room to hand out medals. Room to invent medals.

    Those thoughts rode her heavily as she re-crossed back to her seat and squinted, raising a hand to keep the sun out of her eyes as she looked south. Detroit looked a lot like Chicago from this altitude- buildings that seemed normal until you looked closely and saw their ruined condition, others being kept up passably. Out to the south the outskirts of the city trailed out into woods and fields she could hardly make out from the shallow angle.

    Occasionally she saw a flash on the horizon, though the diesels utterly overwhelmed any sound of the guns, if it could be heard at all from here.

    The Messenger dropped lower, the Huron Line sinking below the horizon. Dump Truck circled the transport plane once, veering away to orbit the field while she made her landing.

    If Sara'd come here a month ago, the Skyraider might have peeled off to the north. The old Air National Guard station at Selfridge had housed fifty planes, then. The lights were off there once again, now- no point in bothering, not with five.

    Sara Goldblum shook her head sadly as she looked out over Detroit in the afternoon light, watched the ground come up to meet her, felt the shock of landing. Her eye flicked to sandbagged AA mounts as the plane rolled slowly to a stop, taxiing off to one side. She retrieved her own duffel lashed to the seat, thank you very much, and made her way off the plane by the stairs at the rear.

    A dark stranger with a charmingly journalistic air about him walked towards her across the pavement, with a disarming smile and a limp he carried gracefully.
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    I'm loving these. Canon!
     
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    Simon_Jester said:
    It's a seven-ton, 35-foot rocket that uses red fuming nitric acid as an oxidizer.
    We most likely have the expertise to make the fuel (since we have a chemical and pharmaceutical industry), but not necessarily the widespread safety equipment and training it takes to work with it safely in the field.

    We most likely have the expertise to build its guidance and fuzing electronics, but that doesn't mean we have the expertise to design them, or to diagnose bugs in our construction process. Unless you make a LOT of completely unwarranted and unsupported assumptions about what industrial and technical facilities Chicago has, it is NOT a given that Chicago has the capability to build and operate large numbers of S-200 missiles.

    A purely solid-fuel rocket like the Nike-Hercules might be more feasible- but also less impressive in its performance envelope. Issues with guidance and fuzing would remain.
    Click to expand...
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    -I'm aware of the...enthusiastic qualities of RFNS. The Nazis apparently were using it in WW2 for their rockets.
    It's energetic, but it's not FOOF. And the fact that we have a local working arms industry suggests we have regular procedures for handling nitric acid, given it's role in the synthesis of ammonium nitrate.

    Besides, we have recent evidence in the Syrian Civil War that S200 missiles can be be neglected and refurbed safey.
    Soviets tended to build on the assumption that their equipment would be operated by idiots.
    Or worse, conscripts.

    -The point about troubleshooting mass production is well taken.

    -As I understand it, liquid propellant rockets are easy.
    Solid propellant rockets are apparently much more difficult to design and build, but are easier to store .
    Simon_Jester said:
    Just out of curiosity, could you lay your hands on blueprints for a V-1 buzz bomb readily? Or a P-51 Mustang, for that matter? Or the engine blueprints? I mean, that's not guaranteed to be present at just any university library. I'm sure you could find lots of books about an old weapon system. If you went to a few special archives somewhere in the world, I'm sure you could find lots of technical documentation discussing the weapon system.

    But the actual blueprints? Those aren't going to be just anywhere. Not even because they're 'dangerous,' but because they are not of interest to anyone except people who build missiles. The same goes for the S-200. Blueprints for weapons, as in engineering drawings, the things you need to have in order to precisely duplicate a piece of machinery, are extremely specialized documents that are generally not encouraged to proliferate in the public domain.

    Now, I'm not saying that this is impossible. But it's worth pointing out that this kind of information isn't just automatically everywhere in the world, simply waiting to be rediscovered by anyone who looks for it. In general, if you want information on something like "how to design a missile" in the modern world, you go to one of a few specific countries and corporations that build their own missiles. Those entities maintain archives of their own, often including confidential materials. Designs and blueprints of things they don't make, or that nobody makes, are going to be particularly rare and hard to find; I imagine that the reverse-engineering blueprints the US has for the S-200 missile in particular, for instance, would be in some archival facility associated with the Department of Defense, probably classified at least Confidential if not Secret.

    Chicago might have copies of those, given its bookworm habits. But if you keep treating it as a given that we have just anything that was known pre-Collapse, in detail, to the point where we "should" be able to start production of anything that existed in real life prior to 19XX...

    Well, you're going to keep making a lot of mistakes, and/or talking the QM into awkward positions if Poptart is struck with inexplicable generosity. I don't consider either outcome very desirable.
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    -I'm not saying I could put my hands on the plans for a V-1 cruise missile, mind; I'm out of uni, and my uni didn't have the sort of student rocketry program we see in places like the University of Illnois' Illnois Space Society or the ones at Stanford, BYU et cetera. Or even the one run by the Copenhagen Suborbitals amateur group in Denmark.

    But if I could, I certainly wouldn't be talking about it on the internet.

    - As to your second question, first page of Google yielded detailed P-51 schematics, with service and operating manuals

    P-51 Mustang - Blueprints, Drawings & Documents | AirCorps Library

    P-51 North American Mustang
    aircorpslibrary.com aircorpslibrary.com
    Same site has for a bunch of other WW2 aircraft, both fighters, bombers and transports like the DC3.

    -Illnois was a center of interest for people who built weapons pre-Collapse.
    Only US Army foundry on the continent was on Rock Island.

    -Even aside from NATO defense analysis, a lot of detailed info made it into the open domain with the fall of the Soviet Union.
    Iran acquired the knowhow for supercaviting torpedoes and upgraded their own S-200s, for example.

    -Note that I'm talking S200s, a deprecated system that's no longer in production and is no longer sensitive per se.
    Not S-300s.
    This is not being able to produce everything on the books, as you put it.
    KnightDisciple said:
    Okay, I admit I've only skimmed the last few pages of wall-o-text debates, but....Why, exactly, are we asking about building things that were only ever good as indiscriminate terror weapons used against civilian population centers?
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    Improve the CEP and you can hopefully hit fixed military targets reliably. Like arms depots and fuel dumps.

    Specifically, I'm trying to see if we can solve the problem of affordably striking fixed military targets hundreds of kilometers behind the frontline, particularly enemy airfields, without exposing what is likely to remain a limited number of Commonwealth aircraft to the sort of surface to air missile defenses that Alexander can provide to the Victorians should he so choose.

    They can ship in a couple battalions of S-500 SAMs, or whatever is the 2070 first or secondline modern air defense system.
    They did it for North Vietnam in the Vietnam War and the Arab states before the Yom Kippur War, and just did it for Syria. Not something I'd want to risk whatever limited flavor of F-15E Strike Eagles or F-4E/-X/-2000 Phantom IIs we end up operating in our air force.

    Their tactical SAMs are going to be bad enough.
    But forcing the Vics to put their airfields and stage their squadrons much further from their southern border reduces the risk of effective airstrikes on our positions. They have to carry more fuel and fewer weapons to operate in our battlespace.

    EBR said:
    I don't have a moral objection to strategic bombing against an enemy like Victoria or Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, but a lot of very valid criticisms have been raised since 1945 regarding the effectiveness of such strategies. It's not clear that they actually harm the enemy's ability to wage war significantly enough to be worth it, and weapons like the V-1 aren't really going to be effective strategic weapons anyway. All they did OTL was make Britain mad.
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    -The things were actually pretty effective.
    The Brits expended massive amounts of resources, resources the Allies could afford, but still resources that weren't being used on the offensive. I quote:
    Unlike the V-2, the V-1 was a cost-effective weapon for the Germans as it forced the Allies to spend heavily on defensive measures and divert bombers from other targets. More than 25 per cent of Combined Bomber Offensive's bombs in July and August 1944 were used against V-weapon sites, often ineffectively.[13] In early December 1944, American General Clayton Bissell wrote a paper that argued strongly in favour of the V-1 when compared with conventional bombers.[47]

    The following is a table he produced:
    A V-1 and launching ramp section on display at the Imperial War Museum Duxford (2009)

    Blitz (12 months) vs V-1 flying bombs (2¾ months)
    BlitzV-1
    1. Cost to Germany
    Sorties90,0008,025
    Weight of bombs tons61,14914,600
    Fuel consumed tons71,7004,681
    Aircraft lost3,0750
    Personnel lost7,6900
    2. Results
    Structures damaged/destroyed1,150,0001,127,000
    Casualties92,56622,892
    Rate casualties/bombs tons1.61.6
    3. Allied air effort
    Sorties86,80044,770
    Aircraft lost1,260351
    Personnel lost2,233805

    The statistics of this report, however, have been the subject of some dispute. The V-1 missiles launched from bombers were often prone to exploding prematurely, occasionally resulting in the loss of the aircraft to which they were attached. The Luftwaffe lost 77 aircraft in 1,200 of these sorties.[48]

    Wright Field technical personnel reverse-engineered the V-1 from the remains of one that had failed to detonate in Britain. The result was the creation of the JB-2 Loon. General Hap Arnold of the United States Army Air Forces was concerned that this weapon could be built of steel and wood, in 2000 man hours and approximate cost of US$600 (in 1943).[49] To put this figure in perspective, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress cost ~1000x more, and still ~100x more when taking into account its 10x higher payload (20,000 lb Vs 850 kg for V1) -- payload, which cost has to be added (while it is included in V1 cost) --, with the additional drawback of requiring (and putting in danger) 11 flying crew members (which generally are considered to cost far more than the aircraft itself, with costs of recruiting, training, housing, feeding, pensions and pay, equipment, etc)..
    600 dollars in 1943 dollars roughly are 7000 dollars in 2018.
    Roughly same order of magnitude as Bruce Simpson's projected $5000 budget for a DIY pulsejet cruise missile in 2008.

    Add to this the fact that 2000 manhours for 1 missile is only 40 hours of work for a team of 50 men.

    -I'm not really interested in strategic strikes at the moment.
    Much more interested in the tactical and near-tactical battlespace, and preventing the Vics from staging their forces and major logistics nodes within easy reach of the border.

    Also forcing them to expend resources in dispersing and defending those sites instead of being on the offensive.
    Resources spent on air defense networks aren't buying new tanks and aircraft for the offensive.
    Even Alexander doesn't have unlimited resources, and the Vics certainly don't. Every little bit helps.

    Simon_Jester said:
    Again, I don't think anyone actually involved in the discussion was seriously proposing to launch a V-1 attack on the Victorians as such, though I could be misreading @uju32 's intentions.
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    Not WW2 V-1s at least. Seems fairly useless except as a flagwaving gesture, and maybe to taunt the Victorians into precipitate action. Though if I could hit their military HQ with an imported Tomahawk, or even the Premier's residence as a propaganda gesture, I'd probably take the shot.

    The point that struck me, is that we should be capable of improving the guidance systems on a V-1 design in time for the next go around, whether by figuring out Audreys drone tech's guidance(weren't we supposed to set up factory lines for those?), or just importing guidance systems from abroad once we get trade running again.

    Well enough to use them against airfields and military bases at least, which don't move. Force the Victorians to stage their aircraft beyond the range at which we can spam tactical cruise missiles. No more basically parking 50 miles from Detroit and flying planes out of there.

    It's also worth noting that at 640km/hr, the V-1 is 72% of the speed of a Tomahawk, which is 890km/hr.
     
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    Adhoc vote count started by kyuden on Aug 6, 2019 at 1:15 AM, finished with 201 posts and 56 votes.
    • [X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
      -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
      -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
      -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
      -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
      [X] Plan Needle and Hammer
      -[X] Defend with all committable forces.
      -[X] Ongoing harassment and probing attacks to force the Victorians to exhaust their supplies, followed by a decisive attack supported by Old World Equipment after they are deemed to be sufficiently weakened.
      -[X] Capture the freighters if it appears possible to disable them without a threat to the overall safety of the fleet. Sink them if they put up too much of a fight to allow that, or if there is reason to think they are rigged as suicide bombs.
      -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
      [X] Plan Uranus
      -[x][DEFENSE] Defend with all committable forces.
      -[x][OFFENSE] Limited assault.
      -[x][TRANSPORTS] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
      -[x][NAVY] Full bombardment.
      [x] Plan Rockeye is uncreative about names
      -[x] Defend with available forces. They simply cannot force the Huron with worse than two-to-one odds. Commit the Big Red One if somebody really fucks up, but otherwise just let them batter themselves to death. Head out and finish them once they're incapable of resisting you. Estimated three days to total force destruction. Uses a charge of OWE in the unlikely event that the BRO needs to step in.
      -[x] Limited assault. Don't try to smash them outright, but you cannot countenance just letting them be. Begin launching probing attacks across a wide area. Force them to spread their forces and strain their logistics. Wear down their supplies and weaken them for the final clash. Does not use a charge of OWE. Certainty of limited casualties. Possibility of moderate casualties. Five days to prepare and begin offensive operations. Slower resolution, likely several weeks.
      -[x] Scouting missions. Whatever you do on land, you'll need accurate and up-to-date information to do it. With control of the sea, you might even be able to force naval landings behind the River Raisin and circumvent Victoria's main defensive barrier.
      -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
      [X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This! (BUT WITH BLOCKADE)
      -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
      -[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
      -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
      -[X] Blockade. All of this could be undone if Victoria manages to slip transport ships to its cut-off forces. Ensure that that cannot happen.
      [X] Plan: Maneuver Out of This!
      -[X] Defend with all committable forces. Bring up all of your troops and all of the Detroit Militia. You don't just want to win this one; you want to utterly smash this assault and enjoy numerical superiority for a change. Afterwards, you can wipe them out easily. With this force, you won't even hypothetically need the Big Red One. Estimated two days to total force destruction. The BRO will not in any case be needed.
      -[X] Siege. Victorians do not get glorious last stands against you. They get run down like foxes before your tanks. They get picked apart from extreme range, useless prayers on their lips. This force will die the slow death of starvation and dwindling supplies. Only once they have lost any ability to present a threat to your forces will you close the noose on them. Does not use a charge of OWE. Possibility of light casualties. Possibility that the Victorians' nerve breaks and they resume their offensive. One week to prepare and begin offensive operations. Resolution will likely take a long time, possibly multiple months.
      -[X] Capture them. Hey, if Victoria doesn't want the tonnage, you can see some use in them.
      -[X] Full bombardment. The Navy will commit to intense shore bombardment of Victorian positions, trying to destroy as many troops and materiel as they possibly can to burn through the Victorians supplies and manpower.
      [X] Plan Needle and Hammer (No OWE)
      [X] Plan Uranus
    Click to expand...
     
    Yay, my plan won! Now I can either be really happy if it goes perfectly, or beat myself up for every little thing that goes wrong.

    Admittingly, it's a plan that's copied off another plan and just subtracts use of OWE, but eh, details.
     
    Chimeraguard said:
    Yay, my plan won! Now I can either be really happy if it goes perfectly, or beat myself up for every little thing that goes wrong.

    Admittingly, it's a plan that's copied off another plan and just subtracts use of OWE, but eh, details.
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    Eh. Either way we'll essentially guarantee the destruction of the Vics. The question is how many of our own men and women die in the act.
     
    Okay, forgot to actually comment about this... But I'm seriously hoping that the Victorian Rearguard moving north from Toledo isn't bringing a bunch of supplies with them, or setting up an actual guarded supply route or the fact that they are doing so whilst we're not scouting for that sort of thing may come as a nasty surprise when the actual assault begins. Thus making it bloodier than we'd prefer.

    And that's ignoring all the other sneaky possibilities that might be happening. Admittedly, all that's only possibilities which the navy scouting and doing shore raids might have helped with. Whereas we do know that the navy dedicating itself to bombardment duties will make it much harder for the Victorians to take advantage of Monroe's urban terrain and our old fortifications.
     
    wait wait wait wait

    A question.

    If all the globe is so damn mobilized about global warming, will they try to stab us if we go all in on coal energy?
     
    I can see it being a source of international tension but as long as we move towards carbon neutral then carbon negative we should be good.
     
    I'd assume that going all in on global green energy required money and technology transfers to less advanced economies. Its plausible that we'd receive similar assistance to help us transition away from carbon-based fuel sources, especially considering that the violent alternative would probably cause even greater pollution in the short term.
     
    Hmm, I was thinking, what was Alex's long term plan regarding North America? Surely he must have realized that stamping down on any new state would be unfeasible in the long run. Eventually stamping on every little attempt would become too costly to do forever.

    I assume his long term plan was for American revivalist movements to die out and get replaced by regionalist governments that would keep North America permanently divided.
     
    Whachamacallit said:
    Hmm, I was thinking, what was Alex's long term plan regarding North America? Surely he must have realized that stamping down on any new state would be unfeasible in the long run. Eventually stamping on every little attempt would become too costly to do forever.

    I assume his long term plan was for American revivalist movements to die out and get replaced by regionalist governments that would keep North America permanently divided.
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    Good question. I encourage the thread to speculate. ;)
     
    My assumption for Tsar's NA plan is that it becomes a new Africa, where all other nations on earth play proxy war on. If i read / remember correctly Africa is now a real polity capable of pushing back, even if just a bit.
     
    aceraptor said:
    Eh. Either way we'll essentially guarantee the destruction of the Vics. The question is how many of our own men and women die in the act.
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    Important complication:

    This is the first time we'll be taking the offensive against a Victorian force that hasn't had its supplies totally cut off.

    Previously, the Victorians have either been obliging enough to charge in aggressively as if trying to impale themselves on the muzzles of the Commonwealth guns, or have so thoroughly exhausted their supplies and manpower in attempts to do so that by the time they reverted to defensive tactics, they had long since lost the capacity to defend effectively- even Victorians can probably be strong on the defensive, though their tactics don't support it well.

    Here, we know the Russians are going to start flying in supplies any time now (or can take it as likely). The Victorian supply chain from the Toledo airport and stockpiles is bad, but not impassible, and may actually get BETTER over time if the Victorians extract head from colon and start putting effort into building improvements (e.g. corduroy roads and redundant pontoon bridges), and/or if the Russians fly in supplies-that-deliver-supplies (e.g. all-terrain vehicles that can handle the bad conditions).

    Our hope is or ought to be that by pressing the Victorians hard, we can exhaust the supplies they actually have available at the point of contact, especially ammunition, and then overrun them before they can start improving their supply situation. But things may not work out for us here. We do NOT have an overwhelming numerical advantage given how this combat system works, and the supply penalty the Victorians face will depend on unpredictable factors we cannot calculate in advance. Even with their tanks destroyed, they may still be able to resist us on the defensive if we don't break out the Old World Equipment- which is why my original version of Needle and Hammer invoked it. Hopefully that will not be required. Hopefully.

    ctulhuslp said:
    wait wait wait wait

    A question.

    If all the globe is so damn mobilized about global warming, will they try to stab us if we go all in on coal energy?
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    ctulhuslp said:
    ...I hope it's good enough.
    And I hope "Polluting the atmosphere" is not a valid casus belli. I can deffo see someone like Bangladesh - or, hell, Miami - treating it as one. :V
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    As the Victorians are now demonstrating, fighting a war with Chicagoland to take away its industry and coal power plants is probably more expensive than providing Chicagoland with large amounts of solar cells and wind turbines.

    I suspect that the official Commonwealth policy is that yes, Chicago would love to adopt clean energy policies, but that right now food security and people not literally freezing to death take priority in official state policy. And I suspect that this will be a sympathetic argument in the eyes of much of the world. Especially since our overall population and per capita GDP are low enough that even if our per capita, per dollar carbon-burning is high, our total contribution to global carbon emissions simply cannot be that large.

    PoptartProdigy said:
    Good question. I encourage the thread to speculate. ;)
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    Well, the big question in my mind is whether Alexander planned to live forever (through medical advances or some weird notions about cloning or whatnot), or whether he knew he'd be living for, oh, 50-60 years at most past his ascension in the 2020s or 2030s.

    Because his strategy of keeping North America politically and economically divided has worked very well for him and will likely continue to do so for the rest of his natural life, unless he is the beneficiary of some truly epic-tier longevity advances or something.

    Now, it probably wouldn't be sustainable for another 200 years or whatever, but even Alexander IV may not be planning for that kind of time horizon.

    VoidZero said:
    My assumption for Tsar's NA plan is that it becomes a new Africa, where all other nations on earth play proxy war on. If i read / remember correctly Africa is now a real polity capable of pushing back, even if just a bit.
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    I think it's basically this, yes. The strategy in question probably evolved over time, too- initially he wanted to destabilize the United States, and then as it became clear just how far he could destabilize them, the idea of selling off chunks of the US to the highest bidder as resource areas started to form.

    Based on Poptart's comments about the Soo Locks, Alexander's core strategy seems to be to keep North America partially exploitable as a resource area, while systematically hamstringing most other forms of economic activity. This is sort of reminiscent of the British East India Company's policies in India, which specifically destroyed a lot of India's domestic capacity to produce goods, in order to make India a better market for imported manufactured goods from Britain. This is one of the reasons India was among the poorest of the poor parts of the world in the mid-20th century, even below many other regions that had been the victims of colonialism. In 1700 India was broadly speaking as "developed" and technologically sophisticated as most other parts of the Earth; the fact that the Industrial Revolution so completely bypassed them was largely due to specific decisions made by the British.

    The main difference is that Alexander has kept more of a hands-off approach with a less open exploitation of American territory, probably because, well... it's not 1825 anymore. And fighting back against colonial oppressors who actually show up and point guns at your people rather than milking them dry indirectly has gotten rather easier since then.
     
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