LazarusBoard

Leonism wrote:

Open sea west of the islands of African sisters

The Allianz class freighters represented the first mass produced civilian ships commissioned in Leonism since the country opened its borders to the wider world after decades of voluntary isolation. Immediately after the borders had been opened, a dearth of civilian freighters led to difficulties in establishing international trade routes.
Thus, the first attempts to trade with others had been by using war ships as improvised traders. This had led to problems, misunderstandings and was quite inefficient. Thus, the Imperium had relied on the merchant navies of other countries, most notably Hycronesia, The copper states and Cianlandia, to facilitate its international trade, while offering to protect said trade with its numerous warships.

The arrangement had served the Imperium well, but was ultimately a stopgap measure until a domestic merchant marine could be established.

The Allianz class was a cornerstone of that effort. 260 m long, these unarmed freighters could transport both containers and bulk freight. Their downgraded fusion reactors allowed for a near limitless endurance, enabling them to reach even the furthest corners of Lazarus without any stops inbetween (though, for the sake of the crew and international relations, the ships rarely shunned all harbours near their route).

Three of these ships were now approaching African sisters, carrying various industrial goods, machinery and consumer goods. They were expected to load tea, paper and sugar cane on their return trip. A single Protector class frigate, the Pinguin, formed their escort.

50 kilometers away from their destination, the ships suddenly encountered a naval blockade by Mussoliniburg. The captain of the Pinguin, Commander Lukas Lürssen, whose brother was a fisherman in South Frisia, radioed the blockade fleet.

"Unknown fleet. This is Commander Lukas Lürssen of the Imperial Leonist Navy. We are a convoy of three ships carrying civilian cargo to African sisters. Please make way for our passage. We have no hostile intentions, but you have no mandate to hamper international trade."

"Commander Lürssen we have received your transmission and request to enter through this fine military blockade and unless we receive orders otherwise we have no reason to allow for your passage through this blockade you must take that up with our leader not with us. Until further notice you will not be allowed to cross this blockade and if you get any closer to our fleet we will have to open fire for the safety of our fleet. we will make quick work of your ships. If you try to run our blockade you will be met with a 15in shell that will punch straight through your command tower."

Greater catarapania wrote:

No, nuclear apocalypse only happens if you use first and second gen nuclear weapons. Fourth gen would be high-efficiency subkiloton weapons for the most part. Antimatter farms let you do all kinds of fancy things that the laws of physics would otherwise prohibit. And one of those things ordinarily prohibited is a 40 mm nuclear weapon with 20 GJ yield. That's small enough to fit the autocannon of the standard Catarapanian IFV. It's also small enough to be used by folks who care about ideas like "distinction" and "proportionality."

Meanwhile, reusable air-breathing closed cycle gas core rockets carrying eight-packs of 6 meter tungsten k-rods would be making runs (well, suborbital hops, really) at strategic weapon sites. So while the Satanic forces make Fallout jokes, the Crusade would be dropping the Rods from God on their nuclear arsenal. Joke's on them, we never played Fallout, and the only Apocalypse happening on our watch is St. John's.

The people of Loftegen 3 prefer the term 'nuclear catastrophe', since 'apocalypse' means to reveal knowledge (Loftegenans can be a bit pedantic at times). As to the generation of nuclear devices, Loftegen 3 is on generation five, and working on six. A tiny handful of gen 3 devices are still in the inventory, along with a significant number of gen 4 devices (about 15% of all weapons).

As a somewhat related aside, 'The Big One' by Stuart Slade is all about a one-sided nuclear attack. It's not the best written book ever, dialogue not being his strong suit at the time, but he did get better over time. He revisits the idea in 'Ride of the Valkyries' set about 25 years later.

Mzeusia wrote:

But worth it in the end. Happy listening.

Oh yes definitely so thank you.

Your imaginary friend wrote:

There's an interview with him in the latest gazette actually with a bit of information on that. ^-^

The Lazarene Gazette New Year | *yawns and curls up in a blanket to read*

by Your imaginary friend

Paper has been corrupted. Sincere apologies.

Read dispatch

Although presumably he was an acceptable Minister of the Interior, I think most of the acclaim that led to him being elected delegate was from his work with defending, maybe not Laz itself so much. As someone who used to work under him in The Order of the Grey Wardens, I can bear witness to how he has built up and improved defender operations so much.

Right, I knew I had seen this name before !

Hyrule world wrote:

what you mean

About Benevolant Thomas. ^^

Leonism wrote:

OOC: One of our most prominent religious zealot nations, Kappan, just CTEd less than two weeks ago:(

The Imperium of Leonism, as an atheist nation (98% atheism rate) is not a suitable antagonist for you on religious grounds...

Yeah, whar happened there? Do we know?

Aigania wrote:

Let's go for parts. "Nuclear" apocalypse (as "Nuclear Winter") doesn't depend of the generation of weapon used. It depends of the consequences, (radiation aside).
The apocalypse come with the massive injection of soot particles into the stratosphere after the fires consequence of the detonations. You can also have the same effect (locally) with conventional explosives, or with geological phenomena like asteroids collisions, or volcanic eruptions.
You can play with anti matter or more exotic explosive capacity, or even sub kiloton force. The problem is not on your explosive capacity, it is on the flammability of the target.

At the yield scales we're discussing here, prompt radiation>blast>thermal effects. For large nuclear weapons (tens or hundreds of kilotons) it's the other way around, thermal effects dominate blast and radiation, and you get massive fires. Fourth gens would be more or less comparable to a multi-tonne conventional explosive crossed with a scaled-down neutron bomb - though my nation uses boron-10 to "blast enhance" the weapons (and decrease radiation output) where possible.

Aigania wrote:

Besides making a modernized project PLUTO isn't going to help.

PLUTO was an open-cycle solid core. A closed cycle gas core NTR is an entirely different ballgame. There are two key differences for our purposes: lack of fallout in the exhaust, and higher specific impulse. With methane propellant for work outside of the atmosphere, and a mass ratio of two, the platform would be able to make a suborbital hop with the airbreathing engines, release k-rods, then have enough propellant onboard to literally reverse course (think ~18 km/s delta-vee). It never has to pass over enemy territory.

Aigania wrote:

You encourage an arms race,

Yes, but in kinetic weaponry. The goal would be to force the rest of the world into an arms race that would make "strategic" nuclear weapons obsolete, meaning ordinary civilians no longer have to live with the Sword of Damocles over their heads.

Aigania wrote:

besides, even taking care of silo based launchers, a modern nation with have second strike capability by SLBM. (And that with current day tech).

This is true, but taking out silos reduces the total nuclear arsenal available to the enemy, which decreases the odds of my ballistic missile defense systems being saturated.

Loftegen 3 wrote:

The people of Loftegen 3 prefer the term 'nuclear catastrophe', since 'apocalypse' means to reveal knowledge (Loftegenans can be a bit pedantic at times).

Fair. We're jackasses, and upfront about it, so we don't exactly have the right to complain about pedants.

Loftegen 3 wrote:

As to the generation of nuclear devices, Loftegen 3 is on generation five, and working on six. A tiny handful of gen 3 devices are still in the inventory, along with a significant number of gen 4 devices (about 15% of all weapons).

Gen one was the first pure fission atomic bombs. Gen two was thermonuclear warheads. Gen three includes things like variable yield, nuclear shaped charges (still used by Catarapania fairly extensively), bomb-pumped x-ray lasers, and neutron bombs. All of these can be built using modern technology. Fourth generation weapons are PMT.

Gen four would be small (subkiloton) devices using subcritical masses of fissile material (if any) and/or other exotic techniques to kickstart fusion. These could be fairly easily modified to take advantage of the advances made by third generation weapons, and would be tactical, rather than strategic, in nature. They would be far more potent than chemical explosives, yet nevertheless be three orders of magnitude less powerful than the smallest efficient nuclear weapons we have today, allowing them to be used in relatively good conscience.

It's that last point that makes fourth gens attractive to Catarapania. We're a fairly militaristic nation, but we respect the principles of proportionality and distinction in all of our operations. Being able to harness the power of the atom without killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process is a huge boon, especially when we're outnumbered or need to eliminate an entrenched enemy.

We're curious what a fifth generation nuclear weapon would look like, given what's been said already.

Loftegen 3 wrote:

As a somewhat related aside, 'The Big One' by Stuart Slade is all about a one-sided nuclear attack. It's not the best written book ever, dialogue not being his strong suit at the time, but he did get better over time. He revisits the idea in 'Ride of the Valkyries' set about 25 years later.

I'll bear that in mind.

Hyrule world wrote:

what's going on

I dunno, just got back from watchin a physics video with some classmates. :o

Hyrule world wrote:

just got back from lunch

Ooh, have anything good? :)

Tax evasion

Hyrule world wrote:

no

Well then! :P Watcha up to now?

Northern Rosary Isles wrote:

Tax evasion

Hyrule world wrote:

??????????

My thoughts exactly x)

Edit: Although, I don't deny that tax evasion is an interesting topic..

Your imaginary friend wrote:

My thoughts exactly x)

Edit: Although, I don't deny that tax evasion is an interesting topic..

true