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[RAM]

Spoiler: New S.P.D. proposal. (click to show/hide)

One in every thousand soldiers trained should, as early as possible in their training, be issued with a real weapon and live ammunition, without being informed, this event should be denied and ignored by all authorities. Further, the trainee in question should be marked to be subject to discriminatory practised including confiscation of possessions, insults, demeaning duties, physical assault, and lack of acknowledgement. Methods such as sleep deprivation and other approaches that inhibit the awareness and self-recognition may prove counterproductive, this aspect is a prime issue for further investigation as we seek an ideal mental state and spiritual environment(in lay terms, the projections of a person's identity, such as their influence upon others, their possessions, their reputation...) to achieve hostile imprintation.

 Such weapons should be retained and reissued in the same fashion until they coincide with an inconsistent elevation in hostility and violence. They should then be reviewed and filtered into "universally hazardous" at which point they should be distributed to our equipment reserves to discourage theft, and "Controllably hostile" which would have the weapon issued to individuals tested to be adept at focusing upon military objectives and resistant to suggestion.

The desired effect is to have the weapon imprinted with an inclination towards inflicting death. Many will simply encourage traitorous activities and attempts should be made to have them in high concentrations amongst equipment looted b the enemy. The looting of cursed items, along with threatening symbology at such locations, should encourage a sense that looting our forces will impart curses and discourage the practise, along with causes a degradation of enemy discipline as those enforcing discipline become the targets of those wielding cursed weaponry. Cursed weapons that can be controlled should confer noticeable good fortune in efforts to employ them towards violent ends.

Given Zanz's difficulties, it is clear that our justified demands for sweet delicious G.M. soul are being processed, we eagerly await delivery of the associated research materials.

[LordArchibald]

I pledge my loyalty to Dunwich Meritocratic Confederacy

BTW, is there a post with a current list of all techs available? The one on the main topic is outdated.


Strategy & doctrine
I get a feeling we are moving into too many directions at once, without a grand plan and forces that complement each other.

Navy
I see no point competing here, we are the weakest on the sea front, and honestly, do we need it in the first place? I would limit our efforts here to corsair doctrine (fast light ships that do not engage enemy fleet but harras the enemy trade and make landing more difficult) and maybe some trasport ships purely for economy. Waste of resources.

Land
The nation with the strongest ground forces seems the best plan for us. I get an impression our main advantage is cavalry and the best guns for the infantry? I would probably go for light artillery that can be towed by the cavalry so they get an organic artillery support.

National focus
I propose a rather controversial route here and go for zeppelins (blimps). The primary purpose would be recon (both sea and land), secondary bombing (imagine incineration bombs dropped on the incoming enemy navy). This would complement well our weak navy (since blimps can work well over seas) and provide valuable recon to ground troops (if you know where your enemy is you can concentrate forces in advance) in addition enemy might be forced to invest in countermeasures (typical cannons setup on ships is incapable of air defence).
As a perk those blimps could drop propaganda fliers behind enemy or simply lower enemy morale if we are the only nation with flying objects.

Transport
I think we can't neglect it any longer (especially since we advanced on the land quite well). I would love to see the railroad system, but maybe a simplier canals+river ships would be better at the beginning. Anyway, we can't afford to postpone the steam engine for too long.

[Sheb]

Yay, a fellow landlubber! The last turn got a list of all techs.

I more or less agree with you apart:
-It's too early for blimps. Observation balloon might make sense, but we can't manufacture hydrogen, or make power plant light enough to move them around.
-I agree with you on the naval outlook (at least until we get turn results), but if we need ships, I'd rather see small gunboats that are effective at bothering landing that corsairs. Trade simply isn't important yet.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

steam powered Zeppelins look nice in steampunk but for  real life it is close to impossible

[RAM]

Once inflated the balloon should require very little support. The problem is applying that support to something else without using enough structural material to counteract the lift.
...
So you could get a much taller balloon but heating it faster than it loses air would be a problem and it would need weighty reinforcement or it would tear in half as the top pulls up and the basket pulls down.
...
Maybe if you could affix something half-way up to spread the load and apply more heat?
...
What if you had a scaffold structure half-way up double-height-balloons? The rigging only needs to travel half as far and you can provide extra heat half-way up and you are using your working platform to also do structural duty to separate the balloons at a more favourable location... It would be a brute of a thing to launch and land. It would probably require a specialised and very tall scaffold from which to launch and it probably would need to be partially rebuilt after landing, but the balloons themselves would just be cloth and the scaffold would probably be mostly wicker... Factoring in half-a-dozen double-height balloons I like to think that you could get something capable of lifting 20 times as much as a normal hot-air balloon and at a greater potential altitude. Maybe not a steam engine but you could probably mount some sails and a well-equipped observation and signalling tower hanging underneath. Or just a whole lot of ball-bearings...

[Kashyyk]

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