STABIL-ICE
This slight reformulation of ICE allows us to control at which temperatures ICE freezes something. Chemically mostly similar to the original ICE compound, and with identical performance, STABIL-ICE is special in that it is a semi-thermo stable compount. Below certain temperatures (which depend on the exact formulation) it simply does not decay. This allows us to use large quantities of ICE without fearing to overdo it.
The compound is expected to have great results in domestic icecream production, power generation, and of course our jet engines.
Revision: STABIL-ICENormal: (3+2) = 5: Average
STABIL-ICE is poised to redefine Mereth's icecream industry. By modifying the compound to rely on a catalyst to fully react, we can introduce varying amounts of different specially-made catalysts to prevent ICE from reacting below certain temperatures.
We've taken the liberty of creating a new form of ice cream using this new innovative ICE variant that simply does not melt at all. Merethan ice cream is already being imported overseas, and is even seeing an introduction into the black markets of Aratam. Sure, the use of STABIL-ICE directly in the ice cream itself is controversial. Sure, consumer's stomachs may briefly be kept at ice cream temperatures. But the Mereth military believes in quality products.
It also works for the Blizzard's aT-J60gi engines, we suppose. STABIL-ICE is just as effective as regular ICE in cooling but without the whole "rendering the entire engine a nonfunctional chunk of ice" flaw. The ability to simply just add STABIL-ICE to cool the engine instead of carefully monitoring the amount of ICE added has slightly increased engine simplicity, but that's not the main benefit. We can now use ICE in the aT-J60gi engines without diluting it massively beforehand, greatly increasing fuel efficiency.
The Blizzard with these improvements is now considered "Long-range", able to go further than any other jet in our arsenal. It should be able to fly over the sea, though it'll see limited effectiveness there as it can only cover a portion of the sea and navigation & targeting is quite hard given the Blizzard's equipment.
STABIL-ICE does tend to decay more over time to regular ICE, however. The new formula is harder to prevent from reacting
at all, even if the lack of the activation temperature drastically reduces the rate of reaction. While still fine for the ice cream (and jet engines) we have at the moment, it may not be the best thing to use for any design that can't expect routine maintenance and ability to receive new STABIL-ICE.
Import: M3 Sorraia GPMGThe M3 Sorraia GPMGs and blueprints come on time, and our Bear-armored troopers are
very eager to begin wielding them casually. Our soldiers in Bear Armor should actually be able to wield them quite effectively, though reloading and accuracy will both suffer minor yet very notable penalties. Even if the gun can be easily held by soldiers in Bear Armor, it's designed to be used mounted.
With our resources, it will be
Cheap.M3 Sorraia GPMG: [L] A 7.62mm machine gun fed from a belt. 50-round belts can be strung together for extended fire or stored in a belt box attached to the Sorraia, which for practical purposes is similar to a magazine. It uses a recoil action, and is configured to fire around 800 rounds per minute, achieved with the help of a muzzle booster (which looks like a flared end on the barrel). Weighs 22 pounds. Comes with a bipod, or tripod for emplacements. It uses copper heat sinks, which are now shrouded. It has a changeable barrel, which is necessary for emplacement use. It is effective to about 800 yards when mounted. Costs 2 ore.
Transport Capacity: 1
Resources: 3 Ore,
1 OilWeapons- "Stalwart" Rifle: A semi-automatic rifle with mediocre accuracy at Long range and good accuracy at Medium (and useless accuracy further).
[Cheap] 1 Ore - "Heartstopper" Pistol: A 2-round semiautomatic pistol semi-accurate up to Short range. Has enormous stopping power. Pride of the Merethan army.
[Cheap] 1 Ore - UF-AC-41 Velociraptor: This autocannon is a revision of AC18, with several improvements. The gun is a little more tolerant of different ammo weights and the shells have been modified so that mixed ammo belts are possible. The use of more advanced materials has allowed some parts to become lighter, while a heavier bolt and stronger spring allows a rate of fire of 750 RPM, with a final gun weight of 48kg. In infantry use, it has noticeably more recoil, but this is less of a concern on vehicles.
[Cheap] 3 Ore
- AS-AC18: An advanced primer ignition autocannon, which ignites cartridge primers before the round is fully chambered. It fires the new, large, 20x100mm round, fed from a top-mounted 25 round C-shaped magazine with a powerful spring, usually armor piercing, about 600 times per minute. The weapon is quite large with a simple action but heavy barrel, weighing over 40 kilograms, and it requires being mounted to a carriage, foundation, or vehicle to fire with accuracy, although recoil is reduced by the nature of its action. It is dependent on a careful balance between the force of the shell and the force of the action, which means that different ammo types cannot be interchanged without recalibrating the gun. It has a terrifying ability to punch through armor and emplacements.
[Cheap] 3 Ore
- UF-MRL-40 'SARUKH': The Sarukh is a multiple rocket launcher, which fires rockets one meter long to deliver 6kg warheads at a maximum range of 12000 meters. The rockets have impressive destructive power, compared to shells they do not need thick metal casings, so most of the weight of the rocket is either warhead or propellant. The rockets are launched electrically off of rails, and the rails are in a 4x2 array. The rockets can be fired all at once, but it takes about four minutes to reload the whole launcher, so the sustained rate of fire is not better than regular artillery. However, a rocket array is extremely light compared to a cannon, and can move very quickly, firing all at once and retreating before fire is returned from the enemy. Accuracy is poor compared to shells; to reliably hit a single target with a volley they should be used within 8km. Currently available as a truck trailer.
[Expensive] 1 Ore, 3 Oil
- ICE Rocket: A rocket for the Sarukh equipped with an ICE non-explosive warhead. Instant lethalities within 5m, very high fatalities within 10m, serious injuries (and occasional fatality) along with (usually temporary) vehicle non-operation to 50m. The cold dissipates quickly outdoors.
- ICE Thrower: A 20m-ranged pressurized ICE thrower that can rapidly cool an area in front of the operator to (eventually) lethal levels or outright kill/severely harm those directly hit by ICE. The ICE doesn't naturally react until roughly 10m out from the barrel, though it can hit other things in its way and react with whatever it hits. Prolonged use is discouraged, due to close proximity with ICE and ICE-affected areas being very dangerous even with the extensive insulation operators wear.
[Expensive] 2 Ore, 3 Oil - AS-RPG28 A: A rocket-propelled grenade, fired out of a launch tube. The grenade itself consists of a conical shape with a narrow tube of propellent out the back, and twisted fins in the middle of the tube. The launch tube is 3cm wide, a meter long and the rocket fits in up to the fins, and is just a metal tube with a handle. To ignite the propellant, soldiers remove a pin, on the rocket, which is first clipped by a short chain to a trigger on the handle. The tube itself and each grenade each weigh 3kg. It is accurate enough to hit a tank out to almost 100 meters, after which it drops quickly. Rockets are available with warheads based on each type of grenade, including a HEAT conical shaped charge.
[Cheap] 2 Ore, 1 Oil - ME-GVM-61 "Penguin": A 33cm diameter 3.5m long black and white missile with long and stubby wings. Controlled remotely via an embedded television camera, and contains basic onboard transistor-based guidance allowing for a relatively straight course when jammed. Two missiles are carried in basic launcher trucks. Has a range of 50 km and a lethal radius of 50m; it can fit an ICE warhead or a HE warhead.
[Expensive] 3 Ore, 3 Oil - M3 Sorraia GPMG: A 7.62mm machine gun fed from a belt. 50-round belts can be strung together for extended fire or stored in a belt box attached to the Sorraia, which for practical purposes is similar to a magazine. It uses a recoil action, and is configured to fire around 800 rounds per minute, achieved with the help of a muzzle booster (which looks like a flared end on the barrel). Weighs 22 pounds. Comes with a bipod, or tripod for emplacements. It uses copper heat sinks, which are now shrouded. It has a changeable barrel, which is necessary for emplacement use. It is effective to about 800 yards when mounted.
[Cheap] 2 Ore
Armor- Standard Uniform: A plain blue featureless uniform. The blue's mild enough that it doesn't really stick out.
- Tiger Infantry Armor: Infantry armor made of a forged manganese steel alloy. All of the armor plates are relatively thick for infantry, and the full suit weighs in at 36 pounds. The helmet is particularly thick, and fits round and close around the head, low over the eyes and down to the neck. It can be attached with a face mask, which allows a wide but very narrow viewing slit, while covering the neck. The breastplate is curved outwards for optimal armor angle. The backplate is thick, but flat. At the waist these plates end and there are flat curved single-piece taces to protect upper legs, below the knee the armor has no coverage. Pauldrons allow comfortable shoulder motion, and upper arms are covered by round fitted plates to the outside of the arm. While lower arms and legs, and sometimes gaps around the shoulders are exposed, most parts of the armor will stop a pistol bullet at point blank. The breastplate and taces will stop rifle bullets at all but very close range. The armor is tiring and cumbersome, troops cannot effectively crawl and kneeling is difficult, as is aiming down rifle sights while using the mask.
[Cheap] 3 Ore - ME-PA-59 'Bear Armour: "Infantry" armor based off of the Tiger suit. Boasts full (barring hands) body coverage, albeit with fairly frequent gaps in the joints; armor toughness is identical to Tiger Armor, with insulating fur inner lining. Armor plating is semi-manually removed from the outside through a series of switches to enter/exit/perform maintenance, and the suit must have its Electrogel very routinely replaced to maintain full charge. Lasts 16 hours of consistent high-power use, but use is carefully rationed due to no tracking of the charge. Embarking/disembarking from the outside takes about 30 seconds, and disembarking without assistance takes a few minutes. It stands at [~7 ft/~2m] tall, and uses a smallish bulletproof glass visor for limited visibility. Pilots boast slightly increased speed and slightly decreased agility (but same strength) over regular unarmored individuals while in the Armour, twice the strength of average soldiers, and have their skin dyed blue from the Electrogel. Has mounts for a WALK-TALK and larger ICE Thrower tank, and a velcro strip for maximum pilot comfort.
[Expensive] 4 Ore, 2 Oil
Underground Vehicles- UT-60 Excavator: A tracked medium-sized heavily-modified tunnel boring machine, most notably using GOFAST-fuel. Can go down to Moderate and Shallow depths, moves at Very Slow speeds while underground and at Moderate speeds aboveground. Possesses limited (but notable) agility underground. Contains space for 6 soldiers and small amounts of equipment of the equivalent amount of cargo in the back, in addition to the 2 crew in its cockpit. Light armor. Equipped with the ME-SM-57 'Earth Ear' for basic subterranean navigation.
[Expensive] 3 Ore, 3 Oil; Provides 1 Ore.
- ME-CM-56 'Instant Roads': A very fast-acting sprayable concrete mixture very useful for reinforcing tunnels when sprayed by trailers hooked to a Burrower. Has to be re-applied occasionally to maintain integrity. Allows for use of Burrower tunnels for force movement and logistics.
Provides 1 TC.
Air Vehicles- UFAF-F-41 Lightning Streak: A single-engine jet fighter, with a large aT-J20 jet taking up most of the fuselage. The aT-J20 is a low-bypass turbofan; some of the air taken in by the compressor blades passes around the engine core and is not combusted; the bypass system provides useful cooling. The Lightning Streak has a relatively fat fuselage, which widens out in the middle after the intake and narrows again at the exhaust, there there is a rudder and two tail wings directly on the fuselage. With the round glass canopy (using 15mm of heavy laminated glass) the aircraft has sort of an egg shape, with thin swept wings. The wings have no bomb mounts and are as light as possible for speed and maneuverability, it is armed solely with three AC41 Velociraptor cannons in the nose above the intake, with somewhat limited ammo. It also includes airbrakes on the body near the tail, and hydraulic controls. Since it was designed as an absolutely dedicated fighter the speed and maneuverability are remarkable.
[Very Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil - ME-LRMA-60 "Blizzard": A two-engine jet "Long-Range Multi-Role-Aircraft" based off of the Lightning Streak that uses a 4 "X"-shaped wing configuration via the "Tereshkova Effect" for slightly increased aerodynamics, improved redundancy, and greatly improved coolness. Its two aT-J60gi ICE "freezing stovepipe" ramjet engines allows it to be a fair bit faster than the Lightning Streak. Has one large GOFAST tank and a small STABIL-ICE tank allowing for Long range. Equipped with 4x Velociraptor autocannons, 4 ICE missiles, and 1 tonne of bombs.
[Very Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
Navy- UFN-CA-41 Catraphract: The Cataphract is a cruiser built to rival Cannala's ships. It is armed with 3x3 150mm gun turrets, each using a fully electrified loading system based on the moderately-performing Overcompensator, except that the 60kg shells are moved in one piece. Each gun can fire 8 times a minute. It has an armored citadel with 300mm of nickel-steel armor (Heavy), and a torpedo belt as well. The deck is also heavily armored, at 120mm (Light) to defend against plunging fire, plus an extra splinter deck. The turrets are similarly armored. There is a central director in the con tower which controls all the electrically-driven turrets, though there is no advanced firing calculator. Additionally there are three turrets with two bumblebees on each side of the ship, capable of firing on aircraft or ships, and miscellaneous autocannons wherever there is room. It is powered by oil-burning steam turbines, and there are a lot of them though with its considerable armor it only musters moderate speed.
[Very Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
Other- GOFAST-Fuel: A special type of more energy-dense and stable fuel. Greatly increases fuel efficiency of anything it's in, doesn't require an oxidizer, and can rarely leak out of compromised containers.
Adds 1 Oil to cost. - MXETE: Discrete transistor digital mainframe computer - 2 MHz CPU, 4 Mb of magnetic drum long-term memory, and an operating memory of 1200*32 bits. Takes up an entire (very big) floor on the Design Division and creating another one is immensely impractical. Punch card input, with a tightly-packed light matrix called a "screen" for output.
- WALK-TALK: The Wireless Audio Local Kommunicator-Transistor Assistance Lowers Kost Radio. A small hand-held two-way transistor radio. Production is hampered by the ever-persistant Union of Electronics Workers, making it Complex.
[Expensive] 1 Ore, Complex - Electrogel: A very thick blue gel that creates and transmits electrical current corresponding to the amount of pressure applied to it. Comes with the "Electrogel Motor" - a very small motor with embedded Electrogel that works with power corresponding to Electrogel pressure. A patch of Electrogel can last roughly 8 hours when powering its corresponding motor nonstop at max power.
- UF-SM-57 'Earth Ear': A set of small attachments to be put on all available sides of a subterranean vehicle. Vibration pings allow it to present a map of "where stuff is" and "where stuff isn't" via a very basic 3D projection in a small gas-filled glass cube. Only useful at recognizing the terrain and notable landmarks, and has a range of 10km in every direction from the device. An increased resolution and the ability to detect movement between scans allows it to detect the movement of reasonably large forces (allied or hostile) and flash relevant sectors red in the display.
- ICE (Intense Chemical Endotherm): A chemical that very quickly reacts with the air to massively reduce heat in the surrounding area, often to the point where nearby things are frozen (ones in the epicenter frozen brittle), vehicles disabled or destroyed, and people killed.
- STABIL-ICE: A variant of ICE that relies on an added catalyst to only react when it's above a target temperature, specified during synthesization of the STABIL-ICE. Useful for ice cream and also maybe cooling of machinery and the like. Tends to slowly decay over time in storage, making it unsuitable for anything that can't expect routine maintenance.
Infrastructure- Division of Unusual Chemistry: A fully funded department & lab under the Design Division specializing in more unusual chemistry.
- Embassy "Vast Underground Forenian Embassy": An extensive and mildly luxurious underground Forenian embassy dug underneath around the center of Mereth using improvements in excavation technology designed 100% solely for civilian use and definitely nothing else.
Due to the potential displayed by the Design Division and the importance of the war, the government and military of Mereth have announced a plan ramp up military and military R&D spending; Aratam has done the same. As a consequence, designs and revisions (and the subsequent combat reports) will be done each season instead of each year.
The Combat Phase of Spring 1961 has begun.
Author
Topic: Mad Arms Race - Mereth Design Division (Fall 1965 - Final Design Phase) (Read 82226 times)