>>85795737
My dude we didn't have the resources, resource access, or the mans to sustain that level of conflict for 10 years, let alone a hundred.

>>85796313
*didn't REALISTICALLY have the chance to sustain that level of conflict
I don't want to make the thread about the rest of the setting but for the sake of this scenario assume every country is run by a totalitarian government which has completely indoctrinated every man woman and child to be virulently in favor of turning every aspect of their nation towards the goal of war because that's effectively the purity of purpose we are talking about here. It stops when the world is physically incapable of continuing, until then humanity becomes increasingly innovative in squeezing out every last drop of productivity out of what they have to work with. And the key is that what's left once the madness ends will have both these super refined efficient innovations to work with, and a heavily depleted planet to squabble over. What I want to know is what innovations could there be, and what resources are now the most precious.

>>85796313
This. When you look at the sheer number of people we lost in the world wars, those losses are obviously not sustainable. If the war went on for long enough sides would have to start surrendering purely because they can't fucking fight anymore.

The only way that this would continue at such a pitch is if surrender literally isn't an option. Its just mutual genocide with no hope of de-escalation or cooler heads prevailing, in which case congratulations you just reinvented 40k without the magic or scifi elements.

As for what would be scarce... everything. We have to assume that at such a point in the war everything that supports the war effort (food, production, resource gathering operations, etc) have all been extensively targeted in an attempt to force the other side to fail. Such a war cannot end until one or more powers have literally no infrastructure left with which to fight, and in a war for survival that means no infrastructure left to live on either because everything available that could have been folded into the war effort was. It is a world that is essentially burned itself out, everything thats within reach has already been used up or destroyed to deny it to the enemy.

The only parts of the world not a shithole will be the places where the war never touched them, either because they were too far away from the front lines or because they simply were not important enough for anyone to fight over them. But if the war went on for as long as you say, these places will be few and far between by now. They would have become increasingly important as things became scarce elsewhere.

>>85796766

see >>85796738
>The only way that this would continue at such a pitch is if surrender literally isn't an option. Its just mutual genocide with no hope of de-escalation or cooler heads prevailing, in which case congratulations you just reinvented 40k without the magic or scifi elements.
Correct, except it ended. The game takes place in the aftermath rather than the war itself.
> It is a world that is essentially burned itself out, everything thats within reach has already been used up or destroyed to deny it to the enemy.
this is what I am going for.

france lost so many young men it suffered a demographic crisis after WW1. in order to avoid having to disband their diminished divisions, they had to raise max service age significantly (armies in that era liked to compare how many divisions they had) the average age of soldiers in france was in the highest in all of europe. their armies were slower and less willing to fight. this is one of the reasons they lost ww2.

and this was after WINNING ww1....

I imagine that in a fictional timeline where WW1 continues for many years, women would rapidly gain a lot of political rights. they would be sent to the front to die just like men. countries like france and the UK would begin mass-importing colonial subjects from africa and India to replace their dead soldiers. they would also set up programs to bring in inmigrants from the americas. both countries would change very quickly and drastically in terms of ethnic make up.

>>85795737
>after centuries of industrial warfare on the scale of WW1 or WW2?
Non-existent. You'd run out of men to draft. One side would be thoroughly ground to dust after 2-3 decades at most of all out warfare.

>>85797577
looks cool as fuck

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>What innovations might have developed?
The unfortunate reality of the situation, is that after an eternal hellwar, there is no concern about innovations or developments at all. There's simply not enough people to maintain an industrial base large enough for much of anything at all. Personally I think you'd get a Dark Ages throwback, maybe something like this:
>William of Treadford is a peasant living about 150 years after the war unofficially ended.
>William lives in a 500 year old cottage. It used to have a tile roof and nice brick walls, but now only the northwest corner of the building has brick walls. The rest is mud and timber-framing. The roof is entirely replaced with thatch and a few tarps.
>William is a farmer, he tends a small few acres of land growing grains and tubers. The soil is grey, and sometimes shimmers with rainbow fluids when it rains stinging acid water.
>Williams great-great-grandfather cleared the field with a minesweeping vehicle that he stole when he deserted. There were hundreds of unexploded shells and chemical devices detonated, but some new ones still go off each year.
>The vehicle was then turned into a tractor, and run with gas, then kerosene, then pulled by draft animals. Eventually an irreplaceable component snapped, so now the tractor rusts in the middle of the field. William used it as a pretend-fort when he was young.
>Outside the farmstead, sickly trees grow tangled in a cratered landscape. Large patches of land hold no life, due to the heavy metals suffusing the soil. Other portions appear almost pristine, until a tree root or passing deer detonates an artillery shell.
>William serves Lord Treadford, descendant of a corporal who deserted the army with his men many years ago. Lord Treadford lives about a day away in an old bunker complex, much like a castle of old. A small mill around the bunker provides just about enough alcohol and gunpowder that the Lord can protect his serfs and fuel his tank, source of his power.

>>85795737
I think the first thing you run low on to the point of the war petering out is actually people. Not iron or coal or anything like that unless your world is already low on that stuff.
And it wouldn't be felt first on the front lines. It would be felt at home. Depopulated countrysides as the sole remaining families allowed to keep their fighting age kids are forced to maintain several farms. Non-essential but "needed" goods like toilet paper just not being made because there aren't enough people to man the factories, their busy making shells and tanks. Food dwindles down to only essentials, but somehow becomes more common. Beef and flour are all you can eat but good luck finding sugar or fruit.
As the front starts feeling the manpower squeeze they find clever ways to try and get similar results for less. Loading and sighting your artillery barrages with 2-3 guns per crew. Each man gets more armor and firepower. Wonder weapons with the potential to kill more with less crew become more feasible as each individual person becomes more valuable. Medicine too starts putting every effort into saving anyone they can. Backlines are manned more and more by the partially crippled.

By the time the war is over the population is more like scattered tribes focused around heavily automated factory towns than a civilization. Farming families are just that, families that take care of vast swathes of land with little to no contact with the factory towns.

>>85795737
After centuries of war there would be purest peace because all the men would be dead and women would inherit the earth.

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>>85798546
you have never spent time with women, huh?

This was literally the basis of a porn story I read a long time ago, called gai-shift. World war 1 went on for like 50 years, and when all that was left to staff the front lines were old men and invalids, all women across the world simultanously gained the ability to reproduce via parthenogenesis, and also select the gender of their children. It created world peace enforced by bondage and magic-wielding witches.

>>85798601
Everyone knows that when all the men are dead, the women would fire fem-beams from their boobies at those they disagree with to nonviolently create a consensus.

>>85798617
shit, yeah. i forgot about that.

>>85796944
>and this was after WINNING ww1....
did they really win? I mean France specifically. Nominally they "won" both wars but did they really? I mean the French, not their alliances.
They just happened to be on the side that won both times.

The French demographic problem started way back following the Napoleonic wars, from which France never fully recovered as it continued getting into wars to maintain its great power status.
War itself does not kill many people, even the worst wars in history rarely manage a 10% demographic loss. However as this is the most important and productive demographic it has severe economic repercussions.
WWI was stopped ended to a combination of factors, the British blockade, the Spanish influenza, and the decision of the Germans to use their limited supply of fertilizer for shells instead of their farms in their last ditch offensive.
It only took twenty years after WWI for Germany, which was on the verge of demographic collapse to recover and be ready for an even bloodier war. There have been plenty of non-industrial wars that have lasted decades and even a few over a century.
Assuming a state can maintain both national willingness in the war, and prevent crippling shortages a war can be perpetuated for very long times. Of course there will need to be stops in any large offensives for several years but as long as the female populace remains steady you can have a yearly supply of manpower.
The landscape is likely to become one of trenches and fortifications, and underground factories and farms. Offensive weapons are both expensive and require fuel, and risk manpower. Bunkers and fixed guns however are cheap and if a war is prolonged for decades and centuries, factories and women will be increasingly integrated into the fortresses, both to alleviate logistics and to allow reproduction. The anime cannonfodder shows such a fortress city dedicated to producing and firing shells.

>>85796796
I think it's less interesting to set it in the aftermath, than during the war.

Either way, you're gonna need several fantastical elements of worldbuilding to help justify the perpetuation of war otherwise it's literally unsustainable.

One if the most vital resources, as others have pointed out, is young men. Which means you're gonna need to have some degree of cloning and biological engineering in place in order to have enough soldiers to maintain the conflict.

Other stuff like rare metals, iron, and oil can actually be stretched much further. That said, the economic strain constant conflict would place on pretty much every nation would be so severe that tons of countries would crumble even after being forced to adopt much stricter and dictatorial regimes, which would absolutely be a necessity. This would also rapidly alter the geopolitical landscape, but now you've got a set up where part of what perpetuates the wor is this new "dog eat dog" environment needed for nations to survive. You fight to conquer and exploit resources, and you conquer to continue to fight.

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Machines that process organisms for fuel. Use your tank to kill your enemy, feed your enemy to the tank, use the tank to kill your enemy,

>>85798605
those stories were pretty good, but I'm not a fan of femdom so some of them were a miss

>>85798734
>did they really win?
Yes.

>>85795737
Basically Twilight 2000 without nukes and irradiation. People fighting wars without any core leadership because everyone was bombed or assassinated, widespread anarchy with similar technology before the fall that is now more scarce and in control from cutthroat types, a difficulty keeping up intercommunication between geographic locations, a return to a barter system because money is difficult to codify into law (resembling pre-constitution America where all the colonies had different currencies and some vendors would simply refuse to sell to you because they personally found your colony's money worthless), widespread food shortages, and a dwindling population rate that doesn't seem to have hope of returning.

Oh yeah, and most of the remaining governments are fascist to some degree, even if they started out democratic.

>>85795737
as someone who is assembling a dried of resources planetary defense force (I use it as regular Imperial Guard) I'm interested in the effects in the armies and equipment in looooooong therm and constant conflicts, I suspect ammo becomes more scarce so melee fight is more prominent, equipment is repaired and patched endlessly and the cuts in the routes and factories makes sometimes being unable to suit the soldiers with all the standard equipment and forcing them to find alternatives, pipe guns, homemade grenades, missing parts of the uniform being replaced by civilian clothes...
Society becomes more brutal, feral even and the old fighting factions break into smaller ones in-fighting one each other for the last tank shell or water well

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>>85801674
I feel like we might see more pneumatic guns in service as well. No gunpowder fouling, hell no gunpowder to deal with at all. Once all the parts are in place all you need is compressed air to dome some enemy infantry, feels a lot more viable in the long term even if it might be finicky and maintenance-heavy in the short term.

>>85801699
are those things truly deadly? I'm yuropoor so I dont know how strong or deadly a weapon with compressed air can be, my only experience is the Metro games

>>85801792
In the Napoleonic era Girardoni air rifles were so good Napoleon himself declared anyone caught using them (they were used by his enemies) were to be considered assassins and executed. Not only could they shoot much faster, but the lack of explosive propellant meant they were much quieter too. The reason that they dropped off is that guns got better and eventually out competed them as air guns were more fragile and difficult to make, especially when it came to artillery, but now you can easily make deadly air guns. In a situation where even gunpowder might become rare, I can imagine guns which only need air to function would become pretty tempting.

>>85797577
Am I retarded or is that rifle ejecting entire cartridges rather than just casings?

>>85802057
nice catch, lmao

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Different disaster, similar consequences.

>>85795737
Literally Krieg.

File: Hell Divers by Nicholas S(...).pdf (2.17 MB, PDF)

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Helldivers series. Mobile airship cities to live out of range of attacks and radioactive wasteland.

File: Hell Divers II Ghosts by (...).pdf (5.09 MB, PDF)

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>>85805747

File: Hell Divers III Deliveran(...).pdf (1.86 MB, PDF)

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>>85805747
>>85805792

File: Hell Divers IV Wolves by (...).pdf (6.4 MB, PDF)

6.4 MB PDF

>>85805747
>>85805792
>>85805803

>>85802881
that was a nice read, thanks
>>85805747
never heard of that I should probably take a look

>>85805747
Please don't remind me of that garbage series

>>85795737
The Climate would be annihilated, though in which direction would be complicated.On the one hand, you're talking a fucking unfathomable amount of polution and greenhouse gasses being pumped into the atmosphere from all the coal and oil necessary to fuel that kind of war machine. On the other, there's been hypothesis put forward that particulant from firebombings and other mass devastation of urban areas could cause a volcanic winter.

On top of this, we're looking at leaded fuels being ubiquitous at this point in time. The brief period we used leaded fuels IRL did unfathomable damage that we're still suffering the effects of today, I can't even imagine the impact of using leaded fuels for centuries. Fuck, your war might have ended before resources ran out just because the entire world population may have become too brain damaged to continue it.

Radium is also probably fucking everywhere, since it was incredibly popular in timepieces and vehicle instrument panels to make them glow in the dark - like lead, there's a good chance nobody would stop to overhaul the production lines and phase out radium while there's a war on (we can solve that problem when it's over, after all.)

The industrial runoff to fuel all of this combined with chemical weapons has probably ruined the world's water supply and destroyed most of the arable land, if the catastrophic climat change didn't first. There is a very real chance that your world is borderline or completely unliveable.

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>>85795737
>it has been written
>you won't be able to read it though

>>85808866
Also watch sora no woto, semi-related and bredy gud

>>85795737
>Think a about the state of the world
>Forget the why of it, the important thing is that it happened.
>Except the most important parts

Well I get there would be refuges area
>No their fire bombed!

Supplies would have to come from
>No! Fire bombed! Every one at war!

40k is cute with this "ALWAYS WAR" thing but it get away with it because it has Sci-fi level of technology on planets that actually never see war for centuries, and when those one do get hit by war, other farming planets have centuries to rebuild and be prosperous again. And you can hand wave it because literal Sci-fi and magic.

Doing this on Earth? Only highlights the glaring flaws. This could only possibly happen over a decade or so before resources are burned through. We'd never even reach a century of war let alone several.
And you asking the REALISITIC outcome of such a world?

>>85800018
What is happening in this picture?

>>85797836
that tractor is a source of steel and iron; it's going be the source of most of his tools, his spades, his scythe, arrow heads, candle holders, his door (few trees left) etc

>>85795737
total climate collapse, agriculture largely untenable in the modern sense, owing to soil degritation, weather extremes, lack of manpower
huge cultural impact; the trauma would be felt foe generations to come. faiths would emerge that abhorred violence or were intensely nihilistic.
Education non existent outside of the nesscities for the production of war material: a pre modern mindset re emerges.
natural barriers formed by minefields on a huge scale: a community in a mountain pass might be isolated for generations by this.
I would imagine that it would be the death of government, a spent and exhausted way of life, many civil governments withering away during war, replaced by the millitary: feudalism, anarchy, syndicalism, theocracy the new norm.
disease on a huge scale.
advances in weaponry and medicine that might still be accessible to some

>>85809507
>natural barriers formed by minefields on a huge scale: a community in a mountain pass might be isolated for generations by this.
Reminds me of a justification for a points of light fantasy setting

> In the modern world humanity is everpresent. Nature only rules fully in the margins left by our mistakes. The minefields go untouched. They can be cleared, and the mines will decay. But you can never be sure. Flooding and rainstorms move the mines around. There is no set period of decay. We can never walk there again with perfect certainty.

>The DMZs, Minefields, Chemical Fields, Underground-Coal-Fires and Chernobyl Zones are the new wilderness, shaping the margins of the world with our mistakes.

>So we ask the D&D world. Why are there so many empty spaces? If empires fall and rise with such felicity, why only points of light?

>Too many margins and too many mistakes. Over long epochs of human history the marginal zones invisibly expand and interlock. We are squeezed ever closer. The wilderness is empty because it is dangerous. We made it that way. We cannot remember why, and we cannot go back.

>>85809354
machines using dummies for practice, it seems.

human spines dont bend like that.

>>85807681
Just up my alley then

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>>85795737
4chan said my post was spam, so here it is:

https://pastebin.com/Q1yTy3i8

>>85810525
fuck this is gold anon, thank you I will try to add some of those elements on my postapocaliptic minis

bump

>>85798734
https://youtu.be/OTitulpg9UA
Note how the BEF&allies were always a footnote on the Western front.

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>>85795737
Have you considered just taking Red Flood universe and amping up the loony factor? Basically WW1 lasts longer and does more damage which leads to schizo ideologies taking hold and the collapse of various states into petty warlordism.

The year is 175 Post Cataclysm. The North American continent finds itself home to two major powers.

One, contained in what was once California and a massive flotilla of ancient vessels and new wooden ones, is the Slaver Empire of Scientology. Bolstered back to an Industrial power after the Cataclysm by its stored examples and basic knowledge books on tools, medicine, and so forth, the leader of the SES is known as the Chairman, currently ruled by the Lord Chairman David Miscavige the Seventh. Seventh of his name, Lord of the Gold Base, Conqueror of the Los Angeles wasteland, Admiral of the Fleet, and Bringer of Xenu's wrath. The SES is known for its raids into what were once Canada and Mexico, against the struggling remnants of humanity there.

The other main power is that of Deseret, formed from the remnants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose mountain records bunker was capable of surviving a direct hit by a small nuclear weapon if needed. In addition to the genealogical records known to be stored inside, as well as the massive food and water provisions, there were also a wide range of examples were as well, of technology to speed progression along in the event of an apocalypse and the books on how to produce them, and the theoretical knowledge needed to maintain, build more, and advance the science behind them. Deseret maintains a series of walls and watchers along the border with the Scientologists, while ever seeking expand back into the death zones of the East Coast and the anarchy-filled barbarian tribes of the Midwest - the two most dangerous of which are known as the Chi-Bears and the Bay-Packs. Deseret missionary expeditions are a common occurrence in their effort to map what remains of old America, seeking both knowledge of the temporal and souls of those they view as needing Saved by Heavenly Father. Their leader styles himself Prophet and President.

>>85817550
Elsewhere in the world, the ruins of Europe are held together by a combination of the Papacy and the Conclave of Brussels, remnants of two former institutions, seeking to bring a defense of the region's borders. The Democratic Republic of Congo stretches across sub-Saharan Africa, bringing stability to the continent, at least for those who don't venture into the great deserts where no one remains alive.

Elsewhere, the entirety of Asia stands empty, a tomb from the Cataclysm, a bioweapon released during the throes of civilization's collapse, killing every life form larger than a fly...it is rumored that there are a series of ancient vaults below the empty streets of the People's Republic of China, which would put those of the SES, DRC, Deseret, and the Papal Union to shame...if any were able to find them and survive to bring them back. Expeditions have been launched by multiple nations over the last fifty years, but never has a single person returned, and those who live near the border of this ghostly continent speak of legends of something stalking in the shadows of the night. Rarely does a season go by, in the Papal Union, when at least one child is lost by giving into the taunts and dares of his fellows, to step over the border into the dead zones of Asia, only to return safely and then disappear from their bed later that night, no sign of what had taken them and no sound of an intruder.

A very few elders around the world, also speak of star-brothers and star-sisters. Of the inhabitants of the lunar bunker cities, the Bransonites, descended of the Virgin Lunar Expeditions, and of the Muskovy, descendants of the Technoking Elon and his followers, who live upon red Mars.

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>>85808121
>On top of this, we're looking at leaded fuels being ubiquitous at this point in time. The brief period we used leaded fuels IRL did unfathomable damage that we're still suffering the effects of today, I can't even imagine the impact of using leaded fuels for centuries. Fuck, your war might have ended before resources ran out just because the entire world population may have become too brain damaged to continue it.
>start eternal, global war
>whole world turns into retarded boomers
Huh

>>85811449
You're welcome.

Suddenly, genetic disorders sufficient to keep one from being conscripted become commonplace.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/10/22/elephants-evolving-have-no-tusks-years-poaching/6133380001/

File: Hell Divers 5 Captives by(...).pdf (1.72 MB, PDF)

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>>85805814

>>85808121
>Radium is also probably fucking everywhere, since it was incredibly popular in timepieces and vehicle instrument panels to make them glow in the dark - like lead, there's a good chance nobody would stop to overhaul the production lines and phase out radium while there's a war on (we can solve that problem when it's over, after all.)
If Marie and Pierre Curie had been born 20 years earlier but otherwise progressed through their work at the same rate during their lifetimes, WWI would have been fought with radium artillery, not because it was effective or safe to fire, but just because, the same way that chemical weapons were used even though they were expensive, dirty, dangerous and particularly ineffective even at area denial once the enemy had some idea of what to expect.

>>85820572
>radium artillery
jesus christ that's awful I'll be using it immediately

>>85801854
I feel like you could fuck up someone pretty good shooting ball bearings out if a tuned up paintball gun.

>>85801792
They were great. A lot of shots in a short amount of time at a great range, no smoke, and a lot less noise.
They were difficult to maintain, though. They didn't break particularly often, it's just that there was a limit to what you could fix in the field.

>>85796313
Hmmm i have an idea, ww1 "Mengele" succesfully manages to make twins
>>85796738
Maybe medical research is improved by someone or "something" but chemistry and physics labs are destroyed or burned or just explode cause they pushed the limits so no nuclear and only a couple of jetplanes, idk

the game Foxhole is about this. Two giga empires spending decades in an on-and-off industrial war.

>>85797836
Please tell me you're a writer and planning to do something more with this.

>>85795737
World War 2 caused demographic shifts in gender and ethnic makeup of areas that exist 80 odd years later. It would be simply impossible for it continue much longer than it did.

If you look at the general momentum of the World War 2 it is a story of massive, sweeping gains followed by equally massive casualties. There would be no way for Germany to fight back from the losses they suffered being pushed back from the East, nor would the Soviets have been capable of sustaining another campaign like Barbarossa if they were on the losing side of it. The only way it could continue to any scale similar to the actual war would be an invasion of America that was equally disastrous as the Eastern Front.

Otherwise every landscape and population was simply too exhausted for anything to continue.

>>85823719
Provided the necessary psychotic mentality exists it could be possible if the fighting petered on and off over generations. A 16 year old can fight, in a century you can fit roughly six generations of sixteen year olds. So, the first phase of the war happens and most of the men die. Then, you artificially inseminate or otherwise impregnate all the remaining women, and after 16 years of low level skirmishing with what you have left the next generation is developed enough to hold a gun and mount an offensive. Then the massive casualties once more slow the war, and the cycle begins again.

A group of hyper-competent soldiers who still think the war is on because they haven't left the trenches and occasionally an "enemy" runs towards them and they kill him. In reality these "enemies" are messengers sent to tell them to go home.

Raiders who float above the battlefield in an outpost made of lashed together zeppelins.
From above they look for signs of settlements or recent conflict.
On spying it they dispatch a single zeppelin, by night if possible and from it they rappel down en masses out of the looming dark above.
They take anything they can lay hands upon and tie rope to.
Clean soil and good fertilizer is hard to come by and being above the clouds allows them some meager areas with which to grow produce on dedicated sections of the zeppelins.
Of course when the harvests are lean, the protein of an untainted corpse can come in handy too.

>>85824583
shit like this happened to some ww2 Japs, the last survivor was like one decade alone after the war thinking the stuff didn't end

>>85824583
>>85825018
This guy?
https://www.history.co.uk/shows/lost-gold-of-wwii/articles/the-japanese-soldier-who-kept-on-fighting-after-ww2-had-finished

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Don't forget WW1 was also fought with pikes

>The war in the trenches saw the reintroduction of many weapons long thought obsolete. Staff weapons had not been a serious battlefield arm of the infantry since the development of the bayonet in the 17th century. However, the nature of warfare on the Western Front saw all types of ancient weapons revived.

>The pike had survived in naval warfare however and new patterns British of boarding pikes were being created as late as 1894. Much like repelling hostile boarders of an enemy ship, trench pikes fulfilled a similar function. Of a handy length, they could have been used for defending trenches from enemy raids or assaults, perhaps left at strategic points so they could be quickly grabbed by defenders. The broad disc-like shoe on the bottom would have prevented the weapon from sinking into the mud of a trench and its blade covering would have protected it from the elements. A simple pike would be much better suited, and less dangerous, to being left exposed and readily to hand like this than a rifle. Lighter and more manoverable in the cramped conditions of a trench than a rifle fitted with bayonet, its simplicity and total lack of working parts meant it could function in all conditions.

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>>85826237
wrong image whoops, this is the full one

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>>85826248
trench clubs too

>>85826237
this is the first time I heard about spears in ww1, I heard about clubs and spiked gauntlets but never spears, WW1 had the mix of medieval elements and industrial warfare

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>>85826487
it was a silly time

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>>85826237
>>85826248
>>85826487
The Italian Alpini had bayonets fixed into shafts. I think the gadget at the tip is a wire cutter, so in fact we have here a wire cutter in a pole with a bayonet for self-defense.

Btw, there were attempts to develop wire cutters fixed to rifles. One of them was supposed to enable the soldier to cut the wire with a shot, and other used the bayonet's blade to do the cutting.

>>85830010
Baltimore is great

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>>85798076
>Each man gets more armor and firepower.
exo-knights sworn to the defense of individuals like in >>85797836

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I love this thread to death.

>>85822193
so basically what you save is the powder? because you still need to make the solid part of the bullet
Can't you make powder for modern bullets using what Brits call "Salt Peter"? it's an explosive substance made from literal shit

>>85833942
could be that stuff is more valuable as fertilizer than gunpowder if the world is really fucked up. Plus, culture would evolve after using airguns for ages. You could stereotype powder guns as barbaric, smelly, wasteful weapons that make you deaf when you use them.

>>85833942
>Can't you make powder for modern bullets using what Brits call "Salt Peter"?
No. Saltpeter is potassium nitrate and is used to make black powder. You aren't going to have good results with black powder in a modern weapon.

File: The Gripping Hand by Larr(...).pdf (1.19 MB, PDF)

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>>85834221
>“You fight like vermin,” Harlequin said with contempt.
>Jennifer flinched at the insult, then wondered at its meaning. But the Mediator had kicked himself aft without giving her a chance to reply. Now the Moties huddled, chattering, and Jennifer turned back to the display.
>There had been a battle. Ships had died. It looked as if the intruders had won.
>Harlequin was back, with the Warrior hovering behind her. “I apologize,” the Motie said. “I understand now. You throw away resources like vermin, but it is not that you are animals. You have endless resources.”

>>85823636
no I'm a shitposter and I plan to post about steampunk and maybe grimlocks.

>>85795737
Back to the dark age, easily accessible resources would be consumed rapidly leading to catastrophic famines, fuel and energy shortages, constant war spending would lead to rapid hyperinflation, impossible to pay debts and economic collapse of all involved powers, rising desperation and refusal to surrender on all sides would mean the unrestricted use of both tactical and strategic WMDs involving all of the CBRNs, unprotected population centers and points of major contest would be rendered uninhabitable for human life. Local environmental contamination would kill tens or hundreds of thousands as a mere byproduct.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_computer

The most obvious example is the proliferation of goods descended from originally "ersatz" goods which have since evolved to become the standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ersatz_good. No one knows what real coffee is anymore, what they call coffee is made of catnip and chicory. The vast majority of commoners are often on either opium or amphetamines, drug use proliferates. The "nobility" are often descended from the original officers from when the Great War was comprehensible to the human mind. Corpse factories are real and either accepted or secretly accepted but publicly decried. Mothers teach their children to recognize places a minefield might exist or when an artillery strike might occur. Everyone's nerves are frayed. The Tsan Chan CoC supplement's Way vs Sanity system is similar to how people live in this setting, see pic

Pigeons carried messages so hawks hunted them. It would have been simple enough if starving soldiers poaching squab hadn't thinned the flocks. Some smart alec brought corvids into it and though the canny bastards avoided getting eaten they also gave feathermail a life of its own. With high command having forsaken the telegraph rookeries were the only way for them to communicate (and more importantly display displeasure without firing on their own men) and men swiftly learned not to eat birds with messages on pain of bombardment. Then wild crows began wearing fake messages and when privates began checking the notes themselves, learned to mimic writing.

>>85837496
what games you can play with it, Doom?

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definitely needs some fucked up tanks

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>>85841755

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>>85841769

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>>85842034
I imagine such a world would have little in the way of mass production or standardization, so what nations do possess the industrial capacity to build tanks slap together their own weird designs that only make sense for their unique circumstances (or they just have no clue what they're doing), leading to a proliferation of weird models and doctrines.

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>>85842045
And lest we forget
http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/609fdbcdb4ed6-pov-inside-the-gyro-electric-destroyer-as-it-appro.php

>>85842076
the fair wheel of death

>>85841769
there is no way that was a serious design

>>85838398
if someone was born into that world, could they be more resilient to shellshock since since young the explosions and death was a common thing?

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>>85843576
>there is no way that was a serious design

>There are inherent problems in a tank design that involve compromises. Whether operating on wheels or tracks, movement is limited to the direction the vehicle faces and a change in direction involves turning or reversing. Protection for the vehicle is concentrated forwards to protect from fire from the front, as it would be too heavy and impractical to add equivalent protection to the sides and especially to the rear. Thus, a conventionally laid out combat vehicle is more vulnerable from the sides and rear than the front. Any turning or change in direction by the vehicle might expose that weakness to an enemy. A vehicle on which all sides are equally armored does not have to worry about the direction of an enemy attack or even turn to face it.

>The same is true for armament. With a vehicle carrying a turret armament, it has to be turned to target a specific threat, and, once more, the maximum of protection faces the enemy threat. Armor protection, as both weight and bulk have to be shared between the turret and hull, provides a challenge for a designer as to where to use the armor for optimal value.

>>85843731

>With those two primary considerations in mind, the conventional vehicle cannot deliver equal protection and firepower all round – for Wallace, the solution was effectively a simple one. Create a vehicle that was symmetrical in defensive capabilities and offensive alike, and this meant a circular body. This body would make the tank especially valuable in a defensive situation, where it could simply ‘sit’ as a bunker to guard or control an area and then, when the job was done, move on.

>The propulsion of such a vehicle could not rely upon tracks or wheels, as it would not be able to change direction quickly enough in the mind of Wallace. Instead, he opted for a single leg which was located in the center of the doughnut-shaped machine. With this, he felt, the tank would be able to “oscillate” to move, with all-round gun positions guaranteeing that firepower constantly faced the enemy. Thus, the vehicle could advance, retreat or move sideways without regard to enemy position or flanking attacks.

>>85843743
>Whilst there have been designs for walking machines before, they usually relied upon continual support by their legs even when not in motion. More than that, they also had to depend on at least 2 legs for bipedal stability or more in motion. Wallace eschewed such ideas or any concept of motion short of brachiation from nature and went instead for a system using one leg. It is obviously not possible to walk on one leg without a hopping motion, but the design did not produce some giant pogo stick type of movement. It instead had an unusual undulating step where the second ‘foot’ would be the vehicle itself.

>Consisting of a giant doughnut shape, with the single leg occupying the central recess in the bottom, at rest, the vehicle sat on the ground as a giant round fort or pillbox. During this phase, the leg could move forwards to a position in the direction of movement and then lift the whole vehicle off the ground, bringing it upwards and in the direction of travel. Now having moved a short distance ahead or in any direction, the leg would collapse slowly bringing the vehicle back to rest on the ground. The process would then repeat for as long as may be needed to move from location A to B. At all times whilst sitting on the ground, the leg was completely enclosed by the body and the vehicle provided both maximum firepower and maximum protection in all dimensions simultaneously. Using four large wheels, one on each side of the leg, and an element of rotation within the housing for it, the leg could be prepositioned in any direction in anticipation of a move that would be unknown to anyone outside the machine by observing it.

>>85810525
>Trench art might become the only acceptable art, using discarded materials that can't be recycled.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Trench_art

>Zone Rouge becomes the standard landscape.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zone-of-france-a-forbidden-no-mans-land-poisoned-by-war/

>Hardy goats and camels become the common livestock, scrambling around ruins and other rough terrain to eat all the kudzu, old ropes, carrion and whatever they can. Goats navigate rough terrain better, but camels eat anything and can survive without food or water for months.
https://wildlifefaq.com/what-do-camels-eat/

>People are going to try to develop some sort of cloning and/or accelerated aging.

>Civilians don't exist. You fight by either producing materiel and supplies, or by using them to kill the enemy.

>A lot of round water ponds around. All of them are craters filled by rainwater. The bigger ones were made by sappers with tons of explosives under enemy trenches.

>>85810525
>>85846069
>The average community is mostly underground. But elaborate bunkers are for fighters. Workers have something more like the tunnels dug in Vietnam and Iwo Jima. The underground towns in Turkey are also a good inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Underground_cities_in_Cappadocia

>Fragmentation grenades and mines have glass/pottery casings, like the ones the Japanese were producing for defending Tokyo Bay. This allows for metals and wood to be used for more important purposes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_4_grenade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasmine_43
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topfmine
>(This one had a mildly radioactive paint, so enemy metal detectors wouldn't find it, but your soldiers could use Geiger counters to figure out where the mines were)

>Fungi, bugs and bacterial by-products will be the staples. Stuff like protein made by bacteria processing methane. The book "Feeding Everyone No Matter What" expands the options.

>Food storage is going to depend more on fermentation, like they do in Vietnam.
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/02/vietnams-low-tech-fermentation-food-system-takes-advantage-of-decay.html

>Compost storage doubles as house heating.
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/reinventing-the-greenhouse.html

>Shell-shock and dissent is treated by lobotomies, creating docile workers/slaves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933933/?page=8
https://gizmodo.com/a-disturbing-care-pamphlet-given-to-families-of-lobot-1481219125

>If there's no camera surveillance, panopticons are going to become more popular for the factories where workers live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

>Siege mentality is the common mentality.
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-siege-mentality

>Stuff like the Austrian WW2 air gun would be widespread.
http://www.beemans.net/images/Austrian%20airguns.htm

>>85846069
>>85846083
Great stuff, anon! Thank you!

>>85820572
>>85820637
In a similar vein, after double checking some dates (And finding out about Marie Curie's Mobile X-Ray trucks and Radon wound Sterilizer Needles during the war) it turns out that a dirty bomb would have been possible during WW1 had the powers known the effects of radiation poisoning. And considering their willingness to use anything and everything they could I don't have a doubt in my mind that they would have made use of primitive nuclear weaponry like dirty bombs.

>>85809579
I like this train of thought.

>>85830010
Thank you. I've been trying to find something to use as a reference for Never Going Home

>>85796313
not with that attitude

At least in WWI the children of the British elites were right there in the trenches with the proles, and suffered proportionally higher casualties. I sometimes wonder if that kind of thing played a role in the increasingly sociopathic nature of western society: all the people who believed in duty and solidarity with one's countrymen and that kind of thing went off and drowned in the mud of Passchendaele and Verdun, and the future was left to the bone spurs crowd.

>>85853707
If anything it's less to do with the nobility dying and more to do with all the people who would volunteer to go to war dying. Conscription happens AFTER you run out of volunteers and 2 generations of men were conscripted. The selective pressure for draft dodgers certainly existed.

>>85853707
That's actually a depressing thought. The counterpoint is that the UK dismantled its Empire after WWII, which seems antithetical to the me-myself-and-I mind set.

File: Hell Divers 6 Allegiance (...).pdf (1.68 MB, PDF)

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>>85820560

You're highly likely to have food supply issues with pollution, targeted attacks and emphasis on other forms of industry. I think you could take some tips from North Korean famines
>population largely desensitised to death at least of strangers
>money is largely redundant as securing rations is the only goal for your average person and money can't buy food
>rations are awarded by the state based on your utility. If you work in the army, you won't starve. If you are pregnant, you won't starve. If you are a key worker, you won't starve immediately. Everyone else is in it for themselves
>only the brutal or cunning survive. If you feel any sympathy for your fellow man, you'll starve with them
>people will eat anything with nutritional value so most organisms have been hunted to extinction from frogs to flies

I'd add that you're highly likely to see a shortened lifespan as letting children grow into adults is a huge waste of resources. a 21 year old isn't much better at holding a rifle than a 14 year old after all. Teenage boys ought to be sent to war asap and the girls need to produce more boys. That's the best way to avoid starving. Pretty much everyone has peaked in their utility by 40 so has already starved or is sent to suicide themselves in an attack on enemy trenches so a healthy and younger person can live instead.

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dont forget german sniper masks

>>85857945
how can they shoot with that? looks like Cobra commander

>>85855532
in the setting of the planet I am making money is made with a mix of resin and clay to save metals, I think it has sense

What do you guys think about religion/cults in this kind of setting, is people too practical for faith in a postapocaliptical/resource depleted planet or the misery and desperation makes people "want to believe" in stuff more stronger?

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>>85859235

>>85859235
>how can they shoot with that? looks like Cobra commander
curl your finger until there's only a spec-sized gap and hold it up close to your eye

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>>85859235

>>85795737
UXO everywhere. WW1 lasted less than 10 years and France is still disposing of tons of UXO from that war. Area that hasn't been actively reclaimed by professionals should be assumed to be full of dud shells, mines, stashed rounds, etc. Even the reclaimed areas will occasionally find a bomb that got buried under 20ft of dirt and was only found when construction crews started digging a new sewer.
Bodies might also be an issue. Russia has a problem where there are places where nothing grows because there are too many German corpses in the ground. The bones destroy the soil composition, or something like that.

>>85859816
>Bodies might also be an issue. Russia has a problem where there are places where nothing grows because there are too many German corpses in the ground. The bones destroy the soil composition, or something like that.
that's fucking metal

>>85859235
>What do you guys think about religion/cults in this kind of setting
Messianic expectations of a savior who'll end the war, either by winning it (officially aproved) or overthrowing the tyrants who continue to order it fought (underground dissident faith).

>>85857945
>>85859235
>>85859659
Shooting's easy, aiming's the problem. But if your enemies are all nicely lined up in a trench in front of yours, less of a problem.

>Underwars.
When the dwarves were drawn into the wars of trench and mud, it was with a degree of surety and smug confidence. After all, if above ground is filled with danger, why not go below ground? They were experts in this matter after all, it should be a cinch.

They gained a good three miles with shock tunneling, before they were stopped.

The problem is, is that dwarves were not the only masters of subterranean tactics. It didn't take long for an enterprising goblin to make offers of a way to stymie the dwarven forces.

To be sure, dwarves may make their tunnels surer and swifter, and may be the stronger fighters...

But they weren't willing and able to dig flare shafts to signal for magical bombardment to collapse the tunnels.

The losses in those first few pitched battles were atrocious. The goblins, thanks to their collective beliefs and amoral masters, did not mind their casualties as compared to the dwarves, who felt each loss to be irreplaceable. And aside from that, even if the dwarves were loathe to admit it, the goblins had lost less than the dwarves in each confrontation.

Tunnelers are still being used; they're simply too effective to throw away. But now they are cautious, far less armored, and armed with far less hope.

They say that when dwarves die, over the course of a hundred years, their bodies harden, and turn to iron, or if they were particularly noble, gold.

A century later, there maybe some very rich mines in these battlefields.

Some friendly necromancers points out to the commanders that if all they need the soldiers to do is fight, they've got a cheap means of getting the dead back into action...and as a bonus, feeding and morale with those "resurrected" troops isn't so much of a problem anymore. They'd get a horrified reaction at first, but as the war goes on, one side gets into a temporarily desperate situation and raises some zombies or skeletons. It escalates from there, since the other side can't let their opponents get that advantage, and gradually there's more dead than living in the trenches...but the dead are still fighting.

Start partway through that chain of events, and there's plenty of interesting stuff to do - investigate the first reports of undead, hunt down and capture some enemy necromancers, maybe find out that the necros on both sides are working together with bigger plans in mind...

This whole thread but not one mention of the legends of cannibalistic deserters which dwelt underground in no man's land. If the whole world becomes a no man's land, imagine how those fucks might evolve. A horde of amoral pillagers descended from the mad and craven, blessed with a wicked intuition for the ways of war. It could be one of the reasons post-war nations are so brutal. If they aren't brutal enough and end up weakened for it, the trench ghouls descend like scavengers to take their women for breeding, children for slaves, and men for meat, along with everything else that isn't nailed down.

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>>85809354
https://www.wired.com/2009/07/military-researchers-develop-corpse-eating-robots/

>>85795737
uhhh excuse me sweaty this isn't traditional games

>>85877629
Worldbuilding counts.

>>85802881
Thanks for sharing

>>85810525
Very nice, thanks

>>85854098
They were forced to dismantle the Empire by a combination of poverty and the USA. Look up the Suez Crisis if you're interested.

>>85796944
>Women being sent to front to die
They would become back one of homefront and be alwaya pregnant.
Old women who can't reproduce are sent to the front.
Sounds a bit like magical realm.
For some reason wars and such make people breed faster.

>>85882731
>Women being sent to front to die
>They would become back one of homefront and be alwaya pregnant.
Good. It's called motivation. Create more cannon fodder or you'll be used as cannon fodder.

>>85885526
Don't forget there'd be an out for men as well, at least in intelligent factions. Aces were rotated out of combat after a certain amount of kills, because that experience was better used training new recruits rather than being sent to battle continuously until expended. So, if one could distinguish himself well enough in one way or another, they could become a valuable asset in training new recruits. It likely isn't that simple, of course, and would also be partly reliant on luck. Sometimes talented people die pointlessly and the guys who can fake competence get the promotion.

>>85802057
No, God is sending him bullets from heaven, directly into the receiver

>>85795737
Ecologically we'd be completely fucked, war tends to be one of the worst things for atmospheric pollution and habitat destruction

What does the rest of the world look like, away from the European fronts?

>>85798734
In WW1 France had the largest army out of any nation involved in the war. 10 million men. To match those numbers that would have required every man, regardless of age, in the British isles to have been sent to france. Even using all its colonies (including 1 million canadians) the british army couldn't even pass 4 million men.

WW2 is the source of the meme of the French being cheese eating surrender monkies

>>85891647
>Asia
Chinese civil war period but everywhere
>North America
continental endless Great Depression death spiral
>South America
continental Paraguayan War
>Australia
return to convict gang rule
>Middle East
return to nomadic tribalism (except for the ottomans which just collapse like Europe)
>Africa
Africa

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>>85891816
>Africa

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Pic related is after a few years (and not all of that time in that particular location). After multiple centuries I'd imagine layers and layers of corpses, rubble and broken equipment all sunken in mud with artillery fire occasionally revealing a portion. Just traversing the land would be dangerous when mud has unknown depths and is filled with explosives, wires and poking rusty objects, never mind doing it under enemy fire.