NEW Adventure Module!

[Project_Sardonicus]

https://soundcloud.com/user-494087291

I mentioned this excellent resource else where, but there's a few episodes on the UK's plan to use converted car ferries as floating bunkers. I wonder if the project would think of something similar? Would this be a logical extension of some of the elements in Daedolos?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...lear-planning/

[mmartin798]

Floating bases were talked about in a different thread. There is a company that will make a luxury yacht that is basically an artificial island build on a SWATH style hull. I don't think any consensus was reached.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

Floating bases were talked about in a different thread. There is a company that will make a luxury yacht that is basically an artificial island build on a SWATH style hull. I don't think any consensus was reached.

I suspect you're referring to the proposed "Mobile Continuity Force", described in the "Professional Notes" section of the US Naval Institute "Proceedings" (July, 1984) and excellently depicted as the "Mobile Continuity Force" vessel on the Shipbucket web site. The USNI article isn't easily available online, but the Shipbucket page is:

http://www.shipbucket.com/drawings/7048

The old Shipbucket forum had a detailed description of the crew, weapons, sensors, etc. ... they're recently re-mixed everything and the old forum pages don't seem to be around.

Our Classic-era campaign has quick-and-easy conversions of T-2 tankers (they were turbine-electric vessels, and low cost in the early 1980s) rather than a built-from-the-ground-up design. http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/5264...uction%20Fleet

The tanker conversion description is based on the vehicle transport vessels built for the government in the late 1960s (from earlier conversions to railcar carriers).

https://www.t2tanker.org/ships/t2active.html

https://www.t2tanker.org/ships/t2convstory.html

The "Lewis B. Puller" is sorta similar, though perhaps a bit too blatant for the Morrow Project to get away with:

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/ho...pte-1658743256

--
Michael B.

[Project_Sardonicus]

I was fascinated by what a simple idea it was, like Airforce 1 but a fraction of the cost and you could stay at see for weeks (well years with a fusion drive). In the UK it seemed to have beaten this whole fear following the Nuclear Scientists debacle that all of the ROTOR shelters would have been anhiliated on day one. And as such three converted car ferries became the biggest secret in the Nuclear War plan.

Of course the other thing is the amount of work that went into these floating bunkers was pretty minimal.

So it's not impossible another corporation or even national guard could have done their own conversions.

Now I think about it Russia has some truly monsterous nuclear powered ice breakers and their fuel would last for decades. So maybe out there is the remenants of the Russian Navy prowling the Atlantic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclea...red_icebreaker

[Gelrir]

More reading of the "Operation: Daidalos" book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Chapter Six, "Enemy Troop Deployments", goes on for five pages in detail about all the presumed opponent nations, with information about troop numbers, weapon types, morale ratings, etc. There are also two pages giving game mechanics for the enemies' weapons. However, the Daidalos city-state doesn't have anything like this amount of detail provided:

(pg. 76-77): "Stored in the armory is an extensive collection of well-maintained 21st Century vintage weapons as well as weapons of Daidalos manufacture. The vehicles consist mainly of alcohol-fueled jeeps armed with pintlemounted .50 caliber machine guns. One jeep sports a Mk 19 40mm grenade launcher." That's pretty much it for information about their equipment.

It's implied that Daildalos has at least two hundred soldiers (based on a statement of barracks size); and apparently everyone serves for 5 years in the military after high school or college (pg. 92, "... completed their schooling and are both currently serving their compulsory five-year terms in the [Diadalos Defense Force]" (though a character description elsewhere implies that the compulsory service was once only two years).

That brings me to another issue: the stated scientific and technical capacity seems very "off" for a 6,000 person community (including children). We are told there are seismologists, geologists, astronomers, mathematicians, botanists, agronomists, chemists, rocket scientists, at least five grades of military officers up to the rank of general, a hospital "... as advanced as any pre-war hospital" and "Discoveries in botany and agronomy rival advances made just before the War."

Based on circa-1900 American population, you'd have age groups:

• age under 20: 2,664
• age 20 to 44: 2,268
• age 45 to 64: 822
• age 65 or more: 246

The "five years" compulsory service would give a military of 472 persons (if nobody's exempt) plus "lifers": say 500 total. That's pretty close to the level of militia to population in the United States during the War of 1812.

In comparison, Israel required military service of 3 years for men and 2 years for women from 1968 to 2015, starting at age 18, with about a 26% exemption/refusal rate. There's also some form of reserve service obligation.

From the 1940 U.S. Census, the work force consisted of 79.1% of the males age 14 or more, and 25.8% of the females 14 years of age or more. For Daidalos, that gives 2,372 males and 774 females in the work force, a total of 3,146 workers.

• professional persons (engineers, lawyers, judges, teachers, all medical professionals, draftsmen, librarians, musicians, etc. except college instructors as below) are 5.1% = 160, of which at least 40 will be elementary and high school teachers
• college presidents, professors and instructors are 0.1% ... about 6, certainly less than 10 for a population of 6,000.
• farm owners and farm managers are 13.7% = 431
• proprietors, managers and government officials (including professional soldiers and naval forces) are 7.6% = 239
• clerical and sales workers are 11.7% = 368
• craftsmen are 14.8% = 465
• manufacturing workers are 17.2% = 541
• domestic and service (barbers, cooks, cleaning and laundry, waiters, bartenders, prostitutes, etc.) are 4.3% = 135
• protective and emergency workers (police, firemen, guards) are 1.5% = 47
• farm laborers (including unpaid family members) are 7.6% = 239
• laborers (fishermen, longshoremen, etc.; but not including farms and mines) are 10.9% = 342
• not reported/not classified are 6% = 189

I have trouble believing this community can educate and support multiple seismologists and geophysicists, for example.

Also, if their military of 500 persons with "well-maintained 21st Century vintage weapons" has a good supply of ammunition (and they've had decades of knowledge about the threat of the Purge to prepare), defeating in defensive battles an enemy of 6,000 (mostly armed with bows, swords, spears, and some muskets) should be quite possible. Daidalos is mentioned to have used booby traps and land mines in previous wars.

I wonder if a short chapter about the Daidalosi military got misplaced or cut for space?

--
Michael B.

[mmartin798]

I only have one question about your analysis. If Daidalos is more or less a late 20th/early 21st century city-state, then why are you using 1940 census data? It is likely they have additional occupations that didn't exist in 1940. The 2000 census includes information workers and would include effects that has on the other occupations. For example:

Occupation / 2000 data / 1940 data
Professional persons / 20.2% / 5.1%
Farming / 0.7% / 13.7

Both of these examples were greatly affected by technological advances in the latter half of the 20th century. Though you will have to take some care, as the 2000 census data only includes civilians, so you will have to pull the military out of the population total before doing the break down.

[Gelrir]

Originally Posted by mmartin798

I only have one question about your analysis. If Daidalos is more or less a late 20th/early 21st century city-state, then why are you using 1940 census data? It is likely they have additional occupations that didn't exist in 1940. The 2000 census includes information workers and would include effects that has on the other occupations. For example:

Occupation / 2000 data / 1940 data
Professional persons / 20.2% / 5.1%
Farming / 0.7% / 13.7

Both of these examples were greatly affected by technological advances in the latter half of the 20th century. Though you will have to take some care, as the 2000 census data only includes civilians, so you will have to pull the military out of the population total before doing the break down.

Good point! But I don't consider Daidalos to just be 6,000 divided by 327 million of the 21st Century United States.

The use of 1940 data seemed a better fit to a community of only 6,000 persons that can't import technical goods (I thought about using 1930, but that would be skewed by the Great Depression). I doubt they can build (or import from China) lots of combine harvesters or other mechanized farm equipment (horses are mentioned as the usual form of transport); and I don't see them as benefiting from online tech support and other 'information technology" very much.

21st Century America (the nation covered by the 2010 census) depends heavily on foreign nations (outside of the census) for manufacturing: steel, electronics, merchant ships (and shipping), heavy machinery, etc. An independent nation is going to have to shift to self-sufficiency (at least for technical goods); they mention (pg 76) that the Daidalosi "own very little that an average person of the late 20th Century would have"; and even within Daidalos barter is still commonly used. So I chose 1940 U.S. as an example of a nation not-very-dependent on foreign manufactures or mass production of every convenience.

One of my issues with the book is the lack of information on how this tiny nation constructs things, feeds itself, educates an amazing number of college students, etc. ... quadrupling the number of professionals (college instructors, medical specialists, web application designers, seismologists, etc.) to a 21st Century America level would come at the expense of farmers, laborers, and factory workers.

Another military note: the Daidalos Defense Force has claymore mines, also.

--
Michael B.

[Gelrir]

SPOILERS

So, if you want to present Daidalos as having the same occupation patterns as 2017 America:

153.3 million employed (age 16 or more) out of 327 million (thus excluding military in both cases) translates to 2,812 persons employed out of 6,000 in Daidalos. Thus:

• management: 326
• business and finance: 139
• professional: 652 (including 169 in education, training and library occupations, and 88 in computer and mathematical occupations, and 168 in medical/healthcare occupations)
• service: 490 (including 122 in police, fire, and other protective occupations)
• sales and office: 616
• natural resources, construction and maintenance: 260 (including 22 in farming, fishing and forestry occupations)
• production, transportation and material moving: 328 (including 155 in production occupations)

For Daidalos, you can then add about 500 persons on active military duty to that. Thus 22 farmers, fishermen and forestry workers support the community (and produce a marketable surplus).

--
Michael B.

[mmartin798]

22 farmers is a bit on the light side. In 2010, 1 farmer could feed 155 people which would mean 22 farmers could feed 3410 people. A rate of 1 farmer to 100 people is probably closer to what Daidalos could do assuming methods approximating 1980-1990 agriculture, so you would need 60 farmers.

[Gelrir]

That low number of farmers (in 21st Century U.S.A.) is related to global trade and industry. Daidalos has developed high-yield crop species in several areas, it seems. The community will have to produce machines locally, however (there's no hint of trade for such things).

In 2015 United States there were 1.25 hectares of agricultural land per person; so for 6,000 persons it's 7,500 hectares.

FERTILIZERS, PESTICIDES, ETC.

A hectare of 2015 American agriculture gets an average of 137 kg of fertilizers (phosphates, nitrates, and potash); and a few kg per hectare of herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Daidalos clearly has a very active chemical industry (especially for a nation with one working oil well).

In the 21st Century6, phosphate rock is the raw material for most commercial phosphate fertilizers. Hydrogen from natural gas is a major component of ammonia production (which in turn feeds nitrogen production); nitric acid production also limits this. Potassium chloride is the usual source for making potash fertilizer; for the U.S., it mostly comes from Saskatchewan.

PHOSPHORUS

Could be made from soy husks, rock phosphates (if available), urine or bone ash; about 1% of animal live weight is phosphorus, and 85% of it is in bones and teeth. Used in chemical preparations, in steel and bronze production, for making matches, for making pottery, in baking powder, and in limited quantities for fertilizers.

Production of white phosphorus from urine (using charcoal or silicate sand) is easy. Red phosphorus is obtained from white phosphorus be heating it to 482 F in an container entirely free of air; this is a delicate operation. White phosphorus is very toxic, and liable to catch fire in air; it should be stored in mineral oil or water. Red phosphorus is stable in air.

If sulfuric acid is available, a more efficient process can be used to produce phosphorus from phosphate rock or bones. The bones or rock are dissolved in sulphuric acid to give phosphoric acid and calcium sulphate as a by-product. The acid is concentrated, mixed with 25% of its mass with carbon, dried in iron pots to a black powder and then distilled over and over in clay retorts. It is condensed into 10-15 kg blocks called 'cheeses'. After refining and casting into sticks (all under water to prevent it catching fire), the product is ready to be shipped, stored in water or mineral oil.

AMMONIA

Production of ammonia might be achieved by heating and distillation of nitrogenous plant waste, animal and human dung and urine. Guano (sea-bird dung) is particularly rich in ammonia. If you've got coal, ammonia can also made by coal distillation -- distilling one ton of coal produces 700 kg of coke, 100 liters of ammonium hydroxide, 50 liters of coal tar, 400 cubic meters of coal gas (used for lighting and heating), 30 kilograms of sulfur and about 10 kilograms of vanadium pentoxide.

NITRATES

These might be produced in compost piles of manure, ashes, straw, urine etc.. These "saltpeter plantations" willl be supremely smelly, and thus several kilometers outside of town; usually near farms with lots of livestock. Potash is (in essence) combined with the nitrates to provide the potassium component of potassium nitrate, used in turn for making black powder. For a VERY crude first approximation, a barrel of potash combined with the nitrates from the plantation produces a barrel of potassium nitrate.

Since potassium nitrate is 75% of black powder by weight, a barrel of it (~200 kg) will end up being part of 266 kg of black powder.

POTASH

This can be made at "asheries", for chemical use and for fertilizers, brewing, bleaching textiles, black powder production, glassmaking, etc.. The production process starts with burning hardwood trees and leaching the ashes in water. Partway through the process, you get lye (useful for making soap); this is further boiled down to make potash. Leaching the wood ash, and the conversion of nitrates to potassium nitrate (aka saltpeter, or nitrate of potash), creates a lot of water pollution.

FARM EQUIPMENT

Tractors, planters and harvesters are an important part of modern farm efficiency (both in terms of yield per acre and number of persons required). In 2007 the number of wheel and crawler tractors (excluding garden tractors) in use by agriculture in the U.S. was very close to 1 per square kilometer of agricultural land.

An example of an Iowa corn and soybean farmer (the farm is operated by the owner, his son and one employee): they need a semi-truck, a tractor, a planter, and a harvester, along with various towed or attached items, all to deal with 1400 hectares of land. These vehicles have to be replaced every ten or fifteen years; some are shared with other farms, but other vehicles not listed are leased or borrowed temporarily.

So, it's pretty much one "big equipment item" per farm industry person (which sort of matches the whole "mechanized farming" concept); so you need 60 to 75 large motorized vehicles. Combine harvesters weigh from 1.5 to 25 tons usually; so these are "car or truck" size vehicles. If they're replaced every 12 years, they need to make 5 or 6 per year. Thus there needs to be several assembly lines (for tractors, combines, planters, and trucks); a steel mill to produce tubing, sheet, structural, etc. steel; a source for rubber tires; fuel (methanol or whatever); lubricants; glass; wire; batteries; etc.

LOCATION

The scenario sort of implies that all this high-yield agriculture is in the San Gabriel Mountains, which is a little odd. Clearly the environment has changed (there are redwood forests everywhere). It's unclear how much the Daidalos community makes use of the flat land between the mountains and La Crescenta (probably Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, etc.).

--
Michael B.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by Gelrir

In 2015 United States there were 1.25 hectares of agricultural land per person; so for 6,000 persons it's 7,500 hectares.

You forgot the US #1 export is food. A Cornell study showed that the average American diet requires 0.45 hectares per person per year.
(http://www.farmlandlp.com/2012/01/on...eeds-a-person/)

So for 6000 people, you need about 2700 Ha.

[Gelrir]

Hmm, found a data point on Daidalos farming: "The majority of Daidalosi live in the hills and valleys surrounding the village, running the small ranches and farms that produce a large portion of the community’s food." The "compound" known as the Facility (see below) is frustratingly not mapped, but is probably the size of a small airport (it has a runway and three missile launch gantries).

Daidalos does produce food for export: "They built and maintain an extensive system of canals, fields, greenhouses and agricultural labs which have led to highly productive farming on formerly barren land within the compound. Discoveries in botany and agronomy rival advances made just before the War. The residents of The Facility produce enough to adequately feed the citizens of the city-state and still have a modest surplus for trade with nearby settlements." Of course, "modest" is a vague term. "Overall, U.S. farmers export more than 20% of what they produce." ( https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/percen...ducts-exported ). And while food production might only use 0.45 hectares per person, the use of agriculture products for non-food purposes is quite extensive in the U.S.: for example, only 10% of corn production is used for human food, with much of it going to ethanol production (which Daidalos seems to use for a vehicle fuel).

Hmm, what's an advance in agronomy made in the 21st Century ("just before the war" for 4th Edition)? The lack of much information on what Daidalos is actually growing/raising makes it hard to be specific. Recycling of water, improved cultivars, precision agriculture, genetically-modified plants and animals, electronic field and yield records, satellite weather data (and forecasting), plant tattoos (sensors on plants) ... these are all examples of advances in agronomy in the 21st Century, which lead to that 0.45 hectare per person figure.

It's just kind of frustrating that for a scenario which tracks blood type, volatility, and other characteristics for dozens of non-player characters -- they couldn't be bothered to actually describe the region the players are supposed to defend and support.

Thanks for all the attention and feedback, mmartin798, it's much appreciated! Sometime this year I'll be running a modified version of the Operation: Daidalos scenario for our "classic-era" setting local campaign.

--
Michael B.

[Gelrir]

Has anyone else run this yet? Our Classic-era campaign is just now getting into this scenario.

--
Michael B.

[Gelrir]

Some of the ages of Morrow Project staff given seem a bit low for the careers described. One in particular, Don Alverson, is listed as age 42; he was presumably frozen in 2009, but the module claims he was served with the "brown water Navy" during the Vietnam War. If he was born in 1967 ... that seems unlikely.

Possibly recycled from a "Classic era" campaign?

For our campaign, I've been writing up some of the other medical staff besides Dr. Herzog, since it's quite possible they'll be the first Morrow Project members that the player-characters speak with.

--
Michael B.

[mmartin798]

Yeah, Mr. Alverson is a problem. The US Navy stood down its last brown water units in Viet Nam in 1970. If he served two tours of duty, that would be about 3 years, meaning the latest he could have started his Viet Nam service was in 1967. If he was 18 when he enlisted, he would have been born in 1949. Even if we try to say, "Hey, he was a Morrow Project cryosleep test subject!" and only count waking years for his age, you can't rectify that with a 22-year naval service record.

[sofiaprimera124]

I did not know this operation module, I find it quite interesting, as much as watching my favorite HD movies, really congratulations, personally I did not know this type of content