Twilight 2025

[Legbreaker]

...start bringing on the chaos in a few weeks because they couldn't get their morning cup of tea/coffee.

You SURE about that

[swaghauler]

You SURE about that

[ATTACH]4132[/ATTACH]

I do believe that the "Combat Effectiveness" of any US unit would be reduced by 50% if you simply deprived them of Coffee. This is untested as no Army Command is willing to risk the consequences of testing this theory. There are three things you simply DON'T do in the Army...

1) You never screw with the Mail Clerk, Mess Section, or Pay Clerk.
2) You treat ALL pregnant females as "emotionally disturbed persons."
3) You NEVER F**K with the coffee.

[.45cultist]

Prompted by what Raellus said, I should point out that I didn't intend to give the idea that society would break down to complete lawlessness e.g. Mad Max or Tom Clancy's The Division. Nor give the idea that everyone would start bringing on the chaos in a few weeks because they couldn't get their morning cup of tea/coffee.

It was more to stress the idea that for a 2025 conflict, we are talking about Western societies that have a heavy reliance on electricity and petroleum fuels to keep their societies running. Once something interferes with that, most city dwellers are going to be sitting back waiting for the government to fix the problem. The government is unlikely to be able to respond to these problems as quickly as they have in the past for two reasons.

1. The way they deal with these situations has changed relative to the use of "just in time" deliveries.
2. There's a war going on.

I'm inclined to think that any country that is accepting lots of refugees is going to really feel the strain from this and will have a difficult time preventing societal breakdown from happening once rationing, blackouts and late deliveries become the norm.

It might be that way, but once folks believe the "Thin Blue Line" is gone, it is gone. And then people get stupid and vicious, the Government response won't be much better either if it believes it's survival is at stake.

[Marconi]

I do believe that this comprehensive review of ZQuiet would be reduced by 50% if you simply deprived them of Coffee. This is untested as no Army Command is willing to risk the consequences of testing this theory. There are three things you simply DON'T do in the Army...

1) You never screw with the Mail Clerk, Mess Section, or Pay Clerk.
2) You treat ALL pregnant females as "emotionally disturbed persons."
3) You NEVER F**K with the coffee.

I also believe you're right regarding the coffee thing. But soon enough the technology will allow us to test the heck out of theories like that one in VR.

[Heffe3737]

I also believe you're right regarding the coffee thing. But soon enough the technology will allow us to test the heck out of theories like that one in VR.

This isn't just in the US either. I do a lot of work in the outsourcing industry, and the number 1 thing employees at locations all over the world agree on, is that coffee is an absolute essential when it comes to productivity.

As a side note, if you run a business and don't offer free coffee to your employees, they very likely secretly hate you for it.

[CDAT]

This isn't just in the US either. I do a lot of work in the outsourcing industry, and the number 1 thing employees at locations all over the world agree on, is that coffee is an absolute essential when it comes to productivity.

As a side note, if you run a business and don't offer free coffee to your employees, they very likely secretly hate you for it.

I must have been in a different military than you all, yes we had our coffee drinkers, but with one individual exception we did not have anyone who was so into it that they even had a coffee pot in the unit. We did have the Army issued pot that got pulled out for official functions, but not day to day. When we were in the field no one that I can remember had to have their cup of Joe. The coffee at the warming stations always had some left when it was picked up, the soup on the other had was gone in no time.

[Legbreaker]

Coffee for us was important, and whenever were were halted for an hour or so (sometimes less) somebody always had a brew on, but in my section there was something even more vital.
BOOZE!
Every last one of us had a hip flask in their pack, each person with something different in it - bourbon, port, tequila, etc. Between us there weren't many cocktails we couldn't make!
Technically we were breaking the rules, but given the platoon sergeant and company sergeant major also carried....
Even the cook could be counted on to have a little something squirrelled away.

[pmulcahy11b]

Unlike almost all soldiers I knew, I hate coffee (though I love the smell -- go figure). But I quickly found that coffee was an important trade item -- depending upon the coffee I bought before leaving, I could get anything from cheese and crackers to a new extractor on my M16 before it was scheduled to get a new one. (My biggest problem with the M16 was extraction failure.) One time, I got two new matching units for my track from Commo for a jar of Folgers.

[.45cultist]

I was drinking coffee at Barksdale AFB, while we watch an ORI, the nuke laden B52's were taking off and the youngsters asked, "What do we do now" I sipped and replied, "If this was real, we'd orbit the Earth for 10,000 years." "HUH"
I then had to explain Nuke Warfare to the AB's while chugging Folger's.

[mpipes]

Watching a MITO simulating a scramble of the alert BUFFS and tankers is definitely an impressive sight!!


I hear that we now have an alert force again. About time. At least the alert pad at Barksdale was left relatively intact.

https://stevenmcollins.com/usa-preparing-247-nuclear-alert-b-52-squadron/

[swaghauler]

It might be that way, but once folks believe the "Thin Blue Line" is gone, it is gone. And then people get stupid and vicious, the Government response won't be much better either if it believes it's survival is at stake.

I tend to agree with you watching riots break out in New York City and Pittsburgh whenever there are power outages. I think the real issue is twofold;

1) How poor do you "perceive" yourself to be in comparison to your neighbors
2) How WELL do you "know" your neighbors

If you know all your neighbors and are on a fairly equal economic basis with them, you will often see mutual support and assistance from those communities. Such communities tend to be smaller with a more "integrated" social system (everyone attends the same schools, churches, and social functions).

On the other hand, if you don't associate with your neighbors regularly, or even know their names, it is easy to view them as a "resource" instead of as "people." Add to this the fact that cities usually have limited resources available (leading to competition for those resources) and you have a disaster in the making.

In addition, if you view yourself as "marginalized" by the vast majority of society, a major disruption could be your chance to not only acquire "resources" that are otherwise unavailable to you but also to "punish" those you feel have kept you in poverty. I think of the people in Baltimore looting and burning the CVS Pharmacy during the protests for Freddy Gray. What exactly did CVS do to cause Freddy Gey to die NOTHING! It was a convenient excuse to loot that CVS.

This behavior is what will cause the most damage to major cities in the War.

[.45cultist]

I tend to agree with you watching riots break out in New York City and Pittsburgh whenever there are power outages. I think the real issue is twofold;

1) How poor do you "perceive" yourself to be in comparison to your neighbors
2) How WELL do you "know" your neighbors

If you know all your neighbors and are on a fairly equal economic basis with them, you will often see mutual support and assistance from those communities. Such communities tend to be smaller with a more "integrated" social system (everyone attends the same schools, churches, and social functions).

On the other hand, if you don't associate with your neighbors regularly, or even know their names, it is easy to view them as a "resource" instead of as "people." Add to this the fact that cities usually have limited resources available (leading to competition for those resources) and you have a disaster in the making.

In addition, if you view yourself as "marginalized" by the vast majority of society, a major disruption could be your chance to not only acquire "resources" that are otherwise unavailable to you but also to "punish" those you feel have kept you in poverty. I think of the people in Baltimore looting and burning the CVS Pharmacy during the protests for Freddy Gray. What exactly did CVS do to cause Freddy Gey to die NOTHING! It was a convenient excuse to loot that CVS.

This behavior is what will cause the most damage to major cities in the War.

Yes, the best and worst comes out in people.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I think these may have been discussed before on the forum but they fit in here well enough as a colour/background element of any post-apocalypse scenario.
Specifically I am talking about two ideas to get long-range comms back after the breakdown.

The first is a concept still in use by ham radio operators so is very much a proven idea. Earth-Moon-Earth communications, basically you aim your microwave transmitter at the Moon and someone somewhere else in the world can pick it up with their microwave receiver.
Quite a bit easier than trying to get a hold of working comms satellites, finding a suitable launch vehicle, fuelling said launch vehicle and then getting the satellite into orbit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%E2%80%93Moon%E2%80%93Earth_communication

The second is a little more difficult and has a limited life span of a year or two. Difficult because it does require a rocket to deliver a package into orbit and the package itself needs some thought put into how it will deliver its contents but the concept itself is incredibly simple.
Essentially, a collection of short lengths of copper wire, placed in orbit, function like a giant antenna. It was a serious consideration in the 1950s when North America and Western Europe had either ionospheric radio or undersea cable as their only means of long-range communication with each other.
But their are issues with seeding near-Earth orbit with 20kg of copper wire, aside from finding a suitable rocket to get it there.

https://www.wired.com/2013/08/project-west-ford/

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

Both concepts could be attractive solutions for rapidly re-establishing communication in a world that is very dependent on satellites for long-range comms these days.

[Legbreaker]

Hmm, putting even MORE shrapnel into orbit sounds like a wonderful idea.
What could possibly go wrong

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Hmm, putting even MORE shrapnel into orbit sounds like a wonderful idea.
What could possibly go wrong

Oh don't worry, there's soooo much space in space, there's plenty of room!
And anyway, it'll all fall back to Earth after about two years.

Or so they thought...
Apparently there's still clumps of copper wire floating around up there from their initial tests.
To be a little fair, it was conceived of and deployed in the 1950s, before they had developed any satellites and realized the problems of tiny objects smacking into delicate machines in orbit.

But still, what could possibly go wrong