[Kha]

Originally Posted by selkirk

I don't see why you're arguing about modern jets, when SW isn't set in a modern era. It's a WW2 show; modern jets don't factor into the equation. You can't argue how knights in some medieval era show are useless since you could cut them down with a squad of riflemen, now can you? It's not really Strike Witches any more if you take it out of its setting. I mean, if you can't figure out a way to deal with it with WW2 technology, then those modern jets wouldn't even exist, considering all of humanity would probably be dead.

And while it might not be instantaneously fatal, I doubt it's in anyone's best interest to fly into what is essentially poison gas. You might not die immediately, but I'll bet it'd at least incapacitate you to some degree. As for the cities, if you're talking about the anime, then they don't even show any Neuroi-occupied cities... of course it won't be covered in miasma. Ostmark was the first country to fall in the Neuroi invasion, and the entire country, or former country as stressed in the book, is described as a barren wasteland covered in the miasma. That's kind of a wide area of poison gas to cross. Even if it doesn't reach very high (and there's nothing saying it doesn't reach as high as their floating hives or higher, considering the hives spew it out as well), most of Book 2 talks about the liberation of one Neuroi-occupied city, where no amount of aerial bombing can put even the slightest dent in the Neuroi forces. They just make new ones by breaking the city down, faster than they can be destroyed, and in the end, it takes a large-scale joint air and ground operation assembled from all over Suomus to really clear the Neuroi out of just the one city. Moral of the story, so what if planes can go over it? That's not going to do anything to help you win the war.

Considering that the Neuroi digest metal in this manner, the miasma must be a very rich substance. If there was a means to vacuum the stuff up and use it, imagine armor trucks driving into a cloud and...

Originally Posted by kct

Plus the fact that in the 50-60+ year gap between the current setting, they could be throwing skirmishes at each other, with neither side winning the war, until the present. What I am trying to break here is the timeline factor, I'm fine if the others want to stay in WWII (more than enough people can deal with it), but people want to see what happens after the initial war was stopped (something like post-1945, not to mention IMHO WWII has been done to death, even if it is an alternate universe), and the world entered into something equivalent of a Cold War. Of course, the kicker would be if someone decided to have the TSAB cross over in the modern setting (don't deny it, I know some of the people here have ideas like that).

Of course, as expected, the Neuroi would advance like what humans did, but they might advance to a point where they need to sacrifice firepower to attain the sort of speed and maneuverability comparable to that of a fighter jets (even if that means that they pack only a single laser and a couple of missiles). It is all about the trade-off to balance it out (well, more so, since Neuroi are SUPPOSEDLY based on the things they ate). Obviously, results from the Me-262 prompted development of Jet Strikers (although not all Striker equivalent of post-WWII aircraft would be developed, for example, the cost of developing the F-14 Tomcat is so great that their Striker equivalents was not given the green light, ceding development to the Striker version of the VFAX, which end up being the F/A-18 Hornet) plus newer generation of weaponry, but they would still prove to be buggy in the initial phases for example, problems associated with the M60 in the Vietnam War, waged on the Neurois who decided to concentrate on Asia, entering a hole those in Europe did not expect. On the air combat front, missiles did not perform as everyone hoped, bringing many-a-fatal end to the gunless birds.

Also, the plans I have is to initially concentrate on a squadron of Witches, backed by a naval fighter squadron (no romance), operating off a Nimitz-class carrier (there are other squadrons on board the CVN, but I would focus on one). No, it wouldn't be eaten like Akagi, although its compatriots might. Fighting Neurois was one problem. They didn't know that there was an organization bent on letting the Neurois take over the entire Earth (that was where all the BS superplanes, flying fortresses, and the like might come in).

Erm, first Miasium, now the Brotherhood of Roi?

This might frighten the OC vets, but I'm... inspired.