Gurps World War 2

I`ve just bought this book, and like it (bit vehicle heavy, but no biffie) I think it`d fit in particularly well with Atomic Horror (I feel a Nazi Moon Base coming on) I was just wondering what other people thought?
I`d also appreciatte anything people can send my way about the English side of things that isn`t in the main book, or which WWII books to buy next.

For your moon-base nazi`s, check out WW2: Iron Cross, it is the Nazi Germany sourcebook. For accurately modeling (yeah, I know, accurate Nazi space soldiers...), it is a must, plus a couple of cool little vehicles, including the V rockets. It has a few good ideas in the back for alternate campaigns, but for your moon-base, WW2: Weird War 2 sourcebook is a must (it is in playtest now). WW2: All the King`s Men, the British sourcebook should be in playtest in about a month, and should be released later this year.

reading, assuming it`s not the source of your idea, is _Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert A. Heinlein. It should be available in paperback at larger bookstores. And no, it`s not GURPS related -- it predates GURPS by at least 30 years, possibly 35 (don`t recall the copyright date offhand). It also has some information on the relative merits of the chemical rockets the Germans might have fielded had the war run into 1946 or 1947, and one early concept of a fission thermal rocket; the two would have been very different operationally, which would have led to very different logistics for Lunar missions based on them.

A generous and sadistic GM, Brandon Cope

Thing I always liked in Heinlein`s books was his affinity to the Nuclear Thermal rocket. Then I get a whole lot miffed at how badly it is portrayed in vehicles. The mass to thrust ratio is off by a factor of almost 10. check http://www.astronautix.com/props/nucarlh2.htm for information on the up to date Nuclear thermal (well 1990`s anyway.) the thrust to mass ratio is 30 to 1 or .033 pounds of engine per pound of thrust, though I will say the fuel consuption is accurate for an ISP 850 engine. The problem I see is that they just took the rules for a nuclear reactor and used them , when the Nuclear thermal engine is way different. Well, just my deluded rantings for now.

be no other chance in hell of building a rocket that could reach the solar system, except nuclear thermal; he even went so far as to introduce Single-H, stabilized monatomic hydrogen, in order to boost the performance another little bit. more thrust, you`ll give up specific impulse to get it. That is, the Galileo, with its zinc vapor exhaust, would have had a great deal more thrust (not to mention propellant density) than any rocket ever actually built, but would still have required a huge mass ratio to actually fly to the Moon and back as a single stage -- a factor Heinlein skipped over (along with the question of how to keep the zinc molten in the tank), though I understand he actually knew the ratio would be about 20 times anything that could possibly be built, even with the density of zinc (or lead!) reaction mass.
The figures in Vehicles, OTOH, are probably for a hydrogen reactant design, which is optimized for maximum efficiency -- which is to say, maximum exhaust velocity, which equate to maximum reactor temperature. Exhaust flow is restricted to the lowest figure that won`t cause a reactor melt down, and the nozzle optimized for that energy level; the result is closer to an ion engine than a chemical rocket in terms of thrust, but (like an ion engine) can maintain thrust for a relatively long time. There were several designs from the 1950s and 1960s that could have lifted from the Earth`s surface with useful payloads, or served as second stages atop a Saturn class booster, but all were eventually killed by political issues and the dawning realization of just how little radiation was actually safe.

temp anyway.) And with a mass of 7.14 ( kg per liter, or 27 lbs per gallon ) you could store a great deal of Delta V in a small area. Try designing two rockets using Vehicles, one with regular Rocket fuel (or Oxy/Hyd if you have exp 1 ) and then the same rocket with a MOX engine. with the same size tanks, the MOX rocket is much heavier with a lower acceleration rate, but it`s overall max Delta-V will be greater. the one in Mars is a Hydrogen design. They are also given in Transhuman Space, but I dont have those numbers handy. were designed in the 90s for Reagans SDI. These are rated at ISPs of 1000 and with Thrust to weight ratios of 30 to 1 .

Pyramid, is GURPS Weird War Two. Aliens, magic, monsters and supers.
I`m not sure when it`ll be published, but it`s in the pipeline and man, it looks great. also a page accessible through the "Wishlist" that gets you to a text file of *most* of the planned titles in th eline.

do read posts here, and it`s a dumb thing to say, to put it mildly.)
If you can afford one GURPS book, you can afford a Pyramid subscription. The price is $15 a *year*, although that amount is going to go up, I believe at the end of this month, if it hasn`t already. You should go to www.sjgames.com and check out the new price. Even with the increase, I believe it is still less than the average price for a GURPS book, for a year.