Post by carandini on Apr 9, 2010 7:55:17 GMT -5
Panzermann
Name: Otto Gudegast
Location: Germany
Group Affiliation: Wehrmacht
Powers: Panzermann is a ghastly unification of flesh and steel, an armored abomination that is neither man nor machine. The German cyborg’s body is constructed from thick steel plates, giving it the strength of a Panzer IV’s thickest armor plate. The robotics housed inside are fully self contained, allowing them to function under many extreme conditions. These robotics also give Panzermann a physical strength far in excess of anything remotely human. One of the cyborg’s arms is fitted with the deadly Verletz V Machine Rifle, a vicious minigun which fires high penetration 9mm ammunition. Capable of expending nearly a thousand rounds in one minute of fire, the Verletz V is a weapon most officers within the Wehrmacht, especially the old Junkers class of aristocrat soldiers, feel is designed not for war but slaughter and have actively discouraged its widespread use. The weight of the ammunition required to maintain such grotesque rates is formidable – Panzermann carries 4,000 rounds for his weapon; only the cyborg’s enhanced strength and endurance allowing him to easily assume the 300 lbs of bullets.
As a cyborg, Panzermann does not tire, does not sleep and requires only the smallest supplies of food and water. His disembodied state has also had the side effect of rendering him largely incapable of emotion. Panzermann will follow orders instantly and unquestioningly, devoid of moral qualms or emotional concerns. He is, in many ways, a chilling example of what the Nazi high command considers the perfect soldier.
History: Otto prided himself on being a soldier. His father had been a soldier, his grandfather had been a soldier, as far back as the family could be traced, the men had always been soldiers. The defeat of Germany in WWI and the severe restrictions placed on the size of her army by the Treaty of Versailles seemed to mean that Otto would be the first man in his family to break the tradition. It made him bitter. More than that, it made him leave Germany, emigrating to Bolivia where he found employment as a mercenary. The volatile political situation in South America and the frequent border skirmishes between Bolivia and Paraguay gave Otto ample opportunity to ply his chosen profession. However, selling himself to the Bolivians as a hired gun wasn’t the same thing as serving his Fatherland. There was no honor, being a mercenary, no glory in the sordid world of the freelance fighter. Otto longed for a respectable career as a soldier, not the shabby substitute he had found for himself.
Then came news Otto had never thought to hear. Things were changing back in Germany, the wind of change was sweeping across the Fatherland. The disgrace of Versailles was being swept away by the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. The restrictions against Germany’s army were being ignored, the humiliation of Germany was being redressed. The republic was no more, the Reich was being reborn. Like many other Germans, Otto felt the call to return to his homeland, to throw himself into the revitalization that was taking place there. Otto arrived in Germany in August of 1934. Within two weeks, he had been absorbed into the rapidly expanding Wehrmacht. Finally, he was wearing the uniform of his own country, serving out of loyalty not necessity. Good times were ahead. Otto could feel it in his bones.
When civil war gripped Spain, Germany sent military advisors to support Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s Nationalists against the communist-backed Republicans. One of the members of this ‘Condor Legion’ was Oberfeldwebel Otto Gudegast. Now the soldier felt he was truly in his element – once more on the battlefield but this time risking his life in the interest of his Fatherland. The German’s skills at guerilla warfare and urban combat, acquired from five years of fighting in South America, made him a natural choice to lead scouting parties to observe Republican-held territory. It was dangerous work, many of Otto’s Spanish associates didn’t return from their forays, but Otto knew someone had to do it. As long as his officers ordered him to the front, that was where his place was. A German soldier did not question his orders.
One night in 1936, Otto would have done well to question his orders. He was being sent out to locate the position of Republican battery that was threatening the Nationalist advance. Unfortunately, Otto did not ask why so important a target was being eliminated by ground forces rather than aerial bombardment by the Condor Legion. Such a tactic had occurred to the Spanish officers in charge of the advance and a request had been made to the German ‘volunteer’ air force. By the time Otto and his skirmishers had been deployed to infiltrate the Republican held area and find the enemy artillery, German bombers were already on their way to pound the Republican positions. Too late to recall Otto’s men, the skirmishers were caught beneath the bombardment of their own forces. Most of Otto’s men were blown to bits. Otto himself fared little better. His crippled, mangled body remained amidst the destruction for three days before Nationalist fengalistas found him. The wounded German fought for life in a Spanish field hospital, but eventually his condition was stabilized enough for him to be flown back to Germany.
In an army hospital outside Berlin, Otto faced the hideous prospect of his new life as a mutilated cripple. His legs had been amputated in Spain, most of one arm was still lying somewhere on the battlefield. Much of his body had been burned into a blackened husk, suffering fourth degree burns over 50% of his face and chest. It was a condition to crush the mind of any man, but to Otto there was a further indignity – the German military had been reborn, was expanding into the finest army in the world, and he could no longer be a part of it. If there had been enough left of him to do so, Otto would have ended his life and finished the job the bombs had started.
Fate had a stranger purpose in mind for Otto Gudegast, however. In 1938, as the storm clouds of another great war began to smother the lights of Europe, a strange visitor arrived at the hospital – Dr. Hans Schreckmann. Dr. Schreckmann was involved in a secret project for the Heereswaffenamt, the military development and research arm of the German army. Schreckmann’s project was one devoted to a new and highly theoretical arena of science – the replacement of defective body parts with mechanical substitutes. Among the crippled, mangled ruin of humanity he found in the army hospital, Dr Schreckmann found many willing volunteers for his experiments to create a new type of man, a man of the future. A cyborg.
Dr Schreckmann experimented for several months with his subjects, trying to rebuild their bodies with limbs of steel and wire. Failure was as common as disaster and many of his subjects breathed their last upon his operating table, their bodies refusing the unnatural additions Dr Schreckmann was trying to bestow upon them. Only with the crippled veteran of the Spanish Civil War did Dr Schreckmann meet with success, Otto’s body fusing with the mechanical supplements, man and machine merging into one. The experiment succeeded beyond Dr Schreckmann’s wildest ambitions, he had not merely restored Otto’s ruined body, he had bestowed upon him the strength of steel and lightning. Dr Schreckmann’s success had given his Fatherland a new champion, a new weapon to defend it in the coming war. Otto Gudegast was gone, now there was only Panzermann.
Description: Panzermann is a hulking machine of armor plate fashioned in the rough shape of a human being. Thick, powerful legs fuse into an armored torso. Panzermann’s right arm is still human in overall shape, though thickly armored, only the hand itself recognizably human. The left arm is gone, even the stump removed from Otto’s body to make room for an immense multi-barreled machine-cannon. Rising from the armored torso, Otto’s burned, ruined head surveys the battlefield around him, steel cables and copper wires running from his skull to communicate with Otto’s new steel body. Standing almost nine feet tall, the giant Panzermann is an imposing sight. More machine than man, only the professionalism of the soldier is left to him. There is no compassion or mercy in the skull-like wreckage of Panzermann’s face, only a slavish devotion to his orders and his Fatherland.
Name: Otto Gudegast
Location: Germany
Group Affiliation: Wehrmacht
Powers: Panzermann is a ghastly unification of flesh and steel, an armored abomination that is neither man nor machine. The German cyborg’s body is constructed from thick steel plates, giving it the strength of a Panzer IV’s thickest armor plate. The robotics housed inside are fully self contained, allowing them to function under many extreme conditions. These robotics also give Panzermann a physical strength far in excess of anything remotely human. One of the cyborg’s arms is fitted with the deadly Verletz V Machine Rifle, a vicious minigun which fires high penetration 9mm ammunition. Capable of expending nearly a thousand rounds in one minute of fire, the Verletz V is a weapon most officers within the Wehrmacht, especially the old Junkers class of aristocrat soldiers, feel is designed not for war but slaughter and have actively discouraged its widespread use. The weight of the ammunition required to maintain such grotesque rates is formidable – Panzermann carries 4,000 rounds for his weapon; only the cyborg’s enhanced strength and endurance allowing him to easily assume the 300 lbs of bullets.
As a cyborg, Panzermann does not tire, does not sleep and requires only the smallest supplies of food and water. His disembodied state has also had the side effect of rendering him largely incapable of emotion. Panzermann will follow orders instantly and unquestioningly, devoid of moral qualms or emotional concerns. He is, in many ways, a chilling example of what the Nazi high command considers the perfect soldier.
History: Otto prided himself on being a soldier. His father had been a soldier, his grandfather had been a soldier, as far back as the family could be traced, the men had always been soldiers. The defeat of Germany in WWI and the severe restrictions placed on the size of her army by the Treaty of Versailles seemed to mean that Otto would be the first man in his family to break the tradition. It made him bitter. More than that, it made him leave Germany, emigrating to Bolivia where he found employment as a mercenary. The volatile political situation in South America and the frequent border skirmishes between Bolivia and Paraguay gave Otto ample opportunity to ply his chosen profession. However, selling himself to the Bolivians as a hired gun wasn’t the same thing as serving his Fatherland. There was no honor, being a mercenary, no glory in the sordid world of the freelance fighter. Otto longed for a respectable career as a soldier, not the shabby substitute he had found for himself.
Then came news Otto had never thought to hear. Things were changing back in Germany, the wind of change was sweeping across the Fatherland. The disgrace of Versailles was being swept away by the new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. The restrictions against Germany’s army were being ignored, the humiliation of Germany was being redressed. The republic was no more, the Reich was being reborn. Like many other Germans, Otto felt the call to return to his homeland, to throw himself into the revitalization that was taking place there. Otto arrived in Germany in August of 1934. Within two weeks, he had been absorbed into the rapidly expanding Wehrmacht. Finally, he was wearing the uniform of his own country, serving out of loyalty not necessity. Good times were ahead. Otto could feel it in his bones.
When civil war gripped Spain, Germany sent military advisors to support Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s Nationalists against the communist-backed Republicans. One of the members of this ‘Condor Legion’ was Oberfeldwebel Otto Gudegast. Now the soldier felt he was truly in his element – once more on the battlefield but this time risking his life in the interest of his Fatherland. The German’s skills at guerilla warfare and urban combat, acquired from five years of fighting in South America, made him a natural choice to lead scouting parties to observe Republican-held territory. It was dangerous work, many of Otto’s Spanish associates didn’t return from their forays, but Otto knew someone had to do it. As long as his officers ordered him to the front, that was where his place was. A German soldier did not question his orders.
One night in 1936, Otto would have done well to question his orders. He was being sent out to locate the position of Republican battery that was threatening the Nationalist advance. Unfortunately, Otto did not ask why so important a target was being eliminated by ground forces rather than aerial bombardment by the Condor Legion. Such a tactic had occurred to the Spanish officers in charge of the advance and a request had been made to the German ‘volunteer’ air force. By the time Otto and his skirmishers had been deployed to infiltrate the Republican held area and find the enemy artillery, German bombers were already on their way to pound the Republican positions. Too late to recall Otto’s men, the skirmishers were caught beneath the bombardment of their own forces. Most of Otto’s men were blown to bits. Otto himself fared little better. His crippled, mangled body remained amidst the destruction for three days before Nationalist fengalistas found him. The wounded German fought for life in a Spanish field hospital, but eventually his condition was stabilized enough for him to be flown back to Germany.
In an army hospital outside Berlin, Otto faced the hideous prospect of his new life as a mutilated cripple. His legs had been amputated in Spain, most of one arm was still lying somewhere on the battlefield. Much of his body had been burned into a blackened husk, suffering fourth degree burns over 50% of his face and chest. It was a condition to crush the mind of any man, but to Otto there was a further indignity – the German military had been reborn, was expanding into the finest army in the world, and he could no longer be a part of it. If there had been enough left of him to do so, Otto would have ended his life and finished the job the bombs had started.
Fate had a stranger purpose in mind for Otto Gudegast, however. In 1938, as the storm clouds of another great war began to smother the lights of Europe, a strange visitor arrived at the hospital – Dr. Hans Schreckmann. Dr. Schreckmann was involved in a secret project for the Heereswaffenamt, the military development and research arm of the German army. Schreckmann’s project was one devoted to a new and highly theoretical arena of science – the replacement of defective body parts with mechanical substitutes. Among the crippled, mangled ruin of humanity he found in the army hospital, Dr Schreckmann found many willing volunteers for his experiments to create a new type of man, a man of the future. A cyborg.
Dr Schreckmann experimented for several months with his subjects, trying to rebuild their bodies with limbs of steel and wire. Failure was as common as disaster and many of his subjects breathed their last upon his operating table, their bodies refusing the unnatural additions Dr Schreckmann was trying to bestow upon them. Only with the crippled veteran of the Spanish Civil War did Dr Schreckmann meet with success, Otto’s body fusing with the mechanical supplements, man and machine merging into one. The experiment succeeded beyond Dr Schreckmann’s wildest ambitions, he had not merely restored Otto’s ruined body, he had bestowed upon him the strength of steel and lightning. Dr Schreckmann’s success had given his Fatherland a new champion, a new weapon to defend it in the coming war. Otto Gudegast was gone, now there was only Panzermann.
Description: Panzermann is a hulking machine of armor plate fashioned in the rough shape of a human being. Thick, powerful legs fuse into an armored torso. Panzermann’s right arm is still human in overall shape, though thickly armored, only the hand itself recognizably human. The left arm is gone, even the stump removed from Otto’s body to make room for an immense multi-barreled machine-cannon. Rising from the armored torso, Otto’s burned, ruined head surveys the battlefield around him, steel cables and copper wires running from his skull to communicate with Otto’s new steel body. Standing almost nine feet tall, the giant Panzermann is an imposing sight. More machine than man, only the professionalism of the soldier is left to him. There is no compassion or mercy in the skull-like wreckage of Panzermann’s face, only a slavish devotion to his orders and his Fatherland.
