Production Line Superheroes

[Chief Lackey Rich]

So, let's say we've got a WWW2 setting where the various nationalities are all funding "supersoldier" projects that are paying off enough to affect the war significantly, and let's further say that we want the end products of these programs to roughly model the stereotypes of real-war armor development and production.  Do the following examples sound reasonable?

USA:  Program based around some kind of supersoldier serum ala Captain America, but maybe not as potent and much, much easier to produce in large amounts.  There's never enough to make every GI super, and they aren't all that powerful individually, but the US ends up with quite a few elite units "powered up" and lavishly equipped with customized weapons & personal armor that take advantage of increased strength and endurance.  Maybe causes serious health problems for vets in the long run, maybe requires regular booster shots, maybe some effects can be passed along to future generations due to genetic modification.  "Sherman Serum" becomes a household term.

USSR:  Gets access to a lot of US supersoldier serum through Lend-Lease support, but quickly develops its own somewhat more potent formula, which can also be produced in large quantities.  They wind up with lots and lots of mid-powered supers, but not so well-equipped and prone to taking heavy casualties from being used in frontal assaults and the like.  Maybe has even worse side effects, or maybe it requires some really unpleasant ingredients that require human organ farming from volunteers, political prisoners, or POWs.  Formula T-34 and the Stalin Corps become famous.

Germany:  Pursues a wide range of approaches, from chemical to mystical to technological, with rather poor follow-up in many cases.  Some amazingly powerful successes, but most are either difficult to reproduce reliably or too expensive in terms of resources to enter mass production.  The small numbers of supers they get tend to be very potent, but they always seem to be outnumbered and often have hidden Achilles heel defects (ala Kryptonite).  Aryan supermen in "Tiger" power armor never appear in large numbers, but they're terrifying to their Allied opponents despite a tendency to breakdowns both mental and physical.

Now, I'm a little stumped on the other major combatants.  What fits the British, Italian, and Japanese best when it comes to supersoldier memes in a WWW2 setting?  Suggestions?

[Inso]

The British are given a serum that has been put in their tea.  It is an easy way to administer it and maintain the troop's dose level.  The affect of the serum is to give them a super fast healing capability that enables them to get back up when others would surely stay down.  The special tea is given to elite units because it is very expensive so the SAS, Paras and commandos (including the SBS) are the units to benefit the most.  They gain no other 'powers' but have to rely on their usual equipment and stiff upper lip to succeed.

The Japanese could have psychological and drug conditioning that makes them super aware and highly agile with super fast reflexes.  Couple this with martial arts training and ritual and you end up with an army of combat monsters.

Italians could benefit from highly effective camouflage equipment that suits their 'hit and run' tactics.  Maybe equipped with adaptive camouflage powered suits?  Special units could use tunneller machines to add that extra bit of surprise.

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

Here's how the new NUTS! War Without End writes up super soldiers:

U.S./U.K. SUPER SOLDIERS
The United Kingdom pioneered the Super Soldier serum and training program used by the U.S. and Commwealth Nations during the war. The brilliant geneticist Dr. R. A. Fisher headed up the Harwell Biology Research unit with the goal of enhancing human traits rather than replacing them. The U.S. and U.K. Super Soldier creation process was
discovered by accident when materials mishandling at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell contaminated a serum with radiation, which was inadvertently given to a test subject. The result was the first Western Super Soldier.

SOVIET SUPER SOLDIERS
The Soviets conducted increasingly esoteric and inhuman experiments in the 1930s to crossbreed humans with apes in order to create solders that were stronger, more durable and more easily commanded than basic humans. The "Humanzee" experiments, led by Soviet researcher Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, who was obsessed with Great Apes, met success with the birth of the first Soviet Super soldier in 1936. Characterized by aggressive behavior, the two most successful strains of crossbreeds were from Baboons and Gorillas.

GERMAN SUPER SOLDIERS
For the Reich, no path of research was left unexplored. After realizing that the Lebensborn program was insufficient to create a Master Soldier, Himmler authorized increasingly exotic and inhuman research paths that delved into the mix of chemicals and technology to create a Super Soldier that would be the equal of scores of normal humans. The result was a series of twisted, brutish creatures – the Jötunn -- that terrified their foes on the battlefield.

JAPANESE SUPER SOLDIERS
Germany shared its Super Soldier research with Imperial Japan, which enabled the brutal Unit 731 to create Japan‘s own Super Soldiers using a mix of technology, medical modifications and chemicals to create the ―Oni gua Sādo – or the Oni Guard. These cruel and powerful Super Soldiers showed their foes no mercy in battle.

ITALIAN SUPER SOLDIERS
Italy did not have a well advanced Super Soldier program, but did use a combination of stolen British intelligence and a handful of secrets shared by the Germans to create their ―New Roman Man Brigade.

The rules let you create a wide range of super soldiers and provides some starter stats for super soldiers from each nation.

http://www.twohourwargames.com/warwiendwewa.html

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Interesting suggestions.  I'm not averse to magical/mythological or alien powers sources either.  Was thinking last night that All three of the Axis powers might be big into supernatural stuff - Germany chasing after "Aryan magic" and Japan recruiting local mythological critters as shock troops or infiltrator/assassin/spy types, while Italy gets support from faded Roman deities, thin-blooded demigods' descendents, and maybe the odd artifact from Vulcan's forge.

I could see the Japanese pursuing "gorilla warfare" with uplifted primates more easily than Russia - there are quite a few big species native to Southeast Asia, not so many apes in Siberia last I checked.  The idea of a convoy ship loaded with African gorillas bound for the Soviet research labs is an amusing one, though.

Russia getting alien tech from Tunguska remains (or survivors) seems workable, same with the US getting an early Roswell incident, the Germans doing spacecraft recovery in the Antarctic, or Britain recovering and reverse engineering some tripod tech.  Finding an excuse for the Japanese to develop mecha is a little harder, don't know of any classic UFO/invasion myths local to that area.  Maybe someone else can suggest something?

Of course, the Japanese might get daikaiju - having pre-mutation Godzilla or Gamera floating around would complicate the island-hopping campaign no end.  Maybe they were based at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they were the real A-Bomb targets?

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

Well, of all the super soldier ideas presented, the only one with a basis in fact is the Soviet "Humanzee" program. Stalin did support Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov's experiments to create a human-great ape hybrid in order to supply the Red Army with super soldiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

[Cosmotiger]

This is not exactly on the model of a super solider serum,  but how about an American program something like the old Six Million Dollar Man TV show?  A program to make improved prosthetic limbs for wounded vets leads to replacement limbs attached to exo-skeletons that increase the user's strength and speed.  IMO, true bionics would be pretty far fetched for WWWII, but a sort of electro-mechanical suit would work.