Wolfenstein SS



The Wolfenstein SS (also referred to as the SS Nazi in DeHackEd) is a Nazi Schutzstaffel trooper in blue uniform. Originally from Wolfenstein 3D, the SS Nazis appear as an easter egg in the secret levels of Doom II, which are re-creations of levels from Wolfenstein 3D. The SS trooper appears as a blonde, blue-eyed, square-jawed man wearing coveralls and a sidecap, and carries a submachine gun. When wounded, the Wolfenstein SS sounds like the former humans when they take damage.

The SS Nazi inhabits only two of the Doom II maps released by id Software, the Doom II levels MAP31 and MAP32. Furthermore, SS Nazi soldiers are absent from MAP32: Grosse before the "Hurt me plenty" skill setting. The SS officer is not mentioned in the Doom II instruction manual, presumably because his presence is an easter egg.

The Wolfenstein SS is also present in the Final Doom IWADs, but isn't used in any stock maps.

Combat characteristics
The SS Nazi attacks by firing two bullets at a time in rapid succession, which are slightly less powerful than the player's bullet; like the Heavy Weapon Dude, he fires repeatedly as long as his target is in sight. On death, the Nazi drops a clip containing five bullets (or ten on the "I'm too young to die" and "Nightmare!" skill settings).

Wolfenstein 3D did not feature multiplayer or monster infighting, hence, all their bad guys always faced the player when attacking. (Bosses were even more extreme; they always faced the player period, and so could not, for example, be attacked from behind.) Id Software's artists did not bother to make new attacking graphics for the other angles when they converted the SS Nazi's graphics to that of Doom. Therefore, the SS Nazis always appear to be facing and pointing their guns at the player when firing, no matter where their actual targets are, which can be confusing because the Nazis are just as likely to engage in infighting and killing each other as the former humans are.

An Arch-vile can resurrect SS Nazis. This can only be seen in custom maps, as they don't appear together in any official levels.

The SS Nazi has about a third of the firing rate of the Chaingunner, but does so in two-round bursts, since unlike Doom's former humans, it has two aiming sprites (depicting the Nazi stopping and leveling his gun, instead of directly snapping to aiming).

Tactical analysis
In Wolfenstein 3D, the SS Nazi was a feared marksman whose high rate of fire, accuracy, and large hit point total forced the player to take care when fighting them especially at close range. In Doom II, the SS Nazi is not as dangerous, becoming a somewhat weaker counterpart of the Heavy Weapon Dude, with less hit points and a slower rate of fire. However, he's still harmful when attacking at close range (reflecting how standing closer to your bullet-shooting attacker hurts you more in Wolfenstein 3D).

Although a single SS Nazi at close range can inflict significant damage (his rate of fire is about a third of that of a Heavy Weapon Dude), his main distinguishing feature is now his inaccurate aim, which sometimes allows a skilled player to clear a good part of a large room without even pulling the trigger, due to infighting, especially considering the way the enemy is grouped in the secret levels of Doom II.

If the chaingun is used against a group of SS Nazis on the "Hey, not too rough", "Hurt me plenty", or "Ultra-Violence" skill levels, the player should watch their character's bullet stock carefully, since one is usually expending at least five bullets for every five-bullet clip recovered. The plasma gun dispatches Nazis fairly rapidly, while a single shotgun blast is often fatal. However, a chainsaw can be reasonably useful against the enemy, but only at corners or narrow rooms and dead ends, because of its hitscan attack.

Inspiration and development
Although the Doom engine considers SS Nazis to be the same height as former humans and the player, they appear shorter on the screen because their sprites are unchanged in size from the originals from Wolfenstein 3D.

The enemy's alert and death sounds are spoken in German; they are "Schutzstaffel!" (Identifying himself as a member of the SS; literally, "protection squad") and "Mein Leben!" (a popular line from respective videogame; means "My life!"), respectively. When killed, a Wolfenstein SS simply falls on his back as his blood pours out from his chest and stains red his blue clothing.

The Schutzstaffel (abbreviated SS) was a notorious paramilitary organization active during Hitler's tenure in Germany, responsible for a large part of the war crimes committed by the regime.

Data

 * 1) This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, blood splats, and bullet dispersal are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
 * 2) The target must be close enough to compensate for the monster's inaccurate aim.
 * 3) Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.

Appearance statistics
The IWADs contain the following numbers of Wolfenstein SS enemies: