> Niall Gilsenan wrote:
15m long, 2m diameter, titanium cylinder, dropped on you from orbit?
That's a LOT of kinetic energy. (8-)
Though when Ortillery is mentioned, I always envisioned dual shot systems (a
laser punches a hole through the air, and a split second later a second laser
fires, or some sort of 'exotic' energy weapon. Plasma?) or banks of missiles,
or even dumbfire rockets. Certainly
nothing as... elegant (8-) as a Thor javelin.
BTW, for those who don't know - the Thor Javelin is a system from the
Renegade Legion universe. It's a kinetic kill weapon, with minimal seeker
electronics. They're deployed aboard low observable satellites, in low orbit.
When a request for fire support is received, the Javelin's detach, break
orbit, and essentially 'fall' onto their targets. They
are optimized for anti-armour missions.
Very good for fire-support; you need anti-orbital stuff to get at the
launcher platforms, they don't care about cloud cover (since they seek
on the emissions from the grav drive, which are hard to hide (8-) ),
they're relatively cheap compared to other types of space-based
fire support, and there isn't much that can resist something like that going
through your top deck. (Unless you're a Bolo or an Ogre,
but now I'm crossing Universes. (8-) )
J.
Yeah - the stats are hiding somewhere - Mk V. Essentially 6-module
vehicle, 2xclass 7 mods, 4xclass 4s. 2x DFFG/5, 6xMDC/4, 16xAPSW,
6xmodified class-4 artillery rocket (one shot, nuke warhead).. It was
fast tracked, max armored. We didn't use the 'One BOOMed module destroys
vehicle' rule - modular vehicles then die very rapidly. We also had
some rules about limitations of differences between weapon & armor classes to
achieve BOOMs. The OGREs were horrifying - lots of firecon, nukes, and
a fearless AI. More often than not, it was the AIs lack of morale that won the
battle. Few forces can mentally withstand being nuked 6 times, even if their
force losses were minimal.
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
> ---- jerry han wrote:
7.2e+15 joules, to be a bit more exact. you don't want to know how i
figured it out, do you?
Actually...yes. But I was thinking that the THOR system (a real project, never
developed, AFAIK...) was more along the lines of a crowbar, or something.
Fired from OWP (Orbital Weapons Platforms). We never made the good stuff
(Orion, Thor, etc.).
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
Actually...yes. But I was thinking that the THOR system (a real project, never
developed, AFAIK...) was more along the lines of a crowbar, or something.
Fired from OWP (Orbital Weapons Platforms). We never made the good stuff
(Orion, Thor, etc.).
Well, Orion and Thor kinda expensive (though from a military/power
projection standpoint Thor would be an awesome replacement for Nukes.)
A prototype for Orion was built using high-explosives, see John McPhee's
The Curve of Binding Energy for details.
7.2e15 Joules of energy is a bit steep for a battlefield weapon, thats more a
city destroyer. Maybe the original poster got the units wrong? The Thor I read
about was more like 1m long an 0.5 cm in diameter, something small enough to
survive reentry and not leave an enormous crater. It has the added bonus of
not killing the poor slob ordering the fire
mission....
cheers
There were actual RL plans for building these weapons? Were these connected
with Star Wars or something?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Even the engineers are not *this* depraved. This must be the work of the Med.
students.
- A friend of mine
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> On Tue, 21 Jul 1998, Brad Holden wrote:
> Actually...yes. But I was thinking that the THOR system (a real
Yeah, I think it was a RL system-concept. I don't know if it was
something
that a bunch of SF writers came up with, or military think-tanks, or
what.
It was years, if not decades before the SDI project - which had some
good
ideas, too. It wasn't quite the city-buster described earlier - might
as well throw rocks from Luna if you're going to do that (thanks, Mr.
Heinlein!). It was more of an anti-armor system.
Noah
[quoted original message omitted]
Just think KE=(1/2)m*v*v.
It's a "kinetic-kill weapon".
Throw (or drop) anything fast enough and explosives become superfluous. Of
course, there are atmospheric effects to consider. These effects will define
the "terminal velocity"
of your tungsten/depleted-uranium KKW.
- Sam
> Yeah, I think it was a RL system-concept. I don't know if it was
> On Tue, 21 Jul 1998 tom.anderson@altavista.net wrote:
> ---- jerry han wrote:
Actually, I do. Mass is easy enough, but the simplest formula for potential
energy (E=mgh) has two problems: It assumes constant gravity and ignores
atmospheric friction.
Taking that orbit is "high enough", you need to calculate the terminal
velocity for the rod and go from there. I trust you did this?
I'll forgive you for ignoring heat build-up effects from atmospheric
friction.
Not that a 15m x 2m solid metal cylinder didn't have enough mass to make a
dent in tank-sized objects from nearly any height.
> At 11:45 22/07/98 +0300, you wrote:
You're all beginning to frighten me with this. Brain overheating. All
I know is drop a piece of metal on top of a tank from way above it and you get
a "BIG BADABOOM!" as they say.
Anyhow I know I could survive it if it were dropped on me. It would bounce.
Um, I think I'll shut up now.
One question - "Mass is easy enough..." Does this take into account the
loss in mass as part of the rod melts away in reentry, or does it ever get hot
enough for that? I know reentry temps are high, especiallly for deadfall, but
I don't know how high, or the melting point of titanium...
Just throwing the proverbial wrench into the works...
maxxon@swob.dna.fi on 07/21/98 11:45:12 PM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
cc: (bcc: Jared E Noble/AAI/ARCO)
Subject: Re: Drifting to DSII (was Re: New Fighter Types (drifting
OT....))
> On Tue, 21 Jul 1998 tom.anderson@altavista.net wrote:
Actually, I do. Mass is easy enough, but the simplest formula for potential
energy (E=mgh) has two problems: It assumes constant gravity and ignores
atmospheric friction. Taking that orbit is "high enough", you need to
calculate the terminal velocity for the rod and go from there. I trust you did
this?
I'll forgive you for ignoring heat build-up effects from atmospheric
friction. Not that a 15m x 2m solid metal cylinder didn't have enough mass to
make a
dent in tank-sized objects from nearly any height.
> On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, Jared E Noble wrote:
> One question - "Mass is easy enough..." Does this take into account
Well, to be entirely truthful, *initial* mass is easy enough. But I did say
> I'll forgive you for ignoring heat build-up effects from atmospheric
The rod will lose mass, but enough to be significant? I don't know.
> ---- brad wrote:
that is one possibility. more likely, i got the calculations wrong.
somebody check them! density of Ti = 5.01 g/cm3, LEO = 5000 km above
earth surface (contentious, but i found a NASA paper that said so...), you
know the rest.