This assumes that you are using shells for Ortillery. If you are using very
large energy/particle weapons for the Ortillery system, the transit time
is VERY short. Yes, you still need to deal with variations in the atmosphere
(clouds, thermal levels, etc.), but that is why the Ortillery system is so
massive (same as A beam in 2nd edition, 2x Class-1 beam and equal to
Class-2
beam with 3 arcs in FB). I pictured it as a Class-2 (FB) or A (2nd ed.)
beam with dedicated sensors and FCS.
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/
-----
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> We've got a lot more atmosphere than that. Planes routinely fly at
> Bell, Brian K wrote:
> This assumes that you are using shells for Ortillery. If you are
The atmosphere isn't all that kind to particle beams, though. Lasers are
better, but you're still looking at fairly massive power losses on the way
down.
Regards,
> On 29-Nov-99 at 14:48, Oerjan Ohlson (oerjan.ohlson@telia.com) wrote:
After the egg on my face about atmosphere height I'm hesistant to post,
however...
Aren't some of the newer sattelites using wavelengths to which the atmosphere
is transparent? Maybe Ortillery is a beam weapon optimized to penetrate
atmosphere instead of reaching out and touching spacecraft.
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Roger Books wrote:
> After the egg on my face about atmosphere height I'm hesistant to
:>
> Aren't some of the newer sattelites using wavelengths to which the
Your wavelength may be optimized to penetrate the atmosphere, but may not be
very optimized to penetrating the target or even causing much in the way of
thermal affects. You are going to need an awfully large amount of
thermal energy to get any explosive affects. At least in the Dirtside time
period you need an explosive of some sort to really accomplish the main use of
ortillery. Supressing men and pounding targets.
I'd use Ortillery for deep area supression (Corps level artillery). If I
have no surface artillery yet, then I'm going to use two things. Small
corvettes optimized for atmosphereic flight with an ortillery system (not
unlike the DDs and LCRs and LCGs used during WWII and later) and more
primarily a flight of ground attack aircraft attached directly to the jarheads
on the "beach".
You could use Beam based weapons for destroying point targets, but anything
you could affect with a beam, isn't going to be very big or well armoured. A
deep penetrator would be much better.
A side note to the Defense of planets make me recall a Berserker story about a
planet that is seemingly serene and defenseless that some seeming "good life"
persuades a berserker to attack in stead of his home world. Well the serene
planet actually has been fitted out with massive defenses all hidden and all
cooled using large heat sincs under the various lakes
and rivers. The thing about a planet is that you have less trouble re routing
power and less trouble cooling things that need to be cooled. I can see a very
well defended planet being a harsh place to be for enemy ships for that
reason. Even craft optimized for shore bombardment.
I have to wonder if we need rules for longer ranged missile ortillery against
fixed positions from just outside of the orbit of the planet. Could you even
get that kind of accuracy and penetration through planetary defenses?
> After the egg on my face about atmosphere height I'm hesistant to
Ah, you were just off by a factor of 2...hundred...or so... ;-)
> I have to wonder if we need rules for longer ranged missile ortillery
Leaving aside the planetary defenses for a moment, in FT
you can hit a mass-10 scout with a capital (MT) missile
or missile salvo. The scout can't be more than a couple of hundred feet long;
they way I envision them, it'd be around 100'.
- Sam
"I used to bullseye womp-rats in my T16 back home, and
they can't be much more than 3 meters!"
- Luke Skywalker (almost certainly misremembered/misquoted)