I like Brian's post a lot. He summed up Grav rather well. Great gear, all
environment, excellent tactical options, expensive, techy (therefore
problematic in low supply situations assuming there is
anything to break - grav generators may be solid state?). I'll just
make two more little points:
1) Not talking in DS2 terms, just maybe future reality terms. Is tracked
cheaper than GEV? GEV involved a big fan or two. Tracked involves a complex
transmission. I don't really know if one or the other would be cheaper. They
might be near analogous.
2) Your comment about GEVs mountains might apply... but you should call them
hills. Mountains are bad for tracked vehicles (they can't climb those kind of
slopes either...). And I still think with enough rearward fan power (imagine a
turbine jet for example), a GEV could climb a big hill. Power is cheap, as we
both admit.
3) Your comment about GEVs and light woods presumes the presence of no
bushcutter attachments for the GEV. By that I mean some hitherto
unseen method of mowing bush - maybe a high intensity laser scythe?
who knows.... I'm not a CBE - that allows them to move through. If we
posit cheap power and 180 years from now... that may be feasible.
But otherwise, I totally concur with your analysis. The only question
I have, and its dependent on your PSB, is whether the power-cost of
lift for a GEV offsets the friction cost to move - hence you can't
actually go faster than a tracked vehicle. If the lift-cost isn't more
than the friction gain by going GEV, then GEVs will be faster.
Early GEVs are probably quite slow, ponderous, and suffer badly from terrain.
Later ones may employ more advanced engineering to give them far more
capability, speed and robustness. It's that TL thing
again....
> On Wed, 1 Dec 1999 12:15:34 -0500, kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca wrote:
> 2) Your comment about GEVs mountains might apply... but you should
How do you tilt the front of the GEV so it can start climbing the slope
without it spilling air out of it's cushion, or grounding the front, or
grounding the back?
> On 2-Dec-99 at 00:54, Allan Goodall (agoodall@interlog.com) wrote:
Active skirts that follow the terrain. Mollecular monofilimant that drags the
ground.
Small, short duration, high output null-G packs. They take ten minutes
to charge and can lift the hovercraft for about a minute.
Come on, you're accepting anti-gravity but won't accept that we can
figure out how to make a hovercraft go up a hill?
> "Bell, Brian K" wrote:
> At this point the two major problems would be fuel and noise. Fuel
Brian,
You were almost there, it's called black noise
OK, here's another 2 cents worth...
As some have pointed out, large fans on GEV's are impractical. Rather I
imagined an engine similar in power to a jet engine, powered by HMT or Fusion,
with vectored ducts (ala, the Harrier Jump Jet). Skirts are there to add
efficiency, but are not necessary.
But wait, you say, now it's not a GEV, its a VTOL. Yes and no. The main
difference would be in the role that it is assigned and its designed. Just
because an engineer carries a gun and can use it does not mean that you would
use him in the role of a sniper (no disrespect intended to either the
engineers or snipers). VTOL's are designed to operate at a greater ground
clearance. They have their armor distributed for this role (increased belly
armor). The GEV is designed to stay close to the ground (to take advantage of
ground effect where possible) and act in a role similar to a traditional tank.
At this point the two major problems would be fuel and noise. Fuel would not
seem to be a problem as energy appears to be cheap in the GZG future
(HMT,
Fusion). Noise presents a greater challenge, but not an insurmountable one.
There are sound deadening and sound canceling technologies in use today. I
don't know the term but there is a sound canceling technology that projects
sound with the exact opposite wave form. The result is the canceling of the
noise. I don't know how well it works at present (it may just have the effect
of creating white noise), but perhaps an improved version of this could be
employed.
-----
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ds2/
-----
> -----Original Message-----
On Thu, 2 Dec 1999 09:02:15 -0500 (EST), Roger Books
<books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
> Active skirts that follow the terrain. Mollecular monofilimant that
Well, that's better than what Drake did, which is ignore the problem! *S* You
still have problems, as someone else mentioned, of the lift vector partly
sending you back down the hill, even if you do manage to make the skirt so it
could contour properly to a slope.
> Small, short duration, high output null-G packs. They take ten minutes
Hmmm... hybrid GEV/anti grav? I haven't seen someone mention anything
like
this...
> Come on, you're accepting anti-gravity but won't accept that we can
Well, the problem is that with anti-grav you can always do some
pseudo-science
hand waving. With a hovercraft there are real problems that hand waving won't
solve (such as the lift vector up hill problem, and the hockey puck problem).
And I don't "accept" anti-grav... not at least until a unified field
theory exists and suggests it's possible. *S*
But, that doesn't stop me playing with them and having a good time on the
wargame table. Believe it or not, I really CAN willingly suspend my disbelief!
*S*
On Thu, 2 Dec 1999 09:36:18 -0500 , "Bell, Brian K"
<Brian_Bell@dscc.dla.mil>
wrote:
> At this point the two major problems would be fuel and noise.
Well, actually, you have a bigger problem of generating enough lift with
little tiny blades, the turbulence under the body of the tank, and getting
enough of an air flow to generate lift... *S*