> --- Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net> wrote:
> a really interesting thread. How do you handle
Nuclear grenades? Do they include a pair of sneakers? (Throw and run, REAL
FAST).
> Maybe we can save the thread and talk about a game
Depends. Give troops a grenade with the force of a 155mm shell and they will
end up hurting themselves. Grenades are used at really close range. According
to The Book, the "average soldier" can throw a grenade 35m effectively. Now,
that's 3.5" in Stargrunt terms, which is why they are abstracted into close
combat. Grenades are also heavily used in MOUT operations at ranges of a few
feet (thrown into rooms, etc). You don't want too much power being set off at
that range.
What about as an RPG or M-79 type weapon? I can see where lobbing the
equivalent of a 155mm shell into the building down the street might be a
useful item. Or perhaps as a cave or bunker buster. It would replace mortars
for rapid artillery support.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
G'day,
> According to The Book, the "average soldier" can throw
But it's 17" or there abouts in FMA, so may be worth thinking about for that
one... even if only as a "ludicrous option".
Cheers
But you've still got all kinds of side effects to deal with that will
probably extend well beyond the range of the launcher - shock wave
induced damage, induced radiation, and fallout (even with a weapon designed as
"clean" if the fireball touches the surface you got fallout). Back in the
late 50's - early 60's the U.S. Army developed what was called the
"Battlegroup Weapons System (aka "Davy Crockett"), the idea being to give each
"battlegroup" (an organizational aberration imposed on the US Army
under the so-called pentomic organization - basically think of it as a
very large battalion (5 rifle companies), 5 of which comprised an infantry
division) it's own tactical nuclear capability. It came in two sizes, based on
120MM and 150MM recoilless guns IIRC, and fired a supercaliber nuclear
projectile. The thing was never fielded because the guns lacked sufficient
range (their range was 1500-2500m or thereabouts) to fire the weapon
without involving the firing unit in at least the outermost effect zone, and
the "bang" wasn't that large. Compare this with the (let's be generous) 500M
or
even 1000M range of some SF shoulder-fired launcher, not to mention the
current day 200-300M. And if you do make the bang so small, it's
probably not worth the expense and gadgetry you have to go through to make
such a small amount of nuclear material misbehave. Probably much more
cost-effective to use some super-scientific high yield chemical
explosive, or FAE shells, or something along that line. BTW, I was a trained
nuclear weapons target analyst when I was in the army and I know whereof I
speak, although I'm not at liberty to get specific.
[quoted original message omitted]
So what exactly is the point of micro nukes if you have conventional munitions
(HE, FAE, plasma?, electrical?) that are just as powerful as
them, but will leave no side-effects on your own occupying troops?
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 07:25:55PM -0500, Robert W. Eldridge wrote:
Gyrobombs!
With sufficient materials tech, you can get more energy per mass in a spinning
gyroscope than in any current chemical explosive. Combine that with a
fragmenting charge on the flywheel, and you get no explosion,
but lots of very fast-moving fragments.
Side effect: the fragments come out more or less in a disc, rather than in a
sphere. Depending on what you're doing, this can be a lot more efficient than
a normal explosion. Great for bounding landmines, for example.
On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 10:23:47 +0000, Roger Burton West
<roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> Side effect: the fragments come out more or less in a disc, rather than
That is just plain evil... I like it! Gyrobombs...
Theoretically, you could fire them, too, like a frisbee out of some sort of
gun. Good lord, the GW Eldar "shuriken catapult" isn't that far off...
From: Roger Burton West
> Gyrobombs!
What do you mean by "sufficient materials tech"? Unobtainium? Carbon fibers?
Lead?
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 08:58:23AM -0500, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
> With sufficient materials tech, you can get more energy per mass in a
Wouldn't this include manufacture? I'm assuming it's homogeniety would have to
be impressive to hold until 'brought up to speed'.
> Theoretically, you could fire them, too, like a frisbee out of some
I'd imagine it even better; just below 'up to speed', it's an
armor/fortification/mounting-piercing, buzzsaw, direct fire weapon, with
a brain to kick in the 'jets' if it fails to hit a primary target. Ok, plenty
of problems, even more with 'jets' controlled enough to precisely increase
rotation, but it does make for an interesting BEM super dingus.
Oh, yes, the quotes around 'jets' indicates I'm also considering a range
counter-spinning centers, inertial-imparting field generators, precisely
bio-engineered bio-flatulance bio-thrusters (You're welcome,Big S), etc.
> Chen-song Qin wrote:
> So what exactly is the point of micro nukes if you have conventional
An 0.02kilotonne conventional explosive charge has a mass of 0.02 kilotonnes,
or about forty thousand pounds. A 0.02kilotonne nuclear charge has a much
smaller mass, probably on the order of fifty pounds (could be much less).
Blowing up an interchange on the autobahn
From: Richard and Emily Bell <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
> An 0.02kilotonne conventional explosive charge has a mass of 0.02
Only if it's.02kt of TNT. If you use a more efficient explosive,
[quoted original message omitted]
From: "Roger Burton West" <roger@firedrake.org>
> Gyrobombs!
But moving them would be a bitch due to gyroscopic effects. You wouldn't want
em to start precessing....
BTW I talked with an astronomer not so long ago: one of the more exotic
objects under study is a (suspected) black hole, with an
accretion disk showing a doppler of 1/3c on one side, -1/3c on the
other.
I *really* don't want to think about the tidal forces on something
Actually, there are several pulsars that have periods of just a few
milliseconds, down to about 1.5 milliseconds as far as I can tell from an
online search, and these are "solid" objects rotating that fast. In an
accretion disk is matter that has pretty much been shredded already by
gravitational tidal effects.
As an undergrad, I was working on a research project doing computer
simulations to determine the maximum rate of spin for neutron stars. If its
spinning too fast, the centrifugal "force" will tear the outer layers of the
star off into orbit, and the whole thing starts breaking up. Unfortunately I
graduated before we started getting any real data and the student who was
supposed to finish it pretty much gave up on it all.
Randy Wolfmeyer Dept. of Physics Washington University
> On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Alan and Carmel Brain wrote:
On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 10:23:47 +0000, Roger Burton West
<roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
> Side effect: the fragments come out more or less in a disc, rather than
Ohhh.. Reminds me of "TDX," gravity polarized explosive. I remember it from a
Traveller's Journal article.. can't recall the Sci-Fi they got it from
though...
Exploded parallel with gravity....
Cut the legs off you... literally
Randy
Blish's Cities in Flight series, iirc.
A pretty cool invention. The engineering applications are pretty wide,
although after a bout with calculus I go in for more of John A's type of
engineering these days.
> ShldWulf@aol.com wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 10:23:47 +0000, Roger Burton West
> from a Traveller's Journal article.. can't recall the Sci-Fi they got