Another thought - what presence will there be on planets of 'traditional
wet' Navy forces? And how would you present that in DS 2? (Or SG 2 if you
wanted to?)
There *will* be significant bodies of water to control on these planets (Dune
excepted of course...) and specialist forces would certainly exist to fulfill
the roles the RN, USN, etc. fulfill today...
Gracias,
G'day,
> Another thought - what presence will there be on planets of
Depending on the planet I'd say a fair bit, but I'm kinda biased when it comes
to things marine;)
> And how would you present that in DS 2? (Or SG 2 if you wanted to?)
As they are you have to do a bit of adaptation, but if I remember correctly
there have been a few people who have done "battleships" modifications for GZG
games (though one at least is an adaptation of FT rather than
DS/SG).
I've messed around with purely underwater stuff, but I haven't done any
surface stuff as yet. You may want to check the archives for names of the
people who've done the navy modifications.
Cheers
Along these lines, I just ran across a discussion of a technology I'd never
hear of before, and I was pretty impressed with it. Also very very
disappointed in myself for not having encountered it before. The technology is
Supercavitation. Makes for some interesting designs, if anyone ever ran
a naval sci-fi game.
Brian
"The Irish are the only race of people on Earth for which psychoanalysis is of
no use."
- S. Freud
> From: Beth.Fulton@csiro.au
> --- Glenn M Wilson <triphibious@juno.com> wrote:
NRE Doctrine:
Local police will have most of the "Coast Guard" type functions with small
coastal craft.
Planetary Defense Commands (the same guys who operate the system defense boats
and
planet/moon/asteroid-based fighters) will operate
"boomers", submarines equipped with SMRs as an option
to supplement land-based aerospace defense assets.
Brown-water assets are organic to Thematic Light
Infantry brigades which have coastal or riverine responsibilities in their
sector.
Other than that, I doubt it. There just ain't the
same call for blue-water naval supremacy. You can
plink from orbit--there's no terrain to hide in and
there are no high-value targets to hide next too
(ie--you don't orbitally bombard a factory complex you
want to use, but most patches of ocean aren't that important). Same factors
that led theorists to believe that nukes would be used more at sea than on
land in WWIII.
Then there is always sonoluminesence, based on collapsing bubbles in water
with sound waves to generate high temperatures and light.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> Brian Bilderback wrote:
What is supercavitation. I know what regular cavitation is, is super
cavitation where you get sucked backwards by the bubbles?:)
> On 30-Nov-01 at 15:17, Jaime Tiampo (fugu@spikyfishthing.com) wrote:
The
> > technology is Supercavitation. Makes for some interesting designs,
I _believe_ it is where you generate a bubble around your "torpedo"
or even bullets so they move almost as fast as if they are in air instead of
water. One of the science mags had an article on it several months ago. I'll
look and see if I still have it.
G'day,
> One of the science mags had an article
I know New Scientist has had a fair few articles on it over the last 12 months
or more.
Sorry can't remember which particular issues though.
Last I heard the Russians were way ahead on this one, for the moment at least,
though the USAians were catching up fast with some new and improved propulsion
ideas. I'd also heard that it was one of the theories behind the Kursk going
down (the supercavitating torps are bigger and the test one got stuck on first
firing).
Marine movement wise its very promising as it allows for supersonic speed
underwater (or there abouts) if you can keep the bubble stable - sort of
like the marine equivalent of the butterfly flight phenomenon.
Cheers
G'day,
> Other than that, I doubt it. There just ain't the
Assuming they overcome the 'cline problems they currently have. We still have
troubles using orbital stuff to identify anything between sea bottom
10-30m down due to internal waves and the thermocline etc. So the same
things that currently hide subs etc from surface ships will probably still
hide them from satellites (at least based on biological/project buoys
and probes we use, actual naval guys may know of break throughs we don't have
access to).
> and there are no high-value targets to hide next too
Except maybe the exact patches you're fighting over as they contain the "gold
purification plant critical to both sides future...";)
> Same factors that led theorists to
Uck!! Good way to make sure it circulates around to bite you back on homesoil
(well shores!)!
Cheers
> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> > Other than that, I doubt it. There just ain't the
Yeah, I could see doing the submarine warfare thing.
Although as a ground-pounder I've always been partial
to the whole "Overrun their port--they gotta come back
for fresh veggies sometime" theory of sea supremacy. Now, if on your planet a
significant portion of the population lives in underwater domes, there are
large auqaculture (is this the right word for kelp farming and fish
ranching??) stations, and your heavy industry is based around undersea mineral
nodules, then things change signficantly. You start having to take underwater
cities and that leads to a whole new kettle of fish.
But surface ships are probably still right out for the reasons mentioned
above.
As a side note, what's the difference between a starship and a submarine? Both
have to be
water/vacuum proof--what's to stop a streamlined ship
from splashing into an ocean and hiding on the bottom of the sea for a while,
then flying out to launch
hit-and-run strikes on the enemy?
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 08:28:14AM -0800, John Atkinson wrote:
The spaceship needs to resist up to one atmosphere of negative pressure (1 atm
inside, vacuum outside), and should rarely if ever encounter positive
pressure. A submarine doesn't need to resist negative pressure,
but does need to resist 40+ atmospheres of positive pressure (450m is
the official maximum depth for the Los Angeles class, which is over 44
atmospheres above surface pressure). While a streamlined ship may well
be capable of shallow-water lurking, I suspect that the internal bracing
is entirely different. (There'll be more overlap than I've mentioned here,
since one of the effects of a nearby warhead explosion is overpressure, but
the basic design goals are distinct.)
> At 8:28 AM -0800 12/1/01, John Atkinson wrote:
A starship has to keep 1 atmosphere in. A submarine has to keep 1 atmosphere
of pressure in for every 33 feet it descends. Subs that go to a few hundred
feet down have to stand a far greater force than a space craft does.
1 atmosphere is air pressure at sea level.
> Roger Burton West wrote:
The Traveller universe routinely has system defense boats deploy in underwater
locations for covert operations. If the operational requirements are defined
to operate in both vacuum and a given external pressure, they can clearly both
be met. You don't
have to design a SDB for 5,000 ft of underwater/liquid operation.
Just deep enough to disguise the visual, infrared, and other sensors.
From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> As a side note, what's the difference between a
on one, you have 1 atmosphere trying to get out. On the other, you have lots
and lots of pressure trying to get in. Aside from that, different sensors,
different propulsion, and different weapons, hardly any difference at all.
> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:
If a starship has to survive nuclear near-misses, then
methinks that surviving far lower pressures for extended periods of time,
while not a trivial design exercise, is not terribly difficult either.
John:
> If a starship has to survive nuclear near-misses, then
Does a nuke in space generate a kill by blast pressure? No atmosphere, no
blast, right? My mental image (which may not have any connection to
plausability) has always been that you won't be able to get a nuke through the
point
defenses to near-miss range--a missile actually kills by getting close
enough with a bundle of bomb-pumped lasers.
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 09:35:36PM -0500, Laserlight wrote:
Correct. Producing a massive overpressure, rather than a bunch of sharp
fast-moving fragments, is a severely non-trivial thing to do in vacuo.
I certainly shan't argue that it's not possible to design spaceships which are
also submarines, particularly if the main drive is something that it's sane to
use underwater (i.e. not a fusion torch). I do think
that the mass-cost of doing so would be significantly higher than that
for full streamlining (and we know how many ships do _that_)...
> Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
Except that with supercavitation, the propulsion systems don't necessarily
have to be that different. The other differences, I have no response to.
G'day,
> Now, if on your planet a significant portion of the
Yep, that and mariculture.... though I don't doubt the number of names will
sky-rocket and get all fancy as the number of methods increases over the
next century etc.
> and your heavy industry
Nice little pun there;)
> But surface ships are probably still right out for the
Assuming the 'clines are comparable to earth's with respect to penetrability
to the current level of sensors. If they're stronger (or internal waves and
currents under the ocean surface are strong enough to cause severe cases of
parallax error) then you may see more subsurface stuff. For instance, if it
hadn't been for an improvement in sensors, subs and ship movement the maps of
the Pacific would still be covered with shoal marks which were actually just
the thermocline or large schools of fish fooling the early sonar etc operators
;)
> As a side note, what's the difference between a
Well the guys have pointed out a few details, but personally I'd think its a
valid tactic... and one the Sa'Vasku at least use apparently (according to
St^3 Jon's background blurb at least);)
> Roger Burton West wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2001 at 08:28:14AM -0800, John Atkinson wrote:
To deal with the overpressure of an explosion, the starship must resist a