• Announcements

    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Sign in to follow this  
The Old Hack

Story Friday July 6, 2018

Recommended Posts

19 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I am less convinced of the value of the hot air balloon as a projectile. You can of course always drop things from it, but the much-loved maneuver of accelerating to ramming speed does not seem to come quite as naturally to it.

Quite correct.  That tactic is far more suited to the hydrogen filled dirigible.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think it needs to be taken little metaphorically.

Although any propulsion technology is literally indistinguishable from gun. You can ALWAYS accelerate a projectile and hit target with it.

Well, I meant that it's easier to make something go kaboom (i.e. huge energy release) than it is to get it precisely on target.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, ijuin said:

Well, I meant that it's easier to make something go kaboom (i.e. huge energy release) than it is to get it precisely on target.

Ah! Well, in that case Pharaoh is correct. The hydrogen filled dirigible is much more suited for that given the speed with which it will combust.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thing is, a gun is just a launch mechanism, pull the trigger, it ignites the explosive in the chamber, and the bullet is carried by momentum, the propulsion system does not travel with the projectile.

A bomb doesn't have propulsion whatsoever, it's just dropped and gravity does the work, more advanced bombs have fins that pivot so that the bomb stays on target but once you add any kind of propulsion system you'd get a rocket or missile, and that can apply to things like aircraft, or a torpedo if in water.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Scotty said:

Thing is, a gun is just a launch mechanism, pull the trigger, it ignites the explosive in the chamber, and the bullet is carried by momentum, the propulsion system does not travel with the projectile.

I don't quite see the problem. The original statement was that as soon as you have a propulsion system, you also potentially have a weapon. At that point it does not matter if what is propelled is a separate unit or the system itself. What matters is that the energy from the propulsion system may be weaponised. This is true even for my jokingly mentioned balloon -- by rising it adds potential energy to anything aboard, and even if it is just common rocks these will still strike with a force equivalent to the potential energy added to them once they get dropped. Minus loss to heat created by friction, of course.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Or even if the propulsion system is only a means of getting something from over here to over there... the hazard of a hand grenade is not based on how hard it's thrown, and it doesn't become safe if it rolls to a complete stop.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
19 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I am less convinced of the value of the hot air balloon as a projectile. You can of course always drop things from it, but the much-loved maneuver of accelerating to ramming speed does not seem to come quite as naturally to it.

Hot air balloon usually includes device which is making the air hot - and can be used differently as well.

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

This is true even for my jokingly mentioned balloon -- by rising it adds potential energy to anything aboard, and even if it is just common rocks these will still strike with a force equivalent to the potential energy added to them once they get dropped. Minus loss to heat created by friction, of course.

Also true.

17 hours ago, ijuin said:

Well, I meant that it's easier to make something go kaboom (i.e. huge energy release) than it is to get it precisely on target.

That's true, however for military purposes you need SOMEHOW make sure the energy is released to enemy and not to you.

44 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Or even if the propulsion system is only a means of getting something from over here to over there... the hazard of a hand grenade is not based on how hard it's thrown, and it doesn't become safe if it rolls to a complete stop.

On the other hand, if you accelerates projectile to speed high enough (like, 99%c), then ANY payload, including antimatter, would be meaningless as it wouldn't cause any more destruction than just the kinetic energy.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That's true, however for military purposes you need SOMEHOW make sure the energy is released to enemy and not to you.

Not quite. You only need to ensure that the energy is released to the enemy. If you can partly or completely avoid having any of it spill over on yourself, this is a happy bonus.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
16 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

That's true, however for military purposes you need SOMEHOW make sure the energy is released to enemy and not to you.

Not quite. You only need to ensure that the energy is released to the enemy. If you can partly or completely avoid having any of it spill over on yourself, this is a happy bonus.

Well military device is not successful unless it causes bigger damage to enemy than your own side. It's true that device which kills operator can still count as success if it kills multiple enemy combatants (or if it disables armored vehicle for example), but device killing one person on each side is usually considered useless. Unless you are Russian. Or if the enemy person was officer and the weapon operator wasn't.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Well military device is not successful unless it causes bigger damage to enemy than your own side.

That depends on what 'success' is determined as. If you are on a hopelessly losing side, doing any damage at all might be seen as success. If the weapon is experimental, success might be gaining information that will improve its reliability regardless of whether it does any damage at all this time. If the objective is to intimidate and overawe the enemy with a show of force, you might not need to do any damage at all. 'Energy', after all, need not result in physical damage nor even in any deaths. If you convince the enemy that he does not want to take this fight, that, too, may be a success.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well military device is not successful unless it causes bigger damage to enemy than your own side.

That depends on what 'success' is determined as. If you are on a hopelessly losing side, doing any damage at all might be seen as success. If the weapon is experimental, success might be gaining information that will improve its reliability regardless of whether it does any damage at all this time. If the objective is to intimidate and overawe the enemy with a show of force, you might not need to do any damage at all. 'Energy', after all, need not result in physical damage nor even in any deaths. If you convince the enemy that he does not want to take this fight, that, too, may be a success.

I'm going to argue that psychological damage also count as damage, although it's true that it's harder to evaluate and compare ...

Regarding experimental weapon, well, I was talking about total damage aggregated over all cases where your side uses the weapon (or ALL sides, but with enemy determined per use). Weapon can be success in general even if it fails to damage enemy more than your side in 50% of deployments, if the damage difference in those other 50% is big enough to compensate. And, experimental weapon is generally successful only if it's used non-experimentally later.

... although in case of thermonuclear weapons, the psychological effect of experiments on BOTH sides was big enough noone dared to actually use them outside experiments yet. Probably still counts as success. And that might not be only counterexample.

(Most successful weapon is weapon you only need to declare you possess and enemy surrenders unconditionally without even asking to prove you actually have it.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Perhaps the most successful weapon system in real-world history is the Strategic Defense Initiative. It contributed (exactly how much is subject to debate) to the other side collapsing, before there were even any serious experimental deployments.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well military device is not successful unless it causes bigger damage to enemy than your own side. It's true that device which kills operator can still count as success if it kills multiple enemy combatants (or if it disables armored vehicle for example), but device killing one person on each side is usually considered useless. Unless you are Russian. Or if the enemy person was officer and the weapon operator wasn't.

 

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

That depends on what 'success' is determined as. If you are on a hopelessly losing side, doing any damage at all might be seen as success. If the weapon is experimental, success might be gaining information that will improve its reliability regardless of whether it does any damage at all this time. If the objective is to intimidate and overawe the enemy with a show of force, you might not need to do any damage at all. 'Energy', after all, need not result in physical damage nor even in any deaths. If you convince the enemy that he does not want to take this fight, that, too, may be a success.

Conversely, if you have much smaller numbers than your enemy, an even exchange is a definite failure, and anything less than proportional damage is unsustainable.  If you're outnumbered twenty to one, you'd better take out at least twenty-one for every one you lose, or there won't be any of you left to be the victors.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm going to argue that psychological damage also count as damage, although it's true that it's harder to evaluate and compare ...

I agree, which is why I used the term 'energy' in this case. A weapon which saps the enemy of morale and willingness to fight cannot be readily quantified yet loss of strategic or tactical momentum may decisively change the outcome of a war. But 'damage' did not seem like quite the right term to me. You can sap the momentum of an enemy force without physically harming it and it is possible for it to regain momentum later on without having lost any of its component integrity. It is complicated.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... although in case of thermonuclear weapons, the psychological effect of experiments on BOTH sides was big enough noone dared to actually use them outside experiments yet. Probably still counts as success. And that might not be only counterexample.

Hrm. While trade can be a weapon, I am not sure that it belongs in this category. But it is possible to set it up so as to be so profitable that neither side wishes to risk ruining it.

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Most successful weapon is weapon you only need to declare you possess and enemy surrenders unconditionally without even asking to prove you actually have it.)

Indeed. As Sun Tzu said, the supreme excellence in war is to win without a single blow being struck. And one of his most important dictums was that all warfare is based on deception.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Perhaps the most successful weapon system in real-world history is the Strategic Defense Initiative. It contributed (exactly how much is subject to debate) to the other side collapsing, before there were even any serious experimental deployments.

While their status as weapon may be argued, I would say that the Bubonic Plague and smallpox are both excellent contenders here, too. The former made BOTH sides in the Byzantine/Persian war collapse and the latter allowed Cortez and his tiny handful of men to conquer the Aztec Empire.

44 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Conversely, if you have much smaller numbers than your enemy, an even exchange is a definite failure, and anything less than proportional damage is unsustainable.  If you're outnumbered twenty to one, you'd better take out at least twenty-one for every one you lose, or there won't be any of you left to be the victors.

Indeed. As that charming old gentleman Josef Stalin put it, "At a certain level, quantity takes on its own quality."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this