Weapons of the Future
Al Lal
most destructive weapon that exists was created. So far, we have not
been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
technology.
What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
science-fiction? Are we going to have something more powerful than a
fusion bomb -- something capable of destroying the whole planet with a
single light bomb? What about laserguns -- impractical? What about
using matter and anti-matter to set up an explosion?
Mark Atwood
> been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> technology.
You must not know that much about guns.
There were *significant* advances in the technology of carryable guns,
for war, and for "other uses", in the 20thC. And even more extreme
advances in the tech of "big guns".
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Karl M Syring
The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
defend against it. Not very unpopular in SF because it pretty
much makes the beloved ship to ship combat useless. Simply
destroy the bases and planets of the enemy.
Karl M. Syring
r.r...@thevine.net
I've just recently finished off a terribly spooky book, made even
spookier by being non-fiction. It's called _Germs_, and is all about
the history of biological warfare. You really don't want to know the
kind of genegeneering scientists are doing in that field! But it made
me wonder about the lack of biowarfare in science fiction. There's
stories like "War of the Worlds", where the evil alien is
inadvertantly brought down by native germs, but very few stories about
using germs as weapons. Since the biggest limitation on biowarfare is
the fear of contaminating your side, it seems like it would be a good
weapon against an alien. If they are alien enough, you should be able
to design a disease that will affect them and not bother your people
at all. (One of the items discussed in _Germs_ was about tailoring
race-specific diseases. Right now that's still a stretch, but with
the human genome project it may be possible.)
Rebecca
Steve Holland
It is very unlikely. Races do not even exist in a genetic sense.
The so-called human races are better thought of as a set of
overlapping bell curves.
==========================================================================
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MPorcius
>> race-specific diseases. Right now that's still a stretch, but with
>> the human genome project it may be possible.)
>
> It is very unlikely. Races do not even exist in a genetic sense.
>The so-called human races are better thought of as a set of
>overlapping bell curves.
I don't know, what about things like sickle cell anemia? How hard would it
really be to design a disease that only attacked people with blue eyes or kinky
hair or whatever?
Steve Holland
These are not racial characteristics. They are more likely to
show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
caucasians.
Brandon Ray
Steve Holland wrote:
> These are not racial characteristics. They are more likely to
> show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
> define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
> virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
> that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
> caucasians.
OTOH, there must be something somewhere in the individual's DNA that tells
his body how much melanin to produce. Likewise, the presence or absence of
epicanthic folds. Don't kid yourself -- racial distinctions among humans
have never been based on rationality, and it is no big deal to come up with a
list of identifiable racial features that are coded primarily in the DNA of
blacks, or caucasians, or whatever group it is you want to single out. All
it takes then is a willingness to have some of your own population take it in
the neck, because they turn out to have one or more of the characteristics as
recessives.
--
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics! -- Homer Simpson
Dan Goodman
@posting.google.com:
I think you have a slight confusion between "predicted" and "will happen".
And -- what sf writers predict isn't nearly the same as what futurists
predict. Futurists stay within the limitations of known physics; sf
writers do not.
Another factor is the audience difference. Many professional futurists are
writing for organizations, which won't want anything too far out.
Dan Goodman
news:20030312112337...@mb-ba.aol.com:
>>> (One of the items discussed in _Germs_ was about tailoring
>>> race-specific diseases. Right now that's still a stretch, but with
>>> the human genome project it may be possible.)
>>
>> It is very unlikely. Races do not even exist in a genetic sense.
>>The so-called human races are better thought of as a set of
>>overlapping bell curves.
>
> I don't know, what about things like sickle cell anemia?
Found in at least two races. I recall that malaria-resistance genes have
also turned up in Orientals, but I'm not sure sickle cell trait is one of
them.
wth...@godzilla2.acpub.duke.edu
> >> (One of the items discussed in _Germs_ was about tailoring
> >> race-specific diseases. Right now that's still a stretch, but with
> >> the human genome project it may be possible.)
> >
> > It is very unlikely. Races do not even exist in a genetic sense.
> >The so-called human races are better thought of as a set of
> >overlapping bell curves.
>
> I don't know, what about things like sickle cell anemia?
This is not a disease tied to any "racial"
characteristic.
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
David Dyer-Bennet
> lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) writes:
> > been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> > invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> > technology.
>
> You must not know that much about guns.
>
> There were *significant* advances in the technology of carryable guns,
> for war, and for "other uses", in the 20thC. And even more extreme
> advances in the tech of "big guns".
Depends what you mean. The differences between an 1896 Mauser and my
Kahr K40 are very much evolutionary, and the results of being shot
with them are fairly similar. The Kahr is smaller, DAO, and mine is
stainless steel, and all those are important advances in their way,
but I view them all as little improvements.
Big guns I don't know so much about, but I can believe there are big
changes. Are they more in fire-control than in the basic gun?
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
Nopporn Wongrassamee
>mpor...@aol.com (MPorcius) wrote in
>news:20030312112337...@mb-ba.aol.com:
>> How hard
>> would it really be to design a disease that only attacked people with
>> blue eyes or kinky hair or whatever?
After seeing a cloned cat with different fur color than her "parent", this
looks pretty iffy too.
- Nopporn Wongrassamee
Homepage: http://hometown.aol.com/evilauthor/myhomepage/index.html
Joel Rosenberg
> lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) writes:
> > been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> > invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> > technology.
>
> You must not know that much about guns.
>
> There were *significant* advances in the technology of carryable guns,
> for war, and for "other uses", in the 20thC.
Sure. Then again, the most significant improvements -- cartridges,
smokeless powder, etc. -- were all 19th Century developments, although
there certainly have been improvements. (Me, I think that one of the
most significant ones is the cocking/safety mechanism of the H&K P7 --
although the market apparently disagrees.)
--
------------------------------------------------------------
http://islamthereligionofpeace.blogspot.com
James Nicoll
The thing about weapons is that the best way to attract funding
for them is to have some plausible use for them.
Take nuclear peace enhancement devices. The biggest one ever tested
was in 1961 and there's a reason nobody has bothered to build a bigger one:
no use for it. The Tsar Bomba massed 27 tonnes and could have yielded up
to 100 MT. A similar age 9 MT Mk/B-53 weighs about 4 tonnes. When you take
into account scaling, 7 9 MT bombs cause twice the incidiary effects and
almost six times the kinetic effects as one 100 MT device. 7 9 MT bombs
can be dropped on 7 different targets, as well.
The other issue that came up after the H-Bomb was developed is
that there are not very many targets that really need H-Bomb sized bangs
to destroy, especially once ICBM targeting gets accurate enough that you
don't need to incinerate an entire county to assure the destruction the
one brick and wood frame building that happens to be SAC HQ.
See, for example
http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/nuke.html
And look at the common yields.
At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
We could build a bomb so large and dirty that it recreated
the end of _Doctor Strangelove_ but in the absence of a second Earth
to hide on the market for such devices has not been large enough to
justify making even one. There's no useful role for such a device
so it isn't built.
--
"About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late
hour and the silence. I decided to put on some music.
Boy, that Billie Holiday can sing."
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
Jack Tingle
> I've just recently finished off a terribly spooky book, made even
> spookier by being non-fiction. It's called _Germs_, and is all about
> the history of biological warfare. You really don't want to know the
> kind of genegeneering scientists are doing in that field! But it made
> me wonder about the lack of biowarfare in science fiction. There's
> stories like "War of the Worlds", where the evil alien is
> inadvertantly brought down by native germs, but very few stories about
> using germs as weapons. Since the biggest limitation on biowarfare is
> the fear of contaminating your side, it seems like it would be a good
> weapon against an alien. If they are alien enough, you should be able
> to design a disease that will affect them and not bother your people
> at all
James Tiptree, "The Screwfly Solution". Very nasty story and probably
grossly unfair to honest, hard-working, alien real-estate developers.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Laura Burchard
Given that skin color is determined by multiple genes, and microscopic
organisms can't count, it's not going to 'some' of your own population.
Any skin gene is going to be present in large numbers in both 'blacks' and
'whites', and it's not like the virus can go 'hmm, they have 4 of the 6
'dark' genes! they don't pass the paper bag test, kill!'
You could theorectically do a set of multiple attacks that keyed on every
one of the skin genes, but you'd kill 90 percent or so of your 'home race'.
That's not keying on races, that's keying on a particular phenotype.
Laura
--
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb
"Good design is clear thinking made visible." -- Edward Tufte
Mark Atwood
> to destroy, especially once ... targeting gets accurate enough that you
> one brick and wood frame building that happens to be SAC HQ.
ObSF: for a smaller scale example, the smart machine gun in _The Peace War_,
that allowed one semiskilled user to do what used to require either
a whole team of snipers or else the dropping of an anti-personel bomb.
Al Lal
> lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) writes:
> > been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> > invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> > technology.
>
> You must not know that much about guns.
I am not an expert on guns, I must admit.
>
> There were *significant* advances in the technology of carryable guns,
> for war, and for "other uses", in the 20thC. And even more extreme
> advances in the tech of "big guns".
I did not state my point clearly or correctly. I meant to say that
not much advancement had been made recently -- as in the last 50 years
or so. But here again, I may be mistaken, because I am not an expert
in gun technology. What advances in gun technology have been made in
the last 50 years?
Bill Marsilii
>>What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
>>science-fiction?
I don't know, but I can guess -- and it's not anything like anti-matter or
fusion, because the market for a weapon is directly connected to a) its real
world use, and b) its wide availability.
With those as a given, I'd predict that the next big thing in weapons will be
an affordable handgun that does not set off metal detectors or show up easily
on X-rays.
(God help us all...)
Bill Marsilii
Karl M Syring
>
> We could build a bomb so large and dirty that it recreated
> the end of _Doctor Strangelove_ but in the absence of a second Earth
> to hide on the market for such devices has not been large enough to
> justify making even one. There's no useful role for such a device
> so it isn't built.
Well, except for aliens, who want to sterilize the planet in
order to make it suitable for colonization.
Karl M. Syring
Karl M Syring
> In article <b7acbb2a.03031...@posting.google.com>,
> Al Lal <lal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
>>>science-fiction?
>
> I don't know, but I can guess -- and it's not anything like anti-matter or
> fusion, because the market for a weapon is directly connected to a) its real
> world use, and b) its wide availability.
>
> With those as a given, I'd predict that the next big thing in weapons will be
> an affordable handgun that does not set off metal detectors or show up easily
> on X-rays.
>
> (God help us all...)
Sigh, that does exist since two decades or so. You must gather
better information to feed your paranoia. For example, it is
much easier to mask a cal .22 as a pencil.
Karl M. Syring
Mark Atwood
>
> I did not state my point clearly or correctly. I meant to say that
> not much advancement had been made recently -- as in the last 50 years
> or so. But here again, I may be mistaken, because I am not an expert
> in gun technology. What advances in gun technology have been made in
> the last 50 years?
Well, for one, I really like my "evil" "plastic gun".
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Al Lal <lal...@hotmail.com> said
<snip>
>I did not state my point clearly or correctly. I meant to say that
>not much advancement had been made recently -- as in the last 50 years
>or so. But here again, I may be mistaken, because I am not an expert
>in gun technology. What advances in gun technology have been made in
>the last 50 years?
Heck, have you even =seen= the caseless ammo, multi-barrel machine guns,
with electric firing, that can spit out x00 rounds at anything between 1
round/second or rounds 1" apart (in flight). No, they don't fit in your
pocket. 8>.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.
Bill Snyder
>lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) writes:
>>
>> I did not state my point clearly or correctly. I meant to say that
>> not much advancement had been made recently -- as in the last 50 years
>> or so. But here again, I may be mistaken, because I am not an expert
>> in gun technology. What advances in gun technology have been made in
>> the last 50 years?
>
>Well, for one, I really like my "evil" "plastic gun".
But that's only because you're an evulll libertoonian, and an
AmeriKKKan cowboy, and . . . (Just thought I'd try to get in ahead of
Karl and the other professional bashers.)
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Bill Marsilii
>Sigh, that does exist since two decades or so. You must gather
>better information to feed your paranoia.
Sigh, uhm, it's much more fun to feed your false sense of put-upon superiority.
Lighten up, man, it's a thread on a fuckin' newsgroup, not the Oak Room.
Bill Marsilii
Mark Atwood
> >
> >Well, for one, I really like my "evil" "plastic gun".
>
> But that's only because you're an evulll libertoonian, and an
> AmeriKKKan cowboy, and . . . (Just thought I'd try to get in ahead of
> Karl and the other professional bashers.)
Well no. I like the evil plastic gun because it's light, easy to
clean, and feels good in my hand.
I like guns in general because im a evulll libertoonian, and an
AmeriKKKan cowboy, etc, but that can be satisfied (and even more
satisfied) by a hundred year old R 1911 just as well as my G19.
After all, it's still possible to find and buy a legal 1911 without a
S/N (tho those are getting precious rare), pack it in grease, put it
in a pipe, and it'll easily last that way into the twenty-second and
probably into the twenty-THIRD centurys.
I have better things to do with a couple of thousand dollars, but it
makes me happy that it is possible in principal to do.
Keith Morrison
>> These are not racial characteristics. They are more likely to
>>show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
>>define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
>>virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
>>that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
>>caucasians.
>
> OTOH, there must be something somewhere in the individual's DNA that tells
> his body how much melanin to produce.
Extremely variable even withn the same populations.
> Likewise, the presence or absence of
> epicanthic folds.
Southeast-Asian...and also found in Northern Europe, some African
populations, some aboriginal American populations...
--
Keith
Johnny1A
> lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) wrote in news:b7acbb2a.0303112114.1162b280
> @posting.google.com:
>
> > With the development of the fusion bomb, in the mid 20th century the
> > most destructive weapon that exists was created. So far, we have not
> > been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> > invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> > technology.
> >
> > What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
> > science-fiction? Are we going to have something more powerful than a
> > fusion bomb -- something capable of destroying the whole planet with a
> > single light bomb? What about laserguns -- impractical? What about
> > using matter and anti-matter to set up an explosion?
> >
> I think you have a slight confusion between "predicted" and "will happen".
>
> And -- what sf writers predict isn't nearly the same as what futurists
> predict. Futurists stay within the limitations of known physics; sf
> writers do not.
Which may be why SF writers do at least as well over the long term. :)
Shermanlee
Jordan179
> With the development of the fusion bomb, in the mid 20th century the
> most destructive weapon that exists was created. So far, we have not
> been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> technology.
>
> What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
> science-fiction? Are we going to have something more powerful than a
> fusion bomb -- something capable of destroying the whole planet with a
> single light bomb?
I'm not sure what you mean by "single light bomb," but there's no
theoretical reason preventing the development of antimatter explosives
or relativistic kill vehicles, either of which technology cold
"destroy the whole planet" (assuming that you mean by that "Earth"),
for varying values of the word "destroy" depending on how much energy
was put into the weapon.
> What about laserguns -- impractical?
Not only "practical", but actually in use right now. Laser pointers
and rangefinders are miniaturized, laser designators only slightly
larger, and outright laser _cannon_ are now part of real military
hardware, in the form of a laser-cannon armed heavy aircraft entering
final testing phases (it carries enough chemicals for about 12-20
shots, and its intended target is ballistic missiles).
> What about
> using matter and anti-matter to set up an explosion?
Quite practical, once we learn how to make smaller and more reliable
magnetic bottles. As a similar problem must be solved for fusion power
plants, I suspect that we'll solve it.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Jordan179
>
> The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
> realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
> defend against it.
False.
WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
could not "defend against it."
However, at the level of technology where system to system weapons
become relevant, methods of detection and defense exist. You can get
early warning of a RKV by putting a sphere of detector stations on the
outskirts of your system, and you can defend against it by various
means, one of the most obvious being using RKV of your own optimized
for defensive purposes.
> Not very unpopular in SF because it pretty
> much makes the beloved ship to ship combat useless. Simply
> destroy the bases and planets of the enemy.
... assuming that he hasn't defended them.
If he has defended them, "beloved ships" become very important,
because an RKV strike escorted in by or launched from armed starships
(by which I mean vehicles with sapient guidance, whether AI or organic
in nature) is much more able to penetrate the defenses than is an
unescorted strike.
(as a matter of fact, STUPID unescorted strikes, i.e. ones with no
real guidance or defenses on them, are TRIVIALLY easy to intercept
from the POV of a system-wide civilization which has bothered to build
any real defenses).
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Joseph Michael Bay
>After all, it's still possible to find and buy a legal 1911 without a
>S/N (tho those are getting precious rare), pack it in grease, put it
>in a pipe, and it'll easily last that way into the twenty-second and
>probably into the twenty-THIRD centurys.
>I have better things to do with a couple of thousand dollars, but it
>makes me happy that it is possible in principal to do.
Ooh, the principal would give you SO MUCH DETENTION if you tried that!
--
Joseph M. Bay Lamont Sanford Junior University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ DO NOT PRESS
"We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us BLEAAAAGHH, AARGGH HRRRRRRRK"
--Oscar Wilde
Scott Beeler
> mpor...@aol.com (MPorcius) writes:
>
> > >> (One of the items discussed in _Germs_ was about tailoring
> > >> race-specific diseases. Right now that's still a stretch, but with
> > >> the human genome project it may be possible.)
>
> > > It is very unlikely. Races do not even exist in a genetic sense.
> > >The so-called human races are better thought of as a set of
> > >overlapping bell curves.
>
> > would it really be to design a disease that only attacked people
> > with blue eyes or kinky hair or whatever?
>
> show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
> define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
> virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
> that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
> caucasians.
ObSF: Chris Lawson's "Written in Blood", a great creepy short story
about genetic engineering and marking of groups.
--
Scott C. Beeler scott...@home.com
Paul F. Dietz
> At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
> get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
> targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
on a 500 lb. replacement (your B-52 smart bomb carrier can
destroy twice as many targets with 500 lb. bombs as with 1000
lb. bombs.)
Paul
Paul F. Dietz
> Not only "practical", but actually in use right now. Laser pointers
> and rangefinders are miniaturized, laser designators only slightly
> larger, and outright laser _cannon_ are now part of real military
> hardware, in the form of a laser-cannon armed heavy aircraft entering
> final testing phases (it carries enough chemicals for about 12-20
> shots, and its intended target is ballistic missiles).
They're also working on a 100 kW diode laser weapon for use in
tactical aircraft.
Paul
Karl M Syring
>
> These are not racial characteristics. They are more likely to
> show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
> define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
> virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
> that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
> caucasians.
The McDonald fast-food virus, see:
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/067/nation/Lots_of_fast_food_and_TV_tripl:.shtml
...
Pereira said the lack of ill effect of fast food on young blacks
was ''very surprising.''
...
In January, a federal judge in New York City threw out a
class-action lawsuit blaming McDonald's food for obesity,
diabetes and other health problems in children. He said this
risk is common knowledge.
Karl M. Syring
Errol Cavit
<snip>
>
> The thing about weapons is that the best way to attract funding
> for them is to have some plausible use for them.
>
> Take nuclear peace enhancement devices. The biggest one ever tested
> was in 1961 and there's a reason nobody has bothered to build a bigger one:
That's what seems odd to me about the MOAB. Surely the same direct
military effect could be achieved with multiple smaller FAEs which
won't have as many problems getting proper dispersal of the 'mist' in
real-life conditions.
Looks to be primarily a psychological weapon.
Regarding gains from higher accuracy - once you can put a weapon into
a crater made by an earlier attack, there is no such thing as a
"nuclear-proof bunker" - all it takes is time (and available weapons).
Cheers
Errol Cavit
Steve Coltrin
> James Nicoll wrote:
>
> > At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
> > get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
> > targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
>
> In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
> 2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
> on a 500 lb. replacement.
Depends on your purpose. They also just devised the Largest Conventional
Bomb Ever, but its purpose seems not so much destroying things as making
everyone within fifty miles shit themselves.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org WWVBF?
Rho! Etra shivat elor ko'obay k'shia, vata elor ko'obay shiebran. Enshia,
ensitra.
JoatSimeon
add-ons.
The last really basic innovations in military small-arms were in the 1890's;
small calibre, smokeless powder, the box magazine and automatic weapons fed
from belts.
Since then they've gotten a little handier and automatic types have become more
widespread, but the changes between 1900 and 2000 were less than those between
1860 and 1900. A Lee-Enfield is still a respectably useful battlefield weapon,
frex.
Rates of fire and effective ranges haven't changed much. The weapons
themselves are more accurate than the aiming system -- the guy holding it and
peering down the sights.
What we're just getting started on now is ways to use the same sort of small
arms much more effectively.
The Land Warrior system, elements of which are now in use, will enable soldiers
to hit virtually anything they can see a large percentage of the time.
Move the rifle until the dot in your ocular covers what you want to hit, then
pull the trigger. Stick the rifle up over an obstacle or around a corner and
the optics on the weapon will show you what's there and let you hit it (or
direct some heavier weapon on to it)
Similar increases in information gathering and handling are in place or under
development, in other fields.
Small personalized robots for looking around corners and similar tasks are also
entering the last stages of testing.
Incidentally, all this stuff is going to (and to a certain extent already has)
drastically increase the advantage of wealthy countries in small-scale,
one-on-one warfare in jungles and cities.
The era when a bunch of village goons with AK's and RPG's were able to take on
1st-world (particularly American) troops on something remotely resembling equal
terms is pretty well over.
It's starting to be more like the 1890's colonial expeditions in Africa again
-- only utter command incompetence or some sort of freak accident allows the
loss of even a skirmish.
JoatSimeon
Up until recently, body armor was quite heavy and provided protection only
against shrapnel -- shell and grenade fragments -- and, if you were lucky,
low-power pistol rounds of the type used in submachine guns.
The current US issue is much lighter, and will stop assault-rifle and light
machine-gun rounds at point-blank range.
That's why almost all US battlefield injuries in Afghanistan were suffered in
the limbs, rather than the torso, which is where the bulk of wounds
traditionally occurred.
It's a quite massive advantage from an infantryman's p.o.v.; comparable to
going into a swordfight in the old days with full armor vs. a vs. doing it
naked.
It's also fairly expensive.
Only a rich country can afford to give every soldier that level of protection;
just as only a very rich one can afford to give every soldier and every vehicle
state-of-the-art night vision.
Helgi Briem
wrote:
>> I don't know, what about things like sickle cell anemia?
>
>Found in at least two races. I recall that malaria-resistance genes have
>also turned up in Orientals, but I'm not sure sickle cell trait is one of
>them.
Sickle-cell trait turns up in 'whites' all the time. It's
just more common in people of 'relatively recent'
African extraction.
After all, all of us came from Africa about 100-150,000
years ago, no matter the colour of our skin or
kinkiness of hair.
--
Regards, Helgi Briem
helgi AT decode DOT is
Jyrki Valkama
Sickle-cell traits have nothing to with race, thalassemias of varying
sorts are one thing and only one thing common: there is (or has been)
malaria present in the area. Thalassemias have commonly one aminoacid
replaced with another in hemoglobin, thus making it inpalatable to
malaria parasite.
Following site has map of distribution:
http://www.abanet.it/fondazioneberloni/ing/talassem.htm
--
Jyrki Valkama
Matt Ruff
>
> I'd predict that the next big thing in weapons will be
> an affordable handgun that does not set off metal detectors or show up easily
> on X-rays.
Or a suicide bomb that you can swallow.
-- M. Ruff
Steve Holland
> Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
> > The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
> > realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
> > defend against it.
> False.
> WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
> it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
> could not "defend against it."
At our present technology we would almost certainly confuse it
for something else. I suspect that it would be detected by HETE-II or
INTEGRAL and initially interperted as a gamma-ray burst. It would
probably cause some excitement when it was realized that the "burst"
was still going strong after ten or fifteen minutes (very unusual for
a gamma-ray burst). By then, however, the rock would be smashing into
its target.
> However, at the level of technology where system to system weapons
> become relevant, methods of detection and defense exist. You can get
> early warning of a RKV by putting a sphere of detector stations on
> the outskirts of your system,
The speed of light delay would make this extremely expensive to
do. The detectors would need to be within a few light-seconds of each
other. The detector network would require a significant fraction of
the resources of the Solar System. It would not be impossible to do,
but can you imagine the debates in the future Solar Parlaiment at
budget time?
==========================================================================
To find out who and where I am look at:
http://www.nd.edu/~sholland/index.html
"Only so many songs can be sung with two lips, two lungs, and one tongue."
==========================================================================
Mark Atwood
>
> Incidentally, all this stuff is going to (and to a certain extent
> already has) drastically increase the advantage of wealthy countries
> in small-scale, one-on-one warfare in jungles and cities.
>
> The era when a bunch of village goons with AK's and RPG's were able
> to take on 1st-world (particularly American) troops on something
> remotely resembling equal terms is pretty well over.
It's arguable that a lot of drive for this tech is *because* of cases
of a "bunch of village goons with AK's and RPG's were able to take on
1st-world (particularly American) troops on something remotely
resembling equal terms".
Charlie Stross
as <dd...@dd-b.net> declared:
> Big guns I don't know so much about, but I can believe there are big
> changes. Are they more in fire-control than in the basic gun?
Ammo seems to have changed a lot. For anti-tank guns, there's stuff
like APFS-DU, which would seem rather exotic to a 1900's artilleryman
(never mind the LeClerc or M1A2 under it) -- especially as it's fired
from a smoothbore at very high velocity. Then there's Gerald Bull's work
on base bleed projectiles, culminating in stuff like the G5 howitzer
(http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/g5.htm), which would also
have seemed like science fiction back in 1900; a six inch (actually 155
mm) gun with a range of thirty-nine kilometres?
Oh, and it's a semi-automatic. From 1981. (There's a self-propelled
version, the G6, which would be really great for scaring the rush-
hour traffic. Think of an SUV with heavy artillery ...)
And then there's vapourware like the Advanced Gun System
(http://www.uniteddefense.com/prod/ags.htm) -- which is under
development. Guided shells with a range of up to 100 nautical
miles and a rate of fire of twelve rounds per minute. Back in
1900, *nothing* could shoot for 100 nm -- even half that would
have required a honking great railway cannon, never mind a naval
gun.
-- Charlie
Scott Robinson
A facinating bug in human psycology is that many of the people in the
US who are in favor of increased DoD spending that leads to this type
of thing are the same ones that trot out the tired "gnus protect
freedom" argument on gnu rights. You would think they would find
something else by now.
Scott
Charlie Stross
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>> to destroy, especially once ... targeting gets accurate enough that you
>> don't need to incinerate an entire county to assure the destruction the
>> one brick and wood frame building that happens to be SAC HQ.
>
> ObSF: for a smaller scale example, the smart machine gun in _The Peace War_,
> that allowed one semiskilled user to do what used to require either
> a whole team of snipers or else the dropping of an anti-personel bomb.
It already exists, sorta, except the miniaturization. A single B-52
with a load of JDAMs can simultaneously attack thirty or forty targets
scattered up to 50 kilometres to either side of its ground path,
including (with experimental new upgrades) *moving* targets like
tanks. One bomber, one mission, forty kills. Compared to Vietnam
(two bombers, one mission, one kill) or WW2 (forty bombers, one
mission, 0.1 kill).
-- Charlie
Mark Atwood
> One bomber, one mission, forty kills. Compared to Vietnam
> (two bombers, one mission, one kill) or WW2 (forty bombers, one
> mission, 0.1 kill).
That's a 16000 to one increase in "firepower".
Yeah, that's on par with difference between a 15 kT nuke and a
thousand pound bomb, and still more effective anyway.
Joseph Michael Bay
>Steve Holland <hol...@origo.phys.au.dk> wrote:
>> These are not racial characteristics. They are more likely to
>> show up in some groups of people than in others, but they do not
>> define any single racial group. It may be possible to engineer a
>> virus that only attacks people with the gene for blue eyes, but all
>> that would not be the same as engineering a virus that only attacked
>> caucasians.
>ObSF: Chris Lawson's "Written in Blood", a great creepy short story
>about genetic engineering and marking of groups.
ObSF: _Sewer, Gas and Electric_, in which the backstory contains
a sort of race-specific bioweapon with an eye color restriction.
Dylan Alexander
<dsc...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
It's not wholly irrational. Since the US military can't be used for
domestic law enforcement, it's currently irrelevant. Any change in
this would be seen from pretty far off. In any case, the burecrats
won't be wearing the body armor, so you and a couple dozen friends
can still load up your SUV's and destroy your local government with
the right training and organization.
--
Dylan Alexander
Al Montestruc
> Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote in message news:<b4mk2v$21eijr$1...@ID-7529.news.dfncis.de>...
> >
> > The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
> > realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
> > defend against it.
>
> False.
>
> WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
> it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
> could not "defend against it."
To defend against it requires weapons of *enormous* power, that use
light as a weapon, being on standby 24/7 with a very tiny target
aquisition and general reaction time, and the ability to almost
instintaniously calculate the firing vector for a beam of light to hit
an object moving close to the speed of light, or the weapon is
useless.
Relitivistic means that the weapon is traveling at a significant
fraction of the speed of light, like say 70% +. Thus when your
detector spots such a weapon, it has already covered 70% of the
distance that it was at from when you spot it to you. Also if your
detector spots it, lightspeed communication back to your weapon might
not beat the weapon to the target if the detectors are spread too
thin, or their reaction times are not VERY fast.
Now if you wish to ignore lightspeed and use a double-talk FTL radar
and communications system (which basically means you have the ability
to time travel) then sure you can defend against it, but it will still
take a massivly powerful weapon to deflect it much.
-----snip
Ross TenEyck
>JSBass...@yahoo.com (Jordan179) wrote in message news:<374990d6.03031...@posting.google.com>...
>> Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote in message news:<b4mk2v$21eijr$1...@ID-7529.news.dfncis.de>...
>> > The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
>> > realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
>> > defend against it.
>> False.
>>
>> WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
>> it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
>> could not "defend against it."
>To defend against it requires weapons of *enormous* power, that use
>light as a weapon, being on standby 24/7 with a very tiny target
>aquisition and general reaction time, and the ability to almost
>instintaniously calculate the firing vector for a beam of light to hit
>an object moving close to the speed of light, or the weapon is
>useless.
All of this means that it's a weapon where the only realistic
defense is not to be around when it goes off. This isn't new;
most bombs and missiles fall into the same category, only on
a smaller scale. I.e, it's technically possible to intercept
and destroy them, but it's hard and unreliable; and you're much
better off arranging for it not to be shot at you in the first
place, or for it to go off somewhere you're not.
Planet-killer weapons just mean that it needs to be realistically
possible to be elsewhere, i.e, off the planet. This is already
a desirable goal on several other grounds; one of which is the
existence of natural planet-killer projectiles.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Karl M Syring
Explosive breast implants would be easier and more
effective. Kind of pensioners job for aging Bay Watch models.
Karl M. Syring
jtingle
wrote:
>"Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> writes:
>
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>> > At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
>> > get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
>> > targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
>>
>> In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
>> 2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
>> on a 500 lb. replacement.
>
>Depends on your purpose. They also just devised the Largest Conventional
>Bomb Ever, but its purpose seems not so much destroying things as making
>everyone within fifty miles shit themselves.
If they insist on using a C-130 as the carrier (as they did on the
test), it'll probably be an airburst. I assume they'll load it on a
_real_ bomber for actual use. Assuming, as you point out, it has a
real use.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
Al Montestruc
> With the development of the fusion bomb, in the mid 20th century the
> most destructive weapon that exists was created. So far, we have not
> been able to make anything more destructive. Guns, that old
> invention, are still in use today, without much advance made in their
> technology.
Well gun devlopment has slowed a lot since the mid 19th century. The
technical advances are much slower than they were in the mid to late
19th cenury into the early 20th. Note that the US Army has now used
the M-16 longer than any other main issue rifle in it's history, and
we are not looking at a replacement soon. The longest enduring small
arm of the US Army was the M1911A1 .45 caliber pistol, which lasted
about 70 years from adoptation till it was replaced by the Berreta
9mm. IIRC the 0.50 caliber heavy machinegun (vintage ~1925) is now
the oldest gun still issued by the US armed forces, and is still going
strong, and is very effective in applications it now covers.
Development of unusual *projectiles* especially for large artillery
size guns, but perhaps moving into small arms soon, is a ongoing
phenomina.
One thing I would be unsurprised to see would be the deployment of
semi-automatic shotgun-like smallarms that can fire a wide variety of
shells including large number of darts per shell, explosive grenade
shells and very high velocity APFSDS ammo for use against light
armored vehicles or stout body armor, and possibly smart ammo.
Development of target aquisition, aiming systems, and communications
links directly connected to weapons will be a hot area IMHO.
> What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
> science-fiction? Are we going to have something more powerful than a
> fusion bomb -- something capable of destroying the whole planet with a
> single light bomb?
Possibly the use of a small black hole, keeping a small black hole
from evaporating and keeping it contained would be a very hard trick
though.
> What about laserguns -- impractical?
Impractical for use against people, for use against tanks or aircraft
they may well become common.
The problem with lasers used against people is that the amount of
energy needed to inflict leathal or even serious injury to a person
using a laser is enormously more than that needed to inflict a leathal
injury with a bullet.
This is due to the fact that the human body is ~ 90% + water and that
water must be boiled off in the volume of the hole that a laser is
making in a body a laser to make a serious injury. Water will sop up
more energy in being boiled off than basically any other material by a
pretty wide margin mass for mass.
Thus one might see a tank commander put human bodies (living or
recently dead) over his tanks to protect the tank against an anti-tank
laser weapon. It would in fact be effective.
On the other hand to make a hole in a human body it takes a trivial
amount of kinetic energy for a small lead or other metalic bullet to
push aside, and rip through the human tissue.
> What about
> using matter and anti-matter to set up an explosion?
Well of course it would work, but it seems a waste of anti-matter to
me.
Bryan Derksen
<hol...@origo.phys.au.dk> wrote:
>JSBass...@yahoo.com (Jordan179) writes:
>> However, at the level of technology where system to system weapons
>> become relevant, methods of detection and defense exist. You can get
>> early warning of a RKV by putting a sphere of detector stations on
>> the outskirts of your system,
>
> The speed of light delay would make this extremely expensive to
>do. The detectors would need to be within a few light-seconds of each
>other.
I suspect that any facility capable of firing a planet-killing RKV
will require an easily-detectable (to a similar level of technology)
power source, such as enormous solar collectors or fusion plants
radiating as much waste heat as a good-sized Jovian. Even if the
facility itself isn't detected, though, then at least you'll have a
good idea of where the _civilizations_ capable of firing the things
are located; RKVs don't pop out of nowhere. So the target civilization
will have a good idea which direction attacking RKVs will come from,
likely many years in advance.
Given this, one doesn't have to wire the _entire_ celestial sphere
with sensor buoys; you can concentrate them in the directions RKVs are
likely to come from. Furthermore, since you're not trying to cover the
whole surface of a sphere, you can afford to put the buoys even
farther out - multiple light-years, maybe even all the way out to the
"borders" of the hostile civilization (or farther, if the buoys can be
made sufficiently stealthy or resistant to destruction). You can get
plenty of warning about an RKV's approach if you happen to have a
sensor buoy capable of watching the launcher charge up for firing. :)
Also, knowing where the RKV comes from allows for the MAD defence;
build launchers of your own, and as soon as an attack's origin is
confirmed you can launch a retaliatory strike. Assuming there is some
form of communication possible between the antagonists, diplomacy now
rears its ugly head in the scenario as well.
Karl M Syring
> Also, knowing where the RKV comes from allows for the MAD defence;
> build launchers of your own, and as soon as an attack's origin is
> confirmed you can launch a retaliatory strike. Assuming there is some
> form of communication possible between the antagonists, diplomacy now
> rears its ugly head in the scenario as well.
Hmmh, we have covered that one in the past. No aggressive
civilization would launch the RKVs from their home system for
fear of retaliation. If the warheads can come from arbitrary
directions, there is little possibility to detect them, even
if you can utilize significant fractions of the power output
of the sun for these purposes.
Karl M. Syring
Bryan Derksen
wrote:
>It's not wholly irrational. Since the US military can't be used for
>domestic law enforcement, it's currently irrelevant. Any change in
>this would be seen from pretty far off.
Bush has already asked Congress to consider rescinding this
restriction on the use of the military for domestic law enforcement,
in July of last year.
Some links:
how...@brazee.net
On 11-Mar-2003, lal...@hotmail.com (Al Lal) wrote:
> What are the weapons of the future, as predicted by futurists and
> science-fiction? Are we going to have something more powerful than a
> fusion bomb -- something capable of destroying the whole planet with a
> single light bomb? What about laserguns -- impractical? What about
> using matter and anti-matter to set up an explosion?
First of all you must come up with an environment where the use of such
weapons make sense.
Jordan179
> JSBass...@yahoo.com (Jordan179) writes:
>
> > WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
> > it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
> > could not "defend against it."
>
> At our present technology we would almost certainly confuse it
> for something else. I suspect that it would be detected by HETE-II or
> INTEGRAL and initially interperted as a gamma-ray burst. It would
> probably cause some excitement when it was realized that the "burst"
> was still going strong after ten or fifteen minutes (very unusual for
> a gamma-ray burst). By then, however, the rock would be smashing into
> its target.
I agree. This is a specific case of the greater principle that, given
a sufficiently large gap in technology, war is one-sided. Right now,
if (say) it turned out there were a hostile civilization throughout
the Alpha Centauri System, they could do a number of things to us,
ranging from conquest to annihilation, and we would not be able to
stop any of their operations, unless they planned them very poorly
indeed (ObSF: _Worldwar_, in which the Race plans some of its
operations VERY poorly indeed).
> > However, at the level of technology where system to system weapons
> > become relevant, methods of detection and defense exist. You can get
> > early warning of a RKV by putting a sphere of detector stations on
> > the outskirts of your system,
>
> The speed of light delay would make this extremely expensive to
> do. The detectors would need to be within a few light-seconds of each
> other. The detector network would require a significant fraction of
> the resources of the Solar System.
Yes. The SOL delay requires that you put your detector sphere
significantly beyond your interceptor launchers, and also that you
build a LOT of both detectors and launchers for area defense (point
defense is a bit easier, but you have to put point defenses on EVERY
target you intend to have survive a concentrated attack).
I'm glad you grasp the basic point here -- the detection message
outraces any possible material projectile, but the absolute time
gained depends upon how fast the projectile is travelling and how far
away the detector is from the attacker's target when it detects the
projectile. Hence, for basic physical reasons, cost increases
significantly for each additional level of effectiveness.
One way to economize a bit (which would almost certainly be done in
reality, if the situation ever arose) would be to make the detectors
and defenses thicker around the parts of the spheres' surfaces facing
known or hypothetical enemy systems. One way which the enemy could
take advantage of this tendency would be to launch colonizing
expeditions to flank the target systems. Of course, there would be
countermeasures to this as well, ranging from passively detecting such
expeditions and thickening the defenses at that point, to actively
destroying such expeditions with RKV's of one own.
A lot would depend on the diplomacy of the situation. Pellegrino has a
valid point in terms of the potential of such warfare, but there are
valid logical games theoretical reasons NOT to assume that every new
race contacted is a probable enemy and to treat them as such. One very
_big_ reason is that one may not know the full capabilities of a
just-detected alien civilization, and while one _thinks_ one is
destroying a single-system civilization, one may actually be
destroying the colony of a multi-system empire, which will strongly
resent this action. One could, in other words, bite off more than one
could chew.
The strategy and tactics become wonderfully complex given the
collision of multi-system empires, at least as fascinating as the more
fantasy-oriented strategies of a game like _Master of Orion_ or its
sequel. I rather wish that someone would do a computer wargame on the
topic ...
> It would not be impossible to do,
> but can you imagine the debates in the future Solar Parlaiment at
> budget time?
Heh, politics could get interesting here ...
Perceptions would of course enter into it. While it would be prudent
for ANY spacefaring civilization to build _some_ anti-RKV defenses,
obviously the civilizations that find themselves facing the Killoid
Death-Dominion are probably going to arm more heavily than those with
no nearby neighbors, or those facing the Warm Friendly Federation of
Fuzzybears.
Again, while Pellegrino has a point, it is diplomatic insanity to
treat ALL neighbors as equally hostile, merely because they have the
potential to become such.
We should keep our guard up, though, because "diplomatic insanity" has
manifested itself more than once in mere Earthly history -- who knows
what forms of insanity might manifest themselves in alien beings?
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
JoatSimeon
widespread use of quickly programmable precision-guided bombs from aircraft.
The accuracy, and the call-response time, have both improved drastically and
will probably continue to do so at a rapid pace.
That in turn makes control of the air far more crucial, because it makes not
only conventional warfare, but even most types of guerilla warfare, virtually
impossible against a power which _does_ have air superiority.
When small forces on the ground can call in highly accurate strikes from large,
high-flying aircraft (even strategic bombers) and do so within minutes of being
engaged, the calculus of forces is completely changed.
In effect, every small infantry patrol has a magic wand in his target
designator.
They point the magic wand and things blow up -- giving the grunt the equivalent
of a very accurate 8-inch howitzer as his personal armament.
Only it weighs less than a rifle.
The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts to get a
guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
Errol Cavit
> "Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> writes:
>
> > James Nicoll wrote:
> >
> > > At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
> > > get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
> > > targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
> >
> > In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
> > 2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
> > on a 500 lb. replacement.
>
> Depends on your purpose. They also just devised the Largest Conventional
> Bomb Ever,
Nope. Also the huge Soviet nukes physically weighed _much_ more.
> but its purpose seems not so much destroying things as making
> everyone within fifty miles shit themselves.
Good analysis of the beastie at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030313-palace-buster01.htm
Cheers
Errol Cavit
Bill Marsilii
>Explosive breast implants would be easier and more
>effective. Kind of pensioners job for aging Bay Watch models.
NOW you're talking, Karl!
Bill Marsilii
Bryan Derksen
>Hmmh, we have covered that one in the past. No aggressive
>civilization would launch the RKVs from their home system for
>fear of retaliation. If the warheads can come from arbitrary
>directions, there is little possibility to detect them, even
>if you can utilize significant fractions of the power output
>of the sun for these purposes.
Then keep an eye out for construction crews leaving agressive
civilization's home systems, watch where they go, and observe the
large-scale engineering they do when they get there. Launching an RKV
takes a stupendous amount of energy, and the equipment to accumulate
that and apply it to the RKV will be quite large. The starships
travelling to the launch site to set things up will also be quite
obvious, since they'll be expending RKV-class amounts of energy to
accelerate themselves.
Civilizations at this level will have trivial access to
solar-system-wide interferometric telescopes, quite capable of imaging
megastructures out to hundreds of light years and detecting energy
emissions from relativistic spacecraft launches. This is a simple case
of working smarter rather than harder; a relatively small investment
in early intelligence gathering allows _vast_ reductions in defence
costs.
Keith Morrison
>>>In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
>>>2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
>>>on a 500 lb. replacement.
>>
>>Depends on your purpose. They also just devised the Largest Conventional
>>Bomb Ever, but its purpose seems not so much destroying things as making
>>everyone within fifty miles shit themselves.
>
> If they insist on using a C-130 as the carrier (as they did on the
> test), it'll probably be an airburst. I assume they'll load it on a
> _real_ bomber for actual use. Assuming, as you point out, it has a
> real use.
Problem is, it won't fit in a real bomber. Even the larger FAEs in
use have to be kicked out the rear of a Herc (or C-17, I suppose).
The bomb bays on a normal bomber simply aren't large enough and it
probably isn't worth the effort modifying an airframe to accomodate
the monster.
--
Keith
Robert Whelan
On Thu, 14 Mar 2003, JoatSimeon wrote:
> One revolutionary technology which is only now beginning to have an impact is
> widespread use of quickly programmable precision-guided bombs from aircraft.
Stirling feels a pressure within his groin..
> The accuracy, and the call-response time, have both improved drastically and
> will probably continue to do so at a rapid pace.
It becomes more urgent. He begins to idly scratch his crotch.
> That in turn makes control of the air far more crucial, because it makes not
> only conventional warfare, but even most types of guerilla warfare, virtually
> impossible against a power which _does_ have air superiority.
He undoes his pants. The jar of liquid soap is near. He begins to lather
himself liberally.
> When small forces on the ground can call in highly accurate strikes from large,
> high-flying aircraft (even strategic bombers) and do so within minutes of being
> engaged, the calculus of forces is completely changed.
The sensations from the warm soap are lovely.
> In effect, every small infantry patrol has a magic wand in his target
> designator.
A magical, wonderful wand!
> They point the magic wand and things blow up -- giving the grunt the equivalent
> of a very accurate 8-inch howitzer as his personal armament.
Stirling's wand explodes!
> Only it weighs less than a rifle.
An average 5 inches.
> The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts to get a
> guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
Stirling quickly measures his before the tumescence subsides.
Karl M Syring
<shortened>
> himself liberally.
>
>> When small forces on the ground can call in highly accurate strikes from large,
>> high-flying aircraft (even strategic bombers) and do so within minutes of being
>> engaged, the calculus of forces is completely changed.
>
> The sensations from the warm soap are lovely.
>
>> In effect, every small infantry patrol has a magic wand in his target
>> designator.
>
> A magical, wonderful wand!
>
>> They point the magic wand and things blow up -- giving the grunt the equivalent
>> of a very accurate 8-inch howitzer as his personal armament.
>
> Stirling's wand explodes!
>
>> Only it weighs less than a rifle.
>
> An average 5 inches.
>
>> The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts to get a
>> guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
>
> Stirling quickly measures his before the tumescence subsides.
Too bad, the soap turned out to be an exquisite
poison ivy shampoo.
Karl M. Syring
Robert J. Kolker
JoatSimeon wrote:
>
> The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts to get a
> guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
You might say their efforts caved in on themselves.
Bob Kolker
Steve Holland
> The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts
> to get a guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
I think that that was more due to the politics of the situation
than the weaponry available. The U.S. did something that other
would-be conquerors of Afghanistan have not tried: be nice to the
people.
==========================================================================
To find out who and where I am look at:
http://www.nd.edu/~sholland/index.html
"Only so many songs can be sung with two lips, two lungs, and one tongue."
==========================================================================
Peter D. Tillman
joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) wrote:
ObConfirmArt:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/11/bowden.htm
"The Kabul-ki Dance", by Mark Bowden
Wherein "Baldie"*, one of the few female USAF combat fliers over
Afghanistan, nails a Taliban truck, fleeing at 100 mph, right in the
radiator. Hot stuff.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
* Her nickname comes from the fact that she is married to an F-16 pilot
and thus "bangs a Lawn Dart driver": BALD-D.
Peter D. Tillman
Robert Whelan <rwh...@amanda.dorsai.org> oozed:
> On Thu, 14 Mar 2003, JoatSimeon wrote:
>
> > One revolutionary technology which is only now beginning to have an impact
> > is
> > widespread use of quickly programmable precision-guided bombs from
> > aircraft.
>
> Stirling feels a pressure within his groin..
>
> > The accuracy, and the call-response time, have both improved drastically
> > and
> > will probably continue to do so at a rapid pace.
>
> It becomes more urgent. He begins to idly scratch his crotch.
>
> > That in turn makes control of the air far more crucial, because it makes
> > not
> > only conventional warfare, but even most types of guerilla warfare,
> > virtually
> > impossible against a power which _does_ have air superiority.
>
> He undoes his pants. The jar of liquid soap is near. He begins to lather
> himself liberally.
>
etc, etc.
You know, you really are a jackass.
*PLONK*
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Mark Atwood
> joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) writes:
>
> > The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts
> > to get a guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
>
> I think that that was more due to the politics of the situation
> than the weaponry available. The U.S. did something that other
> would-be conquerors of Afghanistan have not tried: be nice to the
> people.
That, and rather specifically non-conqueroring it.
The US didn't have any designs on Afghanistan itself. We just wanted
enough international accountability and rule of law emplaced there
that it stopped being an useful open hangout for people who need a
large uncontrolled hidyhole.
Steve Holland
> Steve Holland <hol...@origo.phys.au.dk> writes:
> > joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) writes:
> > > The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts
> > > to get a guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
> > I think that that was more due to the politics of the situation
> > than the weaponry available. The U.S. did something that other
> > would-be conquerors of Afghanistan have not tried: be nice to the
> > people.
> That, and rather specifically non-conqueroring it.
It was a case of conquering Afghanistan, with the help of many of
the people there, and then handing the country back to the Afghanis.
> The US didn't have any designs on Afghanistan itself. We just
> wanted enough international accountability and rule of law emplaced
> there that it stopped being an useful open hangout for people who
> need a large uncontrolled hidyhole.
It was also done to show the people back home that the U.S. was
doing something, andything, about al Qaeda. The fact that it had the
side effect of getting rid of a rather nasty regime was a nice bonus.
If the Taleban had pulled a Serbia and offered the U.S. unrestricted
access to hunt for bin Laden then the Taleban would probably still be
in power today.
Brian Palmer
It's not entirely irrelevant. The FBI and other law-enforcement
organizations do have access to army-grade weapons (the FBI had tanks
at Waco, iirc); I don't know the current U.S. policy about letting
advanced weapons out of military and into law-enforcement hands, but I
suspect that even if it currently is not allowed, the policy could be
rapidly changed (so it wouldn't be possible to see it from very far
off at all).
--
If you want divine justice, die.
-- Nick Seldon
Robert Whelan
On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Steve Holland wrote:
> joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) writes:
>
> > The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts
> > to get a guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
>
> I think that that was more due to the politics of the situation
> than the weaponry available. The U.S. did something that other
> would-be conquerors of Afghanistan have not tried: be nice to the
> people.
Has that actually been established? The 80 million that was
slotted for schools one month was re-slotted for roads the
next, though the shift wasn't trumpeted, making it seem like
schools AND roads are being built.
Scott Robinson
wrote:
>In article <kff25v89cj19djptt...@4ax.com>, Scott Robinson
><dsc...@bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>
>> On 13 Mar 2003 05:55:31 GMT, joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) wrote:
>>
>> >It's starting to be more like the 1890's colonial expeditions in Africa again
>> >-- only utter command incompetence or some sort of freak accident allows the
>> >loss of even a skirmish.
>>
>> A facinating bug in human psycology is that many of the people in the
>> US who are in favor of increased DoD spending that leads to this type
>> of thing are the same ones that trot out the tired "gnus protect
>> freedom" argument on gnu rights. You would think they would find
>> something else by now.
>
>It's not wholly irrational. Since the US military can't be used for
>domestic law enforcement, it's currently irrelevant. Any change in
>this would be seen from pretty far off. In any case, the burecrats
>won't be wearing the body armor, so you and a couple dozen friends
>can still load up your SUV's and destroy your local government with
>the right training and organization.
You may have missed that whole "shadow government" set up in Virginia
after 9/11. While this may have allowed the Federal Government to
continue after an Alqueda attack takes out DC, it would also allow the
federal government to hold out indefinitely (assuming enough flunkies
followed) against "genuine merican heroes".
Of course, there is the question of how much of the apparatus is still
in place, and how they could control the locals with it is in doubt,
but the "beurocrats won't be wearing the body armor", they will be
deep in a military bunker protected with modern weapons.
This of course rests on the willingness of US troops to fire on said
"genuine merican heroes", but that whole question seems orthogonal to
gnu c*ntrol.
Scott
David Cowie
>
> The problem with lasers used against people is that the amount of
> energy needed to inflict lethal or even serious injury to a person
> using a laser is enormously more than that needed to inflict a lethal
> injury with a bullet.
>
What if you just want to blind them?
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
Steve Holland
that would not surprise me. The U.S. does not seem to be
handling post-war Afghanistan very well. However, what was important
for winning the war was the perception that the U.S. would treat
Afghanistand better than the Taleban had, and they seem to have done
that.
Shaad M. Ahmad
JoatSimeon <joats...@aol.com> wrote:
>One revolutionary technology which is only now beginning to have an impact is
>widespread use of quickly programmable precision-guided bombs from aircraft.
>
>The accuracy, and the call-response time, have both improved drastically and
>will probably continue to do so at a rapid pace.
>
>That in turn makes control of the air far more crucial, because it makes not
>only conventional warfare, but even most types of guerilla warfare, virtually
>impossible against a power which _does_ have air superiority.
Wouldn't this be somewhat less effective in an urban arena, where
guerillas could be fairly mobile, moving from house to house, and where
propaganda considerations prevented you from indulging in excessive
collateral damage (killing of presumably innocent civilians)?
Regards.
- Shaad
Karl M Syring
> On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 16:56:34 -0800, Al Montestruc wrote:
>
>>
>> The problem with lasers used against people is that the amount of
>> energy needed to inflict lethal or even serious injury to a person
>> using a laser is enormously more than that needed to inflict a lethal
>> injury with a bullet.
>>
> What if you just want to blind them?
First, there a some conventions (Geneva) that forbid this,
furthermore, you can protect yourself against eye damage with
polarizing goggles.
Karl M. Syring
Karl M Syring
>
> It was also done to show the people back home that the U.S. was
> doing something, andything, about al Qaeda. The fact that it had the
> side effect of getting rid of a rather nasty regime was a nice bonus.
> If the Taleban had pulled a Serbia and offered the U.S. unrestricted
> access to hunt for bin Laden then the Taleban would probably still be
> in power today.
Not that easy, as OBL was the de-facto the defense minister of
the Taliban. I think, they depended on him financially, too.
Karl M. Syring
Al Montestruc
> On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 16:56:34 -0800, Al Montestruc wrote:
>
> >
> > The problem with lasers used against people is that the amount of
> > energy needed to inflict lethal or even serious injury to a person
> > using a laser is enormously more than that needed to inflict a lethal
> > injury with a bullet.
> >
> What if you just want to blind them?
Works great if they are looking in the right direction and do not have
sophisticated eye protection.
Shaad M. Ahmad
Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
There were also the Taliban's cultural mores. Once they had accepted
someone as a guest, they were obligated to provide him shelter and defend
him against his "enemies".
Regards.
- Shaad
JoatSimeon
>Wouldn't this be somewhat less effective in an urban arena,
-- somewhat, but not all that much, because you have to _remain_ in contact to
do much damage.
The essence of guerilla warfare has been to concentrate to achieve local
superiority, strike, and then be gone before the conventional forces can bring
their greater numbers and firepower to bear.
Recent technological innovations make this extremely difficult, and impossible
in most situations.
That doesn't apply with quite the same force to actual terrorism, though, since
there the target is "soft" and the means (whether suicide bomber or time-bomb)
is expended with the first attack.
Karl M Syring
I should have known that, but by political think has been
somewhat cooked down to the all-important "always follow the
flow of the money".
Karl M. Syring
Keith F. Lynch
> The big improvement coming up in small arms is accuracy and other
> sensor add-ons.
I wonder how long until there are be "anti-bullet bullets" which are
fired when incoming bullets are detected, so as to collide with them
and knock them in a harmless direction.
Next will come "smart bullets" with onboard processors, imaging
systems, and some way of changing their trajectory, so that every
bullet fired in roughly the right direction finds a target, and so as
to evade anti-bullet bullets that don't have similar onboard hardware.
Once we have both, there will be millisecond dogfights between smart
bullets trying to reach their targets and smart bullets trying to
stop them. Teams of bullets may need to work together to accomplish
interception or evasion, so they will have to establish some kind of
very short-lived mid-air computer networks to coordinate their attacks.
Perhaps they'll also try to break into and subvert the opposing side's
networks.
Things could get interesting.
--
Keith F. Lynch - k...@keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/
I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but
unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me
HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.
Charlie Stross
as <rwh...@amanda.dorsai.org> declared:
> On Thu, 14 Mar 2003, JoatSimeon wrote:
>
>> One revolutionary technology which is only now beginning to have an impact is
>> widespread use of quickly programmable precision-guided bombs from aircraft.
>
> Stirling feels a pressure within his groin..
Some of us are trying to have a vaguely serious discussion around here.
Would you mind butting out?
-- Charlie
Charlie Stross
> joats...@aol.com (JoatSimeon) writes:
>
>> The utter failure of Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants in their attempts
>> to get a guerilla war going in Afghanistan is highly significant.
>
> I think that that was more due to the politics of the situation
> than the weaponry available. The U.S. did something that other
> would-be conquerors of Afghanistan have not tried: be nice to the
> people.
Er, no. The US also poured fuel on the next generation of internal civil
feuds in Afghanistan by handing out satellite phones to local warlords so
they could dial in B-52 strikes on "Al Qaida forces". Doubtless in some
cases the bombs really *did* land on Al Qaida fighters, but in quite
a few others blood feuds over great-uncle Mohammed and what he did to
first-cousin Faisal's goat in 1927 were probably responsible for JDAMs
landing in the wrong place. It's going to be great good luck if none of
the survivors blame the US military.
Incidentally, this isn't a weapons failure, it's an intelligence failure:
the total lack of local intelligence assets on the ground in Afghanistan
is a jaw-dropper. If you don't know where to drop your smart bombs, they
might as well be dumb ones -- and guerilla forces are going to learn
this lesson very rapidly. I'm waiting for the FLN and their cousins to
start slitting the throats of anyone found with a cellphone, and go back
to using illiterate kids with memories good enough to store the entire
Koran verbatim as message channels.
-- Charlie
Mark Reichert
> It's arguable that a lot of drive for this tech is *because* of cases
> of a "bunch of village goons with AK's and RPG's were able to take on
> 1st-world (particularly American) troops on something remotely
> resembling equal terms".
I'd say that's pretty much a given.
Bill Marsilii
>I wonder how long until there are be "anti-bullet bullets" which are
>fired when incoming bullets are detected, so as to collide with them
>and knock them in a harmless direction.
Nnnn, I don't know about that one, Keith. Seems incredibly impractical --
what's easier to produce, an "anti-bullet bullet" full of incredibly expensive
guidance and computer technology... or a really thick vest? And what's a
"harmless direction" for a bullet, how does one determine that, on a
battlefield, in fractions of a fraction of a second?
Missiles, yes -- that's worth the technology because one missile can wipe out
or disable hundreds of troops and materiel. But a bullet? You're lucky to
take out, MAYBE, one guy if you hit him somewhere that he's not armored.
Something along the lines of what you're talking about, but far more practical
I think, would be some kind of field that dampens or nullifies the bullet's
velocity until it basically falls harmless to the ground. (Not that we've got
any such thing yet.) Basically, a soft force field.
There's a great sequence in Joe Haldeman's THE FOREVER WAR in which an Earth
platoon has erected such a field to protect itself from attacking aliens. The
field stops all beam and projectile weapons -- anything moving at high velocity
is repelled, yet soldiers on foot can move freely in and out of the field if
they move slowly enough.
So the aliens form a line like Redcoats and walk through the field carrying the
only weapon that will work anymore: hand-held spears. Kind of neat how
Haldeman makes the warfare come full circle, all the tech-stuff cancelling each
other out until we're back to fists and knives....
Bill Marsilii
Mark Reichert
> On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 05:51:54 GMT, Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org>
> wrote:
>
> >"Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> writes:
> >
> >> James Nicoll wrote:
> >>
> >> > At the moment, Moore's Law and computer technology means you
> >> > get a much fast payback in terms of the destruction you need by improving
> >> > targeting and taking advantage of scaling laws.
> >>
> >> In fact, they're even scaling down conventional bombs. The
> >> 2000 and 1000 lb. GPS bombs are too big; they're working
> >> on a 500 lb. replacement.
> >
> >Depends on your purpose. They also just devised the Largest Conventional
> >Bomb Ever, but its purpose seems not so much destroying things as making
> >everyone within fifty miles shit themselves.
>
> If they insist on using a C-130 as the carrier (as they did on the
> test), it'll probably be an airburst. I assume they'll load it on a
> _real_ bomber for actual use. Assuming, as you point out, it has a
> real use.
If it's the Massive Ordnance Air Burst(MOAB) weapon, then I'd say it
was supposed to be air bursted.
Put's it in the same catagory as the fuel-air bombs even if it is
larger, more destructive and usuable in non-calm weather conditions.
Keith F. Lynch
> I wonder how long until there are be "anti-bullet bullets" which are
> fired when incoming bullets are detected, so as to collide with them
> and knock them in a harmless direction.
Bill Marsilii <bmar...@aol.comxspam> wrote:
> Nnnn, I don't know about that one, Keith. Seems incredibly
> impractical -- what's easier to produce, an "anti-bullet bullet"
> full of incredibly expensive guidance and computer technology...
> or a really thick vest?
The guidance and computer technology would be in the gun, not the
bullet. It would detect incoming bullets, and fire bullets to
intercept them.
Of course the guidance and computer technology would have to be moved
into the bullet once the opponent has bullets with guidance and
computer technology onboard.
Thick vests impair mobility, and can cause overheating in the summer.
Anyhow, I wasn't just thinking of battlefields, but of protecting the
general population against assassins and snipers.
> And what's a "harmless direction" for a bullet,
Into the dirt.
> how does one determine that, on a battlefield, in fractions of a
> fraction of a second?
With fast computers. Computers that aren't running anything by
Microsoft.
> Missiles, yes -- that's worth the technology because one missile can
> wipe out or disable hundreds of troops and materiel. But a bullet?
> You're lucky to take out, MAYBE, one guy if you hit him somewhere
> that he's not armored.
How much computer power is one human life worth?
> Something along the lines of what you're talking about, but far
> more practical I think, would be some kind of field that dampens or
> nullifies the bullet's velocity until it basically falls harmless to
> the ground. (Not that we've got any such thing yet.) Basically, a
> soft force field.
Sure, new laws of physics could always be discovered, and could change
everything. Instead of bullets, maybe the enemy would project fields
which cause nerves to short-circuit. Or which reverse gravity,
causing soldiers to fall straight up off the ground and hurtle
helplessly into space. I don't find such open-ended unbounded
speculation as interesting as speculation based on known laws of
physics.
Dylan Alexander
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> JoatSimeon <joats...@aol.com> wrote:
> > The big improvement coming up in small arms is accuracy and other
> > sensor add-ons.
>
> I wonder how long until there are be "anti-bullet bullets" which are
> fired when incoming bullets are detected, so as to collide with them
> and knock them in a harmless direction.
For artillery shells there's:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/831012.asp
--
Dylan Alexander
JazzMan
>
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> > I wonder how long until there are be "anti-bullet bullets" which are
> > fired when incoming bullets are detected, so as to collide with them
> > and knock them in a harmless direction.
>
> Bill Marsilii <bmar...@aol.comxspam> wrote:
> > Nnnn, I don't know about that one, Keith. Seems incredibly
> > impractical -- what's easier to produce, an "anti-bullet bullet"
> > full of incredibly expensive guidance and computer technology...
> > or a really thick vest?
>
> The guidance and computer technology would be in the gun, not the
> bullet. It would detect incoming bullets, and fire bullets to
> intercept them.
>
> Of course the guidance and computer technology would have to be moved
> into the bullet once the opponent has bullets with guidance and
> computer technology onboard.
>
> Thick vests impair mobility, and can cause overheating in the summer.
> Anyhow, I wasn't just thinking of battlefields, but of protecting the
> general population against assassins and snipers.
>
Another technology that's actually being implemented in a
primitive manner is using acoustical analyzation to determine
where the bullet was fired from. I could see radar and acoustics
being used on the battlefield to do this, with automated
retaliation with rockets or air-dropped ordnance. Essentially
this would mean that any sniper would be on a guarantee suicide
mission, and it would lower the life trade to a ratio close to 1:1.
jazzMan
--
***************************************
Please reply to jsavage"at"airmail.net.
Curse those darned bulk e-mailers!
***************************************
David M. Palmer
<JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:<b4mk2v$21eijr$1...@ID-7529.news.dfncis.de>...
> >
> > The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
> > realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
> > defend against it.
>
> False.
>
> WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
> it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
> could not "defend against it."
>
> However, at the level of technology where system to system weapons
> become relevant, methods of detection and defense exist. You can get
> early warning of a RKV by putting a sphere of detector stations on the
> outskirts of your system, and you can defend against it by various
> means, one of the most obvious being using RKV of your own optimized
> for defensive purposes.
We went through this a few months ago.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1008200112040
53474%25dmpalmer%40ematic.com&rnum=1
AKII civilization (stellar energy resources) would have a hard time
defending against the city-smashers that a KI civilization (planetary
resources) could build.
For a well-designed 0.99c RKV, you need a high-density sphere of about
a billion expensive (km optics) detection stations out at 1000 AU,
combined with high-capability point defense systems at each target.
--
David M. Palmer dmpa...@email.com (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)
Paul F. Dietz
> Another technology that's actually being implemented in a
> primitive manner is using acoustical analyzation to determine
> where the bullet was fired from.
They're also using IR -- a bullet is hot and detectable
with a sufficiently fast imaging sensor.
Paul
David M. Palmer
<hol...@origo.phys.au.dk> wrote:
> JSBass...@yahoo.com (Jordan179) writes:
> > Karl M Syring <syr...@email.com> wrote:
>
> > > The relativistic kinetic kill vehicle is pretty much the ultimate
> > > realistic weapon. You can barely see it coming and you can not
> > > defend against it.
>
> > False.
>
> > WE (right now, at our present level of technology) could "barely see
> > it coming" and WE (right now, at our present level of technology)
> > could not "defend against it."
>
> At our present technology we would almost certainly confuse it
> for something else. I suspect that it would be detected by HETE-II or
> INTEGRAL and initially interperted as a gamma-ray burst. It would
> probably cause some excitement when it was realized that the "burst"
> was still going strong after ten or fifteen minutes (very unusual for
> a gamma-ray burst). By then, however, the rock would be smashing into
> its target.
If you saw an 0.99c RKV at impact-1000s, you would be seeing it from
radiation when it was 10^5 light seconds away--3 milli-lightyears or
about 200 AU. There's no chance of seeing it with the current or
near-future generation of gamma-ray instruments. And such a slow RKV
only has a Lorentz Factor of 10, which means it would have to radiate
in hard X-rays to be detected in soft gammas.
Unless it were designed to be detectable--'If you have gods, prepare to
meet them now' type messages sent towards the target by gamma-ray laser
may be required by the G'nkva Convention.
James Nicoll
David M. Palmer <dmpa...@email.com> wrote:
>
>If you saw an 0.99c RKV at impact-1000s, you would be seeing it from
>radiation when it was 10^5 light seconds away--3 milli-lightyears or
>about 200 AU. There's no chance of seeing it with the current or
>near-future generation of gamma-ray instruments. And such a slow RKV
>only has a Lorentz Factor of 10, which means it would have to radiate
>in hard X-rays to be detected in soft gammas.
>
>Unless it were designed to be detectable--'If you have gods, prepare to
>meet them now' type messages sent towards the target by gamma-ray laser
>may be required by the G'nkva Convention.
Replied to with "We do have gods but we're already in contact with
them. Sucks to be you."
The image of RKVs exploding with great violence against
some barrier only just beats the wave front of Alteration in which
changes the value of 'G' in the launching solar system to 100 N.m^2/kg^2
for about a week.
--
"About this time, I started getting depressed. Probably the late
hour and the silence. I decided to put on some music.
Boy, that Billie Holiday can sing."
_Why I Hate Saturn_, Kyle Baker
David Cowie
>
> How much computer power is one human life worth?
>
Divide the cost of training a soldier by the number of smart bullets he
will use over the duration of the war, and you're most of the way there.
Estimating the likely length of the war is going to be the hard bit.