Names? Names?
sb
(I still have a few ??? so they may come later).
But components then? :)
There seems to be some kind of hint in some of the names that are not
simply abbreviations (what does the 'M' and 'LBU' stand for?). I know
what a Lady Finger is (unless it means more than one thing?), but
what's the joke in 'Black Cat'?
sb
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Wesley Clifford
>I have almost stopped asking questions on this group about planet names
>(I still have a few ??? so they may come later).
>
>But components then? :)
>
>There seems to be some kind of hint in some of the names that are not
>simply abbreviations (what does the 'M' and 'LBU' stand for?).
M-whatever is a type of firecracker. They're outlawed in a lot of
places in the US because they are quite powerful. I've blown off an
M-80 before, and can tell you from experience that they are L O U D.
>I know
>what a Lady Finger is (unless it means more than one thing?), but
>what's the joke in 'Black Cat'?
A Lady Finger, and a Black Cat, are also types of firecrackers. Lady
Fingers are really small (Approx half an inch long and maybe 3 mm in
diameter) and Black Cats are a brand name for some 'standard'
firecrackers that are about an inch long and maybe a quarter inch in
diameter. Come to think of it, Lady Finger may also be a brand name.
--Wesley
The only stupid question is the unasked question.
And that's a good thing, because I hate stupid questions!
Aldaron
Wesley Clifford wrote:
>
> On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 08:41:35 GMT, sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> >I have almost stopped asking questions on this group about planet names
> >(I still have a few ??? so they may come later).
> >
> >But components then? :)
> >
> >There seems to be some kind of hint in some of the names that are not
> >simply abbreviations (what does the 'M' and 'LBU' stand for?).
>
> M-whatever is a type of firecracker. They're outlawed in a lot of
> places in the US because they are quite powerful. I've blown off an
> M-80 before, and can tell you from experience that they are L O U D.
>
IIRC an M-80 is equal to about a quarter stick of dynamite.
Enough to blow your hand off if you were fool enough to hold
it while lighting it.
--
We walk in the dark places no other will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
We walk between the Shadow and the Light
We live for the One
We die for the One....in Valen's name.
----Anla'Shok Vow
Remove nospam to reply
Dan Neely
> IIRC an M-80 is equal to about a quarter stick of dynamite.
> Enough to blow your hand off if you were fool enough to hold
> it while lighting it.
M-80 aint nothing, 2 summers ago, one of my friends managed to get a
hold of several half sticks. we buried them under good 20+ pound rocks,
and set them off with 3 foot fuses, now that was cool.
--
Another day, another duller.
sb
para...@apk.net (Wesley Clifford) wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 08:41:35 GMT, sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> >I have almost stopped asking questions on this group about planet
names
> >(I still have a few ??? so they may come later).
> >
> >But components then? :)
> >
> >There seems to be some kind of hint in some of the names that are not
> >simply abbreviations (what does the 'M' and 'LBU' stand for?).
>
> M-whatever is a type of firecracker. They're outlawed in a lot of
> places in the US because they are quite powerful. I've blown off an
> M-80 before, and can tell you from experience that they are L O U D.
>
> >what a Lady Finger is (unless it means more than one thing?), but
> >what's the joke in 'Black Cat'?
>
> A Lady Finger, and a Black Cat, are also types of firecrackers. Lady
> Fingers are really small (Approx half an inch long and maybe 3 mm in
> diameter) and Black Cats are a brand name for some 'standard'
> firecrackers that are about an inch long and maybe a quarter inch in
> diameter. Come to think of it, Lady Finger may also be a brand name.
>
> --Wesley
>
about the Lady Finger. You see, a Lady Finger is also a biscuit...but
of course that makes less sense in terms of bombing.
Ok so now here I go again: what does the planet '668' refer to? For a
long time I had misread it as '688' because that was one of my favorite
submarine games.
sb
> The only stupid question is the unasked question.
> And that's a good thing, because I hate stupid questions!
>
Steven Scale
sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8b4p1r$va9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <38d23936...@news.apk.net>,
> para...@apk.net (Wesley Clifford) wrote:
> > On Fri, 17 Mar 2000 08:41:35 GMT, sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
>
> Ok so now here I go again: what does the planet '668' refer to? For a
> long time I had misread it as '688' because that was one of my favorite
> submarine games.
just guessing but the neighbour of the beast?
rs...@my-deja.com
relies on a combustion reaction. It may go boom, but it's simply
burning from one end to another.
Dynamite actually uses nitroglycerine, which detonates almost at once
because it's ignited by the shock wave of the blasting cap.
This M-80 = 1/4 stick dynamite stuff simply can't be true. If it were
true, mining companies would be using cheaper M-80s rather than sticks
of dynamite. The dynamite industry would have gone out of businees long
ago.
Dan Neely <dan...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>
> > IIRC an M-80 is equal to about a quarter stick of dynamite.
> > Enough to blow your hand off if you were fool enough to hold
> > it while lighting it.
>
> M-80 aint nothing, 2 summers ago, one of my friends managed to get a
> hold of several half sticks. we buried them under good 20+ pound
rocks,
> and set them off with 3 foot fuses, now that was cool.
>
> --
> Another day, another duller.
>
Eric Snyder
bands. 668! Neighbor Of The Beast! hee.
sb
sb
Rick
> true, mining companies would be using cheaper M-80s rather than sticks
> of dynamite. The dynamite industry would have gone out of businees long
> ago.
I'm no authority on the subject, but I recall an experience that may or may
not shed some more light on the subject...
At our local golf course, the owner had aquired several rather large
firecrackers. He would use these firecrackers to 'shotgun' a round (put all
players at different holes, then fire a shot to be heard by all to start at
the same time).
The firecrackers where about the same size as as Cambell soup cans, and he
called them M-400's, also said they where rated 1/4 the power of a stick of
dynomite. I only saw one detonated from up close... he lit one and tossed it
into a nearbye river. The resulting explosion left a geyser of water about
50 feet high and 4 feet across.
I've never seen a stick of dynomite detonated, but imagining four of these
things going off in unison makes me think that the one I saw was indeed a
quarter stick.
Just offering another piece to that puzzle.
-Rick
Dirk Thierbach
> I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
I would like that very much. As a non-native speaker, I can still
understand some of the puns (and enjoy them), but the M-80 fire
cracker thing was new to me, for example.
Any volunteers?
- Dirk
Richard Cooley
>thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
>> sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> > I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
>> Any volunteers?
>Jack of All Trades master of none was an expresion describing a handyman
>who knew a bit about everything.
Claim Adjuster is probably some kind of play on claim jumpers.
>bleeding edge technology. the bleeding edge refers to the most advanced
>expensive technology available at any given time
In particular, it probably refers to a comment made several years ago by
someone in the computer industry to the effect that "the leading edge of
technology is often the bleeding edge", meaning that being out in front is
a risky business.
--
Rick Cooley Extroardinaire, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign
http://www.shore.net/~pixel/
DVD boycott--are you doing your part?
Dan Neely
> sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
> Any volunteers?
well here goes.
a black jack is a type of club.
a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
the standard bombs all are firecrackers.
the armors are all from various SF/fantasy stories.
Daddly long legs is a kind of spider.(not sure what if any pun is
involved there)
nubian is from "newbie"an because newbies used to complain about the
lack of flexibility in ship designs.
Death Star -- Star Wars nuff said
Jack of All Trades master of none was an expresion describing a handyman
who knew a bit about everything.
bleeding edge technology. the bleeding edge refers to the most advanced
expensive technology available at any given time
well not sure I've got them all but that'll do for now.
--
Another day, another duller.
Eric Snyder
Robber Baron: 1. Hist.a noble who robbed travelers passing through his
lands.
2. a ruthlessly powerful U.S. capitalist or industrialist of the late 19th
century considered to have become wealthy by exploiting natural resources,
corrupting legislators, or other unethical means.
Colloidal Phaser: Not so sure about this one. Here is the definition of
Colloid: Microscopic particles suspended in some sort of liquid medium. The
particles are between one nanometre and one micrometre in size and can be
macromolecules. I also have run accross some sort of health thingy where
minerals are put into colloidal form to help absortion.
Myopic Disrupter: myopic = near sighted.
Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
Speed Turtle: Lays speed trap mines. Turtle because it has about enough fuel
to go to the corner store and back.
Santa Maria: (If you are non-U.S.) the flagship used by Columbus when he
made his first voyage of discovery to America in 1492. If you are from the
U.S. and you did not know that, would like you like to join a Stars! game
with me? :)
-= Eric =-
Olaf Meyer
> made his first voyage of discovery to America in 1492. If you are from the
> U.S. and you did not know that, would like you like to join a Stars! game
> with me? :)
I remember the other 2 ships were called Nina and Pinta?
(wow, and I'm far from being U.S. *eg*)
Olaf
Dirk Thierbach
> Colloidal Phaser: Not so sure about this one. Here is the definition
> of Colloid: Microscopic particles suspended in some sort of liquid
> medium.
My idea was that this technique is used to create the phaser beam,
but I have no idea whether it refers to some SF-book or not.
> Myopic Disrupter: myopic = near sighted.
I had a good laugh at this one when I discovered it. (BTW, this is
not translated at all in the german version, and makes no sense in german,
because "myopic" is not used for "short-sighted". Something like
"Astigmatischer Disruptor" would have been better, though it is not
exactly the same thing.)
> Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
Is that expression used for anything special in english?
> Speed Turtle: Lays speed trap mines. Turtle because it has about
> enough fuel to go to the corner store and back.
Is that a common usage for "turtle"? Never heard of it. I connect
"slowness" with turtles, but not "short range".
- Dirk
Eric Snyder
what ship was used to discover Germany... :)
-= Eric =-
Eric Snyder
> > Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
>
> Is that expression used for anything special in english?
>
No, not really.
> > Speed Turtle: Lays speed trap mines. Turtle because it has about
> > enough fuel to go to the corner store and back.
>
> Is that a common usage for "turtle"? Never heard of it. I connect
> "slowness" with turtles, but not "short range".
>
Bad example on my part, I guess. Going to the "corner store" is about the
only place that ship can get to at warp 9.
-= Eric =-
Dirk Thierbach
> a black jack is a type of club.
and also a different name for the card game "17 and 4". Now guess
what damage a black jack does? Right. :-)
> a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
I always have trouble getting an exact picture of this gun, even
though I know that the german translation is "Donnerbuechse"
(sometimes it helps if you read Tolkien :-). That just means a very
old fashioned gun, but there is not connection to the short range. Can
somebody give any details?
BTW, where does the name "gatling gun" come from? Is "Gatling" the name
of the inventor?
> the standard bombs all are firecrackers.
The LBUs also? I thought these were names for bombs used in reality.
Any military expert?
> the armors are all from various SF/fantasy stories.
Hm. Let's see:
Kelarium
I know that Kevlar was developped for the space shuttle IIRC,
but I have no idea about Kelarium. Kelar seems to be a name.
Neutronium
Super-dense matter in a Neutron star. Not sure if it is used in
any SF book as armor.
Crobmium, Strobnium, Valanium, Tritanium
No idea. Tritanium < Titanium? Valanium < Vanadium?
Superlatanium
From Star Trek (or was that latinium?)
Croby sharmor
Sh(ield and) armor made of crobmium :-)
Langston-Shell
From Purnelle/Niven, e.g. "The Mote in God's Eye"
Weapons:
Big Mutha Cannon
Maybe Mutha = Mother? Mother of all Cannons?
Disruptor, Phaser
From Star Trek, also other SF
Mark IV Blaster
Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
Pulverizer
Think I remember this also from some SF stories. Campbell,
"Der unglaubliche Planet" maybe? (don't know the english title).
> Daddy long legs is a kind of spider.(not sure what if any pun is
> involved there)
It's also the name of a book.
- Dirk
overw...@my-deja.com
thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> Dan Neely <dan...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>
> > a black jack is a type of club.
> and also a different name for the card game "17 and 4". Now guess
> what damage a black jack does? Right. :-)
>
> > a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
> I always have trouble getting an exact picture of this gun, even
> though I know that the german translation is "Donnerbuechse"
> (sometimes it helps if you read Tolkien :-). That just means a very
> old fashioned gun, but there is not connection to the short range. Can
> somebody give any details?
>
My recollection is that is a large caliber smoothbore with a short
barrel. A sort of super-shotgun good for close range work.
> BTW, where does the name "gatling gun" come from? Is "Gatling" the
name
> of the inventor?
[Warning: Brain Dump underway....]
Yes. Invented in 1861-62 or so. One of the early attempts to produce
a mechanical-feed automatic weapon.
A lot of early attempts were "volley guns" where multiple rounds were
fired at once. Problem was how to reload quickly (before the days of
the brass cartridge. Some interesting solutions and problems involved
with this.)
Gatling used multiple barrels that were rotated using a crank. The
barrel reloaded from a hopper at the top.
Was adopted into at least US military use after the Civil War.
Another early automatic (actually a volley gun variation) was the
Nordenfelt (Swedish inventor IIRC). It used multiple barrels lined up
in a horizontal row and reloaded by pulling a lever back and shoving
it forward to push the cartridges into the breeches. (I've seen
examples in England at Leeds and the Tower of London.)
All these went out the window when Maxim invented the first true
machine-gun in the 1880's (?). This worked by tapping the recoil power
of the gun itself to load the next round. IIRC, just about all machine-
gun designs since that used either the recoil and/or propellent gas
pressure to drive the reload mechanism.
The Gatling design made a comeback in the 1960's, for aircraft cannon
mounts. A high rate-of-fire is needed, but that will burn out the
barrel of the cannon due to overheating. Put on multiple barrels, and
you give each barrel more cooling time without sacrificing the rate of
fire. (Not sure on this, but mechanical rotation of the barrels also
fit well with the necessary mechanical loading of the ammo - the recoil
and gas pressure might not have been able to handle it at that point.)
I'm sure Jason or someone else with more experience, or references at
hand, will top this. I'm just dumping some memory cells while drinking
coffee at work.
>
> > the standard bombs all are firecrackers.
> The LBUs also? I thought these were names for bombs used in reality.
> Any military expert?
I think LBU is a US military reference for bombs of some sort. "CBU"
are cluster bomb units IIRC.
>
> > the armors are all from various SF/fantasy stories.
> Hm. Let's see:
>
> Kelarium
> I know that Kevlar was developped for the space shuttle IIRC,
> but I have no idea about Kelarium. Kelar seems to be a name.
>
> Neutronium
> Super-dense matter in a Neutron star. Not sure if it is used in
> any SF book as armor.
I think the the ST:TOS "Doomsday Machine" episode aka "The Ice Cream
Cone That Went Berserk" monster device might have had Neutronium armor.
>
[snip a bunch for which I can't offer a clue.]
BTW, is a "Smaugian Peeping Tom" perhaps a reference to a hobbit in a
particular Tolkien book?
- Kurt
--
"I don't pay attention to what men say, I just watch what they do."
- Andrew Carnegie
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
- Groucho Marx
Dirk Thierbach
[Gatling guns]
> [Warning: Brain Dump underway....]
Thanks.
>> > the standard bombs all are firecrackers.
>> The LBUs also? I thought these were names for bombs used in reality.
>> Any military expert?
> I think LBU is a US military reference for bombs of some sort. "CBU"
> are cluster bomb units IIRC.
And is it used as a name for firecrackers as well?
> BTW, is a "Smaugian Peeping Tom" perhaps a reference to a hobbit in a
> particular Tolkien book?
I think it's "Smaugarian", and the reference to the book might be the
dragon's name "Smaug". IIRC somewhere Tolkien explained that the name
derives from the primitive Germanic word "smugan", "to squeeze through
a hole", and describes it as "bad philological joke" (you have to know
the book to understand why). So "Smaugarian Peeping Tom" is some sort
of pleonasm :-) But maybe it has no connection to Tolkien, and is a
pun on something else.
- Dirk
Wesley Clifford
(Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
>"Eric Snyder" <ericsnyder <snip>@digitalexp.com> wrote:
>>
>> Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
>
>Is that expression used for anything special in english?
A thought, Chicken Little was worried that the sky was falling...
--Wesley
stars_s...@my-deja.com
thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> "Eric Snyder" <ericsnyder <snip>@digitalexp.com> wrote:
> > enough fuel to go to the corner store and back.
>
> Is that a common usage for "turtle"? Never heard of it. I connect
> "slowness" with turtles, but not "short range".
Turtle also happens to be a common name for those small bumps they
sometimes put on the freeway to wake you up when you start to drift out
of your lane. It feels like you are running over a long line of
turtles. The driver's natural reaction is to adjust course and
(typically) slow down a bit.
Jeff
Dirk Thierbach
>>> Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
>>
>>Is that expression used for anything special in english?
> A thought, Chicken Little was worried that the sky was falling...
I don't get that. Is that a nursery rhyme, or maybe a song? What's the
connection to mine fields? (falling sky = exploding mines? Hm.)
- Dirk
Bennett
stars_s...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Turtle also happens to be a common name for those small bumps they
> sometimes put on the freeway to wake you up when you start to drift
out
> of your lane. It feels like you are running over a long line of
> turtles. The driver's natural reaction is to adjust course and
> (typically) slow down a bit.
One of my friends at Uni described how he'd purposefully drive along the
motorway with the left-hand wheels running along these bumps (here in
the UK they're a sort of serrated line - they make a hell of a noise,
but aren't very big). He said it helped him learn the width of the car
and how to handle it properly, since he was part of a rally racing team
:o)
B
Martin Leslie Leuschen
: > a black jack is a type of club.
: and also a different name for the card game "17 and 4". Now guess
: what damage a black jack does? Right. :-)
More specifically, a black jack is a "sap," or weapon used
primarily to knock people unconscious. You have to get
very close to use one.
: > a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
: I always have trouble getting an exact picture of this gun, even
: though I know that the german translation is "Donnerbuechse"
: (sometimes it helps if you read Tolkien :-). That just means a very
: old fashioned gun, but there is not connection to the short range. Can
: somebody give any details?
IIRC, literally a black-powder shotgun. If you see an old gun with a
flared barrel (like a trumpet) it's probably a blunderbuss.
: BTW, where does the name "gatling gun" come from? Is "Gatling" the name
: of the inventor?
Yes.
: Big Mutha Cannon
: Maybe Mutha = Mother? Mother of all Cannons?
Yes. "Big Mutha" is US slang for "big and mean."
: Mark IV Blaster
: Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
And who the heck is Yakimora?
For those who don't know, a "Bazooka" is a WW II US anti-armor
rocket launcher.
Regards,
martinl
Richard Cooley
Eric Snyder <ericsnyder<snip> wrote:
>Colloidal Phaser: Not so sure about this one. Here is the definition of
>particles are between one nanometre and one micrometre in size and can be
>macromolecules. I also have run accross some sort of health thingy where
>minerals are put into colloidal form to help absortion.
Example of a common colloid: milk (IIRC).
Richard Cooley
Dirk Thierbach <thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:
>> Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
>Is that expression used for anything special in english?
Nothing I'm aware of.
>> Speed Turtle: Lays speed trap mines. Turtle because it has about
>> enough fuel to go to the corner store and back.
>Is that a common usage for "turtle"? Never heard of it. I connect
>"slowness" with turtles, but not "short range".
Perhaps because speed traps force you to go slow?
Olaf Meyer
MfG,
Sluddy
overw...@my-deja.com
- Kurt
OWK on #Stars!
--
"I don't pay attention to what men say, I just watch what they do."
- Andrew Carnegie
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
- Groucho Marx
Russ Lewis
> I think LBU is a US military reference for bombs of some sort. "CBU"
> are cluster bomb units IIRC.
As I recall from playing Falcon 4.0 (what a way to get info, no?), LBU was a
precision guided 2000 pound bomb. Laser guided, if I remember correctly.
Perfect for knocking out heavy installations with little chance of a miss
and hitting other things in the area.
Bennett
Olaf Meyer wrote in message <8baur4$kjh$1...@nx6.HRZ.Uni-Dortmund.DE>...
>WTF does IIRC mean?
If I Recall (Remember) Correctly
And there's no need to swear ;-)
Cheers
Bennett
--
University of Cambridge Dept of Medicine
Opinions expressed are mine - I'll take the rap for my own mistakes.
(swap cam for spam to reply via email)
Big fish, little fish, put it in a box. Stacking boxes, stacking boxes...
Russ Lewis
> WTF does IIRC mean?
>
> MfG,
> Sluddy
"If I remember correctly." What's WTF? No, no really. LOL!
L8R
Bennett
>
>What's WTF? No, no really. LOL!
>
Really?
"What The [tarnation]"
:o)
HTH HAND
Richard Cooley
Bennett <benne...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>One of my friends at Uni described how he'd purposefully drive along the
>motorway with the left-hand wheels running along these bumps (here in
>the UK they're a sort of serrated line - they make a hell of a noise,
>but aren't very big). He said it helped him learn the width of the car
>and how to handle it properly, since he was part of a rally racing team
up here in the northern parts of the States, they can't use the bumps
because plows would tear them up, so they use the serrated things too.
They're actually grooves in the pavement, or perhaps notches might be a
better word.
Richard Cooley
Russ Lewis
> Russ Lewis wrote in message <38D907D3...@lycosmail.com>...
> >
> >What's WTF? No, no really. LOL!
> >
>
> Really?
>
> "What The [tarnation]"
>
> :o)
>
> HTH HAND
<g>. HAND?
Joseph Oberlander
> mounts. A high rate-of-fire is needed, but that will burn out the
> barrel of the cannon due to overheating. Put on multiple barrels, and
> you give each barrel more cooling time without sacrificing the rate of
> fire. (Not sure on this, but mechanical rotation of the barrels also
> fit well with the necessary mechanical loading of the ammo - the recoil
> and gas pressure might not have been able to handle it at that point.)
>
> I'm sure Jason or someone else with more experience, or references at
> hand, will top this. I'm just dumping some memory cells while drinking
> coffee at work.
The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute. Almost on the scale
of naval anti-missile systems. Entire sections of forest would turn into
kindling - very nasty.(and very impressive)
Richard Cooley
Russ Lewis <ru...@lycosmail.com> wrote:
>> HTH HAND
><g>. HAND?
Damn newbies. :) Have A Nice Day.
Rick
> Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
I dont know of any specific point of origin on this, but if you stop and
think about it, it always seems that when you come out with something it's
full of bugs, so you do alot of changes and come out with version II, but
there are still always a few small bugs that where missed and tech advances
efficiency a touch, so you come out with a version III, then usually about
version IV you have nearly all the bugs hammered out, a better understanding
of the technology to gain a better effiency rating, and past knowledge in
the field allows you to really streamline the device, object, and/or
software so that it performs far better than the original version.
By the time you would possibly reach a version 5 your most likely dealing
with something so far advanced than the concept your starting with that it
probably falls into another category... or you name it version 5 cause you
already have a cool name for it and you dont want to change it hehe
-Rick
overw...@my-deja.com
Joseph Oberlander <oberl...@loop.com> wrote:
[snip on the comeback of the Gatling gun]
> The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute. Almost on the
scale
> of naval anti-missile systems. Entire sections of forest would turn
into
> kindling - very nasty.(and very impressive)
>
The Navy "Phalanx" system (mentioned above), "mini-guns" (of various
caliber - OB: the movie "Predator" features a 5.56mm version), and
various aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons are all based on this
principle. The 30mm version on the A-10 Warthog being particularly
impressive.
- Kurt
Damon Domjan
<oberl...@loop.com> wrote:
>The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute. Almost on the scale
>of naval anti-missile systems. Entire sections of forest would turn into
>kindling - very nasty.(and very impressive)
Try into the thousands - up to 6600 (IIRC) for the M61 Vulcan 20mm
cannon commonly used on US aircraft. A cut down version designed for
land use fired half as many rounds/minute. The naval variant also
normally fires 3000 rounds/minute. The Dutch developed Goalkeeper
combines the GUA-8A (remember that puppy?) 30mm cannon with the
airborne version's full 4200 rounds per minute.
Damon
Orca on #Stars!
--
http://dariasounds.home.dhs.org/
Martin Leslie Leuschen
: Yes. "Big Mutha" is US slang for "big and mean."
Quick addenda:
"Big Mutha" is a short form of a phrase that is less socially
acceptable in it's complete form. For some reason, in the
US, having an Oedipal complex is supposed to make you mean
and tough. ;^J
Regards,
martinl
Dan Neely
> > Little Hen: I suppose because it lays those little "eggs".
>
> Is that expression used for anything special in english?
I think the only connection is that they both lay something.
--
Another day, another duller.
Dan Neely
> Joseph Oberlander <oberl...@loop.com> wrote:
>
> > The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute.
> The 30mm version on the A-10 Warthog being particularly impressive.
envisioning the power of a gun whos recoil can signifigantly slow or
even stop the planes forward motion. I wonder what would happen to an
enemy fighter that made the mistake of ending up in front of the
muzzzle. no wait on second thought, I don't.
Jeff Heidman
> overw...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > Joseph Oberlander <oberl...@loop.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute.
>
> > The 30mm version on the A-10 Warthog being particularly impressive.
>
> envisioning the power of a gun whos recoil can signifigantly slow or
> even stop the planes forward motion. I wonder what would happen to an
> enemy fighter that made the mistake of ending up in front of the
> muzzzle. no wait on second thought, I don't.
Probably not much actually (relatively). The Avenger fires depleted
uranium slugs designed to penetrate the top armor of MBTs.
Any modern aircraft has such thin armor (really no armor at all actually)
that the ability of the cannon to penetrate it is meaningless. Since the
Avenger round is actually a slug, not an explosive shell, it would pass
right through the jet without missing a beat I imagine. Not good for the
jet, but possibly less devastating than a hit from a modern 20-30mm cannon
mounted in most fighters today, with explosive shells designed to shoot
down aircraft.
Would be pretty useful against some of the Soviet/Russian armoured
helicopters though.
Jeff Heidman
emery
"Dirk Thierbach" <thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in message
>
> BTW, where does the name "gatling gun" come from? Is "Gatling" the name
> of the inventor?
>
>
Invented by Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling. (he was an MD)
"The Gatling gun was a hand-crank-operated weapon with six barrels revolving
around a central shaft. The cartridges were fed to the gun by gravity
through a hopper mounted on the top of the gun. Six cam-operated bolts
alternately wedged, fired, and dropped the bullets, which were contained in
steel chambers. Gatling used the six barrels to partially cool the gun
during firing. Since the gun was capable of firing 600 rounds a minute, each
barrel fired 100 rounds per minute.
emery
Az
emery
<overw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8bbakn$mln$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <38D912C7...@loop.com>,
> Joseph Oberlander <oberl...@loop.com> wrote:
> [snip on the comeback of the Gatling gun]
>
> > The ROF was in the tens of thousands of rounds/minute. Almost on the
> scale
> > of naval anti-missile systems. Entire sections of forest would turn
> into
> > kindling - very nasty.(and very impressive)
> >
>
> The Navy "Phalanx" system (mentioned above), "mini-guns" (of various
> caliber - OB: the movie "Predator" features a 5.56mm version), and
> various aircraft and anti-aircraft weapons are all based on this
> principle. The 30mm version on the A-10 Warthog being particularly
> impressive.
>
> - Kurt
> --
> "I don't pay attention to what men say, I just watch what they do."
> - Andrew Carnegie
> "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
> - Groucho Marx
>
>
Damon Domjan
<em...@redlance.tus.primenet.com> wrote:
>The navy phalanx system uses the GAU-8 30MM. Also it is built here in Tucson
>Az
<nitpick>
All the documentation I've ever seen has indicated that the Phalanx
uses the 20mm 6 barreled m61 Vulcan cannon, or a cut down 3 barrel
version.
</nitpick>
Art Lathrop
> cannon commonly used on US aircraft. A cut down version designed for
> land use fired half as many rounds/minute. The naval variant also
> normally fires 3000 rounds/minute. The Dutch developed Goalkeeper
> combines the GUA-8A (remember that puppy?) 30mm cannon with the
> airborne version's full 4200 rounds per minute.
As we drift further off the topic. . .
There was an Australian inventor that came up with a design for a gun that
fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
gun could empty its ammunition at virtually any rate up to almost all the
bullets instantaneously - of course it would never actually be able to fire
more than a few thousand before it was done). I know, it sounds like bull,
but the idea was the firing mechanism was simply an electric spark that
would set off a bullet that was in a stack of bullets down a single tube.
Essentially there are no moving parts to slow the fire rate down. The guy
said that the real trick was figuring out how to pack the bullets so that
one could be fired and not interfere with the next bullet. The gun is just
a tube of bullets - a weapon system would have a bunch of these tubes
mounted together and then after the gun was shot you would replace the tubes
(automatically I imagine).
The entire point of the weapon is defensive. It was designed to be used as
a point blank missile defense on warships.
When I read about this (last year or maybe 98), the guy said that he
designed it because even when you are firing 6,000 bullets per second, there
is still a lot of space between the bullets. I'm paraphrasing of course.
--
Art Lathrop
The Stars! Directory
http://art.lathrop.com/stars/directory.htm
Russ Lewis
> In article <38D90A47...@lycosmail.com>,
> Russ Lewis <ru...@lycosmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> HTH HAND
>
> ><g>. HAND?
>
> Damn newbies. :) Have A Nice Day.
D'oh! Been a while since I was called a newbie at anything on the 'Net.
:)
Russ Lewis
> > Try into the thousands - up to 6600 (IIRC) for the M61 Vulcan 20mm
> > cannon commonly used on US aircraft. A cut down version designed for
> > land use fired half as many rounds/minute. The naval variant also
> > normally fires 3000 rounds/minute. The Dutch developed Goalkeeper
> > combines the GUA-8A (remember that puppy?) 30mm cannon with the
> > airborne version's full 4200 rounds per minute.
>
> As we drift further off the topic. . .
>
> There was an Australian inventor that came up with a design for a gun that
> fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
> gun could empty its ammunition at virtually any rate up to almost all the
> bullets instantaneously - of course it would never actually be able to fire
> more than a few thousand before it was done). I know, it sounds like bull,
> but the idea was the firing mechanism was simply an electric spark that
> would set off a bullet that was in a stack of bullets down a single tube.
> Essentially there are no moving parts to slow the fire rate down. The guy
> said that the real trick was figuring out how to pack the bullets so that
> one could be fired and not interfere with the next bullet. The gun is just
> a tube of bullets - a weapon system would have a bunch of these tubes
> mounted together and then after the gun was shot you would replace the tubes
> (automatically I imagine).
Also known as a shotgun. No, not really, but kind of :)
The theory might have merit with defensive arrays, where you're basically
looking for a shotgun effect - hundreds of bullets put into a very small space,
with a short, carefully aimed burst. On the other hand, Gatling guns in vehicle
mounts (which I would consider to be a more "traditional" use, that is, used by
mechanized infantry on the battlefield) are generally used in streams - you
start firing while roughly pointed toward the target. Every 5th or 6th bullet
is a tracer, so you get a more or less solid white stream - very similar a laser
weapon! You then "walk" the beam onto the target, which is almost instantly
destroyed on contact. In a wider battle, you might walk the stream back and
forth over a wide range of enemy positions, flooding the enemy lines with lead.
In these two latter cases, you explicitly don't want to expend all of the ammo
at once.
Would be a fascinating thing to see, though. Thousands of
independent-propellant projectiles firing from the same barrel at once :)
Russ Lewis
> > Mark IV Blaster
> > Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
>
> I dont know of any specific point of origin on this, but if you stop and
> think about it, it always seems that when you come out with something it's
> full of bugs, so you do alot of changes and come out with version II, but
> there are still always a few small bugs that where missed and tech advances
> efficiency a touch, so you come out with a version III, then usually about
> version IV you have nearly all the bugs hammered out, a better understanding
> of the technology to gain a better effiency rating, and past knowledge in
> the field allows you to really streamline the device, object, and/or
> software so that it performs far better than the original version.
Wasn't Britain's first major tank called the Mark VIII?
Joseph Oberlander
>
>
> even stop the planes forward motion. I wonder what would happen to an
> enemy fighter that made the mistake of ending up in front of the
> muzzzle. no wait on second thought, I don't.
Actually, it did do this. The ROF was in the thousands - I was somehow
giving it about 4 times the ROF in my head.
DAN
>> are cluster bomb units IIRC.
Nope. USAF designations.
CBU cluster bomb unit
GBU guided bomb unit
LBU laser bomb unit
DAN
>Colloidal Phaser: Not so sure about this one. Here is the definition of
>Colloid: Microscopic particles suspended in some sort of liquid medium. The
>particles are between one nanometre and one micrometre in size and can be
>macromolecules. I also have run accross some sort of health thingy where
>minerals are put into colloidal form to help absortion.
Colloidals are (were?) used in lasers because they allow you to choose your
wavelength (aka color) and therefore tune it to the job at hand.
Like adjust the beam to the exact wavelength require to excite a given target.
Now phasers, I don't remember meeting them outside of star trek.
Kim Vogel
overw...@my-deja.com wrote in message <8baiep$q6c$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <8ba7td$eld$1...@sun27.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
>thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
>> Dan Neely <dan...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>>
>> > a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
>> I always have trouble getting an exact picture of this gun, even
>> though I know that the german translation is "Donnerbuechse"
>> (sometimes it helps if you read Tolkien :-). That just means a very
>> old fashioned gun, but there is not connection to the short range. Can
>> somebody give any details?
>>
>
>My recollection is that is a large caliber smoothbore with a short
>barrel. A sort of super-shotgun good for close range work.
If I remember correctly. The Blunderbuss, was used by cavalry during the
American civil war, the Idea of the weapon was not to get much "killing
power" but for hitting almost everyone in the front ranks of a closely
packed infantry formation causing confusion. Thus enabling the cavalry to
charge through the formation and engage in melee.
Dr. Dot
Loren Pechtel
>fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
>gun could empty its ammunition at virtually any rate up to almost all the
>bullets instantaneously - of course it would never actually be able to fire
>more than a few thousand before it was done). I know, it sounds like bull,
Yeah, I was reading about that one also. As a point defense
weapon, I think the idea could be combined with the current high rate
of fire guns:
A multi-barrel "gun", where each barrel is actually one of his
tubes of bullets. The tubes are on a feed belt like current machine
gun rounds. The barrel is loaded into the gun on one side, it fires
all it's rounds as it rotates around 180 degrees, then is removed. I
would think a sustained ROF of perhaps 50,000 round/minute could be
done, the only limit being overheating problems and the size of the
magazine.
Loren Pechtel
>independent-propellant projectiles firing from the same barrel at once :)
No, they didn't fire at once. They fired in sequence at
whatever speed was desired, to a max of about a million rounds/minute.
David Moen
spake thusly:
>Wasn't Britain's first major tank called the Mark VIII?
Depends on what you call "major", of course, but I think that honour
would have to go to the (surprise!) Mark IV. The Mark I and the Mark V
might have a claim to the title too.
The Mark VIII was a UK-US co-production of a heavy tank at the end of
the war. I'm not certain, but I don't think it ever saw action.
Todd Jacob Rogers
> Now phasers, I don't remember meeting them outside of star trek.
What about in math. Phasers are vectors in the imaginary plane.
--
- Todd Rogers
"I've been asked what I mean by word of honor. I will tell you. Place
me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick,
reaching ever so far into the ground - there is a possibility that in
some way or another I may escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a
chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross
it. Can I get out of the circle? No. Never! I'd die first!"
-Karl G. Maeser Founder of Brigham Young University
Todd Jacob Rogers
> As we drift further off the topic. . .
>
> fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
> gun could empty its ammunition at virtually any rate up to almost all the
> bullets instantaneously - of course it would never actually be able to fire
> more than a few thousand before it was done). I know, it sounds like bull,
> would set off a bullet that was in a stack of bullets down a single tube.
> Essentially there are no moving parts to slow the fire rate down.
Well, there is one moving part: the bullet. :)
> The guy
> said that the real trick was figuring out how to pack the bullets so that
> one could be fired and not interfere with the next bullet. The gun is just
> a tube of bullets - a weapon system would have a bunch of these tubes
> mounted together and then after the gun was shot you would replace the tubes
> (automatically I imagine).
So basically, it's a big shotgun. :)
> The entire point of the weapon is defensive. It was designed to be used as
> a point blank missile defense on warships.
Actually some kind of shotgun type system might not be that bad for
point defense.
James Felling
Todd Jacob Rogers wrote:
> Art Lathrop wrote:
> > As we drift further off the topic. . .
> >
> > There was an Australian inventor that came up with a design for a gun that
> > fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
> > gun could empty its ammunition at virtually any rate up to almost all the
> > bullets instantaneously - of course it would never actually be able to fire
> > more than a few thousand before it was done). I know, it sounds like bull,
> > but the idea was the firing mechanism was simply an electric spark that
> > would set off a bullet that was in a stack of bullets down a single tube.
> > Essentially there are no moving parts to slow the fire rate down.
>
> Well, there is one moving part: the bullet. :)
>
> > The guy
> > said that the real trick was figuring out how to pack the bullets so that
> > one could be fired and not interfere with the next bullet. The gun is just
> > a tube of bullets - a weapon system would have a bunch of these tubes
> > mounted together and then after the gun was shot you would replace the tubes
> > (automatically I imagine).
>
> So basically, it's a big shotgun. :)
>
Not quite. the diference is that each projectile coming out of the barel is
propelled with an independent timing as opposed to a shot gun where all
projectiles in the barel leave it at roughly the same time. This makes it a bit
more controlable than a shot gun, and also means that the individual projectiles
may be more massive.
Russ Lewis
> DAN wrote:
> > Now phasers, I don't remember meeting them outside of star trek.
>
> What about in math. Phasers are vectors in the imaginary plane.
Actually, that's phasors, at least in the textbooks my university uses :)
I've heard other sci-fi works explain phasers to be lasers with some
special feature relating to the phase of the light beam which made it more
powerful than a conventional laser. It was short for "phase laser" or some
such. Don't know what the origin of the word is, though...it's so common
in sci-fi.
Richard Cooley
Grand Fromage <ppk...@aol.comTASCDD2> wrote:
>According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation tech bible:
>"Phaser is something of a hold-over acronym, PHASed Energy Rectification,
>referring to the original process by which stored or supplied energy entering
>the phaser system was converted into another form for release toward a target,
>without the need for an intermediate energy transformation."
Bah--that's a retrofitted acronym, like KERMIT. The reason they used
phasers instead of lasers in TOS was just in case someone discovered lasers
wouldn't be able to do what the ST hand weapons were supposed to be able
to do, the show wouldn't sound hopelessly dated.
--
Rick Cooley Extroardinaire, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign
http://www.shore.net/~pixel/
DVD boycott--are you doing your part?
emery
<overw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8bemu3$edi$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Found a reference (printed 1978). The GAU-8A can fire at either 2100
> or 4200 rounds per minute. An A-10 carries 1350 rounds in it's
> magazine. Each round is the approximate size of a milk bottle
> (including casing). It is loaded on the ground using a powered system.
>
> So, enough ammo for between 15-30 seconds of actual firing.
>
> - Kurt
> --
The A-10 is restricted to 60 rounds burst IF the trigger was held on the gun
would run out of ammp in 17.5 seconds. The dual hydraulic system used by the
A-10 can not get the gun up to the full speed it is capable of doing(1350
rounds in 2.5 or 3.5 seconds sorry have not worked on A-10 in over 20 years)
emery
Schnobs
> combines the GUA-8A (remember that puppy?) 30mm cannon with the
> airborne version's full 4200 rounds per minute.
30mm? 4200/minute?
Say, doesn't this throw up some problems regarding
a) storing space? ("magazine" can't describe this I think)
b) weight?
Esp weight... don't know, is this still called bullet or already
a shell? Well, the projectile alone sould weigh about 150g I think,
and with all the stuff behind & around I think it should be more
than a pound for a single shot, or about 50kg / second.
I don't really know this, all figures are invented; but even
if I'm 50% off I wonder how long those guns are supposed to keep
firing. And who's the poor fellow who's responsible for reloading?
cu,
Schnobs
--
remove "nowhere" and dots for email
Schnobs
> > a blunderbuss was an old very short ranged gun.
> I always have trouble getting an exact picture of this gun, even
> though I know that the german translation is "Donnerbuechse"
I always imagined that funnel-sized thing you see in many
cartoons.
(Wenn Dagobert seinen Geldspeicher verteidigt, zB)
> Mark IV Blaster
> Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
Mark x is just another way of enumerating things, maybe
there was an Mark I, II, III in earlier versions.
Or the WWI tank that looked as if you could simply turn
it upside down, I only know it as Mark IV.
> Pulverizer
> Think I remember this also from some SF stories. Campbell,
> "Der unglaubliche Planet" maybe? (don't know the english title).
I think its just the last possibility before using
Hitchhiker style names, like Kill-O-Zap &c.
Grand Fromage
>of the inventor?
>
Yep. I don't remember his full name, but he invented it in the American Civil
War to save lives... didn't work out, did it. :)
Schnobs
>
> >There was an Australian inventor that came up with a design for a gun that
> >fires bullets on the order of a million bullets per second (that is that the
> Yeah, I was reading about that one also. As a point defense
> weapon, I think the idea
Forgive me, but this sounds like "If someone blows up our position,
then its us".
Grand Fromage
>enemy fighter that made the mistake of ending up in front of the
>muzzzle. no wait on second thought, I don't.
Hehe. They did some test-fire runs at the air force base near here (I'm in
Dayton, Ohio, HUGE AF base out here. Wright-Patterson for those military
buffs, bunch of A-10s), and blasted a tank with a version they were screwing
with. M1-A1 tank, huge armor, all that good stuff. Well, I was going to the
museum out there, and the tank was still sitting on the runways nearby. You
couldn't tell it was a tank. One of the guys I asked about it said that they
fired eight hundred rounds into it. Since fighters aren't near as strong as a
tank... :)
Grand Fromage
>in sci-fi.
>
According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation tech bible:
Schnobs
> > Turtle also happens to be a common name for those small bumps they
> > sometimes put on the freeway to wake you up when you start to drift
> out of your lane.
I can't remeber having seen them used for THAT purpose here
in Germany. Sometimes they're used instead of colors to mark
the road, but for the sides? Well, we have those nice poles
every 50 meters, and a trench behind them.
> One of my friends at Uni described how he'd purposefully drive along the
> motorway with the left-hand wheels running along these bumps (here in
Is his name Super Mario?
:)
ArcanaMyth
1/2 inch musket balls, propt it aginst your shoulder and set it off close range
to clear a deck of pesky seamen. Hoping in the prosses not blow your head off
or break your colour bone.
Jihad: holy war (arabic)
Gatling gun: true, slaghtered the Zulu and could be used like short range
artilary, just amim altittle up.
overw...@my-deja.com
or 4200 rounds per minute. An A-10 carries 1350 rounds in it's
magazine. Each round is the approximate size of a milk bottle
(including casing). It is loaded on the ground using a powered system.
So, enough ammo for between 15-30 seconds of actual firing.
Another gatling-type. 20mm Vulcan ADS (Air Defense System)
(Essentially the same gun as on the F-15 and F-16 aircraft)
The ground mount has a ROF of 1,000-3,000/per. Aircraft mounts up to
6000/min. Ready ammo on the ground version is 500-1100 rounds in belts.
- Kurt
--
"I don't pay attention to what men say, I just watch what they do."
- Andrew Carnegie
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
- Groucho Marx
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
John
thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> Mark IV Blaster
> Blaster is common in SF. But why Mark IV ?
Might be out of 4X history. The Mark IV was the best warship in some
old 4X game. (IG?)
--
Can I have a new cat now?
Joseph Oberlander
> a) storing space? ("magazine" can't describe this I think)
> b) weight?
2-6 seconds firing time on average, depending on type and configuration, so I
have read. Almost in the same class as a missile - fire it for a second and
one target goes bye-bye.
Huge storage for ammo, of course, but that is easily doable - they load
racks of 500LB bombs under each wing on some fighter/bombers.
Joseph Oberlander
> or 4200 rounds per minute. An A-10 carries 1350 rounds in it's
> magazine. Each round is the approximate size of a milk bottle
> (including casing). It is loaded on the ground using a powered system.
>
> So, enough ammo for between 15-30 seconds of actual firing.
Really? Things have progressed since I last looked into this. Very nice.
I suppose this is where all of our taxmoney has been going - heh heh. :)
Damon Domjan
>Another gatling-type. 20mm Vulcan ADS (Air Defense System)
>(Essentially the same gun as on the F-15 and F-16 aircraft)
>The ground mount has a ROF of 1,000-3,000/per. Aircraft mounts up to
>6000/min. Ready ammo on the ground version is 500-1100 rounds in belts.
Similar size for airborne versions; F16's mounting somewhat over 500
rounds in their magazine, up to the ~940 in an F15. Long bursts are
*not* advised...you'll run out of ammo before you know what the hell
happened :p
Damon
Orca on #Stars!
--
http://dariasounds.home.dhs.org/
DAN
>envisioning the power of a gun whos recoil can signifigantly slow or
>even stop the planes forward motion.
Not very likely. Think of the masses involved (aircraft vs projectile).
There is a widespread urban legend about the A10 slowing down when it shoots. I
reality, even at full burst, the slowdown is negligible. Barely half a knot
IIRC.
sb
thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
>
> I would like that very much. As a non-native speaker, I can still
> understand some of the puns (and enjoy them), but the M-80 fire
> cracker thing was new to me, for example.
>
> Any volunteers?
>
> - Dirk
>
A lot of good, creative responses here. We could just asks the Jeffs of
course, but I guess that would take the joy of guessing from everybody?
Despite your efforts, I still see some unsolved 'mysteries'
*Why is there both a 'Doomsday' and an 'Armageddon' missile. Comes to
the same thing, but one is more powerfull than the other (who cares if
you're going to die anyway if earth cracks into two or 4 pieces?).
*What's the reason for calling the first cap missile for 'Jihad'? AFAIK
Jihad is something that is being declared against somebody now and then
but is never carried out.
*Why is the worst engine called 'Qick jump' while one that is better is
called 'Long hump'?
*What is a 'Mizer'?
*Scanners. This is really confusing logic. In order of nearsightedness,
we have for example: bat-rhino-mole. Do moles really have better vision
than rhinos? I doubt that. One of the better scanners is a dolphin
scanner. AFAIK they don't see very well, so I suppose we have to
include sonic senses too? Finally, why should an elephant have a better
vision than a cheetah?
*One more about scanners: those derived from bio are DNA and RNA. While
that connection is understandable, what does DNA and RNA have to do
with scanning?
*torpedoes: what happened to the missing greek letters in the order of
torpedo names? Did some types get discarded?
sb
Ask me a question and I'll ask you two!
Bennett
sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
AFAIK
> Jihad is something that is being declared against somebody now and then
> but is never carried out.
Jihad is a "Holy War", as I recall specifically referring to the Islamic
faith.
>
> *Why is the worst engine called 'Qick jump' while one that is better is
> called 'Long hump'?
>
> *What is a 'Mizer'?
Someone who doesn't like spending their money: eg Scrooge was a miser
(slightly different spelling, same pronounciation).
>
> *Scanners. This is really confusing logic. In order of nearsightedness,
> we have for example: bat-rhino-mole. Do moles really have better vision
> than rhinos? I doubt that.
They're all famous for being poorly-sighted. Well, maybe not _famous_.
I dunno the order in real life either...
<snip>
That's a few answered anyway, sort of.
Bennett
Aldaron
Richard Cooley wrote:
>
> In article <20000323211111...@ng-cm1.aol.com>,
> Grand Fromage <ppk...@aol.comTASCDD2> wrote:
> >According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation tech bible:
> >"Phaser is something of a hold-over acronym, PHASed Energy Rectification,
> >referring to the original process by which stored or supplied energy entering
> >the phaser system was converted into another form for release toward a target,
> >without the need for an intermediate energy transformation."
>
> Bah--that's a retrofitted acronym, like KERMIT. The reason they used
> phasers instead of lasers in TOS was just in case someone discovered lasers
> wouldn't be able to do what the ST hand weapons were supposed to be able
> to do, the show wouldn't sound hopelessly dated.
> --
> Rick Cooley Extroardinaire, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign
> http://www.shore.net/~pixel/
> DVD boycott--are you doing your part?
Actually the reason they didn't use lasers is because the
max speed of a laser is the speed of light and since the
ships travel at warp speed the would outrun/slam into their
own weapons. Phasers are energy weapons that travel at
faster than warp speed, maybe in subspace or something I
forget.
--
We walk in the dark places no other will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
We walk between the Shadow and the Light
We live for the One
We die for the One....in Valen's name.
----Anla'Shok Vow
Remove nospam to reply
Richard Cooley
>*What is a 'Mizer'?
Misspelling of "Miser".
>*One more about scanners: those derived from bio are DNA and RNA. While
>that connection is understandable, what does DNA and RNA have to do
>with scanning?
they don't; they have to do with biology. ;0
Russ Lewis
> Richard Cooley wrote:
> >
> > In article <20000323211111...@ng-cm1.aol.com>,
> > Grand Fromage <ppk...@aol.comTASCDD2> wrote:
> > >According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation tech bible:
> > >"Phaser is something of a hold-over acronym, PHASed Energy Rectification,
> > >referring to the original process by which stored or supplied energy entering
> > >the phaser system was converted into another form for release toward a target,
> > >without the need for an intermediate energy transformation."
> >
> > Bah--that's a retrofitted acronym, like KERMIT. The reason they used
> > phasers instead of lasers in TOS was just in case someone discovered lasers
> > wouldn't be able to do what the ST hand weapons were supposed to be able
> > to do, the show wouldn't sound hopelessly dated.
> > --
> > Rick Cooley Extroardinaire, a beast of pure hatred with purpose malign
> > http://www.shore.net/~pixel/
> > DVD boycott--are you doing your part?
>
> Actually the reason they didn't use lasers is because the
> max speed of a laser is the speed of light and since the
> ships travel at warp speed the would outrun/slam into their
> own weapons. Phasers are energy weapons that travel at
> faster than warp speed, maybe in subspace or something I
> forget.
But they never use phasers while at warp. At warp, they only use the photon
torpedoes, right?
Rick
> tubes of bullets. The tubes are on a feed belt like current machine
> gun rounds. The barrel is loaded into the gun on one side, it fires
> all it's rounds as it rotates around 180 degrees, then is removed. I
> would think a sustained ROF of perhaps 50,000 round/minute could be
> done, the only limit being overheating problems and the size of the
> magazine.
Here's a thought about improving size limits on ammunition...
Rather than having individual bullets or shells, have a 3 step containment
system that would only really be limited in how much munitions weight you
could carry (for field units) or how much power you could draw (for base
weapons).
Rather than single bullets and thier shells which waste space from thier
very packing, design a weapon that created the ammunition as it's being
used.
First step would be to keep a chamber filled with molten ammunition. For
simplicity's sake lets just use lead based bullets. Fill the chamber with
lead bars, have them melted down.
Next step is a coolent system to harden your projectiles just before firing
to avoid the bullets from simply vaporizing once fired.
Last step is your projection system, or what 'fires' the bullet. Could be a
varity of ways of doing that. Another chamber holding gunpowder, a more
exotic system of creating the propelling explosion, air pressure, magnetic
type rail gun (in which case you would need some type of magnetic material
in your molten lead), etc. I'm not much up on chemistry, but i'm thinking of
using some form of innert gas that reacts explosivly with an electric
charge. Some system that could be used quickly and repeatedly... and
effectivly.
When you squeeze the trigger a glob of molten lead is sucked from the molten
lead and forced into the 'chamber'. There it is instantly hardened into the
solid 'bullet'. The 'innert' gas is place behind the bullet and then an
electric charge is used to superheat and detonate the gas.
Granted there are a lot of 'holes' in the idea, like how fast could you
feasably create and fire each shot, but the idea behind it would be to find
a system that would be more efficient at storing ammunition.
Just a thought.
Anil Purandare
In article <8bfrpo$l73$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <8b7vje$jap$1...@sun27.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
> thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> > sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > > I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
> >
> A lot of good, creative responses here. We could just asks the Jeffs of
> course, but I guess that would take the joy of guessing from everybody?
>
> Despite your efforts, I still see some unsolved 'mysteries'
>
[first two mysteries deleted because I have no idea]
>
> *Why is the worst engine called 'Qick jump' while one that is better is
> called 'Long hump'?
I suspect that the names for these engines are derived more from their
fuel efficiency chart rather than from their speed. Just a guess.
>
> *What is a 'Mizer'?
I don't know, but a 'miser' is someone who is avaricious, i.e., who
spends as little as possible, is greedy or stingy.
>
> *Scanners. This is really confusing logic. In order of nearsightedness,
> we have for example: bat-rhino-mole. Do moles really have better vision
> than rhinos? I doubt that. One of the better scanners is a dolphin
> scanner. AFAIK they don't see very well, so I suppose we have to
> include sonic senses too? Finally, why should an elephant have a better
> vision than a cheetah?
No idea on the bat < rhino < mole eyesight thing, but I always had an
idea that the names for pen scanners came from animals that use senses
other than sight, compared to the names of non-pen ones. So a ferret
uses smell, a dolphin sonar, and an elephant smell/subsonic
communication--all of which can detect things not in the line of sight
(duh!), and at greater distances than sight, usually.
I have no idea if an elephant has better vision than a cheetah, but
their sense of smell is very good--but even more amazing is their
subsonic communication: they can recognize another elephant at
80-120km. I doubt any land animal can beat that with eyesight.
Of course, by that logic, a bat scanner should probably be a pen
scanner. Well, it is! It's just a range 0 pen scanner. ;-)
[last two mysteries deleted because I have no idea]
--
Anil Purandare
University of Toronto
Aldaron
Russ Lewis wrote:
> > >
> > > Bah--that's a retrofitted acronym, like KERMIT. The reason they used
> > > phasers instead of lasers in TOS was just in case someone discovered lasers
> > > wouldn't be able to do what the ST hand weapons were supposed to be able
> > > to do, the show wouldn't sound hopelessly dated.
> >
> > Actually the reason they didn't use lasers is because the
> > max speed of a laser is the speed of light and since the
> > ships travel at warp speed the would outrun/slam into their
> > own weapons. Phasers are energy weapons that travel at
> > faster than warp speed, maybe in subspace or something I
> > forget.
>
> But they never use phasers while at warp. At warp, they only use the photon
> torpedoes, right?
There are a great many inconsistencies in the series. I was
basing it on Star Fleet Battles which is a game based on all
the history, tech, etc from the series.
Damon Domjan
>Here's a thought about improving size limits on ammunition...
>
>Rather than having individual bullets or shells, have a 3 step containment
>system that would only really be limited in how much munitions weight you
>could carry (for field units) or how much power you could draw (for base
>weapons).
An intermediate step that would give much of the benefit is caseless
ammo (the propellent charge being hardened and a part of the shell) -
last I'd heard that still isn't practical (or at least hasn't been put
into service).
Gary Seven
I heard, from someone who should know, that the 'rated thrust' by the
gun when it is at max speed (which rarely happens IRL) is 32,000
pounds. IIRC, that is the same as the 'rated thrust' of its
engines.... I could be wrong, but I dont think so...
So yes, it probably would slow down the aircraft some. But since it is
rarely fired for more than ~ 1/2 second at a burst, this speed loss
would not be a big problem unless the A-10 was already at stall speed...
--
Gary Seven "Therefore, I say unto you, blow not your noses,
GarySeven on #Stars! lest you be cut down and cast into the fire."
ICQ# 8168515 --Jason Cawley on rec.games.computer.stars
mailto:gary...@abcde.cncfamily.com
http://abcde.cncfamily.com/waypoint87/waypoint87.html
Richard Cooley
Russ Lewis <ru...@lycosmail.com> wrote:
>Aldaron wrote:
>> Actually the reason they didn't use lasers is because the
>> max speed of a laser is the speed of light and since the
>> ships travel at warp speed the would outrun/slam into their
>> own weapons. Phasers are energy weapons that travel at
>> faster than warp speed, maybe in subspace or something I
>> forget.
Actually, no, what I wrote is something I read (from The Making Of Star Trek,
maybe?) a long time ago.
>But they never use phasers while at warp. At warp, they only use the photon
>torpedoes, right?
Torps would suffer the same limits--they're too small to pack their own
warp engines. I *believe* there's usually no combat at warp speed, but I
don't care enough to chek. :)
James Felling
sb wrote:
> In article <8b7vje$jap$1...@sun27.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
> thie...@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de (Dirk Thierbach) wrote:
> > sb <sb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > > I wonder if we could write a who-where-what for Stars! names? ;)
> >
> > I would like that very much. As a non-native speaker, I can still
> > understand some of the puns (and enjoy them), but the M-80 fire
> > cracker thing was new to me, for example.
> >
> > Any volunteers?
> >
> > - Dirk
> >
> A lot of good, creative responses here. We could just asks the Jeffs of
> course, but I guess that would take the joy of guessing from everybody?
>
> Despite your efforts, I still see some unsolved 'mysteries'
>
> *Why is there both a 'Doomsday' and an 'Armageddon' missile. Comes to
> the same thing, but one is more powerfull than the other (who cares if
> you're going to die anyway if earth cracks into two or 4 pieces?).
Well they both convey absolutely gobstopping amounts of dammage, so I guess
the names were simply chosen to indicate that.
>
>
> *What's the reason for calling the first cap missile for 'Jihad'? AFAIK
> Jihad is something that is being declared against somebody now and then
> but is never carried out.
Holy war -- european equivalent is Crusade
>
>
> *Why is the worst engine called 'Qick jump' while one that is better is
> called 'Long hump'?
I belive that QJ is from a work of fiction, and the association between the
two may be a sexual pun as Jump and hump are both slang terms for sexual
intercourse.
>
>
> *What is a 'Mizer'?
A homophone for miser ( one who is stingy-- watches every penny and hoards
them as much as possible( Ebenezer Scrooge))
>
>
> *Scanners. This is really confusing logic. In order of nearsightedness,
> we have for example: bat-rhino-mole. Do moles really have better vision
> than rhinos? I doubt that. One of the better scanners is a dolphin
> scanner. AFAIK they don't see very well, so I suppose we have to
> include sonic senses too? Finally, why should an elephant have a better
> vision than a cheetah?
Beats me.
>
>
> *One more about scanners: those derived from bio are DNA and RNA. While
> that connection is understandable, what does DNA and RNA have to do
> with scanning?
Got me there -- my guess it that they wanted something that sounded
biological and vaguely electroninc, and those two fit the bill
>
>
> *torpedoes: what happened to the missing greek letters in the order of
> torpedo names? Did some types get discarded?
I wouldn't doubt it. Omega is obvious( it is the last, and alpha and beta
also follow) Gamma might have been discarded because of its association
with radiation( gamma rays -- makes it sound more powerfull than it is), I
think upsilon was selected for its similarity to epsilon, and other than
that I cannot even guess.
>
>
> sb
>
> Ask me a question and I'll ask you two!
>
Varn
James Felling wrote in message <38DBAC91...@mail.arcanelogic.com>...
>
>
>sb wrote:
>
>> *torpedoes: what happened to the missing greek letters in the order of
>> torpedo names? Did some types get discarded?
>
>I wouldn't doubt it. Omega is obvious( it is the last, and alpha and beta
>also follow) Gamma might have been discarded because of its association
>with radiation( gamma rays -- makes it sound more powerfull than it is), I
>think upsilon was selected for its similarity to epsilon, and other than
>that I cannot even guess.
Gamma torps were in Stars v1.0, but were subsequently dropped.
Regards,
Varn
emery
21000lbs of recoil. Because the gun sets below the center line of the
aircraft, when the gun was fired it input a 1° nose up to the elevators.
emery
"Gary Seven" <gary...@abcde.cncfamily.com> wrote in message
news:38DBADAB...@abcde.cncfamily.com...
Heikki Poso
> sb wrote:
>
> > *torpedoes: what happened to the missing greek letters in the order of
> > torpedo names? Did some types get discarded?
>
> I wouldn't doubt it. Omega is obvious( it is the last, and alpha and beta
> also follow) Gamma might have been discarded because of its association
> with radiation( gamma rays -- makes it sound more powerfull than it is), I
> think upsilon was selected for its similarity to epsilon, and other than
> that I cannot even guess.
I thought that the greek letters were selected so that the latin names
are in alphabetical order (ABDERU and omega, but everybody knows that
one comes last).
Heikki
hp...@rock.helsinki.fi
Todd Jacob Rogers
> Jihad: holy war (arabic)
Actually a jihad is not necessarily a war. A holy struggle would be a
better translation. Basically it's were one or more Muslim's unite with
God and each other and enter into a struggle. The largest historical
case of a Jihad were the entire Islamic world was united was during the
crusades, when they fought to defend themselves against the Christians.
That's why western culture typically considers a jihad a war, but as I
said, it doesn't have to be a war.
--
- Todd Rogers
"I've been asked what I mean by word of honor. I will tell you. Place
me behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick,
reaching ever so far into the ground - there is a possibility that in
some way or another I may escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a
chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross
it. Can I get out of the circle? No. Never! I'd die first!"
-Karl G. Maeser Founder of Brigham Young University
Art Lathrop
> An intermediate step that would give much of the benefit is caseless
> ammo (the propellent charge being hardened and a part of the shell) -
> last I'd heard that still isn't practical (or at least hasn't been put
> into service).
Well, in a way, that Australian gun is caseless - the only problem is that
it is carrying around spare barrels! Still, we are not talking about a
weapon that a human is supposed to carry. This is a weapon of "extremes"
designed with the purpose of being completely computer controlled and
hitting very difficult targets (fast moving air-to-surface and
surface-to-surface missiles). Since the target is quite delicate and,
unlike a plane, quite densely packed, a very high velocity, small caliber
(for a ship mounted weapon that is) weapon is sufficient.
--
Art Lathrop
The Stars! Directory
http://art.lathrop.com/stars/directory.htm
Art Lathrop
> would think a sustained ROF of perhaps 50,000 round/minute could be
> done, the only limit being overheating problems and the size of the
> magazine.
That does sound like something I had read (for some reason 56,000 sticks in
my mind - perhaps that was a magazine limitation?); however, I think one
point of this weapon is that it would NEVER fire for entire second. The
entire thing was supposed to be part of a computer controlled auto-gun and
the computer would just fire very short streams at its target with the
knowledge that even with its very fast and small target, there would not be
a problem of the target being able to pass through the stream of bullets
without getting hit several times.
Art Lathrop
> Also known as a shotgun. No, not really, but kind of :)
>
<snip>
> Every 5th or 6th bullet
> is a tracer, so you get a more or less solid white stream - very similar a
laser
> weapon! You then "walk" the beam onto the target, which is almost
instantly
> destroyed on contact. In a wider battle, you might walk the stream back
and
> forth over a wide range of enemy positions, flooding the enemy lines with
lead.
> In these two latter cases, you explicitly don't want to expend all of the
ammo
> at once.
>
> Would be a fascinating thing to see, though. Thousands of
> independent-propellant projectiles firing from the same barrel at once :)
>
As mentioned in another post it is actually kind of the opposite idea of a
shot gun - forget about the timing issues (with a shot gun truly being all
the "bullets" at once). A shotgun works by firing a spread of shot at its
target. The further away the target the wider the spread will be. That is
great when you are shooting at relatively large targets as compared to the
distance the target is away from you. The problem is when the spread is
really wide, or the target is really small, it is just luck whether one of
those shots is actually going to hit the target. Normal machine guns have a
similar problem when trying to hit small, fast moving targets at range (i.e.
some missile). This Australian was pointing out that there is just too much
randomness (chaos-ness?) "only" putting up 5,000 bullets per minute when
both the bullets and the missiles are traveling at 2,000 mph (3,000 kph) or
faster - a with "slow" bullets, you would still have a space of 10 meters
between each bullet at a firing rate of 6,000 per minute. That is the kind
of distance that a missile moving at mach 3 could move through.
Aldaron
Richard Cooley wrote:
>
> >But they never use phasers while at warp. At warp, they only use the photon
> >torpedoes, right?
>
> Torps would suffer the same limits--they're too small to pack their own
> warp engines. I *believe* there's usually no combat at warp speed, but I
> don't care enough to chek. :)
> --
This is from the Star Trek Tech manual for torps:
The multimode sustainer engine is not a true warp engine
due to it's small physical size. Rather, it is a miniature
M/A fuel cell, which powers the sustainer coils to grab and
hold a hand-off field from the launcher tube, to continue at
warp if launched during warp flight by the starship. The
cell, a cylinder 20 cm in diameter and 50 cm in length, is
limited to a narrow warp field frequency range and cannot
add more than a slight amount of power to the original
hand-off field. The maxium crusing velocity will follow the
formula Vmax=VI+0.75VI/c, where VI is the launch velocity.
Other flight modes are triggered according to initial launch
conditions. If launched during low-impulse flight, the
coils will drive the torpedo up to a 75% higher sublight
velocity. If launched at high sublight, the sustainer will
not cross
the threshold into warp, but will continue to drive the
torpedo at high relativistic velocities. If required, the
maximum effective range can be extended, but with a loss of
detonation yield, as the sustainer engine draws reactants
from the M/A tanks.
I can't find anything on shipboard phasers yet.