Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
"The old ways are good, for a reason,"-Vilani saying.
Hydrogen ice bombs
- Thread starter vegascat
- Start date
trader jim
SOC-14 1K
Hey ..... That could be a real Belly Buster Joke.....hahahahah..heheheheh...belly Buster....
get it.....hahahahah.....instant STEW MEAT!!!....
Yummy Yum Yum...
get it.....hahahahah.....instant STEW MEAT!!!....
Yummy Yum Yum...
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
_________________________________________________Originally posted by trader jim:
Hey ..... That could be a real Belly Buster Joke.....hahahahah..heheheheh...belly Buster....
get it.....hahahahah.....instant STEW MEAT!!!....
Yummy Yum Yum...
As funny as when Kir got his wish seeing Mr Morden, dead and crucified... and waved....
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
My bad. Yer right. Off, and up on a pike. It was still that kind of "funny".
Yep... big gauss gun. However, since the slabs/cannonballs/crowbars/iron laced chocolate rabbits will impact at whatever speed they left the launcher, minus any drag effects, plus gravity acceleration. Terminal velocity only applies to objects acclerated by gravity alone. </font>[/QUOTE]Remember that before laucnh, the crowbar is travelling at orbital velocity - So the bulk of the velocity that the gun implies will be soaked up in slowing the round down.
If you just aim downwards and shoot, the round will travel away from you , (into a lower orbit but wit the same orbital velocity) and end up passing in front of you.
To Fire direct, you need a huge muzzle velocity.
You are better just firing them backwards (to slow them down) and letting them drop from the sky on the target.
And don't get me wrong, terminal velocity is plenty terminal enough (in the other sense) particularly for a heavy streamlined shape (Iron Javelins)
Points to remember,
i) orbital balistics are a new kettle of octopus.
ii) It's a long way down - accuracy with unguided weapons will be poor (so throw lots - which adds expense
iii) We have to match canon, so if there is an obviuos way that isn't used, there must be a counter that we can't think of (otherwise it would be used - remember, canon is true, even when it looks wrong)
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Mink:
Consider this, the stern firing rock detriius tossing mass driver on an LSP-MP-1108, 5ktn mining platform, 1G (non jump). This thing fires a projectile of 684kg of rock debris while asteroid mining. It has a 400dtn processing bay (these are Beltstrike ships btw).
When I computed them using FF&S, this "sternchaser" fired once every 15 minutes, had a muzzle velocity of several thousand meters per second. It took 1.5 hrs to unload the hopper (thats with an autolauncher feeding device, reducing crew to 3 personnel from a possible 9. This is at TL-12.(max vel of mass driver achieved here of 6,000M/sec. (TL-8 moves slowest at 3000m./secon, slower reload time/ more crew.)
Now imagine this "shotgun" being used from space at the ground...
Thats canon.
The rest is gravity and terror bombing.
Brought to by LOTUS (Lower Tech Solutions).Ltd.
and heretics like me.
Consider this, the stern firing rock detriius tossing mass driver on an LSP-MP-1108, 5ktn mining platform, 1G (non jump). This thing fires a projectile of 684kg of rock debris while asteroid mining. It has a 400dtn processing bay (these are Beltstrike ships btw).
When I computed them using FF&S, this "sternchaser" fired once every 15 minutes, had a muzzle velocity of several thousand meters per second. It took 1.5 hrs to unload the hopper (thats with an autolauncher feeding device, reducing crew to 3 personnel from a possible 9. This is at TL-12.(max vel of mass driver achieved here of 6,000M/sec. (TL-8 moves slowest at 3000m./secon, slower reload time/ more crew.)
Now imagine this "shotgun" being used from space at the ground...
Thats canon.
The rest is gravity and terror bombing.
Brought to by LOTUS (Lower Tech Solutions).Ltd.
and heretics like me.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to respectfuly disagree with you. Orbital mechanics are still governed by Mr Newton's rules. Your orbit is just the vector sum of the orbiting body's radial acceleration and its tangential velocity. The object is, in effect, always accelerating (or falling) towards the center of the planet it orbits... and always coasting away from it at a right angle to that acceleration.
Now, there are simple equations which govern stable orbit altitudes for every discrete velocity. Geosynch orbit happens to be a rather fast orbit or the typical size 8 world. But regardless, you still have a vector sum which more or less points AT the world you happen to be orbiting.
IF the tangential component of your vector equation (orbital velocity) was the only component you had to worry about... THEN your point would be perfectly correct. However, you also have an acceleration vector (one strong enough to keep you in orbit) pointing straight down at the planet.
And Geosynchronous means that you are matching the rotational (angular) velocity of the point on the planet over which you orbit. In other words, your tangential velocity drops completely out of the equation. All that is left is gravitational acceleration, drag, and muzzle velocity.
From this point, simple vector math can get you as close to your desired trajectory as any parabolic path used by more conventional ground arty. You still need a forward observer to get solid accuracy... but you could probably use telescopes from your arty platform for that purpose (because after all, you can SEE the target from above).
The only things that could cause at this point are air currents and math errors. The EXACT same problems faced by ground based arty... and they do just fine.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Darth, I stand by my previous offer of enlistment to the Soleean Admiralty for you...(we've had this out recently on the tne-list, with the same results. It can work, it can be done.).
On that note, I was in a campaign that used this, from an Azhanti High Lightning class Frontier Intruder class cruiser--using its repulsor bays (14 of em), to "shove" rocks at atarget world (balkanized/ warring). The planet looked up and stopped after two opposing armies vanished off a continent...(It was a TL-5 place). This was pre MT-Rebellion, btw.
On that note, I was in a campaign that used this, from an Azhanti High Lightning class Frontier Intruder class cruiser--using its repulsor bays (14 of em), to "shove" rocks at atarget world (balkanized/ warring). The planet looked up and stopped after two opposing armies vanished off a continent...(It was a TL-5 place). This was pre MT-Rebellion, btw.
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Or should I say, CPT Bachfisch? welcome back from Silesia! 
Darth has the right of it, but I think that there might perhaps be an easier way to explain the flaws in Mink's argument (which are quite easy to make.) The fact is that there are two SETS of velocities and accelerations to consider here. We can do this using the bigger hammer method and I can show you all sorts of vector calculus and differential equations (if we really wanted to factor in atmospheric drag and have it as a function of atmospheric density vs. altitude... and account for the fact that gravitational acceleration is a function based on the inverse squared distance between the centres of mass... but we don't want to... unless requested.)
Those two parts are angular motion, and translational (or linear if you want) motion.
Here is what is occuring, you have an angular velocity, if you are in geosync, this is constant. (Read: no angular acceleration.) What this means is that, if you draw a line from the centre of one mass (the planet) and another (the crowbar, meteor, blue whale and potted petunia... etc.) and one is locked in geosync orbit about the other, it doesn't matter where you are on that line... they have the same orbital angular velocity.
The place people get lost is that you can convert this into a linear velocity about the orbited mass (planet). In other words something in geosync a km out is "moving slower" than something 500km out. While this is true, it doesn't matter. Because all you are doing is determining what velocity is required to maintain that one revolution per day location. (Remember phonographs? The needle is 'seeing' a differant linear speed depending on how far away from the centre it is.)
You see, Mink's crowbar, if fired straight down, (by this I believe he means along a line connecting the centre of mass of the projectile and the centre of mass of the planet... the poor target just happens to get in the way.) is actually only concerned with the translational motion.
The planet's gravitation is already pulling that projectile straight down (accelerating it gravitationally), and the atmospheric drag is slowing it down. There are no other forces (and I mean this in a Newtonian definition) acting on that bar once it leaves the muzzle. More importantly, there are no forces acting in a direction other than parallel to the line between those two objects. All the muzzle velocity does is give you a 'head start' on getting up to terminal velocity.
We physicists happen to love central (force) vector field problems like this for the precise reason that all the three dimensional stuff usually drops right out, as in this case, and you wind up with a nice one dimensional problem.
Those two parts are angular motion, and translational (or linear if you want) motion.
Here is what is occuring, you have an angular velocity, if you are in geosync, this is constant. (Read: no angular acceleration.) What this means is that, if you draw a line from the centre of one mass (the planet) and another (the crowbar, meteor, blue whale and potted petunia... etc.) and one is locked in geosync orbit about the other, it doesn't matter where you are on that line... they have the same orbital angular velocity.
The place people get lost is that you can convert this into a linear velocity about the orbited mass (planet). In other words something in geosync a km out is "moving slower" than something 500km out. While this is true, it doesn't matter. Because all you are doing is determining what velocity is required to maintain that one revolution per day location. (Remember phonographs? The needle is 'seeing' a differant linear speed depending on how far away from the centre it is.)
You see, Mink's crowbar, if fired straight down, (by this I believe he means along a line connecting the centre of mass of the projectile and the centre of mass of the planet... the poor target just happens to get in the way.) is actually only concerned with the translational motion.
The planet's gravitation is already pulling that projectile straight down (accelerating it gravitationally), and the atmospheric drag is slowing it down. There are no other forces (and I mean this in a Newtonian definition) acting on that bar once it leaves the muzzle. More importantly, there are no forces acting in a direction other than parallel to the line between those two objects. All the muzzle velocity does is give you a 'head start' on getting up to terminal velocity.
We physicists happen to love central (force) vector field problems like this for the precise reason that all the three dimensional stuff usually drops right out, as in this case, and you wind up with a nice one dimensional problem.
I concur. Say we have a ship 200 Km up, at an orbital speed of 7 km/sec. If you fire straight down at 5 km/sec the round will hit 40 seconds later, 280 km in front of the point of firing (pretty easy to predict).
The velocity at impact (ignoring air resistance) will be ((5.4E3)^2+(5E3)^2)^0.5=6.7 Km/sec, maybe 5 km/sec allowing for wind resistance. So a 9 Kg crowbar (an iron bar 6 cm diameter and 45 cm long) hits with about 250 megajoules, the energy in 54 Kg of TNT (about the same as the explosive in a Vietnam-era 250 lb bomb) or about twenty times the energy in a 120mm APFDS "silver bullet".
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
_________________________________________________Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
Can I bring on Icecat as my chief of staff?
By the power vested in my by Empress Gabriela Ramstattan, of Solee let it be so! (And Icecat as yer COS)!
Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
_____________________________________Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
Its good to be back in uniform again!
RADM Bachfisch, I need you to look over some stuff I'm writing up fer the Soleean Campaign.
I need to modify previous missions described on this site:
Under the page PERI, "The empire of Solee"
http://www.downport.com/bard/bard/peri/peri1003.html, my write-up on the 1202 resolution to Hindahl & Marcena quagmires by the Soleean Navy.
We will be at war with the reformed Coalition shortly...The Empress expects us to provide a "short, but glorious war"...---ADM Eshraa bint Reine, CNO Soleean Imperial Navy. Flag /Captain's Briefing at Solee Naval Base, January 1203.