Sundog

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? You Don't Believe - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Space Warfare I - The Gravity Well One for our resident physics whizzes - supposing a solid steel impactor six inches in diameter and 3 feet (36 inches) long were de-orbited onto a target. If there was a wire mesh suspended from lighter than air supports over the target, how strong would the mesh have to be to cause the impactor to cease to be a threat to a hardened target? I figure you'd at least have to start the impactor tumbling, as that would let it rip itself apart at the extreme speeds it's travelling at.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Don't Mess with Doctor Dream - Thompson Twins

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What did Number Six want, Number Two? A: No, I want you to die slowly and horribly.

Re: Space Warfare I - The Gravity Well Also posted in the linked article: Sundog said...I'd like to challenge some points here. I don't disagree regarding low orbit. Engagement times for incoming SOMs (Surface to Orbit Missiles) are too short, and a low-orbit SOM is too small and too launcher mobile. The advantage is indeed with the ground. Where I have the problem is control of high orbit. With a half-hour window to do something about an incoming SOM, as you point out, there's plenty that can be done to counter it. What I don't agree with is that energy weapons would take their place. Assuming E-Weapons are in use, the energy curve is ALL on the orbital side. They can have relatively light, defensive arms to deal with SOMs once they crest the atmosphere. The ground facility needs a LOT more power - it has to punch through Kilometers of energy-scattering gas before reaching vacuum, and then still have enough cohesion to reach out to high orbit and do damage. You're talking a much larger emitter and a massively greater power source. Now the counter argument is, of course, that since they don't have to move, the defensive facility and power source can be as large as necessary. However, this obviates the concept of "getting lost on the clutter". Besides being rather obvious visually, any such power plant is going to stand out like a flare in thermal from the waste heat. Even if you manage to pump the heat elsewhere and disguise the base, your first shot will be backtracked to your emitter site pretty much instantly. And that heat has to go somewhere - a flare point is going to tell the orbital enemy of the existence of your base, if not it's location. A maxim of modern warfare is "if I can hit it, I can kill it". You'll get one shot with your E-Weapon - then the Thor clusters will rain down. Simple kinetic impactors will hit with enough force to punch out any imaginable armouring. You might take out a ship - for the loss of a facility of roughly equal cost. Finally, I think you're betting too much on the capacity to be stealthy from space. Spy satellites today have quite incredible resolution, and it's much easier to drop a tiny, hard to spot and hard to hit spy sat into low orbit than it is to find and kill said sat - especially if your major tracking stations were among the first targets destroyed. Modern spy sats can differentiate between an 18-wheeler and a bus - it's not that much of a stretch to be able to differentiate between a cargo hauler and a missile hauler. Now, none of this invalidates your position on the near future, but I think it throws a few wrenches into the idea that the ground vs space argument is in favor of the ground. June 9, 2009 9:29 PM Just so our native experts can, y'know, poke massive holes in it...

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? I'll Never Find Another You - The Seekers

Re: New Broom Terrorists The problem is, there ain't that much more to say on the subject. It's pretty clear that many of the Freikorps developed from mercenary bands and displaced citizenry, but solid information on them is depressingly difficult to come by.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Prime Time - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Nucleus - The Alan Parsons Project.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Give the entire set of vocalizations, other than screaming, in Abbot and Costello meet the Death Tribble. A: In a comedy funny is not optional.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Some Other Time - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Never Was Haul site Done and done.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What's the only problem with being an Anti-Vampire? A: It's a basic spell, doofus.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? World's End Radio Podcast.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? You're the Inspiration followed by 25 or 6 to 4,both by Chicago.

Re: Adventure Ideas For The Late 80s And The Berlin Wall Well, there's always the obvious villainy: East German/Stasi supers, seeing the writing on the wall (and the warrants being filed) pulling off some sort of big hit under the cover of the chaos, either to just get the heck out of dodge or to fund their coming "unwilling retirement" to South America.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? La Sagrada Familia - The Alan Parsons Project.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Games People Play - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? The Turn of a Friendly Card (Part One) - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Brainstorming an alternate Europe It was. And without the Hydrogen-Oxygen reaction to act as an accelerant, the fire would have spread more slowly, possibly even been extinguished by the fire-retardent Helium. At the very least, the fire would not have been the spectacular, shown-in-every-theatre headliner that turned public opinion away from LTA altogether.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What's the most important aspect of your aberrancy? A: Dumda DUM, dadadad DUMdeDUM!

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Could you pass me that leaky, unstable bottle of Hydrofluoric Acid? A: Don't call me Surely.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Vulture Culture - The Alan Parsons Project