Re: DS2/SG2 artillery

I think you're seriously off on your data about the atmosphere.  The
SR-71
cruises at around 85,000 feet which is 16 miles.  Low earth orbit is
much higher
than that, and any orbit that would be remotely useful for dropping
ortillery
would be somewhere out around geo-synchronous which is out around 22,000
miles.
This is JMO, as you would want a long scanning window to formulate your
fire
solution (atmospheric entry is extremely delicate), but even if you cut
the
orbit to a quarter of geosynchronous it would be 5000 miles, which would
be a
LONG ways for a fire mission to travel.

Ortillery just won't be a viable replacement for ground based artillery
for the
forseeable future, IMO.  It can't be as accurate (it would be nearly
impossible
to perfectly account for every air current and change in air density),
and it
will take a long time for a bombardment to hit (hours).   Not exactly
what you
want for precision fire support.  Orbital bombardments would work well
for large
area  destruction, for example leveling a city.

Bill

Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> on 11/29/1999 10:21:53 AM

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  Subject      Re: DS2/SG2 artillery			      
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On 29-Nov-99 at 11:19, Ryan M Gill (monty@arcadia.turner.com) wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Los wrote:
>
> >
> > I still don't get the assumption that something fired form 200 miles
> > (ortillery) up will be more accurate (or cost effective) than
something
> > fired from 10 miles away (SP arty) from the ground. I can't make
that
> > leap of faith very easily since ground based fire technology wion't
be
> > moving forward just as well as space-based fire control.
>
> It may not be as acurrate, but it will have a much longer flight time.
> You wanna wait 40 minutes for a  firemission to land fromthe time you
> request it?

My question is why would your ortillery fire from 200 miles away.  We
have what, about 3 miles of atmosphere?  That space based artillery
could be 5 miles away.	As for flight times, both are going to be
insignificant.

Roger