Aerogel

>From what I've read, if I read it right (big if):

Brian indicated the compound might be binary - requiring the disperion
of
one part of the compound in some aerosol or similar format and the other
to
arrive by arty. You go to scatter this over an area my forces are in,
you'd
better hope you have a lot of ECM. Every GMS I can lock on your delivery
platform for the aerosol component will be trying to bring you to Earth.
And
something tells me winds would play heck with this. And if you tried
high
speed delivery, it'd give you a crappy disperion.

If you could deliver it from one source (arty, STS GMS, FASCAM), then it
would be viable. But something tells me for it to gel up vertically as
you
seem to suggest, it'd have to have all the density of spiderwebs or soap
bubbles. <The space program was playing with something like this.>
That's be pretty easy for anyone to walk through, including infantry.
And if
it does not gel up solid, then it won't bind oxygen - its probably
permeable
to it. So it isn't going to suffocate anyone. If it was heavy enough or
thick enough for that (a la stuff the US has developed for anti-riot
actions), then it'd not block LoS very high because it's own mass would
cause compaction. 

And couldn't you (if it was a binary system) deploy a counter-aerosol to
prevent it from forming ahead of time? 

And I think it might block LoS, block energy weapons (by ablating.. you
might even argue for suspended crystals or dust to make it more
effective in
that role) but it is unlikely to stop HKP or other similar weapons that
rely
to some extent on kinetics. It might slow them down (reduce chit
validity?)
but it wouldn't stop them. 

And if the smoke can form quickly by a catalysis reaction, I'm assuming
a
counter deployed by air, arty, GMS, or CEV or engineers on foot would
destroy it equally instantly. In fact, all vehicles opposing such a
force
might have cloud dischargers to destroy the enemy aerogel.

Just some thoughts. It's an interesting idea, but I think one should try
to
keep in mind the limits real life mass and delivery imposes upon it.
<not
saying you weren't - like me, you probably threw an idea out for
discussion>

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008