Re: Re: [GZG] [FT] PSB

> >Chris, remember back in '98 when you reminded me of the editor of
> the The Future of War series being Reginald Bretnor?
>
> Spear of Mars, and Orion's Sword, and one other which I don't think
> I ever found.

Hammer of Thor, which I can't seem to find now; I'm assuming the article
is
in it, but it may be a) I'm remembering it from another book, b) it's in
one of the two above, and I'm just not seeing it. Mature moment fast and
furious lately, and suffering bronchitis doesn't clear my thinking.

> [snip]
> >Unless you had some place you REALLY had to go. Attack could not
> occur unless the attacker was willing to face the defender.

Ah, also, I probably should have said, 'especially if the defender is
between the attacker and the target'. Still, I can assume that the
defender
could close and match speeds as the attacker slows to set up on target.
Again, I'm thinking the PSB can't stand up to good number crunching.
;->=

Hey, we vaccheads have NEVER been as picky as you gropos.

Please note that, if you accept that the defender can always close as
the
attacker is on approach, it's not too difficult to assume it's in a
favorable position UNLESS the attacker 'turns to' the defender.

> Yeah, that's part of the reason I asked this.  Sensor ranges are
> long enough that, if there's no restriction on where you can jump
> from, you should *always* be able to avoid an uneven fight. And if
> you're unrestricted on jumping in, you just pick a random spot near
> your target planet, jump in, salvo a massive load of missiles, and
> jump out again. I'm thinking that we really need jump gates that are
> large enough that you can't just build fixed installations to
> fortify it, but small enough that a squadron or two can cover it.

If you assume pin point jump accuracy, and I'm talking a lot less than a
few AU's off here. Don't make me bring out the Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy's description of space!

At some point, defensive ships become useless; save the expense of real
drive units and build forts and minefields. Sounds kinda dull to me.

The whole discussion of the vulnerability of planets awhile back, when
the
whole 'push an asteroid out of orbit' came up, gave me the image of, if
it
takes only a small nudge way out there to put into trajectory means a
slightly larger nudge sometime later can make it miss. Then you might
have
to have a task force guarding the asteroid in, and the target sends a
force
to accompany the second 'nudge', and you'd have the whole meeting
engagement thing again.

The whole concept of a space ship battle requires more than a few
assumptions.

The_Beast

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