Re: Fast speeds

On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Brian Bell wrote in reply to me:

> > For high-tech battles, however... well, if I can see you on my
radar, I
> > know how far away you are, right? And I can keep track of the range
all
> > the time, too. I strongly suspect the same would apply for other
types of
> > high-tech sensors or scanners too.
> 
> Of course, that's what ECM is for. If you also assume that all
warships
> have some form of basic ECM,	you could argue that the sensor info is
> compromised. Also if you are talking 1/4 light minute per inch, the
time it
> takes to travel to and from the ship will also necessitate some
guesswork
> on the navigation/targeting computer's part. Therefore, there is also
a
> vaild argument for NOT measuring in a high tech setting.

It depends on your background, of course. I don't think of 1" ~ 15 light
seconds; more like the 1cm ~ 1000 km/1 turn ~ 20 minutes scale. For FT,
that is; Starfire uses 1 hex = 30 light seconds; but Starfire physics
are... very strange :). 

ECM may disturb your scanners enough to prevent a good firing solution, 
but would it stop you from determining the position of the target with
an 
accuracy of several km or so (...ie, less than 0.1 mm in the "ground"
scale 
I'm imagining)?

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
 -Hen3ry