Re: SG - New Israeli's _ Eureka Miniatures

In a message dated 97-09-04 11:08:38 EDT, you write:

<< >The sonic boom would come from the entire track of the projectile.
ie:
from
 >point of origin to impact site. Rather hard to pinpoint!  Anyone close
to
the
 >track would probably not be able to locate the origin, someone further
away
 >might be able to say it was to the right or left of target at best.
{This
 >assumes no change in pitch or sound as projectile travels & slows down
 >through the thick air}. You might have a good idea of where it came
from
only
 >if the shooters track passes you by to hit something further back (he
misses
 >you and clangs the AFV) giving you two points to construct a line (you
and
 >the impact!) Besides at this point everyone would hit the deck and all
those
 >fancy helmet gizmo's would be looking for IR trace, EM signature (
gauss
 >rifle would have one hell of a magnetic signature!!!!)  Magnetics
would NOT
 >be blocked by terrain, walls, or anything less than a grounded
Farraday
Box. 
 >
 >I hope this cofuses the issue.
 >
 >Tom Hughes
 
 How about gadgets working out its point of closest approach by Doppler
 shift, then working out where it came from?
 
 From the silencing point of view, make it double barrelled, and fire
the
 darts in such a way that their sound signatures are 180 degrees out of
 phase, and silence each other.  Hmm, might it be possible to shape the
 surface of the penetrator in such a way that it silences itself?
 
 Rob Paul
  >>

I think we are hitting the KISS principle here. The bullets amplitude of
sound (how loud the sucker is) is a function of its mass and speed -
high
speed - low mass (as compared to a multiton jet!) I don't it would be
particularly loud in the first place. maybe the sound of a dry stick
breaking?  On a windy day out in some overgrown hedgerow I don't think
you
could hear it at 50 meters let alone locate it. Without the sound of the
gunpowder, about the only thing you might be able to tell is why the man
next
to you fell down!!!  All the other gimmicks to the weapon add more
weight to
weapon for marginal increases in efficeincies. Just keep it simple.

I was looking into railguns and found references that it takes a long
time to
charge the capacitors ( 5 minutes between shots) when you use batteries.
It
has something to do with the physical design of a battery (chemical
reactions
must go slowly or the darn thing blows up and melts at the same time.) 
There
are apparently a class of chemical reaction that might work but the
reaction
is still very close to an explosion, so the real chances of a naturally
silent gauss rifle (or rail gun for that matter) are rather
problimatic!!!!
 I guess you need a suppressor system for the power generation system
(that
is identical to a gun pwder exposion!) 

What you might have are "smart bullets" ; that is bullets that are
finned
penetrators smart enough to fly either "True" of stay within 2 cm of the
UV
targeting scope beam? Drop out wind, gravity, and range and it gets real
easy
to be a sniper with an excellant "one shot, one kill" record. With that
kind
of rifle, even I could hit something!!!! The darned thing would have to
be an
IC chip shaped like a finned bullet, I doubt you could manufacture it
any
other way.  Anything that smart and small could be spoofed though, oh
well
wheels within wheels I guess.

Tom Hughes
A general of confusion!!