Re: Troop Capacity

On 21 Jun 98 at 20:35, John Atkinson wrote:

> You wrote: 
> 
> >I thought that we weren't taking sides, just exploring the envelope.
> >I thought FT missiles (not SML's) each had an AI? That makes them 
> 
> Not much of one--fly in a relatively straight line and detonate a
> nuclear warhead when you get close.  Doesn't deserve the title of
> AI.

So they aren't clever ;) Clever enough to point a PDS system perhaps, 
but you are right, perhaps not clever enough to make decisoins about 
tactics.

> >or make it dangerous to go near it, anyway. You nead about six sites 
> >aroud the planet to give an all aspect defense, unless you want the 
> >attacker to come close via your blindside.
> 
> Sure--but what you're more likely to see on a sparsely settled
> colony will be a half-dozen semi-automated sites near the spaceport.

Agreed.

> >Did you come up with any rules for planetary defenses yet?
> 
> Not yet.  I'm having difficulty taking into account scales and the
> atmosphere.  Take beam batteries, for instance.  Whipping out my
> handy-dandy TNE Fusion, Fire, and Steel (an invaluable resource for
> anyone playing with semi-realistic science fiction), I note Particle
> Accelerator Weapons (as the FT "official" beam batteries are) can
> either be charged or not.  Charged beam weapons have piss-poor
> vacuum abilities (range multiplier of .001!), and neutral beam
> weapons have fairly lousy atmospheric permformance. (Note for TNE
> users--am assuming an atmosphere code of 6 or 7, ie fairly
> Earthlike)  An N-PAW firing from orbit (same 30K km space combat
> hex) is treated as if it were firing at a vacuum target 50 hexes
> away.  A charged particle beam is about ten times as good--but it
> still takes something out of the performance.  And if the charged
> particle beam has to interact with a magnetic field like Earth's,
> accuracy is degraded further.  N-PAWs can be switched to fire
> charged particles when necessary-but still note the degredation for
> the orbital fire.  In other words, this gives A batteries a max
> range of 3.6 inches.	Now that's roughly 3,600 km, right?  Max
> range, mind you.  And a 1,200 km range for the class one batteries. 
> Now, I don't know a thing about a orbital mechanics.	Which is
> another hindrance.  I don't know what's low orbit, geosynchronous,
> etc.

Orbital mechanics are.. Low orbit is anything above the atmosphere, 
but not a 'long' way away (kinda fuzzy). Geosynchronous would only be 
used by space stations/satellites that don't have any drives to speak 
of, and that want to stay above the same part of the planet. and it's 
thousands of miles up. FT ships have so much manuever power they can 
force their own orbits at whatever height they want

> PDS are another issue.  I've always assumed they are computor
> directed laser clusters.  YMMV.  Now, operating those things in an
> atmosphere will (again, going of TNE FFS, page 128) impose a range
> multiplier of .01.  Hence the former 6000 km range becomes 60 km. 
> Much less intimidating.  Of course fighter weapon ranges are also
> much reduced.  

Ok, perhaps one turn to get from the carriers to just above 
atmospheric interface, and another turn to drop down to attack range.

> Missles will, I'll venture to guess, not be terrifically affected. 
> If in a vacuum they can accelerate to a significant fraction of
> lightspeed, then they can do almost as well in an atmosphere.  Of
> course, it works both ways, no?  We can drop nuclear warheads from
> the full 24,000km range of a SLM system, and a MT missle has a range
> of. . . 18x3 is 54,000 miles.  This does present nasty issues like
> "Umm, doesn't dropping big whonkin' nukes sorta nullify the whole
> point of the war?"  But that's philosophy not tactics.  You could, I
> imagine remove the warheads of a salvo of missles to produce a
> kinetic weapon (at .1c, do you really need to explode?).  You'd even
> have decent odds of hitting your target, presuming perfect
> intelligence on where everything of value is.  Of coures, against a
> orbiting warship, it would also be much easier to target (perhaps
> d3+3 are on-target?).

Well, assuming that it's atmospheric streamlining and strength are 
extremely good it might survive long enough in atmosphere at .1c to 
do something other than look pretty as it evaporates, or swerve 
radically off course. Kinetic projectiles have to be fairly big to 
not burn up at those sorts of speeds.
Missiles actually probably have to specifically decelerate just 
before hitting atmosphere after a quick transit from the firing 
platform, so that they can acquire the target, and drop on it at a 
less fantastic speed.

Firing ship based missiles, is partly countered by having those
meters of armor on the planetary defense batteries. Thinking about
the vulnerability of their sensor systems, it seems likely that there
would be duplicated sensor systems, and/or portable ones (grav
trucks, submarines, etc) so that it's difficult to work out where
they are. They can relay the targeting info into the defense 'grid'
in general perhaps. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Slattery	     richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
At present there are such goings-on that everything is at a standstill. 
     Sir Boyle Roche
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~