Re: The Problem with EW

> Dean Gundberg wrote
> True, if you have ECM active, everyone will know you are there, but if
I
> have a very high power searchlight (ECM) and shine it in your face
(ECM
> active), you'd have a tough time shooting at me even though you knew
the
> general area where I was.

I would know your exact location as *you* are the searchlight

  The 'searchlight' blinds you with the intense
> radiation and your usual targeting sensors would be getting in so much
info,
> you can't tell exactly where your target is.

Unless you can feed info from your search sensors (who now know the
exact
location of the  ECM active ship)  to correct the garbage the target
sensors
are getting

> That is at least how I see EW in this analogy :)  Area ECM ships may
become
> the target of more fire but then all of the ships they are protecting
are
> firing away at the attacking ships.

This is probably tactically correct, but the heart of my orginal post
was
not how effective ECM could be, but that it should have a flaw,
otherwise it
becomes the 'holy grail'. All designs are therefore incomplete without
an
ECM system. So where does that leave all the published designs?
The flaw could be as I suggested before, area ECM ships become vunerable
or
they also interfere with the targetting sensors of some or all the ships
they are 'protecting', to something as radical as the fact that to put
out
enough energy to seriously disrupt sensors over an area you may need
something in the order of a sustained EM pulse. Which, if not dangerous
to
nearby ships, could be very nasty for the ship using it.

Tony

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