Crowbars

> Launch a barrage of electromagnetically accelerated crowbars at
> the planet.  They'll come in with no power, no active sensors,
> no real obvious way to detect them.  Doesn't especially have to
> be high acceleration.  Put a layer of silicon on them if you
> like--or RAM--or use a mix of stealthed and camo'd.  Pack them
> in methane snow or something to reduce the IR signature.

> When the crowbars ablate in atmosphere, they expose their
> antimatter core--*boom*
> I'm afraid I haven't yet come up with a really convincing reason
> why Alarish hasn't already done this.

You'd have to generate convincing PSB of an antimatter containment
system
that wouldn't consume and broadcast enough energy to give significant
advanced warning. Plus if FT sensors are mass based, IR signature
wouldn't
matter. Plus more, unless its albedo were effectively zero in all
wavelengths (claoked), it could be optically or near IR detected by a
defense net. 253 Mathilde is several times darker than Coal in all
VI-NIR
wavelengths, but readily detectable and observable by both Earthbased
telescopes and NEAR.

But then if we're allowing cloaked bombs (FT2 cloak), no planet is safe,
no
matter what the rest of the space fleet can do..

Noam