Re: FT-HET Laers

On Tue, 30 Jan 2001 10:02:20 +1100, Beth Fulton
<beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au>
wrote:

>For the non-mechanically minded in the audience, what would be the PSB
for 
>something that can ignore armour?? 

Well, the obvious answer is something like a particle beam that can go
through
solids fairly easily and with little damage, but do a LOT of damage at
the
focal point. 

Another option is perhaps a space equivalent of a squash head round.
Something
that slams into the armour, does not penetrate, but causes a shockwave
that
knocks around stuff inside or sends shrapnel flying on the inside hull
(there's a term for this, spalling or something like that, that Oerjan
will no
doubt mention). This might actually work well in space, where the
missile
doesn't have to be aerodynamic. At any rate, you could use PSB to
suggest that
the projectile is slowed down away from the vessel by shields but
doesn't harm
armour (technically I know that more armour WILL hurt such a weapon,
but...).

You could also come up with some sort of fusion weapon that converts
armour
mass into energy, thus using the mass of the vessel against it. Shields
would
work against this weapon (energy on energy) but the armour would
actually work
WITH it. In fact, if you want to be nasty, you could have it do more
damage
based on the amount of armour the vessel had. That should give Oerjan
fits in
the costing department! 

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,