Re: [GZG] Armoured utility vehicles and IEDs in SG/DS

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Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Eli Arndt <emu2020@comcast.net> wrote:

> It seems to me, that using grav tech in a mine is an overly complex
and
> expensive way to do a job that other tech could do just as easily.
What
> would a gravitic mine due other than give you a mobility kill against
a
> grav
> vehicle.
>
> It would be just as easy and likely cheaper, to use skeet mines with
engine
> noise-seeking, hyper-penetrating projectiles or something else.

This depends on the setting.  In Honorverse, grav  drives and  their
requisite acceleration compensators  allow you	to dump waste heat
directly
into hyperspace.  Either that, or  their  fusion energy conversion
efficiencies exceed 99.99%.  Whichever is the case, there is no
requirement
for an especially vulnerable spot on the hull to allow for cooling.

Sometimes, a mobility kill on a grav vehicle isn't just a mobility kill.
Killing the grav drive of a landing starship 10 metres above the field
may
prevent it ever lifting off, again.  Getting a grav vehicle to hit the
ground, at speed, will do more damage than many kinds of penetrating
hit.  I
have been told that even the mighty M1 Abrams will have its front stove
in
and may suffer a driver fatality if it hits the trunk of a foot thick,
still
living tree.

Ground vehicles and hovercraft do not have as far to fall and may not be
going as fast.	The threat of grav mines will either limit the speed of
a
grav force, or drive it up above the mines to where it cannot as readily
hide.