On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 2:25 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > DataPacRat replied to me: >> Note to self, to add to description: When possible, before deploying >> Pigeons, use artillery to clear the area of opposing artillery. > >> Note to self: When possible, before deploying pigeons, use artillery >> to clear the area of opposing MBTs. Pigeons are not designed to be >> used against them, especially unsupported, any more than unsupported >> infantry are. > > So you are developing a system which works best against poorly > armed guerillas, not against mechanized infantry.
Precisely. > In guerilla > wars, just shooting everybody is rarely an option, because the > enemy will try to blend into the civilian population. Ditto. > A flock could be used to patrol a cleared strip on the border, > or around a base. "Warning: automated lethal force!" (As it happens, the original fiction included a prequel system, "Wasps", for precisely this sort of thing. This system also included easily-deployable lethal laser-fences in order to divvy up the target area to prevent easy movement.) > Or the users of this fiendish weapon are really trying to > exterminate the entire enemy population, and Our Steel-Jawed > Heroes are the ones fighting against the Terrible Menace. Our Heroes were looking for a system which can identify, and /keep/ identified, anyone who attacked them - and anyone who supported them by, eg, storing ammo, hiding insurgents and supporting their claims to be innocent civilians, and was otherwise someone who would be considered part of the attackers' forces if their actions were known in full. (Admittedly, the original fiction included a sufficient quantity of attackers that certain target areas ended up being essentially depopulated, at least before the non-combatants started kicking out the combatants and surrendering...) >> How expensive is such a point defense system to build? Is there a >> sample of one somewhere in the archives? > > Dragon Republic Type 08 Main Battle Unit v1.1 (TL9) > Copyright 2006 by Onno Meyer > Armor F RL B T U > Body: 6/2,000 4/720 4/400 4/900 4/400 > Tracks: 4/80 4/80 4/80 4/80 4/80 > Turret: 6/4,000 4/600 4/600 4/1,200 > Body and Turret + DR 200 EM armor. > > Weaponry > 60mm Railgun [Tur:F] (200 shots) +2. > Five 400-kJ Point Defense Lasers [Tur:F,R,L,B,T] (1,560 shots each) +1. > HT: 11. HPs: 3,000 Body, 1,200 each Track, 1,800 Turret > Weapon Weight Volume Cost Power WPS VPS CPS TL > 60mm Railgun 4,900 98 $1,000,000 129,600 5.4 0.054 $780[1] 9 > 400-kJ PD Laser 50 1 $10,000 900 - - - 9 > [1] APFSDSDU; also fires HE (* 1/6 cost), Beehive (*1/3 cost), and > CHEM(WP) (*1/3 cost). > > Weapon Ammo Malf. Type Damage SS Acc 1/2D Max RoF > 60mm Railgun APFSDSDU ver. cr. 6d*72(3) 30 20 13,000 30,000 4* > HE ver. exp. 6d*10[6d] 19 8,700 20,000 > Beehive ver. imp. 10d 19 8,700 20,000 > CHEM(WP) ver. spcl. 13 yards 19 8,700 20,000 > 400-kJ PD Laser - ver. imp. 6d 20 20 4,000 8,000 16* Okay - with 5 lasers and a ROF of 16 each, it looks like this tank could plink 80 Pigeons per second before getting saturated. That's about $240k of materiel lost per second - so a Pigeon attack on such a tank would need to hide as much as they could from said tank, before as many as possible swarmed it at once, from as close as possible. If the Pigeon-net knew the tank was around, the HEDP self-destructs might be swapped out for HEATs... and, of course, whichever Pigeons survive the point-defense should try to aim for the most vulnerable points, which appear to be the two tracks. If a flock of 100 attacked such a tank from cover... then 20 would make it through the point-defense, and if they had HEAT warheads, the tracks' armor would be effectively 8, allowing 272 damage through per Pigeon, or about 2720 per track. So, for $300k, a $5.7M tank gets immobilized, to get swatted by artillery at leisure. (If nearby cover is unavailable - then the attacking swarm would have to be large enough to have some survive the trip from wherever they are hiding to make it to the tank, for a corresponding increase in cost.) How'm I doing so far? >> Note to self: When possible, before deploying pigeons, use artillery >> to clear the area of opposing radio jammers. > > Unless enemy artillery is firing jammers into the battle area. An interesting thought. :) >> Other note to self, for a common-sense counter-counter measure: >> Include a module containing radio-direction-finder to locate jammers, >> and a laser-comm to communicate that info to... somebody. > > Plus a module with two or three lasercoms as secure relay and > networking node. Lasercoms require line of sight. Noted. >> > Technically legal under the Vehicles rules, but classic GURPS >> > had 20-lb. E power cells, 5-lb. D cells, etc. The VE formula >> > fits nicely for E cells, but not for D or smaller cells. >> >> I'm actually a little hesitant to use power cells at all, remembering >> some previous discussion about their realism. I just didn't have my >> Vehicles Expansions books handy to refer to for which variants are the >> harder-SF ones. > > * Use plain advanced batteries. That will cut your endurance > down dramatically. > > * A 2-kW ceramic engine or turbine isn't much heavier at TL8. Hm... for a 6-hour loiter time, a 2K turbocharged ceramic engine, plus 0.36 gallon ultralight tank and diesel... .214 cf, 10.178 lbs. For TL8 advanced batteries, 10 lbs gives us about 18,200 kWs, or about 2.5 hours flight time. Hrmph. And I was so looking forward to having this program be a primary spur to help jump-start the solar-satellite program, which would be useful as the basis for having actual manufacturing infrastructure in space... maybe I'll fall back on more general military energy needs, such as air conditioning. Or, on second thought... maybe the logistics of sending the Pigeons back to base twice as often to get topped up are overbalanced by not having to ship fuel to them - a full flock of 50,000 would use up 72,000 gallons a day, a dozen containers' worth that have to be physically transported into place, while it would take 28 7.2 MW beamed-power receivers to keep 50,000 Pigeons, recharging every 2.5 hours, topped up. So... I suppose it depends on whether the Pigeons are expected to be in use for more than 2 days at a time. If I say 'yes'... then I'll have both a viable weapon-platform and a tie-in for my space stations. :) > Eric replied to DataPacRat: >>> 50mm, normal, HEDP. 0.5 lbs, .01 cf, $15. Damage 4dx20(5) [4d] >> >> Average damage is 280(5)[14] which could penetrate DR1400, and kill the >> average person. > > DR 1,400 would almost certainly be laminate -- who buys steel in > that thickness? Also the damage is 4d*10(5). Aha - I think I found the difficulty here. Self-destructs are built as bombs with half weight; and bombs are built as warheads with no guidance; and Vehicles page 119 says 'normal'-size HEDP warheads are built as ordinary HEDP rounds, with diameter (and thus damage) multiplied by 1.6. So: from the table on p112, we get B(50) * S(.5) * H(1) * 1.6 = 40d. So unless there's a rule I'm unaware of, it looks like GVB has a bug here. > > > you might also be able to get away with making the computer Dumb to save > > > $/mass. > > > > Thought about that - but Computer Navigation, which seems the minimum > > necessary to allow these things to fly around a city without crashing, > > is complexity 2. As jamming has been raised as an issue, it seems a > > bad idea to /require/ these things to have external control to be able > > to fly. > > A C1 robot brain would have IQ 4. Animals with that level of > intelligence don't usually bash their heads in. Then is the CompNav program basically pointless for robots? >> Intended target: Irregular TL6-7 infantry, who hide and maneuver in >> caves, urban areas, and among civilians, making it difficult to find >> and identify them in time to destroy them. > > How will they tell the infantry from the civilians? Step 1: Locate anyone who shoots at the Pigeons, or other allied forces. Step 2: Keep track of them. Follow them and identify their interactions with others, such as ammo-bearers or civilian 'covers'. Step 3: Profit! by blowing 'em up. >> When possible, before deploying Pigeons, artillery should be used to >> clear the area of opposing artillery, MBTs, and radio jammers. The >> latter can also be located by certain sensor modules, the data >> communicated by lasercomms, directing Pigeons to target such jammers. > > Considering the limited on-board sensors, how about radio "lures" > to expend pigeons? I'm presuming that the forward base runs what GURPS calls 'transmission profiling' programs, to extract the best possible intelligence from all those on-board sensors. >> Sensor Module: Low-res imaging radar >> Sensor Module: Ladar > > Those will cut into your energy budget, and might be too small to > be really worthwhile. Assuming a 4-lb sensor module, they'd have a 1-mile range; not great, but could still be useful. >> Container: Pigeon carrier >> 5,000 Vehicle Bays for 0.383cf vehicles (correction: max 1800, probably less, with 20-lb Pigeons.) > Even if that is technically legal, it is implied that a vehicle > bay needs surface area for one vehicle-sized hatch. VE doesn't > track area, but you are free to refrain from unrealistic designs. I'm less worried about launching all the Pigeons from a container at once than simply shipping them around - I'd be perfectly happy to send them as cargo, if that was legal. Of course, the Pigeons could be lined up on top of each other, with a spring-loaded base, like a pistol's magazine, with bunches of them popping out of each individual hatch. :) > And each "maintenance interval" equals four man-hours of work. > So a 5,000-pigeon force needs 110 man-hours a day, or shifts > of 4-5 people working around the clock. Two of your revised > shop containers and two quarters just for the maintenance crew. > > In the real world, the UAVs are the smallest part of a drone > unit, too. "Amateurs study tactics..." :) >> Container: Forward analysis crew >> 30 roomy crew stations, superior access >> macroframe computer, radios, lasercomms >> >> Container: Crew sleeping quarters >> Sealed. 4 cabins, 8-man full life support system, 8-man NBC kit > > I guess these are constrained by volume, while the others have > mass limits. True. > So how about mixed containers? That would cost > you the ability to tailor the base, but the first container on > the spot could start to launch pigeons. Hm... I was hoping that when deployed that way, the first container on the spot would be one full of Pigeons, and could start launching right away, with the other containers adding their various supports as they arrived. One thing I'm going to have to figure out, once I get the basic chassis(es?) down, is to figure out how many containers would be needed for a full deployment of a basic 10,000-strong flock. I know it's one container per 400mph C-130, but I haven't quite figured out how many containers a 30+ knot fast-support ship can hold. Thank you for your time, -- DataPacRat lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka vajni fo lo preti _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
