I was under the impression that the ablative layers of the Starship Troopers drop pod had extra mass and shaping so that after they blew off, they looked very similar to the piece that actually had the trooper in it. Have this combined with several ablative layers and a substantial number of pods being launched in rapid succession, and it should not be hard to fool most sensors of a similar or lower TL. The substantial jerks during each separation also suggest that the suit carrier would not be the central piece with bits falling off, but one of several pieces that all split apart in different directions, making targeting all the more difficult. Not to mention, we are not talking about a 'soft' payload, but a fully armored battle-suit, so anything short of a direct missile hit seems likely to be a good kill, and if they only hit a non-ablated layer, even that seems dubious.
On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 6:18 AM, Johannes Trimmel <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, 17 Jan 2014, Onno Meyer wrote: > >> * Heinlein's description of capsules and their countermeasures was >> very 1950s-era. Active radar and chaff. Will those false targets >> work against TL9+ sensors with computerized processors? >> > > You'd obviously need TL9+ decoys. I think there are even some SF examples, > where the decoy isn't even a physical object but projected from some fancy > technobabble thingie. So as general SF concept it works. How much would work > with vanilla GURPS Vehicles is an other question. But if you are willing to > pay the expences and the troopers are important to you you always have the > option to drop empty autopiloted capsules. > > _______________________________________________ > GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> > http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
