Zan replied to Johannes and me two weeks ago:
* Armor against modern "underbarrel-GL-style" weapons carried by
unpowered troops. Force them to expend LAWs.
I would put grenades under area effect weapons.
Not necessarily. A thing launched from a grenade launcher is not
necessarily a grenade. It might be a sticky armor piercing bomb, or a
mini missile, or a small short range recon drone.
What good is a sticky grenade from a launcher? The only smart thing is
to trigger as soon as the grenade is in contact with the target. Sticky
bombs only make sense if the timer is uncertain or the operator needs
time to get away.
Detail problem: Say I want a light, cheap, stealthy recon drone at
old-rules TL11. The drone can't afford to carry a neutrino communicator,
so it has to be a lasercom.
- Should the drone carry an omnidirectional radio to regain tightbeam
links after LOS has been broken, or do I assume that the drone is
expended/autonomous from that time? Alternatively, the drone has a file
with the position of commo relays which do not move, but those can be
found and engaged, too.
- AFVs, suits, and big drones will use neutrino communicators because
those are better and they can afford it. Do they have lasercoms for
"swarm control" as well, or is that a job for dedicated C3I vehicles.
Detail problem: Should small drones bother with radar/ladar stealth?
They have a bad surface-to-weight ratio, and their limited load budget
might be better spent on higher levels of emission cloaking.
Detail problem: Should all drones try to camouflage with emission
cloaking, chameleon, etc. or does it make sense to have some "fake
biologicals" as well? RO44 biomorphic shielding and realistic flesh/fur.
Getting a gull-sized flyer with ornithoper drivetrains and leg motors is
going to be tricky.
Note that I'm thinking about drones in the 20-lb. range here. For
powered armor they would be "LAW-sized" and not "underbarrel-sized."
Getting more exotic, it might be a small info-war hacking device which
blasts through armor to get at the juicy internal electronics. That
could be pretty sweet, if you can insert "enemy targets" which are
actually friendlies, you can get the tanks to shoot their own allies.
How is doing that from contact range going to be easier than remote
hacking? It would be silly if there were unprotected USB ports on the
outside of a battlesuit.
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