I was discussing the pirate situation off Somalia with some sailors (civilian) and someone made a comment that an RPG at 100 yards would be sufficient to cause an immediate surrender.
Now ignoring the psychological component of having an RPG fired at you let's consider the effectiveness of an RPG vs. a sailboat. My thoughts: Would an RPG warhead detonate against a fiberglass boat? I'm unclear on the necessary impact needed to detonate one, but I wonder at whether or not a warhead designed for impact vs armor would even notice a plastic boat hull on it's way through. Assuming the warhead detonated, what would be the probable effect of the blast? Small hole? Big hole? What would be the difference if it was a steel hull boat? Assuming the attackers were operating from some sort of comparatively small powerboat, would it be safe to fire an RPG from it? I understand they have a significant backblast, which could endanger their own vessel. Could you even hit a moving boat, from a second moving boat, under open sea rollers? They're a comparatively low-velocity weapon with a limited range. I think it would be exceptionally difficult to get a solid hit that was anything other than luck, unless the firer was very well trained (unlike most pirates/terrorists.) I mean the analog would be firing at a moving vehicle, from a moving vehicle while going over small hills. FWIW, my comment was that I would be much more concerned by an automatic weapon on a pintle , rather than an RPG as it's much harder to dodge 400-500 rounds/minute (or more.) A Ma Deuce would make short work of any small craft, and an M60 or M249 would also make for a very bad day. I know we have a lot of current and former military here, as well as one combat engineer who is probably ready to go test this out. :-) Bill _______________________________________________ Gzg-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ground Zero Games" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/gzg-group?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
