Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

[Kamog]

Wow, I thought that it's surprising that it would take so long to approach the speed of light accelerating at 1 g, so I tried the math and you're right! I guess light is really really fast!

speed of light in vacuum, c = 299792458 m/s
acceleration of gravity = 9.81 m/s (approx)

# of seconds needed to accelerate from 0 to c:
299792458 m/s
/9.81 = 30559884 sec
/60 = 509331 min
/60 = 8488 hours
/24 = 253.7 days

Armageddon wasn't a bad movie, it was pretty good. Also, beautiful Liv Tyler was in it!

[Slick]

Thanks for backing up my calcs, Kamog. Here's a real geeky approximation an old physics prof told me 20+ years ago and somehow I still remember it:

a pretty good approximation of the number of seconds in a year = pi x 10E7

I use this for "quick & dirty" approximations. Frequently the pi cancels out with something else and people wonder how I can do that kind of math in my head.

I don't know why I remember that one and still use it till today even though it makes no real sense that pi has anything to do with units of time, but it just works out that way and somehow my brain finds it easy to remember those kinds of silly numbers.

[dogscoff]

The infantry vs orbital bombardment debate reminds me of a very interesting article written by Iain M Banks about his Culture novels.

Here an extract:

The thought processes of a tribe, a clan, a country or a nation-state are essentially two-dimensional, and the nature of their power depends on the same flatness. Territory is all-important; resources, living-space, lines of communication; all are determined by the nature of the plane (that the plane is in fact a sphere is irrelevant here); that surface, and the fact the species concerned are bound to it during their evolution, determines the mind-set of a ground-living species. The mind-set of an aquatic or avian species is, of course, rather different.

Essentially, the contention is that our currently dominant power systems cannot long survive in space;

And here's the URL: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

[El_Phil]

Starhawk said:
Oh and to El-Phil as far as urban warfare goes if modern US and British level forces are any indication a decently trained army would do rather well without taking all that many losses in comparison to those they inflict on their enemies. And air power HELPS win wars it doesn't win them all by it's self as Clinton proved by randomly attacking various countries during his administration with missiles and fighters lol...now assuming that a soldier of the future will have even more advanced body armor then what we have to day odds are it would be a rather interesting ground battle lol

Why a ground battle? You still haven't explained this. You've got constant total surveillance of the planet, you can project power to any point very quickly. Why drag several thousand men through space to a planet at a fairly high cost when they provide no big leverage?

Yes body armour will probably get better. So will the weapons, there is no unstoppable weapon or unbeatable defence (or not for long anyway. ABM shields and alike could have been developed earlier but were banned.)

Urban warfare against civilians mixed in with insurgents is bloody, I think the couple of thousand dead US soldiers would agree. And that's one part of one country, luckily the far north (Kurds) and south (British knowing what their doing and not shooting eveybody) are fairly quiet.

It also comes down to why you want to conqueror said colony I think. Again why? Realisticaly any space yard/refueling base(if such things ever exist)/etc will be orbital to avoid wasting fuel on going in/out of the planets gravity well. If it's a levy of materials you want, diplomats backed by the big guns of the fleet do it better.

Various scenarios :
1. Conventional millitary force: Take 'em out from space
2. Insurgents in citys: Going to be messy using troops and it wouldn't work anyway. The only way to win anyway is a political solution, no country has ever put down an insurrection with out popular support. So offer the population a good deal, isolate the extremists and sit safe in your orbital base losing no people. If the entire population is up in arms against you, you can't bring enought troops to supress a planet. If it's only a small minority then the planet's security forces can take care of it.
3. Hidden conventional force: Wait for them to move, then blast 'em from space. Assuming your ground penetrating radars, IR, etc equipped UAVs can't sniff out their hiding places.

A root my question is: What unique ability do grunts bring that you can't do better with unmanned equipment? I just can't see the reason to massively enlarge your fleet with troop ships, extra logistics, more food, oxy, etc for minimal gain of capability. What's the big advantage?

[Hunpecked]

"Armageddon" set out to prove that Hollywood could make an even stupider save-the-earth movie than "Deep Impact". Unfortunately, it succeeded.

They should have just shot a two-hour video of Liv Tyler.

[El_Phil]

They were out around the same time weren't they? At least in these parts. Hence the advice, you wanted the first half of Armageddon for Mr Willis firing golf balls at Greenpeace, then walk out to miss the awful ending. You then walk into Deep Impact halfway through to catch the special effects at the end.

[Hunpecked]

Yes, one of those Hollywood bandwagon things. As I recall, it happened again with "Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet" (don't get me started!).

[Starhawk]

Okay El-Phil first off US Casualties are not "A Couple thousand" it's just over 1,000 in a period of what threee YEARS? Compare that to the several THOUSAND terrorist casualties and your talking about a good ratio.

US Military has unfortunately killed some civilians (AS HAVE THE BRITISH) they have hardly "Shot everything" and for the most part civilian loses are inflicted by the Terrorists. The only reason British forces aren't having as many problems is also the fact that they are ocupying the less resistant parts of the country (go figure eh)

People die in war, civilians die in war and that's the way it will be forever no matter what and Urban warfare even with casualties is markedly better then simply dropping weapons from orbit and killing anything that even TRIED to show resistance.

The point of warfare is not usually the extermination of the entire enemy populace or even mass casualty infliction because the fact is your idea of simply taking any formation out from space would be even more "politically FUBAR" than sending in ground troops who yes may kill some civilians but will have a better idea of what they are actually shooting at.

I mean for all oyu know your orbital strike would be taking out a massive cluster of refugees with a military escort?

The problem is Air Power (OR Space power) probobly will never win wars because politics simply is not the answer to everything you know, as Starship Troopers (the book) pointed out, for every group that wants to solve something with politics another group will want to solve it with military force and usually the political element loses because they're too busy trying to talk.


Think about it this way El-Phil if say another country had a warship over your city would you just go "Aw what the hell I'll switch sides" Just because they ask you too? NO you probobly wouldn't because you didn't want to be part of that country in the first place and say you've got people in your city that want to fight back (even assuming you rolled over) now do you want that warship turning your city to slag just to get that handful of folks that wanted to fight back? Troops on the ground would provide them the option of going in without having to massacre the entire city and yeah ground losses would probobly be heavy on both sides but probobly a lot better then simply bombing everything from orbit.


Now lets go into another reason ground troops are far better than simply bombing the hell out of your target, they can think for themselves they know who and what to shoot at and are a lot less likely to cause an accidental bloodbath than a guy aboard a ship who just spots a mass of people and decides to open fire on them.

Troops are population control, just because you put a ship in orbit and maybe they go "Okay we'll join you" the second you leave they'll probobly snicker and go back to serving their own country and your little police force will get slaughtered.

A garrison of heavily armed soldiers will definately make any resisters think more about the military power that first took them over to begin with and will probobly make them feel a litte more wary then a few cops.


Also your not thinking about the fact that we in the modern day could effectively do what you suggest (Just sit there with a fleet and take out any formations you see) but it's not an effective way to fight a war because yeah you've got ships there HELL we have nukes that could level an entire country and yet people still resist.

WAR is the failure of politics your looking at it too much like "Oh talk solves everything" it doesn't so odds are anyone who wanted to fight you in the first place won't simply roll over and pout because your politico's are sitting up in orbit with a fleet.

Also planetary weapons batteries may be in place and your getting warships into range of their weapons could get your fleet destroyed so launching a few hundred troop shuttles may get a few of them destroyed and a lot of ground troops killed but once those troops hit the ground they could proceed to take out the weapon platforms OR even keep them intact for your own forces to use after the planet falls.

To bring my little rant to a conclusion, GROUND TROOPS unlike a space bombardment CAN take out a target in the middle of a city with minimal civilian losses while firing ANY Weapon from orbit that's not the size of a pea would probobly level a city block and ruin your little "Let's talk" idea right there.

Add this little quote to that for another example of what ground troops can do that air or space power may not:

During the first Iraq war an Iraqi soldier told a US Soldier he gave up to that when the air force bombed them "We lost a few men and a couple of tanks, but when your ground forces came in we lost the entire brigade in a single afternoon."

Basically you can HIDE From air or space power or do things to make it so they can't simply drop stuff on you, you can't hide as easily from a ground force intending to hunt you down and kill you.

[El_Phil]

OK the US has lost under 2000 soldiers since the campaign started for starters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4132058.stm

Given that in both the north and the south the coalition was welcomed, why has everyone in Baghdad start shooting while Basra stays quiet? Could be the difference between troops in berets patroling and men in tanks threatening anybody who looks shifty? I think it might you know.

Right I never said slag the place. I said 'selectively target' Clearly you've never heard of precision bombing. You know when the US can amazingly accurately hit Chinese embassys because they mis-read street maps. Now I'd say it's reasonable that sensors will get better, they aren't going to get any worse that's for sure. So you can just take out the target in the middle of the city, without risking any of your men.

Ah silly me. You can't ever hide from ground troops, no ground troops have ever been ambushed or surpised! Hush my mouth I keep forgeting the amazing stealth defeating abilities of human eyeballs. If your hiding stuff, it's harder to hide from radar and decent sensors than an eyeball.

For evey Iraqi who said that you can't find dozens who said 'Most of our unit was killed by B-52s we never even saw.' because they all died or ran away to avoid capture.

Finally name a time when anyone has taken down a rebellion when the majority of the population supports it? Ever.
That's why you have to talk. It's a simple fact. Sending in ground troops just gets them killed and the population still don't like you, in fact probably like you less.

Unless the majority is on your side you will spend the rest of time fighting a losing guerilla war until it's not worth your time or blood. Bear in mind this is just 'I don't want to be ruled by country x' not 'Species x'. If you can offer a decent deal 'We leave you alone just give us the same amount of ore (maybe less to sweeten the deal) you gave the old goverment and we'll just stay in orbit and leave you alone.'

You try an opposed landing against a population that doesn't want you there... **cough** Vietnam in space **cough**

[Taera]

If you have the 3d model of that ship you can make a 3d detailed schematic. I did something similar once, heres an idea for you: