Atmospheric operation of small craft, incorrect assumptions
- Thread starter DFW
- Start date
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
My apologies then, I seem to have mistaken your intent.
I still think (back to the original issue) you're misapplying reality and your own concepts of the sci-fi elements to argue that the rules are written poorly, or wrong. When the proper logical approach would seem to be taking the rules as written and applying them to figure out how it's working. Now if the rules said something blatantly wrong, like "wings don't provide lift" I'd throw a fit. But the rules saying something like "grav drives don't perform as well as wings for maneuverability" is quite acceptable, at least until someone develops actual grav drives that do perform as well as wings for maneuverability.
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
Seems to me hovering vs supersonic flight the contest would go to the fastest. Speed is life would still hold. The hovering craft would be an easier target.
Are you perhaps imagining instant stop and instant full speed for your grav drive craft? Hence my reference to mythical flying saucers above. That's the thing I've been picturing the whole time to support your choice of air superiority for grav drives. And it would be, IF that were the case but I don't believe it is in the rules as written.
I think there is one problem with this... the winner out of hover vs speed wouldn't be the decided by these, but by who had the best sensors.
The side with the best sensors would be able to lock up an enemy faster and, if their weapons were good enough, shoot them down. However, the fastest would probably have the more general advantage because they are more likely to be able to evade missiles and other weapons fire...
The side with the best sensors would be able to lock up an enemy faster and, if their weapons were good enough, shoot them down. However, the fastest would probably have the more general advantage because they are more likely to be able to evade missiles and other weapons fire...
far-trader said:
Given equal weapons (air to air missiles, the supersonic plane is either out of the dog fight or turning to gain facing to be able to fire. Either way, the craft that doesn't have to maintain a given minimum speed and can turn faster can get weapons off more frequently.
DFW said:
Which would surely be just as hard in any aircraft? unless these grav aircraft your presenting have god-awfully silly manoeuvrability its very difficult to fly outside of a missiles flight envelope, because they're comparatively tiny and very stupidly manoeuvrable...
Behaving like a sitting duck seems a very bad way to try to outmaneuverDFW said:
a missile fired at a vehicle, and just hoping that it does not hit, the armour
is good enough or one manages to shoot it down is also not convincing.
So, unless a vehicle has the agility to move out of harm's way quickly and
in unexpected ways, it is just an object for easy target practice.
DFW said:
Sure once grav become available wings are obsolete for generating lift. But we haven't replaced all of our boats with hovercraft yet, if you follow my analogy.
Besides, if we're talking about spacecraft, why are we talking about low-speed maneuverability? At hypersonic re-entry and launch velocities, a ship that has no streamlining is not going to be able to rotate itself away from its vector without great difficulty. Heck, even WITH streamlining that becomes difficult.
One more thing - a fighter jet can pull more G's than most small-craft M-drives can generate. Though "I am not a pilot" and "I am not a physicist", F=MA means that the fighter can call on more force to change its vector than the M-drive craft can, right?
rust said:
Sitting and dropping, reversing, etc., would be VERY difficult for the missile to follow as it also has to maintain lift or fall and crash. Current missiles would be at a loss against such a flying craft as they are designed to go against other airplanes... Anyway, go ask a fighter pilot what he would think about going up against a grav vehicle armed and equipped as his plane is... :wink:
hdan said:
If a pilot was stupid enough to go for hypersonic reentry, yes. However, with the ability to negate gravity, you can enter the atmosphere at 1 mph if you wanted.
BTW - I didn't say no streamlining, I'm talking about no lifting surfaces (airframe). A 20 ton launch has better streamlining (reduced drag) than something with a lifting surface (induced drag), parasitic drag being equal.
ok, but the control fins only provide a minimum of lift? and it still doesn't explain how you will evade a proximity fused high manoeuvrability missile unless your aircraft has near equal manoeuvrability to said missile... yes?
Whilst i dont have an academic degree, i have a great interest in this sort of thing and have read plenty about aircraft in general, and im studying military history, so its important too me...
Whilst i dont have an academic degree, i have a great interest in this sort of thing and have read plenty about aircraft in general, and im studying military history, so its important too me...
