Will An Air Raft Operate Outside Of A G Well? [Answered]

[DFW]

What is the "appropriate sensor tech"? How do they work? What are these "TL appropriate defenses"?

Large planetary based Densiometer, IR, Radar, Ladar, etc. *

Defenses consist of strategically located but hidden VERY high acceleration planet busting nuc drones, etc. *

* The exact details of how each works is classified. If you posses an EL-B or greater clearance pls transmit your code encrypted with your private key code.

 

[barnest2]

Why. The thread has evolved. Allow it to do so...


Anyway, appropriate sensor tech is densitometers, gravetometers etc...
Telescopes for christ sakes (as rust says)
Would high gain radar work?

Tl appropriate defenses? Railguns, Particle beams, Nuclear missiles.... anything that goes bang...



Current rank: O6
Authorisation code: 36***20-83****SAP-GH****R
....
Details please?

 

[Blix]

According to the IAU Minor Planet Center, in 2009 more than 5,000 disco-
veries were made by amateur astronomers, almost all of them with ama-
teur instrumentation. It really does not take any kind of "super sensors"
to discover an asteroid big enough to survive an entry into a planet's at-
mosphere, especially if it moves fast and outside an asteroid belt.

I am talking about asteroids that are a few tens of metres across though - that is all you need for a near-c rock (in fact, anything much larger would probably fragment under acceleration, since larger ones are rubble piles more often than not). Amateurs don't discover those. Even the big telescopes don't discover them.

Yes, they can find larger km-scale rocks, but not the small ones. And a near-c (or fast) rock only needs to hit an atmosphere at high velocity to cause a lot of damage, just through the airburst.

 

[Blix]

Large planetary based Densiometer, IR, Radar, Ladar, etc. *

Pointing in which direction? Who is processing the data? Who would put up the expense of setting up and running the arrays? (after all this is a high damage, low risk scenario. I don't think we have even a hundred people on Earth who are actively looking for near-earth asteroids that could hit us, let alone scouring the vast volume of more distant space for ones that might). Where do you look when an attack can come from any direction?

That is the kind of consideration I am talking about here. "Oh, they just use big sensors" doesn't cut it. When you look at it in more detail and think about it more, the problem gets much more interesting.

Defenses consist of strategically located but hidden VERY high acceleration planet busting nuc drones, etc. *

Again, unnecessary. A simple missile would work, as soon as it hit the high speed rock that would probably destroy it completely (depending on size).

 

[DFW]

Current rank: O6
Authorisation code: 36***20-83****SAP-GH****R
....
Details please?

####VERIFIED ######

Deep sited defenses are scattered through out system in asteroids. Railguns sized to obliterate targets approaching mainworld from any vector housed there as well as on moon(s) in orbit. Railguns also capable of delivering nukes of sufficient size to obliterate asteroid sized targets.

Detection stations exist beyond Ort cloud range orbiting on system plane as well as stellar polar orbit.

####END TRANSITION####

 

[DFW]

Large planetary based Densiometer, IR, Radar, Ladar, etc. *

Pointing in which direction? Who is processing the data?

Again, unnecessary. A simple missile would work, as soon as it hit the high speed rock that would probably destroy it completely (depending on size)

All & all.


Cheap for an entire world at stellar TLs.

Also, if someone decides to accelerate a huge warship, you'll want nukes in case near misses and to burn out sensors. Mainworlds are expensive to replace.

 

[Blix]

Large planetary based Densiometer, IR, Radar, Ladar, etc. *

Pointing in which direction? Who is processing the data?

All & all.


Cheap for an entire world at stellar TLs.

More meaningless armwaving again. Since you do not wish to discuss or think about this, I believe there is no point in continuing the discussion.

 

[rust]

And a near-c (or fast) rock only needs to hit an atmosphere at high velocity to cause a lot of damage, just through the airburst.

Somewhere on this forum is a thread where a planetologist describes his
computer simulations, an attempt to hit Earth with a near c-rock. It tur-
ned out that the chance to hit was minimal, because the faster the rock
became, the less it was possible to correct its course, and there were so
many gravitational disturbances to consider (a "many bodies problem")
that calculating the flight path in advance was impossible. In the end one
would have had to accelerate dozens of those near-c rocks to ensure
that at least one of them really hits the planet.

 

[rust]

All & all.

If I remember it right from an earlier, similar discussion, about a dozen
sensor satellites should be able to cover the entire system well enough.

 

[barnest2]

Current rank: O6
Authorisation code: 36***20-83****SAP-GH****R
....
Details please?

####VERIFIED ######

Deep sited defenses are scattered through out system in asteroids. Railguns sized to obliterate targets approaching mainworld from any vector housed there as well as on moon(s) in orbit. Railguns also capable of delivering nukes of sufficient size to obliterate asteroid sized targets.

Detection stations exist beyond Ort cloud range orbiting on system plane as well as stellar polar orbit.

####END TRANSITION####

Very cool. I also just realised I just made myself a captain that's also cool...

 

[DFW]

More meaningless armwaving again. Since you do not wish to discuss or think about this, I believe there is no point in continuing the discussion.

:lol:

 

[DFW]

Very cool. I also just realised I just made myself a captain that's also cool...

Most people don't make the "leap" from O5 to O6. Well done!

 

[barnest2]

If it only takes 12 satellites to cover an entire system, then that won't cost very much.
Hell you could just have a rotating set of 24 1000 ton ships with a small ton of sensor equipment on board each. They wouldn't cost much and could also act as close in defence stations, or monitors in case of enemy fleet attack...


OOC: Also, DFW, you have finally caused me too choose an avatar, damn you
Although...

Most people don't make the "leap" from O5 to O6. Well done!

explain?

 

[rust]

By the way, in my view the main problem with an attempt to use a near-c
rock to hit a planet would be the energy required to accelerate the rock
to a near-c speed. Even for an object with a comparatively small mass it
would require an extreme amount of energy, and while this energy might
be available in a Traveller universe, it would be extremely difficult to hide
its use - a power plant producing that amount of energy would be much
easier to detect than the rock itself, and any power plant with such an out-
put at the edge of a system should be a sufficient reason to investigate
what is going on there.

 

[barnest2]

By the way, in my view the main problem with an attempt to use a near-c
rock to hit a planet would be the energy required to accelerate the rock
to a near-c speed. Even for an object with a comparatively small mass it
would require an extreme amount of energy, and while this energy might
be available in a Traveller universe, it would be extremely difficult to hide
its use - a power plant producing that amount of energy would be much
easier to detect than the rock itself, and any power plant with such an out-
put at the edge of a system should be a sufficient reason to investigate
what is going on there.

This. Detecting that much energy would be an immediate reason to send at least a destroyer or cruiser out to find out what the hell looks like a small sun out there...

 

[DFW]

OOC: Also, DFW, you have finally caused me too choose an avatar, damn you
Although...

Most people don't make the "leap" from O5 to O6. Well done!

explain?

Cool avatar. You from UK or down under?

In the U.S. Armed Forces the number of positions for O6 are FAR fewer than that for O5's. It is a big choke point. It drops once again for O7. So, a lot of officers end up retiring at O5 rank as it is an "up or out" system.

 

[DFW]

By the way, in my view the main problem with an attempt to use a near-c
rock to hit a planet would be the energy required to accelerate the rock
to a near-c speed. Even for an object with a comparatively small mass it
would require an extreme amount of energy, and while this energy might
be available in a Traveller universe, it would be extremely difficult to hide
its use - a power plant producing that amount of energy would be much
easier to detect than the rock itself, and any power plant with such an out-
put at the edge of a system should be a sufficient reason to investigate
what is going on there.

Yep, neutrino emissions are a b*itch.

 

[barnest2]

OOC: Also, DFW, you have finally caused me too choose an avatar, damn you
Although...

Most people don't make the "leap" from O5 to O6. Well done!

explain?

Cool avatar. You from UK or down under?

In the U.S. Armed Forces the number of positions for O6 are FAR fewer than that for O5's. It is a big choke point. It drops once again for O7. So, a lot of officers end up retiring at O5 rank as it is an "up or out" system.

UK. I assume from your comment the RAN uses the same insignia?

AH okay. I think it's pretty similar here (but we have many less positions available). What's the current US fleet count?

 

[DFW]

UK. I assume from your comment the RAN uses the same insignia?

AH okay. I think it's pretty similar here (but we have many less positions available). What's the current US fleet count?

From what I remember they use the same loop design.


I'm not sure of the number of O6 positions. The US Navy as a whole has ~52,000 officers (O1-O10)

 

[barnest2]

I meant ship count but I found it (nearly 300)... which sucks, because the RN is only numbering around 80-odd ships now.

Btw, DFW, were you interested in the pbp idea (high guard)? If so, will you check the pbp thread...