
-------- TML Message #1239 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1239
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 10:14:49 EST
From: Brian Gillespie <bgillesp@beast.prime.COM>
Subject: Composition High Tech Level Militaries


     The PBeM game has brought a few questions to my mind about the
composition of forces for a future mulitary, (TL 12+).

     From Traveller book 4, Mercenary, under OVERVIEW OF EQUIPMENT,
Military Vehicles, pg 47:

"Tech Level 12: All vehicles have sufficient free-flight performance
that ground combat vehicles effectively no longer exist, having
merged with aircraft." ...
"Tech Level 15: Gunships mounting rapid pulse X guns and heavier Z
guns are virtually indistinguishable from orbital craft." ...

What does this do to the current day term of 'tank' and 'fighter'?
Grav-tank seems pretty obvious to me, but what do people mean when
they say 'fighter'?


     The overall mission of a military is to allow your side free
use of a territory and to deny the other side free use of territory.

Specific missions:
   Take and occupy ground; accomplished by armor, mech-infantry and
infantry units.
   Interdict and destroy ground forces; Ground Attack Aircraft.
   Maintain air superiority; Fighter Aircraft.

The overall mission of a future military should pretty much stay the
same, but what about the specific missions and what accomplishes
them?

Well, "Take and ocuppy ground" still applies, and now that task falls
to the grav-tanks, grav-apcs and other grav vehicles along with the
infantry.

Now what about "Interdict and destroy ground forces"?  That use to
be the task of ground attack aircraft because they had the speed and
range to get to around, but can't that task now be handled by fast
grav vehicles?  The grav vehicle would have a longer on station time
because it wouldn't have to be flying all the time, it would also
be harder to spot, sitting stationary on the ground.  Sneak in fast
the night before, set an ambush for a convoy and split right afterwards.

What does all this do to the fighter's mission?  Or is a fighter the
high tech level 'gunship' able to swoop down from orbit to attack,
not ground, but planetary bound forces?

     It seems to me that the future "Air Force" ceases to exist.
The main staple of a military is it's fast armored grav vehicles.
The space arm of a planetary force providing gunships and gunship 
interceptors.

     I recall seeing some TO&Es in The Journal's earlier issues, around
13-17.  I'll look there too.

     I haven't mentioned naval forces at all.  What does the futuristic
navy consist of?

     So, what do people think?

Brian Gillespie 
was: Computervision Corp.
now: Computervision Division of Prime, Inc.

email: bgillesp@beast.prime.com

#include "standard.disclaimers"



-------- TML Message #1240 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1240
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 13:24 EDT
From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: On perpetual motion machines in Traveller


Bart, the fact that the thruster plate is a perpetual motion machine
as it's described in the SOM has been well-documented by Dow Rieder,
who's also coughed up some very entertaining descriptions of how an
ordinary starship can generate enough power to run a planet's cities....
Maybe he could repost (hint hint), or James could point to an archive
number (hint hint)?

metlay

-------- TML Message #1241 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1241
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 90 13:41:33 -0700
From: Homer Dired <fusile@milton.u.washington.edu>
Subject: Hydrogen Storage

Wouldn't it be possible (in the "Far Future") to compress hydrogen into
a solid state (I remember seeing a newspaper article about people doing
that a while back)? I have no idea how much longer (if longer) this
would take to use and/or what kind of power would be required, but it
would certainly seem to save space.

	-H

-------- TML Message #1242 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1242
Date:     Fri, 20 Apr 90 21:38:46 PDT
From: Orcinus orca <jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu>
Subject:  Re: Mass independent drives

I don't have MegaT yet so this may be way off base.

Seems to me some (or a lot) of this mass/volume inconsistency might
go away if the guys at GDW trashed the mass independent drive and
introduced some new lightweight super-strong metal/alloy/plastic.

Going from the armor type list in Striker, armor gets lighter with
a TL 7 composite, and then everything gets heavy.  Sure, the armor
value to weight ratio increases, but the density starts heading for
neutron star.

Of course, then you'd have to come up with a good reason why said
armor is only used on spacecraft.  Maybe it degrades outside of a
vacuum, and you can't coat it for some reason.  That'd be a better
reason for all the larger ships being non-atmosphere capable than
streamlining.  I mean c'mon, if a battleship can pull 6 g's, it can
certainly match speeds with a planet's rotating atmosphere and make
a soft landing.
- --
John H. Kim
jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu
uunet!jarthur!jokim

-------- TML Message #1243 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1243
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 00:35:04 EDT
From: Dan Corrin <dan@engrg.uwo.ca>
Subject: Re: Reactionless drives, Fighting Ships, and Hydrogen Substitutes


First of all a typo in John Kim's study of ammonia vs. methane vs.
hydrogen: Water doesn't really boil at zero celcius.

I agree with George Herbert's analysis of the problems of the starship
design vis. reactionless drives, the densities of the ships now
varies quite widely. For example a tanker can have a density
as low as 0.30 MetricTonnes per kiloLitre, a scout ship 0.68, and
a Battleship 15.4.
With regards to using alternate fuel, the difference in mass of 4x for
the fuel doesn't change the density so significantly that it is not
benificial to change fuel storage, regardless of drive type. eg.
a scout ship's density would increase to 0.84, less than 30% increase
for double fuel storage.

In looking over Fighting ships, for the above I discovered that the
armour violations are there, but not as bad as someone ealier reported.
At tech 15 up to 75 points (15x5) can be *added* to the hull. This gives
a maximum of 40+75 or 115 armour. 6 of the 21 battleships exceed the
armour restrictions: (BH-15, BH-14, BM-15, BL-13 by 5, BB-12 by 10, and
BB-11 by 15). However the error could be on the listing, and the
actual ship values could use the correct weaights.

Finally, I was trying to go through some of the physics/math behind
this reactionless drive problem, and I am having problems, perhaps
someone of a better physics background coul e-mail me directly and
help me out. (This probably explains why I dropped out of physics
back in 2nd year)... The problem is work is dependant on distance, and
given an engine acceleration d=.5at^2, however energy use for the
engine is linear with t, therefore if t varies, the work done by
the engine is not a constant? Help! (More details via e-mail).

					-Dan Corrin

-------- TML Message #1244 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1244
Date:     Fri, 20 Apr 90 22:04:32 PDT
From: Orcinus orca <jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu>
Subject:  Compressing hydrogen

Hydrogen turns to a solid at -262 C  (11 K).  Unfortunately,
the density decreases (sort of like water) from 70.8 g/l to
70.6 g/l.

On compressing hydrogen: (CRC page B-20)

... In 1973 it was reported that a group of Russian experi-
menters may have produced metallic hydrogen at a pressure of
2.8 Mbar.  At the transition the density changed from 1.08 g/ml
to 1.3 g/ml. ... It has been predicted that metallic hydrogen
may be metastable; others have predicted it would be a super-
conductor at room temperature. ...
- -----
2.8 Mbar is roughly 2.8 million atmospheres.  On the other
hand, 1.08 g/ml is fifteen times denser than liquid H2 at
one atm.  Anyone have pressure-volume-temperature charts
for hydrogen?

John H. Kim
jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu
uunet!jarthur!jokim

-------- TML Message #1245 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1245
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 11:27:51 EST
From: Paul Dale <grue@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au>
Subject: Change of e-mail address...

hiya,

	My e-mail address changed in Janurary this year, and recently I have
received a complaint about the quantity of mail that still goes through my
old address.  Would any of you who have my old e-mail address (it will
mention lance or eldritch in it) please change it to my new address.  The
old e-mail address is likely to start bouncing in the near future.

	If you've never contacted me by e-mail then don't worry about this.




							Pauli
seeya
SNIF

Paul Dale               | Internet/CSnet:            grue@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au
Dept of Computer Science| Bitnet:       grue%batserver.cs.uq.oz.au@uunet.uu.net
Uni of Qld              | JANET:           grue%batserver.cs.uq.oz.au@uk.ac.ukc
Australia, 4067         | EAN:                          grue@batserver.cs.uq.oz
                        | UUCP:           uunet!munnari!batserver.cs.uq.oz!grue
f4e7g4Qh4++             | JUNET:                     grue@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au


-------- TML Message #1246 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1246
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 22:28:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Dow Rieder <wr0k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re:  DANGER: Mass-Independent Drive...

Bart Massey writes:
>> ...the way an MT manuver drive works is counterintuitive (ie only volume is
>> important, not mass).  In any drive that depends on mass, this won't work
>> well...

>Aiigh.  I don't know my Traveller well enough to comment very authoritatively,
>but if the above statement is true, a Traveller perpetual motion machine
>(i.e. an infinite energy source) exists.

Yup, it sure does. However, you don't need mass-independence to get energy;
All the is required is that the drive is reactionless.  I worked through
the equations,
and it turns out that any drive that violates Newton's 3rd law
(action/reaction) will
*automatically* violate conservation of energy. Here's why:
(anyone who doesn't want the gory details, skip the rest)

	Say we have a ship that masses 1500 tons, and requires 280 MW to accelerate
at 1g.  After T seconds of accelleration in one direction, the energy
expended will be
2.8e8*T joules, and the kinetic energy of the ship will be 1/2 MV^2
= 0.5 * 1.5e6*(9.8*T)^2 = ~7.2e7 * T^2 joules. This means energy in is
linear in T,
while energy of the ship is quadratic in T; so only at one value of T
will they be equal,
and by choosing sufficiently large T ( in this case more than about 4
seconds) the ship
has more KE than energy put in.
	My perpetual motion machine design is 2 sets of reverse linear accellerators
on an airless world, about 1000 km apart.  The ship runs on batteries, and it
accellerates to ~4 km/sec then cruises through the hoops, decellerating
magnetically,
and in the process generating electrical energy, which is stored. After
the ship is
stopped, it recharges its batteries with a fraction of the energy it
just generated and
heads back towards the other set of hoops. Result: Lots of free electric power.
(HLG Inc., Patent Pending)
	Of course, the energy-producing Megacorps either squelch this or have
a monopoly on it, so you still have to pay for power :-)
	I always have had fun figuring this sort of stuff out to bug the GM with,
especially since he is a physicist :-)  He is smart tho and usually says
"OK, if you're
so bright, figure out why everyone isn't doing it..."

					W. Dow Rieder

 	When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems
start to look like nails...

-------- TML Message #1247 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1247
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 90 22:57:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: William Dow Rieder <wr0k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Just add water

	Methane and ammonia are more space efficient, but water has several
advantages: its cheap, very common, easy to handle and store (can be
stored at room
temp), and can be handled by standard purification plants. Methane would
still be best
in some cases tho (like trying to cross the Rift with multiple jumps w/o
refuelling)
	As for Bertil's (quite valid) question of why everyone isn't doing it, well
thats the other half of the problem...:-)  Here are some ideas:
	If most of your fuel is water and your purification plant gets knocked out,
your in big trouble - so thats a reason for Navy ships not to use it.
	The Vilani won't use it cause LH2 works fine, and its traditional...:-)
	Anyone in a big hurry, or whose purification plant takes a long time
to finish would want LH2, so they can jump/fight/whatever quicker.
	I think that a combination of these reasons could explain why most
of the "standard" designs use LH2.  However, even if the ship wasn't designed
for it, you can still use water; this could be a common "trick of the
trade" for
merchants trying to squeeze in more cargo. I think that GDW and/or Digest
Group might accept that.  (This is also a possible reason to provide life
support etc, for the fuel tankage; it might be modified to hold other stuff...)
This still lets you design your own ships to use water -- have fun.

"How's business?  Well, if you were a free trader in the Solomani Rim, and
the Vilani big three had just pulled out all their merchants from the whole
sector, how do you think you would be doing?" - Capt. Grant

					W. Dow Rieder

 	When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems
start to look like nails...

-------- TML Message #1248 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1248
Date:     Sat, 21 Apr 90 22:56:40 PDT
From: Orcinus orca <jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu>
Subject:  Re: Just add water


On the advantages of water over ammonia (heck, I started
the ammonia bit, might as well defend it :-), the point
I see is that although water is safer than ammonia, they
are both waaaaaay safer than LH2 at 13 K (or whatever).
I also don't recall which is more abundant, methane,
ammonia, or water.

Now to extoll the virtues of water:  Why should you be
worried about being unable to convert water to H2?  All
you need is some electricity and two wires.  Once you
generate a small amount of H2, you can run it through
your fusion plant to get more electricity, and so on.
"Damn, only two hours of air and we're out of fuel.
Frank, bring that pitcher of water, and we're gonna
have to bust your flashlight."

Do you even need electricity?  I always thought burning
unrefined fuel was like sending H2O straight through the
fusion plant, where the heat would be enough to break the
hydrogen and oxygen apart{.  Drive failures would be caused
by extranneous oxygen "clogging up the valves".  Hmm, more
to think about...
- --
John H. Kim
jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu
uunet!jarthur!jokim

-------- TML Message #1249 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1249
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 16:04 EDT
From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: On "bugging" the GM with Traveller metaphysics....


I have to comment on Dow Rieder's joke about bugging me with the little 
ways in which Traveller plays it fast and loose with spacetime. I wouldn't
say that I completely dodge the issue by saying, "OK, if you're so bright,
figure out why everyone else isn't doing it"; I tend to think that "everyone"
isn't doing it because it can't be done. In other words, I limit the physically
impossible parts of Traveller to doing the things they were designed to do by
the idiots who wrote the rules, and simply draw the line at anyone utilizing
them for nefarious purposes. I suppose I should justify the lines I draw, but
with a group of mature and unmunchkinlike gamers like the one I run, it isn't
a problem to say, "Look, there's a reason it can't be done: game mechanics.
If I must, I'll make one up for your characters to grok, but why bother?" 

It's easy to wave one's hands at fantasy games: if magic works, all bets are
off, period. Dragons and Unicorns and so on can exist, and that's all she 
wrote. Science Fiction games are a tougher proposition, though; at least to a 
certain extent, they must follow the physical laws of the world as we know
them. I did an informal talk on this at a GenCon many years ago, and postulated
two extremes when approaching this problem, and tried to rate various games
in terms of their positions between those two extremes. I called the extremes
"ScienceFantasy" and "Scientifiction," or if you prefer, "HyperFantastic" and
"HyperRealist". Both extremes start with the same assumption: that Einstein
was wrong. The HyperFant view is then, "Well, if relativity doesn't work, then
all bets are off, and let's have some fun." The HyperReal view, however, is,
"We have a lot of data on how the Universe works already; it doesn't berc
ome
invalid, only extended in applicability." One view shreds the reality we know;
the other adds elements of wonder to the familiar world. 

The primary advantage of HyperFant games is that they're more romantic. The
technology is glitzy and exciting, and it's easier to believe in things like
true love and Good vs Evil. The primary advantage of HyperReal games is that
they make sense, and are believable in a fundamental way that makes them easy
to relate to. Both means have their advantages and shortcomings; neither is 
"right" or "wrong." Also, both have fundamental pitfalls; all HyperFant games
eventually degrade into silliness when things get out of hand, and all Hyper-
Real games run into inconsistencies at some point.

Some examples: Star Wars is the ultimate HyperFant game, with starfighters
dogfighting, lightsabres humming, and (dead HyperFant giveaway!) "Blasters"
blazing. A close second is Space Opera, with its melange of Star Wars, Dune,
and the Lensman series of books. Other games with strong HyperFant leanings
are the Mechanoid games, Star Ace, Star Frontiers (if you think OUR jump
drives are nonsensical...!), and Star Trek. The FASA games tend to appeal
to wide audiences because they straddle the fence; both BattleTech/MechWarrior
and Shadowrun go full tilt in both directions. HyperReal games include FTL
2448, Traveller 2300, and (tho I haven't worked much with it) GURPS Space.
The ultimate HyperReal game from a scientific standpoint is unquestionably
Albedo, whose starship combat system is totally realistic and VERY unpleasant.
And in a close but fading second place, alas, is Traveller.

In the first ten years of its development, Traveller was the ultimate in
playable, accurate HyperRealist SF gaming. Everything made a fair amount
of sense, certain implied physicalities ("Thruster plates? What're THOSE?")
helped keep things consistent, and there was no attempt to glitz up the rules
by adding nifty-keen stuff like reactionless drives and so on. More problems
have been created than were solved by doing this, and instead of attracting
a wider audience with the "new and neato Traveller," GDW and DGP have only
succeeded in aggravating those with a penchant for consistency and accuracy
in their science. 

So what do we do about it, you ask? Well, every GM has his own methods; I
prefer to roll with the punches. Thruster plate technology is only useful
for moving starships, Jump technology only works for Jumps, and antigrav
technology is used for moving things around cleanly. I have other games that
I can run, like Space Opera and my own StarGate rules, that are either 
deliberately campy or brutally realistic; in Traveller, I prefer to wince
through Dow's discoveries, dream of the good'ol'days, and just try to run
the most fun game I can. Ultimately, it's the characters and the fun they have
that makes or breaks any RPG, and at least as of this rev of the rules,
people are still people. 

I'm a shaddupa now.

metlay

-------- TML Message #1250 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1250
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 90 15:52:50 -0500
From: tey@sage.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Alternativew Fuels and such...


You know, I just thought of something...Water is a good fuel source because it's
cheap(read: free), stable, and easy to handle 'cos it's just plain liquid at
room tempreature...but there's something wrong with that:

Who sez your fuel tanks are kept at room temperature?

What kind of idiot would waste all kinds of life support and power by putting
pressurization and heating coils into a starship's fuel dump??? Once that
stuff gets purified to H2, one short circuit could(assuming your engineer
rolled a '2' :-) blow the whole ship to Kingdom Come!  H2 is flammable at
STP, ani't it? 

Now of course, you could just stay on the water's surface until your purifiers
take care of everything, but what if you get run off?  If your fuel bays AREN'T
pressurize and heated, then once you get out of the atmosphere and into the
(I think) ~4 deg. K of Space(tm), all that unpurified water will freeze, 
shattering your tanks! And don't forget, you're probably still running from
whatever shooed you off the water to begin with! What a lousy day!

Yeah, ammonia, methane, and LH2 have to kept at ungodly low temperatures to
be stable, but in space...no one can hear you melt...:-)


DISCLAIMER: Please note that all of the above was stated by a totally
	chem-ignorant Computer Science major...so if I screwed up in
	my assumptions, in the words of Bart Simpson, "Don't kill me Homer."


*****************************************************************************
                                  |"And all this science, I don't understand.
  tey@sage.cc.purdue.edu(Legion)  | It's just my job, five days a week."
                                  |                     -Bernie Taupin
*****************************************************************************

-------- TML Message #1251 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1251
From: Bertil Jonell <d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se>
Subject: Re: Reactionless drives. (How should it be done?)
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 8:26:38 MET DST

Would it be resonable if a drive worked by direct transformation of the
supplied energy into potential(?) and kinetic energy? This would (I think)
avoid the problem of the manueverdrive pepetum mobile?

Some questions for any Physics majors out there:
Will this lead to major problems of some kind?
Is this really worthwile or is it better to use standard "oldfashioned" :-)
fusiondrives that uses H2O (or whatever) as a reaction mass?

- -bertil-
- -- 
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
NET: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se 
VOICE: +46 31 723971 / +46 300 61004     "Don't worry,I've got Pilot-7"
SNAILMAIL: Box 154,S-43900 Onsala,SWEDEN      (Famous last words)      
"I say cut his air!" "I say cut his heat!" "I say raise his rent!" "Hey, we're 
trying to get rid of an Alien, not evict a tenant!" Alien - American MAD version

-------- TML Message #1252 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1252
Subject: Gauss weapons ...
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 09:37:42 +0100
From: Jim Cheetham <is_a063%ux.kingston.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk>


	From Adrian Hurt :-
>  I still think that either the gauss weapons fire high velocity, i.e.
>  supersonic  rounds, in which case they aren't silent except in vacuum
>  or near vacuum; or they are silent, therefore subsonic,

	I think I'll beg to disagree with the intention of this statement.
	The basis of Gauss guns being silent is that they don't use chemical
	explosion to launch the missile, they accelerate it over an immense
	magnetic potential energy difference (or something like that ...)
	This means that the *mechanism* of the launch is silent. It also
	means that many varied missile types can be launched - delicate
	ones such solid chemical slivers (remember the bit on non-lethal
	weapons ...?) that wouldn't withstand the effects of an explosion
	to launch them.
	As for the rounds' speed affecting the amount of noise generated,
	yes, I can see the argument about supersonic speeds. You probably
	would hear the MACH barrier pressure wave as it passed you, but
	your target wouldn't ... until it was too late.
	If you want to use the gauss weapon as a sniper tool, it's important
	that your position isn't given away (hence use subsonic speeds),
	but presumably it isn't important whether or not they know the target
	has been hit (they will presumably find out sooner or later ... :-)
	so why not use a variant of smart round that explodes on impact and
	gives the final `shove' to the front portion of the round that has
	to do the hard part of penetrating armour ... ?
	
	Alternatively, do away with hand-to-hand combat and accelerate
	an asteroid straight onto the battle-ground. Nothing like a
	nice 300-km wide crater to encourage the other side to surrender!
	(Apologies - got a bit carried away there ... sorry ! :-}
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     _____               (JANET) jcheetham@uk.ac.kingston
    (__ __) O  ______    (local) is_a063@ux.king
   (____)  (_)(_)()(_)   (voice) (+44) 1 549 1366 x2690
   Jim Cheetham, ISD Kingston Polytechnic.
   "... nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------


-------- TML Message #1253 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1253
Date:     Tuesday 24th April 1990 10:16:25 BST
From: Alan Huscroft <ASSHUSCR%cms.am.cc.reading.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk>
Subject:  Fleet Escort deck plans

A few weeks ago, someone was asking about deck plans for the P.F.Sloan
class fleet escort.  Well, I just stumbled into them in Challenge #25.
 
Hope this helps.
 
............................................................................
: Alan Huscroft              : Janet:    A.Huscroft@uk.ac.reading          :
: Reading, England           : Internet: A.Huscroft@reading.ac.uk          :
: 6-G takeoffs AND landings! : X-boat:   A.Huscroft@terra.sol.solomani_rim :
:............................:.............................................:

-------- TML Message #1254 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1254
From: "Mark F. Cook" <markc@hpcvss.cv.hp.COM>
Subject: Re: Gauss weapons ...
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 13:03:20 PDT

>From Jim Cheetham :-
>     From Adrian Hurt :-
>>  I still think that either the gauss weapons fire high velocity, i.e.
>>  supersonic  rounds, in which case they aren't silent except in vacuum
>>  or near vacuum; or they are silent, therefore subsonic,
>
>     I think I'll beg to disagree with the intention of this statement.
>     The basis of Gauss guns being silent is that they don't use chemical
>     explosion to launch the missile, they accelerate it over an immense
>     magnetic potential energy difference (or something like that ...)
>     This means that the *mechanism* of the launch is silent. It also
>     means that many varied missile types can be launched - delicate
>     ones such solid chemical slivers (remember the bit on non-lethal
>     weapons ...?) that wouldn't withstand the effects of an explosion
>     to launch them.
>     As for the rounds' speed affecting the amount of noise generated,
>     yes, I can see the argument about supersonic speeds. You probably
>     would hear the MACH barrier pressure wave as it passed you, but
>     your target wouldn't ... until it was too late.

Sorry, but I have to side with Adrian.  Speaking as an experienced hunter
and rabid firearms enthusiast, I can guarantee you that a 4mm supersonic
gauss needle makes a very noticable noise and a subsonic needle might not
even go through a thick leather jacket.  That is, of course, unless there
is some characteristic of gauss needles that cause them to behave in a sub-
stantially different fashion that other high velocity airborne projectiles.

Compare a 4mm needle (which is .157 caliber) to a .22 cal. long rifle
round.  The .22 round is supersonic and most of the 'crack' you hear
when firing it is due to the sonic shock wave.  A .22 short round, on
the other hand, is subsonic and is noticably quieter.  It can also be
stopped by 6 inches of compressed cardboard or a single 2 inch fir board.

Since the MACH wave disturbs the air, even people behind the firing point
will hear the report, otherwise (in the above example) the person firing
the .22 long round would never hear anything but the chemical explosion,
since they were behind the muzzle of the rifle.  Personal experience proves
that to be wrong.

As for your target not hearing the report until it was too late, well,
no one is arguing that.  But the same is true today for game/combat rifles
such as the 7mm Magnum, the .22-250, the 25-06, and 5.56mm NATO (to name a
few), which also fire supersonic rounds.  And finally, what would it matter
if the sonic wave preceeded the slug?  The .45 ACP (which was the standard
sidearm for U.S. armed forces until a few years ago) is subsonic and I
doubt that there are any documented cases of people dodging the slug after
they hear the shot fired at them.

While the magnetic acceleration process of the gauss weapon may be ABSOLUTELY
silent (and I have my doubts about this also), anyone within several hundred
meters of the weapon will be treated to the staccato crack of gauss needles
punching holes in the air.

Later,

            Noting the prominent bio-hazard labels on the canisters, Case
        commented, "I wouldn't play with those, boy.  You might get hurt."
            "Why don't you go lick a dog's ass 'til it bleeds." came the
        reply.
                 - "Neuromancer"

        Mark F. Cook

USMail: User Interface Technical Support
        Hewlett-Packard - Interface Technology Operation
        1000 NE Circle Blvd.  Corvallis, OR 97330

INTERNET: markc@hpcvss.cv.hp.com
UUCP:     {cmcl2, harpo, hplabs, rice, tektronix}!hp-pcd!markc

-------- TML Message #1255 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1255
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 18:13 EDT
From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Subject: On reactionless drives


Bertil, I don''t think your idea solves anything. What sort of potential
energy would such a device create? Engines, by definition, turn potential
energy (the chemical or nuclear energy in the fuel, or electrical potential
in a battery) into kinetic energy and waste heat. The fact that a drive
is reactionless means that you make an object move without waste, in fact
with the use of less chemical energy than the kinetic energy you require.
Thus, you're creating energy out of nothing. My personal wish was that the
folx at GDW and DGP had just left the maneuver drives as fusion torches,
which follow reasonable laws and so forth. There have been mumblings to the
effect of "Oh, they were *always* reactionless, we just made it official
recently," from the designers, or so I've heard. I doubt this is true. If
so, then the decision was misguided from the start.

With a cantankerous "harrumph,"

metlay

-------- TML Message #1256 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1256
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 90 11:38 EST
From: "Bruce T. Ritchie" <BRUCER%PSC.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: Off the Beaten Path (the Space & Rocket Center)

        Whew! After all the `heavy' postings lately on Fuel storage, ship
            design, weapon effectiveness et. al., this may seem trivial,
            but I though y'all might enjoy it.

        I recently had to take a trip to Huntsville, Alabama,and spent a
            day at the Space & Rocket Center located there. Now for those
            of you located in the Spinward Marches, Huntsville is the
            home of the Redstone Missile Arsenal (developer of, among
            others, the Nike, Ajax, Hawk and Redstone missiles), The
            George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA's center for
            propulsion development), and the U.S. Space Camp and U.S.
            Space Academy. The Redstone rocket that powered the Mercury
            space flight were built and test stand fired here, as were
            the Saturn I (Gemini), Saturn V (Apollo and all Moon
            missions), and much of the Shuttle. All of these are on
            display, including a full scale Shuttle, with external tanks
            and SRB's! Very Impressive!

        And the museum has lots of hands-on exhibits on every aspect of
            space travel. I never saw a kid wandering around with that
            "why did I get dragged Here" look! Many items on display are
            the real thing, like Wally Schirra's Sigma 7 Mercury capsule,
            and the Apollo 16 cockpit. In addition there is a large
            Omnimax theater (67' hemispherical screen) that, at the time,
            was showing "The Dream Is Alive". Very Good!

        Also, there is a bus tour that takes you through the Arsenal and
            Marshall center to see the test-stands where engines are
            fired, and gives you a tour through the working mock-up of
            the Space Station Freedom (due to begin launching in 1995).

        Cost for everything (Museum, Theater, and Bus tour) is only
            $10.00. A steal! I spent 6+ hours there and still had more to
            see.... I've been to the Nation Air and Space Museum in
            Washington, and while that's great, this is better!

        If any of you have specific questions (that you think I could
            answer 8-)), feel free to drop me a mail message at the
            address below. This is Not a paid endorsement!
```````````````````````````````````^^^`````````````````````````````````
        Bruce T. Ritchie (Brucer@PSC.Bitnet) AKA: Zben Blaine
        Plymouth State College
        Plymouth, N.H. USA
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground,
                              and miss.
                                Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

-------- TML Message #1257 --------

Archive-Message-Number: 1257
From: Adrian Hurt <adrian%cs.heriot-watt.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: On reactionless drives
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 90 11:56:46 BST

> From: METLAY@vms.cis.pitt.edu
> 
> Bertil, I don''t think your idea solves anything. What sort of potential
> energy would such a device create? Engines, by definition, turn potential
> energy (the chemical or nuclear energy in the fuel, or electrical potential
> in a battery) into kinetic energy and waste heat. The fact that a drive
> is reactionless means that you make an object move without waste, in fact
> with the use of less chemical energy than the kinetic energy you require.
> Thus, you're creating energy out of nothing.

I think what Bertil was trying to say is, what is wrong with turning a ship
from having X megajoules of energy stored as potential energy, to a ship
having .9 X megajoules of kinetic energy and .1 X megajoules of waste energy
(e.g. heat) without having to dump a load of stuff out of the back to satisfy
Newton?  This doesn't create energy out of nothing, and doesn't violate
conservation of energy.  Having said that, see below.

>						My personal wish was that the
> folx at GDW and DGP had just left the maneuver drives as fusion torches,
> which follow reasonable laws and so forth. There have been mumblings to the
> effect of "Oh, they were *always* reactionless, we just made it official
> recently," from the designers, or so I've heard.

Let the mumblers take a look at some GDW drawings of starships.  The old
supplements 7 (Traders and Gunboats) and 9 (Fighting Ships - not to be confused
with the new one) have pictures of ships with exhaust nozzles.  

All my models of ships (made back in Ye Olde Traveller days) still have exhaust
nozzles, which should tell you a bit about my faith in reactionless drives. :-)

- -- 
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  adrian@uk.ac.hw.cs
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   adrian@cs.hw.ac.uk

-------- End of TML Messages --------

