Traveller-digest      Monday, October 11 1999      Volume 1999 : Number 1193



(R)1996. Traveller is a registered trademark of FarFuture Enterprises.
All rights reserved.

The following topics are covered in this digest:

Re: GURPS errata
Re: Spraying 'Near-c-rocks-B-gone' liberally
Re: GTL 8 Starships
RE: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED RE Many guns II
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection
Re: Firing two guns at once
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1183
RE: Firing two guns at once
Re: 
Re: Bigger ammo clips
Re: OT:  You Got Me To Go There (was Re: Hamlet in Space was: Re:  falkenbergs legions firing  intocivilians)
Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED RE Many guns II 
RE: Firing two guns at once
Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1185
Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)
Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)
Hmmmm
Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 23:06:53 -0000
From: "Chris Seamans" <semo@pil.net>
Subject: Re: GURPS errata

- -----Original Message-----
From: Pete <j_pete@bellsouth.net>
To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com <traveller@lists.imagiconline.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 2:38 AM
Subject: Re: GURPS errata


>Graffiti "artists" are rarely good spellers. ;-)


Actually, not too far from where I live, there was a tag that was spelled
incorrectly. Appended to the bottom of the tag was the message, "Damn, I
f'ed up."

Still though, I must provide token dissent here, the great old school
graffiti that various artists did on the building tops off of the
Market-Frankford El has made more than one dreary morning trip to work more
pleasant. Living in a neighborhood that my friends have affectionately
dubbed "Old Detroit" (yes, a Robocop reference) I can't tell you how much
more attractive it is to see old abandoned rotting buildings with colorful
and well done grafitti as opposed to old abandoned rotting buildings
without.

The sad truth of the matter is that when you're from the places where
graffiti is prevalent here in Philadelphia, there's nobody there to offer
you a scholarship to the University of the Arts.

Chris "Who is particularly sensitive to the plight of the graffiti artist
because had he not gotten a scholarship to a school that was out of the
'hood he would have gone down that road himself" Seamans

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:02:07 +1300
From: "Frank Pitt" <frankie@mundens.gen.nz>
Subject: Re: Spraying 'Near-c-rocks-B-gone' liberally

> Trust me, there is *no way* to make t-plates and Imperial military history
> as stated work consistently.  A handwaved ban on near-c rocks is the only
> solution.

And just to be pedantic, there is no way to get rid of planetary bombardment
with quite-a-lot-less-than-c-but-still-damn-devastating rocks even if you
_do_ get rid of T-plates, it just becomes harder.

Refer Nivn & Pournelles "FootFall" for a belivable use of  small rocks in a
military assault.

Frankly, the Imperium as she is writ is completely "unbelievable" without
handwaves such as "Vilani conservtism", etc.

But so is Star Wars, and the World of Darkness, and believablility does not
neccessarily impact having fun.

Frankie

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 22:03:52 -0500
From: "Bont" <felix@felixcafe.com>
Subject: Re: GTL 8 Starships

> I looked at that, GVII is a nightmare to design reaction rockets. The
> quick and dirty method for a Traveller starship is CG. If you want to
> have reaction thrust, there are a few GVII engine types.

Agreed.  And as cheap (in weight, volume and cost) as Contragrav 
is, there shouldn't be a reason it isn't installed on all vehicles by this 
TL.  Then, the only problem becomes trying to figure out how fast it 
goes ... not how much of the thrust you need to counter the weight 
and still move laterally.


- - - -
FELIX (Thomas L Bont)

- - Encrypt your messages!
  That way only the government knows what you wrote!

- - It is truly the wise man that knows what he doesn't!

- - With your shield or on it ... (Old Spartan Blessing)

- - Fidelitas super omnia, honore excepto

- - Help Stop Forest Fires.  Outlaw Matches.

Be sure to visit The FELIX Cafe at
     http://www.felixcafe.com/

- - - -

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:31:47 -0700
From: "Jesse DeGraff" <fenris@slip.net>
Subject: RE: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED RE Many guns II

And you can't hit anything with an AK anyway, so why bother ;)

Sorry, my AK's a bit shot out, so I'm prejudiced.  I think it barely manages
to score minute-of-barn, while my AR-15 does the proper minute-of-angle :D

Jesse

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> [mailto:owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com]On Behalf Of
> RASFranzen@aol.com
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 1999 2:06 AM
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED RE Many guns II
>
>
> Tom Schoene wrote:
>
> <<   As for reloads, you see many
>  operators using some
>         form of multiple magazine holder these days, with mags
>  clipped together or
>         otherwise mounted on gun for fast reloads (but definitely
>  not taped
>         together with one upside down as so often shown in the
>  movies). >>
>
> Actually from my experience in some areas I would like to attest
> that many
> real life troops and rebels tie Kalashnikov magazines that way.
> Of course the
> Kalashnikov is often used for unaimed suppressive fire,
> best wishes
> Soenke Franzen
>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:50 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection

On 11 Oct 99, at 21:47, Terry Carlino wrote:

> "A suit isn't a space suitalthough it can serve as one.
> It is not primarily armoralthough the Knights of the Round Table were not
> armored as well as we are. It isn't a tankbut a single M.I. private could
> take on a squadron of those things and knock them off unassisted if
> anybody was silly enough to- put tanks against M I. A suit it not a ship
> but it can fly, a littleon, the other hand neither spaceship nor
> atmosphere craft can fight against a man in a suit except by saturation
> bombing of the area he is in (like burning down a house to get one
> flea!)."
> 
>       --Starship Troopers copyright by Robert A Heinlein
> 
> Obviously Battledress as invisioned by Heinliein is quite a bit more
> powerful than as specified by (some) Traveller adherents.

Only in terms of mobility. An MI's suit wouldn't keep out any real 
firepower, afterall. Heinlein also make some rather optimistic 
assumptions about the value of a suit mobility when it comes to 
avoiding airpower, and seems to have assumed that only the MI carried 
homing missiles.


- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:49 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Firing two guns at once

On 11 Oct 99, at 21:26, Michel Vaillancourt wrote:

>         That is my experience.  Amongst other games I play, I am a fencer.
> I also dabble in a MA that sims Middle Ages English broadsword and sheild
> fighting.  I am "supposed" to be right handed.  I play raquet ball and
> fence right handed.  I pitch softball and swing sword left handed.  I
> write with my right, and heft with my left.  I call it adaptive
> ambidexterity....

I fence either way, use a broad sword one-handed in my left hand, but 
use a broadsword or katana two-handed in the same way a right hander 
does. I also bat softball right handed, but pitch left handed. I've 
come to the conclusion that this is the result of suffering under a 
fundamentalist who had a thing about leftys at primary school. He made 
every body bat in softball and cricket as a right hander. I suspect the 
only reason he didn't try to make us all write in our right hands was 
that the education department policy requires that children be allowed 
to develop as left handers if they wish.


- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:50 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1183

On 11 Oct 99, at 11:01, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> In mail you write:
> 
> > On 10 Oct 99, at 22:41, Chris Peers wrote:
> >
> >> You know, about the near-c rocks...
> 
> <snip>
> 
> > Ok, now explain how come Lucan didn't use them in the Black War period
> > of the Rebellion. He nuked quite a lot of planets bare, and
> > intentionally left many other planets without the infrastructure to
> > support their own populations, so near-c rocks would've been right down
> > his alley.
> 
> My take is to ignore the stupid "thrusters" and go with reaction
> drives. That makes near-c rocks *expensive*.
> 
> For that matter, even *with* thrusters, it takes a damned *big* rock
> going really, really fast to be much worse than a nuke, or a redirected
> asteroid. 
> 
> Just consider how *long* you have to push that rock to get it up to
> even 1% of c. 

Quite a while, depending on the G's you're willing to power. However as 
a secret weapon intended as a war stopper it maight be worth spending 
the time and effort to start a few rocks up in the outer system of your 
enemies capital system, and a few of his hi pop worlds. All very 
hypothetical of course, being as near-c rocks don't exist in the OTU.



- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:50 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: RE: Firing two guns at once

On 11 Oct 99, at 7:34, Douglas E. Berry wrote:

> At 05:22 PM 10/11/1999 +1300, you wrote:
> 
> >Unless that's where you've got a couple more full clips, in which case it
> >goes in the pouch on the other side of your webbing. IME mixing near
> >empty and full mags can lead to nasty surprises.
> 
> In really intense situations the empty mags go into the right cargo pocket
> of my BDUs.  I may not have time to look down and fiddle with the ammo
> pouch.
> 
> If I'm in exceedingly deep kimchee, just let the mag drop.  Reloading is a
> higher priority. -- 

Ah, but in the NZ army you're not supposed to do that 'cos they cost 
too much especially the plastic Steyr ones). They spend so long 
drilling soldiers into putting the mags back into the pouches that I 
suspect that when the cruch comes some of the younger troopies are 
going to get killed by spending too long following the drill.



- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:50 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: 

On 11 Oct 99, at 21:44, William F. Hostman wrote:

> For caseless weapons, the issue becomes quite different... most 
caseless
> designs I've seen use "Bricks"; if the weapon only takes a 200 round
> brick, there is no place for more... (I've never gotten a good close look
> at any caseless weapons proper, only at specs...)

AFIAK the last versions of the late G11 used a 50 round mag that could 
be topped up with 10 round 'bricks', so at least you wouldn't have to 
wait until you were nerly out before topping up. It also carried 2(?) 
extra mags alongside the 'loaded' one.
 

- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 16:28:50 +1300
From: "Rupert Boleyn" <rboleyn@paradise.net.nz>
Subject: Re: Bigger ammo clips

On 11 Oct 99, at 16:21, David P. Summers wrote:

> For all of you guys with experience with military weapons...
> In a number of games I've seen players express interest in getting clips
> the hold more ammor for their guns (so they don't have change as often).
> This would seem to be relatively easy (just make them longer, they aren't
> that long right now), but if it was, it would seem likely they would
> already be made that way.  What do you guys think?

Bigger clips are harder to stow in pouches pockets, etc. High capacity 
mags also make the weapon more cumbersome. They are also unpopular with 
military brass and ordanance types because they encourage the 
consumption of more ammo by the troopies.

However for those that want them there are some nice 90-round magd 
available for the M16. They have a drum on each side, so they make the 
weapon wider rather than deeper. Those who want really large ammo 
supplies 'in-weapon' should probably go for a belt fed machinegun, 
because that way you can just mash another belt on the end to your 
heart's content.



- --
Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
Wellington, New Zealand

A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 21:41:06 -0500
From: Richard Wilson <rtwilson@rollanet.org>
Subject: Re: OT:  You Got Me To Go There (was Re: Hamlet in Space was: Re:  falkenbergs legions firing  intocivilians)

At 03:03 AM 10/11/99 -0300, you wrote:
>
>        Hi, Doug!
>        No, it was the *stupidest* in Trek canon.  
>
       lots o' snippage
>
>        --Michel
>

Star Trek has a canon? When did this happen? They have trouble staying
consistant from one episode to the next. 

Who remembers first season ST:TNG when they killed Tasha Yar and she showed
up in the next episode? According the the interviews I've read, the
episodes were shown in the order they were filmed. So this little
continuity error slip right past them.

Richard Wilson

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 23:43:32 -0400
From: "Keven R. Pittsinger" <jamstar@accesstoledo.com>
Subject: Re: SEC: UNCLASSIFIED RE Many guns II 

> And you can't hit anything with an AK anyway, so why bother ;)

Depends on who made it.  The Czech made ones were pretty good.  The Russian 
made ones depended more on which factory turned them out and on what day they 
were made.  The Chinese versions were even more flighty.  I wouldn't even 
wanna *LOOK* at an Afghani monkey copy let alone shoot it.
 
> Sorry, my AK's a bit shot out, so I'm prejudiced.  I think it barely manages
> to score minute-of-barn, while my AR-15 does the proper minute-of-angle :D

It takes a *LOT* to shoot out an AK.  That sucker surplus from Angola or something?

Keven

- -- 
tc++ tm+ tn t4- to ru++ ge+ 3i c+ jt au st- ls pi+ ta+ he+ so- vi zh sy
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                     In Reavers' Deep

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 20:45:55 -0700
From: "Jesse DeGraff" <fenris@slip.net>
Subject: RE: Firing two guns at once

That is not good.  A troop dead 'cause some bean counter doesn't want to
replace a magazine.  It'd almost be funny if it weren't so f'ing true.  Bean
counters'll be the death of civilized man yet...

Jesse




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> [mailto:owner-traveller@lists.imagiconline.com]On Behalf Of Rupert
> Boleyn
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 1999 8:29 PM
> To: traveller@lists.imagiconline.com
> Subject: RE: Firing two guns at once
>
>
> On 11 Oct 99, at 7:34, Douglas E. Berry wrote:
>
> > At 05:22 PM 10/11/1999 +1300, you wrote:
> >
> > >Unless that's where you've got a couple more full clips, in
> which case it
> > >goes in the pouch on the other side of your webbing. IME mixing near
> > >empty and full mags can lead to nasty surprises.
> >
> > In really intense situations the empty mags go into the right
> cargo pocket
> > of my BDUs.  I may not have time to look down and fiddle with the ammo
> > pouch.
> >
> > If I'm in exceedingly deep kimchee, just let the mag drop.
> Reloading is a
> > higher priority. --
>
> Ah, but in the NZ army you're not supposed to do that 'cos they cost
> too much especially the plastic Steyr ones). They spend so long
> drilling soldiers into putting the mags back into the pouches that I
> suspect that when the cruch comes some of the younger troopies are
> going to get killed by spending too long following the drill.
>
>
>
> --
> Rupert Boleyn <paradise.net.nz>
> Wellington, New Zealand
>
> A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history.
>

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 15:41:57 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Traveller-digest V1999 #1185

In mail you write:

> The Space shuttle's black insulation bricks can be touched SECONDS after 
> being taken out of a furnace. While the bricks still glow.

Actually, those are the *white* bricks. The black parts of the hull are
solid chunks of a very different material.

And the "bricks" can be touched at the corners, and edges, which cool
rapidly due to high surface area/volume. Try picking one up by the
*faces* and you'll need skin grafts. 

> A spaceship doing any reasonable speed required for landing/takeoff will be
> designed to dump reaction heat generated by friction, if only to protect the
> crew inside.

Not really. The shuttle doesn't get very hot on launch. It gets hot on
landing because it *has* to use air friction to slow down. A ship that
can enter atmosphere under power can drop to a much slower velocity
before hitting atmosphere, and then "fly" down, without getting all
that hot. 

> And lets face it, Travelelr material bounces plasma. Salt water would not 
> affect it...

But the sudden temp change *might*. 

> ObTrav : A deralict spaceship is found submurged underwater, from the
> Interstellar Wars. The hulls are fine, but the nuclear missiles have
> rusted to critical state, and need to be removed before damaging the
> enviroment (booms, radiation el at)

Fission weapons, or fusion weapons with fission triggers *can't* go
"boom" by accident. Getting them to go "boom" *at all* requires *rapid*
assembly of the subcritical masses into a critical mass. Both timing
and alignment are *critical*. If either is off, you just get a small
chemical blast with a small squirt of radiation. And a lot of
radioactive junk scattered over an area by the small blast. Maybe a
hundred yards.

We've had several cases where nuclear weapons suffered catastrophic
damage, and only once did even the triggerring charges go off. The
safeties being physical chunks of metal blocking assembly of the
sub-crit masses made it impossible for fission to occur. They had to
sweep up the pieces and chip out some rock that had fissionables driven
into it. 

Also, while most fissionables have fairly long half-lives, it's
unlikely that they'd be reliable after 50 years, much less centuries.
They'd be too contaminated with decay products, many of which "poison"
fission reactions by absorbing neutrons. 

This is one of the reasons we used to conduct tests. We were checking
the reliability of weapons at various times after manufacture. We allso
have a regular schedule for "overhauls" which, after a certain period
consist of *replacing* the fissionables and sending the old ones back
for reprocessing. 

This could be a fun thing to do to some PCs. They find some intact
warheads that are centuries old, and unless they have the right
background or think to ask the computer the right questions, they may
be foolish enough to think the warheads are usable. 

More fun, if they send them in for maintenance, it'll be "obvious" to
the techs that these warheads haven't been near a maintenance facility
in *centuries*. Which may lead to questions the PCs don't want to answer.

Now we come to even more fun. Many (most?) larger warheads are
tritium-boosted. That is, the initial fission reaction is set up so
that a significant fraction of the neutron flux is redirected into a
mass of tritium. The pressures and neutron flux fuses the tritium,
releases *lots* of neutrons which can be used to boost the fission
that's already occuring *or* be used to trigger fission in a jacket of
something that normally won't fission, like U-238. This gives around a
10-100 time increase in yield.

A fission triggered fusion bomb uses the initial fission trigger, and a
*lot* of fusible material, usually lithium deuteride. This gives a bang
principally limited by how much fusible material you put in the bomb. 

And yes, that means that PCs too clever for thier own good could
use an old tanker, a det laser warhead, and a fuel purifier to build a
planet wrecker. Just use the purifier to fill the tanker with a mix of
deuterium & tritium (LD2 & LT2). And rig the warhead from the detlaser
inside a tank as the detonator. It'd be a lot clumsier than a
conventional H-bomb, but the blast could rival a near-c rock. 

BTW, the US's first H-bomb usd liquid hydrogen. The Soviets skipped
that and went straight to lithium hyride, which the US also switched
to. Using liquid hydrogen just makes the bomb bulkier. 

Figure .1% conversion of matter to energy for however many thousands of
*tonnes* of hydrogen the tanker holds. Ouch.

Anyway, getting back to the derelict, the big danger would be when
water got into the warheads. Water acts as a moderator, by slowing down
neutrons. In practice, what that means is that if you take a big, but
subcritical mass of fissionable and dump it in the water, it'll be a
lot closer to being critical. Often enough closer to act like a *fast*
reactor. It won't go boom, but it'll pump out lots of heat and radiation.

For the warheads, this would go in stages. At first, no effect, as the
missile gets submerged. This is because they'd be built with a fair
amount of "empty space" around the warhead, so that they won't be
affected by techs crowded around working on the missile body, or
loading it into a launcher. As far as the fissionables are concerned,
people are just mobile bags of water. More than one accident has
occured because a tech got between two or more sub-crit masses and had
his preseceense trigger a reaction.

Once water gets into the "carrier" you may get some increase in
activity. That's because the warhead itself (the charges and
fissionables) will be inside an airtight sphere inside the carrier. 

Once the space around the sphere is full of water, there will likely be
measurable amounts of fission going on in the warhead. It'll warm
slightly, and the neutron flux will make the container more susceptible
to corrosion. 

When water finally gets into the "cavity" containing the fissionables,
things will get interesting. The fision rate will climb rapidly, the
temp will increase, and the explosives may even go off. 

So it could be *real* fun removing the missiles if the "best guess"
says that they are just about due for that last stage. Bump one wrong
and the wekened metal could fail. 

Sure, the resulting blast from explosives and or radioactive steam
isn't nuclear. But it's enough to kill anybody nearby. And to cause the
contamination you were trying to prevent.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 15:39:31 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)

In mail you write:

>> Timothy Collinson writes:
>> <snipped>
>> >I am right in thinking that breastfeeding acts as an
>> >(effective?) contraceptive aren't I?
>> <snipped>
>>
>> I think that it may reduce the odds of getting pregnant,
>> but not to zero.  Getting only barely enough to eat is
>> probably more effective at contraception.
>
> My wife works in childcare and has seen over the years, women whom breast
> feed, with children only 9-10 months older than the new baby.  That's to say
> that the youngest child was conceived within days of the eldest's birth and
> while breastfeeding that child.  I can't say how common it is though.

But it's highly unlikely that they *exclusively* breast feed. Not in
"first world" nations. 

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 15:33:59 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Survivor kids (Was: Annic Nova)

In mail you write:

> On 9 Oct 99, at 12:57, Andrew Moffatt-Vallance wrote:
>
>> Date sent:            Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:42:12 -0400
>> From:                 Ian Ferguson <ian@vax2.concordia.ca>
>> 
>> > Timothy Collinson writes:
>> > <snipped>
>> > >I am right in thinking that breastfeeding acts as an
>> > >(effective?) contraceptive aren't I?
>> > <snipped>
>> 
>> >     I think that it may reduce the odds of getting pregnant,
>> >     but not to zero.  Getting only barely enough to eat is
>> >     probably more effective at contraception.
>> 
>> Exclusively breastfeeding is a 99%+ effective contraceptive (thats equal
>> to the best chemical contraceptive). It drops off fairly rapidly once the
>> child starts to wean. Effectiveness is also decreased dramatically if the
>> child is not exclusively breasfed.
>
> The stats I've been reading are somewhere in between these, and suggest 
> that breastfeeding is of little use as a contraceptive after the first 
> nine months of breastfeeding.

The info I've encountered suggestion that the 99% figure is closer. But
*only* if that's how the kid is getting most of his food. 

In modern, "civilized" cultures, that rarely happens. And thanks to the
*idiots* marketing formula to third world countries, it rarely holds
there. Matter of fact the introduction of infant formula to third world
nations has *two* dramatic effects. First, it increases the frequency
of pregnancies, thus increasing the birth rate. Second,it increases the
infant mortality weight and frequency of infant malnutrition. That's
because it's so expensive that the mothers dilute it. 

ObTrav: Introducing "better" technology often *hurts* the cultures it's
introduced to.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 16:55:17 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Hmmmm

In mail you write:

> Supplement 10 provides that the "Owner" of Earth is the Imperial Marines.
>
> William F. Hostman  |  "Smith & Wesson: THe original Point and Click
> interface!"

For some reason, *this* time when I read your sig, my mind flashed on
one of the "Buck Godot" books. It has a couple of "characters" named
"Smith" and "Wesson". They are a pair of intelligent weapons (in much
the same sense as a D&D "intelligent sword"). They essentially control
the poor guy that carries them.

Those would be by *just* the weapons for someone to acquire (or is that
"be acquired by?" :-)



- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 16:59:10 PST
From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson)
Subject: Re: Battledress/Battlesuit Protection (GT)

In mail you write:

> On Mon, 11 Oct 1999 09:02:55 -0700 (PDT), Anthony Jackson
> <ajackson@molly.iii.com> wrote:
>
>>Terry Carlino writes:
>>
>>> ObTrav:(Yes there is something)If missiles are better anti-BD weapons than
>>> FGMP's will BD troops have integrated missile launchers for use against
>>> other BD troops?
>>
>> The problem with missiles is that they're quite heavy and expensive
>> per shot.  A grenade launcher is quite possibly more effective here;
>> you can build nice lightweight 60mm electromagnetic grenade
>> launchers which will toast BD as well.

> The problem with grenade launchers (and most ballistic weapons) is the
> launch point can be discovered using counter battery radar.

The trouble with counter-battery radar is that anti-radiation missiles
(HARMS) will blow it away.

And so goes the measure/counter-measure race.

- -- 
Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow)
 shadow@krypton.rain.com        <--preferred
leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com     <--last resort

------------------------------

End of Traveller-digest V1999 #1193
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