speaking of the falklands, the argentines proved then that even a few idiots in a plane could have a devastating effect on a ship at sea when carrying the French made Excoset anti-ship missile. This is a missle that can be fired from beneath a plane while still 100 miles out from target. Many an Englishman died because of that French missile.
Which is why, ever American warship is outfitted with one of these.
[url=http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/weapons/wep-phal.html]Phalanx 20mm cannon[/url] This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on. Its completely autonomous, meaning it uses its own rader to identify targets and takes them out. 4500 rounds per minute in later models with pnuematic drive.
I saw a fire demonstration once. its kind of like watching an A-10 fire, its just massive.
You're right - although there are better weapons than exocet...
An exocet would not be able to sink a battleship - they do not carry the punch. They functioned well in the falklands because the RN ships were not equipped with close in weapons - due to the Treasury interfering. Therefore some lives rest on beauracratic heads. The vessels also use aluminium (aluminum?) in their construction - ask a scientist-type what happens with heat, salt water and aluminium. (hint - it gets rather warmer)
I think someone already mentioned phalanx (vulcan) and goalkeeper - which is like phalanx but with a GAU 8, just like on the A10 you mention. These weapons are also used on RN ships - I would expect other NATO members also use them.
I think B5 had some too, didn't they? It always looked great when earth ships opened up.
p.s. Maybe I have read too much on arms & armour.
pps. Nah. You can never know too much about such things.
It was placed around a dead planet where, 900 years later, the crew of Babylon 5 came to ass around on it and ended up incinerating it in the planet's atmosphere. Whoops.
RubberEagleWhat's a rubber eagle used for, anyway?
though, if we look what happened to sector 14 (rift in space-time continuum), i'd suspect that the station might have done a flying dutchman through time, before it was found again...
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by SpiritOne [/i]
[B]This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on.[/B][/QUOTE]
Wrong. They use tungsten or DU penetrators
anyhoo, I imagion the starfurys WERE more advanced then the nial fighters of the time...sure, humans are less advanced, but a less advanced race a thousand years in the future.....
and a modern starfury could prolly match a nial for maneuverability, if not be MORE maneuverable.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by SpiritOne [/i]
[B]speaking of the falklands, the argentines proved then that even a few idiots in a plane could have a devastating effect on a ship at sea when carrying the French made Excoset anti-ship missile. This is a missle that can be fired from beneath a plane while still 100 miles out from target. Many an Englishman died because of that French missile.
Which is why, ever American warship is outfitted with one of these.
[url=http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/weapons/wep-phal.html]Phalanx 20mm cannon[/url] This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on. Its completely autonomous, meaning it uses its own rader to identify targets and takes them out. 4500 rounds per minute in later models with pnuematic drive.
I saw a fire demonstration once. its kind of like watching an A-10 fire, its just massive. [/B][/QUOTE]
Although Exocets did cause some damage, there was just as much damage wrought by A-4 Skyhawks skimming the sea and dropping plain bombs on some vessels.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Anla'Shok Douglas Nicol [/i]
[B]Although Exocets did cause some damage, there was just as much damage wrought by A-4 Skyhawks skimming the sea and dropping plain bombs on some vessels. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yeah, they came low from direction of islands so that they were hard targets for radar because of low altitude and those islands directly on background.
There was one document about one of those attacks in Finnish television few years ago.
It was precisely in that case where lack of real close range defense system proved costly, when fighter came from direction where other ship blocked visibility of guidance radar for short range missiles.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by SpiritOne [/i]
[B]Those French Excoset missiles did more damage than I think the British were quite prepared for. I dont think they realize what they were getting into. [/B][/QUOTE]
I think the use of Iron Bombs by the Argentinians is underplayed and is well overshadowed by Exocets, but there was a famous quote by a Government Minister when quizzed about why certain ships were hit so easily, the reply was.
"The Russians don't have Exocet", which summed up the attitude of Cold War era Western forces.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Anla'Shok Douglas Nicol [/i]
[B]"The Russians don't have Exocet", which summed up the attitude of Cold War era Western forces. [/B][/QUOTE]
I wonder what that guy has been thinking when saying that.
Soviets have produced many different kind of Vampires.
(yeah I was the one who put up the comment about goal keeper first up )
~~~~~
dont be too confident about metal storm...
its a clever idea, but its much more easily overwhelmed than goalkeeper/phalanx et al. Supposedly you can engage upto 6 or more incoming missiles which are coming in at exactly the same time... which isnt bad when the difference between impact and no impact is about 2 - 3 seconds.
Metal storm can pour it on faster but its much slower to reload once you've chewed through the ammo at the prodigious rate that metal storm does... it can go twice as fast or more (9000 rpm) than the 40mm chainguns but you pay for that rapidity.
~~~~
On big guns and old weapons... nothing is totally invulnerable, I'm sure some of you remember me telling you that the Oberon class diesel clunker subs we had for a long time... worth all of about 300,000 USD, ... [I]sank the Nimitz[/I] a six torpedo spread, totally undeniably sank it... (in war games)
Not even an Iowa could survive six keel breakers. Rat cunning is still the best weapon.
Yes... modern warships are made from leftover easter egg foil. They suck. They need hardened armour, if only to shrug off some of the damage a missile can inflict. if they armoured warships, suddenly the size of the missile has to be greatly enlarged to do any damage. Exocet is already huge and to add to it will mean naught but a B-52 or B2 could carry it, harpoon is huge... if we armoured our battleships then the big gun is likely to return, because with the advent of goalkeeper in combination with armour will mean missiles will become very inefficient killers...
I've always been a big believer in the following :
"Cheap projectile/expensive delivery system over expensive projectile/cheap delivery system
The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx...
~~~~
One other horror I thought of just now is this.... maybe it isnt possible.. but can you imagine a 16" DU APDS round ? Ouch....
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx...
[/B][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
[B]The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx.[/B][/QUOTE]
Well, for balance great capacity of these battleships would enable them to have over hundred surface to air missiles so it would require damn many attackers to get close. (or maybe some orbital platform dropping those weapons)
That's the reason why Soviets developed so many vampires. They couldn't count on that their strike aircrafts would get through carrier air wing and AEGIS cruisers.
Almost all surface to air missiles on AEGIS ships have range well over 100kms, best versions of Standard have range of 250kms.
Stealth would help to get close but it would be still awfully hard to get close enough because high power of AEGIS radar. Add AWACS supprt to detect low flyers...
[quote][b]One other horror I thought of just now is this.... maybe it isnt possible.. but can you imagine a 16" DU APDS round ? Ouch.... [/B][/QUOTE]
I don't think that these 16" guns are smootbore.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Anla'Shok Douglas Nicol [/i]
[B]Again, the Falklands conflict proves this. [/B][/QUOTE]
Almost any bomb penetrates these thin hulled "tincans".
In fact Warthog would be very effective in destroying these tincans after their radars would have been taken out by anti-radar missiles. Those 30mm APIs would easily shred hull and deck of these thin hulled ships.
Remember USS Cole?
If it had been Iowa there would have been only scratch in hull.
rifled bores can still support a discarding sabot...
as someone mentioned... the Argentines used the land to thier advantage.. they swept in behind a mountain range on the island and unloaded before anyone had time to do much at all...
ships are vulnerable when in coastal waters...
...youre correct in your assessment of effective aircraft/bomber screens being in place for most ships, but that only applies in open water... once you get within a few seconds flight time from your nearest decent sized landmass with a valley or a canyon, or a decent sized hill... and you're in deep shite.
Trying to intecept a free fall bomb which is all but EMR inert, perhaps even a cellulose cased one with very little metal and radar reflectivity... is NOT easy to hit before it hits you.
As far as I can see the only real effective way to take out the 'new improved Firstones edition Iowa' is to employ the formentioned 'THOR' type weapons...
A THOR is basically a big lump of steel/iron/dense stuff in orbit... with guidance and a couple de-orbiting/navigation thrusters... it just comes out of orbit at Mach 5+ and smears its target all over... only problem is perhaps leading in and dropping it neatly on the ship when its pulling 35kts...
~~~~
and finally getting back to the Minbari tech...
Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ?
I also wonder about good ole fashioned dumb bombs... with all the debris and stuff floating around your average battlefield... would anyone notice two lumps of relatively inert chunks of stuff flying in ?
What sort of mess would a good ole fashioned lump of super duper High Ex do to a Sharlin made out of tricky ceramic/crystal, specfically made to soak energy weapons...?
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
[B]Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ? [/B][/QUOTE]
Have you ever played IWAR?
Even with lead indicator and automatic targeting it's not so easy to hit small, fast and agile object.
Without those it would be nearly impossible.
Or try some modern fighter simulator. (I mean simulator, not an action)
When HUD and other systems are broken, it's really hard to hit anything smaller than deck.
Even with radar lock and computer calculating lead it's hard to hit if your target isn't flying in straight line.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
[B]but that only applies in open water... once you get within a few seconds flight time from your nearest decent sized landmass with a valley or a canyon, or a decent sized hill... and you're in deep shite.[/B][/QUOTE]
Well, airborne radar helps to minimize those areas.
It's just that recognizing target from ground-clutter requires more processing power.
If ships have weapons free condition, AEGIS system can be set to state where it starts immediately firing missiles against every contact it doesn't recognise as friendly. So without any support, it isn't so easy unless you can come out from cover and drop bomb on same second.
And BTW, missiles can be used against bombs and other smaller targets, even against gun shells. It's just hitting those smaller object is harder than hitting to aircraft. (Actually it doesn't require solid hit, all air defense missiles have proximity fuse)
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
[B]Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ?[/B][/QUOTE]
Yes. It is. As ET mentioned, IWar gives a good simulation of this. So does IFH. In both cases, even with your computer telling you where the target is and where to shoot to hit it if it continues in a straight line (which it usually does not), it's very hard to hit small targets. I'd hate to be stuck in either game without HUD or targetting systems.
The one target that a Fury should have no problem hitting without computer guidance is a Sharlin, and let's face it, a Fury isn't exactly going to do a helluva lot of damage to one of them. :)
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Anla'Shok Douglas Nicol [/i]
[B]and let's face it, a Fury isn't exactly going to do a helluva lot of damage to one of them. :)[/B][/QUOTE]
And without speaking that same time you should try to dodge beam fire.
You can try that in Freespace 2:
When you hear capship "warming" its beams start making rapid turns. (not that it would help anything)
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by shadow boxer [/i]
[B]
Yes... modern warships are made from leftover easter egg foil. They suck. They need hardened armour, if only to shrug off some of the damage a missile can inflict. if they armoured warships, suddenly the size of the missile has to be greatly enlarged to do any damage. Exocet is already huge and to add to it will mean naught but a B-52 or B2 could carry it, harpoon is huge... if we armoured our battleships then the big gun is likely to return, because with the advent of goalkeeper in combination with armour will mean missiles will become very inefficient killers...
[/B][/QUOTE]
in case you havn't notice, offensive power have been outstripping defensive armor for a long time now. With armor comes the penalty of mass/weight and lost of speed/manuverbility.
what uses is a unsinkable battleship if by the time it arrive the war is already over?
oh yeah they can fit armor pierceing warhead on the missiles. or even better
until we have decent energy force shield of some sort(if possible) or very good point defense(close in defense). trying to outarmor enemy firepower is a losing proposition in the current tech environment.
I consider hi-energy turreted laser point defense is the way to go. since A, laser is light speed you hit what you aim (accurately) at no bullet stream spacing/divegent to worry about. B, the vulcan or any ammo base biggest drawback is supply of ammuncation and reload time(once the ammo drum run out that is) and limited range. Of course laser system still have a way to go both kill power and rate of fire wise. once these system matures, anything you can see/track accurately is basically dead. conventional aircraft,missle and shell will go the way of the dodo. all of them will either have to be not seen, or go so fast that deny a lock on from the defense tracking station, or use numbers and gemotery to overwhelm limited defense.
then there's always those nasty EMP weapon that are in development if not already exist(at least in the US aresnal), just a single 1 and all your hi-tech toys in the affected area goes bye bye.
Hell I think a well placed RPG round or those damn iraqi IED can severly damage or even outright kill a M1 Abram tank which is arguably the best armored mobile land vechile in the world
Comments
Which is why, ever American warship is outfitted with one of these.
[url=http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/weapons/wep-phal.html]Phalanx 20mm cannon[/url] This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on. Its completely autonomous, meaning it uses its own rader to identify targets and takes them out. 4500 rounds per minute in later models with pnuematic drive.
I saw a fire demonstration once. its kind of like watching an A-10 fire, its just massive.
An exocet would not be able to sink a battleship - they do not carry the punch. They functioned well in the falklands because the RN ships were not equipped with close in weapons - due to the Treasury interfering. Therefore some lives rest on beauracratic heads. The vessels also use aluminium (aluminum?) in their construction - ask a scientist-type what happens with heat, salt water and aluminium. (hint - it gets rather warmer)
I think someone already mentioned phalanx (vulcan) and goalkeeper - which is like phalanx but with a GAU 8, just like on the A10 you mention. These weapons are also used on RN ships - I would expect other NATO members also use them.
I think B5 had some too, didn't they? It always looked great when earth ships opened up.
p.s. Maybe I have read too much on arms & armour.
pps. Nah. You can never know too much about such things.
[B]This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on.[/B][/QUOTE]
Wrong. They use tungsten or DU penetrators
Metal
Storm
got going on that due to NASA. :D
anyhoo, I imagion the starfurys WERE more advanced then the nial fighters of the time...sure, humans are less advanced, but a less advanced race a thousand years in the future.....
and a modern starfury could prolly match a nial for maneuverability, if not be MORE maneuverable.
[B]speaking of the falklands, the argentines proved then that even a few idiots in a plane could have a devastating effect on a ship at sea when carrying the French made Excoset anti-ship missile. This is a missle that can be fired from beneath a plane while still 100 miles out from target. Many an Englishman died because of that French missile.
Which is why, ever American warship is outfitted with one of these.
[url=http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/weapons/wep-phal.html]Phalanx 20mm cannon[/url] This weapon creates a wall of lead between the incoming missle and the ship its on. Its completely autonomous, meaning it uses its own rader to identify targets and takes them out. 4500 rounds per minute in later models with pnuematic drive.
I saw a fire demonstration once. its kind of like watching an A-10 fire, its just massive. [/B][/QUOTE]
Although Exocets did cause some damage, there was just as much damage wrought by A-4 Skyhawks skimming the sea and dropping plain bombs on some vessels.
[B]Although Exocets did cause some damage, there was just as much damage wrought by A-4 Skyhawks skimming the sea and dropping plain bombs on some vessels. [/B][/QUOTE]
Yeah, they came low from direction of islands so that they were hard targets for radar because of low altitude and those islands directly on background.
There was one document about one of those attacks in Finnish television few years ago.
It was precisely in that case where lack of real close range defense system proved costly, when fighter came from direction where other ship blocked visibility of guidance radar for short range missiles.
[B]Wrong. They use tungsten or DU penetrators [/B][/QUOTE]
omg come on...
ok, so they use tungsten and depleted uranium. you know what I meant here. "wall of lead" is just an expression.
Those French Excoset missiles did more damage than I think the British were quite prepared for. I dont think they realize what they were getting into.
[B]Those French Excoset missiles did more damage than I think the British were quite prepared for. I dont think they realize what they were getting into. [/B][/QUOTE]
I think the use of Iron Bombs by the Argentinians is underplayed and is well overshadowed by Exocets, but there was a famous quote by a Government Minister when quizzed about why certain ships were hit so easily, the reply was.
"The Russians don't have Exocet", which summed up the attitude of Cold War era Western forces.
[B]"The Russians don't have Exocet", which summed up the attitude of Cold War era Western forces. [/B][/QUOTE]
I wonder what that guy has been thinking when saying that.
Soviets have produced many different kind of Vampires.
[B]Soviets have produced many different kind of Vampires. [/B][/QUOTE]
:noidea:
ROFL
~~~~~
dont be too confident about metal storm...
its a clever idea, but its much more easily overwhelmed than goalkeeper/phalanx et al. Supposedly you can engage upto 6 or more incoming missiles which are coming in at exactly the same time... which isnt bad when the difference between impact and no impact is about 2 - 3 seconds.
Metal storm can pour it on faster but its much slower to reload once you've chewed through the ammo at the prodigious rate that metal storm does... it can go twice as fast or more (9000 rpm) than the 40mm chainguns but you pay for that rapidity.
~~~~
On big guns and old weapons... nothing is totally invulnerable, I'm sure some of you remember me telling you that the Oberon class diesel clunker subs we had for a long time... worth all of about 300,000 USD, ... [I]sank the Nimitz[/I] a six torpedo spread, totally undeniably sank it... (in war games)
Not even an Iowa could survive six keel breakers. Rat cunning is still the best weapon.
Yes... modern warships are made from leftover easter egg foil. They suck. They need hardened armour, if only to shrug off some of the damage a missile can inflict. if they armoured warships, suddenly the size of the missile has to be greatly enlarged to do any damage. Exocet is already huge and to add to it will mean naught but a B-52 or B2 could carry it, harpoon is huge... if we armoured our battleships then the big gun is likely to return, because with the advent of goalkeeper in combination with armour will mean missiles will become very inefficient killers...
I've always been a big believer in the following :
"Cheap projectile/expensive delivery system over expensive projectile/cheap delivery system
The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx...
~~~~
One other horror I thought of just now is this.... maybe it isnt possible.. but can you imagine a 16" DU APDS round ? Ouch....
The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx...
[/B][/QUOTE]
Again, the Falklands conflict proves this.
[B]The only other thing to consider is free fall bombs... its very possible for a modern warship to get Arizona'ed. A laser guided iron bomb will punch through your decks very easily unless the ship wears topside armour, or perhaps someone develops a better 'uplooking' phalanx.[/B][/QUOTE]
Well, for balance great capacity of these battleships would enable them to have over hundred surface to air missiles so it would require damn many attackers to get close. (or maybe some orbital platform dropping those weapons)
That's the reason why Soviets developed so many vampires. They couldn't count on that their strike aircrafts would get through carrier air wing and AEGIS cruisers.
Almost all surface to air missiles on AEGIS ships have range well over 100kms, best versions of Standard have range of 250kms.
Stealth would help to get close but it would be still awfully hard to get close enough because high power of AEGIS radar. Add AWACS supprt to detect low flyers...
[quote][b]One other horror I thought of just now is this.... maybe it isnt possible.. but can you imagine a 16" DU APDS round ? Ouch.... [/B][/QUOTE]
I don't think that these 16" guns are smootbore.
[B]Again, the Falklands conflict proves this. [/B][/QUOTE]
Almost any bomb penetrates these thin hulled "tincans".
In fact Warthog would be very effective in destroying these tincans after their radars would have been taken out by anti-radar missiles. Those 30mm APIs would easily shred hull and deck of these thin hulled ships.
Remember USS Cole?
If it had been Iowa there would have been only scratch in hull.
as someone mentioned... the Argentines used the land to thier advantage.. they swept in behind a mountain range on the island and unloaded before anyone had time to do much at all...
ships are vulnerable when in coastal waters...
...youre correct in your assessment of effective aircraft/bomber screens being in place for most ships, but that only applies in open water... once you get within a few seconds flight time from your nearest decent sized landmass with a valley or a canyon, or a decent sized hill... and you're in deep shite.
Trying to intecept a free fall bomb which is all but EMR inert, perhaps even a cellulose cased one with very little metal and radar reflectivity... is NOT easy to hit before it hits you.
As far as I can see the only real effective way to take out the 'new improved Firstones edition Iowa' is to employ the formentioned 'THOR' type weapons...
A THOR is basically a big lump of steel/iron/dense stuff in orbit... with guidance and a couple de-orbiting/navigation thrusters... it just comes out of orbit at Mach 5+ and smears its target all over... only problem is perhaps leading in and dropping it neatly on the ship when its pulling 35kts...
~~~~
and finally getting back to the Minbari tech...
Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ?
I also wonder about good ole fashioned dumb bombs... with all the debris and stuff floating around your average battlefield... would anyone notice two lumps of relatively inert chunks of stuff flying in ?
What sort of mess would a good ole fashioned lump of super duper High Ex do to a Sharlin made out of tricky ceramic/crystal, specfically made to soak energy weapons...?
[B]Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ? [/B][/QUOTE]
Have you ever played IWAR?
Even with lead indicator and automatic targeting it's not so easy to hit small, fast and agile object.
Without those it would be nearly impossible.
Or try some modern fighter simulator. (I mean simulator, not an action)
When HUD and other systems are broken, it's really hard to hit anything smaller than deck.
Even with radar lock and computer calculating lead it's hard to hit if your target isn't flying in straight line.
[B]but that only applies in open water... once you get within a few seconds flight time from your nearest decent sized landmass with a valley or a canyon, or a decent sized hill... and you're in deep shite.[/B][/QUOTE]
Well, airborne radar helps to minimize those areas.
It's just that recognizing target from ground-clutter requires more processing power.
If ships have weapons free condition, AEGIS system can be set to state where it starts immediately firing missiles against every contact it doesn't recognise as friendly. So without any support, it isn't so easy unless you can come out from cover and drop bomb on same second.
And BTW, missiles can be used against bombs and other smaller targets, even against gun shells. It's just hitting those smaller object is harder than hitting to aircraft. (Actually it doesn't require solid hit, all air defense missiles have proximity fuse)
[B]Why on Earth didnt the EA 'Furies just use good old fashioned 'visual' iron sights to defeat thier cloaking/stealth tech so that they could kill Nials ? Ok so you have to be good but its not THAT hard to lead in a fighter on full manual is it ?[/B][/QUOTE]
Yes. It is. As ET mentioned, IWar gives a good simulation of this. So does IFH. In both cases, even with your computer telling you where the target is and where to shoot to hit it if it continues in a straight line (which it usually does not), it's very hard to hit small targets. I'd hate to be stuck in either game without HUD or targetting systems.
[B]and let's face it, a Fury isn't exactly going to do a helluva lot of damage to one of them. :)[/B][/QUOTE]
And without speaking that same time you should try to dodge beam fire.
You can try that in Freespace 2:
When you hear capship "warming" its beams start making rapid turns. (not that it would help anything)
[B]
Yes... modern warships are made from leftover easter egg foil. They suck. They need hardened armour, if only to shrug off some of the damage a missile can inflict. if they armoured warships, suddenly the size of the missile has to be greatly enlarged to do any damage. Exocet is already huge and to add to it will mean naught but a B-52 or B2 could carry it, harpoon is huge... if we armoured our battleships then the big gun is likely to return, because with the advent of goalkeeper in combination with armour will mean missiles will become very inefficient killers...
[/B][/QUOTE]
in case you havn't notice, offensive power have been outstripping defensive armor for a long time now. With armor comes the penalty of mass/weight and lost of speed/manuverbility.
what uses is a unsinkable battleship if by the time it arrive the war is already over?
oh yeah they can fit armor pierceing warhead on the missiles. or even better
[url]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/losat.htm[/url]
[url]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/budget/fy2001/dot-e/army/01losat.html[/url]
until we have decent energy force shield of some sort(if possible) or very good point defense(close in defense). trying to outarmor enemy firepower is a losing proposition in the current tech environment.
I consider hi-energy turreted laser point defense is the way to go. since A, laser is light speed you hit what you aim (accurately) at no bullet stream spacing/divegent to worry about. B, the vulcan or any ammo base biggest drawback is supply of ammuncation and reload time(once the ammo drum run out that is) and limited range. Of course laser system still have a way to go both kill power and rate of fire wise. once these system matures, anything you can see/track accurately is basically dead. conventional aircraft,missle and shell will go the way of the dodo. all of them will either have to be not seen, or go so fast that deny a lock on from the defense tracking station, or use numbers and gemotery to overwhelm limited defense.
then there's always those nasty EMP weapon that are in development if not already exist(at least in the US aresnal), just a single 1 and all your hi-tech toys in the affected area goes bye bye.
Hell I think a well placed RPG round or those damn iraqi IED can severly damage or even outright kill a M1 Abram tank which is arguably the best armored mobile land vechile in the world
Just compare it to the Challenger 2.