Questions on Ringo's Human-Posleen War series.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Is there a map somewhere of occupied and free north-american territories as of Hell's Faire? My brother is convinced that Salt Lake City survived, but I'm not so sure.

[MKSheppard]

Don't forget the nearly unkillable flying skyscrapers.

Goodbye Posleen Everything.

[consequences]

Its funny, but the landers tend to actively and automatically engage both missiles launched at them, and the soon to be dead moron who launched a missile at them. So do the God-Kings for that matter. F22s flying NoE at max speed are barely survivable against them.

[MKSheppard]

Its funny, but the landers tend to actively and automatically engage both missiles launched at them

Only missiles that are actively transmitting signals, or are under thrust are dead.

Why were the Posleen unable to intercept the ICBMs after the warheads debussed and went into ballistic trajectories; and why were they only able to destroy artillery shells that were transmitting video back, and not normal artillery?

[MKSheppard]

Inertial guidance with gyros to keep the missile spinning and stabilized
won't trip Posleen sensors, because we have the case of ICBM re-entry
vehicles after de-bussing becoming effectively invisible to Posleen
sensors, or the Posleen simply ignoring the "smart" anti-matter cluster
bomb fired by the U of Tenn scientists, despite it being much, much more
complicated than your standard shell.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Its funny, but the landers tend to actively and automatically engage both missiles launched at them, and the soon to be dead moron who launched a missile at them. So do the God-Kings for that matter. F22s flying NoE at max speed are barely survivable against them.

Yeah, survivable when they arent in LOS from a God King saucer. Seriously, the Posleen dont exactly need to know a lot of tactics to cause a lot of casualties when their most basic infantry gun is a 1mm railgun that laughs at any modern body armour used by world Armed Forces. Without ofcourse forgetting the 3mm railguns that can go through Bradley's the long way and mission kill M1A2's, or the HVM's which blow everything the fuck up, or the plasma guns that do the same as HVM's. Ofcourse, it also helps that the Posleen have literally billions of combatants.

Shooting missiles at Posties is stupid, not only do you reveal your position for absolutely no gain whatsoever as the Posleen sensor capabilities are simply out of our league, but you waste a perfectly good missile against Postie PD.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

To yet add, sure you might actually score hits to the Lamprey's, C-Dec's etc. with kinetic missiles such as that one if the Posleen vessel in question here wouldnt destroy the launching vechile the moment it came to LOS. The kind of range at which these missiles would be usefull would be spitting range for Posleen weaponry.

[MKSheppard]

Without ofcourse forgetting the 3mm railguns that can go through Bradley's the long way and mission kill M1A2's

More Ringo Stupidity.

Meanwhile, the Indowy have given O'Neal a suit of armor just before the Posleen landings with the following armor rating:

"Sixty-millimeter frontal monomolecular uranium-silicon alloy with energetic reinforcement. The energetic reinforcement is logarithmically autocontrolled against nonrelativistic–velocity projectiles. As the round comes closer to a penetrating angle, the deflection energy increases logarithmically."

Gee, you know, this would be really really great stuff to have mass
produced in 2 foot thicknesses (609mm), because that's how thick the
armor on the M1 is, and installed at Lima, Ohio, replacing the old
Chobham packages; making the M-1 nearly invincible to Posleen attacks.

Also, it would be relatively easy to mass produce this stuff compared
to a ACS suit; because instead of visualizing each and every atom in a complicated piece of battle armor, with all it's various advanced sub
systems, teh Indowy would only have to visualize a flat slab of armor.

[MKSheppard]

To yet add, sure you might actually score hits to the Lamprey's, C-Dec's etc. with kinetic missiles such as that one if the Posleen vessel in question here wouldnt destroy the launching vechile the moment it came to LOS. The kind of range at which these missiles would be usefull would be spitting range for Posleen weaponry.

Do you even know how fast LOSAT is? It's only a few hundred m/sec slower than a 120mm Main gun round. The Posleen would have virtually no time to react to LOSAT. And if LOSAT isn't enough, we can just produce HIBEX. 400Gs of acceleration.

[MKSheppard]

I think the best summation of John Ringo is:

"The Tom Clancy of Sci Fi."

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

To yet add, sure you might actually score hits to the Lamprey's, C-Dec's etc. with kinetic missiles such as that one if the Posleen vessel in question here wouldnt destroy the launching vechile the moment it came to LOS. The kind of range at which these missiles would be usefull would be spitting range for Posleen weaponry.

Do you even know how fast LOSAT is? It's only a few hundred m/sec slower than a 120mm Main gun round. The Posleen would have virtually no time to react to LOSAT. And if LOSAT isn't enough, we can just produce HIBEX. 400Gs of acceleration.

Thanks for providing an accurate number though I had a rough clue of how fast it was. Again, since Posleen are capable of shooting down any projectiles under powered flight, the LOSAT launcher vechile would have to come fairly close (note, I use the term loosely here) in order to make sure it hits the lander. During this time, the Lander has time to detect and destroy the LOSAT launcher, when the LOSAT launches, there wouldnt be much time for the actual Posleen onboard the lander to react to the launch. However thats why they have automated systems.

Pardon my ignorance, what is HIBEX?

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Without ofcourse forgetting the 3mm railguns that can go through Bradley's the long way and mission kill M1A2's

More Ringo Stupidity.

Meanwhile, the Indowy have given O'Neal a suit of armor just before the Posleen landings with the following armor rating:

"Sixty-millimeter frontal monomolecular uranium-silicon alloy with energetic reinforcement. The energetic reinforcement is logarithmically autocontrolled against nonrelativistic–velocity projectiles. As the round comes closer to a penetrating angle, the deflection energy increases logarithmically."

Gee, you know, this would be really really great stuff to have mass
produced in 2 foot thicknesses (609mm), because that's how thick the
armor on the M1 is, and installed at Lima, Ohio, replacing the old
Chobham packages; making the M-1 nearly invincible to Posleen attacks.

Also, it would be relatively easy to mass produce this stuff compared
to a ACS suit; because instead of visualizing each and every atom in a complicated piece of battle armor, with all it's various advanced sub
systems, teh Indowy would only have to visualize a flat slab of armor.

Well they DID devise the M1A3 which could take plasma cannon fire from Posleen Man portable plasma guns. HVM's however still cut through even them like a knife through butter.

[MKSheppard]

Again, since Posleen are capable of shooting down any projectiles under powered flight, the LOSAT launcher vechile would have to come fairly close (note, I use the term loosely here) in order to make sure it hits the lander.

No it doesn't. They're not firing at a tank-sized target, but a very large building sized target. And it's not just a single LOSAT, but several M2 Bradleys armed with it firing at once.

Pardon my ignorance, what is HIBEX?

The most awesome thing ever made.

Linka

Its design goal was the capability to intercept ICBM reentry vehicles at altitudes of less than 6100 m (20000 ft), where the RV would travel at about 3 km/s (10000 fps).

Acceleration was 400 Gs or 3.9 km/sec, more than twice as fast as a 120mm main gun round.

[MKSheppard]

Well they DID devise the M1A3 which could take plasma cannon fire from Posleen Man portable plasma guns. HVM's however still cut through even them like a knife through butter.

Again, why did they waste so much time when they could have had 600mm of that uberarmor used in Mity Mite's suit made up enmasse and put into M1s?

[MKSheppard]

Did the Math.

A 16"/50 HE Shell has a muzzle velocity of 820 m/s, and a weight of 862 kilograms; that equates out to 289.8 megajoules if my math is correct.

(NOTE: the rounds fired at Fredericksburg, VA were HE, not AP, they were firing for effect on massed formations of Posleen)

The 16" Smoothbore of a SheVa is stated to have the power of six 16" shells; so that's 1,738.8 megajoules.

HIBEX on the other hand.......

HIBEX was a 3,500 kilogram missile moving at 3,900 m/s, giving us an impact velocity of 26,618 MJ!!!!!

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

No it doesn't. They're not firing at a tank-sized target, but a very large building sized target. And it's not just a single LOSAT, but several M2 Bradleys armed with it firing at once.

True, however the problem of the Posleen lander turning the launching vechile into crispy still exists. Also, it is kind of questionable what kind of effect would LOSAT even have against Posleen armor considering that individually neither the gravguns or the anti-lander guns of the ACS had much effect against it.

The most awesome thing ever made.

Linka

Its design goal was the capability to intercept ICBM reentry vehicles at altitudes of less than 6100 m (20000 ft), where the RV would travel at about 3 km/s (10000 fps).

Acceleration was 400 Gs or 3.9 km/sec, more than twice as fast as a 120mm main gun round.

Ah now that could have had plenty of utility against landers. Just tip it with a nuke and laugh.

Again, why did they waste so much time when they could have had 600mm of that uberarmor used in Mity Mite's suit made up enmasse and put into M1s? Rolling Eyes

This assumes that the alloy used in the ACS suits would be cheap to produce en masse or easy to produce en masse. From how I recall it, the Indowy build shit by imagining each atom into place or something like that, they would still have to do that with a flat piece of armor plate even if it would be easier.

[Winston Blake]

To yet add, sure you might actually score hits to the Lamprey's, C-Dec's etc. with kinetic missiles such as that one if the Posleen vessel in question here wouldnt destroy the launching vechile the moment it came to LOS. The kind of range at which these missiles would be usefull would be spitting range for Posleen weaponry.

Do you even know how fast LOSAT is? It's only a few hundred m/sec slower than a 120mm Main gun round. The Posleen would have virtually no time to react to LOSAT. And if LOSAT isn't enough, we can just produce HIBEX. 400Gs of acceleration.

Additionally, in the further continuation of the CKEM program, the HATM test missile "with a peak velocity greater than Mach 6.0, enables the user to engage four targets in 20 seconds with overwhelming kinetic energy lethality." It was tested way back in August, 2002.

Hypervelocity Anti-Tank Missile at Mach 6.0: 2,041.74 m/s
M289A1 120mm APFSDS at muzzle velocity: 1,575 m/s

Further, i think this means it can be fired from TOW launchers:

The size of the current HATM ballistic test vehicle (BTV) is six-inches in diameter and 50-inches in length, providing potential compatibility with more than 6,000 existing Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) launch systems in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.

[Winston Blake]

Gah, sorry for the double post, i only just found thiscollection of sources.

The HATM has a range of 5000 meters.
The development program began in 2003, and is expected to be completed in 2007, with deliveries to begin in 2008.
The HATM/CKEM is expected to be the primary direct fire armament of FCS.
The HATM/CKEM is expected to produce 10 megajoules of impact energy(vs 7 and change for the M-829A3 APFSDSDU round of the M-1A2 120mm gun.)
HATM accelerates to it's max velocity (over Mach 6.6) in 750 meters.

Mach 6.6 is 2,245.914 m/s. The Mach 6.0 was an earlier version. At 10 MJ each it'd take 174 TOW launchers to equal a 'SheVa' shot. HATMs only weigh 23 kg. Note i'm unfamiliar with the series.

[MKSheppard]

True, however the problem of the Posleen lander turning the launching vechile into crispy still exists.

How? The Posleen won't have any time to react before the shot hits, and if you set it up in a properly arranged kill sack, the only units capable of unleashing that kind of firepower will be killed in the first salvo.

Also, it is kind of questionable what kind of effect would LOSAT even have against Posleen armor considering that individually neither the gravguns or the anti-lander guns of the ACS had much effect against it.

If we assume a 1 gram ACS Bullet is travelling at 50% the speed of light; that gives us an impact energy of 11,250,000 Megajoules. Considering that a 16" shell with only 289.8 megajoules was able to kill a Posleen lander with a single shot; you'd think an ACS grav-gun with a fantastically high rate of fire would be able to you know, punch through whatever the Posleen have with a burst a few seconds long.

But Ringo can't even make his fucking universe consistent.

Ah now that could have had plenty of utility against landers. Just tip it with a nuke and laugh.

We don't even NEED a nuke. Just the impact of it is the equivalent of 150 tons of TNT; but if you really want a nuke; SPRINT, the production HIBEX had a 1 kiloton warhead.

This assumes that the alloy used in the ACS suits would be cheap to produce en masse or easy to produce en masse. From how I recall it, the Indowy build shit by imagining each atom into place or something like that, they would still have to do that with a flat piece of armor plate even if it would be easier.

Excuse me, but do you even know how ACS suits are set up? They're fantastically complicated, with lots of circuitry and stuff crisscrossing throughout the suit. The Indowy have to place each atom into place from a mental picture they have in their heads. Mentally visuallizing a solid slab of armor is going to be massively easier than visualizing an ACS suit's myriad subsystems all crisscrossing under the surface

[MKSheppard]

At 10 MJ each it'd take 174 TOW launchers to equal a 'SheVa' shot. HATMs only weigh 23 kg. Note i'm unfamiliar with the series.

Actually, it would only take about 29 HATMs to kill a posleen lander; and that equates to about 15 HATM-Bradleys; if we assume that the Bradleys will ripple fire their missiles a split second after each other. Remember, a mear 16"/50 HE round of only 289.8 MJ was able to toast a lander.

[Winston Blake]

At 10 MJ each it'd take 174 TOW launchers to equal a 'SheVa' shot. HATMs only weigh 23 kg. Note i'm unfamiliar with the series.

Actually, it would only take about 29 HATMs to kill a posleen lander; and that equates to about 15 HATM-Bradleys; if we assume that the Bradleys will ripple fire their missiles a split second after each other. Remember, a mear 16"/50 HE round of only 289.8 MJ was able to toast a lander.

I was just going by your figure for the 'SheVa' cannon, like i said, i'm unfamiliar with the series. Also, given that the TOW-like Spike-ER launcher weighs only 19kg (without missile), i wouldn't be surprised if they could've put 30 HATMs on a single modified Bradley chassis.

If we assume a 1 gram ACS Bullet is travelling at 50% the speed of light; that gives us an impact energy of 11,250,000 Megajoules. Considering that a 16" shell with only 289.8 megajoules was able to kill a Posleen lander with a single shot; you'd think an ACS grav-gun with a fantastically high rate of fire would be able to you know, punch through whatever the Posleen have with a burst a few seconds long.

Is there any mention of how the ACS is supposed to handle the recoil of even a single ACS bullet (a la Eraser)? Even if the suit weighs 10 tons it'd get kicked back at over 60km/h. The only rationalisation i can think of is that the guns use pure handwavium, and that the Posleen use the same brand of handwavium such that ACS bullets can be somehow countered. I.e. Two WTFs make a SoD.

It's probably worth mentioning that on momentum, the 16" shell has over 4 times as much as the ACS bullet. An idea i had some time ago for solving the fact that Halo's Covenant shields vastly overmatch Human weaponry was that MAC cannons fire heavy, high-momentum, relatively-low-energy projectiles in order to simply break the projectors with force, rather than surpass their designed energy limit. Of course, the ACS guns rate-of-fire makes 4x utterly negligible.

Quickie regarding HATM: taking 10MJ and Mach 6.6, the HATM rod is 4kg, so on momentum you'd need about 2.7x as many HATMs as you'd need based on energy.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

How? The Posleen won't have any time to react before the shot hits, and if you set it up in a properly arranged kill sack, the only units capable of unleashing that kind of firepower will be killed in the first salvo.

The Posleen propably wouldnt but the automated systems, that do pretty much 95% of everything aboard Postie vessels, would. Those same automated systems would detect and destroy the LOSAT launcher beyond its own range.

If we assume a 1 gram ACS Bullet is travelling at 50% the speed of light; that gives us an impact energy of 11,250,000 Megajoules. Considering that a 16" shell with only 289.8 megajoules was able to kill a Posleen lander with a single shot; you'd think an ACS grav-gun with a fantastically high rate of fire would be able to you know, punch through whatever the Posleen have with a burst a few seconds long.

But Ringo can't even make his fucking universe consistent.

Actually, when I asked Ringo and those who were his science advisors in the book, the mass of the round is more likely around 0.2 grams and the velocity of something around 1% c which results in around 9 megajoules.

The SheVa rounds also are tipped with nukes for effect.

And the ACS gravguns were only capable of destroying some vulnerable and extended parts of the landers like sensors, weapons etc.

We don't even NEED a nuke. Just the impact of it is the equivalent of 150 tons of TNT; but if you really want a nuke; SPRINT, the production HIBEX had a 1 kiloton warhead.

Nuke'em for effect.

Excuse me, but do you even know how ACS suits are set up? They're fantastically complicated, with lots of circuitry and stuff crisscrossing throughout the suit. The Indowy have to place each atom into place from a mental picture they have in their heads. Mentally visuallizing a solid slab of armor is going to be massively easier than visualizing an ACS suit's myriad subsystems all crisscrossing under the surface.

Uh..yea I've read the books a couple of times. Yes I know how they are setup, that does not negate the point that the Indowy STILL have to imagine each atom into place in an armor plate because thats how they create stuff. And ofcourse its easier, however whether the easier production would be enough to fill the massive demand for the stuff is a different matter.

[Winston Blake]

Actually, when I asked Ringo and those who were his science advisors in the book, the mass of the round is more likely around 0.2 grams and the velocity of something around 1% c which results in around 9 megajoules.

I come up with 900 MJ. At a casual 800rpm those numbers give 12 gigawatts and 8 kN (or the weight of over 800kg, applied horizontally to the shoulder (is that how they fire them?)).

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Actually, when I asked Ringo and those who were his science advisors in the book, the mass of the round is more likely around 0.2 grams and the velocity of something around 1% c which results in around 9 megajoules.

I come up with 900 MJ. At a casual 800rpm those numbers give 12 gigawatts and 8 kN (or the weight of over 800kg, applied horizontally to the shoulder (is that how they fire them?)).

Whoops, 900 MJ, misplaced a decimal point there. And yeah, they fire them from either the hip or the shoulder, doesnt really matter since they are auto-targeting. The rifles supposedly have some funky gravity effects to deal with the recoil.

[Plekhanov]

Because one of the authors is a Neanderthal who makes you look like a flaming liberal, Shep. And I honestly don't mean that as a slight against you. He's just one of those people who'd consider the Shep Solution lacking because it wouldn't be personal enough.

Your not wrong just take a look at this extract from the prologue of 'A State of Disobedience' a book who wrote without a moderating influence:

No more could one political party or the other afford losing its control of at least one body of the government: Executive, Legislative or Judicial, for without some political or quasi-political safe harbor, some means of countering and stymieing the opposing party, every member of each party faced a similar fate. None were whole; none pure, and all knew it.

Yet, despite this mutual interest in maintaining the balance of power, the rewards of attaining control were simply too great to be forgone. For the Democrats, control—could it but be achieved—would make the revolution begun in the 1930s complete. Control of the economy, control of education, control of the environment (difficult to understand now, with the then-common predictions of ecological disaster proven wrong, but a powerful concern at the time); could all three branches be made to fall to the Democracy, however briefly in theory, the Democrats could so arrange matters that no one and nothing could ever remove them from power, or alter their vision of America's proper and just future.


For the Republicans, however, the Democratic dream was a nightmare: thought control through linguistic control, micromanagement of the economy by those least suited to economic power, social engineering under the aegis of the most doctrinaire of the social engineers, disarmament of the population and the creation of a police state to rival that of Stalin or Hitler, at least in its scope if not by design in its evil.

Indeed, it could be said that it was precisely the seventy years of open and quasi war with first Hitler, then Stalin, then with the heirs of Stalin that had put the United States in the position in which it found itself at the beginning of the 21st Century.