Martian war machines

[Darth_Shinji]

Why is it, that most have missed their greatest weaakness, getting Knocked over. (I'm not sure if it made it into the Movie, or the Radio Drama, but I'm Talking about the H.M.S Thunderchild.) The Military vessel is evacuating civilians across the Ocean to America, when three Walker's show up, gathering speed it rams into the one leg, knocking it over and destroying that Walker, (The other two destroy the Thunderchild, but it does point out a flaw in the Walker's armour, a fast enough target can knock it over, and when it does it dies. Now perhaps this dosn't matter with todays tech off the sea, but in many Sci-Fi worlds it will be a major problem.

Actaully, thats the novel. In the movie they are hovercraft with "invisible legs" of magnetic force. They only felled over when they crew lost control and died from the desiese.

[Skelron]

Hay and the erm.. whats the word for it, Musical seems so far off, Audio Version. (hay Radio's the American one, it's the one with a Lot of singing..)

[Patrick Degan]

It seems we might be getting a little closer to a common ground. But...

It seems the bomb in the movie is not based on anything real then. The director obviously was not basing this bomb on any real bomb and just wanted to immpress the audence with its power. Lets take the quote for absolute truth for awhile, not only was it dropped pin-pointed, its yeild was above the 100kt limit you stated, something not phyical possible. What should we do?

The quote from the movie, which you yourself cited, was that the bomb used was "the latest thing in nuclear fission", ten times more powerful than any bomb ever used before. The most powerful fission devices manufactured by the United States were between 30-40KT in blast yield. At most, the bomb in the movie yields a blast of 400KT. That is certainly nowhere near a megaton-range device, as you seem to believe was used.

In regards to the drop, I'm sorry, but the movie does not definitively show that the targeting was pinpoint, and the physics of moving bodies in atmosphere gives me every reason to doubt that it was.

The view was far away. We couldn;t even see the mwms, only the shields. There is no way of judging distance between them.

We certainly see in the movie that the shield blisters do not cover a very large radius around the machines. We see three shield blisters clustered close together as they detect the approach of the Flying Wing. We certainly can judge the distance between the seperate shield envelopes and extrapolate how close together the actual machines were.

we can estimate the heat beam. I though you meant estimate somesort of power limit used between the shields and the heat beam (like in a ST ship). That we can't calc becuese we do not know exactly how thier tech works.

"How the tech works" is immaterial. Observed phenomena gives us the basis for calculations. That tells us what the weapon does and how much energy went into the beam.

No, there is variation in the heat-beams power. Here are two examples.

A) The heat-beam hits a missles vechile, and it turns bright red and dissapears, setting the sorounding area on fire.

No, that was the disintegration beam, not the heat ray.

B) The beam hits the outside of the bunker. Setting many things on fire and a person who was directky hit by the beam. He didn't turn to ash.

That was the heat ray, not the disintegrator.

There a few more if you need them. And the MWM can increase /decrease the heat-beams range, why not the power?

It controlled the range simply by adjusting the ballistic angle of the emitter. The Martian weapons were basically Big Dumb Devices —single function weapons.

There are many battles in the SW universe that could have benifited one side or the other to use a shield like this, they never do. If it was easy for planetary shields to be used this way I'm sure they would have sometime or the other. You need an example for this one, sorry.

Who said anything about planetary shields? I'm talking about area theatre shields. And as far as examples on that score are concerned, there is certainly Return Of The Jedi, in which the Imperials extended a theatre shield into space to protect the Death Star.

Just because Ak-47 is common, doesn't mean its standrad issue for the U.S military. Also it appears that a shield and ak are not the same thing.

I never said they were. My point was that a common technology is readily obtainable by any military force.

I've looked in all my sources, and not one has a shield like the one you want for the major armies, not one source. If you can't find a source that says that they do indeed have this shields. Then they don't have them, even if they should.

Immaterial. The technology exists, and the Empire can certainly duplicate or acquire it for themselves and equip their units accordingly.

And I've never said a sw army couldn't beat them, just that it would be a horrible battle, and heavy causilities. They might even lose the first battle and make this customized army you want in order to win.

The army at Geonosis could knock down an MWM formation.

It would mean opening a window for the MWM as well. And the gungain shield, the only one like ths, takes a bit of time to close (If I remember correctly).

A risk, to be certain, but that's war. And with sufficently powerful enough weapons, an acceptable one.

AT-ATs would certainly carry heavy enough guns to do the job and at long ranges. The LAATs used at Geonosis would also be effective in the attack. But in essence, that is pretty much using a mechanised batallion as your primary instrument of attack, which means you're still using ground troops. Just not on foot with only blasters or mortar launchers.

Semantics. I mean armour, you meant infanty (at least thats what I thought).

I think we're closer to a common ground on the issue at this point. I think we've been getting hung up in semantics and misconceptions. Certainly I would recommend a mechanised batallion over ordinary foot soldiers carrying no more than their standard-issue infantry blasters, just as I would recommend it for any army formation running up against an enemy mechanised unit.

[Skelron]

Whoops missed completly the point of this being about the movie Guess I kind of erm, forgot it by the time I bothered to post a reply. In my defence My first encounter with War of the Worlds was the erm Musical... urrgghh I hate that word, it brings up visions of people singing and dancing in a Movie, not what I mean. I mean the Audio Cassette version, (UUULLLAAAHHH) Then the movie followed by the book. I guess I always think of the Book then the Audio version then the Movie. (Why the book first well, I see that as the ultimate source being the original.) so please ignore my comments on the HMS Thunderchild. Thank you for your time.

[Darth_Shinji]

It seems we might be getting a little closer to a common ground. But...

The quote from the movie, which you yourself cited, was that the bomb used was "the latest thing in nuclear fission", ten times more powerful than any bomb ever used before. The most powerful fission devices manufactured by the United States were between 30-40KT in blast yield. At most, the bomb in the movie yields a blast of 400KT. That is certainly nowhere near a megaton-range device, as you seem to believe was used.

Thats subjective. I he said anything exploded before, which could mean the 2 megaton theom you admited to being made the year of the movie. Which would make it a 20 megaton weapon, or he could of the fission part wrong and was referring to a version of the themo-nukes already tested, this last one would be the most logical of these choices. KT avove a 100 is immpossible for fission devices, and the 2 mt themonuke is at least based on known facts.

In regards to the drop, I'm sorry, but the movie does not definitively show that the targeting was pinpoint, and the physics of moving bodies in atmosphere gives me every reason to doubt that it was.

The movie took liberates with this and the bomb. Lets let this point go. Its only a matter of opionion now.

We certainly see in the movie that the shield blisters do not cover a very large radius around the machines. We see three shield blisters clustered close together as they detect the approach of the Flying Wing. We certainly can judge the distance between the seperate shield envelopes and extrapolate how close together the actual machines were.

They never glowed like that before. How knows what was going on with them? But I conceed that there appeared close.

we can estimate the heat beam. I though you meant estimate somesort of power limit used between the shields and the heat beam (like in a ST ship). That we can't calc becuese we do not know exactly how thier tech works.

"How the tech works" is immaterial. Observed phenomena gives us the basis for calculations. That tells us what the weapon does and how much energy went into the beam.

Conceeded, but the power does varie.

No, that was the disintegration beam, not the heat ray.

No, this is the heat beam. It clearly showed it, and the distingation beam does not set things on fire, amnd admits a bight green glow on an on a object it hits.

That was the heat ray, not the disintegrator.

Yes, and so was the first one. I'm not wrong. I've watched it a couple of times.

It controlled the range simply by adjusting the ballistic angle of the emitter. The Martian weapons were basically Big Dumb Devices —single function weapons.

They seem to be able to adjust the power, maybe to conserve energy or preserve the enviroment as much as possible.

Who said anything about planetary shields? I'm talking about area theatre shields. And as far as examples on that score are concerned, there is certainly Return Of The Jedi, in which the Imperials extended a theatre shield into space to protect the Death Star.

okay, I forgot about the ds2, but they still do not use it on ground bases to protect against ground attacks. They could of benifit from one one hoth, and the attack on the bases with the solo children in DE. I'm sure there is at least one battle in the eu that would of benefited from it, yet I've never heard of it.

I never said they were. My point was that a common technology is readily obtainable by any military force.

Why wasn't used in the battle on couscant? Such sheilds would of been very useful for ubran fighting. Why isn't such a hand shield used by anyone but the gungains? Not one example I know of.

Immaterial. The technology exists, and the Empire can certainly duplicate or acquire it for themselves and equip their units accordingly.

So where is it?

The army at Geonosis could knock down an MWM formation.

It would be horrible, but prehaps, if they knock the sheilds down with the armour/airsurport before the meson beam kills them.

It would mean opening a window for the MWM as well. And the gungain shield, the only one like ths, takes a bit of time to close (If I remember correctly).

A risk, to be certain, but that's war. And with sufficently powerful enough weapons, an acceptable one.

AT-ATs would certainly carry heavy enough guns to do the job and at long ranges. The LAATs used at Geonosis would also be effective in the attack. But in essence, that is pretty much using a mechanised batallion as your primary instrument of attack, which means you're still using ground troops. Just not on foot with only blasters or mortar launchers.

Semantics. I mean armour, you meant infanty (at least thats what I thought).

I think we're closer to a common ground on the issue at this point. I think we've been getting hung up in semantics and misconceptions. Certainly I would recommend a mechanised batallion over ordinary foot soldiers carrying no more than their standard-issue infantry blasters, just as I would recommend it for any army formation running up against an enemy mechanised unit.

True

[Darth_Shinji]

Whoops missed completly the point of this being about the movie Guess I kind of erm, forgot it by the time I bothered to post a reply. In my defence My first encounter with War of the Worlds was the erm Musical... urrgghh I hate that word, it brings up visions of people singing and dancing in a Movie, not what I mean. I mean the Audio Cassette version, (UUULLLAAAHHH) Then the movie followed by the book. I guess I always think of the Book then the Audio version then the Movie. (Why the book first well, I see that as the ultimate source being the original.) so please ignore my comments on the HMS Thunderchild. Thank you for your time.

Don't worry about it. Though that put a funny picture in my head of War of the Worlds: The musical! People dancing around, singing that the maritains are going to eat them.