SD.net's World OOC/Discussion thread MK IV

[Mr Bean]

I don't want to be beating a dead horse(And the point is minor considering uclear war is upon us), but I still think your satellite system is too complicated to have been developed in as much secret as you say without serious integration issues. All the design teams making separate parts are likely to have all sorts of problems putting it all together, especially since they don't know what the final product will be. In space projects, the tolerance for mistakes is very small. I'm reminded of the fuck up where a NASA probe crashed because ne team used metric and one used American measurements. Even if your integration team can work miracles and get the bugs ironed out, that would take more time than if everyone knew what they were building.

Again what needs to be intergrated? SCORECARD is
1. A Satellite strong enough to withstand acceleration holding half, one, three or large ton tungsten blocks

2. These tungsten blocks have an engine on top, and a integrated aiming systems based off GPS and various internal sensors(Something to measure speed, something to measure temperature, something to measure location(GPS))

And.... that's it,

Kinetic Kill Vech'sare moronically easy to build, it's a hunk of rock with an engine on one end, the only complicated areas are aiming which can be conducted under general military development(Oh No the UKB is creating GPS bombs!.... Except.. it already has those as does the MESS)

Rajet this is not a something along the lines of the other parts of Star Wars, IE Bomb-pumped lasers, giant X-ray defense stations, "Rods from God" is one of the cheapest weapon systems you can make, and so many other parts of it are pre-existing in any part of any first world nation.

Again, find me ONE part which would be hard to integrate?

Then there is the fact of just what the hell you are telling your generals, war planners, and parliament. They would very much like to know what the strategic deterrent is, in fact your rods of god seems to be the cornerstone of your strategic defense plan. How the hell can any defense plans be made if less than 200 people know this system even exists? The General's and their staffs would have to be let in the loop; otherwise they would all resign because you have no nukes and are cutting back on the conventional forces. Then there is how you got funding for it. Your country seems to be a parliamentary Monarchy, so does the parliament not ask what all the money is being spent on?

Who said less than 200 people know it exists? More people know it exists than that, you assume because it takes less than two hundred people to put togther a "fuel tank" for a HISCO satellite that it means only 200 people know what what exists. There are perhaps four thousand people who know about HISCO if you aid in targeters and people running command centers but until they rotate to a different duty station the chances of a military side leak are pretty low.

You seem to think I would not bother to try and find a few thousand patriotic people with the right qualifications and a proven ability to keep their mouth shut.






Look Raj, if you want to call Shennagains fine, but find someplace the informaiton can leak from, and fucking find something that's impossible to "integrate"

Rods from God has been around for forty years now, it's a highly simple concept, not a god-damn satellite shooting coil-gun, it's ROCK(made of tungsten) with an engine on one end that's aerodynamicly shaped and guided by internal sensors, sensors already EXISTING for my conventional weapon systems. The only two areas of concern are as noted, designing the satellite that can hold very heavy objects while under a great deal of acceleration(And I spent a year doing just that) and creating a acceleration rocket(Which along with the satellite is one part that had to be developed secret)

While Part I has to be black and totally black, Part II can be covered because you know what uses rocket engines? Missiles! Maybe I tell the workers your making new Patriot missile engines, or S-400 engines. Or any one of a dozen rocket based systems. Rods from God is easy, and it's the main reason I chose it.

[Mr Bean]

Lets repeat that one last time
SCORECARD is a satellite launched via a publicly created VULKAN heavy lifter space-craft. The satellite is a three part system, the first publicly created is a high speed internet communication system designed with multi-part backups and extra dishes to ensure it can remain in operation for a good fifty years, the upper part of the satellite was a grid of dense members designed to hold large fuel tanks ensuring that the HISCO internet satellite could stay operation and more importantly move around as needed with a targeted goal of a fifty year life-time.

Engineers being Engineers the gird was designed with a safety margin of 500% because the last thing you need during acceleration is a fuel tank tearing free of the satellite and destroying it. In fact fuel tanks of the size of KKV's loaded with solid state fuel would weigh a good 50% of what a solid block weighs(Fuel under pressure is heavy), so instead of 300% odd percent safety margin for a solid tungsten block

Now we have the ability to drop an empty fuel tank, useful and you can publicly admit it does such a thing, being able to do that makes sense because empty fuel tanks are simply more mass and being able to toss one out to burn up on re-entry would increase it's lifespan even more. And in case of leak you can toss the tank.

Now the HISCO satellite gets assembled, then brought to White Sands, the satellite fully assembled with "fuel tanks" then placed atop a Vulkan.

The KKV itself once in orbit is fired simply by using a GPS system close to identical to a standard GPS bomb which all nations use except it has backup firing positions based off a global visual world grid the HISCO satellite can measure against and aim the KKV itself.

All the KKV needs to do is go from orbit at position Grid 500 X, 300 Y to ground at positon 3952 X, 1000 Y or whatever grid. The reason it knows what grid is because the HISCO satellite has told it what grid it needs to go to via laser-links or directional burst transmission or whatever system I want.

KKV's are DUMB, they are EASY the hard part comes from getting them into orbit to begin with, not shooting the things down. Why? Because a KKV will hit ground 100% of the time.

[CmdrWilkens]

Bean my only quesiton is that if you are using pure tungsten or tungsten steel allows, as it seems you are suggesting, then how do you deal with the ablation issue melting away half you vehicle. At 11+ km/s you are looking at peak thermal in the 10-12,000K range and tungsten melts away at under 4,000. I'm not saying you haven't done something just that a nice little needle running through the atmosphere is going to burn the fuck up before impact and spread a lot of little pellets that may do damage but have a LOT smaller hit chance and what ones do his can be easily repaired.

[CmdrWilkens]

1) You aren't being hit with Nukes...period. There are no nukes being fired at your country. oh sure they are aimed at you but fired...nope.

Then what are those "special" TLAMS being fired at me and hitting the LeMay Forest? "Special" is a common euphemism for "nuclear".

2) You still haven't answered how you went from your initial allocation of 600 fighters to 763 combatant aircraft in your OP

I annouced well ago that I was forming up a few more fighter groups and bomber groups -- it was announced long ago, the same post where I not coincidentally cut my army a lot, and also cut my navy. I think it was for my FY2010 budget.

Aditionally, in Bakewell program report, I announced the delivery of the following B-1 aircraft:

2009: All Lot I aircraft (10 in total) were built and delivered to the Shepnukistani Air Force.

2010: All Lot II Aircraft (29 in total) will be built and delivered to the Shepnukistani Air Force etc.

Yes but that would be 39 aircraft which would be 639 operational NOT the 763 you show in your OP. You are showing in your reference thread 124 more aircraft than you can possibly have based on that and I'm wondering where you are going to take reductions or where the other 124 came from.

[Raj Ahten]

The Shenanigans is the part where the system is up and running in three years with no hiccups at all, with all the systems being designed by different people. Nothing involving spacecraft is easy. Frankly all the work done on KKV's is pretty much all experimental, and testing will be slowed down if you have to vet every person involved. Speed and Secrecy and contradictory, but you are saying that both were achieved with perfect or near perfect results.

I've already given several places info could leak from. A technician with money problems. The Soviet Union used this to devastating effect. One of your counter Intel guys could go rogue, Robert Hanson anyone? He got a hold of and leaked all kinds of shit. Someone on the design team who doesn't think hiding the system is a good idea could just leak it as well. In the past, you've had your sat guys leaking photos to the BBC, so why would this program be immune? Finding 4000 qualified people who won’t leak anything would be hard. How many rocket scientists are there? Only one needs to have second thoughts. Then there is the parliament. Unless the King controls the purse strings, they will want to know what the hell their money is being spent on and what the strategic deterrent is. You go hiding all these programs, auditors working for parliament are likely going to find them and ask what all these big engines are being used for. Of course, you could always just muzzle any thing parliament does by claiming it was a national security issue, and they way your country seems to love secrecy; I wouldn't be surprised if they do that.

I also frankly think your strategy of keeping the system secret is dangerous. Nations that don't know about the system, such as the IRT, may assume you have no strategic deterrent and act accordingly.

Finally, on the 200 man issue, that was the number I heard and I apologize if I misinterpreted what you meant.

[K. A. Pital]

A lot of OMSK nations participated in the project, but hints were leaked here and there, about our space forces, etc. etc. The mere fact that Bean made a 175 ton lift capable booster is good enough a reason to suspect there's something too heavy for general civilian purposes, launched up there.

Also, since a massive attack by KVs has not been tried, we can't really know the reliability of the system (it may certainly not be 100% reliable).

But even with a non-100% reliability it is a powerful weapon of deterrent.

Nations that don't know about the system, such as the IRT, may assume you have no strategic deterrent and act accordingly.

That would be a great fireworks show

Hahaha. Seriously, after Bean sold his military basically stripped off the navy and army, would anyone still think he has "no deterrent"?

[Raj Ahten]

A lot of OMSK nations participated in the project, but hints were leaked here and there, about our space forces, etc. etc. The mere fact that Bean made a 175 ton lift capable booster is good enough a reason to suspect there's something too heavy for general civilian purposes, launched up there.

The problem I have with this is not that the system was develeoped with out hints being dropped, but that Bean is saying his security is perfect and there was not even the possibility of a leak. Which is bullshit.

Mr Bean, can you give me the name of ANY secret developement program of similiar size that didn't leak something? The US nuclear program leaked, and still leaks like a sieve.

[K. A. Pital]

Mr Bean, can you give me the name of ANY secret developement program of similiar size that didn't leak something?

The Soviet space/rocket program was pretty secretive - it managed to confuse NATO many times with faux-rockets, or unknown dual-use systems, etc.

Example: Korolev developed a nuclear "supermissile" which was reported by people but it was thought of as tall tales in the West. After the secrecy was gradually lifted, it turned out such a project very well existed.

[Coyote]

Remember, Raj, we were given, under the OP, a loyal and dedicated population, so while it may be a bit of a stretch to assume they'd willingly accept North-Korea-like servitude, they would be willing to work diligently and loyally on a secret project that didn't have a negative impact on their lives.

One of the reasons we have so many inefficiencies in our real world is because of a lot of bureaucratic inertia and entrenched interests that all want a cut of the pie for themselves, be it for political, economic or ideological purposes. Here, however, we started with a clean slate and no axes to grind, and no entrenched interests to interfere.

Gradually, as time goes by, and people fill into their roles, this sort of political baggage collection will, eventually, attrit away at out efficiency, but there's none of the hundreds of years of head-start that we have in reality (ie, in the US, business conglomerates that stretch back to the 19th century, all with politicians in their back pockets)...

[The Yosemite Bear]

anyone got any idea on how many immigrants I may get knocking at my door over all of this?

[MKSheppard]

I'm about to go to bed, but decided to log on one last time on my other computer to point out an inconvient fact to the MESS:

I actually did consider artillery fired nukes, but discarded them. Not because I'm an evil maniacal ruthless genocidial warmongerer, who likes his 50 MT devices; but because of fissile budgetary issues.

Your SM-33 gun and it's nukes; well....At 3 RPM with a 30 minute bombardment from ten guns, thats what 900 devices.

One of the major issues in the early fifties, was a doctrinal slapfight between the US Army and US Air force over fissile material; there was a limited amount available -- same as there is today in SDN world -- none of our nuclear plants have been in production long enough to produce the scads of material we need to do everything we'd like.

You also have to factor in the fact that you will need to divert a not-insignificant quantity of fissile to your scientists for engineering and R&D; to get hands on experience in basic stuff; IIRC, I had almost 20% of my HEU stockpile diverted for that purpose; simple experiments, etc (I don't have the file on this computer so I can't give you an exact amount).

So, we've got limited fissile available; getting back to the US Army/USAF fight. Well, the US Army wanted nuclear weapons for it's field armies, to fire from cannons and from atomic bazookas; and thus was the problem. Really small nuclear devices use up an inordinately large amount of fissile compared to their yield; it's why the USAF didn't want the Army to have large amounts of nuclear artillery shells in the fifties; it would have sucked up an enormous amount of scarce fissile on low-yield devices which are short ranged.

Also, the tinier you get, the more problems you run into with devices fizzling. You'll have to burn up a lot of fissile in fizzles before you can get a small device that works.

Finally, the device is going to have to be really rugged and tough; the typical acceleration of a shell fired from a super long range artillery piece with a 100~ km range is around 7,500 gees. I don't think anyone's reached the level of development and technical proficiency to get linear implosion devices and the critical timing devices, etc needed for an efficient relatively large yield artillery shell to work in SDN world.

So you're stuck with advanced gun type devices for artillery applications; which are horribly inefficient, but are assured of working. Oh, and their yields are limited; 50 kt is pretty generous for an advanced gun type bomb.

So yeah, go ahead and build scpres of gun batteries stocked with hundreds of gun-type shells.

[Coyote]

Like I said, remember: you're not getting nuked with those arty shells. Don't post a nuclear attack that'll just have to be retconned!

[MKSheppard]

Like I said, remember: you're not getting nuked with those arty shells. Don't post a nuclear attack that'll just have to be retconned!

I'm pointing out the major flaw in your artillery idea. It's enormously wasteful of precious fissile.

I mean, just 200 nuclear shells for them, at around 45 kg of HEU per shell (Little boy was 65~ kg we'll assume much work has been done in increasing the efficiency of gun type bombs), will require 9 metric tons of HEU; 400 some 18 metric tons, and 800 some 36 metric tons.

[Coyote]

Like I said, remember: you're not getting nuked with those arty shells. Don't post a nuclear attack that'll just have to be retconned!

I'm pointing out the major flaw in your artillery idea. It's enormously wasteful of precious fissile.

Yeah, like I said-- they're not nukes. I'm using Red Tech targeting info from pre-OMSK breakup, and hitting mostly pastureland, rangeland, etc, to prove a point and shake up the people-- I didn't even want to waste my time with trying to get cruise missiles or shells into your well-guared areas, I know they'd be locked down tight.

But civilians will be shaken up and perceive weakness if "the heartland" is whacked, even in spectacularly pointless-seeming displayes, because they feel vulnerable...

Psychological, basically, since my own nuke arsenal is pitifully small. I haven't committed them yet.

I did go back and retcon the post where I had the map of the impact zone; I put in that the shells were nuke "capable" but not nuclear.

[Mr Bean]

Bean my only quesiton is that if you are using pure tungsten or tungsten steel allows, as it seems you are suggesting, then how do you deal with the ablation issue melting away half you vehicle. At 11+ km/s you are looking at peak thermal in the 10-12,000K range and tungsten melts away at under 4,000. I'm not saying you haven't done something just that a nice little needle running through the atmosphere is going to burn the fuck up before impact and spread a lot of little pellets that may do damage but have a LOT smaller hit chance and what ones do his can be easily repaired.

Again your looking at Peak thermal only during the last 120 kilometers of the run, which the air-pressure is enough to melt it. There is simply not enough time for major material loss due to heat.

More to the point I low-ball my estimates taking a 15% hit by factoring in ablative because even if you toss a chunk of metal into a blast furnace it's not going to heat that fast.

Plus the air-itself works as a cusion for me, since air heats up, this heats up the tungsten(Which FYI has the highest natural melting point) the KKV is going to heat up.

More to the point I can take advantage of it, sorry ladies and genltment but there's no way to describe it without calling it penis shapped. You use a mushroom head end on the KKV, the head begins to melt, and the shape of the end of the KKV flows the plasama around the body, by the time the head is melted through the KKV has already impacted, in fact because of tungsten's properties and the carbon-steel matrix you gain precious seconds to get the KKV through the atmosphere and into the target.

Let me describe for you a "war-head"
This Warhead is mushroom shaped, inside the "cap" of the mushroom is solid-tungstun with thin pads of steel and air-pockets. The mushroom hits the atomsphere and does not instantly heat up to 12k range, what it does is heat up the air molecules in the atmosphere via friction which in turn heats up the metal and because of it's speed generates a plasma field by using a honeycomb air/steel/tungstun matrix I'm accepting that the KKV will begin metaling but do so in a slow enough way that I last that eleven seconds with the KKV largely intact.

As for Raj Ahten I'll say this again, did I say perfect security? No, but SCORECARD has not been in existence long enough for it to leak, no one has left the project yet, most leaks occur when that happens. When you leave PROJECT:Monkey Mind-Control your chances of talking about it talking about it go waay up.
It would have leaked, given enough time, there has not been enough time, the project was not yet complete(Targeted goal of 74 SCORECARD able satellites)

[TimothyC]

Next time we do this - remind me to get some better fighters to start with so I don't spend money on a boondoggle like the Tejas.

[K. A. Pital]

It's enormously wasteful of precious fissile.

Oh Shep... That's okay, as long as we hear explosions instead of prayers to Stuart Slade.

none of our nuclear plants have been in production long enough to produce the scads of material we need to do everything we'd like.

Look, here's the deal. You built 8 gigatons almost instantly. You had concentrated them in 100 megaton devices (presumably of the "Ivan" type). That's tons of nuclear material, isn't it? The best weight ratio is 18 MT per 1 ton of weight, that means you have aquired 444 tons of uranium (that is if ALL your devices are Ivan-type superbombs, and not less efficient ones).

At 3 RPM with a 30 minute bombardment from ten guns, thats what 900 devices

Yes, that's 900 devices. Even if there's a scant 45 kg of fissile material, that would only be 40,5 tons. Not 400-1000 tons - the amount YOU need, Shep.

So yeah, go ahead and build scpres of gun batteries stocked with hundreds of gun-type shells.

Why? There's only so many of them. If we assume 50kt devices, that means that sole rail-mobile battery can rain 45 megatons on you in 30 minutes with dispersal; not too bad.

If we add a Babylon-type device, that could drop a few nukes onto your capital, obliterating it; remember, I have data on your military bases from OMSK days.

See Shep, you see it as a total genocide. So you forced people to develop systems not designed to "win" a nuclear war, but simply to slaughter some Shepnukistan citizens.

There's no major flaw: you'll obliterate everyone, but your citizens will die. Deal with it.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, my mangs can build Babylons. In Round Two, we're gonna proliferate it obscenely.

MacMillan, Merchant of Menace

[K. A. Pital]

If some people want to "fight" in a nuclear war, inefficiency of systems designed to counter these people will not be measured in uranium wasted, but in the abilty to deliver WMDs to their territory reliably and slaughter their citizens.

I want that to be perfectly clear. This war is not about occupation, it's about total annihilation of the enemy, and all possibilities which grant certain delivery are not inefficient by virtue of capability.

The goal of area-denial weapons is to kill Shep's citizens; Shep apparently does not construct any civil defense structures, and his citizen's lives are worth jack shit to him since he initiated a major war. He adheres long to the doctrine that citizens are legit targets; so are his citizens too.

Of course, if this war spills out, I'll propose to reboot the game or leave; what used to be a political, social, economic and military game will then turn into a post-apocalyptic fantasy - I can always switch on "Fallout 2" if I want to play that instead of SD Nations.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's such a fucking waste, too. I was doing such awesome statesmanship with the whole FUN thing. Goddamn it, the dissolution of the OMSK made the FUN stronger than ever. Then Shep had to fuck it all up, going all Strangelove on us. Goddamn it.



[Prime Minister Shroom so needs a paraplegic Shroomstaffel scientist who, in the last moment before total annihilation, shall rise to proclaim to his Fuhrer that he can walk.]

[K. A. Pital]

Well, so far Shep didn't attack any of the FUN.

I expect it to stay that way.

Should I notice motions from UAR to attack any nation of the FUN, I will launch the Space Fighters which would constitute our final deterrent line.

[PeZook]

Okay...how about we try one last time to quench this? It hasn't gone nuclear yet ; At this point, I am ready to do almost anything to make sure it won't.

One last, desperate attempt at peace. PeZookia is ready to make major concessions, including scrapping its Blackbeard batteries and dismantling the factory if it is demanded.

The only thing we'd ask in return is a temporary ceasefire and a conference attended by all nations, including Shepnukistan and Saddamistan.

[K. A. Pital]

Sure. I'm already at the Conference.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'll send someone.. the Emperor or the chief adviser or something.

To be honest, this game entered the shit hole the moment Shep threw a tantrum.

[PeZook]

I'll send someone.. the Emperor or the chief adviser or something.

To be honest, this game entered the shit hole the moment Shep threw a tantrum.

Well, I may be naive and all, but I'm willing to assume they have a point in something and actually don't want to annihilate the world.

After all, what's the worst that could happen? Nuclear holocaust is already on the table