SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread III

[MKSheppard]

Whatever.

It's not my fault you're so stupid you fall for the latest scam to sucker in investors. If that BioPen actually was real and had an actual chance of working, guess what? DARPA would have bought into it, and the contracts would be signed for tens of thousands of them as the Biological Agent Detector, M1 for a whole variety of government agencies in the US alone.

The fact that DARPA has refused to look at it is quite telling...

[Siege]

It, does but I guess the launch will have to be retconned to sometime in the first week of December

Oh, that works for me too, the whole clusterfuck on the Costa could've played out somewhere in November insofar as I'm concerned. Yay unreal time! I really want to personally witness the first living creatures get blown off into space...

[MKSheppard]

You know better. Go out and count all the rivets in every single battleship ever produced since 1895 and then calculate barnicle density vs. rivet drag in water under arctic conditions for a 30-day period of time, do a power-to-weight distribution analysis and then come up with the maximum potential speed of said battleships if an application of RAID is used to spray the barnicles off at 1-week intervals, and then you can talk.

Okay fine, if this bullshit stands, then I'll introduce the SJF-105 Star Blossom, the latest thing from Japanistan, a SSTO space fighter that takes off from normal runways and then transitions to orbital flight, weighing about 150,000 lbs MTOW.

It's in the same order of magnitude improvement of a basic technology as the (snicker) bio pen.

[Coyote]

So...can I launch the little turtles, finally?

And Coyote: why ion engines? Maneuvering requires short bursts of thrust, repeated, and frequent on/off cycles. Ion engines aren't really good at that.

I was thinking course-corrections for long, extended trips where the NERVA would not be kept going the whole time... not micro-burst maneuvering for immediate thrust. Piss-poor choice of words on my part, basically.

The EGL has three types of engines-- NERVA for long term drive, ion engines for course correction, and then chemical-fuel rockets for immediate maneuvering. When I found the file picture of the Eagle that I first posted, it had a sort of purple-blue-ish tint to the thruster exhaust, so I referred to it as "ion drives" and ended up semantically painting myself into a corner.

[Coyote]

Okay fine, if this bullshit stands, then I'll introduce the SJF-105 Star Blossom, the latest thing from Japanistan, a SSTO space fighter that takes off from normal runways and then transitions to orbital flight, weighing about 150,000 lbs MTOW.

It's in the same order of magnitude improvement of a basic technology as the (snicker) bio pen.

Than I shall put a "LASER" on the Moon!!!!



Bwaaahaahaahaaa!

[RogueIce]

Gentlemen, the plural of "virus" is "viruses."

Not in the native Shinra tounge it isn't!

EDIT: Also, call me mad, but I don't see how the Sons of Sabika are going to accomplish anything by, say, attacking the CSR harbor in Livorno. All that's going to accomplish is bring the CSR down on Sabika like a ton of bricks. And if they think their treatment by the FTO was bad, they clearly haven't been paying attention to what happened to Astaria... Seriously, how is a bunch of extremists going to make such an attack look like it was the FTO?

I think the intention is just to get the CSR to bomb somebody on the F-ing Continent. This either makes the FTO look bad domestically for not doing anything, or engineers a confrontation (probably a political one) between the CSR and FTO.

They took a lot of heat over that whole AFSR deal, so I'd imagine standing by and letting the CSR bomb Sabika would probably not go over well, even if they're technically justified (although what exactly the CSR would plan on bombing since it's a rogue militia group I do not know).

Or whatever. I'm just throwing out ideas here. Various little plot lines to explore instead of "I build Supertank Number 321A09B" over and over.

[Raj Ahten]

The yard and house was turned into a minefield ; The initial assault was literally blown up by a hidden two kilogram nailbomb remotely detonated from inside the house.

The tsar's mansion had been under 24/7 surveillance since the tsar arrived; had they turned the lawn into a minefield the AIP would have known about it, and done something about it.

(You can legally do a lot of things in San Dorado - shoot up hard drugs, pack concealed heat in public, visit prostitutes - but you can't turn your lawn into a minefield. We have our standards, you know.)

Well I've got to side with Pezook a bit on this issue. If his manor is laid out at all with security in mind, they will have measures in place for counter surveillance. Even a tall wall around the compound would conceal a hell of a lot.

If the bodyguards are at all on their game they will notice any vehicle or person in the neighborhood who doesn't normally come in there. The house would likely be on a dead end street so random people just aren't around; especially if it is in a gated community or something similar. The post men, delivery men and such will all be noted by the security staff and likely given generous tips to notice any unusual activity in the neighborhood. Local police would also likely be bribed to keep a close eye out, and the head of security would try to cultivate contacts in San Dorado's security forces (for what that is worth. That probably wouldn't help them if the AIP has good secrecy protocols).

You also don't have to have ex commandos involved to see perps killing SWAT guys as they enter. I remember a case where a deranged barricaded suspect in Georgia with a shotgun killed two officers as they came through the door because the body armor didn't protect under the arm or the shoulders very well, which is where they were shot as they turned a corner. The buckshot went through their arms and right into the heart.

Where is the czar's bodyguard's planning? if the czar has twenty commando's inside the house, that is plenty of guys to have men on watch manning cameras and sensors (at most 2 men plus the commander in the CP), have men around the principle (1-2 guys) and perhaps even have a counter assault team of 4-6 men on standby in body armor with heavy weapons. That would take ten men or so, and the rest of the team could sleep. The czar himself would also be rushed to a safe room which could very well have armor protection (maybe even an independent air source!!) and defensive architecture to help trap and kill intruders. In some bodyguard manual I've seen them recommend keeping smoke hoods and such on hand in case of fire, so having gas masks inside the house wouldn't be a stretch at all making the use of gas less effective.

Of course a good effort by the attackers could negate all this, but unless they have am inside the mansion, they won't know what they are going into once they kick down the door. The floor plans might be on file, but they could be changed or wrong, especially if the czar had someone bribed.

Having the czar’s men bury bombs in the yard is probably going a bit far, but they wouldn't have to do that to make things hard for an attacking force. At this point there is no real need to redo the whole assault (hell he already had a mistrial in Cacadia), but the difficulty of them might have to increase in the future.

[Raj Ahten]

I don't think the SoS would fail to be noticed on the international stage, at least not by intel agencies and the like. The Sabikan government would consider them a grave threat given their sensitivity over the peace treaty.

And I guess it's time to post the Neutrality Treaty.

Ah you reveal such horrible possibilities with the SoS . Terrorists do make everything ever so much more interesting.....

[Pollux]

Also, Pollux, why would a man who's never been to Misteria before have a close friend in the new government? Annabelle is the one who should have such contacts, she was a diplomat who served in Misteria.

I imagine he was a "diplomat" to Cascadia during the monarchy.

[K. A. Pital]

...what exactly the CSR would plan on bombing since it's a rogue militia group I do not know

Rogue militias have warehouses too. Some even hardened and/or concealed. We learned that from the borders conflict. We might hire spies to determine the general location of Sabikan warehouse (1) and militia commanders (2). Then drop guided bombs on these locations. Depending on how precise is our knowledge, we use either very precise munitions, or just drop a 44-ton powerful bomb into the village he is reported to be.

Also, if the attack was carried out by a Sabikan naval vessel of sorts, harbors will also be bombed (however, far more precisely than they were in Astarian case, since Sabika doesn't have a good air-defense system).

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Whatever.

It's not my fault you're so stupid you fall for the latest scam to sucker in investors. If that BioPen actually was real and had an actual chance of working, guess what? DARPA would have bought into it, and the contracts would be signed for tens of thousands of them as the Biological Agent Detector, M1 for a whole variety of government agencies in the US alone.

The fact that DARPA has refused to look at it is quite telling...

So tell me Shep, you mean there's no real possibility that someone in DARPA had a vested interest in not buying the sensor? You do realise that to questioning an academic's credentials needs more than just some circumstantial evidence? It's not like this sensor is incredibly broadband.

[MKSheppard]

So tell me Shep, you mean there's no real possibility that someone in DARPA had a vested interest in not buying the sensor?

Maybe because they know it's utter bullshit? Yeah, I'm sure a bunch of scrappy scientists working on little funding, somehow have managed to shrink something that fills a large filing cabinet at best, and can only sample once per hour, and turned it into a roughly flash-light sized device which is throwaway and would cost $15?

More to the point; the articles which feature it were in 2006; since then, nothing new has emerged about it at all. Not even a "prototypes move beyond lab stage" article.

[K. A. Pital]

I've thought about the current balance... um. And here's what I gathered.

1) Shepistan's increase in biological stockpiles poses no threat to all but Lonestar in the very immediate timeframe
2) Obsolete means of delivery that Shepistan employs and the fact that most of it's possible adversaries lie in other continents mean most of them can and will be downed well in advance
3) Advent of nuclear weapons means that most reliable powerful nations such as Imperiums will have no reason to conduct a ground campaign against Shepistan, as opposed to simply drowning it in nuclear explosions, aimed first at the military installations, then at industry and population (that's the only reasonable course of action - occupation of Shepistan is made infeasible by it's enormous WMD stockpiles)
4) Shepistan's attempts to modernize it's delivey fleet - strategic bomber wings, cruise missiles and the like - should be considered a greater threat than it's biological warfare program. Shepistan's attempt to place military bases in foreign nations likewise.

5) Biological defense for nations that lie far away from Shepistan should be centered around civil defense and the ability to isolate outbreaks of lethal agents. Cessation of human travel between territories for the duration of war will cause economic damage, but will prevent mass destruction of population. Of course, most of the OC is probably well-versed in that, with Shroomania and myself for years pointing MRBMs with various toxins at each other. Can't speak for IRT, MESS, etc.

6) Old Dominion would be a WMD-scarred ruin in any case of future war and this should be the norm of strategic planning for the MESS.

7) There's little reason if any for Shepistan to involve itself in wars with overseas opponents - at least right now. It complicates delivery and leaves Shepistan itself vulnerable to the opponent's strikes. Especially with nuclear weapons.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, for us, there's the issue of basing of Shepistan strategic units in Japanistan, not far from us.

[Mr Bean]

Wait Sheppard is still alive? Have none of you played Sinstar Or a Metal Gear game? This is the exact the same principle! All the little Sheppardastainans run around the map, gathering up the glowly rockets and dumping them into the giant buildings, and then gather the rocks and bring them back again until they have enough and them bam.... Out comes the Generalissimo hat, the sunglasses and the pipe and it's time for the end of the world.

You were warned Lonestar... You were WARNED.

[K. A. Pital]

New Sumatra is pretty far. The number of Shep's obsolete bombers that can be based there is known, and it's not large. We will know in advance both when they lift off and when they launch ALCMs - even if approximately, that is all well - due to an extensive EW network which covers the territory of Japanistan completely. Shepistan's bombers would have to close in with our air-defense system, and considering their subsonic speeds, it's clear we will have an advantage.

It will take Shepistan over an hour to raise the bombers, prepare them for attack and then reach Byzantium, Pezookian or USSR coastlines. Even at top speed. And there's still the issue of targeting. Unless he does the same "inertial salvo" trick - but it only works as a sort of demonstrative punishment, in a real war wasting hundreds of ALCMs like that with 700-500 m CEP is completely unacceptable (unless you have nuclear warheads - which Shep does not).

And unless, of course, Japanistan would not aid in the attack - which is an act of war and should be treated on it's own.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, we ought to be wary of Shep upgrading to B-1As or Tu-160s. Our reaction time will be a lot less if they resort to using long range missiles.

Or retrofit aircraft to be guided missiles with long legs. I won't be surprised if that happens.

[PeZook]

You also don't have to have ex commandos involved to see perps killing SWAT guys as they enter. I remember a case where a deranged barricaded suspect in Georgia with a shotgun killed two officers as they came through the door because the body armor didn't protect under the arm or the shoulders very well, which is where they were shot as they turned a corner. The buckshot went through their arms and right into the heart.

Well, this can be easily negated by simply issuing very heavy body armor to AIP officers going up front. Thing is, even things like nailbombs hidden inside the manor can make this complicated, and I don't think there are any countermeasures for explosive charges going boom in tight corridors.

Of course, body armor and good tactics can turn potential fatalities into simple casualties. I think we can simply assume that Pyotr had with him the most loyal men, not necessarily the most competent. Or, rather, a bunch of incompetent but very loyal fools

[Norseman]

I hope you liked the Astarian newsbroadcasts, I have a few more items in store even though its next year

[PeZook]

Turtles away!

EDIT: And yes, I know the picture shows the latest Soyuz launcher with a 5+ tonne payload. But finding good pictures of the early R-7 is a bitch

[K. A. Pital]

I hope you liked the Astarian newsbroadcasts

As a pariah nation, your channels don't get translated anywhere anyway. So for Kim-Jong-Izing your own populace that might suffice, but not so for other nations.

And yes, I know the picture shows the latest Soyuz launcher with a 5+ tonne payload. But finding good pictures of the early R-7 is a bitch

I would presume that they'd go straight to Molniya/Soyuz design stage anyway, with the modern technology and whatnot. There's still room for upgrade.

This is the map of LEO and GTO/Molniya orbit payloads. "Vostok"/"Molniya" already had a ~5000 ton payload so we can start off here, while Soyuz-U, FG, 2.1a and 2.1b are what we could see in the future.

[Norseman]

I hope you liked the Astarian newsbroadcasts

As a pariah nation, your channels don't get translated anywhere anyway. So for Kim-Jong-Izing your own populace that might suffice, but not so for other nations.

Everything that's shown is perfectly true, you can't toss around supersonic missiles into busy harbours without killing and maiming a bunch of kids. In fact with over a hundred dead there's bound to be lots of nice sob stories, all of whom will stand up to any scrutiny simply because they're true.

As for the rest... we'll see.

[PeZook]

I would presume that they'd go straight to Molniya/Soyuz design stage anyway, with the modern technology and whatnot. There's still room for upgrade.
This is the map of LEO and GTO/Molniya orbit payloads. "Vostok"/"Molniya" already had a ~5000 ton payload so we can start off here, while Soyuz-U, FG, 2.1a and 2.1b are what we could see in the future.

Well, not straight: upgrading to that stage is basically done by inserting new stages and stretching existing ones. So we've done initial work on large hypergolic rockets (I assume we've had similar toys to the V2 in our history, so we won't have to dick around with the basic workings of the engines themselves) with the very basic R7 (less things to go wrong). So our current boosters can carry 1,5 tonnes to orbit. Vostok/Molniya will be next, then the various Soyuz "workhorse" rockets (the actual moonshot will of course require a Saturn, though around 50% smaller than the Saturn V) with 7,5 tonnes to orbit.

Hell, if I'm reading this diagram correctly, the R-7 and Proton will be all we need to establish constellations of commsats

[K. A. Pital]

Hell, if I'm reading this diagram correctly, the R-7 and Proton will be all we need to establish constellations of commsats

That's all the USSR had. Other missiles were even weaker (R-36 and Cosmos (R-12/14) families). I made some huge charts showing the most common rocket families once.
Here, might be useful for FASTA.

Everything that's shown is perfectly true

Oh, of course it is, but who cares? There's a lot of true sob stories about people killed here and there in real wars. I don't see much indignation until the civilian tolls start going into the thousands. And even then.

[Shroom Man 777]

What we need are GPS sats and ShroomSats!

ShroomSatTV, mang!