Distraction thread

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Fotiadis_110
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Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

I have discovered i've managed to trigger the break-up of at least 5 threads so far this season and i haven't even been trying.

First i compare the unsheathed to close air support, and spawn a huge discussion about what aircraft are awesome...
Then i discuss the possible worries of a certain group of girls who in trying to 'fit in' elect to confirm to certain stereotypes... but lets be honest, there are a lot of guys who elect to do that as well, rather than being independent.
And lets not forget the whole 'power and food supply' thread also spawned as a result of my personal distaste for high energy systems that require more inputs than useful outputs...

So rather than bringing up new topics in an old thread and derailing useful discussion, lets have a thread where whatever we are thinking about can be brought up because that is the point of the discussion in the thread ^_^
If there is a need to split this thread into smaller ones, it would be a surprise!

As a starting point for random discussion, and everyone's love of the military and tactics there of i think i'll start us off with a distracting discussion about modern aircraft.
_________________

Most modern fighters are much like tanks, highly powerful, very versatile, but ultimately specifically designed to shoot at each other to deny their use to the opponent and thus gain an advantage...
The single best counter to a tank, is a tank. But tanks cannot capture cities very well, instead they need infantry.
What are the infantry of the sky?
WHERE are they? And what on earth do I mean by them?
The answer is, Tanks are few and far between, but are mobile to allow them to be anywhere they are needed quickly... while infantry are ALREADY THERE due to the sheer numbers of them.
So how do we achieve this with aircraft?
Well in essence, the battles in europe during the late stages of WW2 were won largely do the the excessive overwhelming presence of anti-tank and similar aircraft able to both suppress and deny territory to the opposing infantry and similar.
How could this be achieved on a modern battlefield?
Well I'd build drones... literally thousands of them for chump change with a decent security and safety protocol. They would be armed with dumb-fire missiles with good accuracy (able to fly in through a window) be highly manoeuvrable (10g+ is easy for an aircraft... not for a pilot), lightweight to take off from any patch of dirt in a pinch, and able to be piloted by autopilot when human pilots on the ground need to focus their attentions to different aircraft at a different section of the front.
I believe you could build such aircraft for less than half a million dollars each, given the average cost of most modern missiles is at least that much if not more, this would make these aircraft easier and cheaper to build than modern AA missiles, the ability to support infantry ANYWHERE on the front line within minutes if not faster with pilots taking control of drones closest to the location of interest, and best of all, our pilots are safely stashed away in a complex on land rather than getting shot down by random RPG fire commonly encountered in 'modern warfare' which more or less turns out to be guerrilla warfare.

can't be done?
I've SEEN a guy with RC aircraft of about the size i believe would work well (small enough to fit on the back of a truck facing the direction of travel with wings still attached), it happened to have a land based control station and video feed from a camera mounted on the aircraft.
I believe that with a more secure communications uplink system, and a machine-gun mounted (so terrorrists/soldiers hiding BEHIND cover are still vulnerable) and rocket pods mounted in the chassis somewhere (to fire into windows/take out targets like fuel tankers or similar) these sorts of mass produced aircraft would full a role not present in the modern military arsenal... cheap disposable firepower that is everywhere at once... for practical purposes, the infantry of the sky!

Michael
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Michael »

im sure it would work, it'd maybe a GREAT idea, i think the main problem you will have would be the same that admirals had getting air craft carriers in WWII, there are just too many people who have the current or "normal" way of fighting a war, weather its the best, cheapest way or not is another thing
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ed_montague
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by ed_montague »

But it's not real war unless good ol' American boys are fighting and bleeding and dying and coming home in boxes or in straitjackets or in handcuffs. Derp herp herp.

It sounds like a logical idea right now, but might complicate things for the Air Force just a tad. Sure, it's probably easier and cheaper to build a swarm of them compared to even a single F-35 (and that particular topic's already been beaten to death in the other thread), but they're still going to require quite a few human controllers, even with semi-decent autopilots. Don't want any more friendly fire/collateral damage incidents than the traditionally accepted number. Of course, the manpower requirement is not a really big problem (join the Air Force! Where you can go really far if you're reasonably smart and you'll be even safer than before! Fly disposable, remotely controlled drones for a living! No danger whatsoever--unless, of course, the enemy drops a bomb on our remote-control centres).

On a completely unrelated note, symphonic metal is awesome. See what I just did? I attempted to derail the Distraction Thread. I'm so badass.
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junk
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by junk »

Considering the cost of today's missiles I doubt you could build a drone that does this for so cheap. It would probably be an order of magnitude more expensive than a javelin and similar drones. Hell it might be more expensive than a global hawk.

As to tanks and couterring them. Used to hear from my father (who was a tank commander) that the most dangerous enemy a tank can ever face in European terrain is a helicopter. That if anything could be considering the peak predator of tanks it's those.

It might be different in middle eastern terrain of course.

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Michael »

i don't see how, if its one tank ve. one copter, i image the copter would win each time, unless you have really good aim
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junk
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by junk »

Michael wrote:i don't see how, if its one tank ve. one copter, i image the copter would win each time, unless you have really good aim
Well it's usually a chopper against more than one armed vehicle. The thing is, in Euro terrain the chopper is incredible dangerous because of the sheer amount of hills, trees and clearing everywhere around. It can pretty ambush tank lines without exposing itself to enemy fire.

In middle eastern terrain they don't have that same kind of luxury.

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Mikk
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Mikk »

Distraction thread?! :?: :!: **Blooms in a cloud of chaff and flares, before running off for a higher galactic orbit⋯ **
:arrow:
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

Open terrain the benefit goes for the guy who has the best target acquisition skills... and sorry but that means that helicopter still wins on large flat terrain... although arguably the BEST anti-tank weaponry on that terrain is the A-10. because a simple dive plus a couple turns left and right puts the gun right on target every time :P.

Also the difference between those expensive drones and mine? theirs are TRYING to be stealth or to gather high quality intel... mine are video cameras, IR cameras (to work with those lazer pointers... which make one heck of a way to ensure who your friendlies are) Attached to a machine gun with the idea that it is small, fast and mobile enough that it's hard to shoot down with a handheld weapon, and built to be tough and cheap, with the intended purpose of being easier to have loitering around friendlies than having pilots who get sick, injured or killed, and multimillion dollar aircraft who aren't agile enough to actually do a small loop after it passes the low wall or whatever, do a loop and blast the guys while they hide in 'cover' making a nice small and largely immobile target :p
It's best suited to guerrilla warfare style encounters, and with a ground control AI system, your pilot can pause and go to the loo while the aircraft idly loops around the local church, and potentially with a few improvements, the AI ground control unit could even take off and land aircraft for refuelling and similar... after all Jumbos do it already ;)
And whenever you want to attack a position, these aircraft are small enough to get close, and with a human at the controls able to make judgements about who they are supposed to be shooting at... as well as a commanding officer on hand to assist if the pilot in question is uncertain who he is supposed to be firing the main gun at. (as well as all the other bonuses like having access to ground based radio control which can be important in friendly fire situations, such as two squads starting fighting some guerrillas, then the guerrillas slip away leaving the two squads shooting at each other... so they call in air support against each other -_-).
I keep considering the possible benefit of linking together a network of low powered radar systems/sensors, but i fear the variable location and direction of the sensors installed on these aircraft would make actually using such data difficult at best.

I also have visions of about 200 aircraft raiding an aircraft carrier.
Apparently their 'fleet control radar' can monitor 30 naval presences, and up to 50 airborn threats while prioritising 20 of them to be dealt with by the fleets various defence weapons.
With 200 targets do these machines pack a sad, or just focus on prioritising them?
With drones you could actually find out ^_^

Also Let us keep on topic: if you have something interesting you want do discuss, feel free to distract us and trigger a shift in topic... just be aware so can everyone else :p

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Michael »

these drones of your would only have machine guns, if the plans aren't on deck how will your drone's guns affect the fleet?
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

First: What i was proposing was a testing of systems, not a combat operation.
Second: notice i mentioned it would be good to have missiles and accuracy of dispensing them through civilian windows... i'm not 100% sure how armoured the windows on a carrier actually are, and besides, they'll be more then enough to permanently ground aircraft
Third: Any aircraft capable of carrying dispensable explosives can either dispense small contact explosives over the deck, or go the fun way and just deploy pools of napalm over the deck as they pass by...

Finally: Timing attacks, while the buzzers set off and overwhelm the radar capacity of the carrier group use more traditional wave-skimming missiles and or other attack weapons, and laugh manically while their defences try prioritising swatting flies.
________
As for orbital combat... how much mass and energy would a current era spacecraft utilising ion engines be willing to sactifice from weaponry, shielding (magnetic probably) and other essentials in order to operate sensory equipment?

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by discord »

ground based AI system..... it just brings back my previous comment about 'just waiting for those to go up against an opponent with enough electronic knowledge and electrical power to build high powered EM jammers.' and see those babies drop out of the sky.

a carriers groups most potent weapon against those things would probably be aegis search radars.

Fotiadis_110
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

Discord my Rebuttal:

I'M FIRING MY LASER

Specifically laser based communications exist and are almost totally uninterceptable, they can be confused, momentarially at least, but generally are impervious.
Besides: the main environment for these is modern Guerrilla warfare, if you start giving off strong EM transmissions, you stick out like a large mole on the face of a Hollywood celebrity... which kind of makes redundant the entire concept of stealth.
Besides: which nation leads the way with ECM technologies?
The same guys on the same side as most likely users of this technology.
so :p

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Michael »

Fotiadis_110 wrote:First: What i was proposing was a testing of systems, not a combat operation.
Second: notice i mentioned it would be good to have missiles and accuracy of dispensing them through civilian windows... i'm not 100% sure how armoured the windows on a carrier actually are, and besides, they'll be more then enough to permanently ground aircraft
Third: Any aircraft capable of carrying dispensable explosives can either dispense small contact explosives over the deck, or go the fun way and just deploy pools of napalm over the deck as they pass by...

Finally: Timing attacks, while the buzzers set off and overwhelm the radar capacity of the carrier group use more traditional wave-skimming missiles and or other attack weapons, and laugh manically while their defences try prioritising swatting flies.
.....point
Fotiadis_110 wrote:________
As for orbital combat... how much mass and energy would a current era spacecraft utilising ion engines be willing to sactifice from weaponry, shielding (magnetic probably) and other essentials in order to operate sensory equipment?
interesting idea, im not sure who much power an ion engine uses or produces (i reckon i could find out at college though), but when in actual orbit, you can just use reaction thrusters to line up and then divert power from main engines to weapons or sensors, as needed.
Fotiadis_110 wrote:Discord my Rebuttal:

I'M FIRING MY LASER

Specifically laser based communications exist and are almost totally uninterceptable, they can be confused, momentarially at least, but generally are impervious.
Besides: the main environment for these is modern Guerrilla warfare, if you start giving off strong EM transmissions, you stick out like a large mole on the face of a Hollywood celebrity... which kind of makes redundant the entire concept of stealth.
Besides: which nation leads the way with ECM technologies?
The same guys on the same side as most likely users of this technology.
so :p
lasers may be hard to intercept, but unless you know exactly where to find it, won't it be hard to communicate with people you want to?
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Fotiadis_110
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

If the opponent has sufficent EM coverage, it can also be considered a fact that you won't be able to maintain radio contact with people on the ground... in fact with ENOUGH EM going around even cable links are interfered with.
If you are facing an opponent with that: then you need to disable that to get the benefits of close air support from ANY source.

Example is apparently one summer in LA they took a EW Prowler and turned it on one evening... and knocked out the power grid for a quarter of the city. (not that anyone noticed, apparently power outages are somewhat common there at that time of year)
I still wonder why no one has commented that modern military attack aircraft are expected to serve an anti-tank role, while these guys can't actually stop a tank short of trying Kamikaze style assaults... :( I had such a wonderful rebuttal in mind :geek:

________

Ion engines are fine in a fusion era system... but I just had a major brainwave regarding the Wave Loom cannon.
The problem it faces is overheating the craft it is mounted in, leading to becoming a 'sitting duck' with a big gun that makes you an easy target.
The same issue is found in Bomb pumped lasers and as guys with an interest in this stuff know, the suggested solution is to stick the bomb on it's own independent engine system... becoming a laser missile.
Why not take a reactor, stick a wave loom on the front, an engine to help you recover it more or less automatically when it cools down after use, and make a Wave Loom Missile to be carried into combat by a battleship or similar.
You deploy it, it fires, relaxes as it cools and then returns to be remounted assuming the opponent doesn't blow it up.
And if your opponent focuses fire on it, then they are wasting shots that could have been aimed at the battleship in the first place, making it an excellent fire and forget weapon, yet reusable distraction. :twisted:
Or maybe Wave Looms are more expensive than battleships? :lol:

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Absalom »

Fotiadis_110 wrote:The problem it faces is overheating the craft it is mounted in, leading to becoming a 'sitting duck' with a big gun that makes you an easy target.
The same issue is found in Bomb pumped lasers and as guys with an interest in this stuff know, the suggested solution is to stick the bomb on it's own independent engine system... becoming a laser missile.
Why not take a reactor, stick a wave loom on the front, an engine to help you recover it more or less automatically when it cools down after use, and make a Wave Loom Missile to be carried into combat by a battleship or similar.
You deploy it, it fires, relaxes as it cools and then returns to be remounted assuming the opponent doesn't blow it up.
And if your opponent focuses fire on it, then they are wasting shots that could have been aimed at the battleship in the first place, making it an excellent fire and forget weapon, yet reusable distraction. :twisted:
Or maybe Wave Looms are more expensive than battleships? :lol:
Unfortunately, the Wave-Loom has another problem: the input power. In essence, it requires so much power that every one of your Wave-Loom Drones will probably cost as much as your average Warhammer... or perhaps even a Rapier.

Despite that, it'll have a much shorter service life, due to the fact that it becomes a sitting duck every time it fires.

And, you have to support the cooling system of almost an entire Vortex class.

Honestly, it would probably be better to take the engines & reactor, slap on some shields, armor, & 1 super-heavy blaster, and show the Umiak what Loroi strike groups can REALLY do (in essence, a Loroi fighter craft with a BIG GUN; I'm guessing maybe the size of a Cutlass).

Of course, you'd never make a dent in the endless waves of Umiak gunboats, but hey, it should kill more TTKs than a Wave-Loom drone!

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Fotiadis_110 »

One of the reason that a Wave Loom being a suitable 'independent' weapon is linked back to our one known example of Loroi combat tactics.
It isn't about having a one more really big weapon to deploy every time in every situation...
Rather it is yet another possible 'Panic button' weapon to be deployed against large well fortified Umiak strike forces. Similar to the Loroi Blister torpedo weapon.

Current information about the wave loom is exceedingly long range, and large Area of Effect, which could against heavy strike forces cripple the core of their attacks assisting in the protection of their allied formation.

A blister however can only ever possess a single shot weapon with remarkably short range, while a Wave Loom that forces the Umiak to break off their attack long before they can even take pot-shots at it, then be recovered and re-used.

As for the possible weakness that a wave loom device might be heavy... you did notice I mentioned a thing called an engine attached? Properly linked back to it's mother-ship, it could contribute to normal thrusting and manoeuvring tasks :p

Besides which, it could be a useful thing to make the isolated humaniti empire to start producing these things instead of normal warships...
We are isolated enough to make gaining information about their most unique weapon difficult at best.
Not to mention it could be one way that we might get to see the shot happen on screen... as part of a test firing or something :D

Absalom
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by Absalom »

Yeah, about the engine, Arioch has said before that primary engine exhaust is a significant part of the ship systems used by the wave-loom. That engine isn't useful for retrieving the drone, it's required for the weapon itself.

And really, unless you get plenty of chances after jousts to shoot at large clusters of Umiak ships, I honestly don't think this is all that great of a strategy. If you built one from a scrapped Vortex then you'd have probably still have ~1/3 - 2/5 of the Vortex afterwards (this assumes that both engines are required, as well as the actual wave-loom devices REQUIRING the length of the prongs). In addition, you still won't get much faster cool-down time, because you haven't added any cooling.

Finally, Loroi ships encounter Umiak ships in two places: target systems, & transit systems. In a transit system a wave-loom drone might be useful for forcing the Umiak to spread out, but that mostly just produces a 'swarm of bees' effect; it might reduce the losses of the Loroi strike groups that attack those Umiak, but the strike groups will themselves have less opportunity to kill those Umiak. In target systems you'll likely have a better mounting point anyways: the system's battlestations, which can be expected to have FAR better cooling systems than your average ship.

I think that the best immediate-term support humans could provide is extra shipping. Shortly beyond that would be human anti-torpedo ships (which would certainly be weak with the initial delay required for retooling, but if they were automated enough to be disposable they could still be useful).

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by discord »

military resource speaking the best humans can offer short term would be to make stuff so the loroi do not have to, like shipping, so the loroi can retool for warships, but basically humans will probably start covering a HUGE amount of loroi peace time 'luxury goods' and everyday luxury...probably quite a lot of basic stuff too, since this does not make the loroi warriors nervous....long term it's totally crazy and suicidal, giving such a large share of needed production to someone else gives them a large sword of damocles hanging over you.

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Re: Distraction thread

Post by TrashMan »

Distraction insufficient.

Initiate increased demand for page 100.

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junk
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Re: Distraction thread

Post by junk »

discord wrote:military resource speaking the best humans can offer short term would be to make stuff so the loroi do not have to, like shipping, so the loroi can retool for warships, but basically humans will probably start covering a HUGE amount of loroi peace time 'luxury goods' and everyday luxury...probably quite a lot of basic stuff too, since this does not make the loroi warriors nervous....long term it's totally crazy and suicidal, giving such a large share of needed production to someone else gives them a large sword of damocles hanging over you.
Still we're perhaps better of than columbus indians. Mostly because the Loroi don't seem to use things which are almost alien to us. The majority of their equipment and tactics are things that are just fancier and higher tech version of what loroi timeline humans use and have.

The only thing that might fall into that category is the farseeing. But well not a problem for us and we're in the same situation as every other loroi verse species.

War is something even modern day humans can understand. At least to a certain level. Same as Europeans do when they came to the americas. Indians were really bad off.

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