Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Neal A Porter <nap@*****.PHYSICS.SWIN.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re : reentry time on orbital bombardment
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 11:39:45 +1100
>Nope. These aren't like ICBM's, which make lots of easily spotted heat bloom
>when launched, take time to get into near-orbit, more time to cross the
>distance, and still more time to land. About half an hour, I understand. These
>crowbars are damn near invisible, due to their size, and they come in lighting
>fast.
>
>--
>Robert Watkins

The reentry time fro those 'bars' would depend entirily on where the target
is in referance to the launch point. Only if the target is almost directly under
the point of launch will they hit quickly. If the target is removed by a way
then the 'bars' will need to be released differently, now I'm no specialist
on what would need to be done, but I'm fairly sure that the time from release
to impact would increase fairly greatly. By the time the 'bars' reached their
destination the target may have moved (a big problem if the 'bars' dont have
terminal guidance, and still a large problem if they do). In this case the Thor
would only realy be useful for static targets.

Adeus.
Message no. 2
From: Robert Watkins <bob@**.NTU.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: Re : reentry time on orbital bombardment
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:18:23 +0930
> The reentry time fro those 'bars' would depend entirily on where the target
> is in referance to the launch point. Only if the target is almost directly under
>the point of launch will they hit quickly. If the target is removed by a way
> then the 'bars' will need to be released differently, now I'm no specialist
>on what would need to be done, but I'm fairly sure that the time from release
>to impact would increase fairly greatly. By the time the 'bars' reached their
>destination the target may have moved (a big problem if the 'bars' dont have
>terminal guidance, and still a large problem if they do). In this case the Thor
>would only realy be useful for static targets.
>
> Adeus.

No,no,no,no... You've got LOTS of these bars, in reasonably fast pole-to-pole
orbits. I reckon you'd always have some pretty close to overhead. And they'll
still hit bloody quickly, given a few degrees of arc difference.

Granted this isn't a great weapon to use on fighter aircraft. But ground bound
vehicles would be vulnerable to it, and buildings are just gone.

ObShadowrun: Thanks to the Deb Decker, I'm really tempted to have Ares use
these, via their Daedalus station. (In my game, Ares is in a corp war with
Mitsuhama.)



--
Robert Watkins bob@******.cs.ntu.edu.au
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 am,
it's because they were up all night.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about reentry time on orbital bombardment, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!