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Technology

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Re: Technology
Post by Dilandu   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 4:49 am

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The actual problem is, that it's impossible to define some methods of warfare as "civilized" and the others as "barbaric".

For example, the blockade, that Charis so fond of. For a lot of countries, the blockade may be as bad as carpet-bombing of populated areas or biological warfare. If the country cannot feed itself (or at least some part of the country can't do it), thw blockade may quite quickly provoke mass hunger and humanitarian disaster on large scale.

For example, the "civilized" blockade of Germany in World War One resulted in more than half of the million dircet civilian casualites (and at least triple more indirectly) Was this better then zeppelin terror-bombing? Hardly; especially considering that the zeppelins raids were aimed primary against industrial objects, not just against population.

So, the "civilized" and "barbaric" ways of warfare, actually, greatly depended of situation.
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Technology
Post by phillies   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 10:38 am

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TN4994 wrote:
fallsfromtrees wrote:The V1 and V2 were terror weapons, pure and simple. There is no way that Charis is going to build terror weapons designed to kill civilians, and they would be useless against the Temple itself, which is armored in battle steel. This is a BAD idea, and I can't see Merlin providing any support for and attempt to build such weapons.
The context here is weapons designed for use against civilian targets, not military ones.The V1 and V2 were designed to attack cities, not military targets.

So if the nation using a V1 Type Flying Bomb only used it against enemy military targets, it becomes a non-psychological- terror weapon?


So if you are shooting at a country that has legitimate more-or-less elections during the war, and/or a parliament that actually dumps leaders with no-confidence motions during the war, then the people controlling the war are the people, and become a target? (For no points, name the three WW2 major combatants that fit this description, at least vaguely.) All weapons kill people. When shooting at an army of conscripts, or the labor army that supports them, there is really no difference.
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Re: Technology
Post by TN4994   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 10:54 am

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phillies wrote:The V1 and V2 were terror weapons, pure and simple. There is no way that Charis is going to build terror weapons designed to kicll civilians, and they would be useless against the Temple itself, which is armored in battle steel. This is a BAD idea, and I can't see Merlin providing any support for and attempt to build such weapons.
The context here is weapons designed for use against civilian targets, not military ones.The V1 and V2 were designed to attack cities, not military targets.
So if the nation using a V1 Type Flying Bomb only used it against enemy military targets, it becomes a non-psychological- terror weapon?

So if you are shooting at a country that has legitimate more-or-less elections during the war, and/or a parliament that actually dumps leaders with no-confidence motions during the war, then the people controlling the war are the people, and become a target? (For no points, name the three WW2 major combatants that fit this description, at least vaguely.) All weapons kill people. When shooting at an army of conscripts, or the labor army that supports them, there is really no difference.

And if you look at how those catapults were used when besieging a castle. The dead mutilated animals flung over the walls were terror weapons of a sort. But someone like Clyntahn would say it was the only way to get food to the poor people who took refuge inside the walls.
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Re: Technology
Post by Dilandu   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 11:56 am

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I repeat: the idea that there is some "terror weapons" and some "honest weapons" are absurd by itself.

For example: the biological weapons are generally considered as "terror weapons".

But what if, for example, the threat of biological attack would be used to hold someone like Hitler from agression? Would the bioweapon still be considered as "terror weapons", or a "deterrence weapon"?

You see, the difference not in the weapon. The difference is in the way of using it.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: Technology
Post by Keith_w   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 2:20 pm

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TN4994 wrote:
phillies wrote:The V1 and V2 were terror weapons, pure and simple. There is no way that Charis is going to build terror weapons designed to kicll civilians, and they would be useless against the Temple itself, which is armored in battle steel. This is a BAD idea, and I can't see Merlin providing any support for and attempt to build such weapons.
The context here is weapons designed for use against civilian targets, not military ones.The V1 and V2 were designed to attack cities, not military targets.
So if the nation using a V1 Type Flying Bomb only used it against enemy military targets, it becomes a non-psychological- terror weapon?

So if you are shooting at a country that has legitimate more-or-less elections during the war, and/or a parliament that actually dumps leaders with no-confidence motions during the war, then the people controlling the war are the people, and become a target? (For no points, name the three WW2 major combatants that fit this description, at least vaguely.) All weapons kill people. When shooting at an army of conscripts, or the labor army that supports them, there is really no difference.

And if you look at how those catapults were used when besieging a castle. The dead mutilated animals flung over the walls were terror weapons of a sort. But someone like Clyntahn would say it was the only way to get food to the poor people who took refuge inside the walls.


More specifically, the dead cattle tossed over the wall were biological weapons - they were not intended to terrorize, they were intended to poison. If they had been tossing heads of dead soldiers over the wall, that would have been a terror weapon.
--
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Technology
Post by DDHv   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 2:58 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
Draken wrote:Gyroscope is think which is now badly needed by army and when they will invent it. Navy will have some fun playing with it. But if they want to have very fast advancement with technology, without electricity they would stop in late XIX century.

No necessarily. If you have followed the 163x series, you should be aware that it is possible to build a fluidic computer. I believe that the estimate was that a cube about 3 ft on a side using fluidic gates could be the equivalent of a 8080 computer (Z80 processor) in terms of processing power. And no electricity, just pure water.


The primary reasons we use integrated circuits are: reliability, speed, size, and power needs. Fluidic can do anything electronic can in computing, although slower and bulkier, because it is the logic patterns that do the work, not how they are implemented. For very simple machines, I've designed and installed a relay "computer," that is, if you choose to call something controlling less than half a dozen operations a computer. Since we mostly work from relay ladder diagrams (easy to understand) it doesn't matter much what the implementation is, as long as it suits the need. For very simple "one offs" the need is ease of design and implementation.

Electronics interfaces with current sensors much easier than fluidic designs tho.
Douglas Hvistendahl
Retired technical nerd

Dumb mistakes are very irritating.
Smart mistakes go on forever
Unless you test your assumptions!
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Re: Technology
Post by PalmerSperry   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 4:49 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:The reason the V-weapons were used against cities is that was the smallest thing they could target with any hope of hitting their target -- and only BIG cities at that. :roll:


I seem to recall reading that, in addition to attack London with them, that the Germans also had a smaller V2 campaign against somewhere like Lowestoft ... But this was only discovered by the UK after the war when they captured the German records! A weapon where the enemy don't notice it's been used is perhaps not ready for prime time!
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Re: Technology
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 6:22 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
TN4994 wrote:Need to invent gyroscope and then figure some way to use it.


Both the V1 and V2 used gyroscopic guidance; they still couldn't hit the broadside of a square barn. With the doors closed. :roll:

From the inside :twisted:
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The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Technology
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 6:24 pm

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PalmerSperry wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:The reason the V-weapons were used against cities is that was the smallest thing they could target with any hope of hitting their target -- and only BIG cities at that. :roll:


I seem to recall reading that, in addition to attack London with them, that the Germans also had a smaller V2 campaign against somewhere like Lowestoft ... But this was only discovered by the UK after the war when they captured the German records! A weapon where the enemy don't notice it's been used is perhaps not ready for prime time!

There were a number of V2s launched against Rotterdam in an attempt to prevent the port from being used in 1945.
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The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Technology
Post by Henry Brown   » Thu Nov 27, 2014 7:18 pm

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fallsfromtrees wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:Both the V1 and V2 used gyroscopic guidance; they still couldn't hit the broadside of a square barn. With the doors closed. :roll:

From the inside :twisted:


Exactly. I am kind of at a loss as to why so much attention has been given to the V1 and V2 in this thread. Quite simply, if judged on their own merits, neither was a very good weapon. Certainly not worth the effort of Charis attempting to duplicate. Their primary historical importance was to introduce concepts such as the ballistic missile which would be perfected years later in other weapons.
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