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2007-11-07 Science & Technology

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2007-11-07 10:16|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 So the counteraction will be demonstrators in chain mail with periscope visors? There's a video I can't wait to see! Where's the next GATT conference?

Posted by Ulaising Jones3412 2007-11-07 11:34|| 2007-11-07 11:34|| Front Page Top

#2 I wonder if as a result of developing the ray gun there will be a new market opening up for these?

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2007-11-07 11:40|| 2007-11-07 11:40|| Front Page Top

#3 That means fewer civilian casualties, a key ingredient to success in Iraq.

Now that's a dangling participle.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2007-11-07 12:06|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2007-11-07 12:06|| Front Page Top

#4 Where's the next GATT conference?

Somewhere really hot and humid, hopefully. :)

Posted by eLarson 2007-11-07 14:48|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com] 2007-11-07 14:48|| Front Page Top

#5 Little Dick Durbin meltdown in 10 ... 9 ... 8 ...

Posted by doc 2007-11-07 16:33|| 2007-11-07 16:33|| Front Page Top

#6 Ahem. If you think about it, Iraq is the last place that needs such a weapon, at least against Iraqis.

However, Iraq is also centrally located for three places where such a weapon might be the cat's pajamas: Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Picture this scenario. What if you had advancing mech infantry, against light infantry, with several of those weapons in the front echelon? This would mean that enemy could only shoot at them from distances GREATER than 500 yards.

The AK-47 has a maximum effective range of 325-425 yards). An RPG-7 has an maximum effective range of just over 500 yards.

This means that even if the enemy hid in defilade, or behind a tree or metal plate, about the only places where the microwave radiation wouldn't get them, as soon as they tried to fire, it would feel like their skin is on fire. Try to accurately fire a weapon like that!

One of the big tactics used by both Iran and Hezbollah is to round up a large group of women and children and charge them at their enemy. This also would not work, big time.

What would make this truly great was if your mech infantry also had a weapon that could shoot down incoming mortar and artillery rounds. And we do, though I don't know if it is on a mobile system yet.

This would leave the enemy with the only option of emplacing minefields.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-11-07 17:02|| 2007-11-07 17:02|| Front Page Top

#7 Is this thing an area-effect weapon, or is it more like a firehose? Because I find it hard to picture something that could efficiently act as an area-denial weapon over any length of time (like a raygun minefield) in the way you're suggesting, Anonymouse.

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2007-11-07 18:19|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2007-11-07 18:19|| Front Page Top

#8 Meanwhile, ultra-heavy "dark matter" particulates are ramming thru Terra Firma from space, as iff our rocky earth was only somuch melted cheese.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-11-07 18:20|| 2007-11-07 18:20|| Front Page Top

#9 An RPG-7 has an maximum effective range of just over 500 yards.

Seriously?

Posted by Thomas Woof 2007-11-07 19:25|| 2007-11-07 19:25|| Front Page Top

#10 Mitch H: I think you read what I wrote incorrectly. If you look at the Sheriff system, it is a dish mounted on the roof of a Humvee. If you pan the dish back and forth, you will get a cone of microwaves over your front of advance. If you are advancing in a line, rather than a column, you can probably have overlapping "fields of fire". And since microwaves are invisible, the enemy would have to stay hidden in the few places he could, then try and pop out and fire. So it would be damn difficult to aim.

Thomas Woof: MFR of an RPG-7 is 300 meters (328 yards) for a moving target and 500 meters (546 yards) for a stationary point target. However, this probably assumes a good shot with time to aim.

For a typical Muslim fighter with little training or combat experience, even an aimed target at 100 yards is problematic. While being shot at, and with a "grab shot", it would probably have to be at just over point blank range.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-11-07 21:59|| 2007-11-07 21:59|| Front Page Top

#11 I might add that even WWII German panzerfaust experts preferred to wait in shell holes for a Russian tank to pass by and stick it in their ear. Some of those NCOs had 30 tank kills on their sleeves (sleeve ribbons).

This was made possible by the bizarre Russian tactic of attacking with just infantry against water cooled German machine guns until they were slaughtered enough to have to retreat.

Then after a pause, when the Germans would grab a bunch of panzerfausts and run out into the battlefield to jump into shell holes, the Russians would invariably send just tanks, with no infantry support. The Germans would pop out of their holes like whack-a-moles and kill tank after tank.

Then, when the Russians ordered their surviving tanks to retreat, the Germans would leave their holes and head back to their own lines. Because after a pause, the next infantry only human wave attack would commence.

In one such battle, an SS anti-tank company held off two Russian armored armies at a bottleneck for two weeks. Five Germans, including the Commanding Major, actually survived the war, after they had run out of all ammo and were down to knives and walking sticks.

This was just one amazing story from a book entitled "War on the Eastern Front".

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-11-07 22:10|| 2007-11-07 22:10|| Front Page Top

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