[TML] Molding Ships

[shadow at shadowgard.com]

On 3 Oct 2007 at 11:35, Charles Prevatte wrote:

> > Actually, if the spaceship can still fly (say it's the jump drive
> > that failed) Satellites will be well within the capability of the
> > locals. It's *launching* that's the biggest headache.
> >
> > For that matter, the better machining *would* allow stuff like ICBMs
> > and orbital spacecraft from WWII tech.
> >
> 
> In time, but not quickly, and perhaps not fast enough.  If the ships can fly
> you are correct that satlites would be easier, but not with only tube
> technology.  Power problems would kill you, an no solar cells at that time
> period.  There would be a vast host of problems putting up a usable spy sat
> or com sat without a previous body of work (and technictions) to build on.

Build the comm sats and spy sats *bigger*. Manned even. Solar heated 
*boilers* will provide plenty of power, and do it with tech the 
locals understand.

The designs the folks in the 1940s came up with were quite workable. 
And I bet the computers have better ones on file.

Given the sheer size of the Imperium and length of history, it's 
likely this isn't the first or even hundredth time that a society at 
this TL has gotten outside help to build spacre tech that is 
maintainable with local tech.

> > And given design help, I expect that micro-"tube" designs like TIMMs
> > would be doable. Basically a large, heated "brick" with *tube*
> > circuits using dime sized tubes and everything arranged tightly in a
> > dense, 3D package.
> 
> It's been tried.  The inverse square law kills you very fast, with the
> termal gradiant.  Also, you are talking about a serious scaling problem and
> strutural strength limitations.  Univac was what you are trying to build.
> It worked, but it was not at all portable, and took a huge investment in
> manpower to program an maintain.

The units I'm thinking of were actually *used* by the US miltary for 
EMP proof electronics for a while. And I'm talking about units that 
were showbox sized and kept in an "oven". They got preheated and once 
running, had enough waste heat to stay at operating temp.

Part of the design was that the tubes didn't *have* filaments. Which 
eliminated the primary cause of failures.

Sure, a shoebox sized TIMM unit was only equivalent to a handful of 
70s ICs. But it still replaced a cabinet full of tubes. 

> > > A simpler solution would be to use the ships systems to build a
> > very small
> > > number of A-bombs, to remove key targets.  Even one such weapon
> > could tip
> > > the balence.  Think of how things might have turned out if the attack on
> > > Perl Habor had been made with a high megaton nuke, particularly
> > a dirty one
> > > that would have denighed the US the use of Perl and it's
> > facilaties for the
> > > rest of the War.
> >
> > Building an A-bomb is easy. Getting the fissionables *isn't*. And the
> > ship's systems will be essentially useless for that.
> 
> Depends on the ships design and power supply.  If it uses a nuclear pile and
> has a fuel processing plant (see lower Traveller tech designs) then no, it
> would be a trivial thing.  (See some of the early traveller avdentures for
> nuckelear technologies uses and listed)

There's no reason for a fission-powered ship to have the capacity for 
refining fissionables. They only need the fuel rods replaced every 
few years. So it'd be part of annual maintenance.

The "fuel refining" is for seperating *hydrogen* to be used as 
reaction mass and for jump drive.

> > A dirty nuke wouldn't have much area denial potential. *Especially*
> > with WWII sensibilities about "safety".
> >
> > Get some volunteers to bulldoze dirt over the worst spots. hose off
> > the rest, and worry about *maybe* getting cancer later.
> 
> Ionizing radiation and steel hulled ships!  Your crews would be dead in a
> day.  Every naval ships would be a radioactive death trap for decades in not
> centuries.  Trinity site is still to dangerious to visit unprotected.

Sorry, but you are *way* off base. The blast won't *induce* a 
significant amount of radioactivity in the target area. That takes an 
*insane* neutron flux. 

The contamination is the fission products from the bomb deposited on 
the area. Most of it can be washed off. 

I had a teacher who was on one of the ships outside the blast area 
for one of the tests at Bikini Atoll.

The ship got rocked *badly* by the shock wave (and nobody had told 
them it was a "double", so after the first bit rocked the ship hard 
one way, everybody quit bracing and started moving again. So when the 
second part got there there were a lot of "accidents" as folks got 
thrown around.)

Check Navy procedures for atomic attack. If the ship is far enough 
from the blast to still be operable, they just wash down the outside 
to remove the fallout. 

If the blast was a surface blast (less blast damage), you'll get some 
induced radioactivity it material that got sucked into the initial 
fireball.

It's *still* easy to decontaminate.

And Trinity site isn't *remotely* dangerous. Hell, until they banned 
visitors (because they were wandering thru the missile ranges and the 
like) folks were hauling off chunks of trinitite. They bulldozed the 
blast glass under to stop that.

I've seen a chunk of trinitite gotten from the site before they did 
that. Funny looking greenisg glass. Slightly radioactive, but not 
hazardous unless you stuff it in your pants and keep it there for a 
few months.

Remember, highly radioactive materials are that way *because* they 
have short half lives. Which means the radiation drops off fast. 

Seriously, you are *not* going to put a base out of commision long 
term with a nuke other than by physical damage or by building a bomb 
designed to spread large amounts of *medium* half-life stuff. And 
even then, the stuff can be washed off or collected.

At best, you'd be causing a lot of cancers years later unless the 
enemy was *totally* clueless about radiation.

> > If the ship is flayable, just drop big rocks on them from orbit.
> >
> 
> If there are rock near by, and IF the ships can move them, and if the ships
> is flyable enough to try.

You don't *need* rocks. If the ship is fltable enough for the idea to 
work, it'd flyable enough to boost multi-ton massess on a chosen 
trajectory at a few hundred km/sec.

At 300 km/sec, a 1 ton mass impacts like a 10 kiloton nuke.

A ten ton mass will be equivalent to a 100 kT nuke. That's big enough 
to allow for some moderately ragged targeting. And small emnough to 
be easily carried by most ships.

> > A reactor is easier to build. And you can take a page out of
> > Henlein's "Solution: Unsatisfactory" and create dirty bombs using
> > various isotopes.
> 
> Missed that one, good call.

Decon is still moderately easy, but used against factories or 
trenches, it'd be quite effective.
 
> > And it may well be that weapons grade lasers are buildable with local
> > tech (depends on how Traveller lasers work). Even if only ground
> > based and ship mounted ones are the best you can do, they pretty much
> > make air attacks (and a lot of surface attacks) impossible.
> 
> True.

Can you just *see* the reaction of the enemy naval staff when they 
are informed that this "bar of energy" (a gigawatt or better laser is 
going to be just a *bit* visible in sea level air) blew the hell out 
of a battleship 20 miles from the "shore battery". 

> > A weapons emplacement that can kill anything mobile at line-of-sight
> > ranges is going to be a great defense.
> 
> Yep, see the "Sky-raider" traveler adventure.  WW1 with blimp combat.  Your
> group was there for diplomacy and have to make a run for the ships while the
> local "nazis" are invading.  Very good adventure, particularly if you ad lib
> a little and work on the player contiouses a bit.  (Make sure you let them
> see some jack booted thugs and war crimes on the way to the ship.)  One time
> I did this turn into a campain.  Gunning from space to the resitence with a
> corp backing the bad guys for mineral rights.  Can you say "play it again
> Sam" (Grin!)  On player caught on and could do a pretty good "Boggie".  Used
> ever spy and WW2 movie I ever saw to adventure material.  Was a lot of fun.
> Try were "were eagles dare" with an air raft, laser carbines, grav-belts,
> and a pretty enemy mole as your local guide.

It occurs to me to wonder how hard the big thermobaric bombs are to 
make? One of the bigger "daisy cutters" dropped near the enemy 
trenches (or built into a crude tank chassis, driven there by remote 
controll and then detonated) would ruin your whole day. It'd collapse 
even the better "dugouts" in the trenches and kill unprotected 
personnel for quite a ways. Might even flatten a lot of the 
obstacles.

And if you *can* manage nukes, and produce enough, subs placing them 
just outside enemy harbors for simultaneous detonation in a few weeks 
(to give to to place them and get folks ready to take advantage)

*slaps forehead*.

Doh! It just hit me. Any WWII era cipher other than a one-time pad 
can be cracked in *minutes* with a 1980s personal computer (I've done 
it, the basic programs are easy and relatively well known). Cracking 
actual codes is harder. But doable (alas, I don't have any of the 
programs for that).

So a high priority should be to rig some *high* speed "paper" tape 
readers that interface to a small computer from the ship, running 
cryptanalysis software. Rigging the high speed *output* is going to 
be harder, but I daresay a multiplexer can be rigged up to drive 
dozens (or hundreds) of teletypes for output.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com