[TML] Molding Ships

[Charles Prevatte]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
> [mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com]On Behalf Of
> shadow at shadowgard.com
> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 6:08 PM
> To: The Traveller Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [TML] Molding Ships
>
>
> 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.
>

Had not thought of that.  Good point.  But it would depend on the
capabilities of the "space mens" ship to get such monsters into orbit quick
enough to make the defference, and the crews would almost be suicide troops,
because if the space ship were damaged they would be trapped.  But a very
interesting idea.


> > > 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.
>

Yes, I rememebr those, and they do have the inverse square problem.  They
are built to the size that uses it to good effect, but larger units would
overheat.  Mostly they were comm cores or single process controlers, (IIRC)
not general use processors.  There usefullness would be very limited and
each would have had to be built for it's task.

> 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.
>

They were also unrepairable except by replacing the entire unit.

You would be better off going with "modern" tubes.  Very small and very
efficent.  They have not been commerialized as transisters are smaller and
more effecent BUT they have been built and tested as experiments into what
could have been.  They work and work fairly well.

> > > > 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.
>

Not in all the designs.  Some had fissionables refining.  Mostly on some of
the older "sleeper" ships and some with old style back up piles.  You would
have to go back through the old products to come across them.  Most did not
have Jump drives.

And there is an idea for a game and a series of books.  What if 2 sleeper
ships with opposite philosophies/religeons landed on a planet but one in the
USA and the other in Nazi Germany.  Each has good libraries and SOME high
technology available and each knows some about the other but not everything.
That could be one very interesting book or series if well written.

> > > 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.
>

Then all the proceedure I have read in army manuals are incorrect, and is
the history of the treatment require on the survivors of the Japaneese
bombing.  Example, filling that HAD to be remove because they were radio
active enough to kill the patient, and as for biki atol, some to the target
ships were so hot with radiation they did not allow observer to remain more
than 10 miniutes to take samples.

And trinty is still dangerous, perhap not loose your hair and die after 1
hour dangerous but it still has long term effects.  A large dirty bomd
detonated over perl harbor would limit how must it could be use and how
quickly, and much more effectively than the original attack.

Also, the masses of dead and dieing people from arround the harbor would not
have been available to rebuild.  There were less than 300 civilian
casualties fron the attack and most of those were from falling AA shells WE
fired.  That would NOT have been true in the case of a multi megaton nuke.
The dock workers were back to work the next day, and we raised every ships
that was sunk accept the Arasona which became a memorial.  We could have
raised and repaired it.  There were plans to do so.  Perl Habor was one on
the largest and most capable naval bases in the world.  Destroying it would
have had an effect on the war.  And a Biki atol class nuke WOULD have
destroyed it.  It would not have been able to repair the Yorktown after
Coral Sea and that would have ment the Yorktown would NOT have been at
Midway.  The Japanese would not have lost most of their carriers and we
would have been down to at most one main line carrier.  Not to mention all
the support ships that would have been unuseable because of the Perl Harbor
blast.  The war would have lasted several years longer, and in that time
Japan surely would have been able to build another bomb.  Doolittle's Raid
might have been a necessity to take out the enemies Nuke factory.


> > > 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.
>

Again, it depends on the ship and it's condition.  If it does not have 10
tons of cargo capacity then no.  Say a scout courier.

If you give the "space men" to much tech then you remove the need for them
to improve the local tech to change the balence and you are back to the
'space men' assualting the Chancelry with powered armor and plazma guns.  Of
course they will win.   That is not the point of this discussion.  The point
is what could "time travellers" or other people from an advanced sociaty do
to change to course of history on a more primative world.

> > > 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".
>

There is a series on SF novel that include ship board laser that effectively
end the use of aircrft and satalites.  (They shoot them down are they riae
above the horizon.  So the naval war is faught be old style naval ships at
close ranges using guns, sprint missiles, and torpedoes.  The lasers are not
powerfull enough to cook a war ship's greater mass and the ships have some
defences that also reduce the effectiveness of the lasers (similar to sand
casters).  Good books.

> > > 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.
>

Yep, they are fairly simple mechanically.  It's one of those thing we could
have done a lot sooner but did not stumble apon until later.

> 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.
>

More like 1000's yes, sorry, I had assumed that would be a given.  A modern
PC would be more powerfull than all the "computers" that existed in WW2.  It
would chew through egnima in a hour or so.  All posible setting!  Once to
have the program for the encoder, that code is done.  Another interesting
side effect would be you could (with the speed of a moderm computer)
decipher all the older intercepts in that code in a day or two.  That
information while dated would give you a VERY GOOD picture of the enemies
plans and deployments.  The enemy would be in serious trouble.  If you held
off using the knownledge for a few weeks to get your forces into place you
could ambush a lot of the enemies forces in advantagious locations and badly
hurt him before he realised you could read his codes better that he can.
The enemy might never recove from such a crushing blow if it was struct hard
and well.

Charles L.


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