Deuce

The crew wasn't shocked. Infact that was there first engagement. I beleive they were under move orders. Maybe that has somthing to do with it. (although IMO it shouldn't). [This message has been edited by Deuce (edited 09-25-2000).]

I'll go ahead and say this to save someone else the time. DO A SEARCH!!!! sheesh there are 437 threads on this topic. BTW the search function on this board seems to lock up IE. Anybody else have this problem?

In a recent QB one of my Shermans (a regular)rounded a hill to find a StuG on the other side. The Sherman fired from about 300m and missed. By now the Stug had rotated and fired on the Sherman, disabling the gun. The Sherman then sat there while the StuG fired and missed twice, the third shot brewed it up. I have observed similar occurances several times. The question is does the TacAI take the status of the tank into account when making choices? If it does (and I hope it would) why didn't that Sherman realize that it wasn't doing itself anygood sitting there and being shot at when it could not fight back?

Captitalist I have the same card and run the ref. drivers no problem.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bertram: Deuce, I don't think it will be as simple as capturing the image (by a lens) in a fiberoptic and transporting it to the other side. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree. My statment above was over simplistic. I realize that there would have to be some processing involved, but I don't see that as the major obstacle in acheiving this technology. We already have computer programs (like quake III) that can generate a virtual object and then shade the surface of that object (on the fly) based on the nearby light sources. In theory, you would need to due the same for actual objects and actual lightsources. The major differnce is that the program would have to be able to measure the light intensity and direction accurately enough to provide realistic shading. Obviously it's a complicated system, but I think it could be made to work. Whether is't worth the effort is another matter. You mention color-change paint. I have read about this also. As I understand it they can acheive surprizingly high resoultions with it (paint on top of lots of little electrodes which are used to change the color). Although, I'm not sure if veiwing it from an angle distorts the colors or not, I think something like this would be optimal for this system, given the various detractors to conventional displays that have been mentioned.

The main consideration with aircraft would be weight I would think. Back during World War II they developed a different (and much simpler) system to make aircraft less visable. I beleive it was called the Doolittle project. The idea arose from the war in the Atlantic. U-boat captins often had enough time to spot an incoming aircraft and submurge before that aircraft could attack. The idea was to fit an array of lightbulbs on the aircraft, that when illumiated could allow it to blend in with the sky. When you think about it, it makes sense. Often, the first evidence you have that an aircraft is in the area is a black dot in the sky, but if that black dot generates enough light that it looks just like the bright sky behind it it's nearly invisible at long to medium ranges. The idea never really took off because radar came into widespread use not long after and made visual sighting a secondary concern. Now that we have radar stealthy aircraft I imagine that there will be much more study into visualy stealthy technologies. As an interesting side note: I have heard from several sources that the optimal color for an aircraft to minimize visabilty from the ground in the widest varity of lighting conditions is light pink. Of course no one will drive a light pink fighter

For what it's worth I looked it over and it sounds more or less workable, provided the the key enabler technologies become available. Since it uses fiberoptics to transmit the light input from one side of the structure to light output on the other side, it would be just as easy to render a complex or even moving background as a static uniform one. This is the same as how glass works, light goes in one side and light goes out the other. The nature of that light makes no difference. If there's a problem it would come from, durabilty, weight, maintainablity, etc. Historicly these sorts of problems are generally pretty easy to solve once you make the theory work. I've found that you rarely get anywhere being pessimistic about technology. If nobody ever innovated we'ed still be chucking rocks at each other. I mean how many people thought that airplanes would never fly, or that automobiles would never be practical? [This message has been edited by Deuce (edited 08-14-2000).]

You'll notice that engineers have the same armament as a rifle squade, plus their demo charges. I haven't found the mine clearing ability all that useful, but they make short work of bunkers and tanks if you can get them close enough. Otherwise I've found them just as effective as standard rifle teams. In realality combat engineers where some of the more highly respected outfits in the war, and rightly so IMO. I imagine that building a bridge while under fire is no sort of "wussy" activity. I like the story of the group of engineers who were building an airbase for B29s in the south pacific. A machine gun nest opened up on the construction site, so the crew buried it with their bull dozers.

That’s interesting. Also, the faster the projectile rotates the less wobble you get as it travels to the target, thereby ensuring that the path of the penetrator is as close to parallel with the path of the shell as possible. Which would maximize the velocity of the penetrator.

Just occured to me. Those equations won't be intirely accurate, because I'm sure there's some wobble in the shell's axis as it flys. I'm guessing there's not much though so it shouldn't make too much of a difference

I hadn't though of that. I would guess that the rotational KE would be trivial compared to the linear KE and that imparted by the explosive, but I don't really know. Here are the equations for someone who knows what numbers to put in them. Rotational KE around a fixed axis (axis p we'll call it) Kp = .5 * Ip * Op^2 where Kp is the rotational KE around p. Ip is the moment of inertial around axis p and Op is the angular velocity around axis p (should be an omega instead of an O, but I don't have that key ) for those who care you might notice that this is the same as KE=.5mv^2, but with angular kinematics terms substitued for the linear ones. To find Ip for a piece of shrapnel at the edge of the shell you would use Ip=(mass of the bit of shrapnel)*(the distance from the shrapnel to the axis of rotation)^2 I have no idea how fast a shell rotates so someone else will have to crunch this out.

IMO there's not much to argue about here. Let’s define three general cases where one might use HE direct fire. 1. Against infantry. This includes infantry in the open, in buildings, in the woods, in their underwear, etc. 2. Against lightly armored targets. Trucks, halftracks, carriage guns, etc. 3. Against pill boxes and bunkers, and anything else like #2 above, but better armored. For case one it seems obvious that maximizing your HE payload at the cost of propellant payload pays dividends. Your not looking to actually HIT the target so the extra accuracy of a higher muzzle velocity is not as important as having lots of shrapnel whizzing around real fast, and the biggest factor in how fast your shrapnel is flying around is how much HE you have crammed in the shell. Assuming the shell detonates on impact (we'll ignore any sort of special fusing for now) each piece of shrapnel has a component of velocity imparted by the explosion (Ve) and a component imparted derived from the velocity of the (ex)shell (Vs), this component is always parallel to the path of the shell. So, basically Ve is what’s causing those bits to spread out (of course some of the bits will a Ve that is parallel to Vs, but most won’t) and Vs is driving them towards the ground, hillside, building… whatever you were aiming at. At this point it is clear that if Vs is zero the shrapnel spread is maximized because each bit can travel farther before striking the ground. Fortunately none of this really matter’s, because Ve is so much larger than Vs that the effect is highly minimized. Case two is a similar to case one with the added complexity that you are actually shooting at a thing as opposed to an area. Let’s take the example of a tank firing at a gun emplacement. Higher muzzle velocity is a more advantageous here, but only because is makes aiming easier. The extra “smash” that higher speeds provide is not important, because a direct hit would likely disable the gun even if it where a dud and as pointed out in case one, should you miss, there is no benefit to higher shell velocities. Accuracy is the most important in case three, because bunks and pillboxes are protected from near misses. However if the walls of a bunker are so thin that a high velocity HE round will penetrate them, then an even higher velocity (and thus more accurate) AP round will certainly due the trick as well. Since case 1 and 2 where more common than 3, and since AP can be substituted to some effect, it seems that HE shells, ought to be designed to maximize there lethality in case one and two, that is, higher payloads at the expense of speed. Using the above thoughts it seems that the amount of HE in the shell has vastly more effect on it’s lethality than higher muzzle velocities for most targets (within reason of course, a 5mph bullet isn’t much good). When thinking about the propellant to explosive ratio what must be decided is how fast must the shell travel to accurately place itself close enough to the target for its blast to be lethal.