In article ,
"John" writes:
"Peter Stickney" wrote...

Actually, John, you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how
tanks work, or what the typical engangement ranges are.
Five miles is right out.

I can only go by what I read. On sedcond thoughts, that does sound a bit far
though....

You need to read more, then. No insult intended.

Also consider that your millimeter-wave emitting SUV is ligking itself
up like a neon sign in a part of the radio spectrum that nothing else
is on. A couple of sinple horn antannae on the turret sides (Sort of
like the old coincidence rangefinder ears) for DFing, and an
omnidirectional antenna up with the Wind Sensor on the turret roof for
general detection, and you won't, say, be able to hide your
Tank-Killer SUV in Madman Morris's SUV Dealership's parking lot.

On the other hand five miles is about the right range for AT-missiles. So if
your tanks want to get to point blank range they'll still need to drive
through a kill-zone. At 40mph that'll take seven and a half minutes. How
many tanks will die in that time before they even get off a single shot?

No, 5 miles is about twice the maximum range of an AT missile.
And an AT missiles, especially a havyweight long range job like a TOW
or HOT has three severe drawbacks. They have a very impressive firing
signature - all manner of smoke, flame, and debris kicked out of the
back, (and picked up off the ground & flung about by the backblast),
They have a long time of flight - It'll take about 25-30 secinds to
travel downrange. Going much faster makes teh guidance problems
difficult - you don't have time to steer - and degrades the
performance of the HEAT warheads they carry. They also need to be
fired from a stable platform. A fast-moving, jinking SUV isn't going
to cut it.
So, as soon as you've fired, you've revealed your position. (After,
of course, beaconing yourself with the mm-wave radar. You're shooting
a slow-moving (relatively) missile that requires a steady platform, so
you need to be a steady target. In that time, the target vehicle can
get between 3 and 5 main gun rounds off. (That's one of the reasons
that U.S. tanks use manually loaded guns with 4 man crews - An
autoloader can't stand radio watch, or man an OP, or help break track,
or make the coffee, and it doesn't get excited in crunch situations
and load 3 rounds in 12 seconds. - I've seen it done, and on the move,
at that.) So, yeah, it'll be a killing zone. But not the one you're
thinking of. Helicopters, BTW, aren't much better. They also have to
be steady platforms - either hovering or flying fairly straight, and
have to be at low altitudes. Normal U.S. Doctrine is to shoot a main
gun round at him as you begin to evade. You stand a significant
chance of hitting, and even if you miss, you'll negate the attack.


Of course helicopters would be sent first, but you can buy 100 SUVs for the
cost of a single tank. The helicopters may simply run out of missiles.
Unlike tanks the SUVs may well be able to see as well as they can. And
unlike tanks, the SUVs can fire-back.

At this point, you're passing Balloon Gas.

Time of Flight of IRBM, 30 minutes. Speed of CVBG, 25 kts. Detection
of launch, instantaneous. DSP Sats, y'know. Radius of circle that
could contain the target - 12.5 Nautical Miles.

35 knots (let's be generous) and half an hour means a ship or convoy could
get 32410m away from the target point. This gives an area of
3,299,954,370m2. UK trident-II missiles can 8 475kT warheads which will
start fires at 9km, meaning they'll make the fuel onboard a carrier explode
within an area of 254,469,005m2. So you need a total of 12 warheads (or two
missiles) to kill the convoy. This assumes the US has perfect reaction
times, and can instantly guess the target at the moment of launch, which it
can't. As I said, nuclear buckshot will kill most things.

Analysis of the trajectory to be able to predict the point where the
warheads calve would be about 20 seconds. This is something we're
very good at. You might also consider the Flaming Datum problems that
you have here, as well. Postulating a U.K. sized military, you're
only going to have 1 missile sub at sea. (That's why they bought 4 of
the original Polaris boats - to be able to have 1 at sea, at any given
time. Nuking anything is, shall we say, a pretty definitive Statement
of Intent. At that point, even if you're postulating Massive
Retaliation against the U.S., you've not only marked your only viable
launch platform, in the worst possible way, you've expended 1/8 of
your missile & warheads on a relatively minor target. When the
Pointy-Haired Cannibal Hordes come pouring out of the wreckage of your
cities and drag you out of your bunker to invite you to dinner, well,
let's just say that you'll be well served.


Time of arrival of U.S. ICBM ('cause we're Nice Guys, and aren't going
to unleash somethig on the order of 10 Trident MIRVs on your country,
and only take out single targets, roughtly 1.0-1.5 hours after launch.
Your Command Centers and missile bases, or Missile Sub ports don't
move, and you made the mistake of going Nuclear first.

Attacking a military convoy (particularly of an agressor) is very different
from attacking a civilian or semi-civilian target. Particularly when the
fall-out will drift over large parts of europe, who will not exactly thank
you in exchange. Again, there is no international law that says, "Thou shalt
not attack the US." The US would also *not* launch against the british
islands without making damn sure they'd knocked out our ballistic submarines
first. Otherwise a single sub can destroy america. MAD remember?

Points: Not it its your convoy. We tend to take such things
personally.
It's not a case of Missile Subs, it's Missile Sub. (You've got 3, one
of which _may_ well, would be at sea, or you wouldn't be in a position
to screw up so mightily. The boats that are in port are gone.
Even if your boat at sea can avoid destruction, well, I hate to tell
you, but even a full load isn't going to do anythig but mightily ****
us off. Yes, we'll lose cities, but you're talking 14-16 missiles.
While you might have MIRVed warheads, they can only deviate from the
initial trajectory by a small amount. We're a big country, with stuff
fairly widely seprated. Hell, if you nuked Texas, we might not nitice
for years. If you nuked Nevada, property values would increase.
As for fallout, that is something that can be mitigated by, among
other things, the height of burst required to produce maximum effect.
Not that the Continental Euros might notice anything different - the
Eastern Midlands Coal Board puts several hundredweights of Thorium,
not to mention Uranium, particulates, and Sulfer compounds into the
European air without the slightest concern. (Did the number crunching
for an Internation Acid Rain Symposium back inthe '80s. Now I'm not a
Strict Environmentalist by any means, but these guys were/are daft!)
With the improvement in air quality, and the introduction of the
Gauloise shipments, life expectancy in France might actually increase



Besiodes which we have no silos or command centers! Have you seen the state
of London traffic? There's be no way the PM could get out in time! ^.^

Hmm. You should have thought about that before you started playing.

(And where in the British Isles could you get a 5 mile Line of Sight
to _anything_?

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster