11-19-2019, 02:02 PM | #31 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
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Also, steadily shrinking area it can reach applies in much the same way to high-speed missiles. Even ignoring the eventual exhaustion of their propulsion, they (like a smart bullet) will inescapably overshoot the target. As the remaining range to the target decreases, so does the space the missile can maneuver into before such maneuvering becomes irrelevant. Quote:
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11-19-2019, 02:46 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
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Speaking theoretically, any fin-stabilized ballistic projectile can adjust its course laterally by aerodynamic means, it just bleeds velocity doing so (velocity loss depends on quantity and speed of correction, and would be negligible for correction sufficient to hit something evading at human speeds). Spinning projectiles are a more complicated problem (though it's the same basic velocity bleed), though it's unknown whether the darpa bullets spin in the first place, they could easily be fired from a smooth barrel. |
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11-19-2019, 03:36 PM | #33 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
Another problem at longer ranges is that the bullet won't actually be able to 'see' the target when it's fired, because the barrel will be pointing upwards too far. That means you're relying on the bullet acquiring the (correct) target after being fired, and soon enough that it has time to home on it. Either that or it's some kind of beam rider, command guided, or semi-active system, and all of these mean the operator is emitting right at the target which strikes me as unhealthy for the operator.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
11-19-2019, 05:12 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
Quote:
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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11-19-2019, 05:20 PM | #35 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
If you've got course correction, there's no need to aim the barrel upwards; any viable homing round should be able to maintain a flat trajectory out to the limits of its effective range.
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11-19-2019, 06:18 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
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I'm somewhat sceptical of the whole thing, at least for shooting at man-sized targets at range. We don't use self-homing ATGMs from ground launchers very much, and that's a much larger volume and mass available for the seeker, hunting for a much larger target. Basically, air-to-air detection and homing is 'easy mode'. Ground targets are... not.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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11-19-2019, 09:22 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
Oh, there's a fine chance that it's a DARPA pipe dream, they're prone to that (and it's sorta their job).
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11-20-2019, 03:49 AM | #38 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
Quote:
Re: shrinking area of opportunities - Exactly. The difference is that missiles have continuous propulsion (until the fuel runs out) and controls and bullets get one good wallop and then nothing so what ever controls they get in GURPS with a G&H system has to make do with the energy they have. If we postulate that they have some sort of energetic jet to add energy to the system then they are really a hybrid gyroc. And that stuff is generally less dense than the bullet is so we go down a rabbit hole of trading off penetrating mass for controls to raise the probability of hitting the target and it's a mess. Re: Dumb rounds - RAW says any Homing system with IR gets a skill 13 so no downside to packing it into as small a round as allowed. That aside there are a lot of complications to think through for this tech. Passive camouflage countermeasures, heat control/matching, active measures and intercepts. The interplay of powers. Several posts have been about sniping but is that the best use of such technology? The intention is to raise the hit ratio of the user - one bullet, one kill. A novice may be able to do very well with such a system so that leverages the manpower and lets less skilled people do better. But you could run a sensor over a crowd or a base, pick targets in real-time and then fire a burst of active homing rounds. Do it from within the one second range to reduce some counter measures. Send an armed drone as the firing platform and remotely engage if the range is too close for the firer to escape and evade retribution. Fire from further out if there is a need to cover more wiidth. And thus begins wheels within wheels of strategy and doctrine.
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Joseph Paul |
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11-20-2019, 05:07 AM | #39 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
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Add in as many iterations of Tracking as needed for the capacity of the magazine and the whole thing could be dumped with a round or more per each target.
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Joseph Paul |
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11-20-2019, 05:20 AM | #40 | ||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Bullet flight time conventions
Quote:
Yes, the bullet has only so much energy to work with. But that's not a binding constraint, because it also only has so much distance to work with before overshooting the target. And it's not likely to have enough maneuver authority to run out of energy before it runs out of space. The smart bullet isn't performing any sort of extensive maneuvers. It's just deflecting its ballistic trajectory enough to make it pass through the target rather than pass by the target. (A bullet, smart or not, also could be said to have much the same glide characteristics as a brick. If you threw said brick at supersonic speeds.) Quote:
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Tags |
bullet flight time, em guns, etc guns, etk guns |
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