06-13-2019, 11:59 AM | #51 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Approaching TL9?
No, caseless rounds still have significant practical issues, though it's true that there simply isn't a lot of interest in improvements to small arms; what we have does the job and the real benefits of most proposed changes are fairly modest.
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06-13-2019, 12:34 PM | #52 |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Approaching TL9?
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06-13-2019, 12:44 PM | #53 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Approaching TL9?
Or ever. There's no especially dramatic tech change in 1980, which is where the TL 7/8 divide is set (you can pick personal computers I suppose, but that not more dramatic than a lot of other developments in computer science and consumer electronics).
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06-13-2019, 12:51 PM | #54 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Approaching TL9?
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It was not until the RAF transfored the plane by installing the Rolls-Royce Merlin (which was followed by the ;license built Packard) that the "Mustang" designation was used and it became a high-altitude fighter with the P-51 number. While the Merlin also dates _originally_ to a c. 1930 airplane by the time it got to the P-51 development had seen a 60% increase in power. That's easily 10x or more than was seen in WWI aircraft. I've never liked lumping the WWI and II aircraft (or the tanks or even the most modern WWII ships) together.
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Fred Brackin |
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06-13-2019, 12:53 PM | #55 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Approaching TL9?
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The way we know when tech levels have transitioned is the grandparent test. When a large number of grandparents are baffled by what is now perfectly standard technology then you know you've switched tech levels. |
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06-13-2019, 01:04 PM | #56 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Approaching TL9?
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06-13-2019, 01:48 PM | #57 | ||
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: Approaching TL9?
Quote:
And don't discount economic and political reasons as being somehow invalid. Throwing money at a problem doesn't always result in a solution, and politics cuts both ways. West Germany adopted the G11 as a political measure, to have a scary space rifle to intimidate the Soviet Bloc. When the latter fell apart, there was no longer any need to waste the money on that concept. Quote:
My point with all this is that we should not consider one of the hallmarks of TL9 to be caseless ammunition. I stand by my assessment that the signature technology will have to be power cells. |
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06-13-2019, 02:01 PM | #58 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Approaching TL9?
Then again just because you can just barely get off the ground when the wind conditions are just right doesn't mean you have airplanes either. For TL purposes you don't measure from the first sort of successful prototypes but from when general implementation happens. In the case of airplanes, that's basically World War I. And it's TL 6 where the railroads were TL 5.
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06-13-2019, 02:06 PM | #59 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Approaching TL9?
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I think it's distinctly possible that anything that really matches the behavior of power cells will actually appear much later than other hallmarks of TL9, and might even be delayed into higher tech levels. Power cells are not so much hard futurism as they are a convenient simplification. You might still be able to get many of the high-energy technologies to work by doing things like combining supercapacitors with microturbines or fuel cells or highly advanced batteries, without having access to a device that is simultaneously the leading form of energy storage and capable of nearly unlimited peak power.
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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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06-13-2019, 02:29 PM | #60 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Approaching TL9?
Well, it does have some advantages. It just also has corresponding drawbacks. Tank rounds are essentially caseless (technically combustible case; the case does provide propellant effect but it's not as good at it as the main propellant).
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Tags |
earth, humanity, real world, tech level, tl9 |
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