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#21 | |
Computer Scientist
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Dallas, Texas
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#22 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Yeah. Swarmbots threaten to make the battlefield (a) unrecognisable and (b) non-survivable.
My setting is TL10 (no nanotech) and attack swarms are outlawed (like poison gas, germ warfare etc.), besides which I assume that the electronic environment on the battlefield is very hostile to broadcast communications. But there is no reason not to discuss the TL11 battlefield as it exists in others' settings.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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#23 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Even if not Geneva Conventioned they aren't going to change the battlefield.
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Fred Brackin |
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#24 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Yeah. Jeff_Wilson's point about observation/scout/picket swarms, on the other hand, is a compelling one, I think. How effectively can ECM (and EMP or jammer warheads) keep things foggy?
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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#25 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Swarmbots are realistically going to have pretty serious bandwidth issues, so they'll probably be silent except when they spot something they think is worth reporting on, and they aren't very smart so if you can figure out what they think is worth reporting on you can avoid looking like that. |
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#26 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Muscle-powered warriors reacting to gunpowder, pike-and-shot reacting to firearms and artillery advancement making their tactics suboptimal, line infantry reacting to minie bullets and advanced artillery in the Crimea and American Civil War, everyone reacting to armoured tanks, mechanised transport, artillery accurate beyond line of sight, airpower and radios in WWI-WWII and the Iraqis discovering what advances in technology and electronics really mean on the battlefield in Kuwait. Once drones are small enough and cheap enough, 'infantry' warfare starts being about ECM and ECCM, just like naval and air warfare at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. Elements of infantry are carrier battle groups which must be protected from the enemy drones while providing a base for their own to operate. I really see no way around that, no more than you can easily justify battleships duking it out as the primary means of projecting naval power with today's technology. It really doesn't matter that you don't buy into ultra-miniaturisation, because that this puropse, drones the size of fingers or even hands are quite enough. As long as they are cheap, you can deploy them widely enough so that you need drones of your own to track them and even one drone suffices to call in air strikes, artillery or ortillery.
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Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
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#27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Fro defensive uses and establishing sensor perimeters there's no need to drop a whole swarm in a single hex. They can be a lot more spread out. EMP warheads knockdown any swarm in their area for a period of seconds. Microwave scramblers do it for minutes. Simple concussion explosions kill swarms. Thermobaric warheads do it with extreme prejudice. Area jammers will keep swarms from radioing back to base though they might maintain short-range internal comms on an IR frequency. There is a "micro" sized laser com in UT with a 1000 yard range at TL10 but micro-swarms are much less likely to maintain good line of sight to relays due to tactics.
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Fred Brackin |
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#28 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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#29 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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Luke |
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#30 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Oh, as one more note, the MAD systems that only heat a thin layer of skin to 130 degrees will probably affect the whole swarmbot and cook real insects in their juices. Now that I've thought of that I want one to kill the local mosquitoes. :)
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Fred Brackin |
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Tags |
combat drones, military sf, robots, tl10, ultra-tech |
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