Conference noted::sf

    How about "Bethe blasters", which show up in several Blish books.
    
    	
    Anybody know how they work?                  :-)

	The Star Trek Phaser.  How I wished I had one a long time ago
	so I could stun my sister so she wouldn't complain about me watching
	Star Trek.

							mike

    The Sonic Whip and Blaster used throughout Asimov Stories.
    
    I liked those spheres fired out of a mortar type launcher used by
    Capt. Kirk against the Lizard dudes. Can't remember the episode.
    Ahh that's right. the Lizards are called Gorns.  Still don't rmember
    the episode name.
    
    Steve

    The ubiquitous lightsaber.  Thousand and one Household uses.
    
    These are, of course, from the Star Wars mythos.
    
    Dave W.

    The "Lensman" series had gobs and gobs of outre weapons.  One was
    an anti-matter cannon ball, which simply cancelled large chunks
    of enemy craft (and produced hideous quantities of gamma rays which
    did not show up in the plot).  I don't recall where they got the
    anti-matter.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	One of the most powerful weapons I have ever read about was
    from THE SCIENCE IN SCIENCE FICTION book:  It talked about colliding
    two BLACK HOLES together, with a release of energy capable of
    sterilizing planets orbiting stars LIGHT YEARS away from the point
    of the reaction, not to mention vaporizing anything closer.
    	The author also made the wry comment that any civilization which
    could force two black holes into each other could hardly call their
    weapon a tactical one!
    
    	Larry
    

     re .3
     The Star Trek episode with the Gorn was called "Arena"
    
     How about the "Wave motion gun" (Oh no, not the Wave Motion Gun!!!)
    from our Star Blazers!!!!!!!
    
    Roy

Larry Niven has had a number of great weapons, but the one I liked 
the best was his time machine.  You take a long cylinder of something
dense and Really Strong, and spin it so its edge is going near lightspeed.
Supposedly you get such warped gravitational fields near it that you 
can go backwards in time.  This might actually work; a guy named Tipler
discussed it in one of the physics journals.

A belligerent interstellar civilization
discovers that its enemies are building one of these, and figures 
that they better build one first.  Then they'll go back and assasinate
people.  They may be vicious, but they're not too bright, because they 
don't realize that time travel will cause the universe to change until
there is no more time travel.  Just as they get their machine working,
their sun goes nova.  Their enemies knew about this all along, and had
fed them false information through spies.  The time machine was a 
weapon all right, but directed at them!

/jlr

    Re "Lensman" negaspheres:
    
    The first one was planetary-sized.
    
    Oh, yes: they were manufactured by the conversion of ordinary matter
    using a technique developed by a Conference of Scientists.
    
    Re favorite "Lensman" weapon:
    
    On _Galactic Patrol_, Kinnison used a "Q-gun."  It was the only
    weapon in the Lensman universe used exactly one time in action.
    (Unless you count The Unit. ;-) )
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    P.S. Oops!  The Unit was used twice!
    
    -SK
    

    Wasn't there a whole dictionary of weapons from the "DUNE"
    series ??  Including ships to knives, beats soup to nuts.
    
    
    How about my favorite, "DEATH BLOSSOM".  Ring any bells ??
    
    Rick A

    
    I think it's Harry Harrison that introduced the Gauss Rifle and
    variants. It's based on the prnciple of magnetic induction on
    2 cylinders, repelling one away from the other. However to get
    a needle up to the speed equivalent to a rifle bullet, it would
    need an awful amount of voltage. I remeber doing an experiment in
    physics at school that was based on the same principle. The RPG 
    Traveller gives the stats for them. 
                                   
               Winton

    "Death Blossom" was from "Last Starfighter", wasn't it?
    	
    What was the name of the weapon in "Star Smashers of the Galaxy
    Rangers" that *must* be used exactly once ? (it sort of kick-starts
    the universe, if it isn't used, then the universe never starts).
    It comes in a small spray can, about the size of a giant-size Right
    Gaurd.
    	
    Finally, Robert Heinlein's "terror weapon" from _Starship Troopers_,
    designed to rattle the nerves of the opponents.  It looks like a
    large grenade.  You pull the pin and throw it.  It starts shouting
    (in your opponent's native language):
    
    
    	
    	I AM A THIRTY SECOND BOMB!  
    	I AM A THIRTY SECOND BOMB
    	
    	TWENTY-SEVEN!
    	TWENTY-SIX!
    	TWENTY-FIVE!
    	TWENTY-FOUR!
    	  .
    	  .
    	  .

	 In the  book "Invader" by Albert Fay Hill and Donald Campbell Hill,
	 the  Earth  is suddenly attacked by some alien spaceships. They are
	 scouts  sent  in advance from a giant fleet of invading spaceships,
	 due to arrive in our neighbourhood shortly.

	 So all the world unites in a project to build a giant Graser, which
	 is  like  a  laser but using gamma rays instead, and fire it at the
	 invading  fleet. The idea is to fire it at a time when the distance
	 to the fleet is such that the beam, when it reaches the fleet, will
	 have widened enough to encompass the whole fleet.

	 To test the weapon, a couple of smaller Grasers are built. They are
	 used to shoot down the scouts:
	
	 "... From the blunt end of the Graser leapt a line of violet light,
	 like  a lightning bolt, but absolutely straight. A beam of coherent
	 gamma rays, inches in diameter, but with the power of an atom bomb,
	 would  spread  to  only  a foot and a half in the three hundred and
	 fifty  miles  it  had  to travel - and it covered that distance and
	 reached  the  target  almost  instantaneously,  for it moved at the
	 speed of light. 

	 In its wake was a thunder-like crack."

	 That would  be  an  amazing device. I wonder if it is plausible? In
	 the  book  it  is  powered  by a fusion reactor - it would probably
	 generate   enough   radioactivity  to  sterilise  the  whole  solar
	 system...

    
    
    	Yes, "Death Blossom" was on "The Last Starfighter".
    
    	Dune did have some interesting weapons:
    
    	Hand to hand combat with knives and each opponent has an
    	indivual force field which glances off all fast attacks
    	but will allow a slow approach through.
    
    	Hunter-Seeker, a kind of a miniature smart bomb. Transmits
    	visual picture back to controller, floats in the air, can go
    	really fast, hits home with a lethal injection.
    
    	My favorite was the "wierding modules" which gave a whole
    	new meaning to the power of your voice. Of course, in the end
    	Paul didn't need the "wierding module".
    
    zack
    

    Years ago, ANALOG had a column called, I think, "Probability Zero".
    It concerned mainly humorous applications of science and fiction.
    One column concerned the Neutrino Bomb.
    The Neutrino Bomb, upon detonation would convert its entire mass
    to neutrinos. Now neutrinos are harmless, but a vacuum the size
    of the bomb is left behind. So.... all it does is go BOOM!
    
    sm     
    
    P.S. Yes, Grasers are possible, it is one of the things that SDI
    is looking into.

    It's been too long since I read Lensman; what are the Q-gun and
    the Unit?
    
    The "weirding modules" were in the movie version of "Dune" but not
    the book.  They were a substitute for the more plausible but duller
    idea of training pseudo-bedoiun fanatics in Bene Gesserit combat
    techniques, then being a brilliant strategist with precog.  (Okay,
    so parts of that aren't much more plausible than "weirding modules.")
                               
    On time-travel weapons:
    
    In some Dr. Who episode or other, the Daleks had a gun that didn't
    just kill you, it rubbed out your whole world-line, so you never
    existed in the first place.

    Then there is the Bezerkers.  Leftover weapons from unknown and
    long ago fought wars.  
    
    Steve

        .16: "The Unit" was just the fusion of the children of the
        lens... far more than "a weapon", although they did have a high
        destructive capacity.  The Q-beam wasn't exactly a weapon,
        either... it was a way of making a hole in a ship's wall shield
        so that a duodec bomb could be delivered... sort of the
        forcefield equivalent of a gun barrel.  (or was there really a
        "Q-gun" somewhere else in the series?) 
        
        
        Speaking of the Lensman series, another interesting weapon
        idea as the "dirigible planet" concept... started out by
        finding a planet with a particular velocity vector, putting
        on a Bergenholm (inertia neutrilizer) and drive, lining it
        up against an enemy planet such that it's inertial velocity
        was exactly "equal and opposite" to that of the target, and
        then releasing the Bergenholm (returning the full inertial
        velocity).
        
        They then went on to "negaspheres" (not exactly what we call
        anti-matter, as it had negative mass), including one of
        "planetary anti-mass"; and finally an "ordinary" planet from
        an odd alternate universe where matter had inertial velocities
        of greater than the speed of light... a rather effective
        weapon when the Bergenholm (made painstakingly of native
        material) was shut off...
        
        John Campbell (actually, Arcot Wade and Morey... Campbell
        just told the story :-)) also used planets as weapons.
        
        	/dave

    How about the Sheem robots from "The Witches of Karres"? Sort of
    like a cross between the "Terminator" and "Aliens", these devices
    would track the quarry relentlessly, over almost any terrain. The
    description in the book of someone taking one out of its crate and
    "assembling" it was really spooky...
    
    -b

    Re .18:
    
    I called The Unit a weapon because that's wha the Arisians designed
    it for first and foremost (though it also became the successor to
    the guardians of the universe).
    
    The "matched intrinsics" planets that smashed a planet between them
    was invented by Kimball Kinnison and was called a "nutcracker" in
    _Gray Lensman_.
    
    The Q-gun was just that: a "Q-based helix of force" that acted as
    an extension of a gun barrel so that an explosive shell filled with
    duodec would reach the wall-shield of the Boskonian warship.  It
    was used only enough to cripple one ship long enough for Kinnison
    to obtain the secret of the Boskonian space drive (actually, power
    source).  It was a one-shot; if it hadn't worked, it probably wouldn't
    have done any good to try again.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr
    

    Re .19
    
    On a much milder level of arcane weaponry than planet-smashing,
    one of the witch children, the Leewit, could shatter most rigid
    things by whistling -- presumably at the target's resonnant frequency,
    which frequency she presumably learned by ESP.  We were told that
    the Leewit's whistle could also act as a good solid sock on the
    jaw, though we never see it so used.  We DO see it used to break
    a number of vases, destroy an enemy ship's communications equipment
    and, at the climax of the story, crash a planet-wide computer system.
    
    Back at the planet-tossing level, Captain Pausert, the hero of "Witches
    of Karres," learned to be a "vatch-handler."  (A vatch is a lot
    like a poltergeist.)  With a suitably enslaved, suitably large vatch,
    he was able to throw the bad guy's roving planet back into the inter-
    dimensional chaos from which it came.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	There is one "portable" weapon which sounds great, but then
    it quickly belongs in the SF Myth category:
    
    	I cannot remember the novel from which it comes, but there is
    a device which can carry around mini-black holes - microscopic black
    holes created from the forces of the Big Bang.  Their event horizon
    is very small, but anything that comes into direct contact with
    it (I believe it was somehow aimed at people), would be torn apart
    by the powerful gravitational forces.
    	The tiny, invisible, yet powerful weapon sounds quite ingenious,
    until it was later found out that probably every mini-black hole
    decayed very soon after the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago!
    	So, it's back to the old combining two large black holes and
    wiping out several star systems at once!
    
    	Larry
    

In "Lord of Light", Zelazny took some of the traditional symbols of
the Hindu gods and turned them into high tech weapons: Kali's necklace
of skulls was some kind ultrasonic weapon, Agni's flame came from a
sort of portable laser cannon, etc.

Some of the characters had inherent (psychic?) powers that approached
the godlike, and used the weaponry to augment those powers, while others
depended totally on the technology.

    Asimov also used thiotimoline to make a neat weapon.
    What you do is make a cascade of thiotimoline and water chambers
    such that when the stuff dissolved, it releases water to the next
    chamber. Since it dissolves 1.2 seconds before the water touches
    it, a long enough cascade can get the last chamber to dissolve long
    before the water is added to the first chamber. In the story, they
    built up a battery such that the anticipation was equal to 24 hours.
    once the last chamber dissolved, another group came in and sealed
    up the battery so the water could not be added to the device.
    Well, this wreaked havoc with the weather. Hurricanes and tornados
    started brewing. They eventually had to smash the thing open with
    a fire axe to keep the university from being totally destroyed.
    Thus the suggestion that you build up an endochronic battery of
    a suitable delay, convince it that the water will be added, seal
    it up real tight once it has dissolved, then drop it in the enemy's
    territory. Natural disaster on order.
    
    sm

    What about the gun Gene Simmons used in ???????? can't remember
    the name of the movie, with Tom Selleck. The gun had a programable
    missile/bullet that hunted only the person with the body chemistry
    it was programed for. Also had the "spiders" the attacked and had
    acid they injected into whomever they were after.
    
    M-L
    

  ...and not primarily a weapon.  At one point in the "Cities In Flight"
  series, Blish mentioned an explosive called TFX.  The molecular structure
  of this stuff caused the blast to be confined to a plane as opposed to the
  spherical blast front of normal explosives.  So the "explosion" caused
  things to get sliced rather than blown up or away.

  JP

    How about the gun Gene Simmons invented and used in "Runaway".
    The gun contained sort of a "heat seeking bullet".  The
    bullet would go around corners or through apertures to find
    it's host then explode upon impact.
    
    Mike_L

re: .27
>  of this stuff caused the blast to be confined to a plane as opposed to the
>  spherical blast front of normal explosives.  So the "explosion" caused
>  things to get sliced rather than blown up or away.
That recalls the super-fine, super-strong wire that the terrorists strung in
front of a train in Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar".  It slices right _through_
the train, decapitating various passengers.  That book had a lot of nasty
stuff in it (he must have been in a bad temper that year).

    Sounds like Sinclair molecular chain (from Larry Niven).  It looks
    like very fine black thread- except that it has a near-infinite
    tensile strength.  It cuts things fairly easily. You have to be
    Real Careful when handling the stuff.
    	
    There's a different kind of fine black thread which is a
    room-temperature superconductor.  You spin a coverall garment from
    this stuff, and leave a thread hanging.  Toss the thread into the
    nearest large lake, river, etc., and you are now immune to lasers,
    flamethrowers, etc. because the superconductor conducts any excess
    heat out into the lake. (This is also a Nivenism)

re: .29
>That recalls the super-fine, super-strong wire that the terrorists strung in
>front of a train in Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar".  It slices right _through_
>the train, decapitating various passengers.  That book had a lot of nasty

reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's mono-molecular wire that effectively could
slice through anything (_Fountains_of_Paradise_).

Niven had some interesting weapons. I liked his version of the 'saber': a
handle and a red light that marked the end of the extended weapon. Careful!
From Ringworld. And of course the Tasp...

The Tincpuctin (sp?) weapon from one of his short stories: 10 weapons in one!
Change a slide setting and it creates a whole new weapon (what ever happened
to conservation of mass?). Included a computer, laser, disintegrator,
and one which, if used on a planetary body, caused earthquakes. Finally,
since the object was a spy weapon, a self-destruct setting. The computer
told the Kzinti that were fooling with the thing about that one.

I liked the artificial meteorites from Heinlein's _Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress_.
Splat!

kevin routley

    RE: -.1
    
    Sinclair Molecule Chain!  Larry Niven had this stuff lying around in
    the later years of his Known Space series.  It was a strand exactly one
    molecule thick that could cut through anything; the Kzin in RINGWORLD
    had a sword whose blade was a single strand of the Chain encased in  a
    stasis field for rigidity; because the blade itself was invisible, it
    also had a red ball at the 'blade's tip, so the wielder knew where his
    weapon was.  This type of sword was used in other Known Space episodes,
    as well. 
    
    Plus, on the Ringword they discovered 'Shadow Square wire' which seemed
    similar stuff; it had fallen all about the countryside, causing trouble
    and cutting Puppeteers' heads off...:-)  I seem to remember them using
    one strand of this wire to tow an entire floating city around.
    
    Matt
     

    OK, looks like I lost the race.  Or was 3rd, at least
    

    	How about the Sandman's pistol from the 1967 novel, LOGAN'S
    RUN (not to be confused with the poor 1976 movie version).  It had
    five (or was it six) ammunition packs ranging from heat seekers
    to nitros to gassers to weblike nets!  The pistol could also not
    be touched by anyone except who it was issued to, otherwise it would
    blow up!  It also let out a high-pitched warning signal if its 2116
    policeman owner still had it at the end of Lastday, as he too became
    the Runner the Sandmen always sought.
    
    	Larry
    

    I don't think there were any Puppeteers on Ringworld, other than
    the one that accompanied the expedition (Nessus?).

    I think it's spelled Tnuctipun.  Your guess as to how it's pronounced.
    
    Wasn't the Kzin weapon called a "variable sword", or am I thinking
    of something else?
    
    And there's that pain wand that shows up in A World Out of Time.

    len.
    
    

    Well, there's the Doc Savage "machine pistols," armed with explosive
    bullets, plain slugs, or anesthetic-gas bullets.
    
    The "Skylark" gun, an automatic with Richard Seaton's "X-plosive
    bullets" -- sort of atomic-warhead bullets.
    
    The Fritz Leiber "energy swords" in _Gather, Darkness_ -- a forerunner
    of the Luke Skywalker Light Sabers.
    
    A. E. Van Vogt's "intelligent mine" in "Itself!"
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    The Hindmost went to Ringworld later but he didn't get his head
    cut off - 
    

    	Since everybody seems to love Ringworld/Niven weapons so much:
    
    	How about the LASER used to protect Ringworld from any incoming
    debris, so as not to let any material puncture the relatively fragile
    shell and let the air out.  Seems it made a pretty good defense
    mechanism against the Puppeteer's starship, mistaking it for an
    errant asteroid.
    
    	If humanity ever builds a ringworld (or a Dyson sphere), we
    will probably have similar protectiing lasers - we might even have
    them around our space stations and cities!
    
    	Larry
      

    How about R. Reagan's orbiting lasers and proton cannons?
    
    Oh-h-h...that's not fiction?
    
    AKF
    

    
    How about the intelligent, planet destroying bombs in DARK STAR?
                
    never really got to see one work.
    
    sm

Remember in Star Trek there are several interesting weapons:

  The Tantalus field (disintegrates anyone within the ship on demand)

  The female android whose touch would disrupt every cell in your body from
	the inside, but could only be tuned to a particular person.

  The laser that Spock created by placing two rubindium(sp?) transponder
	cystals a particular distance apart near a light source.

  The cligat, a circular throwing knife used by the native of Capella, which
	had three edges and was thrown somewhat like a discus or a boomerang.

There are plenty more where they come from.

	 Enjoy,

	 /~~'\
	W o o k
	(  ^  )
	 \`-'/
	  \_/

re .38

Wasn't this weapon really a directed solar flare ? The Ringworld engineers
could control the magnetic fields of the sun using something installed in
the Ringworld floor (superconductors ?), causing the sun to flare in whatever
direction was necessary..

Peter.

    How about the Bugs in ALIEN and ALIENS? (Assuming, not unreasonably,
    that they were gengineered and not naturally evolved.)
    
    --- jerry

        Ah yes... another Doc Smith Lensman weapon... the Sunbeam,
        used to defend our solar system.  A system which focused
        (briefly) the entire energy output of the sun into a narrow
        beam... quite effective when tossed through the center of
        the enemy fleet...
        
        	/dave

                              -<TOY SOLDIERS>-

    
    In (I think) a Stephen King story from Night Shift, there was a
    foot locker of toy soldiers which were alive.  They had mini-guns,
    mini-jeeps, mini-helicopters, and not to mention a mini-thermonuclear
    bomb . . .
    
    Merry Christmas . . .
    
    							Cw
    

    	Don't forget "Santa the Terminator" from SNL a few years ago!
    
    	:^)
    

    In John W. Campbell's _The Incredible Planet_, there were several
    goodies:
    
    "Atomic rot" -- something that caused a slow reaction/disintegration
    in the target.
    
    The Sseset Space Cups -- a supersaturated energy field that both
    devoured matter and "anchored it in space" so that it couldn't get
    away.
    
    The "Gravity bombs" that caused local implosion/compressions.
    
    The "opalescent beam" -- a disintegrator.
    
    The "Cosmical constant" bomb -- a disintegrator/destroyer using
    a concentration of space curvature.
    
    The "White flame" -- energy from outside the universe that came
    through formless in its pure state.
    
    And the Telatoscope "Rotated through 37 degrees" that enabled the
    heroes to progect a full image of Doradus S on a small star, heating
    it to the point of nearly overheating the planet of the enemy.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    re .25 (thiotimoline):
    
    The endochronic battery as a weapon was described in "Thiotimoline
    and the Space Age" collected in OPUS_100.
    It was supposedly "responsible" for Hurricane Diane hitting New
    England in 1955.
    
    sm

    How about if we talk about some of the first SF weapons used.
    In Edgar Rice Burroughs "A Princess of Mars" written in 1910, the 
    martians had pistols and rifles that had remarkable range and
    accuracy.  The shell of the bullet had a chemical beneath it that 
    would explode when daylight hit it.  When the bullet struck upon an 
    object or life-form, there would be and explosion.  Night battles were 
    said to be very dangerous.  The next day (during sunrise), bodies
    would often be seen jumping in the air due the explosions from the 
    sunlight.  
    Mike_L

    For SF antiquity, let us not forget the original ray-gun, the heat-ray
    used by H. G. Wells's Martians in "War of the Worlds."  At least,
    I'm not aware of any older ray-gun.
    
    Did Verne have any good weaponry.  How about the Nautilis and the
    airship from "Master of the World"?
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    In a book by Phillip Jose Farmer (the name escapes me), there was
    a giant extra-universal machine-spaceship which destroyed planets
    by unloading billions and trillions of steel spheres.  Not very
    economical, but I guess it gets the job done.  In the story, it
    was like a giant antibody which got rid of life in every universe
    it entered.  There was no explanation where it got its supply of
    ammo though.
    
    							Cw
    

    .51 reminded me of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Heinlein. 
    They would use a type of rail gun to launch large cargo cylinders
    filled with plain moon rock at the Earth.  The inertia and mass
    of the incoming cylinders would explode and create megaton blasts.
    
    Steve

    And then there's a billiard ball and an inertialess field,
    from Asimov's "The Billiard Ball".
    
    --- jerry

.53 reminded me of something...

I think it might have been Niven, or Asimov... It was a murder mystery. The
person who was killed was a brilliant scientist, who had invented what was
supposted to be a time (?) machine.  

Now I remember! I'm fairly certain it was "The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton"
by Niven that had this story in it, since Gil uses his psionic "arm" to
discover the murderer. In fact, remembering that, how about gil using his
"arm" to kill a bad guy by grabbing his heart with his psionic "arm"! Of 
course, this is reminicsent (sp?) of Stasheff's _The_Warlock_Unlocked_
where Gallowglass uses his new found psionic powers to _explode_ his
opponent's heart! Interesting uses of psionics here...

Back to my original thought... this machine was effectively an accelerator
field. When Gil discovers the bad guy, the baddy turns on the field except
Gil has his foot, which extends beyond the field. The baddy is trying to
reach a _flashlight_, which, if turned on within the field, WILL ACT AS
A POWERFUL LASER, since the light is accelerated. Well, it was something
more interesting than a laser, but as you can see from the above, my 
memory is not so hot, especially first thing in the morning ... 8^)

Does Jules Verne's giant cannon count as a weapon? (see .-1, .-2, whereever)

No one commented on my earlier mention of Niven's tasp... any more Niven
weapons (no more mentions of mono-molecular/sinclair chains! )

kevin routley

    	RE 373.50-
    
    	This isn't SF, but in ancient Greece, Archemides used a large
    lens/mirror to reflect concentrated sunlight on enemy ships in Grecian
    harbors and burn them!  I would consider this a very primitive (but
    effective) laser - lasers are concentrated light rays, and Archemides
    was doing the best he could with 2,000-year old technology.
    
    	Larry
    

    re .54
    a tasp would be a pretty powerful weapon against an enraged kzinti
    - he'd curl up at your feet and start purring. (a 'course you
    wouldn't dare turn the thing off. If it could be broadcast to large
    groups it would be a pretty effective and bloodless way to win a
    war!
    You memory of the Gil Hamilton story is correct as far as *my* 
    remebering of it goes. He also used his psi power to stick a cigarette
    in his own eye to get the villan (an organ snatcher) to come close
    enough so that he could grab him.
    How about "plateau eyes" as a weapon or a mess of Grogs?

Piers Anthony has a lot of gadgets in MACROSCOPE and CLUSTER books.
Unfortunately I can't remember any of the weapons....

JERRY!!! He must know... (he knows *everything* :-))

Jim.

    
    How about the Aliens in ALIENS?
    
    Dave W.

    	The Aliens have already been mentioned.
    
    	Larry
    

    Bolo combat units!  Your choice of models!
                            
    I liked the Flash Gordon stun-guns better than phasers.  What better
    to have an immobile but concious enemy at your mercy?  Speaking
    of Trek, in Arena Kirk fired diamonds.  I believe that falls into
    the "rock throwing" category.  :-)
    
    The Pyrran handgun which stayed in it's arm-holster until the
    hand was in the proper position to receive it and SMACK!, it was
    in your hand quicker than you could extend your arm.  (Harrison's
    DEATHWORLD.
    
    Also, a portable force-field of which you can change the shape of
    to squish opponents.  I can't (deep despair) recall the name of
    the story it was used in at this time.  Circa 1960.  I believe.
    
    And, more of a defensive weapon, the "Long Ten Seconds" as seen
    in TRANCERS.                                    
    
    						Don
    
    P.S. Just thought of another from RUNAWAY.  The mobile bombs.
         What a way to deal with people who cut you off!
    

    Re .55:
    
    As an old Archimedes student of many years, a few points:
    
    1) A concentration of light, even enough unto burning a ship or
    ships doth not a laser make: the light involved would be neither
    monochromatic nor coherent.
    
    2) A more likely use of mirrors in warfare would be to blind the
    enemy sufficiently so that they couldn't orient themselves (this
    was in pre-compass days) and either would have to sail off or crash
    on the rocks.
    
    3) I haven't seen a _reliable_ historical account of Archimedes
    pulling that trick.  Most of his work in this area was mechanical,
    where he smashed Marcellus' navy via oversize catapults and cranes
    that upended ships and siege engines.
    
    However;
    
    4) Arthur C. Clarke used an Archimedes-mirror weapon in a short
    story where fans of a (Latin American?) soccer team got programs
    with reflecting-mirror backs.  When a very unpopular umpire made
    a bad call, every fan in tghe stadium caught a sunbeam and shone
    it on the umpire.  The energy concentration was so great he vaporized.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

  Hmmm.  Wasn't Archimedes also credited with something called "Greek Fire?"
  Allegedly it was poured on the harbor waters and ignited to destroy an
  enemy fleet.  I seem to remember that the invention was lost but historians
  surmise that it might have been based on naptha.  Does anyone have details?

  JP

                          -< Again Niven >-
    re .54
    
    One of the most impressive Niven weapons ( along with the Ringworld
    meteorite defence) must be the Wunderland Treaty-maker. This little
    gem is described in Ringworld Engineers. The Treaty-maker is basically
    two Slaver disintegraters firing in parallel. The catch is that
    one beam suppresses the charge on the electron and the other the
    charge on the proton. The two beams are slightly divergent so that
    there is a current flow between the points where the beams strike.
    This was used in the 4th Man - Kzin war to attack the Kzin colony
    on Warhead. The result was the human colony in the Canyon.
    
    Clive Summerfield
    
     (the S.Prog)

    	Here is a great weapon which combines an idea from Hogan's 
    "Thrice Upon A Time" and Niven's works:
    
    	Obtain yourself a black hole or something equally as dense.
    Trap the thing in a stasis field.  Then fire the thing (stasis
    field and all) at your favorite planet.  When the thing has
    penetrated, turn the stasis field OFF.  I believe if you come
    back to that planet in some arbitrary time (say a year), it will
    be gone.
    
    	Pat
    
    

    	There was a short story called The Bully and the Crazy Boy written
    by a forgotten author which appeared in Analog.  In it, the Earth
    (at say, about a century or two in the future) was attacked by alien
    carnivores who decided that omnivorous primates such as humans were
    too wimpy and too stupid to exist.  The aliens, armed with gamma
    guns and grav shields made mincemeat of the humans, armed with lasers
    and armor.  The aliens could also run rings around the humans. 
    	However, in the long years it took for the aliens to advance
    toward the inner system, Terran scientists figured out how to defeat
    the aliens.  They has ships sent to the opposite side of the solar
    system and then accelerated to near light speeds toward the aliens.
    At that speed, the crews died, riddled with cosmic particles. (Here
    my physics gets a little shaky).  The dozen or so ships were programmed
    for a collision course at a certain site.  To make sure the aliens
    would be there, the humans engaged them in battle (knowing they
    would be lost also).  The super-fast ships collided, sending out
    a shower of gamma ray(?) radiation which destroyed everything in
    the vicinity.
    
    	How's that for human ingenuity?
    
    							Cw
    

    re .62:
    
    Greek Fire preceded Archimedes.  It was a sort of proto-gunpowder
    [or by modern standards, proto-napalm] consistring of naptha and
    sulphur.  It was hard to extinguish and tended to stick on what
    it contacted.
    
    The approximate formula for it can be found in Willy Lwey's rocketry
    books, near the beginning.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    	The following is NOT a JOKE (but it should be!):
    
    	Several years ago, the Pentagon actually spent several million
    dollars planning methods to create a TIME/SPACE WARP over the North
    Pole, so that any Soviet missles heading over the Arctic towards
    the U.S. would go into the time/space warp and explode "harmlessly"
    in some remote past! (Harmless was their thinking)
    	They also researched plans to somehow make it possible - with
    the aid of highly sophisticated technology - to telekinetically
    "will" nuclear bombs at enemy targets!
    
    	I got this from the Associated Press News Service back in 1981,
    which they claim came from top secret Pentagon documents; I certainly
    can't prove them true, but knowing the Pentagon, why not???!!!!!
    
    	Whether such things are ever possible or not, the fact that
    they had people even thinking about such "defenses" is more horrifying
    than sitting through ALIENS!
    
    	Larry
    

  Re: .67

  I think I'd rather have the Pentagon err in the direction of "blue
  sky" as opposed to lack of imagination. 

  In any case, we don't need a time/space warp over the north pole to
  mess up missiles.  Since no one has ever actually launched a missile
  over a pole, I'm confident that the magnetic field will screw things
  up admirably.  It won't stop them but I doubt they'll go where they
  were aimed...  Just something else to be horrified about, I guess.

  JP

    re .68:
    
    I doubt the magnetic field of the earth itself will mess up the
    missiles, they are all inertially guided anyway. What might mess
    them up is heavy solar activity but I'm sure there is adequate
    shielding from that.
    
         /
    	(   ___
         )  ///
        /

    to .69 sm - is your design an attempt at a fractal dragon?

    Speaking of weird Pentagon projects.  I read somewhere that during 
    WW II the government had three far out research projects going on.
    Out of the three, one worked out so they dropped the other two.  The
    two that they dropped were anti-gravity and radar invisibility for
    warships.  The one what worked out was the atom bomb.

    Mike

	The radar invisiblity one was called the Philadelphia
	Experiment.. They made a movie about it a couple of
  	years ago..  I wonder what really happened??? (Alot of
	it is supposed to be still classified.. I think)

							mike

Radar invisibility doesn't seem like such a weird idea.  If you sent 
a signal back at the transmitter of the same intensity and frequency
as your echo, but of the opposite phase, you could cancel the echo.
You'd have to know exactly what your echo was like, though.  It's non-trivial
but not impossible.

Actually, this would be a lot easier in space.  You could put a shell 
of radar detectors around your ship that could measure the echo.  They
would relay the info to the ship, which would broadcast the cancelling
signal.  However, it would be hard to maintain the shell when you 
were accelerating.  Might be a good defense for space colonies, though.
Large, slow objects like colonies could also cover themselves with 
radar absorbent materials.  They don't do it today because you need 
a couple of feet of the stuff for it to be effective.

/jlr

    re .72:  Not to be nit-picky (as it happens I have the book) it
    was called The Philadelphia Project.  Interesting these little 
    "projects" the government (that's "guv'mint") works on which some
    feel may destroy the world before they try it.
                                     
    						Don

RE: .74

	Well, the movie was called the P. Experiment so.......

	Where'd you get the book??

						mike

    Tom Swift Jr. developed an interesting approach to radar invisi-
    bility. The object is covered with transceivers which pick up
    the radio signal, relay it to the opposite side and transmit it
    on. No echo, no see.
    
    --- jerry

      Back in the early 1950s, the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet TV series
      had a weapon called a paral-o-ray gun (spelling is mine). 
      One blast from it and you were frozen in position; a second
      blast from it and you were released.  I don't remember if the
      wielder of the weapon had to change settings to send a releasing
      blast.
      
      The kids on my block used to play "freeze".  If someone blasted
      you, you had to freeze as if hit by a paral-o-ray gun and stay
      frozen until released.  Our mothers just didn't understand.
      "Too much TV," they said.  "Why do they just freeze when they
      shoot each other?  Why can't they just fall over dead like
      other kids when they get shot?  What's wrong with guns that
      shoot bullets?  Paralyzing someone with a gun is *sick*.  Getting
      healed with a second shot is [get this] *UNREALISTIC*."  
       
      By the way, you are all ineligible now from answering my question
      about paral-o-ray guns in the trivia conference, because the
      answer is above.
      
      Dave C.

re: .73:
>Radar invisibility doesn't seem like such a weird idea.  If you sent 
>a signal back at the transmitter of the same intensity and frequency
>as your echo, but of the opposite phase, you could cancel the echo.
>You'd have to know exactly what your echo was like, though.  It's non-trivial
>but not impossible.

Actually, a friend of mine once told me that a similar device was buildable
for jamming current-day police radar detectors. Notice that I did not say
"availiable" because, as far as he knew, you could only get the PLANS, not
an actual jammer. It sounded interesting, because you could adjust the 
returning signal to make the police radar detector think you were going
50 when you might actually be going 70.

Does this answer actually belong in SF on TARGET? :-)

kevin routley

    re .78:
    
    > you could adjust the returning signal to make the police radar 
    > detector think you were going 50 when you might actually be going 70.
               
    This would be quite a trick, since they measure speed by doppler
    shift.
    
    I do know of a very simple radar jammer that can knock out speed
    radars for quite some distance. Basically a high power Radar noise
    generator.
    

                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 / 
    

RE: .76

	Arrrggghhh!!! I was gonna enter that in here today Jerry!! You
	beat me to it!

					An avid Tom Swift reader,

							mike

    re .79 - no trick at all, all you have to is return a stronger signal
    that's frequency shifted by the right amount.  You know how fast
    you're going, so you can figure out what the undopplered (relative
    to you) incoming radar frequency is, compute the correct return
    frequency for the desired indicated speed, appropriately shift it
    to correct for your actual speed, and send it back to swamp the
    actual return.  This might end up costing rather more than you'd
    save in terms of avoided tickets and insurance surcharges.  But
    it's straightforward.
    
    len.
    

     
    A Radar jammer would also, however, be easily detectable and highly
    illegal. It would be nice, though, to have one powerful enough to
    fry the cop's radar's circuitry.
    
    Roy

    	In the Jetson's there was a prototype aircar which had a small
    disintegrator attached to it, where if the car's driver (pilot?)
    was in a crowded parking lot and couldn't find a parking space,
    he or she simply disintegrated another car and took the space!
    
    	Oh, the ensuing legal problems would almost be worth it! :^)
    
    	Larry
    

    I was going to say a radar "thwarter" wasn't a weapon until I read
    .82.
      
    I may have to self-correct myself on THE PHILLY EXP.  My listing
    says "EXPERIMENT".  Too late to dig it out tonight, but I will
    tomorrow.  (It is by W.L. Moore, and I got it at a library sale.)
    
    						Don 

The cutest anti-radar gadget I've heard of is a muffin fan with 
aluminum foil wrapped around the blades.  You mount it sideways on 
your dashboard, and the blades reflect the radar beam with an extra doppler
shift caused by their motion.  Makes it look like the car is doing 120.
Puzzled cop says "Damn thing's on the fritz again" and lets you by.
I don't know if there would be enough reflection from the blades
(I would never try this of course, being a law-abiding citizen), but 
perhaps one could glue little corner reflectors onto them.  Bicycle
safety reflectors would probably work fine, but might be a little 
hard to explain.  "It's my prayer wheel, Officer; every time it spins 
around I get another point with Buddha."  Well, enough of this highway
ECM - let's get back to serious explosions.

John McPhee once wrote a book called "The Curve of Binding Energy".
It was about Theodore Taylor, a Princeton physicist and conceptual 
A bomb designer.  He designed both the smallest and largest fission 
bombs ever set off.  He once visited the test site for one of his bombs
and bought a little silver ashtray beforehand.  He attached some coat 
hanger wire to it, and put a cigarette at the focal point of the dish.
When the device went off, he held the dish up over the edge of the bunker,
and lit his cigarette with an atomic bomb.

However, he became a victim of technological progress and 
moral conscience. Fusion bombs proved to be cheaper and more 
versatile, and he eventually decided that better bombs were NOT what 
the world needed.  He left Los Alamos and spent some time trying to 
convince people that bombs are so easy to build that they really 
ought to take better care of the plutonium and uranium that was 
shipped around the country.  He also invented the ice pond, a big 
energy-saver for air conditioning.

McPhee once asked him "Well, what would it take to really, you know, 
blow up the world?"  He calculated for a bit and said "You take a 
tank of deuterium 100 meters on a side.  Put little fission trigger 
bombs in it, spaced a meter apart.  Put in GOOD control electronics, 
so that all the triggers go off within nanoseconds of each other.  
Fuse a million cubic meters of deuterium, and you'll crack the Earth's crust."
Not too practical, thank God.

/jlr

    I always liked the bit in DR. STRANGELOVE when a Visitor to Earth
    was told there were enough nuclear weapons on the planet to destroy
    it 2 1/2 times.  The Visitor couldn't understand why anyone would
    want to destroy it more than once.
                  
    						Don

    re .86:
    
    Dr. Strangelove? 
    
    I don't remember any aliens in that movie.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    	In Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel, CAT'S CRADLE, the creator of
    the atomic bomb - a caricature of Dr. Oppenheimer - also developed
    ICE-NINE, an isotope of water molecules which could INSTANTLY FREEZE
    all of Earth's water!  He got his idea from the U.S. Marines, who
    "simply" wanted a small device which could freeze swamps so that
    they could manuever in them easier; however, they did not take into
    account that most water sources are connected, and if they put it
    into a stream, which is connected to a river, which is connected
    to an ocean.........
    
    	Larry
    

    
    Aliens in Dr. Strange love????  That is a mystery to me.  Was that
    not about nuc. war (with the late Peter Sellers)?
    I don't recall any aliens in the movie..(but it has been a while
    since I last saw it)
    
    Mark
    

    	No, there were NO aliens.
    
    	But there was a WEAPON developed by the Soviets:
    
    	A DOOMSDAY device which would wipe out the world (by spreading
    radiation) if the United States ever launched a nuclear attack on
    the Soviet Union.
    
    	We did (accidentally?), and the Doomsday device went off.
    
    	Larry
    

    Anybody else read Colin Kapp?
    
    In THE CHAOS WEAPON there was a space station that somehow manipulated
    the laws of universal chaos and entropy; among other things I can't
    remember, they could cause 'natural' disasters by increasing the
    probability of their happening. 
    
    In THE ION WAR, there is an elite unit of "Para-ion commandos" who wear
    special suits that allow them to enter a non-corporeal ion state where
    their strength/speed is enhanced and they are immune to the effects of
    small-arms fire.  Two characters recieved special surgery where
    the mechanisms of the suits were implanted beneath their skin, allowing
    them to enter the para-ion state with only a hand-held activator
    unit.     
    
    He also had assorted neat things like Hellburners, some kind of
    superpowerful bomb capable of destroying a planet.
    
    And then there was Space Marshal Jim Gesundheit (or something like
    that) from THE CHAOS WEAPON, who had the ultimate protection:  he
    carried a small, invisible god on his shoulder (yes, a _god_) the
    _least_ of whose advantages was instant telepathic communication
    between Space Marshals (all of whom apparently had gods on their
    shoulders.)  At one point I do recall the god reversing or at least
    stopping time to allow Gesundheit to escape from an otherwise fatal
    rockslide. 
    
    Matt
    

    re .72 & .74

    The book I have is called "The Philadelphia Experiment: Project 
    Invisibility" by William L. Moore in consultation with Charles
    Berlitz.  It is copyright 1979.  I have the paperback printed in
    1980.  (ISBN:0-449--24280-3).  The ship's name is supposed to be
    the U.S.S Eldrige.  It was supposed to have disappeared in 
    Philadelphia, appeared in Norfolk, and then reappeared back in
    Philadelphia.  It is interesting reading.  The Navy denies
    everything.  The authors have some circumstantial evidence.  I'm
    not sure who to believe.

    Mike

    re -.1:  Thanks.  You saved me a lot of box-browsing.
    
    re .88,.90,.91:  Movie?  I don't recall saying anything about a
    movie.  I was referencing the blurb inside the front cover.
                             
    						Don

    How about:
    
    	The Death Star
    	Proton Torpedoes
    
    Also, does anyone out there remember reading the adventures of the
    Stainless Steel Rat?  Now, there was a man who had quite an assortment
    of weapons!
    
    					Phil
    

    Onm a smaller note, Gully Foyle in _The Stars My Destination_ was
    "wired up" as a "commando" -- an implanted (and not fully explained)
    series of mechanisms that made him the most formidible fighting
    machine known to man.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
      

	RE: -2

	Thanks! I'm gonna look up the book and read it out of curiosity..

	'ppreciate it!

						mike

    	There was a short story by Stanislaw Lem (of SOLARIS fame),
    which entailed this genius who built an army of battle robots and
    united them into one unit, hoping they would become a super fighting
    force.  Instead, they combined their knowledge, became extremely
    intelligent, and decided that war was illogical!
    
    	Larry
    

    More Lensman weapons.
    	1) Kim Kinnison's delameters, which were a hand pistol capable
    	   of burning a deep hole in the floor 
    
    	2) Kim's brain implant, developed by Worsel (valentian or
    	   valerian?). Kim needed only to percieve the existance of an
    	   enemy and think him dead. He used it at Menjo Bleeko's HQ to
    	   kill all his cronies.

        3) The hyper-spatial tube, which could transport a whole fleet
    	   to combat, of course this is not just a weapon
    
    	4) Tractors and pressors. Obvious as to their function, but
    	   they were the reason for nega-sheres, since pushing a
	   Nega-sphere away would draw it in faster.
    
    	5) Tractor shears, the counter to tractors, they would cut
    	   through a tractor beam
    
    	6) Tractor zones, the counter to treactor shears, they would
    	   hold a ship in a sphere of force so that any energy released
    	   in the sphere would just roll around inside
    
    	7) the lens itsself was a pretty awsom weapon
    
    
    Zelazny's Lord OF Light.
    
    	1) Bound Deamons, untrustworthy, yet effective.
    
    	2) Lord Shiva's trident, which broke matter down to its component
    	   atoms.
    
    	3) Lord Nitri's animated dead men (at least it's grose)
    
    
   Not to mention the fact that everything on Pupeteer ship (Niven) could
   somehow be used as a weapon. Good note, keep those instruments of
   death coming.
    
    	Amr	;^)
    

        In Lord of Light, the real weapons of the Gods were their
        Aspects and Attributes... the rest of the stuff, like Shiva's
        trident, Agni's glove, Kalkin's belt and lance ("Talisman of the
        Binder"), and Kali's scepter, were just tools to focus and
        amplify their actual mental weapons (Kalkin's electrodirection,
        Kali's death-gaze, etc.) All could make do quite well without
        them, though often at lesser range and greater expense in time
        and energy. 
        
        The exception was when new demigods were raised to replace a
        god, and had to rely totally on the technological weapons
        until/unless they could raise the proper mental Aspect to
        develop and control the necessary Attributes of their new
        office. 
        
        I'm not sure I'd call the Rakasha "weapons"... rather, they
        were somewhat untrustworthy enemies/allies who wielded their
        own set of incorporial weapons.  Same for Dalissa, etc.
        
        Hey, don't get into Lord of Light trivia with *me*!!! :-)
        
        	/dave

    
    How about the living gun, the hesotan, from Harrison's West of Eden-
    a genetically engineered creature which fires poison darts.  Gives
    a new dimension to cleaning your weapon.  Needs to be fed too.
    
    Also, a weapon depends on your view point.  In one story ( can't
    remember title or author), some aliens are helping terrans develop,
    providing inventions etc.  They decide we're developing too fast,
    so they gave us a booby trap gift to slow us down - TV.  Unfortunately,
    it didn't work.
    
    Finally, how about the dyson (sp) sphere in Orbitsville by Bob Shaw.
    Unfortunately, to say more is a spoiler.  So if you haven't read
    Orbitsville and want to you might want to skip the next page.
    
    In Orbitsville, ( but not the sequel ), some superior
    "civilization" creates a dyson sphere to "trap" pesky lesser
    intelligent beings ( such as terrans ), and kill them with kindness.

    
    Then, of course, there was the molecular-memory metal from Delany's
    Babel-17, that could be anything from a vibra-gun to six inches
    of vanadium wire.
    
    Dave W.

This is the Weaponry Division isn't it? Oh, Q is out, is he? Well, maybe
one of you can help me ...

I'm working on a short story, and want to reference an actual weapon
that was developed circa early `60s, I believe. This was a "rocket pistol"
that consisted of a plastic pistol -- little more than a water gun 
frame -- that fired "bullets," which were self-propelled, mini rockets.
There was an article in the late, great TRUE (or possibly ARGOSY) magazine
about this pistol (I can still remember a scene where the inventor was
zipping the rocket bullets through a straw). And, if memory serves,
at least one sf short story -- possibly a Niven -- used an extrapolation of
the pistol.

So, if it'd be nice if anyone could give me a pointer to more information
about the pistol, if you happen to remember it, or could give me a more
detailed explanation about its workings than my failing memory can.
In lieu of payment for your research, I'll pull an Ellison and use the
poster's  -- whose answer is the best or brightest (for my needs, that
is) -- name as a character's name in the story. Didn't you always want
to be a puce, eight-limbed Thrbbb?

Thanks,

Fred

    I don't know any info on the gun itself, though I'll ask one of
    my roomies. I can, however, at least give you the name, so you
    can try looking it up --- the Gyrojet.
    
    --- jerry

    
    If you're anywhere near a source of gaming materials, Fred, there's
    an entry on the Gyrojet Rocket Pistol in the Q division manual for
    Victory Games' James Bond: 007 game.  If you have trouble running
    anything down, send me mail.  I have a friend with the book, and
    I'd fish out the entry for you.
    
    Dave W.

         I'm working on a short story, and want to reference
         an actual weapon that was developed circa early
         `60s, I believe. This was a "rocket pistol" that
         consisted of a plastic pistol -- little more than a
         water gun frame -- that fired "bullets," which were
         self-propelled, mini rockets.
         
    The Gyrojet was a cheap stamped metal gun that fired expensive
    little rockets that looked like large .45 cal. cartridges. Since
    the rockets were self-contained they needed no chamber to contain
    the propellant gasses or barrel to impart stabilizing spin to the
    bullet via the rifling. 
              
    The mechanics were unique. There was no bolt. At the rear of the
    barrel was a fixed firing pin. The magazine held a rocket just
    ahead of the firing pin. The hammer was cocked flat in front of
    the cartridge and piveted up and back from 0 degrees to about 90
    degrees where it stuck the nose of the cartridge forcing it back
    to hit the firing pin causing the propellant to ignite. The rocket
    then pushed forward forcing the hammer to rotate from 90 degrees
    to 0 degrees making it lay flat in the barrel where it was
    caught and held by the trigger mechanism. Then the rocket kept
    going out the barrel.
    
    Advantages: 
    
    - Inexpensive pistol made of stamped parts
    
    - No recoil
    
    - Could be fired underwater
    
    - Mechanically simple
    
    - Easy to train on 
    
    Disadvantages:
    
    - Ammunition was quite expensive
    
    - Low accuracy as with any unguided rocket
    
    - No power within minimum engagement range due to the fact that
    the rocket was still accelerating for some distance down range.
    This means that quite close to the gun there was little stopping
    power. I don't have the figures on the power pulse curve.
    
    - The barrel had holes along the sides that prevented gas pressure
    from building up in the barrel. This meant that it had a huge
    flash signature at night. 
    
    - I believe that it left a slight smoke trail but I could be
    wrong. This is not good for concelment.
              
    - The expense of the ammunition precludes much training.
    
    Analysis:
    
    A poor weapon since it was inaccurate at even moderate distances
    and yet it didn't gain full power until some distance from the
    point of firing, was expensive to shoot, and had a large flash
    signature. An interesting but unimportant experiment. That didn't
    stop me from being fascinated with it at the time.
    
    History: 
    
    It was used in one of the _Man from Uncle_ books I believe.
    Jerry?
    
    							.wIx.
    
     
    

    Just a few things to add to .106 -
    
    The "bullet"/rocket had 6 or so small rocket nozzles which were
    canted to give the bullet a spin.
    
    There were gyrojet pistols and rifles.
    
    Gyrojets were used by the good guys in the final shoot'em up scene in
    the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice".
    
                   						/alan

Well, "The Weaponeers" came through with a vengeance. Thanks for all
the replies on the Gyrojet. DELNI::WIX (.106) wins, as that was the first 
response with the level of detail I needed, and will have a fictional
namesake in the story (once s/he replies to my mail message and lets me
know what his/her first name is, that is). Thanks again to all the
responders.

Fred

    DELNI::WIX is Jack Wickwire (Hi, Jack!).  Haven't seen much of him
    lately but he used to room with a friend of mine.

    For the actual historical device, look in Readers Guide in the mid-late
    60's; there was an article in Popular Science which describes the
    real working hardware.  Note- this is different from the "Caseless
    Bullet" system, also described there.
     
    Do they still make GyroJets?
    

    the GyroJet is still used extensively in the "Rex Bader" novels
    by Mack Reynolds.  Of course, all those silly little shortcomings
    are solved, giving a very powerful and messily effective handgun.
    
    Dwight

     On last night's ABC-TV news, they discussed one of the latest of
the SDI program's theoretical "shield" weapons - the X-RAY SATELLITE. 

     This type of military satellite could wipe out EVERY Soviet
satellite in Earth orbit, by blasting the enemy satellites with
powerful X-rays. These X-rays would be generated by the satellite's
destruction with a nearby nuclear explosion in space. 

     One of my main questions about this weapon is, wouldn't the
nuclear explosion and the X-ray bursts - which I do not believe can be
"controlled" (directed) - wipe out MANY types of satellites, friendly
as well as the enemy's, and also numerous NON-military satellites as
well? 
     To me, this sounds like just another MAD - Mutual Assured
Destruction - concept. 

     Larry

  The concept for that weapon has been around quite awhile.  I remember 
  first reading about the idea in Aviation Leak and Space Mythology back
  in 1980 or 1981 and it's gotten a lot of press since then.

  Essentially, it's a fission bomb surrounded by many X-ray lasers. 
  The energy from the exploding bomb powers the lasers.  They're
  vaporized in a fraction of a second, but lase long enough to fry the
  target (that's the plan, anyway).  The tricky part is getting all
  the lasers aimed at the same time -- the satellite is in free fall
  and when you redirect one laser, the reaction tends to throw the others
  off target.

  So the X-rays should affect only the selected targets.  The electromagnetic
  pulse would indeed fry any unprotected satellites in line-of-sight, but
  we have to assume that all military satellites are "hardened" or that
  there are enough powered-off spares in orbit to enable replacement
  satellites to outlast the conflict.  Unprotected satellites will
  probably get fried very soon after the start of a nuclear war.

  JP  

    	Assuming the very likely probability that the Soviets know about
    the X-ray satellite, then it would also be logical to assume they
    would "harden" their critical military satellites against the weapon.
    
    	Incidentally - and hoping that no KGB spies are reading this
    - HOW does one protect a satellite against such a blast?
           
        Larry
    

  Re: .114

  I think you misconstrue.  The Soviets certainly know about the weapon
  and they (and we) have probably hardened military satellites against the
  EMP generated by any nuclear detonation, not just those from the X-ray
  laser satellite.  But EMP is a wave front that travels in all directions
  away from the blast -- and so the EMP energy front gets weaker by the
  inverse square law.  The X-ray laser blasts are coherent radiation and
  about the only way to protect a target is to put *lots* of mass between
  it and the laser. 

  JP

If you went back in time armed with a bullet-proof vest and a handgun,
how would you fare against guys with longbows and plate armor? Would
an arrow shot from a longbow go straight through your vest? Would a
typical handgun bullet penetrate plate armor?  Say that neither the
arrow or the bullet are released at point-blank range. Also say that
it's not a particularly high-powered gun.  How would an ordinary 
American policeman fare against armored medieval knights?
/jlr

    	In an episode of THE TIME TUNNEL, a security guard was accidentally
    transported back to the Middle Ages, where he very effectively used
    his machine gun on three attacking, well-armored knights, before
    vanishing in time (due to the numerous "bugs" in the Time Tunnel).
    
    	Hope that answers your question! :^)
    
    	Larry
    

    re .116:
    
    As I recall, the gun put an end to armor. The cross-bow was also
    effective against armor. 
    
    as for a contest between an armored knight and a riot-armored
    policemanm, my money is on the policeman. Lexan is infinitely better
    armor than steel. I also doubt that an arrow would be able to pierce
    a bullet-proof vest.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

    I recall seeing a demonstration a few years ago where a high powered
    rifle and an arrow (from a hunting bow) were both fired at a sandbag.
    The Rifle bullet did not penetrate, but the arrow did. 
    velocity <> energy

     I'm no expert, but my moneys on the policemen.
    
    
                                           Jack

    No contest. A standard Police .357 mag revolver will penetrate through
    both sides of a car not to mention whatever is in between.  I own
    both a .357 and .44 magnum revolvers and they are powerful weapons.
    
    Steve

    re .119:
    
    I believe your demonstation but your concluding statement I must
    take exception to:
    
    >    velocity <> energy
 
    
    				E = �mv� 
    
    (for those without a VT200 series:      E = (1/2) * m * v^2 )
    
    The reason the arrow penetrated is because of the pointed edge and
    the hardness of the point that concentrates its relatively meager
    energy onto a VERY small surface. The bullet however is relatively
    blunt and soft and alot of energy is dissipated in deformation.
                                           
    Anyway, I'll accept that an arrow could pierce a bullet-proof vest,
    however, the gun will be able to dispatch the knight before he even
    has a chance to draw back the bow.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

  Ok, we've got modern weapons against not-so-modern weapons.  At what range
  does this "battle" take place?  In what environment (desert, jungle, arctic)?
  Is it one person against one person, one against many, or many against
  many?

  If I were in a desert, I might prefer a crossbow or a compound bow to
  any kind of handgun because of the greater range (not that I could hit
  anything with either).  If I were alone against a bunch of hostiles in a
  jungle, I might prefer a nice quiet weapon like a blowgun. 

  Mr. Moderator, maybe we could move the last several replies to a new note?

  JP

    
    
    	Maybe this discussion should be moved to the FIREARMS conference.
    
    
    							mike

Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Path: decwrl!amdcad!lll-crg!rutgers!daemon
Subject: sf writers DO advise military
Posted: 20 Nov 86 00:40:28 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
 
From: Larry Van Sickle <[email protected]>
 
The BOOKS AND ARTS section of The Economist, November 15, 1986,
contains a two page review of Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, and
Arthur C. Clarke.  The review doesn't contain anything new or
interesting, but an accompanying piece says: 
 
    When Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle described an elite
    corps of sci-fi authors (Robert Heinlein among them)
    co-opted by the military to provide intelligence on an 
    alien invasion in their novel "Footfall", some accused
    them of delusions of grandeur.  This year, just such a
    group joined in a three day think-tank at Wright 
    Patterson air base under the aegis of the American Air
    Force.  Their speculations on future warfare are 
    classified information, of course, but a thorough 
    reading of "Footfall" might provide a few clues.  This
    novel will no doubt become required reading for military
    strategists in the Kremlin.
 
 
Larry Van Sickle
[email protected].#Internet
Computer Sciences Department
U of Texas at Austin

Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!GE-CRD.ARPA!OCONNORDM
Subject: Sunlight Reflected to Earth
Posted: 1 Dec 86 16:50:00 GMT
Organization: The ARPA Internet
  
Date:  1-DEC-1986 11:07
From: Dennis O'Connor
Sender: OCONNORDM
Subject: Sunlight Reflected to Earth
To: space@angband@smtp

Keith Lynch claims you can't concentrate sunlight with mirrors in
space.  Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I always though optics was
essentially a question of shape, not size.  If so I can disprove
Keith's claim quickly : 
 
1. A 12" fresnel lens can concentrate sunlight at point 12"
   away enough to ignite wood (I've done this. You can too).

2. You can build a 12" fresnel mirror that will do
   essentially the same thing as a 12" fresnel lens.

3. If you make the fresnel mirror "N" times as large, but leave the
   shape the same, it will generate the same intensity of light (because 
   it has the same "f" number) as the original, but in an
   area N-squared larger. 
 
   Therefore, if you made a 300 mile across fresnel mirror, and put it
in orbit 300 miles above the surface of Earth, you could ignite a VERY
large piece of wood (like Hoboken).  You can get the same effect from
four 150-mile-across mirrors with 300-mile focal lengths, or nine
100-mile-across mirrors with 300-mile focal lengths, et cetera. Matter
of fact, a bunch of infinite-focal-length mirrors (e.g flat) would do
almost as well if aimed correctly (which is not too hard). 
 
   This is a simple impractical example. BUT, I could easily draw a
ray-tracing diagram with Sun, Earth, and, say, 12 flat mirrors WORKING
TOGETHER in HIGH Earth orbit to make a system that could produce 10
Suns or better at a target the same size as the mirrors themselves.
Easy. So, Keith, you're wrong. You CAN concentrate sunlight using
multiple mirrors, and not only that, you CAN use it as a WEAPON. 
 
			Dennis O'Connor

A mirror 300 miles across in a 300 mile high orbit?  That would cast 
quite a shadow!  That's not something that you could suddenly 
spring on people.  A couple of well-placed nukes could take that out 
before it could be used.
/jlr

    	Or, an "enemy nation" could claim it to be ONLY a powersat,
    and then turn it on strategic targets before anyone could do something
    ot prevent it.
    
    	Or, they could build a much smaller solar mirror weapon.
    
    	Larry
    

Nope, you can't use a much smaller mirror because the sun is not a point 
source of light.  It subtends about a half a degree, so any image of 
it also does.  If the mirror is 300 miles up, then the image size is 
3 miles across (roughly).  In order to get a 100 X concentration of 
light, the mirror in orbit has to be 30 miles on a side, which is better
than 300 miles, but still non-trivial. 

If the mirror is in Clarke orbit, then the spot size is 2000 miles across.
Now the mirror has to be 20,000 miles on a side to get a 100X.  Of
course, you can fry a whole continent at a time with it.

/jlr

Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: decwrl!ucbvax!GE-CRD.ARPA!OCONNORDM
Subject: Intense Sunlight from Space
Posted: 2 Dec 86 18:55:00 GMT
Organization: The ARPA Internet 
 
Date:  2-DEC-1986 10:59
From: Dennis O'Connor
Sender: OCONNORDM
Subject: Intense Sunlight from Space
To: [email protected]@smtp, space@angband@smtp
--------
 
I think I've come up with a way for SMALL mirrors to produce
concentrated sunlight from space. To wit : 
 
1. Build a 1km fresnal mirror in space, with a focal
   length of, say, 1.4km ( f1.4 ). This will produce
   at the focal plane an image of the Sun 14m across.
 
2. Place a 14m optical element with a focal length
   of NEGATIVE 1.4km ( I think ) at the focal point.
   Now we have a nice image of the Sun, colimated,
   at about 5000 Suns intensity. However, this image
   is still diverging at the same angle the incoming
   sunlight was ( about .01 radians ). If the mirror
   where 1000km up ( 600 mile ) the image on the ground
   would be about 10km across, very difuse ( about .1 Sun ).
 
3. After the colimating lens, place a disk 14 meters across,
   and say a 10 meters thick, of 1 millimeter diameter graded-index
   optical fibers aligned in parrallel. Graded-index fibers
   cause light entering them from slightly off-axis angles
   to line up with the axis. This big disk will reduce
   the divergence of the image to about .0001 radians or so,
   I think, with small power losses. 
 
Now we have an image only 100 meters across Earth's surface, generated
by a 1km mirror that's 1000km up. Pretty neat, huh ? That's about 100
Suns of intensity ( about, what, 100KW per square meter? ). 
 
Would someone who knows optics better than me check this ?
 
				Dennis O'Connor

VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Nashua, NH, USA               ]

    You and your opponents gear up with pistols and electronic
    targets and start shooting.  Rays of invisible infrared light
    whiz through your galaxy - about 100 feet of circular space.
    Again you aim through the electronic target scope, set the
    beam width (narrow for sharp shooting, wider for hitting a
    moving target), and shoot at your opponent's flashing red
    target.  You duck behind a chair to protect your ray sensor.
    With each pull of the trigger, the slick black gun flashes
    and emits electronic sounding shots.  Suddenly space war
    noises fly out from your opponent's target, and a single
    yellow light glows. You've scored.  To win the game, you have
    to 'tag' your opponent five more times. 

    You hit the target for the sixth time and final time, and
    sirens go off.  Gleaming lights - green, amber, and red - hit
    the air. You've won, and you put  the gun back into its black
    holster.  All is silence - until you play again.

    The game is Lazer Tag by Worlds of Wonder.  The pistol is
    StarLyte.  The target is StarSensor, which attaches with
    velco to either a black or red StarBelt or black, silver, and
    red StarVest.

    This new tech backyard tag can be played in the dark and in
    the daylight, indoors and outdoors, and with as many teams or
    players as can be rounded up.  The StarVest has removable
    stripes to identify team members.  The StarCap, which has a
    360-degree dome target sensor on top, doesn't emit electronic
    sounds, but does require added skill to dodge rays from all
    angles. The plastic, padded StarHelmet, for ages 7 to 15,
    also has a 360-degree target sensor, as well as sounds
    effects in stereo.  The pistol runs on six AA batteries (not
    included); the targets use nine volt batteries (also not
    included).  The Lazer Tag Game Set, with one StarLyte, one
    StarSensor, and one StarBelt, is available for $59 at the
    Sharper Image, Boston, Mass., which also carries the StarVest
    ($25), the StarCap ($45), and the StarHelmet ($49). 
    {Boston December 1986}

    This is from "Tuf Voyaging," the collection of George Martin's Haviland
    Tuf stories (most of the "weapons" mentioned in the tales are really
    living creatures, but since they were cloned specifically for use
    as weapons I figured that would count!):
    
    	"...and a terrible pale blue thing - half-plant and half-animal
        and all but weightless - that drifted with the wind and lurked 
        inside clouds like a living, hungry spiderweb. Tuf called it
        the-weed-that-weeps-and-whispers..."
    
    Shudder!
    
    -b 

    From THE MEN IN THE JUNGLE by Spinrad:
    
    "The snipgun, the Sub-Nuclear Interference Projector, also known
    as the Edgeless Knife and the Big Slice was *the* perfect guerilla
    weapon.  By means of some gadgetry that about a hundred men in the
    Galaxy really understood, it projected an angstrom-thin beam of
    tortured energy thea interfered with the interatomic bonds of any
    matter within fifty yards of the muzzle.  The effect was that of
    a huge, infinetly sharp, infinetly strong and invisible bladeless
    knife, a "knife" that cut through rock, steel, flesh, or anything
    else as if it were so much warm cream cheese.  It was totally silent,
    had no muzzle flash to betray its position, and as such was the
    ideal ambush weapon."
    
    "Vanderling grinned, brought the dull black plastic snipgun up into
    firing position, turned to face the jungle behind him.  He pressed
    the trigger, swiveled the gun minutely, using the auxillery grip
    as a pivot-point.
    There was no sound. There was no kick, no muzzle-flash.  For an
    instant, nothing seemed to happen.  Then cracks and creaks and thumps
    as a rain of branches and leaves fell to the forest floor.  Vanderling
    stared along a thin crack of emptiness that sliced arrowstraight
    through the heavy foliage.  Along the line of the cut, he could
    see branch stubs sliced through clean and even, leaves cut neatly
    in half.  It was if he had taken a swipe with a huge, sharp.
    irresistable machete.  The snipgun would do the same to rock or
    steel ... or flesh."
    
    For the flesh part I guess you'll have to read the story...
    
    							Don

Path: muscat!decwrl!labrea!jade!ucbcad!zen!cory.Berkeley.EDU!iverson
From: [email protected] (Tim Iverson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 10 Sep 87 04:29:54 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Sender: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected] (Tim Iverson)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 28
 
    In article <[email protected]> brothers@steppenwolf.
rutgers.edu writes:

>From: [email protected] (Laurence R. Brothers)
>The destruction of Earth is accomplished by dropping large clumps of
>neutronium and antineutronium to orbit around each other under 
>Earth's surface until their orbits decay with a resulting massive
>explosion.
 
    This is very funny.  For one, the real matter in Earth's
atmosphere, crust, etc. would cause large explosions when in contact
with the anti-neutronium - the a-n ball would probably never reach the
surface, it certainly would never reach the interior of Earth (if
Earth was even there after the rather large explosions).  Just the
normal neutronium is more than enough, since the gravity gradient at
the surface is large enough to allow it to pack a whole bunch of
degenerate and highly dense matter on top of it.  This just might
cause a few wee earthquakes, depending on the size of these large
clumps; I would  guess that basketball size would be more than enough
for the former to do it all alone and perhaps car size for the latter
(1972 model Chevrolet).  Once the aliens dropped their little
presents, there wouldn't be any time for the rest of the novel - the
whole set would be gone.  I've cross-posted to sci.physics, since the
people there could probably tell us just how ludricrous this really
is. 
  
- Tim Iverson
  [email protected]
  ucbvax!cory!iverson

Path: muscat!decwrl!hplabs!sri-unix!husc6!cmcl2!beta!hc!ames!amdahl!drivax!
From: [email protected] (Bruce Holloway)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Bear novel
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 10 Sep 87 17:42:53 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (Bruce Holloway)
Organization: Compact (was DRI)
Lines: 23
 
    In article <[email protected]> brothers@steppenwolf.
rutgers.edu writes:

>Greg Bear has come out with what is possibly the best end-of-the-world
>novel ever done ... FORGE OF GOD.
 
>The destruction of Earth is accomplished by dropping large clumps of
>neutronium and antineutronium to orbit around each other under 
>Earth's surface until their orbits decay with a resulting massive
>explosion. This is something that cannot possibly be halted by our
>abilities, or indeed even by the good-guy aliens.
 
    What is "anti-neutronium"?  Neutronium is made of atoms stripped
of all charged particles (i.e., electrons and protons), right?  And
anti-electrons (positrons) are electrons with a positive charge.  So
we'd expect anti- neutronium to be composed of neutrons with an
opposite charge - but they haven't got a charge! 
 
    Haven't read the novel, though; maybe this is explained in it.
 
- Bruce
-- 
*******************************************************************************
* Bruce Holloway - Terminal Netnews Addict       uunet!amdahl!drivax!holloway *
* ALBATROSS, ATARI*TROS @ Plink                            ALBATROSS @ Delphi *
*******************************************************************************

Path: muscat!decwrl!labrea!jade!ucbcad!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!
From: [email protected] (David Palmer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Bear novel
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 10 Sep 87 23:25:36 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Sender: [email protected]
Reply-To: [email protected] (David Palmer)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 25
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Bruce
Holloway) writes: 

>What is "anti-neutronium"? Neutronium is made of atoms stripped of all
>charged particles (i.e., electrons and protons), right? And anti-electrons
>(positrons) are electrons with a positive charge? So we'd expect anti-
>neutronium to be composed of neutrons with an opposite charge - but they
>haven't got a charge!
 
    A particle does not need a charge to have an antiparticle, a
neutrino has an antiparticle, and it doesn't have much of anything.
:-)  An antiparticle to a particle has all quantum numbers inverted. 
Neutrons have a quantum number called the baryon number, which is +1
for neutrons and -1 for antineutrons.  Also, the Neutron is made up of
down and up quarks (which are charged) and the anti-neutron is made up
of anti-down and anti-up quarks (which have the opposite charges).  A
neutron decays in ~15 minutes (half life) to a proton, an electron,
and an anti-neutrino.  An anti-neutron decays into an antiproton, an
antielectron (positron) and a neutrino. 
 
    There are particles which are their own anti-particle, including
the photon and the neutral pion. 
 
		David Palmer
		[email protected]
		...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer

	The opinions expressed are those of an 8000 year old Atlantuan
	priestess named Mrla, and not necessarily those of her channel.

Path: muscat!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ames!ll-xn!husc6!necntc!culdev1!drw
From: [email protected] (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Neutronium as a Terrorist Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 18 Sep 87 14:56:50 GMT
Organization: Cullinet Software, Westwood, MA, USA
Lines: 20
 
    [email protected] (Tim Iverson) writes:

> In article <[email protected]> [email protected] writes:
> >From: [email protected] (Laurence R. Brothers)
> >The destruction of the Earth is accomplished by dropping large clumps of
> >neutronium and antineutronium to orbit around each other under the
> >Earth's surface until their orbits decay with a resulting massive
> >explosion.
> 
> This is very funny.  For one, the real matter in the earth's atmosphere,
> crust, etc. would cause, uh, large explosions when in contact with the
> anti-neutronium - the a-n ball would probably never reach the surface,
 
    Even better:  The antineutronium ball might generate enough
explosive power under itself to be blasted away from Earth! 
 
    Also, what keeps these lumps together?  If it's gravity, the ball
of neutronium must be able to accrete ordinary matter at high speed -
Earth would be a neutron star in hours. 
 
Dale


Path: muscat!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ames!sri-spam!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!
From: [email protected] (Russ Cage)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a Terrorist Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Summary: Earth is too small to be a neutron star
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 19 Sep 87 13:30:03 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Organization: CRLT , Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 37
 
    In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Dale Worley) writes:

>Also, what keeps these lumps together?  If it's gravity, the ball of
>neutronium must be able to accrete ordinary matter at high speed --
>Earth would be a neutron star in hours.
>
>Dale
 
    I've read that a neutronium lump, even a large one, would
beta-decay to protons in short order unless it were *very* large
(star-sized). The reason that neutron stars are stable is that they
are so large and highly compressed that there are no quantum states
available for any electrons emitted from beta decays to go into;
without an available state, the decay does not occur.  Nothing less
than the mass of a star is big enough for this inhibitory effect to
work. 
 
    A neutronium lump hitting Earth would punch right through the
atmosphere and crust, decaying madly into protons and electrons all
the way with a half-life of 13 minutes.  Something a foot in diameter
probably wouldn't even make a very big crater, though it would mass
more than mountains.  The local tidal effects would be large.  The
effects of billions or trillions of tons of hydrogen left behind, and
the beta-decay energy, might make for interesting times as well (I
suppose one could use such means to make a geologically dead planet
active again; deposit lots of heat in the core.  Mars could use this).
 
    I would hope that an anti-neutronium sphere would be blown away
upon contact with the atmosphere, but consider the pressures required
to push *neutronium* around and ask if we'd have any atmosphere left. 
If it penetrated the crust, it might well break the planet into pieces
unless it was very small.  If any such event occurred, it would be
good to be elsewhere at the time... ticket to Ceres, one-way, thanks. ;-) 

  The above are the official opinions and figures of Robust Software, Inc.
HASA, "A" division.                      Go ahead, flame.  I bought Dow stock!
Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

Path: muscat!decwrl!labrea!aurora!ames!think!husc6!rutgers!ukma!uunet!mnetor!
From: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Summary: It will so work.  Think about it.
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 22 Sep 87 15:15:55 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Organization: Geovision Corporation, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 58
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Dale Worley) writes:

>[email protected] (Tim Iverson) writes:
>> In article <[email protected]> [email protected] 
>> writes: 
>> >From: [email protected] (Laurence R. Brothers)
>> >The destruction of Earth is accomplished by dropping large clumps of
>> >neutronium and antineutronium to orbit around each other under 
>> >Earth's surface until their orbits decay with a resulting massive
>> >explosion.
>> This is very funny.  For one, the real matter in Earth's atmosphere,
>> crust, etc. would cause, uh, large explosions when in contact with the
>> anti-neutronium - the a-n ball would probably never reach the surface,
 
    At the surface of a large chunk of antimatter, radiation pressure
from contact with matter helps keep the two separate - assuming the
chunk is strong enough to withstand shock effects.  I suspect that the
self-gravitation of a large neutronium sphere might be strong enough,
especially if it were completely surrounded by matter (thus undergoing
continuous implosion, in effect).   This boundary phenomenon is
analagous to the Leidenfrost (sp?) layer which will keep a drop of
water hovering above a red-hot plate for a long time (until radiation
heating, rather than conduction, boils the droplet) - the water
actually in contact with the plate flashes to steam and keeps the rest
of the drop away. 
 
>Even better:  The antineutronium ball might generate enough explosive
>power under itself to be blasted away from Earth!
 
    Depends on the gravitational force between Earth and
antineutronium, and the initial momentum of the ball.   In the story,
the ball in question was targeted for a water entry, probably for good
reason (see above). 
 
>Also, what keeps these lumps together?  If it is gravity, the ball of
>neutronium must be able to accrete ordinary matter at high speed -
>Earth would be a neutron star in hours.
 
    You are forgetting that the G-force is inversely proportional to
r-squared.  I do not recall given radius of the neutronium sphere but
it was almost certainly less than 100 meters, maybe less than 10. 
Call it 10.  A km away the force would be 1/10,000th that at the
surface.  Earth is roughly 6400 km in radius.   Eventually Earth would
(if there was just the one lump of 'normal' neutronium) accrete into a
somewhat larger lump of neutronium with a degenerate matter crust, 
but it would take a lot longer than hours.  Possibly months or years. 
Remember, as Earth's matter infalls to the neutronium, it gives up
energy, which has to radiate away (probably convert to heat and
convect away, but whatever).  That energy is working against the
infall of more material, and in any case the strongest effects are
confined within a small area around the neutronium, (although more
matter will move in to take the place of stuff that collapses). 
 
    I can understand people not wanting to go through all the math,
but at *least* think things through a little bit before making
sweeping pronunciations about what might or might not happen. 

 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair
 
    "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

Path: muscat!decwrl!ucbvax!decvax!tektronix!reed!anthony
From: [email protected] (Anthony)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: RE: Neutronium as a weapon
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 26 Sep 87 19:32:19 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Anthony)
Distribution: world
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 19 
 
    The question of what holds a ball of neutronium together is
extremely valid.  The stable size for a ball of neutronium, due to
gravitation, is several hundred kilometers and the mass of a small
star.  I also noticed the mention of a radius of 10 meters.  Please be
aware:  The density of neutronium is approx. 10^13 grams/cc.  Thus, a
ten meter ball masses on the order of 10^15 tons.  That is a rather
unlikely mass to be available as a weapon to anyone.  Considering the
forces trying to rip it apart, I doubt that surface reactions would
have much effect, especially since they would cause the ball to get
much hotter, and thus increase the outward forces even more. 

    This brings me to a related interesting idea.  If you generated a
black hole (collapsar) in the gram range (do not ask me how), it would
be small enough to have essentially no ability to get new mass, and
penetrate almost anything.  It would also decay due to Hawking
radiation in an unmeasurable short time, in a curve with ever
increasing wattage.  Give it the right initial relativistic velocity
and you could fine-tune the end of its life, and the greatest power of
the explosion, wherever you wanted.  (Who here has heard of the
Traveller meson guns?  Same sort of goal, thought the meson gun idea
could not in fact work.) 

Path: muscat!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!
From: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 23 Sep 87 15:14:28 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Organization: Geovision Corporation, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 49
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Russ Cage) writes:

>I've read that a neutronium lump, even a large one, would beta-decay
>to protons in short order unless it were *very* large (star-sized).
 
    Damn, I forgot about neutron decay in my previous posting.
However, I wonder about the necessary size for a lump to be stable. 
 
>The reason that neutron stars are stable is that they are so large
>and highly compressed that there are no quantum states available
>for any electrons emitted from beta decays to go into; without an
>available state, the decay does not occur.  Nothing less than the
>mass of a star is big enough for this inhibitory effect to work.
 
    Okay, maybe the neutrons in a smaller lump *do* exhibit decay, but
there's an out.  If I remember right (I'm sure I'll be corrected if
not :-) a neutron decays into a proton and electron (and
anti-neutrino?). If this happens near the surface of the lump, the
various particles likely as not, escape and are lost mass.  However,
within the lump there is a chance that the proton released will
encounter an electron emitted from the decay of another neutron, and
vice-versa, recombining to form new neutrons.  What the mean-free-path
is I have no idea, but it need not be large.  The problem is similar
to working out the minimum critical mass for a fission reaction, and
there's a lot more empty space between nuclei in a lump of U-235 or
Pu-239 than there is between neutrons in a lump of neutronium.  (I
just don't know what the capture cross section is). 

    The point is, dynamic stability (with some continous mass/energy
loss, but at a more gradual rate--countered by infall of new material)
rather than static stability. 
 
>A neutronium lump hitting the earth would punch right through the
>atmosphere and crust, decaying madly into protons and electrons
>all the way with a half-life of 13 minutes.  Something a foot in
                                ^
    I thought neutron half-life was 8 minutes?  Although I could be
wrong, no reference handy. 
 
> [..more interesting speculation not relevant to this followup ..]
 
>  The above are the official opinions and figures of Robust Software, Inc.
>HASA, "A" division.                      Go ahead, flame.  I bought Dow stock!
>Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax!
 
  Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair
 
    "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."


Path: muscat!decwrl!decvax!mcnc!gatech!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!eecae!crlt!russ
From: [email protected] (Russ Cage)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Summary: Minimum size for neutrino capture is *BIG*
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 27 Sep 87 15:29:22 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Organization: CRLT , Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 22
 
    In <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
writes: 

<	Okay, maybe the neutrons in a smaller lump *do* exhibit decay,
<but there's an out.  If I remember right (I'm sure I'll be corrected
<if not :-) a neutron decays into a proton and electron (and anti-neutrino?).
<If this happens near the surface of the lump, the various particles
<likely as not, escape and are lost mass.  However, within the lump
<there is a chance that the proton released will encounter an electron
<emitted from the decay of another neutron, and vice-versa, recombining
<to form new neutrons.  What the mean-free-path is I have no idea,
<but it need not be large.
 
    It is large.  Even a collapsing stellar core can only hold
neutrinos for a fraction of a second; they diffuse outward very
quickly even through degenerate matter.  A lump of neutronium a few
feet in diameter wouldn't bother them at all.  There's nothing in the
way of beta decay. 
 
< Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
<                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair
-- 
  The above are the official opinions and figures of Robust Software, Inc.
HASA, "A+" division.                     Go ahead, flame.  I bought Dow stock!
Russ Cage, Robust Software Inc.		    ihnp4!itivax![m-net!rsi,crlt!russ]

Path: muscat!decwrl!decvax!linus!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!culdev1!drw
From: [email protected] (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 28 Sep 87 15:11:29 GMT
Organization: Cullinet Software, Westwood, MA, USA
Lines: 31
  
    [email protected] (Alastair Mayer) writes:

> In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Dale Worley) writes:
> >Also, what keeps these lumps together?  If it's gravity, the ball of
> >neutronium must be able to accrete ordinary matter at high speed --
> >Earth would be a neutron star in hours.
> 
> You're forgetting that the g force is inversely proportional to r-squared.
> [etc. etc.]
> I can understand people not wanting to go through all the math, but
> at *least* think things through a little bit before making sweeping
> pronunciations about what might or might not happen.
 
    I have.
 
    The smallest neutron star possible is somewhere around 1/10 solar
mass.  Otherwise the pressure, even at the center, isn't enough to
push matter beyond degenerate ordinary matter.  I.e., it's just a
small white dwarf.  Thus, "if gravity holds the neutronium together",
it must mass at least 1/10 solar mass.  (Another way to look at it is:
The gravitational gradient at the surface of the neutronium must be
enough to confine the neutrons which form it.  This takes a very
strong force, much larger than anything we see ordinarily.)  I submit
that even standing, say, a few thousand miles away from such a thing,
Earth would get accreted at a rather impressive rate.  (Or perhaps,
the radiation from part of Earth being accreted would make the rest of
Earth into a plasma, but that's not much better for real estate
values.) 
 
    In order for the neutrons to beta decay, the electrons have to
escape.  Otherwise, they just stack up in the quantum states until
there are no states left to hold them.  In order to escape, they have
to overcome (1) the gravitational field, and (2) the electric field
(all those escaping electrons leave a net positive charge behind).  I
suspect that if (1) doesn't get them, (2) will. 
 
    Didn't someone already say this?  That the neutrons couldn't decay
because there were no unoccupied states for the electrons produced? 
 
Dale

Path: muscat!decwrl!hplabs!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!
From: [email protected] (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a weapon.
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 30 Sep 87 12:29:17 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
Organization: I.T. School, Univ. of Edinburgh, U.K.
Lines: 36
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Anthony) writes:

>	This brings me to a related interesting idea.  If you generated a 
>black hole in the gram range (don't ask me how), it would be small enough to 
>have essentially no ability to get new mass, and penetrate almost anything.
 
    This idea has been used in two books I know of:  THE DOOMSDAY
EFFECT by Thomas Wren, and THE SPACE EATER by David Langford. 
 
    The first story is a fairly predictable "Earth is doomed" and can
only be saved by a scientist type of plot; his female assistant; a
hard-headed businessman; and a computer wizard, type of story. 
 
    There are a few nice twists, and a couple of bad technical errors
(At one point it is seriously suggested to destroy a couple of million
tons of black hole with a few pounds of antimatter).  
 
    The second book is in a completley different class.  The society
depicted in the first part of the book is very like that in the
"Cyperpunk" type of novel, but the main character is a soldier in the
elite peacekeeping forces. 
 
    The story concerns what happens to him after he is voluntered for
a special mission involving a trip to a lost colony. 
 
    Star travel is by means of a wormhole in space.  The catch is that
the largest safe wormhole is two centimeters in diameter. 
 
    Highly recomended reading. (I gave it **** on the 5 star scale)

	Bob.

Path: muscat!decwrl!hplabs!sri-unix!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!
From: [email protected] (Wayne A. Throop)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a weapon
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 6 Oct 87 15:10:23 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Organization: Data General, RTP NC.
Lines: 55
 
> [email protected] (ERCF08 Bob Gray)
> This idea [...of a black hole orbiting partly within Earth...]
> has been used in two books I know of.
> [...in The Doomsday Effect...]
> There are a few nice twists, and a couple of bad technical errors.
> (At one point it is seriously suggested to destroy a couple
> of million tons of black hole with a few pounds of anti-matter.)
 
    Good heavens, that was the *least* of the blunders.  Saying this
book has "a couple of bad technical errors" is like saying that New
York City has a couple of inhabitants.  Despite the fact that Bob
didn't particularly like this book, I don't think he was harsh enough
on it by half.  At a drastic blunder every couple of pages, I'd rate
this a -3 on a scale of 0 to 5. 
 
    Wren doesn't know what any bright, interested high-school student
ought to know about orbital mechanics, let alone black holes.  Just a
sampling: 
 
      - He gets the orbit of the black hole all wrong, by forgetting
        that for an orbit that intersects the surface of Earth, 
        Earth can no longer be treated as a point mass, and then
        bludgeons you over the head with this mistake by mentioning it
        every few paragraphs for the rest of the book.
      - He has the long obsolete the-asteroid-belt-is-a-near-solid-
        swarm-of-rocks disease I had thought stamped out in the Fifties.
      - His proposed method of getting rid of the black hole (before the
        antimatter, that is) is ludicrous, and shows further lack of
        understanding of orbital mechanics.  (He attempts to capture the
        black hole in an asteroid, and the calculations used to
        determine whether this is feasible neglect the relative
        velocities of hole and rock, clearly indicating that he doesn't
        think this is relevant.  Ghack.)
      - The main character wonders what to do with a cheap method of
        manufacturing antimatter.  After long and tedious thought, comes
        up with the notion of power production.  Brilliant.
      - He describes the ablation disk of the black hole as streaming
        backwards because of the high speed... when the hole is in
        free-fall, in space.  I mean come ON guy!
 
    And all that is just a *sample*.  The only reason I finished this
turkey was to chortle over the awful mangling of the science involved.
The fact that Jim Baen claims that this "reads like a cross between
Hogan and Heinlein" is a bad joke. 
 
( Coincidentally, the notion of black holes orbiting partly within 
  Earth was also used by Hogan, in "Thrice Upon a Time", a book infinitely
  more to be recommended than "The Doomsday Effect".  It worked for me
  despite the fact that it is a time-travel story, and I hate time-travel
  stories."  )

    "It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.  There was
once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal,
complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it." 

                --- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar (Mark Twain)

Path: muscat!decwrl!hplabs!sri-unix!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!
From: [email protected] (Frank A. Adrian)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a weapon
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 7 Oct 87 22:50:50 GMT
References: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (Frank A. Adrian)
Organization: Mentor Graphics, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 14
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Anthony) writes:

>	This brings me to a related interesting idea.  If you generated a 
>black hole in the gram range (don't ask me how), it would be small enough to 
>have essentially no ability to get new mass, and penetrate almost anything.
 
    A better weapon would be a couple of grams of antimatter held in a
low (very low) leakage magnetic bottle (quite possible using high-temp
superconductors (coming soon to a hardware store near you)). Just
think!  No muss, no fuss, direct energy conversion of a few grams of
matter.  Quite a nice little weapon.  Only drawback is that you have
to make sure the weapon is used before too many anti-particles leak
and that the mag. bottle doesn't fail. 
 
Frank "Let's get blasted" Adrian
Mentor Graphics, Inc.

Path: muscat!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!esosun!seismo!uunet!mnetor!
From: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a Weapon in Bear novel (was Re: Bear novel)
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 5 Oct 87 16:50:30 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]> 
Reply-To: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Organization: Geovision Corporation, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 30
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Russ Cage) writes:

 >In <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Alastair Mayer) writes:
 ><	Okay, maybe the neutrons in a smaller lump *do* exhibit decay, 
 ><but there's an out.  If I remember right (I'm sure I'll be corrected
 ><if not :-) a neutron decays into a proton and electron (and anti-neutrino?).
 ><If this happens near the surface of the lump, the various particles
 ><likely as not, escape and are lost mass.  However, within the lump
 ><there is a chance that the proton released will encounter an electron
 ><emitted from the decay of another neutron, and vice-versa, recombining
 ><to form new neutrons.  What the mean-free-path is I have no idea,
 ><but it need not be large.
 >
 >It is large.  Even a collapsing stellar core can only hold neutrinos
 >for a fraction of a second; they diffuse outward very quickly even
 >through degenerate matter.  A lump of neutronium a few feet in diameter
 >wouldn't bother them at all.  There's nothing in the way of beta decay.
 >

    I was talking about the mean-free-path of the protons and
electrons, not of the neutrinos, my point being that the charged
particles can recombine to form new neutrons.   The original posting
indicated that stellar mass was need to *prevent* neutron decay --
static stability -- I'm saying that you don't need to do that, just
reduce the loss rate of the charged neutron decay products  -- dynamic
stability.  (Well, okay, not stability, but a slowing of the overall
decay rate by making new neutrons as the old ones decay). 

 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair
 
 "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

Path: muscat!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!
From: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers,sci.physics
Subject: Re: Neutronium as a weapon
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 8 Oct 87 17:07:52 GMT
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected] (Alastair Mayer)
Organization: Geovision Corporation, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 33
 
    In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (ERCF08 Bob
Gray) writes: 

>In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Anthony) writes:
 >>	This brings me to a related interesting idea.  If you generated a 
 >>black hole in the gram range (don't ask me how), it would be small enough to 
 >>have essentially no ability to get new mass, and penetrate almost anything.
 >
 >This idea has been used in two books I know of:  The Doomsday Effect
 >by Thomas Wren, and The Space Eater by David Langford. 

    Larry Niven has used black holes in at least two stories, once as
an accidental planet destroyer ("The Hole Man"), once as a weapon
("The Borderlands of Sol").  In the former,  a charged blackhole is
used to generate modulated gravity waves (by vibrating it electro-
magnetically) - but it comes loose from the modulator and falls into
the planet's (Mars, in this case) interior, where it starts eating the
planet from within. 

    As for how to generate small black holes -- how about imploding
something by surrounding it with nuclear bombs?  Similar to the way
(some) fusion bombs are detonated, but tailor the nukes to optimize
compression, and use iron or something relatively unlikely to fiss or
fuse under the conditions. 

 Alastair JW Mayer     BIX: al
                      UUCP: ...!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!geovision!alastair
 
    "What we really need is a good 5-cent/gram launch vehicle."

    How about a cannon that's shoots eighteen inch long by 1/4 inch
    diameter rods of magnesium(?) at a muzzle velocity of 5600
    metres/second, and fires 300 rods per second?  This is a new anti-tank
    weapon developed by the US Army.  It turns the tarket into a flaming
    hell.  Or how about missiles fired from up to 20km behind the lines
    that target in on a target laser sighted by a front line soldier.
    Not to mention parachuting bombs that may be dropped from 10's of
    thousand of feet which spiral down and target in on tanks and other
    large vehicles.  Once targeted in they ignite rockets and dive onto
    the top of the tank.
    
    Methinks that for once reality is more fantastical than fiction.
    
    Dave

    A few that seem to have been missed:  Please forgive me for having
    such a hazy remembrance of the author/title for most of these....
    
    In the APRIL IASFM, John Barnes' story "Under The Covenant Stars"
    has the Canadians digging deep holes, placing nukes at the bottom,
    and filling them with random junk.  When the US and USSR can't stand
    the suspense and decide to nuke each other, these 'cannons' are
    triggered, and the resulting space junk obliterates most of the
    missiles.  Of course everyone hates the Canadians for cutting off
    access to space, as most of the stuff is still orbiting.....
    
    Along the same lines, there was a story in which two planets were
    at war, and planet A dumped a bunch of ball bearings into random
    orbits around planet B.  B finally got rid of them by capturing
    them with 'soft' rockets and retaliated by dumping sand into random
    orbits around planet A.  The sand turned out to be worse because
    it had many many many more particles and had the same destructive
    effect on spacecraft.
    
    Many moons ago I read a story (by Hoyle?) about chasing away the
    alien invaders by dumping a few tons of lithium into the sun to
    trigger large flares, and since the aliens couldn't deal with the
    resulting radiation, they fled.
    
    In another story an alien fighter which followed a human ship thru
    the diffuse microwave beam of a Solar Power Satellite exploded,
    so the good guys just turned the entire SPS to point at the alien's
    mother ship....
    
    Asimov (Pebble in the Sky??) had an electromagnetic cannon firing
    a 'beam' of molten steel from a lunar mining/drilling rig that could
    go right thru radiation shields and spacecraft.
    
    A short from a long time ago used the independently-steerable
    reflective windows of an office building to concentrate sunlight
    on a single room in the building accross the street.  Computer
    controlled, dontcha know.  Now that I think about it, might have
    been a Gil Hamilton (Niven) story.
          
    In Cities In Flight, James Blish used an entire planetoid moving
    at relativistic velocities to take out the bad guys.
    
    Willie

Here is Yet Another Niven Weapon, described in "The Warriors", collected in 
_Tales_of_Known_Space,_The_Universe_of_Larry_Niven_:

"How do they power their ship?  It's a light-pressure drive powered by 
incomplete hydrogen fusion.  They use an electromagnetic ramscoop to get 
their own hydrogen from space." ... "What kind of weapons do they have?"
... "None at all, sir." 

"They're trying to get away" ... "That light drive won't take them 
anywhere." ... "What would happen if the light hit our ship?"

"The Kzinti ship was a huge red sphere with ugly projections scatteed at
seeming random over the hull.  The beam had sliced it into two unequal
halves, sliced it like an ax through an egg." 

Ray

    RE .145
    
    The problem with those laser-guided missiles is that the laser
    must be held on the target for the duration of the missile
    flight. Result - one laser operator standing in the open
    being *very* conspicuous.

    The new FOG-M missile, which transmits a camera image through a
    trailing  fiber optic cable, is much safer. the operator can 
    stand behind a hill or other cover. Added bonus, the attack
    angle is steeper, hitting the tank on the thinner top armor.

    Re .146 (Willie):
    
    >Asimov (Pebble in the Sky??) had an electromagnetic cannon firing
    >a 'beam' of molten steel from a lunar mining/drilling rig that could
    >go right thru radiation shields and spacecraft.
     
    It was Arthur. C. Clarke.  The title eludes me, but the last scene
    was The Spy toasting the hero, who finally figured out how The Spy
    was communicating intelligence to the outer planets -- through the
    radiotelescope.  Clarke's only attempt at space opera.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

re .146 

>    A short from a long time ago used the independently-steerable
>    reflective windows of an office building to concentrate sunlight
>    on a single room in the building across the street.  Computer


Didn't Clarke also have something like this? some short story
where a whole stadium full of football supporters used the back 
page (specially made in bright silver) of the match book to 
'burn' the ref ?


(Tales From the White Hart ?)

Peb

    The U.S. Army is fascinated by lasers.  On the cover of a '71
    (I think) issue of Army Logistics shows laser-equipped tanks
    cutting up destroyed vehicles on a battlefield.
                                  
    						Don

re: .149

Actually, the Spy was communicating through an optical telescope.  He 
had realized that a telescope makes a wonderful spotlight if you run 
it in reverse.  I think the novel's name was "Earthlight".

/jlr

    
    	Re .118  
                > The cross-bow was also effective against armor.
    
    	Initialy this wasn't the case; the bolts tended to glance off. The
    solution was to put a small lump of clay on the tip of the bolt.
    
    		Ian G.

    sonic screwdriver

    Regarding the discussion about a police officer against a knight in
    armour.
    	The parameters of the discussion placed the average police officer,
    carrying a .38special or a .357mag loaded with .38 rnds and wearing a
    standard issue bullet resistant vest against a bow weilding knight.
    	A knight would not use a longbow, but if he did, that arrow would
    zip clean through that kevlar vest without any problem.  The reason for
    this is that kevlar is a close weave fabric made up of kevlar threads
    whose main property is resistance to breakage along the longitudinal
    axis.  How this works against bullets is that the threads catch the
    blunt missile and tangle it in a thread web caused by the bullet's
    rotation, expending the round's energy without allowing full
    penetration.  A sharp arrowhead, knife or sword, defeats this by
    cutting the threads along their horizontal axis; against such weapons
    kevlar is about as effective as 1/8th - 1/4th inch of leather.  As to
    the effectiveness of the bullets from the gun, that would depend
    largely on a few factors, the skill of the shooter, the quality of the
    armour, and shot placement.  Later medieval rennaissance plate armours
    made extensive use of glancing surfaces which could concievably deflect
    the average bullet in the .38 to 9mm range, if the armour was made well
    enough and if the shooter did not have the presence of mind to fire at
    a fairly flat surface of the armour.  Under most circumstances however,
    the metal skin would rupture and admit the bullet.  Basically I would
    say that the police officer would be at a disadvantage from a range of
    50 meters to about 100 meters and up, would have the advantage from
    fifty meters to 5 meters,  would stand an even chance from 5-1 meters
    and would have around a snowballs chance in Texas at less than five meters 
    where a lance, spear or sword would come into play.  A lot depends on
    Skill, coolness and luck.  Your average swat team member would cut the
    knight to ribbons with automatic fire.
    
    Re: Regarding good Sci-fi weapons, for small arms combat in free fall,
    a compound bow or crossbow would be highly effective at short ranges
    and the compound action of the limbsand the eccentrics would negate
    much of the recoil of the weapon.
    
    For shipboard combat, any weapon that might breach the bulkheads or
    partitions abourd ship is inherently stupid as you might damage
    something important like life support or a pressure seal, therefore,
    you would tend to avoid such weapons in a boarding attempt or a
    defense, tending toward weapons that have low penetration but high
    concussion, or stun weapons, or highly precise melee weapons.  A good
    heavy tungsten carbide battle axe weilded by a skilled person could
    conceivably crack open hardened armours, especially if the skilled
    person is in a powered suit system.  Lightsabers would be a good
    application here if used with sufficient skill to avoid contact with
    walls.
    
    	Re: Star Wars blasters.  Nice effect using real weapons as a base
    so that they could fire blanks to simulate recoil.  makes the shooting
    scenes more realistic, though what kind of beam weapon recoils I don't
    know and the ejecting brass, blackened though it be, is slightly
    distracting.
    
    andrew.
    

    re .122 (Andrew):
    
    >	Re: Star Wars blasters.  Nice effect using real weapons as a base
    >so that they could fire blanks to simulate recoil.  makes the shooting
    >scenes more realistic, though what kind of beam weapon recoils I don't
    >know and the ejecting brass, blackened though it be, is slightly
    >distracting.
    
    Maybe they're not beam weapons; they could be plasma weapons.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Re .156:
    
    I always assumed they were plasma weapons, since what they fired looked
    like a spark (moving only slightly faster than a phaser beam, which is
    slow enough to dodge as you see it coming).  But plasma doesn't have
    much mass and therefore, at such velocities, negligible momentum, so
    producing negligible recoil.  On the other hand, I never noticed any
    recoil effects in the "Star Wars" movies.  Maybe I wasn't looking
    closely enough.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

more on the knight vs the cop scenario -

Most midieval armour was only a few mils thick - about 14 to 10 ga. by todays 
measurements....

And it was made of mild steel (the most common form of steel in europe from roman
thru the industrial revolution) that was not hardened (some of the later, better
suits might have been case hardened).  This implies two things -

A full metal jacket (FMJ) round will cut right thru it...

A hollow point round (half jacketed) might, depending on the range.

The military uses FMJ rounds as hollow points are against the Geneva convention.

The Police uses hollow points, because they tend to go in and stay there, which
is what you want in a city...

Most pistols have an effective range of about 20 to 30 meters, max.

at a sword range, the knight would be dead (as an aside, I fence, and a fellow
fencer, who is also a cop, can squeeze off about 3 rounds in the time it takes to
lunge...and this is with an eppee that wieghs about a pound, and no armour...
a knights sword ways 3-10 lbs, and he is carrying 40 to 60 lbs of armour, and 
the knight's sword is a cutting, not a thrusting, weapon, so it is even 
slower...), and if he wasn't, the kenitic shock of several 38 or 357 slugs 
hitting him in rapid succesion at several hundred fps would be rather traumatic 
(remember, f=mv^2) and quite possibly knock him over or snap his neck depending
on placement (rip an arm off for that manner...)

at greater ranges, depends on the type of ammunition in the pistol and what other
weapons the knight has...

grins,

clark.

>slower...), and if he wasn't, the kenitic shock of several 38 or 357 slugs 
>hitting him in rapid succesion at several hundred fps would be rather traumatic 
>(remember, f=mv^2) and quite possibly knock him over or snap his neck depending
>on placement (rip an arm off for that manner...)

 As long as the various conservation laws hold, if the recoil doesn't
 knock the shooter over then the bullet isn't likely to knock over an
 even heavier knight (this isn't television, we can't throw people
 across the room for dramatic effect - no artistic licenses issued).
 The bullet begins decellerating due to wind resistance immediately
 upon leaving the muzzle so the terminal momentum delivered to the
 target must be less than that delivered to the shooter.

    Mike

    Re .159:
    
    I haven't been following this, so I don't know whether the type of gun
    was specified, but a gun can have little or no recoil.  This is
    achieved by letting the gases escape instead of containing them in the
    chamber until after the bullet leaves the barrel.
    
    
    				-- edp

To avoid recoil, you need something like the effect of a rocket.

Except for gyrojets, which aren't under discussion here, pistol bullets are not
rockets.  All acceleration is accomplished before the bullet leaves the barrel.
Thus, if the momentum is not to be imparted to the hand holding the weapon, it
must be imparted to some combination of an ejected shell case and jets of hot
gas shooting backward from the weapon.

I don't doubt that these exist, but I have never seen a pistol that was so
dangerous to the general vicinity (or a left-handed wielder) that the casing
was ejected with enough force to injure or kill someone or that was likely to
seriously burn someone standing nearby but behind the line of fire.  This
behavior in a machine gun would be less surprising.

I find the idea that a pistol could "tear the arm off" an armored knight with a
single shot by main force ludicrous.  To remove the arm, it would have to
penetrate, and even then the remaining metal in the armor would prevent the
ruined arm from actually detaching from the torso.

						-- Spencer

Ok, so maybe I was getting a little caried a way...

I was also, however, talking about MULTIPLE hits in a short period of time
(as fast as you can pull the triger type time...)

And at a range were skill at aiming is not as big an issue/factor...

grins,

clark.

    .159
    
       The recoil of a basic 38 revolver is caused from pressure escaping
    from the end of the barrel once the bullet has exited.  You are not
    feeling the same force the bullet will produce, it's more a pressure
    release.  Sort of like using a high pressure fire house on someone,
    the person aiming the house can stand up and he feels the pressure. 
    While the person on the other end is getting hit with the mass and
    wieght of 50 gallons of water at a high speed, which will easily knock
    anyone on there back side.
    
       For example, the U.S. Army standard issue 45 was disigned to knock a
    man down.  In WWI the U.S. had a problem with the .38 you could shoot
    someone (several times) who was charging at you and he wouldn't stop. 
    The man is going to die fairly quickly (a minute or two) but so are you
    if you can't stop the forward momentum of this man and his baonet(sp?).
    So the 45 was made to transfer a higher percentage of it's kenitic
    energy to it's target.  The further a bullet travels into something the
    more energy is absorbed creating less shock(like a spring being used for
    recoil).  If the bullet stops dead then all of its energy is transfered
    to the target.
    
      Try this.  as a kid did another kid ever throw a rock at you and hit
    you???  take that experince cut the wieght of the rock in half but
    multiply the speed of the rock by 100.
    
       I would say that ripping an arm off is a little extreme, but
    knocking down a 200lbs. man in plate armor with a 357 is not just
    possible but very likely.
    
    
    					db
    
    P.S. I just strated reading this note 
    	 a couple of weeks ago, I find it
     	 very entertaining.  Finaly decided
    	 to add to the calamity.
                   

           
    re:.159
    
    the average 9mm sub machine gun (eg. Uzi) will cut the average U.S.
    passenger car to ribbons - including the engine block.
    
    I've seen the effects of shooting somebody with a .357 magnum with a
    hollowpoint style bullet (bigger magnum rounds such as .44 or .475 are
    MUCH worse), and if had hit the arm instead of the torso, you wouldn't
    have found the arm.  As it was the hole was almost as big as the guy's
    head.
    
    A "Dirty Harry" .44 will drill straight through the long axis of a
    typical truck engine...
    
    bleh yech cough chunder...	8^P
    
    Gyro jet guns were played with in the '60s but dispensed with as being
    impractical as it took too long (in both time and distance) for the
    projectile to build up lethal amounts of kinetic energy.  Most pistols
    are used at distances of less than 20 metres, not 200...  Also the
    exhaust plume could be traced all the way back to the shooter - not
    real good for a sniper.  The big advantage was almost TOTAL lack of
    recoil.

    Re: last two

    I'm not arguing about penetration or tissue damage.  I'm talking
    only about momentum transfer (i.e. what knocks someone off of
    their feet).

    Try this experiment... Put 150-200 lbs of sand in a large canvas
    duffelbag and suspend from a tree limb by a rope (be sure to have
    a good earth backstop).  Fire a round from a .45 or .357.  Choose
    a typical combat distance, say 5-7 yards.  Use a soft or
    hollowpoint so that the bullet doesn't exit and therefore deposits
    all its momentum to the bag.  Note how far from vertical it
    swings.  I think you might be surprised.

	Mike

    Can anybody give the mass and muzzle velocity of the bullets in
    question?
    
    
    				-- edp

    The following is from scanning a few back issues of _The American
    Rifleman_.  Actual ballistics will vary depending on the load and
    the gun (Barrel length, revolver vs. recoil operated semiauto vs.
    gas operated semiauto, etc.).  Terminal ballistics will also
    depend on bullet shape (round, boattail, spire, etc.) and type
    (jacketed, semi-jacketed, hollow, soft, etc.).

    For the .45 you can figure the bullet will usually be between 185
    to 230 grains with a corresponding velocity at 15' of between 1000
    to 700 fps.

    For 9mm it could be between 90 and 150 grains and 1400 to 800
    fps.

    For .40 S&W it could be between 150 and 180 grains and 1100 to 900
    fps.

    For 10mm a 180 grain bullet might be around 1650 fps.

    For .41 Rem Mag. a 210 grain bullet might be between 1200 and 1400
    fps.

    For .38 special it could be between 110 and 158 grains and 1000
    and 700 fps.

    For .380 ACP it could be between 85 and 95 grains and 925 to 800
    fps.

Mike - 

Not that I am suggesting anyone do this but...

If you were to hang someone from the same limb, with the same length rope and
shoot them, they would probably move as much. (actually, they would thrash quite
a bit as the body is not as dense/compact as sand is...) (oh yea, hang 'em by the
feet, this will better duplicate the duffle bag of sand, and this way the head
won't get sawed off by the rope...)

if you were to make a man shaped bag, with things like bone simulation and 
soft fleshy parts (say sand filled pvc tubing and water filled bladders) rigid
enough to stand, yet still articulated, and shot it, it would fall over, and it
would probably thrash a bit too...

please, if you are going to suggest experiments, try to model it close to the 
discussion at hand as possible...

grins,

clark.

    I didn't want to take this down such a rathole, I merely wanted to
    point out that reality is seldom as portrayed on television -
    people are not lifted off their feet nor thrown bodily across the
    room by gunfire, most automatics seldom can sustain continuous
    fire for more than about two to three seconds, automobiles do not
    explode like dynamite when a bullet hits the fuel tank (ask the
    folks from the latest Schutzenfest who put tens of thousands of
    rounds of nearly every legal ordinance available through a poor
    car - somewhere along the line they did manage to blow the trunk
    lid off, but that was about it).

    Anyhow, this topic is about the more exotic weapons of SF, not the
    mundane stuff of today.

	Mike

    >>Anyhow, this topic is about the more exotic weapons of SF, not the
    >>mundane stuff of today.
    
    
    	OK.  Well who would win in a fight.  A knight in shining armour
    with all of the weapons of his period or a Terminator with A "Phased
    Plasma Rifle in a 40 watt range."
    
    Steve 8^)

The Knight, all that shining armour should act like a mirror... 

:-)*100's

grins,

clark

re: .167 - call it 10 grams at 300 meters per second

    Re .167:
    
    The highest kinetic energy of any of those is for the 10mm, with
    .5*mv^2 = .5 * 180 grains * (1650 fps)^2 = 245,025,000
    grains*feet^2/seconds^2.  That is about the same energy as a 200-pound
    object traveling 18.7 feet per second, or 12.8 miles per hour.  (200
    pounds is 1,400,000 grains.)
    
    The highest momentum of any of those is also for the 10mm, with mv =
    180 grains * 1650 fps = 297,000 grains*feet/second.  That is about the
    same momentum as a 200-pound object traveling .21 feet per second, or
    .14 miles per hour.
    
    Both momentum and energy must be conserved, so the bullet cannot make a
    200-pound target move at more than .21 feet per second unless it
    bounces (so that it has negative momentum).  Without bouncing, the
    target will be driven to at most .21 feet per second, and the remainder
    of the energy will be expended in heat, sound, compressing and tearing
    tissues, et cetera.
    
    The energy involved is enough to lift a 200-pound object 10.9 feet
    against the pull of gravity.  I'm pretty surprised by that, but it is
    what the numbers say.  Certainly the energy involved is enough to knock
    a person off their feet even if it does not give them much backward
    movement, and it could tear off a limb.
    
    
    				-- edp

    After checking with edp to make sure I understood the numbers that
    he posted, he confirmed to me that even though there is LOTS of
    energy available, there is only enough momentum to lift the 200 lb
    weight about .007 feet.  The remaining energy does nasty stuff,
    but the object won't be thrown 10+ feet.

	Mike

    There is a video tape out (the name exsapes me right now) which dispels
    the myths around guns.
    
    1. a .38/.357/.45/9mm will in most cases ricochet  off of a car wind
    shield.  they went on to fire all of the above mentioned weapons a a
    car and all of the bullets ricocheted.
    
    2. a .38/.357/.45/9mm will not penetrate a car door into the cab of a
    car.  They then proceeded to demo same.
    none of these rounds will do any damage to an engine block.
    
    
    3. a high power rifle and a shotgun loaded with sluges will penetrate
    a car door pass through the cab and out the otherside.  This was
    demo'ed also.
    
    4. The narrator/maker of the tape then dawned a kevlar bullet proof
    vest and had a .30-06 rifle round fired at him at point blank range.
    He stepped back one step on impact, commented on how that really hurt
    but he was not knocked down nor thrown back.
    
    There was more but it's been awhile.
    
    Steve

    Re .174:
    
    That should be .0007 feet, as you had in your mail.
    
    
    				-- edp

    Energy of a bullet = .5 x mass (in grains) x Velocity (in fps)^2
                         -------------------------------------------
                         32.16 X 7000 (to convert grains to pounds)
    
    So, a 180 grain bullet at 1200 fps gives .5 x 180 x 1200 x 1200
                                             ----------------------
                                                  32.16 x 7000
    
      or 575.7 foot-pounds of kinetic energy.

Article: 4603
From: [email protected] (TRACEY L. MILLER)
Newsgroups: clari.news.law.police,clari.news.interest,clari.tw.science
Subject: Laser guns may join city subway force
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 93 12:26:43 EDT
 
	NEW YORK (UPI) -- It may not be ``Star Wars,'' but it sure comes close.

	The city's Transit Police department is currently testing aew laser
sighting system for its 9mm handguns that could bring space age
technology down to the subterranean world below the Big Apple.

	The prototype mechanism, currently being tested at firing ranges,
projects a pulsating red laser dot directly onto its target, giving cops
the upper hand in deadly accuracy.

	Transit officials think such a tool would cut down on police
shootings by making criminals think twice about pulling a weapon on a cop.

	``I think psychologically one could see the deterrent value of it,''
said Transit Police spokesman Luis Medina.

	``If he knows there's a very good chance that the officer firing at
him is going to hit him, it could play on (a criminal's) state of mind.''

	Of course, the mechanism's primary function is to clearly mark its
target. Although the fixed sights on 9mm weapons work well in well-lit
areas under ideal conditions, the laser sights could prove a valuable
back-up, especially in darkened subway stations.

	``In combat situations, you often have dimly lit conditions that
don't allow you to use fixed sights readily, and in other situations you
can't bring the gun to eye level,'' Medina said.

	``This mechanism allows you to aim at a potential target, and once
you beam on the target, you should have a very good chance of hitting it.''

	Police SWAT teams around the country have been known to use such
laser sights in special situations, but so far no police department in
the nation has incorporated the system into a weapon that officers carry
every day in routine patrol, Medina said.

	The system is being developed by LaserMax Inc., a Rochester, N.Y.
firm. It can be inserted into the Glock 9mm handguns already in use by
many of the Transit Police's 4,200 officers.

	After a few weeks of testing and getting the kinks out of the system,
the department will then decide whether to field test the weapon.

	``We're optimistic we can get the glitches out and get this on line,''
Medina said.

	The cost to the city of installing the laser sights would run
approximately $400 per weapon.

Article: 15595
From: [email protected] (Reuters)
Newsgroups: clari.world.europe.western,clari.news.gov.international
Subject: Red Cross Urges Ban on Blinding Laser Weapons
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 94 13:31:40 PST
 
	 GENEVA (Reuter) - The International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) called Friday for international pressure on the United
States and Britain to abandon development of laser weapons that can
cause permanent blindness. 

	 ICRC legal adviser Louise Doswald-Beck told a news conference
both powers were known to be developing such weapons and said there
were reports that some British naval vessels were equipped with laser
guns for use against enemy pilots. 

	 ``It would be a setback for civilization if blinding weapons
were tolerated.  The international community must take a decision on
lasers now,'' she declared. 

	 Doswald-Beck was presenting a book, ``Blinding Weapons,''
that she has edited for the Swiss-run ICRC on the conclusions of four
conferences it organized between 1989 and 1991 on laser weaponry and
its effects. 

	 She said weapons of this type could be produced cheaply and
eventually be sold for as little as $100.  They could easily fall into
the hands of terrorists or organized crime gangs because they were
light and easily transportable. 

	 All indications were that the hazards involved in employing
laser weapons were out of all proportion to their military usefulness,
she told the news conference.  Inflicting permanent blindness was
additionally ``exceptionally cruel,'' she added.