Inventor wrote:
Fleets have a satellite problem, they are under constant watch. A 4" steel bar traveling ten times the speed of sound will sink a ship.
Ships, planes, have lost the advantage.
High flying drones that use solar power and stay up for years take one guy to run, swarms of drones can mob attack, very cheaply.
I sense Purple/Green coming here shortly.....
Very well, I'll take the challenge.
As of the current medium-term forcast, only one country has (near) real-time survaliance capacity of the oceans, and that's the same country that has the biggest fleet. A 4" steel bar at Mach 10 can take out a ship....if it hits. At that speed, you need to have exact targeting information. Firing from a mobile base (read: ship) at land-based targets moving at 30 MPH or less is one thing, the kinetic shock from the group will be enough. Hitting the water 10 meters from a ship....probably would be the effect of a (Very) large wave.
If you have the capacity to launch that many drones, then why can't your foe do the same? After a while, there's a practical limit on how many drone engines you want to maintain at your air bases.....
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Our first challenge is to create an entire economic infrastructure, from top to bottom, out of whole cloth.
-CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Firaxis Games)
09 Mar 2013, 7:57 pm
