NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/games/mecha/709

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-24 | 3.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!olivea!charnel!rat!ucselx!crash!malloy
From: [e-mail] (Sean Malloy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mecha
Subject: Re: Realism vs. Mechs
Message-ID: <1992Dec24.153906.19750@crash>
Date: 24 Dec 92 23:39:06 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <seablade-231292104211@128.95.123.173>
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Lines: 50

In article <seablade-231292104211@128.95.123.173> [e-mail] (Sigfried Allen Trent) writes:
>    I always thought a good explination was this.  They do have
>hight tech targeting and guidence systems, but all they can all
>be effectively blocked my ECM systems and the like.  Thus the
>guidence systems yield unreliable results, and the pilots must
>assist in aiming these systems.  This of course is contradicted
>by the mere existance and function of things like targeting computers
>and C3 systems but its not a bad explination.

The problem with this is that, while _active_ targeting systems are
(relatively) easy to jam, _passive_ targeting is harder to fool, and
image-recognition targeting is _much_ harder. For example, while you can
fool a radar tracking system by feeding it spurious signals outside of its
primary search lobe, you have to give an IR tracking system real (but
worthless) targets to 'see' by dropping heat sources around. With image
recognition, however, you have to be able to change the signature of your
vehicle enough to fool the oncoming missile -- and you don't know _what_
the missile's seeker is going to decide is a 'significant feature' of your
vehicle.

And once you go back to the basic truism of weapons systems -- "You can't
confuse a sensor system that doesn't exist" -- you can easily go back to
relatively primitive targeting systems that will essentially _guarantee_ a
hit at the ranges you find in Battletech. Take a WWI-vintage device, the
stereo-coincidence rangefinder. This operates by having two telescopes
separated by a known distance, with an adjustable angle on one of the
telescopes. When you point the rangefinder at a target, the angle of the
movable scope is adjusted until both images line up; the range is
determined by a simple calculation (either mechanically, or through analog
or digital computation). Once you have the range, an unguided ballistic
projectile aimed using this range datum will, failing some _extreme_ wind
conditions, strike very close to the target; the accuracy depends on the
size of the 'base leg' -- the width of the rangefinder -- and the weather
conditions, but at Battletech ranges, the aiming error shouldn't be more
than a couple of feet.

And you don't have to do the adjustments manually; look at all of the
autofocus cameras now on the market, which can give range measurements in a
second at most. Put a targeting sensor on each shoulder of a 'mech, link
them in a stereo-coincidence rangefinder system, and there should be no
reason why _any_ ballistic projectile you fire at ranges up to four or five
miles should be off more than 10 feet from your aim point.


--
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