NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[The Manticoran Empire]

Assuming you have people wearing full face covering ballistic masks is there some sort of coating or procedure I could do to these to make the users immune to the effects of very bright flashing lights? Think super strong camera flash or flashbang but without the explosion. The idea for this will become clear in my future posts. For now I am just researching.

Well, you could do something like sunglasses.

[Dayganistan]

Assuming you have people wearing full face covering ballistic masks is there some sort of coating or procedure I could do to these to make the users immune to the effects of very bright flashing lights? Think super strong camera flash or flashbang but without the explosion. The idea for this will become clear in my future posts. For now I am just researching.

Whatever they do for welding masks could potentially work. Don't quote me on that though, I'm not a man of science and have no idea how the brightness of a welding torch would compare to what you're going for.

[Kassaran]

Welding torch is mostly opaque and the operator needs to frequently stop and inspect their work. Of your looking for something like a glare visor, pilots use them all the time and looking into equipment used in the Arctic and Antarctic could be a good reference for you.

Edit: just read about 19 no. Dev time for new US Army SMR SAM system mounted on Stryker... Thoughts on this? I was under the impression that Stryker is relatively unpopular here for maintenance and function reasons compared to Bradley? Also, whatever happened to Scorpion style HMMWV?

[Almadaria]

I read that the MQ-9 has a ridiculous range (1,000 some miles), but when I try to find the combat range, it redirects me to the same number. Now, does this mean the Reaper can fly 1,000 miles to their target, deploy munitions, then fly back within its endurance of 14 hours or am I misreading this?

[Purpelia]

Basically I am thinking of having equipment that produces a camera flash style of effect, only much more intense for security work. And I want the user to not blind him self.

[The Manticoran Empire]

I read that the MQ-9 has a ridiculous range (1,000 some miles), but when I try to find the combat range, it redirects me to the same number. Now, does this mean the Reaper can fly 1,000 miles to their target, deploy munitions, then fly back within its endurance of 14 hours or am I misreading this?

Range is usually the maximum distance that the aircraft can fly. The combat radius is usually a bit less than half the maximum range.

[The New California Republic]

I read that the MQ-9 has a ridiculous range (1,000 some miles), but when I try to find the combat range, it redirects me to the same number. Now, does this mean the Reaper can fly 1,000 miles to their target, deploy munitions, then fly back within its endurance of 14 hours or am I misreading this?

Aircraft ranges are usually not helpful as they are usually the maximum ferry range without stores.

Tactical radius, when used with examples of different stores loadings, is a much more useful measure.

I wouldn't expect that the range number given and the tactical radius to be the same number.

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

How could a tank be protected against neutron radiation from enhanced radiation warheads?

[Crookfur]

How could a tank be protected against neutron radiation from enhanced radiation warheads?

IIRC a thinnish layer of boron carbide or boron impregnated polyethylene would do the job.

[Vastronia]

How could a tank be protected against neutron radiation from enhanced radiation warheads?

Boron is the go-to material for absorbing neutron radiation.

[The New California Republic]

How could a tank be protected against neutron radiation from enhanced radiation warheads?

By incorporating neutron absorbers such as boron carbide into the armour, and also having neutron moderating materials that contain hydrogen atoms on the outside of the armour, possibly in the form of appliqué armour. The moderating materials are required to slow the neutrons, to enhance their absorption upon reaching the boron.

[Triplebaconation]

Lark was subsonic. It would have trouble intercepting a diving A6M, much less a rocket- or jet-powered craft like Ohka or F9F. Its only useful trait was its guidance system which it gave to Talos under Bumblebee, which was pretty much a straight transfer since Lark's working group was transferred to Bumblebee's staff. Super Lark might have been useful but there's not a lot of information about it because it never actually went anywhere outside of budget requests from the NOTS.

I see. I guess Germans with supersonic Wasserfall could be better option.

I strongly doubt you could get a practical naval SAM by 1948 unless it was some simple point-defense missile.

[Gallia-]

Lark was subsonic. It would have trouble intercepting a diving A6M, much less a rocket- or jet-powered craft like Ohka or F9F. Its only useful trait was its guidance system which it gave to Talos under Bumblebee, which was pretty much a straight transfer since Lark's working group was transferred to Bumblebee's staff. Super Lark might have been useful but there's not a lot of information about it because it never actually went anywhere outside of budget requests from the NOTS.

I see. I guess Germans with supersonic Wasserfall could be better option.

The radio datalink guidance would just be jammed by something like a B-17, like the Fritz X was by warships, so not really. You need a combination of narrow beam guidance (Lark) and supersonic body/projectile (Bumblebee) to make an effective air defense system. This doesn't coalesce until around 1953 with the deployment of the RIM-2 Terrier in very small numbers by the USN. Wasserfall is a bit big anyway and I'm not sure it would make an effective shipboard missile. It was basically a baby V-2 and would require similar vertical gantries and such that would be hard to keep stable on a rolling ship, much less actually make work properly.

Bumblebee's focus on solid fueled rockets about the size of contemporary anti-shipping rockets (Tiny Tim and Terrier aren't too different in size [and Lark is pretty much literally Tiny Tim AFAIK], and Sparrow started life as a 5" HVAR bolt-on kit) was a lot better in the end and would result in the fastest development time of a practical SAM.

Maybe you could bull through a 5" HVAR derived SAM based on some of the more boring Nazi ideas like the infrared photodiode, but it would basically be a Naval Sidewinder, and probably only good on a tail chase. This would be a development similar to NOTS's "Meteor" which was one of something like half a dozen wartime SAM programs run by the US (Meteor never went so far as Lark or anything though but it did tangentially lead to AIM-9 once NOTS figured out chopped infrared guidance).

[Triplebaconation]

Terrier is a good example. It had a pretty smooth development and was a "super-accelerated" national priority. Putting everything together to make a practical missile didn't require any enormous breakthroughs, just lots of flight tests and refinement. It's doubtful you could speed up the process by throwing more resources at it.

[Gallia-]

yi

[New Vihenia]

I strongly doubt you could get a practical naval SAM by 1948 unless it was some simple point-defense missile.

I see.. guess it will only available on 1950's. Looking again at History, yeah even for ground based SAM's. Soviets, European (Oerlikon) and US.. SAM's are only available at at very least 1955.

Guess this call for a war extension if i desire naval SAM to take part.

[Hrstrovokia]

If you are looking at eastern Europe/Russian tech for an APC, which is the better option here, BTR-80A or BTR-4E?

The BTR-80A I imagine would be cheaper but more basic. The BTR-4E has more internal volume, better options for weapon systems and modularity/adaptability, but I really don't like the side doors upfront with the windows - I guess it doesn't make a difference anyway because the armour isn't going to stock anything up from 15mm anyway.

[The Corparation]

Welding torch is mostly opaque and the operator needs to frequently stop and inspect their work. Of your looking for something like a glare visor, pilots use them all the time and looking into equipment used in the Arctic and Antarctic could be a good reference for you.

Edit: just read about 19 no. Dev time for new US Army SMR SAM system mounted on Stryker... Thoughts on this? I was under the impression that Stryker is relatively unpopular here for maintenance and function reasons compared to Bradley? Also, whatever happened to Scorpion style HMMWV?

If by "Scorpion style HMMWV" You mean the Avenger, they're still around. At one point it was proposed was to rip the turrets off the Avengers, refurbish them and then stick them on the Stykers as the "new" SAM system. It's been awhile since I paid attention to the Army's hunt for a new short range air defense and iirc the Army wasn't exactly pleased with the idea of having to reuse the turrets so I think they ended up going a different route.

[Kassaran]

Sounds like they made a new turret altogether and are using the launch racks used for hellfires on the apache by the short excerpts given. Then again, I could have simply misread the article.

[The New California Republic]

If you are looking at eastern Europe/Russian tech for an APC, which is the better option here, BTR-80A or BTR-4E?

The BTR-80A I imagine would be cheaper but more basic. The BTR-4E has more internal volume, better options for weapon systems and modularity/adaptability, but I really don't like the side doors upfront with the windows - I guess it doesn't make a difference anyway because the armour isn't going to stock anything up from 15mm anyway.

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head yourself. It'll come down to personal preference in terms of what you want.

[Purpelia]

How much more competitive with other bolt actions do you guys think the Lebel would have been if it had been equipped with a levergun style loading gate? Like I can't stop thinking about it but I also have zero ways of knowing since all my experience with firearms is watching pictures of them. And questions like this are all opinion informed by experience.

[New Vihenia]

I read that the MQ-9 has a ridiculous range (1,000 some miles), but when I try to find the combat range, it redirects me to the same number. Now, does this mean the Reaper can fly 1,000 miles to their target, deploy munitions, then fly back within its endurance of 14 hours or am I misreading this?

Nope. As others pointed out this could be the ferry range, and in "clean" condition without weapons. Combat range for this UAV is unfortunately somewhat obscure. However assuming it cruises at same speed as Predator on 70 Knot and some endurance information at this page :

https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircraft/reaper-mq9a/

You can try playing around with simplified D.Raymer's approach here :
https://id.scribd.com/document/47181911 ... oiter-Time

To approximate range of the Reaper.

As mentioned in RAF page Reaper has about "more than 12 hrs" Meaning it would have about 12 or somewhat more (highly dependent on condition) So we can take 12 hrs as endurance.

If we assume it use cruise speed (70 knot) It can be shown that the range at armed configuration, 12 hrs endurance and 70 kts cruise speed is 737 NMI or 1365 km. Thus the Reaper, when doing that 12 hrs loiter is equivalent with flying 737 NMI of range. Of course however If such flight regime is chosen The combat range would be somewhat short as it has to maximize amount of fuel for endurance (or one can call it combat fuel). You can of course declare that 737 NMI as "combat range" as the Reaper is flying armed and ready, and it would land on friendly bases. If not however then that range could be somewhat halved depending on the location of the UAV base.

[Radictistan]

If you are looking at eastern Europe/Russian tech for an APC, which is the better option here, BTR-80A or BTR-4E?

How important is a rear ramp to you?

[Purpelia]

Personally I nominate the MT-LB.

[Hrstrovokia]

How important is a rear ramp to you?

Very important upon reflection.

Yeah one of the main reasons for the Ukrainian redesign of the Soviet era BTR's was the location of engine and the troop exits. They have this BTR-4MV version now with the front windows deleted which is a plus I guess.