The new & improved ______ of the future

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Author Topic:   The new & improved ______ of the future

BigER posted 12-16-98 02:31 PM ET
Well, with the demo immanent and the chance that all hell will break loose once it is out. I suggest we take all ______ of the future threads and place them in here instead of having 50 threads about aspects of the future. For those of you just joining us these were threads going by the names. Weapons of the future, technology of the future, architechture of the future, sex of the future, add finitum.(sp)and they were at best hard to follow at worst, well they were bad.
So, without further ado:
What is a shreader pistol, on what principle does it operate? does it have, "ammo", or is it fusion powered? Remember, this is technology that we think is practical and plausible.
Zorloc posted 12-16-98 02:46 PM ET
In BattleTech a shredder was a pistol that in stead of bullets you inserted a large block of hard plastic, and the pistol ground up the block and spit it out at high velocity creating a stream of high velocity bits that "shread" the target.
Mike posted 12-16-98 02:48 PM ET
I would think that a shredder weapon
would fire a 'bullet' projectile that would
breakdown to many 'slivers' upon impact
so that the area that was hit was shredded into something that was unfixable on the field and very painful.
BigER posted 12-16-98 02:57 PM ET
I would think that the "shreder" we have seen in the SMAC story was a ship board weapon the "plastic bits" is very plausible. Since metal tends to be hard on the skin of the ship. I wonder what the propellent is though. This is an interesting problem. let see would you excelerate it chemically or magnetically (of course no plastic) or perhaps air? any thoughts.
Jojo posted 12-16-98 02:59 PM ET
Not a nuclear physicist, but I don't see housing a fusion plant inside a single-handed weapon within the next 100 years. Fission plants have been around 50, and they're roughly the same size. Additionally, we have yet to develop a practical and operational cold fusion power plant. Of course, fusion being a broad jump forward in technology, I could be wrong.
More than likely this is another device which uses rapid gas expansion to propel projectiles. I'm assuming, however, that since this weapon is being used aboard a ship, the designers' desire was to minimize the possibility of hull breaching.
The name "shredder" suggests a couple of possibilities. It may shoot out small needle-like projectiles, which are perhaps very fragile, capable of penetrating skin and organs, but not ship hulls. The projectiles might also have a wide dispersion pattern, so that their impact on a hull is distributed for a given range.... I'm kind of thinking of a myriad of fiberglass arrows, each maybe the circumference of a human hair, being propelled at the target.
Another option may be that it shoots small, spiralling razor blades, giving the name "shredder" a more better application, but I'm still not sure how the impact to the hull would be lessened, unless of course, we go again with the idea of very small blades with a wide dispersion pattern. Maybe each blade would be the size of a pin, and again made out a material brittle enough to break upon contact with steel, but not human skin.
Of course, an effective counter-measure would be to wear a flak jacket and helmet made out material used on ship's hulls..... One might suppose that a shredder gun is a space-only weapon; no armies on earth would find it useful against troops or vehicles with such armor.
CClark posted 12-16-98 05:49 PM ET
From the story we know that the Shredder pistol can be set for a wide-area burst or a fine "single-shot" with no dispersion.
I think that the idea of it firing small, plastic barbs is probably the most accurate. Since it is a pistol, it must be fairly small. I'm guessing that it takes a compressed gas canister and some kind of clip as ammo.
BKK the Mentat posted 12-16-98 06:06 PM ET
I think that the shredder pistol operates on a similar principal to that of a shotgun,one round fires in a selectable dispersion setting, but the trick is that every "needle" is semi giuded from the time it is realesed from the gun. Just before entering the target, a pack of polarized mercury is allowed to bleed energy, bursting each of the dozens of projectiles into thousands of peices of supersonic shrapnel. Oh yea, let's remember that this is a time when fusion can barely be fit into the ship at all, much less into a pistol.
DHE_X2 posted 12-17-98 12:05 AM ET
Maybe some kind of projectile which causes a chemical reaction to occur when it comes in contact with organic material, essentially breaking down the tissue of the victim, along with some physical damage from the projectile itself. Think of a thousand needles of plastic laced with a brown recluse-like toxin flying towards you at 500 mph. Not exactly a pretty sight.
BigER posted 12-17-98 03:13 PM ET
Indeed an ugly weapon, which brings me to my next question.
I see a future (according to SMAC) that is bleak and violent. this is for sure-since the earth's continued existence is in question. Will counter measures out perform destructive potential? Will there be any kind of tabue on weapons of mass distruction? I know this is somewhat vague. However, if you think about it it could play a large part in how your tech tree advances and how you plan for weapon advance ment and counter measures.
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Author	Topic: The new & improved ______ of the future
BigER	posted 12-16-98 02:31 PM ET Well, with the demo immanent and the chance that all hell will break loose once it is out. I suggest we take all ______ of the future threads and place them in here instead of having 50 threads about aspects of the future. For those of you just joining us these were threads going by the names. Weapons of the future, technology of the future, architechture of the future, sex of the future, add finitum.(sp)and they were at best hard to follow at worst, well they were bad. So, without further ado: What is a shreader pistol, on what principle does it operate? does it have, "ammo", or is it fusion powered? Remember, this is technology that we think is practical and plausible.
Zorloc	posted 12-16-98 02:46 PM ET In BattleTech a shredder was a pistol that in stead of bullets you inserted a large block of hard plastic, and the pistol ground up the block and spit it out at high velocity creating a stream of high velocity bits that "shread" the target.
Mike	posted 12-16-98 02:48 PM ET I would think that a shredder weapon would fire a 'bullet' projectile that would breakdown to many 'slivers' upon impact so that the area that was hit was shredded into something that was unfixable on the field and very painful.
BigER	posted 12-16-98 02:57 PM ET I would think that the "shreder" we have seen in the SMAC story was a ship board weapon the "plastic bits" is very plausible. Since metal tends to be hard on the skin of the ship. I wonder what the propellent is though. This is an interesting problem. let see would you excelerate it chemically or magnetically (of course no plastic) or perhaps air? any thoughts.
Jojo	posted 12-16-98 02:59 PM ET Not a nuclear physicist, but I don't see housing a fusion plant inside a single-handed weapon within the next 100 years. Fission plants have been around 50, and they're roughly the same size. Additionally, we have yet to develop a practical and operational cold fusion power plant. Of course, fusion being a broad jump forward in technology, I could be wrong. More than likely this is another device which uses rapid gas expansion to propel projectiles. I'm assuming, however, that since this weapon is being used aboard a ship, the designers' desire was to minimize the possibility of hull breaching. The name "shredder" suggests a couple of possibilities. It may shoot out small needle-like projectiles, which are perhaps very fragile, capable of penetrating skin and organs, but not ship hulls. The projectiles might also have a wide dispersion pattern, so that their impact on a hull is distributed for a given range.... I'm kind of thinking of a myriad of fiberglass arrows, each maybe the circumference of a human hair, being propelled at the target. Another option may be that it shoots small, spiralling razor blades, giving the name "shredder" a more better application, but I'm still not sure how the impact to the hull would be lessened, unless of course, we go again with the idea of very small blades with a wide dispersion pattern. Maybe each blade would be the size of a pin, and again made out a material brittle enough to break upon contact with steel, but not human skin. Of course, an effective counter-measure would be to wear a flak jacket and helmet made out material used on ship's hulls..... One might suppose that a shredder gun is a space-only weapon; no armies on earth would find it useful against troops or vehicles with such armor.
CClark	posted 12-16-98 05:49 PM ET From the story we know that the Shredder pistol can be set for a wide-area burst or a fine "single-shot" with no dispersion. I think that the idea of it firing small, plastic barbs is probably the most accurate. Since it is a pistol, it must be fairly small. I'm guessing that it takes a compressed gas canister and some kind of clip as ammo.
BKK the Mentat	posted 12-16-98 06:06 PM ET I think that the shredder pistol operates on a similar principal to that of a shotgun,one round fires in a selectable dispersion setting, but the trick is that every "needle" is semi giuded from the time it is realesed from the gun. Just before entering the target, a pack of polarized mercury is allowed to bleed energy, bursting each of the dozens of projectiles into thousands of peices of supersonic shrapnel. Oh yea, let's remember that this is a time when fusion can barely be fit into the ship at all, much less into a pistol.
DHE_X2	posted 12-17-98 12:05 AM ET Maybe some kind of projectile which causes a chemical reaction to occur when it comes in contact with organic material, essentially breaking down the tissue of the victim, along with some physical damage from the projectile itself. Think of a thousand needles of plastic laced with a brown recluse-like toxin flying towards you at 500 mph. Not exactly a pretty sight.
BigER	posted 12-17-98 03:13 PM ET Indeed an ugly weapon, which brings me to my next question. I see a future (according to SMAC) that is bleak and violent. this is for sure-since the earth's continued existence is in question. Will counter measures out perform destructive potential? Will there be any kind of tabue on weapons of mass distruction? I know this is somewhat vague. However, if you think about it it could play a large part in how your tech tree advances and how you plan for weapon advance ment and counter measures.