From: mikkelhaaheim@gmail.com   
      
   Le jeudi 27 octobre 2016 04:06:47 UTC+2, Rick Pikul/Chakat Firepaw a écrit :   
      
   > > It will likely be large and hot, yes... or the salvo will be fired from   
   > > an array of launchers. Hiding the target vectors will be no difficulty   
   > > whatoever.   
   >    
   > You say that like you can suddenly turn them to disguise which way they    
   > were pointing.  These aren't going to be able to simply pivot like a    
   > battleship's turrets.   
      
   This depends on the number of units in an array. The more units, the smaller   
   each unit. Also, you actually CAN build fairly large turret structures in   
   space.   
      
   In any case you don't even need to pivot. The launcher is going to light up,   
   but at the distances being discussed, they are only going to appear as a   
   bright dot, with NO indication of the direction of fire. You DON'T have muzzle   
   flash. These things are    
   operating in a vacuum, so you have no significant. IR trace from the   
   projectiles.    
      
      
   > > Unpredictable motions tend to average out, over time.   
   >    
   > Not necessarily as you have no way of knowing if I have chosen to have a    
   > bias in those motions.  Yes there are restrictions, but only ones that    
   > mean the platforms have to pass through a limited polar region with few    
   > restrictions of when those passes occur.  The averaging would also not be    
   > fast enough as you don't get a hundred orbits of small shifts but less    
   > than half of one orbit, (unless you want to commit your children to a    
   > shooting war).   
      
   Biases tend to reveal their own footprints, that actually tend to make them   
   even easier to trace.   
      
   >    
   > Knowing that the average of 1d6 is 3.5 doesn't help you guess what the    
   > very next roll will be.   
      
   No. But knowing the deviations will tell you that it won't be a 7 or a 0. It   
   also tells you how much of a risk you are taking if you ignore results of 10   
   or 60 after adding ten rolls together.   
      
      
   > > Perhaps. Not necessarily. Probably not, considering the effort that   
   > > military organisations go through to hide "muzzle flash".   
   >    
   > You aren't hiding energy use of this magnitude.  Remember that we are    
   > talking about on the order of an EJ per target.   
      
   You don't have to hide it if normal operational levels are on the order of EJs   
   per (commercial) launch. A possibility NOT to be discounted in a thriving   
   interplanetary economy.   
      
      
   > The military already scraps and replaces far more expensive things on a    
   > similar schedule.  Look at the Flight I of the 688 class subs, in a    
   > couple years there will only be three left in service, (only one of which    
   > will ever leave port), having generally lasted about 30 years with access    
   > to full servicing.   
      
   There is a difference between a few years and a few decades.   
      
      
   > The NEOWISE extended mission of WISE was still finding asteroids after    
   > the cryogen ran out.   
      
   Yes. AFTER a year or so of looking into the darkest corner of space it could   
   find, it was able to cool down enough for a year of operation (or was it six   
   months? I forget).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)