XPost: sci.military.moderated   
   From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   d_schneider@emulex.com (dave schneider) writes:   
      
   > henry@spsystems.net (Henry Spencer) wrote:   
   > [...]   
   >> massively overrated as weapons.  I'm sorry to shatter illusions, but   
   >> Heinlein blew this one badly.  Their power supplies have to be too big   
   >> and the waste heat would be too hard to hide.   
   >   
   > He wasn't positing a secret catapult designed to be used as a   
   > weapon...just a "targeting error" with a load of freight (okay, he   
   > replaced the wheat with rock so it wouldn't be mistaken for Postum).   
   > He didn't have to hide the power supply or the waste heat.   
      
   Uh, you are forgetting about the "secret" catapult he had the Loonies build   
   under Mare Undarum, which was the one used for the majority of the bombardment.   
      
   I would note, however, that the Undarum catapult was not used until the F.N.   
   took out the main catapult, so until then, the waste heat production would   
   presumably have been relatively low. Also, Heinlein went to some pains   
   to point out that such a major construction job could =NOT= be _completely_   
   hidden, so the Loonies had to disguise it as an HKL mining operation sited   
   at a relatively inaccessible location where surveillance would be difficult,   
   that they had to come up with a plausible excuse for why it had to be powered   
   by a reactor rather than Douglas-Martin Sunpower Screens (tm), etc., etc....   
      
      
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