Golden Rain

Mankind's military forces have grown better and better at delivering objects to distant destinations with extreme force. Ever since the first stone age man figured out how to make a sling, we have been trying to find better ways of throwing stuff with greater speed, precision, and range. However while we moved from bows to guns to rockets, there has only been one significant change in the payload which we deliver, and that is we switched from sharp/heavy objects to explosives. One could argue that a warhead could be engineered to perform just about any task, but I would counter by saying that once it is engineered, its purpose does not change. An armor piercing tank shell will do little agianst a squad of infantry, while an incendiary antipersonnel bomb will do little against a tank. Explosive weapons are inherently inflexible, and I would like to propose a possible solution.

A warhead is created composed mainly of individual rods of thermite, each with an individual fuse and spaced out by a thin layer of explosives. Depending on the target, this warhead will behave in very different manners.

If one hard target is to be struck, then the missile delivering the payload will follow its normal path. The thermite primer goes off seconds before impact, and the explosive spacers are not detonated. The result is one dense glob of burning metal boring a hole straight through a ship or a bunker.

If multiple soft targets are chosen, then the missile will follow a slightly altered course taking it over the target, at which point part of the explosive spacer is detonated, and then the thermite is lit, resulting in several smaller meteors of pseudo-plasma material, each of which will heavily damage vehicles and kill infantry.

Finally for area denial against infantry/light vehicles, the same high course is chosen, and all of the explosive spacers detonate before primer ignition. This will seed the air in the area with thermite fuel, and act much like a fuel-air explosive when the primers ignite the cloud of volatile powder, cooking all caught in the blast radius.

Drone Carrier

This ideas seems to obvious and natural that I am amazed that i have found little mention of anything like it, either its being developed as some top secret project, or its being completely overlooked.

WWII has proved that aircraft rule the seas, period. The Iraq war has proved that drone aircraft are fully capable of delivering ordnance to a target and excel at reconnaissance and surveillance. These two instruments are virtually made for each other, lets put them to good use, together.

A naval vessel consisting of nothing but extensive machine shops and control centers for drone aircraft would be bulky, but smaller I'd think, than an actual aircraft carrier. Drones takeoff from vertical launch rails assisted by booster rockets, allowing for an extremely fast takeoff that would kill the pilot of a manned aircraft. Multiple such rails would take little deck space, and an entire wing of drones could be launched at once.

A drone is much lighter than an actual jet, so the landing strip could be shorter. Computerized landing and refitting allows a drone to quickly re-fuel and re-arm and get back in the sky. Drones once developed to be fast and maneuverable enough will serve as the carriers missile defense, specialized defense drones constantly surround the carrier and places themselves between any incoming projectiles and their host carrier.

At the current drone technology, the only fesitable combat role for a vessel "armed" with these drones would be similar to that of a missile cruiser, area defense and support. But once the next generation of possibly jet powered drones come operational, a large nuclear carrier refitted to carry hundreds of these drones could very well replace a super-carrier.

Infantry Mobility Suite

Despite modern combat becoming more and more mechanized, infantry is still a vital element in securing and fortifying a position taken by machines. The offensive potential of infantry has nevertheless decreased drastically. Personally I don't think this is due to a lack of infantry weaponry, as man portable weapons can still take down the most advanced war machines, and I also don't think the fragility of infantry has much to do with their demise. I believe the only reason that a man with a rifle is no longer an offensive battlefield threat is due to his lack of mobility, and as such he is usually transported by machines.

There are already several existing methods that seek to remedy this issue, the Armored Personnel Transport for one proves that infantry still has potential on the front lines, but the death of one loaded transport is the loss of quite an asset, and by itself the transport is of little use compared to other vehicles. I'd say that right now, the average marine needs a way to move himself from place to place fast and without the help of other machines.

The perfect solution would be a man portable jet pack or some jet powered device that will enable a man to fly, but I'd say that its painfully obvious that a jet used continuously would burn off a man's legs and most of the lower torso. At the time i don't believe there is any material that can dissipate the heat fast enough for such a device to be remotely possible.

But how much does it actually take to lift a man? Your average marine weighs about 200 pounds with all equipment attached, your average jet weighs a few tonnes with all its weapons and fuel. Why use something used to lift tonnes to lift 200 pounds? Using a jet to lift something as light as a single man seems like overkill.

My solution, a small but powerful air compressor, a propellent tank, an enhancement tank filled with water or loose dirt, and some very heavy protective pants. The amount of thrust generated is closely related to the amount of propellent expelled, and by adding water or dirt into the compressed air stream we increase the mass of the propellent and ensure that the temperature of said propellent dosent reach harmful levels. Such a device is not meant for sustained flight, but should hold enough charge for two bursts, one takeoff burst to blast the user into the air, and another landing burst to soften the impact of landing. In combat the device can be used to jump from cover to cover, making the user extremely hard to engage, and "parachuting" with this device would require no parachute.

Nuclear Powered Flight and its Practicality

Ever since the world entered the atomic age predictions were made that one day just about everything would become nuclear powered. Today, the world sees wonders such as nuclear powered aircraft carriers and many other naval engineering marvels.

Despite all that, there has yet to be any sort of nuclear powered devices on land, and for good reasons. Any military vehicle to be powered by nuclear power will require huge amounts of shielding and armor around the reactor to make a possible tank capable to withstanding damage. The raw power of a nuclear reactor could not be directed for offensive purposes unless such a vehicle carries a large arsenal of conventional or a very bulky directed energy weapon. And at the end of all this, the speed of such a thing is limited due to the huge amount of weight it has to carry, making it out of place in a modern battlefield where speed is key. For civilian uses, conventional power is simply much cheaper and much more reliable, not to mention much more safe. The thought of a literal thermonuclear train wreck alone should discourage the use of nuclear power on land for transport.

But in the skies, I believe, lies a different future for the fruits of the Manhattan Project.

Say we built the smallest safe reactor the modern world could build, and around it built a engine which takes magnetized or electrically charged conventional fuel pellets, accelerated them into the combustion chamber of a normal ramjet engine, and pressurized even further the combustion chamber itself with intense magnetic fields powered by a small nuclear reactor. Such a hybrid jet engine, even if it can only provide the thrust of a normal rocket motor, would use up much less fuel compared to a liquid fueled rocket and would be able to lift a relatively large fixed wing aircraft and accelerate it to immense speed.

At this point, assuming such a device is capable of flight, one could argue that all we have created is a very large and bulky target practice drone which can be seen by even the most primitive of radar, and shot down by even more primitive weapons. Even if we stealth-coated such a beast, which would no doubt be several times larger than most aircraft due to the sheer bulk of a nuclear reactor, this aircraft would not be maneuverable enough even for commercial use as a cargo plane, assuming it is even capable of taking on cargo.

Well, once such an aircraft gets off the ground, I would like to remind everyone that there is no speed limit in the skies. Using the same electromagnet-boosted engines we continue to accelerate the aircraft past the efficient speeds of conventional aircraft, and eventually reach a speed where the plane is constantly falling towards the horizon, or extreme low earth orbit. At this point, the engines can be shut off, and the plane is essentially invulnerable from surface threats as it would be moving so fast relative to the ground that no weapons system could react to it. From this immense speed, one could observe, command, and even fire ordnance onto virtually the entire globe without fear of retaliation.

Project Skymine

I have tons of ideas floating around my head, but this one in particular I wanted to share because it actually does good and makes really big explosions, what more can you possibly ask for?

So we earthlings are always under the constant threat of doom by ICBMs, which we really haven't done anything about. Its like having a sword over your throat, but you don't move away from it. Well, here is my proposed solution.

ICBMs, before they hit their targets, have to go into low earth orbit to efficiently cover ground. if a country had the money, you could create a low orbit geostationary satellite, made of nothing but a small computer, battery, and a giant fuel tank surrounded by a shrapnel coat. Place said device into geostationary orbit between you and the country that is most likely to nuke you, and repeat said process a couple hundred more times in different orbits and possible trajectories. When some crazy North Korean kid decides to launch his excuse of a nuke at you, you find one of your mines in orbit closest to the nukes trajectory, maneuver it into the path of said nuke, and detonate it.

ICBMs are NOT meant to take a beating, a little scratch on the fuel tank, and the entire missile harmlessly explodes in orbit.

Comparative analysis of the American M1A1 and the Chinese Type 99

The M1A1 tank, long since a formidable threat on the battlefield, has continued the tanks reputation as an unstoppable force. One of the most important features that allows it to crush opposition unscathed is its unique Chobham armor, a ceramic material developed as a joint research project with the British. There are only three types of armored vehicles that have been revealed to be equipped with this armor, the British Challenger 1, Challenger 2, and the American M1 and its variants. Operational history has proven such armor to be nearly indestructible, and it seems that the American's plight for the safety of their armed forces has finally paid off, seeing as how one can count on their fingers how many times any of the listed Chobham equipped vehicles have been destroyed due to accidents and combat in over 20 years of operation.

Quite recently, China has upgraded its own antiquated and mostly Soviet era tank divisions with a new tank, the Type 99 Main Battle Tank. The tank itself was only recently developed and barely in production before the turn of the century, the final variants are now in mass production.

The T99 may actually be superior to its American counterparts because of its low cost and higher speeds. The armor of this newcomer is still classified, but we think it may be some form of an aluminum alloy/composite. Armor put aside, the T99 tank has the same, of not better performance in speed, with a top speed of 80km/hr in comparison to the M1's 60, but then again the M1 actually has a top combat speed of approximately 80km/ hr after a speed governor is removed, roughly the same as the T99. But the operational range, which is how far the tank can go before it becomes an immobile turret, is definitely in favor of the T99, with its top range of 600 kilometers compared to the M1's 450 kilos. But I do believe that the M1 still holds the edge in firepower, as it does not use an auto loader like the T99, despite the fact that the T99 has a bigger gun. An auto-loader is actually slower than a human loader, is prone to jamming, and its only advantage is that it reduces the necessary crew by one. The M1 is also capable of firing a variety of different shells, making it a much more flexible weapons platform, the auto loader on the Type 99 however has nto shown itself able to quickly switch ammo types. Targeting for the actual gun on the Type 99 is unclear, the Chinese 155 mm gun is stabilized along all axis of rotation, and the computing software has the advantage of the latest software and hardware packages. The system used by the M1 has already been tested to be effective by long ages of field experience.

Finally, what I think of as the most important factor is the price per unit, the M1 is a fancy toy that costs upwards of 6 million dollars and even more to maintain the beast. While on the other hand, the slightly weaker and untested T99 costs a tiny 2.5 million US Dollars per unit to manufacture. So when you can field two slightly weaker tanks against one slightly superior tank at the same cost, I would believe that the two T99s would win. Very much the same thing happened in WWII, with the American Sherman tanks, whose shells bounced off the from armor of Tigers and Panzer IVs, winning by sheer numbers and ease of manufacture. We also have to take into account the aircraft which are no doubt supporting any armored cav, something I hope to cover in my next post.

Apocalypse Now

Human beings gained the ability to extinguish life on this planet a long time ago when we entered the atomic age, and yet why has no one built a shelter which would be safe from the world should the world decide to end itself?
Nuclear warheads are in a sense rather overrated, they can level any and all man made structures, but they are still nothing compared to nature's hard shell. To build a self sustaining sanctuary would be a simple although burdensome task, one simply has to find a stable and deep mine such as a depleted gold vein some miles underground, reinforce the cavern to keep it from collapsing and to keep moisture from entering, install a small nuclear reactor, which will run for centuries on only a few tonnes of fuel, and bring in a small population.
Water needed to sustain life can quickly be farmed by digging a cavern below the water table and not insulating it against moisture, water found by this method would already have been filtered by the earth and would at least not be salt water. In the case of a nuclear war contaminating all the water with nuclear radiation, simply use electricity from the aforementioned nuclear reactor to break down the water into component hydrogen and oxygen, redirect the gas to a sterile chamber, and allow water to re-condense free of most radiation.
Food could easily be farmed with artificially generated light and water from the above method, such a sanctuary would be virtually invulnerable to any disaster on the surface.

Clean Bomb

The nuclear bomb, although a powerful weapon, is frowned upon both by tacticians and politicians for its unwanted side effects. From a completely strategic point of view, a nuke makes for a poor offensive weapon. While its primary can and will flatten any man-made target, the affected area is unsuitable for occupation. The only good strategic use of a nuke is to use it as a fail-safe. Say that your forces defending a key position such as a bridge or port is hopelessly outnumbered and enemy troops are already moving in to occupy the position, your best choice of options includes a unscheduled sunrise a few kilometers over that port, flattening out the remaniants of your forces and the bulk of the enemy, while making the key position unusable.

But to make such a dirty device something suitable for offensive operations is rather easy. Most of the radioactive fallout comes from unreacted primary stage fissile material (uranium or plutonium). Most fission bombs (a-bombs) only have one stage where the conventional explosives crush a fissile stage, and much of the fissile fuel is unreacted and created fallout. In fusion bombs (h-bombs), the energy from a fission bomb is harvested to crush and heat hydrogen to the fusion temperature, which in turn reacts more of the fissile material, creating less fallout.

What I propose is to create a three stage fission bomb using four layers of conventional explosives and three layers of fission fuel. Stage one is located at the center of the bomb and consists of a thin shell of fission material sandwiched by a conventional core and outer shell, its detonation occurs first.The second stage is located at the outside of the device, and the layout is similar to the first stage, consisting of a thin shell of fissile fuel sandwiched between two shells of conventional explosives. The final stage is simply a thick shell of fissile fuel.

What happens when the timer goes off is the first and second stage detonates, creating two nuclear scale explosions to either side of the final stage, crushing it with more force and duration than any conventional explosive, reducing fallout without reducing yield. The leftover fissile material from the first stage also has no where else to go other than to the hot little reaction occurring at its neighboring third stage, and the crumbs leftover are given a second chance to fizz, reducing fallout yet again while probably increasing the yield.

Heart to Heart

We already have devices, hear beat sensors, that can triangulate the approximate location of a human being by monitoring the weak but distinct EM field of the human heart. This is used mainly by rescue workers trying to locate a live human inside a field of debris, and it is not exactly science fiction. But whats different from the real thing and the one on call of duty modern warfare is that the real thing cannot pinpoint the 2D location of a human on a grid, unless you have at least three sensors set up over an area and all three are linked to a computer, because the real thing will only tell you in which direction and a very approximate distance the signal is.
But if we know so much about the EM field generated by the heart, why cant we remotely affect this field? Offensively, we can remotely create a field that will give everyone within it a massive heart attack, not always lethal, and medically, it can remotely jump start a persons heart. Also, used in surgery rooms, an artificial field stronger than the signals received by the heart will make sure the patient on the table does not go into cardiac arrest as long as the heart is intact.

Invincibe Solution to the Invincible Tank

Theoretically beating up on the M1A1 Abrams, the "pinnacle" of modern tanks, is really just getting too boring, its armor is only "heavy", not invincible. The insurgents or whoever it is trying to take one down just don't have the right weapons or the right amount of weapons. For once, lets try to find a way to effectively destroy a tank whose armor is theoretically invincible and do so in a wide variety of situations.
Like the Bill-2 missile, an effective antitank rocket designed against heavily armored and often ERA protected vehicles needs two warheads. Unlike the Bill-2, first, not both warheads will be explosive, and we will not attack the top hatch of the tank. (If you want to learn about the Bill-2, the Wikipedia article has great sources at the bottom) We aim a hybrid rocket (something with an oxidizer and a fuel) complete with guidance system (I recommend the TOW) and have the twin warheads delivered under the tank. The primary explosive warhead will knock the tracks off the tank, and the secondary incendiary warhead burning along with leftover fuel oxidizer from the rocket will slowly but surely turn the immobilized tank into an over-sized cooking pan, killing any crewmen zealous enough to stay within.

Anti-Aircraft Carrier Device

China's navy in basically nonexistent, and its air force is only superior to other second an third world countries, and although its land forces are arguably a match for the Russians, without proper air support, superior tanks and men mean little in modern warfare. The main factor denying Chinese air superiority is the presence of American and recently Indian carriers. Not only do they make amphibious landings impossible, they deny air cover for ground forces and can directly threaten major cities. If only there was a way to make them go away...
Given the amount of anti air defenses integrated into the carrier itself and its supporting battle group, I find it very improbable that anything bigger than maybe an over-sized artillery shell can penetrate its outer defenses, and seeing as how the Chinese submarine fleet is also made of fail, torpedoes are out of the question. Anything big enough to carry long range artillery over water will be sunk before they can find the carrier, so a naval force is also kinda useless. But the Chinese actually has one major advantage, coastal military bases. While Chinese jet engines are very questionable, we have managed to copy one time use cruse missile engines with questionable accuracy. We first construct an unmanned delivery vehicle the size of a small jet fighter. Once in range of carrier anti air perimeter, the drone turns on afterburners and hauls itself almost vertically into the sky until fuel runs out, and breaks into several guided sub munitions each weighing no more than a few hundred kilograms. Although now invulnerable to interception via missile, the sub munitions can still be engaged, although not effectively, by carrier Gatling guns, which causes a problem. But this can be resolved by using termite warheads fused with heat capacitors, which even when shot will explode into burning metal, not gas, and fall upon the deck of the carrier doing damage. Meanwhile, a second type of delivery vehicles will dive under the surface of the water and launch its termite payload underwater, not as accurate, but invulnerable to interception.