Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

Some nations liked to put noisemakers on their shells and bombs to scare the enemy. The German Stuka, for example, was famous for not only having a noisemaker on the landing gear but also ones on the bombs it dropped.

If you've got creative freedom with the military force then you can make it want you want. If you don't the shell could be silent or have a high pitched drone.

A number of projectiles still make a sound without the presence of a whistle or siren on the bomb. Modern weapons tend to be relatively quiet because aerodynamics for munitions have improved to help improve accuracy, range, and overall velocity. You can hear shells flying over your head on a regular basis it is when they are coming right at you that you are unlikely to hear them.

The Germans later removed the noisemakers from the Stuka. I guess they figured out it just made the plane into a flying air raid siren and gave the enemy time to seek cover.

Several American-made dive bombers used perforated dive flaps that had the side effect of causing the plane to make a hellish shriek in a dive. As I recall, one of the Dauntless's other names was "The Banshee."

As for artillery rounds, I understand that there's an American round variety nicknamed the "Beehive" round for the sound it makes when observed by troops calling in fire support on nearby targets: The shell explodes in the air, sending a focused blast of fragmentation at the target. If you are between the guns and the target, the fragmentation sounds kind of like a big swarm of bees as it flies by overhead.

The Bee Hive is the now-defunct flechette shell. Its use was replaced with Killer Sr. and Killer Jr. fire techniques. The angry bee humming sound was the flechettes as a number tumbled in flight at large bore artillery velocity.

Killer Sr. and Killer Jr.? Did the Marines name them?

Lol. That one is Army all the way. That is the one that uses the short-range air-bursting fragmentation of shells. The Flechette shells had a fairly narrow cone-like effect whereas airburst could splash fragments downward.

Some infantry mortar rounds will make a kind of low swishing sound before they hit, especially if they’re landing close to you and not on top of you. Rockets are much more noticeable.

Funnily enough, I’ve seen a few movies where the sound of C-RAM firing back is actually used as the sound effect for an incoming shell. A distant C-RAM battery firing is a weird sort of visceral sense memory.

Nah, you know the Army didn't name it because it doesn't have a name like "THE SCREAMING EAGLE" or "GERONIMO"

^^ Many AT missiles can be heard coming. Infamously the AT-3 Sagger (9M14 Malyutka) can be heard coming from a long way off.

Partially this is because most MCLOS/SACLOS type missiles need to be or are slow enough to be tracked visually.

An M220 TOW can be heard coming even in its most modern (and fastest) configurations though unlike Malyutka the time between hearing a TOW coming and it slamming into the side of your tank is about long enough to go "Oh SHI- *boom*".

Maybe we need to consider the possibility of mobile pop-up barriers to defend against these things. You see the missile inbound, hit the Big Red Button™, and a giant steel volleyball net is popped out in front of the tank to catch the missile.

Or maybe just use one of the modern active defense systems to shoot it down with a rocket or something boring like that.

^ Take care AFP, you're getting too close to spilling the secrets of Project Bugcatcher and Operation: Butterfly Net.

Edited by MajorTom on Dec 18th 2018 at 9:20:29 AM

Not quite as boring or as insane as you might think. During Vietnam when Light Vehicles were set in place, they protected them with something akin to chicken wire tied to engineering stakes. The mesh would either deflect the missiles strike angle, destroy the fusing like slat armor, or even cause it to prematurely detonate. You would need to find a way to make it a deployable compact option.

Sounds not much different than the applique armor consisting of various bric-a-brac in WW 2 used by all sides. Barbed wire, sandbags, wooden logs, etc all used to provide additional protection against HEAT weapons such as the Bazooka or Panzerfaust or explosives in general. They had varying levels of effectiveness to say the least.

Edited by MajorTom on Dec 18th 2018 at 10:21:55 AM

I'm too busy imagining a set of balloons with armored panels attached.

Not only does it help against shaped charges but also helps you ford rivers!

Hmm. Maybe create something akin to a projected slat armor projectile. Sort of a variation on Homing Overlay KKV interceptor warhead tested during the days of the SDI. They actually managed to swat a mock warhead with it. Obviously not the whole upper stage part but the folding fan design to keep weight down but still increase overall surface area without relying on fragmentation effect to kill a target. Warhead here. Might be more fule of cool at this scale than truly practical.

You could use balloons made of inflatable kevlar. They could explosively deploy like car air bags.

Call me crazy but I swear I have seen that concept somewhere before.

edit:I have indeed in an old wired article. Textron pursued a system like this called TRAPS It entered the hard field testing phase but not much else can be found of it after that point. From what little I can find there were likely some funding issues.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Dec 22nd 2018 at 8:15:37 AM

So TRAPS... is under wraps?

Lol. I don't know for sure but the last bit of good info I found was a Textron Investor letter attempting to gain funds for further project development back in 2010, the original project starting roughly around 08-09 and apparently they were hoping to win a contract for the new JLTV vehicle systems that will be replacing the HUMVEES.

Your google-fu is strong, my friend.

This particular project had some good up front open resources including a very short PDF. I sadly couldn't find any details on exactly how the defeat mechanism works but that had worked in a few tests. From the looks of it the stiffened expanding fabric either prematurely detonates the charge or it mangles and/or deflects the projectile especially the nose section.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Dec 22nd 2018 at 10:09:25 AM

So, what's the general consensus on non-carrier class starships having fighters? From Frigates (depending on your definition) having simply four for additional escort and protection, to mile-long dreadnoughts.

Depends on stuff like the flavor of your setting and how you'd use them. Historically, many surface warships would carry airplanes aboard as they were actually quite useful for scouting for enemy ships and spotting artillery fire. Usually one of the turrets on any given BB would mount a catapult for flinging a floatplane into the Wild Blue Yonder. Further, a squadron of cruisers or battleships could field an impressive scouting force of floatplanes.

They went out of favor as aircraft carriers became more capable and more common, and helicopters began to mature (serving many of the same roles, plus several others that floatplanes couldn't easily do). It didn't help that any floatplane would be at a serious disadvantage vs a landplane or a carrier-launched plane.

Well I’d say small ships need as much space as they can afford so fighters may be detrimental

It depends on why your fighters need a carrier in the first place.