Missiles, Nukes and other nasty weapons
- nick112147
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Now you're taking a Bayen attitude - make it expensive enough, people will use it properly. Personally, I'm happy enough just not using it, but as I said - Anunia stresses organising key things before the war, so you just have to make sure whoever has a war next agrees to do that.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- chrimigules
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Ah, but it'd need to be good long range air defence to beat it - couldn't just be a 20 point thing.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
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I'll take your word for it ...
(by which I mean "I don't know much about specifics of modern military, I just understand basic recwarring")
What would you cost an Aegis system at, Chim?
EDIT: Let's try a thought experiment. In fairness, the number 25000 was first floated for a Nuke when a particular nation was threatening that they had superpowerful nukes and that one would be enough to wipe out Gralus, another one for Babkha, and two for Shireroth. With that in mind (and considering the RP costs that, in fairness, you should have a radiation ridden population for ages to come) 25000 seems quite fair. (btw, that's another reason why we should minimise those weapons which, unfortunately, tend to be used primarily against civilians and not other armies - in fairness to nations that consider the results of war after it, its fine to destroy their whole military, but its not nice to also destroy their whole population or kill millions)
Compare it to, say, WW2. Germany bombed London, threatened to kill millions. How many bombers did they go through - hundreds? Shall we say that to destroy all of London, would have cost around 40 000 points (that is, 40 planes) and you would have needed, say, 60 fighters (around 30 000 points) to stop most of them?
Now advance to a Micras' WW2. Monty had an ICBM capable sub (non-nuclear) costed at 1000 or maybe only 500. He happily used it to fire off 16 trident missiles in quick succession to, theoretically, destroy an entire capital. You can see that (even if civilians are undefended and therefore easiest to destroy) that much destruction for only 1000 points is pushing it a bit (and verges on qualifying as "being silly with missiles.") So ICBM subs were scaled up to 1500 points, and now have to be clearly identified (so you opponent knows that you have a sub that can do huge damage, but has very minimal defences if you hunt it, and that an anti-missile system in the right place can easily stop it). On those grounds, a Nuclear missile similiar to that which was dropped on Hiroshima (they did drop a couple, didn't they) might fairly be costed at 1000 or 2000, considering that a good anti-missile system could take it down (though possibly risking the radiation anyway). But it's plausible damage to civilians, to another army (perhaps "How many normal infantry in a basic bunker would it kill," is a fair way of working out the cost), range etc would all have to be clearly defined, and it be made sure it wasn't just "being silly with missiles." Because, in the end, even if it's "realistic", a recwar where you have dogfights in the air, and Naval chases at sea, and a slowly advancing land army, and only kill a quarter of their army before they surrender is still infinitely preferable to one where you launch 25 Nukes, destroy every major city before they're prepared, and they have to put up with radiation for the next couple months (as in real months, ASC time micronationally).
In the end, that's the major objection to all the "negotiable but standard 'no'" things (except magic, which has plenty of use against armies and also makes civilians easier to defend, but is not generally used because only two nations actually take the highly developed and detailed system seriously) - they have other uses, but tend to be costed too cheap and then used against civilians, which really isn't "rec"war but more rec"war", if you get what I mean.
(by which I mean "I don't know much about specifics of modern military, I just understand basic recwarring")
What would you cost an Aegis system at, Chim?
EDIT: Let's try a thought experiment. In fairness, the number 25000 was first floated for a Nuke when a particular nation was threatening that they had superpowerful nukes and that one would be enough to wipe out Gralus, another one for Babkha, and two for Shireroth. With that in mind (and considering the RP costs that, in fairness, you should have a radiation ridden population for ages to come) 25000 seems quite fair. (btw, that's another reason why we should minimise those weapons which, unfortunately, tend to be used primarily against civilians and not other armies - in fairness to nations that consider the results of war after it, its fine to destroy their whole military, but its not nice to also destroy their whole population or kill millions)
Compare it to, say, WW2. Germany bombed London, threatened to kill millions. How many bombers did they go through - hundreds? Shall we say that to destroy all of London, would have cost around 40 000 points (that is, 40 planes) and you would have needed, say, 60 fighters (around 30 000 points) to stop most of them?
Now advance to a Micras' WW2. Monty had an ICBM capable sub (non-nuclear) costed at 1000 or maybe only 500. He happily used it to fire off 16 trident missiles in quick succession to, theoretically, destroy an entire capital. You can see that (even if civilians are undefended and therefore easiest to destroy) that much destruction for only 1000 points is pushing it a bit (and verges on qualifying as "being silly with missiles.") So ICBM subs were scaled up to 1500 points, and now have to be clearly identified (so you opponent knows that you have a sub that can do huge damage, but has very minimal defences if you hunt it, and that an anti-missile system in the right place can easily stop it). On those grounds, a Nuclear missile similiar to that which was dropped on Hiroshima (they did drop a couple, didn't they) might fairly be costed at 1000 or 2000, considering that a good anti-missile system could take it down (though possibly risking the radiation anyway). But it's plausible damage to civilians, to another army (perhaps "How many normal infantry in a basic bunker would it kill," is a fair way of working out the cost), range etc would all have to be clearly defined, and it be made sure it wasn't just "being silly with missiles." Because, in the end, even if it's "realistic", a recwar where you have dogfights in the air, and Naval chases at sea, and a slowly advancing land army, and only kill a quarter of their army before they surrender is still infinitely preferable to one where you launch 25 Nukes, destroy every major city before they're prepared, and they have to put up with radiation for the next couple months (as in real months, ASC time micronationally).
In the end, that's the major objection to all the "negotiable but standard 'no'" things (except magic, which has plenty of use against armies and also makes civilians easier to defend, but is not generally used because only two nations actually take the highly developed and detailed system seriously) - they have other uses, but tend to be costed too cheap and then used against civilians, which really isn't "rec"war but more rec"war", if you get what I mean.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- chrimigules
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Re: Missiles, Nukes and other nasty weapons
hiroshima was a single bomb. about a 30 kiloton warhead i think (kiloton=1000 tons of TNT)
a modern ICBM like a trident II on a US Ohio sub carries i think 7-8 warheads each with a blast of between 2 and 4 megatons (megaton=1000000 tons of TNT)
so when you look at that power then factor in fallout and all the other fun stuff. a modern nuclear weapon is far too powerful to use practically in a recwar.
a modern ICBM like a trident II on a US Ohio sub carries i think 7-8 warheads each with a blast of between 2 and 4 megatons (megaton=1000000 tons of TNT)
so when you look at that power then factor in fallout and all the other fun stuff. a modern nuclear weapon is far too powerful to use practically in a recwar.