As I have described in previous articles, military operations in the Transhuman Space-era often involve relatively small numbers of personnel, often tasked with an operational or strategic-level mission. In contemporary parlance, these units would often be described as “special forces”, although “covert forces” is more accurate. In the THS-era, however, special forces have undergone a […]
In the late 20th century special reconnaissance missions would normally be performed by small parties of highly trained men. In the TS-era the same mission is more commonly performed by a collection of diverse robotic systems. A reconnaissance/surveillance force will usually contain a variety of systems. Some of these systems such as surveillance dust, surveillance […]
Before the widespread use of radar a number of other means for detecting enemy aircraft were tried. Direct observation of aircraft was only possible during daylight and if clouds and other conditions permitted. An alternate approach was to use devices that could locate an aircraft by its engine noise. From the First World War and […]
The 20mm micromissile owes some of its ancestry to an early 21st century South African weapon. The designers of the PAW-20 Neopup had the inspired idea of mounting 20mm cannon shells in a grenade gun casing. The resulting round had a flatter trajectory and higher velocity than larger calibre grenade guns. This resulted in a […]
One of the warhead types available in Transhuman Space is designated the MBC or Microbot-Biological-Chemical warhead. This is a somewhat misleading label. The minimum mass for a microbot swarm is one pound. Transhuman technical appendix version 3.1.1 tells us “The number of hexes of cyberswarms that a warhead can carry is equal to (bore size/60) […]
DGLs are one-use, usually one-shot, disposable grenade launchers. They can be used alone but are generally attached to a mounting such as the accessory rail of a rifle. Originally used for grenades and shotgun-like loadings, they are now often encountered loaded with 40mm mini-missiles such as the ILCAS-40 Swift series. The Swift series was designed […]
In the last couple of blogs I have considered some of the weapons available to spacecraft in THS. I have even suggested some new systems. All of these weapons have been relatively short-ranged. One of the features of space warfare will be that the enemy will often be visible at very great ranges. An modern […]
Many of the space warships in Transhuman Space (THS) include neutral particle accelerators as part of their armament. In THS 3e ship-building rules particle accelerators were brought in 50 foot increments, the longest known example being 400 ft long. One of the reasons for the popularity of cylindrical hulls was that a linear particle accelerator […]
In my previous post I commented that a large military spaceship was more likely to look like the Graf Zeppelin than the USS Missouri. Another reason for this statement is that the spaceship will not be brisling with gun turrets and long-barrelled guns. The actual laser weapons will be mounted deep inside the ship where […]
Any discussion of military spacecraft assumes there will be some reason or need to project military force off-world. In science-fiction, we often see spacecraft engaged in great space battles or conducting planetary invasions. I suspect that both of these situations will in reality be rather unlikely. One reason for this is military spacecraft are likely […]