Lee has always been on my list of “Historical Figures I Would Like To Have Dinner With,” if for no other reason than to ask “Just what in the hell were you thinking?!?”
Actually, the “Which generals could you shoot with an M16 to change the course of history” debate is kind of dumb, because honestly… wouldn’t shooting them with any plain old muzzle-loader have the same affect?
Well, they were just saying the only way an m16 would be that useful is if they could use it to shoot certain Generals… it wasn’t the core argument, but an aside.
Uh, no. I don’t think hull-mounted machineguns have been done since WW2. The M1A1 has its 120mm maingun, the coax 7.62mm machinegun, the loader’s station 7.62mm machinegun, and the TC’s .50 caliber machinegun. Plus a few M4 Carbines inside for the crew if they have to dismount. That makes for a big cannon and two machineguns that can be used from inside the tank (I’d just skip on using the loader’s M240, keep that tank buttoned up and it’s practically invulnerable. Stick your head out, and you’ll probably loose it), and you wouldn’t need any more. As long as the TC isn’t a complete imbecile, that tank should be completely safe.
The Harpoon has a contact fuze, but there is a chance that it might pass right through a wooden ship prior to detonation – I’m assuming that there is a designed delay prior to detonation to allow it to explode inside the target ship. I believe the Tomahawk uses a contact fuze when used as an anti-ship missile as well. There is a very good chance that the targeting radar of either of these wouldn’t even accept a wooden hulled ship as a target, though – they might not get a good enough radar reflection to be deemed as a valid target. The point would become mute once a modern ship and an 1860’s ship reached visual range and gunnery came into play, but it does raise the issue of the limits of technology when facing the vastly primitive. While outside the realms of the US Civil War, a modern fighter would probably have a very hard time engaging for example a Sopwith Camel. It might be filtered out of, say an F-15’s radar; and it probably wouldn’t generate the heat needed for an infrared guided missile to take it as a target or the radar reflection needed for a radar guided missile. The F-15, while in no real danger itself, would likely have a very hard time flying slow enough to engage the biplane with cannon-fire. The targeting radar might not even lock it up, so it might have to be done by the seat of the pants.
True enough - but I’d imagine it could merely pass by the Camel’s general area and rip apart the wood and canvas structure with jet backwash.
Actually, don’t the fighters have radars sensitive enough to detect inbound/in-flight missiles?
A Sparrow air-to-air isn’t that big, and even an old Sopwith will have well over a hundred pounds of iron/aluminum engine. As I recall, the original Wright flyer had some homebrew engine, that weighed something like… 200 pounds? And put out 12 HP?
I’d wager any typical internal-combustion engine powerful enough to get an airplane into flight, will put out an IR signature more than sufficient to attract a heat-seeker.
Also, isn’t there a TV system for the gun as well?
No - fighters don’t detect incoming missiles. They detect enemy tracking radar, and can tell when a missile is incoming by the incoming radar going into targetting mode.
And the IR signature of jets, I’d imagine, is far more ‘vivid’ than the ambient heat of a working engine - since jet engines aren’t just putting out waste heat, but, by nature, putting out a lot of superheated air as a propellant.
May we pick nits?
Israeli defense firm Elta does have a system for detecting incoming missles, a version of which is in (limited?) use with American forces. But it uses a passive IR seeker, not radar.
May we backtrack?
The EL/M-2160 - MWS - Missile Warning System does indeed use radar, of the pulse doppler flavor, to detect the incoming missles.