[TopAce]

Harbringers don't have that firing range.

[Peter]

Just drop one near a planet and let gravity do the rest... who needs a radar lock when you are sitting over a planet anyway? Its woudn't imagine a planet is that easy to miss from orbit.

[Flipside]

A Harbinger would most likely do tectonic damage to the planet anyway

[Flaser]

Originally posted by TopAce
Harbringers don't have that firing range.

Read the technical data: it IS an orbital bombardment device.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Flipside
A Harbinger would most likely do tectonic damage to the planet anyway

Actually, given its size, it probably wouldn't, at least, not major stuff.

*Has been reading some interesting Geology books has he*

[TopAce]

Originally posted by Peter
Just drop one near a planet and let gravity do the rest... who needs a radar lock when you are sitting over a planet anyway? Its woudn't imagine a planet is that easy to miss from orbit.

Ops, I forgot about gravity.

[karajorma]

Simply dropping missiles from orbit wouldn't work too well unless you don't care what you hit. There is a lot of time during the entry for the bomb to be blown quite far off of course.

Of course the original harbinger probably had a guidence system to compensate for that.

[TopAce]

Would a heat-seeking something work? Let's guess hostile installations have hostile IFF so that the missile could detect it.

[DragonClaw]

Originally posted by TopAce
*Imagines a grey GTD Orion*

*envisions a fenris with shark teeth*

[StratComm]

Originally posted by karajorma
Simply dropping missiles from orbit wouldn't work too well unless you don't care what you hit. There is a lot of time during the entry for the bomb to be blown quite far off of course.

Of course the original harbinger probably had a guidence system to compensate for that.

When you're dropping gigaton+ bombs, you don't particularly care what you hit.  If the Harbringer were to miss by a couple of miles, who cares?  You're still going to destroy whatever it is that you were targeting and everything else nearby.

[ShadowDrakken]

StratComm: without at least basic targetting and wind compensation, you're going to miss by more than just a mile or two.  You could well end up hitting the wrong city entirely.

[karajorma]

True but hitting the jet steam could easily push a bomb more than a couple of miles out of range. Remember that the harbinger is powered. With no attitude control it could end up anywhere

[Star Dragon]

NICO, How could you insult that fine legacy. For shame!

[Peter]

a single 25Mt bomb would totally destroy everything within 16.9 miles of ground zero assuming a airburst. (that dosen't include the outer area where the overpressure is under 3psi )

so, according to what I have just read, I can make a 901 square mile area uninhabitable with a single 250mt bomb (thats around twenty times less powerfull than the Harbinger than we are looking at)

I would just drop a few dozen harbingers and take my chances with hitting something.

Hey, I don't even need to hit my target. After a couple of explosions like that there's going to so much of the planet left permantly uninhabitable that whoever I missed wouldn't be able to survive for long anyway. If the explosion wouldn't get them the radiation would (not to mention the EMP's going to fry anything electronic so they can't do a runner with a ship)

[karajorma]

I agree with you there. If you don't particularly care what you hit then unguided harbingers are fine

[Nico]

Originally posted by ShadowDrakken
StratComm: without at least basic targetting and wind compensation, you're going to miss by more than just a mile or two.  You could well end up hitting the wrong city entirely.

So what? The harbinger, from what I remember, is in the gigaton range, no? You can level a whole region with that, if not a full piece of country
We're not talking chirurgical strikes here
Anyway, like the GTVA would not be able to have a gidance system for that

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Nico
Anyway, like the GTVA would not be able to have a gidance system for that

That's basically what the whole discussion was about. Why the Harbinger had to be guided. It wouldn't work as an unguided weapon as the only way you could use it was to simply obliterate the planet you dropped it on.

[Peter]

lets face it, your not going to do a precsion drop on one target with a multi gigaton weapon.

At the time when you drop one you are pretty much accepting your going to wipe out a noticible portion of the planet, such weapons wouln't be used to blow up one target.

I am sure they did have a guidence system though.

[aldo_14]

"aim away from face"

[Peter]

"Not tested on animals"