Your opinion, if Kawamori were to redesign..

[grss1982]

It's not so much the age of the fighter but the age of the avionics. Many 60s/70s era fighters are being upgraded with new avionics and they're just as capable of shooting down a modern fighter as any built in the 90s. In fact some fighters with upgraded avionics are probably superior than modern fighters. The US just has the opinion that newer is better but that always isn't the case. A good pilot is also better than a rookie or a poorly trained pilot.

I totally agree.

Speaking of the age of the fighter, does'nt the "top gun" school in miramar use a-4 skyhawks and f-5s as agressor planes vs. modern fighters like the f-14? :-)

[VT 1010]

Hey JBO, do you happen to still have the address to the website? There is this internet archive site that lets you view websites that don't exist anymore. I can also post a photo of the picture I was talking about, if you want.

You didn't come in crying about how the japanese ripped off Robotech or anything like that. That puts you above far too many people immediatly.

You sound as if those people where lying. Everyone knows it's true. They did rip off Robotech. Harmony Gold could kick Studio Nue's ass anyday. Carl Macek is a genius and Reba West should be nominated for a Grammy for her work in Robotech! The Protoculture is a an alien race? Yeah right...

And...uh...HG RULES!!!

I'm Joking of course...

So this doesn't become a thread hijack,

In M+, Millard says the 19 and the 21 won't use reaction weapons due to political reasons. I guess they aren't all equipped with WMD because of politics.

[MGREXX]

I say redesign the whole damn thing.

It's just plain UGLY!!!!!!!!!.........especially in battroid mode!!!!!!

I KNOW KAWAMORI WAS SMOKING CRACK!!!!!!!!!

I say they make it look more look the Mig I-2000 ( Tactical Stealth Fighter ).

[Agent ONE]

I say redesign the whole damn thing.

It's just plain UGLY!!!!!!!!!.........especially in battroid mode!!!!!!

I KNOW KAWAMORI WAS SMOKING CRACK!!!!!!!!!

I say they make it look more look the Mig I-2000 ( Tactical Stealth Fighter ).

Shaddup yo mouth!

You know if that thing said "RDF" on the side you'd be strokin your pole to it.

[JB0]

Hey JBO, do you happen to still have the address to the website? There is this internet archive site that lets you view websites that don't exist anymore. I can also post a photo of the picture I was talking about, if you want.

Ah, forgot about archive.org...

Let me rummage it back up...

I THINK it was www.gundamproject.com...

You didn't come in crying about how the japanese ripped off Robotech or anything like that. That puts you above far too many people immediatly.

You sound as if those people where lying. Everyone knows it's true. They did rip off Robotech. Harmony Gold could kick Studio Nue's ass anyday. Carl Macek is a genius and Reba West should be nominated for a Grammy for her work in Robotech! The Protoculture is a an alien race? Yeah right...

And...uh...HG RULES!!!

I'm Joking of course...

*cackles*

So this doesn't become a thread hijack,

In M+, Millard says the 19 and the 21 won't use reaction weapons due to political reasons.  I guess they aren't all equipped with WMD because of politics.

Actually, he says the portable fold generator is so they can bust up enemy bases without lighting the political powder keg that is nukes.

Not that they won't use it, just that they have another (very powerful) option now before they get there.

[NERV]

who was talking about the limits of lasers and beam weapons and yelling hail gunpods? u kno gunpods are limited too in that they would be less accurate especially in a gravity field and have limited ammunition, didnt the GU-11 only carry 200 rounds?, and with less accuracy assume it needs mroe than 1 shot to take out a missle, a valk could expend all its ammo just defending itself from a barrage, in terms of defense against missles i tihnk beam weapons would be most effective, it would be too costly and inefficient to have anti-beam weapon sheilding on every single missle

[Druna Skass]

I say they make it look more look the Mig I-2000 ( Tactical Stealth Fighter ).

I don't know about you, but that plane looks like a flying pancake to me.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

who was talking about the limits of lasers and beam weapons and yelling hail gunpods? u kno gunpods are limited too in that they would be less accurate especially in a gravity field and have limited ammunition, didnt the GU-11 only carry 200 rounds?, and with less accuracy assume it needs mroe than 1 shot to take out a missle, a valk could expend all its ammo just defending itself from a barrage, in terms of defense against missles i tihnk beam weapons would be most effective, it would be too costly and inefficient to have anti-beam weapon sheilding on every single missle

That'd be me.

It was based on the idea that gunpods using ammo would still have some advantages over the energy weapons that uses power and (possibly) overheat. (like in sdf:macross where the little head lasers couldn't burn forever)

In a perfect world, the energy is free and unlimited but I would say that using ammo from a gunpod has a more immediate effect (no waiting for the thing to cool down or sapping energy from the machine, as long as their was ammo availble you could fire away with instant graitifcation and keep up a constant stream)

In summary I came to the conclusion that imo, having both types complements each other than just relyong solely on energy based weapons which is what one poster asked: "Why doesn't macross just get rid of gunpods and only have lasers?"

Also there was a suggestion that putting arm mounted weapons for close up (like a shotgun) might be more appropriate for taking out groups of missiles, but I said that it wouldn't be standard since imo for a majority of the time you would STILL use laser and gunpod for "general purpose" as a main weapon. It may not be as good as a shotgun in cetain situations, but because it can shoot further away, it can cover more bases. The philosophy is based on the idea that a valk is a do-anything machine, and that by making it use too-specialised weapons for specialised functions you might lose out in another core area of performance, so perhaps it is better to leave it with only primary weapons rather than a mixture of specialised weapons like how the zentradi pods have teams of people with different weapons. (ie safety in numbers. Hang out in groups and outgun the enemy with simply having more expendable people attacking at once as opposed to one guy holding ten different weapons and using them all?)

If in the fictional world the lasers didn't overheat I would agree, get rid of gunpods, but I still subscribe to the idea that nothing is perfect, even in sci-fi certain things have limits. (like the PPB idea which can't be relied upon all the time since it is limited to small area on the body)

Before this turns into a lasers vs gunpods thread, by no means am I saying that lasers and beams are useless, just that by having a combination of beam and bullets (kinetic weapons) you get the best of both worlds. One might be needed to penetrate armor (and un spacy may have done tests to see which is more effective at certain ranges) while the other might be better for shooting missile down. (like the head lasers - but we do see a scene of roy using both gunpod and lasers in macross zero)

The zents used lasers and beams and stuff but we used gunpods in SW I. Maybe the lack of ammo didn't matter because thier armor was so weak on thier regult that 200 rounds was enough and so longas you used short bursts it was sufficient? Don't forget the missiles too. Weigh the valk down too much like the destroids, and maybe they might not fly so fast and have to take a maneuverability hit making them easier for enemies to shoot? Notice how in some scenes you see them shedding thier gunpod to fly away quickly in an emergency?

a valk could expend all its ammo just defending itself from a barrage

Ah but it doens't have to shoot them all, maybe setting a few off causes a chain reaction exposion or perhaps the pilot can transform into fighter and manuever through some of them? The key is by having speed and agility things like that become less threatening. (guld could just weave through them as if it were nothing and actually herded them to where he wanted)

Another thing that's been bugging me: didn't the tv series actually show beams coming from out of the gunpods in some scenes? I'm wondering now if the gunpods can be used as both an energy type weapon like the beam rifle from gundam as well as a gunpod which shoots bullets..Or were these just mistakes?

Edited March 29, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[NERV]

lots of animation errors, if its its a beam, it wasnt supposed to be, dont forget that the most important part of the 'do-anything' valks is the hands, they can use any weapon that will work, i mean, the army doesnt just use 1 type of gun, sure there are the stndard workhorse guns but there is also specialized stuff as there should be with valks, say they need a huge buster gun to take out an enemy ship but cant get their own ships guns in range, send 1 valk with a buster gun and a squadron with gunpods to escort, same idea with the GBP, obviously if every valk was wearing them they be sititng ducks, but have a few with em for heavy hitting and a few regular valks to cover them, in all of human history hardly ever has a weapon been completely forgotten, spears and arrows still have a home with some hunters, just as projectile wepaons always have a place, i mena look at startrek, they screwed up royal when they had only phaser and the borg can adapt but they cant adapt to bullets, if they had regular guns the borg would hardly be a threat.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

lots of animation errors, if its its a beam, it wasnt supposed to be, dont forget that the most important part of the 'do-anything' valks is the hands, they can use any weapon that will work, i mean, the army doesnt just use 1 type of gun, sure there are the stndard workhorse guns but there is also specialized stuff as there should be with valks, say they need a huge buster gun to take out an enemy ship but cant get their own ships guns in range, send 1 valk with a buster gun and a squadron with gunpods to escort, same idea with the GBP, obviously if every valk was wearing them they be sititng ducks, but have a few with em for heavy hitting and a few regular valks to cover them, in all of human history hardly ever has a weapon been completely forgotten, spears and arrows still have a home with some hunters, just as projectile wepaons always have a place, i mena look at startrek, they screwed up royal when they had only phaser and the borg can adapt but they cant adapt to bullets, if they had regular guns the borg would hardly be a threat.

Which is why I think given the sheer number of zentradi, they could afford to just have teams of pods with different weapons co-operating with each other (say a scout for example, and a guy holding the missiles on his mech, and another guy with standard weapons with no missiles, and a heavily armored glaug etc etc) and take a more offensive approach.

Whereas the humans may have thought: gee we can only afford to make a few of these vf1s (these are more expensive than destroids but it's worth it: they don't die so easily) and hopefully this expensive stuff doesn't get too shot down easily. Because of this idea of making machines that last: "we will emphasise the speed and flexibility of transformation to save money and increase the life of the average mech. We will also make a kickass fighter to replace the dedicated stuff with this alien tech."

ie these are not normal fighter planes, but enhanced in some way that makes them superior in manueverability to anything earth could come up with by themselves. Not all the credit should go to earths scientists after all. An average pilot can now do things he could not have done before through lack of skill and a skilled pilot can really kick ass and not be hamstrung by limits of earth technology.

The reason shin was getting his ass kicked so much in macross zero was because his plane could not perform the same manuevers as the transforming mech and he was skilled in only the fighter. The variability is not a gimmick but can be used as part of a fighting style to make the pilots perform in combat better. Where each mode of transformation serves some kind of advantage that dedicated machines (like destroids who each hold of variety of different weapons on a single mech) lack. The VF1 was probably more expensive than a destroid but given that it transforms you have access to a do-anything vehicle type to fullfill several roles and mission types at once and when this is mass produced as the standard (maybe they eventually found cheaper ways to maufacture them over time?), there was no need to over specialise by designing too many new mech designs, since you could just add stuff onto the basic mech to increase its performance. (ie Fast pack, gbp armor, the support drones/bits/funnels you see following Dyson in macross plus for increased firepower etc)

Whereas the destroid are armed with variety of different weapons but can barely move, the valkires have only the weapons they need with them. Since being that they transform the range can vary, they would then need weapons that are more "general purpose" rather than "dedicated" to a specific task. Once this was mass produced in greater numbers, it became cheap to make. (like how prices for consumer products go down as more are made to meet demand) When it became cheap to make and manufacturing of the single design became more efficient over time so more of them could be made in shorter space of time, they could then afford to make more of them as cost decreased and funding for the project and further research into improvements into the core design increased.

Why have several dedicated machines to fight an unknown enemy whose tactics you may be unfamiliar with, when 1 multipurpose machine is cheaper and more versatile in the long run? Same goes with weaponsystems. If you can manuever enough so as to not get hit, (unlike a destroid which is a sitting duck) you may not need thick armor or heavy weapons, or weapons for different range since given your superior speed, you are in control of where you want the enemy (and where they can attack you from) at all times. An example is Guld's luring of the high manueverability missiles into a single area so he could shoot them down more easily rather than letting them surround him. He could fly through and put them into one side.

I think the only reason for the knife in macross plus was as a backup so that if the gunpod ever jammed you weren't completely defenceless. Maybe the yf19 should have been designed to carry a small hand gun in case such a thing happened (and you were left defencless in battroid mode) rather than a silly knife?

Edited March 29, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[JB0]

In a perfect world, the energy is free and unlimited but I would say that using ammo from a gunpod has a more immediate effect (no waiting for the thing to cool down or sapping energy from the machine, as long as their was ammo availble you could fire away with instant graitifcation and keep up a constant stream)

Conventional firearms get hot too. That's why the gatling gun exists, to alleviate the barrel heat problem. A problem exacerbated in space by the lack of conduction and convection of heat away from the barrels by atmosphere...

Maybe that's why it's so fat. Gives it room for a cooling system.

The VF-1S could be argued to have the same principle in it's head lasers. If you program the computer to rotate the firing order, you have a "gatling" laser turret.

If in the fictional world the lasers didn't overheat I would agree, get rid of gunpods, but I still subscribe to the idea that nothing is perfect, even in sci-fi certain things have limits. (like the PPB idea which can't be relied upon all the time since it is limited to small area on the body)

Before this turns into a lasers vs gunpods thread, by no means am I saying that lasers and beams are useless, just that by having a combination of beam and bullets (kinetic weapons) you get the best of both worlds. One might be needed to penetrate armor (and un spacy may have done tests to see which is more effective at certain ranges) while the other might be better for shooting missile down. (like the head lasers - but we do see a scene of roy using both gunpod and lasers in macross zero)

I agree with this totally. Diffrent weapons defeat diffrent armors.

A weapon-grade laser would chew through modern tank armor like nothing, because it's not built to deal with optical weapons. About the only benefit it has is the front surface is slanted, which makes the impact area larger.

But if we mirror the armor, it becomes much more resistant. Even dangerous to the attacker, if the armor is perpendicular to the beam, but that makes it a lot less useful against projectiles.

The zents used lasers and beams and stuff but we used gunpods in SW I. Maybe the lack of ammo didn't matter because thier armor was so weak on thier regult that 200 rounds was enough and so longas you used short bursts it was sufficient?

Pretty much. A full burst, at 1200 rounds a minute, rips through your ammo in 10 seconds, if I did the math right. Fire in bursts, and it lasts a lot longer. A half-second burst gets you 20 bursts, with each burst carrying 10 rounds, which is a LOT of damage.

Real-world comparison...

The modern A-10 has a 30mm gatling(admittedly, it fires at 3900 rounds a minute), and it's used as a tank killer. Carries almost 1200 rounds. Eats it a bit slower than a Valk, but still not a lot for sustained fire. Reading it's designed for 2-second bursts.

But Regulds seemed to have no armor to speak of, actually. Cannon fodder in every sense of the word. The classic "blows up if looked at funny" mech.

  Don't forget the missiles too. Weigh the valk down too much like the destroids, and maybe they might not fly so fast and have to take a maneuverability hit making them easier for enemies to shoot? Notice how in some scenes you see them shedding thier gunpod to fly away quickly in an emergency?

I always thought the disappearing gunpods were animation errors.

a valk could expend all its ammo just defending itself from a barrage

Ah but it doens't have to shoot them all, maybe setting a few off causes a chain reaction exposion

Quite likely, if they're too close to each other or aren't smart enough to dodge explosions, which are pretty non-discriminatory in what they damage.

The key is by having speed and agility things like that become less threatening. (guld could just weave through them as if it were nothing and actually herded them to where he wanted)

Note that Guld did this with a computer forecasting where every missile would be at every moment in time, so he could choose with 100% certainty spots the missiles couldn't reach before he got there.

I don't think it's a very feasable plan for non-BDI planes.

...

Never mind that Isamu proceeded to do it in a VF-11. He had more than a few close calls in that stunt, though.

Another thing that's been bugging me: didn't the tv series actually show beams coming from out of the gunpods in some scenes? I'm wondering now if the gunpods can be used as both an energy type weapon like the beam rifle from gundam as well as a gunpod which shoots bullets..Or were these just mistakes?

Bloopers.

Though Macross 7 has a beam converter for gunpods.

[JB0]

Whereas the destroid are armed with variety of different weapons but can barely move, the valkires have only the weapons they need with them.

I feel obliged to defend the destroids here...

Some, like the Spartan, can move quite fast when the need arises. Despite having a lot more armor than a VF-1.

It was built with the intent of being able to engage in hand-to-hand combat, which necessitates a certain swiftness.

I'd bet a Tomahawk is a fairly swift unit, too.

Sure a Monster or a Phalanx is slow, but they aren't front-line combat units.

Heck, the Monster can shoot at things that are almost a hundred miles away(160 km, and I assume the range is for a planetary situation, where gravity and wind resistance come into play).

[Final Vegeta]

Regardless of how "clean" the weapon is, the conception is still that nukes make the area a radioactive hotzone for millenia to come and spew masses of fallout into the atmosphere.

So yeah... political reasons. And pretty much the same ones that keep us from using them today

Fear of escalation should be (but I am not sure it really is) an even better reason. Small states may think they have nothing to lose in using nukes to threaten other countries (especially to avoid being nuked), and bigger states may think it is time to take all the pie for themselves.

1975 Nuclear war

Equipped with a nuclear arsenal containing the explosive equivalent of 615,385 Hiroshima bombs, the Ford Administration formulates plans for "limited" nuclear war. Testifying before a Senate subcommittee Defense Secretary James Schlesinger assures the august body that nuclear war would not be catastrophic, that "the psychological impact of a nuclear attack would result in some initial loss of confidence in government, " but that 'positive, adaptive behavior would prevail. "

The Greatest Story Never Told by Michael K. Smith

Not that the use of nukes is not actually seriously considered in real world. The world barely avoided a nuclear war in 1962, when a Soviet submarine was chased by an American cruiser. One of the captains in the submarine opposed the use of a nuclear warhead; the other two captains were for it, but the rules said that decision was to be taken only under unanimity. The captain instead ordered to emerge. The American cruiser saw them threw offboard a box on which was written "KGB: top secret", and chose to pursue the box instead of the submarine. Ironically the box contained just the books of Marx and Lenin.

The real reason why nukes have been used only in Japan is that there is an old British rule of war that says "make your enemy pay your invasion". Only if an exploitation of the territory, that is an invasion, is not considered at all then a nuke may be viable, provided there is some serious propaganda behind it.

I don't know if it was really Hitler who started it, but so it goes:

If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, th sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved the lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future.

Mein Kampf

After Hitler others started talking about prehemptive strikes to save lots and lots of lives. I still think there must have been someone before Hitler talking like that. Things never really change in this world. The bombing of Japan was simply meant to scare Russians though. Germany was the territory to be exploited.

Of course, if it were purely modern-day politics, they'd also have masses of activists up in arms about the fusion powerplants they're using...

There was a propaganda project, I believe it was called "atom for peace". It was meant to be the trojan horse for nuclear weapons by providing what should have been useful civilians employment of nuclear materials. It seem that it was in that time that medicians started using radiology to cure cancer. It still doesn't work (radiations kill all cells without distinctions), but that doesn't mean anything. Nuclear plants are still built without a real solution for the disposing of nuclear waste. Enrichment of nuclear material was what was really behind. Now the problem is that there is so much of deleted uranium around it must be turned into something usefull, too.

Even fluoride came out from project Manhattan. Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, and in many other things. Fluoride is actually a toxin used even in Nazi prison camps because it makes people stupid and docile. To dispose of it it was invented the lie that in small doses it was good for the teeth (well, maybe that was done not only to dispose of it). So much for the Manhattan project. Standard Oil has an even worst record though.

Back to Macross, Macross main cannon was powerful, but less than 2050 era's nukes. Beside this a Macross cannon is not a technology everyone has, and also it can't fire continously. A series of nukes is surely a lot cheaper to built than a Macross-class ship.

The reason why nukes aren't used often in Macross may leave rooms for further development. Since Zentradi were already nuked once, would some Earthians go as far as to promote the annihilation of a colony because there are Zentradi or half-Zentradi in it and they are still presented evil aliens ("and they breed like rabbits...")? But in fact it is improbable because there are in Macross universe other ways to resolve conflicts, and they usually involve mecha

FV

[JB0]

Regardless of how "clean" the weapon is, the conception is still that nukes make the area a radioactive hotzone for millenia to come and spew masses of fallout into the atmosphere.

So yeah... political reasons. And pretty much the same ones that keep us from using them today

Fear of escalation should be (but I am not sure it really is) an even better reason. Small states may think they have nothing to lose in using nukes to threaten other countries (especially to avoid being nuked), and bigger states may think it is time to take all the pie for themselves.

Right. So instead they use cannons capabe of levelling mountains?

Escalation doesn't EVEN factor in.

Not that the use of nukes is not actually seriously considered in real world.

Because, for the most part, the nuke is obsolete.

A weapon that can destroy several city blocks is overkill when you can reliably target a single hair on an elephant's backside from a hundred miles away.

In the era of carpet-bombing, it made a lot of sense. One bomb destroys a city's entire industrial sector, instead of thousands of bombs over many weeks.

Now nukes are useless except against heavily fortified targets in isolated areas. Hence the evolution of "bunker buster" nukes(which have the unfortunate side effect of being VERY dirty, since they're naer-surface detonations instead of airbursts or deep underground caverns).

The world barely avoided a nuclear war in 1962, when a Soviet submarine was chased by an American cruiser. One of the captains in the submarine opposed the use of a nuclear warhead; the other two captains were for it, but the rules said that decision was to be taken only under unanimity. The captain instead ordered to emerge. The American cruiser saw them threw offboard a box on which was written "KGB: top secret", and chose to pursue the box instead of the submarine. Ironically the box contained just the books of Marx and Lenin.

And the Cuban Missile Crisis. And many other events through history.

The real reason why nukes have been used only in Japan is that there is an old British rule of war that says "make your enemy pay your invasion". Only if an exploitation of the territory, that is an invasion, is not considered at all then a nuke may be viable, provided there is some serious propaganda behind it.

Japan was nuked because

A. We had a new toy to try out.

B. We were hoping we could scare them into surrendering without a full-scale invasion, which would have cost many more lives on both sides. Which we did, even if the emperor did have to smuggle the surrender notice out because his generals were holding him hostage(but he was against the war for some time as I understand it).

It is worth noting that it was a huge bluff. We only had 3 nuclear weapons, one was detonated in proof of concept. After Nagasaki, we had nothing left.

We were counting on the japanese not wanting a third demonstration.

At the time we were unaware of the long-term effects of radiation exposure. We likely never would've done it if we were.

Of course, if it were purely modern-day politics, they'd also have masses of activists up in arms about the fusion powerplants they're using...

There was a propaganda project, I believe it was called "atom for peace". It was meant to be the trojan horse for nuclear weapons by providing what should have been useful civilians employment of nuclear materials.

Actually, that was started well after we had a signifigant nuclear stockpile.

It seem that it was in that time that medicians started using radiology to cure cancer. It still doesn't work (radiations kill all cells without distinctions), but that doesn't mean anything.

Your ignorance comes through yet again.

Yes, radiation damages healthy cells.

But cancerous cells are far more sensitive due to their rapid rate of reproduction. Cells are most in danger during mitosis, which occurs something like 4x as often in cancerous cells as healthy ones.

Nuclear plants are still built without a real solution for the disposing of nuclear waste.

Actually, no one's built one since the 70s.

Every time it's talked about, the anti-nuclear activists file lawsuits. It fast becomes prohibitively expensive, thus keeping us dependent upon coal, oil, and gas(trivia fact: coal power plants release more radioactive particles into the atmosphere than nuclear plants).

And we've got a few valid solutions for disposing of waste.

Enrichment of nuclear material was what was really behind. Now the problem is that there is so much of deleted uranium around it must be turned into something usefull, too.

Deleted uranium? Surely you mean depleted uranium.

And depleted uranium isn't a waste product. It's the non-radioactive isotope of uranium, which is totally useless in a reactor as well as quite harmless to people(save the usual heavy metal toxicity problems). It's used as a projectile because it's really heavy, which gives it a lot of momenteum, which gives it a lot of energy when it hits something.

I THINK you're confusing DU with plutonium, the primary byproduct of uranium fission.

Which is a lot like gasoline. Did you know that your premium unleaded was once considered a useless byproduct of kerosene manufacture?

Plutonium can run reactors just as well as uranium, it just requires a diffrent design. But since no one's building reactors, there's nothing available to use it.

Even fluoride came out from project Manhattan. Fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production, and in many other things. Fluoride is actually a toxin used even in Nazi prison camps because it makes people stupid and docile.

I think you're confusing it with flourine on the death camp note.

To dispose of it it was invented the lie that in small doses it was good for the teeth (well, maybe that was done not only to dispose of it).

Floride IS good for you in small doses. I'm sure it's got nasty side effects in large quantities, but in small doses it's fine.

You know sodium explodes when it contacts water? And chlorine is a toxic gas.

No vast conspiracy here to talk people into eating explosives and poison gases, though. It is actually required for our survival that we ingest some(in the form of sodium chloride, or table salt).

Back to Macross, Macross main cannon was powerful, but less than 2050 era's nukes.

How powerful is a 2050 nuke?

50 megatons can level a city. The russians tested this. Unfortunately, it's too large to be practical. And since you can't make it more powerful except by adding more fuel...

Beside this a Macross cannon is not a technology everyone has, and also it can't fire continously. A series of nukes is surely a lot cheaper to built than a Macross-class ship.

But the Macross cannon is still a valid nuke alternative, and fills several roles where a nuke would be desirable.

And since every New Macross expedition has a New Macross-class ship, every expidition has a cannon.

Earth, of course, has the original.

And many zentradi battleships have similar weapons.

There's a lot of them out there.

The reason why nukes aren't used often in Macross may leave rooms for further development. Since Zentradi were already nuked once, would some Earthians go as far as to promote the annihilation of a colony because there are Zentradi or half-Zentradi in it and they are still presented evil aliens ("and they breed like rabbits...")?

Oh, good grief.

But in fact it is improbable because there are in Macross universe other ways to resolve conflicts, and they usually involve mecha

Not mutually exclusive solutions.

Gundam has the GP-02 to prove this(which is a Kawamori design, no less).

Edited March 29, 2005 by JB0

[Zentrandude]

Nuclear plants are still built without a real solution for the disposing of nuclear waste.

Actually, no one's built one since the 70s.

Every time it's talked about, the anti-nuclear activists file lawsuits. It fast becomes prohibitively expensive, thus keeping us dependent upon coal, oil, and gas(trivia fact: coal power plants release more radioactive particles into the atmosphere than nuclear plants).

And we've got a few valid solutions for disposing of waste.

Enrichment of nuclear material was what was really behind. Now the problem is that there is so much of deleted uranium around it must be turned into something usefull, too.

Deleted uranium? Surely you mean depleted uranium.

And depleted uranium isn't a waste product. It's the non-radioactive isotope of uranium, which is totally useless in a reactor as well as quite harmless to people(save the usual heavy metal toxicity problems). It's used as a projectile because it's really heavy, which gives it a lot of momenteum, which gives it a lot of energy when it hits something.

I THINK you're confusing DU with plutonium, the primary byproduct of uranium fission.

Which is a lot like gasoline. Did you know that your premium unleaded was once considered a useless byproduct of kerosene manufacture?

Plutonium can run reactors just as well as uranium, it just requires a diffrent design. But since no one's building reactors, there's nothing available to use it.

fast breeder reactor but since nobody wants to build one its stays in paper

Fast breeder reactor

[JB0]

Nuclear plants are still built without a real solution for the disposing of nuclear waste.

Actually, no one's built one since the 70s.

Every time it's talked about, the anti-nuclear activists file lawsuits. It fast becomes prohibitively expensive, thus keeping us dependent upon coal, oil, and gas(trivia fact: coal power plants release more radioactive particles into the atmosphere than nuclear plants).

And we've got a few valid solutions for disposing of waste.

Enrichment of nuclear material was what was really behind. Now the problem is that there is so much of deleted uranium around it must be turned into something usefull, too.

Deleted uranium? Surely you mean depleted uranium.

And depleted uranium isn't a waste product. It's the non-radioactive isotope of uranium, which is totally useless in a reactor as well as quite harmless to people(save the usual heavy metal toxicity problems). It's used as a projectile because it's really heavy, which gives it a lot of momenteum, which gives it a lot of energy when it hits something.

I THINK you're confusing DU with plutonium, the primary byproduct of uranium fission.

Which is a lot like gasoline. Did you know that your premium unleaded was once considered a useless byproduct of kerosene manufacture?

Plutonium can run reactors just as well as uranium, it just requires a diffrent design. But since no one's building reactors, there's nothing available to use it.

fast breeder reactor but since nobody wants to build one its stays in paper

Fast breeder reactor

I thought they had built a few for purposes of making weapons-grade Pu.

[JB0]

Nuclear plants are still built without a real solution for the disposing of nuclear waste.

Actually, no one's built one since the 70s.

Every time it's talked about, the anti-nuclear activists file lawsuits. It fast becomes prohibitively expensive, thus keeping us dependent upon coal, oil, and gas(trivia fact: coal power plants release more radioactive particles into the atmosphere than nuclear plants).

And we've got a few valid solutions for disposing of waste.

Enrichment of nuclear material was what was really behind. Now the problem is that there is so much of deleted uranium around it must be turned into something usefull, too.

Deleted uranium? Surely you mean depleted uranium.

And depleted uranium isn't a waste product. It's the non-radioactive isotope of uranium, which is totally useless in a reactor as well as quite harmless to people(save the usual heavy metal toxicity problems). It's used as a projectile because it's really heavy, which gives it a lot of momenteum, which gives it a lot of energy when it hits something.

I THINK you're confusing DU with plutonium, the primary byproduct of uranium fission.

Which is a lot like gasoline. Did you know that your premium unleaded was once considered a useless byproduct of kerosene manufacture?

Plutonium can run reactors just as well as uranium, it just requires a diffrent design. But since no one's building reactors, there's nothing available to use it.

fast breeder reactor but since nobody wants to build one its stays in paper

Fast breeder reactor

Thanks. Informative, and clears up a few minsconceptions I had.

...

I hadn't realized that the byproducts of plutonium fission were so much shorter-lived.

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

Just a quick comment:

It's important to remember though that SW I was started by us thanks to the main gun firing automatically by itself making us seem like the agressor and making any retaliatory attack extra dangerous (even if it was say, a peaceful race we may be making contact with. What if it wans't zentradi and more like the friendly ET from steven spielberg's movie? And what if this peaceful race, being technologically superior thought we were hostile and used it's weapons against us?)

We may not have even fought with the zentradi (and they may have left us well alone because we are microns they are forbidden to interfere with) if it didn't fire.

I think even global mentioned that we were supposed to make peace and only use the weapons as a last resort. But after the first shot..so much for peace.

Because of the zentradi's greater number and the fact that we had civilians onboard the ship, this complicated matters. There weren't just soliders onboard but civilians who have no business being there and who by rights want to get off but can't. I would think there would be some decisions they would want in on if it concerns their lives too. (note the people onboard had to be lied to about casualties to keep everyone calm. )

In defence of unspacy the shots from the main gun were justified because of the threat of civilians being harmed + zentradi outnumbering us. (they could have easily finished us off just like that but chose not to. Maybe if Kamjin was in charge things would have been different?)

Just using the great destructive weapons is still a sensitive issue because of concerns of the enemies power. You don't want to piss off a potential ally or a force much bigger than yours if you know that by just firing your guns you might get anihilated by the enemy in return. (notice how misa couldn't convince those in charge in the grand cannon of the zentradi's superior numbers until it was too late? Civilians were the ones in the line of danger from the retaliatory attack and so they would want ot have some say in how we negotiate with future species of aliens too. Some races might act hostile if you provoke them, other might just be pure evil, but you won't know that for sure if you just fire away first. )

So any actions the military take (that might endanger people) must have some strict controls. You'll note that in macross plus it was all about political correctness. No more room for xenophobia or racism, all those who are half breed zentradi would have equal rights as any human would, and some people like milia would be looked to by the peaceful zentradi to help convert thier brothers and sister in space towards humans side rather than just going around killing anyone that disagrees with unspacy by fighting them. If we could give the zentradi a chance in SW I then others out there might be potential allies if we can persuade them (with love songs) rather than killing them. Remember earth scientists would view the zentradi as the same we might view kids with ADD. :Thier behaviour s not thier fault since they were genetically engineered that way. And all those still out there causing problems don't know any better. So if you are a converted zentradi micron you might be thinking: "we can't turn our back on them, these are our brothers" That's the attitude un spacy should have else the celebrations of peace with humans and zentradi would be pointless.

Edited March 29, 2005 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[JB0]

Because of the zentradi's greater number and the fact that we had civilians onboard the ship, this complicated matters. There weren't just soliders onboard but civilians who have no business being there and who by rights want to get off but can't. I would think there would be some decisions they would want in on if it concerns their lives too. (note the people onboard had to be lied to about casualties to keep everyone calm. )

In defence of unspacy the shots from the main gun were justified because of the threat of civilians being harmed + zentradi outnumbering us. (they could have easily finished us off just like that but chose not to. Maybe if Kamjin was in charge things would have been different?)

It didn't hurt that we were up against what we were pretty sure was battleships, even before we knew what the zentradi were.

It's a lot easier to justify the annihilation of a military vessel than a city full of civilians(or even just a small portion of a city full of civilians).

Also note we fired nukes at the Zentradi in the opening moments of the attack, before the Macross was off the ground. Zentradi moved in, ARMDs fired nukes.

Logic likely being "can't pollute space, and there's no tree-hugging hippies up here to complain even if you could."

Only gotta worry about the politics when the people it offends know it happened.

[Guest Bromgrev]

Only gotta worry about the politics when the people it offends know it happened.

And that'll be 50 years later, when the records get de-classified and the top brass are retired or, more likely, pushing up daisies ...

Edited March 30, 2005 by Bromgrev