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From: maddox@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: War Games (was: Future Police Speculations Needed)
Message-ID: <21680@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 8-Nov-87 17:14:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21680
Posted: Sun Nov  8 17:14:13 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Nov-87 06:37:33 EST
References: <1463@haddock.ISC.COM> <1824@trex.rutgers.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: maddox@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Carl Greenberg (guest))
Organization: Lunatic Berkeley Laboratories
Lines: 39
Keywords: blazer armor ATGM

In article <21592@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> aoki@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki) writes:
>>> However, what about non-passive 
>>> armor?  A gizmo which "sees" the incoming round and reacts, either to
>>> knock it down or to provide a counter-force, in between the bullet and
>>> the armor wearer?
>>
>...can you see a man-portable radar-guided-and-activated
>system in the future projected by the original poster?
>	Dirk Manly strode through the subway, his personal CIWS perched
>	on his head (for the best field of fire).  A mischievous
>	street urchin threw an apple over his head; the CIWS rolled upward
>	and blasted the apple to smithereens, the recoil of the 4mm Gatling
>	gun hurling Dirk to the ground.

Use a gaussrifle.  Room temperature superconductors for the magnetic field...
Your next problem would be the power source...  There's the notion of a
superconducting "flywheel" that just hold current, but I wouldn't want to
see this:
	Dirk Manly strode through the subway, his personal CIWS perched
	on his head (for the best field of fire).  Free of worries about
	recoil, he didn't notice until it was too late that a skinhead
	with lots of ferrous spikes on his leather jacket was approaching.
	The magnetic forces in the the superconducting "flywheel" powering
	the CIWS immediately seized the surprised punk's jacket...

Now, how about a small device that sits in your pocket and has sensors in
a headband you wear.  The thing automatically warps space around you whenever
something is flying at you like a bullet, and the bullet flies through a hole
in the space-time continuum thirty cm in front of your chest and comes out
of the hole thirty cm behind you.  You can avoid other problems that brings
up by making the creation of such holes only practical with size of perhaps
10cm diameter and a "length" of about 1m and a duration of about half a
second.  That avoids putting holes in doors so you can reach through and
turn the knob on the other side, let yourself in *anywhere* by bypassing
walls and other neat stuff like that...
/----------------------------------v------------------------------------------\
| Carl Greenberg, guest here       | "I have a very firm grasp on reality!  I |
| ARPA:  maddox@ernie.berkeley.edu | can reach out and strangle it any time I |
| UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucbernie!maddox  | want!"                         - Me      |