K-T event did NOT wipe out dinos

[Rokcet Scientist]

Stingers that you think are for ground targets, R/S.

Me, the Pentagon, the CIA, Jane's, and Wikipedia, Min.
Not the Taliban, and other fundie bandits in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Sudan that were targeted. They never knew what hit them*.

Why else would Predators armed with Stingers be operational by the dozens in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Sudan? What enemy airplanes are they supposed to be shooting down with those Stingers, Min...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RQ-9_Predator_B

* from 2 miles up in the sky, remotely controlled from 200 miles away. Or even direct from the Pentagon, NORAD, Fort Benning, or from anywhere on the other side of the world! Imagine the staggering expense to take out a target! And coincidentally kill half his family too (women and children). 'Collateral damage'.
A Canadian sniper with a Barrett .50 can take out a target at 1.5 miles with one clean shot, and NO collateral damage. At 1/10,000th of the expense of a callous Predator (over)kill.
That's a cultural chasm right there.

[Minimalist]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07 ... ne-strike/

Its fiscal year 2010 spending request — which asks for $79.7 million for 792 Hellfire missiles and $489.4 million for 24 Reapers, nearly double the number requested in fiscal year 2009 — points to an increased use of drones.

Hellfires, hellfires, hellfires....

Why the hell would they bother sending up a Predator with two 23 lb. Stingers

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/pr ... 057590.pdf

when the Predator can carry two 95 lb. Hellfires?

You still get only get two missiles. Give the Army a little credit here. They know which one makes a bigger bang.

[Minimalist]

But, anyway, Jesus were those Stingers knocking down meteors left and right.


I'm afraid this movie set E.P.s cause back about one hundred years.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Why the hell would they bother sending up a Predator with two 23 lb. Stingers
when the Predator can carry two 95 lb. Hellfires?

You still get only get two missiles. Give the Army a little credit here. They know which one makes a bigger bang.

And that is probably precisely the problem with Hellfires for soft Taliban ground targets, Min! They're far too course a weapon, far too big a bang for the targets! Hell, even with the Stingers there are many reports of indiscriminate 'collateral damage'. Now they can still kind of 'ignore' those. But with much bigger bangs, and consequently much more collateral damage that could become an untenable position.
Besides, 144 lb. less weapons load can translate into 144 lb. more fuel load, and consequently a very significant increase of the flight envelope!

[Cognito]

So if we – humanity – have a successful interplanetary colonization program, and a few more centuries, most of our progeny could perhaps be elsewhere when the shit hits the fan down here! And at least one cosmological life-form – us, humanity – would manage to survive an interplanetary collision by its wits.
There's some poetry in that...

Hah! Noah may sail yet again!

That's why funding Mars exploration on a grand scale makes more sense than funding impact science on a similar grand scale.

Rocket, you are expressing views similar to Hawking; however, Earth is and always will be our home. As opposed to being concerned about extraterrestrial strikes and the survival of humanity, I have more alarm over the effects of rampant overpopulation and technological progress that has brought us deadly pollutants that remain in our environment for decades to millions of years, poisoning us where we live. Until we resolve issues at home, it probably isn't responsible to take our Mojo into the solar system or beyond.

[Digit]

A Canadian sniper with a Barrett .50 can take out a target at 1.5 miles with one clean shot, and NO collateral damage.

Great! Now all you've got to do is shift one Canadian sniper from Canada to within one and half miles of the target, and hope he's hung around in the interval!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

And that is probably precisely the problem with Hellfires for soft Taliban ground targets, Min! They're far too course a weapon, far too big a bang for the targets!

You do not think like a soldier, R/S. Bigger explosions are always better.

Besides, you still haven't dealt with the fact that the Stinger is an anti-aircraft weapon:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Marines+p ... 0133976521

Although as this site notes there is an idea by the Marines to upgrade it to hit "light armored vehicles."

The current Stinger was not designed to strike ground targets, Wood said. In the future, "it is likely that the battalions will need, in addition to traditional air defense, an improved capability against ground threats--soft skin [unarmored] targets and personnel," he said. "You could possible address it with a missile or gun."

About two years ago, the Marine Corps asked contractors to submit preliminary concepts for a Stinger replacement, and received several responses, Wood said. An actual solicitation for bids is not expected until late 2006 or 2007.

Raytheon, as any arms manufacturer, is always trying to find a new buyer for their products. Doesn't seem likely to happen.

[Minimalist]

Stingers do, at least in Hollywood, seem very adept at knocking down slow-flying meteors.

[E.P. Grondine]

Let us briefly examine RS's rationalizations for a minute.

They're cr*p trying to rationalize wasting a $100,000,000,0000 flying a few men to Mars.

End of analysis.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas

[E.P. Grondine]

No....more like a pipe dream because we can't even agree on National Health Care which is a far more immediate problem.

I don't think its fair to accuse RS of drug use, min, just because he thinks that spending $100,000,000,000 to fly a few people to Mars is a good idea.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Earth is and always will be our home.

Sorry, Cog, but that sounds like an extremely blinkered dogma to me.
Have you any scientific arguments for that position?

[Rokcet Scientist]

you still haven't dealt with the fact that the Stinger is an anti-aircraft weapon

Excuse me?
1) You have managed to ignore at least a couple references I made towards a 'Taliban airforce'!
And 2) you have apparently missed at least a dozen news reports in the past decade mentioning blown up Taliban, Pakistani, Yemeni and Sudanese bandits, with Stingers from Predators.

But FYI I'll repeat:
why arm Predators with Stingers, over Afghanistan? To shoot down the Taliban airforce? WHAT 'Taliban airforce'? THERE IS NO SUCH THING!
So if they're not for blowing up Taliban airplanes, because there ain't none, then they are clearly for blowing up something else. And guess what that 'something else' is: soft Taliban GROUND targets!
Confirmed over and over again by news reports.

[Rokcet Scientist]

A Canadian sniper with a Barrett .50 can take out a target at 1.5 miles with one clean shot, and NO collateral damage.

Great! Now all you've got to do is shift one Canadian sniper from Canada to within one and half miles of the target, and hope he's hung around in the interval!

And that's exactly what those Canadian (and Aussie, and Dutch, and British, etc.) Special Forces have been doing for years in Afghanistan, Roy! Track & kill. On/from the ground. In sorties of many days and weeks. Largely on foot! Through mountains and deserts. Carrying 50 lb. backpacks with their own food, water, and ammo, and their weapons, for hundreds of miles. Until they spot a target. Then they observe and lie in wait, ambush, at a mile's distance to wait for the right moment to pull the trigger.
Note that I did not mention US Special Forces or SEALs doing this. Why not? Because they cannot... They are fat sissies compared to other western countries' Special Forces. They cannot walk 10 miles with heavy backpacks and weapons. Let alone 100 miles! They need to be delivered on target by helicopter to do their Rambo thing and jump out, guns blazing.
But since even that is too dangerous (and, more importantly, too tiring) for them they forgo even that scenario and shoot Stingers from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles instead...

[Rokcet Scientist]

The current Stinger was not designed to strike ground targets,

So imagine their positive surprise when it turned out Stingers could do that very well too!

[Digit]

Yep RS, but I doubt very much that they can penetrate very far in to hostile ground if they want to get out again, and they cannot remain for very long as a normal two man team 'cos of the supply problem, in addition the oft quoted max killing range is a wonderful non idea in wooded country etc!
Snipers have their uses and always have had, but they also have their limitations.

Roy.