And to add to that is defense from magical threats, though having a shaman (shark would be good) of your own could also help with detecting hostile ships, though not to much when dealing with that much space to cover. But, it's a thought.

As I said earlier in this thread, whale meat would be available, but prohibitively expensive.

Unlike ShadowRun, they are also astonishingly expensive.

Eventually you have to run a cost benefit analysis for the whole endeavor. If it becomes so cost prohibitive to have a such a defended ship for a whaling run, particularly against fanatical anti whaler groups. At a certain point, the companies may say forget it, it's not worth the cost/effort. Plus, the more defensive equipment you place on a ship, it may take away from the fishing and storage capacity of the ship. For a ship of a truly large size for both, the maintenance starts going up along with fuel costs. Great, whale meat... how much is it to have lab grown whale meat instead?

Actually, air breathing missiles don't go that low. 10-20 meters above the sea is typical, with the height depending on the sea state. Ramjets at mach 3 don't like catching seawater from spray etc. Oops, 20 meters for the 3M80. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-270_Moskit

Yeah, I perrused the article too, but the Moskit is moving so fast, it almost HAS to allow for some extra height, though I wouldn't trust that particular figure. The better subsonic sea skimmers routinely drop to 3 meters or thereabouts, because they can still dodge things like rogue waves. At 2.2 Mach, that gets a little harder. Even so, you've only managed to increase warning time back up to <50 seconds... again assuming you SEE it then. Frankly though, I've been singularly unimpressed with the info on Wiki in regards to ex-Soviet/Russian weapons systems if they enetered service after the early 80s. The Moskit is still in development, so it's "new". (The development IIRC is actually happening under license as a partnership with India of all people.)

Kzt: Not as expensive as you might think, especially if tertiary producers (DPRK, India, South Africa) are starting to get into the game.

PBTHHHHT: that was part of my thinking, and the reason I kept pointing out that a dedicated defensive vessel (read: warship) would free a lot more tonnage for commerical operations but be prohibitively expensive, and point defense tends to work best if you deploy it off the target itself.

Tachi: Magical defenses I left entirely out, and a Shaman would help a bit, but not be fool-proof. Frankly, I think it would be easier to prosecute that kind of battle technologically, not magically. Line of sight remains a concern, and I'm not sure about you, but I don't think I'd be keen on astrally projecting from a vessel moving at 10-20 knots, would you? I like to know right where my meat-self is at any given moment.

I'm not sure why theres an assumption that the fanatical enviro groups have limitless financial and personel resources and the companies presumably benefiting from supply and demand do not. Whale is delicious and I don't forsee it not continuing to be so, also the more difficult something is to obtain the higher profit margins people can turn if they can actually obtain it. Supply and demand all that.

Gain some altitude and play "spot the wake". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Wouldn't the fact that most anti-ship missiles are radar guided actually help? HARM type defenses, for example. Or, is that what they meant by "radar guided", HARM anti-ship missiles?

I never made that assumption, I was, if fact, assuming equal escalation on both sides. A company is not going to spend any more than it thinks it needs, so, they would only go as far as necessary to counter the whalehuggers.

Hmm, just curious but why would SR4A 2072 fishermen/whalers even bother with a water buoyancy ship with all that cost and go for a sort of track by some sort of satelite/drone high rating sensor/program package and then swoop in with some sort of air attack/transport to extract their desired life form for consumption/research/whatever?

This idea comes to me from something I read in like National Geographic or Popular Science once on them accidentally tracking submarines through some sort of satellite survey data/imagery. Sorry about a source on that, so perhaps I dreamed that up. The article also had something about using satellites to find ancient cities and roads under the sands of the Sahara or Saudia Arabia or some place.

hmm, now i got myself thinking about a preservation group backed by a vat-meat company, so as to push forward interest in vat grown meat...

Think spotting a wake amongst the ice floes when the ships are already moving pretty slowly is going to be much easier than using an LTA Drone with a look-down radar?

Anti-radar missiles ride the radar beam down to the target. It's a useful way to take out the transmitter itself, though it's less useful against a phased array, unless you include a big enough warhead to take out the entire array. Anti-radar guidance is less useful against an airborn target, because you can be a LOT more precise with your own on-board radar. Incidentally, HARM stands for High-speed Anti-Radar Missile, a speciffic weapon (AGM-88) in the US inventory, designed to replace the earlier Shrike and Standard ARM weapons of the Vietnam era. The special capabilities of the HARM relative to the predacessors was the ability to "memorize" the location of the transmitter, because once a smart crew notices an inbount ARM, they shut off the radar, and the Shrike would go ballistic at that point; The other ability is that it's notably faster than either of the two predecessors. The problem is complicated because modern ASMs (Anti-Ship Missiles) only activate their radars in short sweeps to verify their location or target then go back silent until in final attack mode, and ideally you'd like to have splashed the vampire by then. Many modern ASMs perform a "pop-up" maneuver as part of the final attack run, pulling up sharply then nosing over and diving down at the target. This makes it MUCH harder for last-ditch systems to knock the thing out of the sky, and increases the likelyhood that at least the warhead will make it to impact on a ballistic trajectory. Preferably you want to hit the thing between acquisition at the radar horizon and initiation of the pop-up maneuver so that even minor aerodynamic damage is likely to encourage the weapon to "depart from controled flight" and impact the water rather than your ship.

That make sense?

There is a theory that with advanced enough radar and computer software, you could find a submersible deep beneath the waves by a combination of telltale signs: the sub displaces a small but discrete amout of water on the surface; the other is that radar or thermal imaging might be able to pick out the traces of the sub's deep wake, but again, that's theory. If that became commonplace, however, given the number of orbital platforms in the descriptions of the later half of the first century of the 6th World, there would have been note about how submersibles were no longer particularly viable. The problem is this: even if you find a surface ship, in order to press home an attack, you must penetrate the umbrella of its defenses. A sub is never going to see you coming, and that's lethal. Even today, there are long-range missile weapons designed to attack submarines well over-the-horizon (SS-N-14 Silex), who have ranges up to 30 miles / 50 km. (The US has the much smaller and more modern RUM-139 VL-ASROC, whose range is in the 14 mile / 22 km region.) A surface ship has a chance to shoot down incoming missiles, or at least shoot back at whoever they are being engaged by. The first warning a sub has of an attack by a weapon like the Silex or VL-ASROC (Vertical Launched Anti-Submarine ROCket) is the splash of "water entry" followed by high-speed screws, and then an active search sonar. Then it's all a game of very-high-stakes dodge-ball. Even if they dodge, the firer will probably realize it was a miss when they don't hear the sub breaking up, so they can re-engage at will, and eventually the law of averages is going to catch up with the sub.

In terms of escallation, the price of a mother-ship isn't significantly more than the current vessel featured on the show. The cost of the drones will be significantly less than maintaining the existing manned helicopter. The only real increases needed are going to be the (modest) cost of the submersibles, and the weapon systems themselves. I don't see that much financing being a problem, especially since SOMEBODY is going to pay for the filming, and after the Awakening, I can see all kinds of groups getting a big boost in funding now that the Earth showed us how She really feels about what we've been doing to Her. We're not talking about billion dollar nuclear attack subs, here; We're talking advance hybrid mini-submarines, maybe even not much more than a hundred feet long and maybe fifteen feed in beam - or significantly less than a sixth the displacement of the modern Virginia Class nuclear fast-attack submarines. No reactor, reduced crew accomadations, less need for deep submergence would make construction easier, no need to reload the weapons internally eliminates a lot, advanced miniturized computers will make the electronics significantly cheaper... no, those boats are going to be WELL within the budget of their sponsors. The biggest hurdle is going to be getting the ASMs and heavy torpedos; But if shadowrunners can get their hands on the (Arsenal), an organization like that would have an even easier time of it.

For the fanatical enviro groups... no, you don't need limitless financial resources. Maybe a good amount of personnel and some dedicated eco shamans. Also...

My view is something from the Dark Knight film:

The Joker: See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite, and gunpowder...
[the Chechen watches, appalled, as Joker's thugs pour gasoline on his mountain of cash]
The Joker: And gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!

Remember, ships need to berth eventually and sailors' families may be considered 'soft' targets for exploit.

............ok so the fantaical echo shamans who go after "real citizens" families in the night are going to win because their AK's and gunpowder ar cheaper then say a corporation allowed to defend itself with mil spec weapons. YOur group kidnaps a few peoples families, your added to a terrorist wathc list, your headquarters is bombed with a Ztechnology 500 pounder, how is violence a winning escalation with military powers again?

I don't know, although I suspect you could ask partisans, rebels & guerillas in Colombia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Xinjiang, and other such locales. And if you went back further, you could ask them in France and Poland, Russia, all of Africa, and, eventually, the United States.

People fight dirty and fight for what they believe in, and there comes a point where the response costs more than the writedown on the insurance for claiming the loss.

Or to put it another way:
1) Why didn't the USSR just crush the Afghan mujahedeen like bugs, with their superior firepower and numbers?
2) Why do shipping giants put up with piracy in the south pacific, rather than putting armed guards on their ships? It's an issue of finances and what it costs to respond.

Well, you could ask the ones in Sri Lanka, but you will need to use an Ouija board.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9051800308.html

Are you really comparing greenpeace to the mujahadeem? Additionally actually most civilian carriers are forbidden by their national or international laws from placing armed guards on boards, extra-territorial corporations don't have that problem.

Captain Dan, the last word.

Huh! I hadn't heard about that! My point still stands, though, given that they'd been fighting since... what, 1973?



No, I am comparing cybered, missile-toting ecoterrorists who blow up nuclear power plants in Shadowrun to Mujahedeen. TerraFirst! is to Greenpeace as the LAPD SWAT is to Wal-Mart Security Guards. I thought we were dicussing what COULD work in Shadowrun, not what does or does not happen IRL.

Secondarily, you are incorrect about international law on armed guards. International law is very clear about vessels being able to defend themselves: only the Flag State of the vessel may issue laws about their firearms, and if the vessel comes under attack, they are clear to defend themselves - and while England and Canada may forbid it, the United States, Italy, Israel, France, Russia... all of these countries and more are okay with it, legally speaking. In practice, companies' internal policies prevent them from placing armed guards on board, not international law. In May of this year, private security guards aboard an Italian cruise ship opened fire on Somali pirates while in international waters, killing several. The problem, legally speaking, is with graft-heavy ports who employ harbormasters looking for bribes rather than claim papers are out of order - most of which are in the same locales as the pirates, unsurprisingly.

It should also be noted that there's a not-insignificant concern of said weapons being used in a mutiny.

Some possible scenarios:

1) whales awaken and kill off their predators

2) anti-whaling groups add chrome to whales, who fight back

3) anti-whaling groups die off due to their bad vegan diet

4) folks discover whales can cure cancer and their hunted out of existence

5) whales mutate and grow limbs, walk on shore and scare the locals

6) whales are able to take human form and start their own fight club

From a simple food point of view I'd say whaling might exist in the 6th world, but it would cost an arm and a leg.

I've eaten quite a bit of whale meat in my time, mostly before it became common knowledge just how intelligent the animals are, but also when I was stationed in the air force in the north of Norway and the chef had bought in a ton of the stuff, literally. I can confirm that it tastes great, maybe not as exaggeratedly as someone here stated, but very nice nevertheless, and as such it will be in demand by the rich and the powerfully corrupt in the 6th world.

Facing the dangers of echo extremists, awakened critters and other fun things from the deep I'd say the price would prohibit most people from ever even consider buying it, and the people who go whaling would be some pretty extreme types themselves when you consider the dangers involved. But if they can get paid what they want for the meat, I can imagine quite a few people willing to face the danger.

Whale Shapeshifters. Now that's a scary thought.

Whale Shamans would also be scary mothers, too!

You mean TerraFirst and other groups that aren't already on the list in the Shadowrun world?