Re: Guns: H&K, G3, 7.62 v 5.56 [Guns] (fwd)
I've only seen bolt action .50s fired. They're not *too* heavy, and from the amount of muzzle flash, noise, etc. it gave, I'd be as comfortable using it at 1000-1500 yards as I would a .308 at 600-1000 yards. Given proper concealment and the absence of anyone looking directly at you when you fire, that is. Professional sniping is a 2 man operation anyway -- against a target that can shoot back, you really want to have a spotter.
From what I can gather, the US military seems to agree with this strategy -- .308s for traditional sniping, .50 for anti-materiel, extreme long range, and countersniping. Attacking an incoming force which has its own snipers is mostly a job for the .50. And if I were in the field on the offense, I'd be attacking small enough groups that a few .50 rounds would be sufficient to kill them all or at least immobilize them. Or high enough value targets to make a more likely kill worth the higher risk during E&E. True, they mainly use bolt-action .50s -- if the semi auto version is really that much heavier, I'd probably go for the bolt action gun in the field and the semi at my home.
For Tim May's situation, in a house, they know fairly well that he's firing from the house. Pretty much any weapon will give enough signature for them to zero in on it and fire. If he's lucky, and they just have carbines and 7.62 snipers, he could fire from one room, move to another, fire, etc. Or have enough cover to keep himself from getting hit. But at some point, they'll just bring in a real countersniper asset, like an automatic cannon, and any muzzle flash will be responded to with several hundred AP/explosive shells. Within the house, the weight of a .50 isn't that bad -- and the extra 500-1000 yards and AP capability might make a difference against a raid. At the very least, it'll get his place firebombed rather than shot up :) Forcing them to keep outside the 1500-2000 yard high danger range from a .50 (or forcing them to stay behind serious cover) would give him a chance to duck out and fight another day, too :) A .50 is also a bit more effective against helicopters containing special forces "monitoring" personnel who are there (but of course not actually there) in violation of the law. It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/ flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic cannon or a small army, in response to a raid. It would make a perfect distraction during which to leave :) I'd much rather write code, make money, and leave the country (not necessarily in that order) than worry about defending myself from a government which has shown time and time again it is willing to ignore the law, though. [ObCrypto: * Eternity DDS is coming along. The current almost-ready-for-announcement version is using Postgres95 for a backend, sigh. Design for the first production-demo system is progressing as well. * The Cypherpunks Archive project I was working on is also progressing. Unfortunately, my archive is kind of weird -- it's in MIT discuss format, and converting it into mbox is nontrivial, given the size of the file. After adding more memory to the system on which I'm editing the file, I think I have an mbox file which is just missing one field. I'm planning to index them with hypermail, then glimpse. On the cd, I'll put the original mbox file, either as a single massive file or broken up, depending on what people want, as well as a precomputed index and perhaps the web site version as well. The next step is to put all of the cypherpunks archives into Eternity DDS -- Postgres95 seems to puke on large data objects sometimes, so I'll need to fix that. Once I get the cypherpunks archive done, I'll work on some other lists. And then hopefully some people will buy CD-Rs so I can buy another 25gb of HDD or so :) * Financial people are pretty cool. I just got back from talking to some about the Eternity Service concept, and they were really excited. I really didn't expect non-(electronic finance) finance people to be interested in it right away. They even got more excited when the magic word "cryptography" was mentioned. Perhaps finance will fix the software industry. -- Ryan Lackey rdl@mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/
On 3 Jan 1998, Ryan Lackey wrote:
It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/ flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic cannon or a small army, in response to a raid. It would make a perfect distraction during which to leave :)
[The following is a theoretical discusion. Do not try this at home]. What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will always win. A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes later. The underground irrigation systems common on California properties are ideal means of gas deployment. You should be able to retrofit the system for under $500. Assuming you already have the gas. Of course you need to make sure to keep a chem suit at home. After you make your exit, you can clean out the next with a previously installed fuel/air explosive. -- Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred. "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?"
On Sun, 4 Jan 1998, Lucky Green wrote:
On 3 Jan 1998, Ryan Lackey wrote:
It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/ flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic cannon or a small army, in response to a raid. It would make a perfect distraction during which to leave :)
[The following is a theoretical discusion. Do not try this at home].
What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will always win. A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes later.
Setting this off in an inhabited area is sure to make you a popular hero. You'd be better off investing in a tunnel. Maybe Seymour Cray could use a job about now ... ;) (I never bought that car accident cover - he and Elvis are probably hangin' out in Tonga) -r.w.
At 6:19 PM -0800 1/3/98, Lucky Green wrote:
What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will always win. A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes later. The underground irrigation systems common on California properties are ideal means of gas deployment. You should be able to retrofit the system for under $500. Assuming you already have the gas. Of course you need to make sure to keep a chem suit at home.
In an age where it is accepted (and unpunished) behavior for the black-clad ninja warriors to shoot through pregnant women, to burn children to death in the name of publicity for the BATF, to raid the home of a woman who refused to answer questions of the State psychiatric police, to shoot to death a retired doctor who the raiders accidentally hit, and on and on, other measures are needed. (In none of these cases have the guilty parties been punished. If the State will not restrain itself, other measures will be needed.) This may well be why militias and survivalist groups are so actively developing chemical and biological agents. (I hear that even some of the dopers in the hills have gotten interested in Sarin release systems. Hoo boy!) Sad, but maybe one has to fight fire with fire. If a hundred SWAT stormtroopers surround a compound and prepare to burn it down, releasing the countermeasures may be needed. In fact, leaking (no pun intended) word that a home has CBW deadman switches may make the ninjas a bit less trigger-happy. --Tim May, whose house is _not_ booby-trapped with Sarin, or Tabun, or anything else, but who will defend to his death his right to talk as he wishes about such things. The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
participants (4)
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Lucky Green -
Rabid Wombat -
Ryan Lackey -
Tim May