Caltrops - Biohazard: Code Veronica





	[quote name="Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post"]Well, as I mentioned in the thread, you have a few options for defending your ship. The best advice, though, is avoidance - stay the hell away from Indonesia and the non-Mediterranean African coast. When avoidance fails, though, here's some options from high to low: Phalanx CIWS: basically 20mm gatling gun with radar, the latest versions use forward-looking infrared to engage surface targets, which is what you need. The two big reasons to go with this are unit cost versus other major CIWS systems (only several million dollars, which is the least of your concerns after buying an oil tanker), and the zero deck-penetration requirement. You can weld them pretty much anywhere on the topside - the US Army even fields a version mounted on a flatbed. Remember the uber-guns from Snowcrash that operated from the carrier in wrath-of-God mode for peacekeeping? That was one of these. Getting your hands on one of these and the ammo for them is an exercise left to the reader - but if you've got the tanker in the first place this is not your most difficult problem. For small arms you'll want a mixture of three different weapon types: M134: gatling gun which is chambered in super-cheap 7.62x51mm (standard NATO round until Vietnam, now used primarily in sniper rifles and the larger man-portable machineguns). The extremely high fire rate is perfect for targeting small boats in choppy waters, since it operates more like a continuous stream of lead than punctuated bursts at a moving target. You can see a video of this weapon in operation in this Metafilter post. M2HB: the classic .50 cal machine gun is still going strong after 85 years since its invention. Firing rate is a little low for what you'll need, but at $14,000 unit cost, extremely cheap and available ammo, 800m range (at worst), and the fact that of all the guns listed here this is by far the easiest to get your hands on, this is pretty much a no-brainer. Unlike the above two, this one is purely a mechanical device - no electricity needed, just add bullets. Axial mounts on the railings are perfect for getting anything that slips through your other coverage and you can't get an angle on with the other weapons. H&K GMG: a good full-auto 40mm grenade launcher is exactly what you need to add a little explosive firepower when clearing the decks of slightly larger oncoming ships. 5m lethal radius, 15m casualty radius, six rounds a second. These are pretty rare so you might try subbing out for a Mk19 or the Russian version thereof. Other, non-mounted small arms are at the discretion of the reader. posted by Ryvar at 10:39 PM PST on February 18 [/quote]