NationStates Jolt Archive

The Imperial Army is pleased to announce to the newest weapon system to enter service with the armed the forces. The banshee prototype is a massive Bass sound device mounted on a truck(until an APC like carrier can be constructed around the equipment.) The Banshee broascasts over 240 decibals of sound towards in a broadbeam towards a target. Anything over 180 decibals of sound is fatal to humans as it causes massive heart palputations. In order to avoid the harming advancing Belem troops and the operators of the Banshee the sound device used is a laser sound device(ooc:laser sound systems soundwaves dont expand outwards like traditional sound systems.) The banshee can be operated by a crew of 3.


Currently 4 the prototype truck models will be sent to each division and fixed emplacement versions are currently on the drawing board. Once an armored carrier for the Banshee is designed each division will be issued 4-10 banshees based on success in field trials. Research is also being conducted in the use of banshees as a short range anti missile system.


OOC: more coming soon.

OOC: Lasers don't, in and of themselves, transmit sound.

OOC: its a laser sound system. ill find a link how they work its something about containing sound.

ooc: found it its actually called a soundbeam. I had lasersound stuck in my head for some reason.

Earplugs anyone?

OOC: Okay, now that you've found it, could you link to it for the rest of us?

Earplugs anyone?
OOC:
1. Earplugs are not perfect.
2. The vibrations from sound don't have to reach your ears to do damage.
This is Miratha, I'm too lazy to sign out of my puppet.

IC:
This is a very interesting design. Mayor Kabapus would like to know a bit more about this device. In addition, do you need any research funds? Mayor Kabapus is willing to pay if he is to see us profit from it.
-The Secretary

OOC:
Law of inverse squares anyone?

OOC:
Law of inverse squares anyone?
OOC: Which is...

...And then we build a sound nullifier and null your laser-sound thing thus imparing that contraption, lol.

No, just joking. We're peaceful and mean no conflict. But seriously, sound can be negated using a sound nullifier. Using the same frequency and ramming it with the other one will cause a negation. So, wouldn't that be ineffective?

OOC:
1. Earplugs are not perfect.
2. The vibrations from sound don't have to reach your ears to do damage.
This is Miratha, I'm too lazy to sign out of my puppet.

IC:
This is a very interesting design. Mayor Kabapus would like to know a bit more about this device. In addition, do you need any research funds? Mayor Kabapus is willing to pay if he is to see us profit from it.
-The Secretary



How did you not realise my sarcasm? :confused:

Sorry about this, Engineer who just got back to school and is trying to "stretch" for classes.

OOC: Which is...
Why this wouldn't be efficient in the real world, even if they found a way to make it work. I'll try to keep physics to a minimum here, keeping to concepts and not math.


Why it can't work in reality:
Sound is heard by a three-step process- Transmission(Your weapon), Translation (moving through a medium, such as air), and reception (The ear, for example). Without the translation medium, it can't go anywhere, and without the recipient, it's just a wave of vibration. It's absorbed a bit by whatever it hits (including the medium, but relatively negligible compared to the recipied) and continues on, which is why it's heard (garbled and quiet) through a wall or behind someone.

That absorbance is how your weapon does damage. In other words, you're making an earthquake laser. There just isn't enough density in air to carry the vibrations very far. No matter how well designed, it'd knock a few molecules of air down, and they'd hit the ground and it'd you with significant enough tremors that shock absorbers and low air pressure in huge tiresŠ wouldn't be enough to hold it steady.


Now, for your question, and why it won't work, even if it could:
Forces get exponentially weaker as they go along. At twice the distance, something is 1/4th as powerful, at 4x distance it's 1/16th, etc... Since a beam is concentrated, it isn't as effected, but it still resembles an inverse square function. That's why we don't use lasers as weapons, they disperse to have the same arc length* at any distance. It'd take a massive amount of power at the start to make it do any damage at any distance.

If it didn't overheat, it'd shake itself or the three man crew apart in firing. If you selectively cut out the translation medium (had the operators in a perfect vaccum or put one between them and the transmitter), they'd be alright (from a beam not aimed at them). You could use constructive interference (multiple weaker units on a computer timer so that they fire at exactly the right time to help eachother) to keep one unit from shaking itself apart, but that makes the problem of needing to know the exact range of the target so they combine in the right spot. But that adds a few more step, adding more inefficiencies (meaning it'd be more likely to overheat) and more ways it could screw up and fail...

No, just joking. We're peaceful and mean no conflict. But seriously, sound can be negated using a sound nullifier. Using the same frequency and ramming it with the other one will cause a negation. So, wouldn't that be ineffective?This is destructive interference, the opposite of constructive interference. Again, in THEORY it could work, but you'd need to get hit first to get the right frequency, have the mechanism survive long enough to produce equal amounts of this in roughly equal amplitude, and if he moved it, you'd be using the sound weapon against anyone nearby, i.e., your own troops. And that's assuming you're not a half-cycle off, in which case you're constructively interfering and just making his weapon twice as powerful...

Maybe you could make it half as powerful and give your troops earplugs so it'd only shake them up too bad to shoot when being hit and still deafen them, but not make their eardrums pop. But then again, with the power he's using... half 240dB is still about 237dB**, way more than neccesary to kill a man.

*Get a piece of paper, and draw a big circle. Now trace from the center to the edge twice, forming a thin sliver. It starts out tiny, and ends up less tiny, but many times bigger than it started, though it's the same % of the arc the whole length of the lines.
**dB are logarithmic growth, so 10 more means ten times as much. 240 is 10^6, or 100,000 times as much as 180.
ŠThis is why my truck rides so smooth. A rock makes a tiny difference against so much tire touching the ground. This means each individual spot is rubbing rock/pavement more often, so they'll heat up and blow out if I drive crosscountry without remembering to fill 'em, and I'll be found dead upsidedown on the side of a road someday, but I like living in comfort & just barely tolerate living elsewise.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item190.htm

heres basically the technology being used a soundbeam.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item190.htm

heres basically the technology being used a soundbeam.

That doesn't explain how to get around the issues that Mycon very adeptly raised... unless the weapon is powered by handwavium. :) A laser pointer does not make for a laser cannon; likewise, this technology does not necessarily make for a sound weapon.

That doesn't explain how to get around the issues that Mycon very adeptly raised... unless the weapon is powered by handwavium. :) A laser pointer does not make for a laser cannon; likewise, this technology does not necessarily make for a sound weapon.


trying to find more technical data about soundbeams.

But basically its not an earthquake machine its designed to just bounce off people. I got the idea when I heard how musicians in rock bands sometime get heart palpitations from the sound from the heavy speakers.

Oh yeah? Our Weapons of Mass Perversion will induce heart attacks in your god-fearing but overweight soldiers! Ph34r 73h h3n74|!!!!!!!!11111

Oh yeah? Our Weapons of Mass Perversion will induce heart attacks in your god-fearing but overweight soldiers! Ph34r 73h h3n74|!!!!!!!!11111


lol

trying to find more technical data about soundbeams.

It says that it "uses the same principles as a spotlight." That'd mean it bounces the vibrations off of a "sound mirror" (for lack of a better term) so that, while starting out going out in every direction, they reflect relatively into one path. The classic solution to focusing waves.
Note the word "reflect" in the previous sentence. As in, the sound is directed by hitting the machine itself and having it bounce off at a certain angle. Bigger engineering problems have been overcome, but we'd need a big grant and a few years to make one of your magnitude anything but a giant shrapnel grenade waiting to happen.

But basically its not an earthquake machine its designed to just bounce off people.
If I were feeling assholish, I'd quote myself above, but here it is in clearer terms:
Sound is a vibration in a frequency we can hear. It shakes the eardrum a tiny little bit, and the brain interprets that. A louder sound is a bigger shake, and once you get loud enough, your whole body can feel it. Your weapon is a couple hundred million times "louder" than that, to the point it'd shake reinforced steel like a bowl of jello.

Something that just hit me... If you really want to make it high-pitched enough that you don't have to worry about shaking the machine apart... Microwave ovens go at just the right frequency to vibrate water, so that'd make it pretty much "just organics," and you'd melt them. And we have almost gotten their beams to the amplitude you want, so it could be done soon, theoretically. Cool, eh?