Heh, Looks like Quentin...

[Jamestox]

Has his very own "Q" branch! (waits for the groans to die down)....
[Desmond Llwellyn voice]

"Questor, here are the 'new features' we've added to your Astin-Martin lux-ship.....

Oh, and please step away from that port on the side for a moment."

WHAM!!!!!

"....side-firing lux-cannon, can take out a village hut from 200 meters - but mind, Questor, because of the drain you only have three shots before the lux supply is exhausted. Now, over here....."

[/Desmond Llwellyn voice]

(take over, ladies and gentlemen - and do me proud...)

[JakeWasHere]

Really, who else but John Cleese could have replaced Dez Llewellyn?

"Ah yes. The legendary 007 wit - or at least half of it."

[Astral]

[Desmond Llwellyn voice]
"All the usual comodities. Oil bombs mounted at the rear, swiveling number plates for crossing in to difrent kingdoms, ejector planks and of corce the twin guided Anti-Dragon missiles mounted into the Figgurehead."
*wanders over to deflated baloon. which has now been mounted between two trees*
"Now this, I'm particualy proud of, your elven-pistol please."
*Twists the dial, takes rather aquad aim and lets of two shots, both of which shatter as they hit the tarpolin*
"Brand new mixture for the liquid rubber coating. 87% impenitrable from small projectiles, can even reflect a shot from a blunderbust previded the range is significant enough, and best of all, still one hundred persent water proof and air tight. Now, moving swiftly along, your traveling gear -"
[.Desmond Llwellyn voice]

[Madmoonie]

Really, who else but John Cleese could have replaced Dez Llewellyn?

"Ah yes. The legendary 007 wit - or at least half of it."

I think he is BRILLIANT in that role. He makes it his without taking way from Dez Llewelly mastery of the role.

[RHJunior]

Actually, as both the balloon envelope and the rigging are woven of spidersilk, you could probably shoot arrows and bullets and even cannonballs into the envelope all day and not puncture it. Spider web is light, has a tensile strength comparible to high grade steel, and is incredibly ductile/stretchable... it can stretch up to 40% of its length without breaking. Woven into a cloth it would have the look, feel, and lightness of silk, the stretchiness of nylon, and be as impenetrable as Kevlar.

Of course its elasticity and lightness would make it a poor choice for armor. Even if the blade or bullet never penetrated the silk, it would most certainly crunch the bone and rupture the flesh beneath it, and a bullet or arrowhead would still penetrate the flesh..... like a child poking a hole in a loaf of bread without his finger puncturing the bag.

[Acolyte]

Of course its elasticity and lightness would make it a poor choice for armor. Even if the blade or bullet never penetrated the silk, it would most certainly crunch the bone and rupture the flesh beneath it, and a bullet or arrowhead would still penetrate the flesh..... like a child poking a hole in a loaf of bread without his finger puncturing the bag.

Even if the fiber itself is elastic, the fabric need not be very much so depending on the weave. And as a component of armor it could still be very useful, perhaps sandwiched between layers of a more rigid material, or covering flexible joints that would otherwise be completely exposed.

[DracoDei]

Actually, silkworm silk was historically used by the Mongols (I think it was the Mongols who were most famous for it) etc as 'combat wear'. Note I said 'combat wear', not armor. It would be worn underneath any armor worn I would think. It would, as Ralph said, be pushed into the wound around the arrowhead, without being punctured (or at least not completely so). The arrows of that time and place were often serrated/barbed. The silk around the wound could be pulled on to draw the arrow out, without the chance of leaving any of the barbs behind to fester. I would think it would also reduce blood-loss in the mean-time.

[Astral]

Ahh ok, I assumed that they used the traditional meens of rubberising the material to make it air tight, imediatly cuting down on some of that 'strechyness' inherrent in the material, but I suspose spider silk would compensate for that. By the way? What do they use to seal it if not rubber?

[Bengaley]

Is it a coloring error, or did Quenty's eyes change color and get darker?

[TMLutas]

Of course its elasticity and lightness would make it a poor choice for armor. Even if the blade or bullet never penetrated the silk, it would most certainly crunch the bone and rupture the flesh beneath it, and a bullet or arrowhead would still penetrate the flesh..... like a child poking a hole in a loaf of bread without his finger puncturing the bag.

Actually, silk underclothes were very popular with the mongol hordes because it made it easy to get the arrowheads out. The barbs never actually penetrated the flesh so you didn't get the whole "ripping" problem that those arrowheads were designed to inflict. The clothing really held down their fatalities and turned fatal wounds to nonfatal inconveniences.

update - Yeesh, I should have known better than to think that I'd be the only one to know a piece of combat armor history trivia.

To make up for it, from here

The Mongols, who invaded the Muslim Empires of the Middle East in the 1200's, wore armor made of boiled leather. Mongol warriors also wore densely-woven silk undershirts, so that when an arrow pierced the outer armor it would force the unpierced silk into the flesh. Then the arrow could be removed by pulling gently at the silk shirt. Silk helped plug the wound and not tear the flesh. This light-weight "uniform" of leather and silk allowed freedom of movement.

[JakeWasHere]

How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?
--Bill Watterson

[Chaser617]

*nods* Spyder Silk, or what the US Army is playing around with, 'SynthSilk' is really only good to use as armored protection if it is in opposing mesh layers, much like current Kevlar Weave fabrics, only mush lighter.

Granted, they still haven't figured out a way to make enough of the stuff in a sificient tensiling to make a protective peice out of, though they're already playing around with using it as flexible joints for a full-body Kev-Weave armor suit. Granted, i would NOT want to wear something like thatm tii bulky. The US Army really wants to be able to make full combat armors out of SynthSilk mesh, some of the modern combat gears for the 'Land Warrior' project are nearly as fantastic as Heinelin's powered armor in Starship troopers.

Heck, the Army's already playing with new HUDs for infantry soldiers and other personal computing gear. They actually want to start trying out a fully sealed combat suit within the next few years.

[RHJunior]

heh. they tried building something like that in the Vietnam era.

All the test pilots and soldiers consulted about it had only one thing and one thing only that they wanted added.

An "eject" button so they could get out of that piece of junk and run for it.


The only problem with "teching up" troops is that it reduces their mobility, and it increases the size of the supply and logistics chain dramatically. Every new widget is a new widget that can BREAK, RUN OUT OF JUICE, or JUST NOT WORK.

[Bengaley]

On the flip side, every widget has a chance of saving a soldier's life. Therefore, widgets should be constantly tested to see if a new widget can be devised for that purpose.

[Anthony Lion]

heh. they tried building something like that in the Vietnam era.

Got any links?

[TMLutas]

The only problem with "teching up" troops is that it reduces their mobility, and it increases the size of the supply and logistics chain dramatically. Every new widget is a new widget that can BREAK, RUN OUT OF JUICE, or JUST NOT WORK.

They're paying soldiers well enough that they're buying some of their own gear. Camelbacks got into the supply chain that way. People who knew about them from camping bought them and took them to Iraq and the superior ease of use led to them being so widespread in adoption that the brass started buying them in the official supply chain out of embarrassment.

Land warrior is the current name for the suite of next generation technologies. The killer application seems to be to identify positions on all the forces on your side in real time down to the level of individual soldiers. It's a real lifesaver to know which rooms not to pitch grenades into as well as being able to break out of the standard building sweep pattern because you know your buddies will know where you are and you can take advantage of a particular opportunity.

The struggle is to keep the new stuff from ballooning the load beyond the 70+ pounds soldiers carry in their normal pack. If you can substitute synthsilk for kevlar and get the same protection for one pound less weight, that's one pound of extra goodies that can add to survivability, such as more bullets, water, or adding blue force tracker to individual loads.

This is one of the reasons why the army keeps experimenting with cartridgeless bullets. These are very high tech bullets that manifest their benefit by weighing less. Losing the brass weight is such an obvious weight reducer that anybody who figures out how to crack that code is going to be a major hero.

[Chaser617]

I agree, things need to be completely soldier proof before they see combat, but personally, I beleive the day of seeing gear (not the weapons but the combat kit) of the Alien's Colonial Marines isn't far off, in fact, much of what we saw in that movie is now possible. I personally would not be suprised in ten to twenty years we see a new definition to 'mechanized infantry.' Hienelin style powered armor troops bounding across the field of battle. Will these guys ever replace the tank? no, but dang to have the ability that one might have inside powered armor....

[TMLutas]

I agree, things need to be completely soldier proof before they see combat, but personally, I beleive the day of seeing gear (not the weapons but the combat kit) of the Alien's Colonial Marines isn't far off, in fact, much of what we saw in that movie is now possible. I personally would not be suprised in ten to twenty years we see a new definition to 'mechanized infantry.' Hienelin style powered armor troops bounding across the field of battle. Will these guys ever replace the tank? no, but dang to have the ability that one might have inside powered armor....

The Sovs did some basic work on powered armor and heinlein inspired enclosed suits are being worked on.

[EdBecerra]

The struggle is to keep the new stuff from ballooning the load beyond the 70+ pounds soldiers carry in their normal pack. If you can substitute synthsilk for kevlar and get the same protection for one pound less weight, that's one pound of extra goodies that can add to survivability, such as more bullets, water, or adding blue force tracker to individual loads.

This is one of the reasons why the army keeps experimenting with cartridgeless bullets. These are very high tech bullets that manifest their benefit by weighing less. Losing the brass weight is such an obvious weight reducer that anybody who figures out how to crack that code is going to be a major hero.

*shrugs* Recently, in Japan, Yoshiyuki Sankai at the University of Tsukuba has developed a functional exoskeleton straight out of "Aliens 2". Understandably, the US military's rather interested. Toyota's done the same, as have a few other companies, a side effect of finally getting the hardware/software mix of a 'walking' robot correct.

One goof, taking advantage of the corporate discoveries, actually built a one-man 'walker' with non-functional (but quite dramatic looking) guns. It shuffles, but it's still a functional walker, and looks like something out of Battletech.

Now, it's a matter of a suitable high-density power source so we can ditch the extension cords.

[Bengaley]

Or go what EVA did, and just use extension cords. ^_^

I say we use fission reactors...