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Rochey wrote:It would still cost them in resources.

Spoiling all my fun with sensible arguments

though, if the fed's ever get the ability to expirament with cloaking, and do develop the phase cloak it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep five or six of these on board the Battle Cruisers/Battle Ships.

Lt. Staplic wrote:idk, I just have this set up in my mind where they have to be explainable by modern physics/Trek Physics aid.

Bob, isn't that basicly the exact same thing as a burst fire torpedo tube except making the torpedo more complex rather than the pod where one can fix malfunctions.

Uh yeah
I feel really stupid

hey staplic,
maybe this should be
tech of the extreme future

maybe it should

How did the Houdini mine work the Gem'hadar used on AR 558? Was it out of phase like the phased cloak or some other type of situation. Its been ages since I've seen the episode so I don't remember. It was pretty small so could be added to a photon casing without taking up too much space and bypass the shielding.
Grasping at straws perhaps but it could provide a means to make a similar torp to the one I mentioned.

Lt. Staplic wrote: though, if the fed's ever get the ability to expirament with cloaking, and do develop the phase cloak it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep five or six of these on board the Battle Cruisers/Battle Ships.

True no matter how expensive they were surely a couple on the bigger front line ships would make the enemy think twice about things. besides, I'm sure section 31 have a few built by now

colmquinn wrote:How did the Houdini mine work the Gem'hadar used on AR 558? Was it out of phase like the phased cloak or some other type of situation. Its been ages since I've seen the episode so I don't remember. It was pretty small so could be added to a photon casing without taking up too much space and bypass the shielding.
Grasping at straws perhaps but it could provide a means to make a similar torp to the one I mentioned.

The Jem'Hadar "mines" (and I use the term loosely) were "submerged in subspace" how that's meant to work I'm not sure, but it apparently blocked whatever sensors they were using as detonators - they simply emerged and detonated at random times, regardless of whether there was anyone nearby or not. As weapons of war they were completely useless, although the IRA would have loved them.

Ah well there goes another straw to grasp for
Only thing I really remember bout them was they were rubbish the way they were deployed but I liked the concept and that they had room for future development.

colmquinn wrote:Ah well there goes another straw to grasp for
Only thing I really remember bout them was they were rubbish the way they were deployed but I liked the concept and that they had room for future development.

ya, they were one of those things that get's developed as the evolutionary step between one great old wepon and one great new wepon...the only problem is that this "missing link" sucks.

The Houdini mines were completely useless for a whole host of reasons. The most obvious being that they allowed a hostile force to walk right through it. A minefield is supposed to deny an enemy from moving through an area; not make it mildly inconvinient.

They would have made a very effective minefied if only they went off everytime someone came into range, rather then at random.

agreed, though one befefit that is probably why the Dom used them is that the range of the mines goes up, and you have a chance of mining the enemy camp that way, though that benefit again doesn't come close to outweighing the down sides.

Aren't there real life mines that don't become active until some time after they are first deployed? I thought the idea was that it kept the enemy wondering, never knowing when a mines may suddenly go off in areas that they had thought of as being safe.

yes, but with houdini's they deploy randomly, even with the mines your talking about they've probably got proximity detectors, so they don't just explode when no ones around, houdini's do.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Aren't there real life mines that don't become active until some time after they are first deployed? I thought the idea was that it kept the enemy wondering, never knowing when a mines may suddenly go off in areas that they had thought of as being safe.

You're thinking of delayed-fuse cluster munitions. They aren't mines, although they are a form of area denial weapon - they're simply deployed as another nasty surprise.