[E Stafford]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Joel Minturn]

It seems to me that the reason the army like to use UAVs has more to do with the long loiter time than not putting people at risk. That a UAV can stay in the target area for several hours, being the eyes in the sky or looking for targets seems to be there big selling point.

As for artillery, isn't the US now using laser guided artillery shells? Drop a shell right were its asked for in a fraction of the time of calling in an air strike and a fraction of the cost of cruise missiles and faster time to target.

I would assume the next war could be "virtual". Think a war between countries fought online. Join the national hacker corp

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Well, I should note that I accept the rather radical notions about technological progress put forth by Ray Kurzweil and company. I suspect artificial intelligence will match and then exceed human intelligence in the coming decades. These futurist predictions may be too optimistic, but by the time we're fighting war in space, you can be sure combat will have changed completely. Unless AI fails dramatically or we reject it as a species, I don't see any place for squishy human soldiers in battles amongst the stars.

What Joel wrote is key. You don't have to anticipate human-level AI to see the push to remove folks from harm's way. The US military runs commercials about unmanning the front lines. Imagine how much easier it'd be wage war without the body bags coming home. Furthermore, humans cost a lot. A great portion of the American military budget goes to people. Paying for medical care, pensions, and whatnot. Robots could be significantly cheaper. The political and economic advantages are irresistible.

[M. Eversberg II]

[Gene Green]

[Lou Weaver]

kaor everyone ! this topic has certainly generated a spirited response on various levels and i apreciate it. to sum things up it appears that once john carter or any other terran has adjusted to the low grav he would be hell on wheels. also,ballistic weapons will have greater range and even more if you factor in less drag from a somewhat thinner atmosphere. a local would be firing a weapon with equivalent recoil energy compared to a terran , a 4.8mm , 57 grain with a muzzle velocity of 2800 fps compares to the .30-06 at 150 grains and 2800 fps. bows and crossbows would be lighter but kar komak the boman from lothar would have perhaps a draw weight of only 75.8 pounds to match his barsoomian muscles ( 75.8 = 200 pound longbow for a terran hero's longbow ). mechanical strength would not change under lower grav. the arrow from kar komak's bow would travel as far on barsoom as would the arrow cast from the 200 pound bow on earth. will advanced weapons coexist alongside traditional ones? that depends on culture. if your race experienced total war and all it's horror then you might come up with a way around it. barsoom is a work of fiction but i will use it as an example. you start with a culture or cultures that believe in honor ( unlike our poor world ) and then the great drought begines lesding to a period of horrific conflict over resouces they nearly sucumb before uniting together to rescue the planet. durring this time the red race and its composite culture developes blending elements of orovar, okari and firstborn. part of this would be a set of stringet rules to prevent the escalation of conflict.the green race would be convinced of the wisdom of this as well (i have my own ideas about the history of the 'lajvari' but ask me later) . these rules would be rigidly enforced and violations punished . over the centuries and millenia it would become the naturalway of things!

[Dan P]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Lou Weaver]

it seems we are rapidly reaching a point where our technology and readiness to commit genocide will collide and leave who or what to start over.i pray to all the dead gods that our ra ce can come to a sollution that does noy leave the human race neutered and as passive as cattle. what is life with out danger and risk? war is a human thing for good or ill and by taking humans out of it and using robotics is not only cold and sterile but cowardly. that said let us ruminate on the subject of combat of a more sustainable and dare i say, honorable nature ? whould limmited warfare legitimize its use at the drop of a hat? perhaps keeping the bloodshed up close and personal is the correct path. i started this post as question concerning realistic combat under low grav conditions as recounted in literature,what more interesting realizations can we conceive of it?

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Chad Arnow]

We're getting way off-topic folks. Comments on current US policy and on the human race's current proclivities are best discussed somewhere else.

[Douglas S]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Ed Toton]

Back to swords in low gravity (such as Mars)... As others have already pointed out, the mass remains the same, though the weight is lower due to reduced gravity. But the part people usually forget about is that lower gravity also means lower gravitational acceleration. This I think would have the biggest effect on how you move. That is, the time it takes for you to come back down from a jump, leap, stride, or lunge will be longer. The way you move would have to take this into account, but I think with practice anyone would find this relatively easy.

In terms of the sword motion, you're mostly dealing with the mass of the weapon and your own limbs, and it wouldn't be that much different than on earth, except that upward motions wouldn't have to fight gravity as much, and downward motions wouldn't be aided by it as much. Again, I think it wouldn't take long for people to adjust to this either.

Firearm recoil wouldn't matter much in low gravity since the recoil is not strong compared to the inertia of your body.