Re: Guns: H&K, G3, 7.62 v 5.56 [Guns] (fwd)

I've only seen bolt action .50s fired.  They're not *too* heavy, and
from the amount of muzzle flash, noise, etc. it gave, I'd be as comfortable
using it at 1000-1500 yards as I would a .308 at 600-1000 yards.  Given
proper concealment and the absence of anyone looking directly at you
when you fire, that is.  Professional sniping is a 2 man operation anyway --
against a target that can shoot back, you really want to have a spotter.

>From what I can gather, the US military seems to agree with this
strategy -- .308s for traditional sniping, .50 for anti-materiel, extreme
long range, and countersniping.  Attacking an incoming force which has
its own snipers is mostly a job for the .50.  And if I were in the field
on the offense, I'd be attacking small enough groups that a few .50
rounds would be sufficient to kill them all or at least immobilize them.
Or high enough value targets to make a more likely kill worth the higher
risk during E&E.  True, they mainly use bolt-action .50s -- if the semi
auto version is really that much heavier, I'd probably go for the bolt
action gun in the field and the semi at my home.

For Tim May's situation, in a house, they know fairly well that he's firing
from the house.  Pretty much any weapon will give enough signature for them to
zero in on it and fire.  If he's lucky, and they just have carbines and
7.62 snipers, he could fire from one room, move to another, fire, etc.  Or have
enough cover to keep himself from getting hit.  But at some point, they'll
just bring in a real countersniper asset, like an automatic cannon, and
any muzzle flash will be responded to with several hundred AP/explosive shells.
Within the house, the weight of a .50 isn't that bad -- and the extra 500-1000
yards and AP capability might make a difference against a raid.  At the very
least, it'll get his place firebombed rather than shot up :)  Forcing
them to keep outside the 1500-2000 yard high danger range from a .50 (or
forcing them to stay behind serious cover) would give him a chance to duck
out and fight another day, too :)  A .50 is also a bit more effective
against helicopters containing special forces "monitoring" personnel
who are there (but of course not actually there) in violation of the law.

It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/
flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic
cannon or a small army, in response to a raid.  It would make a perfect
distraction during which to leave :)


I'd much rather write code, make money, and leave the country (not
necessarily in that order) than worry about defending myself from a
government which has shown time and time again it is willing to ignore
the law, though.

[ObCrypto:
* Eternity DDS is coming along.  The current almost-ready-for-announcement
version is using Postgres95 for a backend, sigh.  Design for the
first production-demo system is progressing as well.

* The Cypherpunks Archive project I was working on is also progressing.
Unfortunately, my archive is kind of weird -- it's in MIT discuss
format, and converting it into mbox is nontrivial, given the size of the
file.  After adding more memory to the system on which I'm editing the
file, I think I have an mbox file which is just missing one field.  I'm
planning to index them with hypermail, then glimpse.  On the cd, I'll
put the original mbox file, either as a single massive file or broken up,
depending on what people want, as well as a precomputed index and perhaps
the web site version as well.  The next step is to put all of the cypherpunks
archives into Eternity DDS -- Postgres95 seems to puke on large data objects
sometimes, so I'll need to fix that.

Once I get the cypherpunks archive done, I'll work on some other lists.  And
then hopefully some people will buy CD-Rs so I can buy another 25gb of HDD
or so :)

* Financial people are pretty cool.  I just got back from talking to some
about the Eternity Service concept, and they were really excited.  I really
didn't expect non-(electronic finance) finance people to be interested in it 
right away.  They even got more excited when the magic word "cryptography"
was mentioned.  Perhaps finance will fix the software industry.
-- 
Ryan Lackey
rdl@mit.edu
http://mit.edu/rdl/

At 6:19 PM -0800 1/3/98, Lucky Green wrote:

>What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid
>force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will
>always win.  A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial
>armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard
>Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun
>first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes
>later. The underground irrigation systems common on California properties
>are ideal means of gas deployment. You should be able to retrofit the
>system for under $500. Assuming you already have the gas. Of course you
>need to make sure to keep a chem suit at home.

In an age where it is accepted (and unpunished) behavior for the black-clad
ninja warriors to shoot through pregnant women, to burn children to death
in the name of publicity for the BATF, to raid the home of a woman who
refused to answer questions of the State psychiatric police, to shoot to
death a retired doctor who the raiders accidentally hit, and on and on,
other measures are needed.

(In none of these cases have the guilty parties been punished. If the State
will not restrain itself, other measures will be needed.)

This may well be why militias and survivalist groups are so actively
developing chemical and biological agents. (I hear that even some of the
dopers in the hills have gotten interested in Sarin release systems. Hoo
boy!)

Sad, but maybe one has to fight fire with fire. If a hundred SWAT
stormtroopers surround a compound and prepare to burn it down, releasing
the countermeasures may be needed.

In fact, leaking (no pun intended) word that a home has CBW deadman
switches may make the ninjas a bit less trigger-happy.

--Tim May, whose house is _not_ booby-trapped with Sarin, or Tabun, or
anything else, but who will defend to his death his right to talk as he
wishes about such things.


The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On 3 Jan 1998, Ryan Lackey wrote:
> It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/
> flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic
> cannon or a small army, in response to a raid.  It would make a perfect
> distraction during which to leave :)

[The following is a theoretical discusion. Do not try this at home].

What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid
force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will
always win.  A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial
armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard
Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun
first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes
later. The underground irrigation systems common on California properties
are ideal means of gas deployment. You should be able to retrofit the
system for under $500. Assuming you already have the gas. Of course you
need to make sure to keep a chem suit at home. 

After you make your exit, you can clean out the next with a previously
installed fuel/air explosive. 

-- Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred.
   "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?"

On Sun, 4 Jan 1998, Lucky Green wrote:

> On 3 Jan 1998, Ryan Lackey wrote:
> > It would be interesting to fit one's house with speakers/noise generators/
> > flash generators/smoke/etc. to make it look as if one has an automatic
> > cannon or a small army, in response to a raid.  It would make a perfect
> > distraction during which to leave :)
> 
> [The following is a theoretical discusion. Do not try this at home].
> 
> What you really want is the ability to slow down the mobility of the raid
> force while making your exit. In a prolonged siege, the attacker will
> always win.  A good way of slowing down the attacker after an initial
> armed response is to deploy chemicals. A combination of Tabun and Mustard
> Gas works best, but don't deploy them at the same time. Use the Tabun
> first for maximium impact. Follow up with the Mustard Gas a few minutes
> later.

Setting this off in an inhabited area is sure to make you a popular hero.

You'd be better off investing in a tunnel. Maybe Seymour Cray could use a 
job about now ...  ;)

(I never bought that car accident cover - he and Elvis are probably 
hangin' out in Tonga)

-r.w.