Weaponized Exhaust: Difference between revisions
Replaced redirects
m (Mass update links) |
(Replaced redirects) |
||
| (12 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:KzintiLesson.png|link=Known Space|
{{quote|"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."
|'''The Kzinti Lesson''', ''[[Larry Niven]]''.}}
Most [[Jet Pack|jetpacks, rocket boots]], and [[Cool Starship|spaceships]] give off impressive plumes of fiery exhaust when they're moving. For the most part, this exhaust is just there to [[Rule of Perception|show that something's happening]]. But the exhaust of a rocket can also double as a [[Kill It
▲{{quote|"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."|'''The Kzinti Lesson''', ''[[Larry Niven]]''.}}
Also known as '''[[Known Space|Kzinti Lesson]]:''' the more efficient a reaction drive is, the better a weapon it makes. An inversion of the [[Law of Inverse Recoil]], since the recoil in these cases is intentional. Also an inversion of [[Recoil Boost]], which is [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|an exhaustized weapon]]. A subtrope of [[Superweapon Surprise]]. [[Fartillery]] is effectively the biological variant of this. See also [[Backpack Cannon]].▼
▲Most [[Jet Pack|jetpacks, rocket boots]], and [[Cool Starship|spaceships]] give off impressive plumes of fiery exhaust when they're moving. For the most part, this exhaust is just there to [[Rule of Perception|show that something's happening]]. But the exhaust of a rocket can also double as a [[Kill It With Fire|short-ranged weapon]], especially during a getaway. Characters with [[Jet Pack|jet boots]] can perform really effective [[Goomba Stomp|Goomba Stomps]], while starship pilots can [[Superweapon Surprise|cause enormous damage]] with their drive flames.
▲Also known as '''[[Known Space|Kzinti Lesson]]:''' the more efficient a reaction drive is, the better a weapon it makes. An inversion of the [[Law of Inverse Recoil]], since the recoil in these cases is intentional. Also an inversion of [[Recoil Boost]], which is [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|an exhaustized weapon]]. A subtrope of [[Superweapon Surprise]]. [[Fartillery]] is effectively the biological variant of this. See also [[Backpack Cannon]].
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''Orguss 02'': Young [[Humongous Mecha]] mechanic Lean has [[Falling Into the Cockpit|fallen into the cockpit]] and is barely holding his own against an enemy pilot. His solution: tackle the other Decimator mecha onto a nearby island, bend its [[Schizo
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]'', Kou gives Gato a face-full of his Gundam's maneuvering thrusters when locked in close combat. This doesn't actually damage Gato's Gundam, but it does blind and distract him.
** The leader of [[La Résistance]] is killed in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team]]'' when a Zaku fires it's thrusters in an attempt to escape an ambush. The backwash takes out his entire house, too. And this was ''entirely by accident'' and happened mostly because a resistance member in that house fired an anti-tank rocket at it.
** ''[[
** In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', one luckless Zaku was caught behind ''White Base'' as she was taking off and got vaporized by the engines.
** At the end of the Guyana Highlands arc of G Gundam, Domon knocks over Master Asia's gundam and basically blowtorches Master Gundam away.
Line 21:
** In one of the Robotech novels, a Zentraedi uses his battlepod's feet as blowtorches to fight off an Invid scout.
* In ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'', Lafiel kills Baron Febdash the Younger by venting antimatter propellant through the exhaust nozzles of her shuttle - curiously, the Baron's ship is not obliterated when the exhaust hits its hull, while the Baron succumbs to [[Blood From the Mouth|rapid radiation poisoning]].
* In ''[[Last Exile: Fam,
== Comic Books ==
Line 33:
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[
* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' fic series ''[[
* In ''[[Sleeping
== Film ==
* ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' remake, when Leo uses the crashed Oberon's main thruster to burn the ape army's first wave.
* The [[Cool Car|Batmobile's]] jet engine is used as a weapon in ''[[
* In ''[[Alien (
* In ''[[Indiana Jones and
* Hugo Drax attempts to do this to [[James Bond (
** At the start of the movie the stolen shuttle does this to its carrier aircraft during its getaway.
* Richard B. Riddick does this to the alien monsters as the survivors make their getaway at the end of ''[[Pitch Black]]''.
* In ''[[RoboCop
* In ''[[Face
* In the Movie version of ''[[Iron Man (
* In ''[[The Rocketeer (
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
* In ''[[Transformers
* The [[Daniel Craig]] version of ''[[
== Literature ==
Line 60:
* Taken to absolutely humongous extremes in Mark Geston's novel ''Lords of the Starship'', in which a ''seven mile long'' rocket is built to carry humanity away from a war-ravaged Earth. But it's all a horrible trick: when the rocket is finally completed after more than a century a vast battle rages in its shadow between its millions of supporters and opponents. And then the ship slides down the slipway, and turns around until its engines are pointing towards the warring armies... just imagine how big and how hot a seven-mile long spaceship's rocket exhaust would be. It was all part of a plot by an ancient enemy to get revenge and take over the world. What's left of it.
* In the first ''[[Dune]]'' novel, the Emperor reports that his [[Super Soldiers|Sardukar]] only escaped with their lives after attacking a Fremen sietch by doing this (he was aghast, and rightly so, that his [[Super Soldiers|Super Extra Elite Finest Troops]] were outfought by [[Superweapon Surprise|a settlement of elders, women and children]]).
* In ''[[Harry Potter and
* As part of the climactic sequence of [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''Scourge the Heretic'', an Inquisition shuttle pilot uses his exhaust to blast the front wall off the bad guys' mansion.
* In the early [[
* Unintentionally used by a number of "hot-shot" pilots throughout the [[X Wing Series]], generally resulting in little scars on the hangar floor. Corran Horn also once used an airspeeder's exhaust to help vent an area of toxic gas.
** The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|EU]] also has it that, while the exhaust of capital ships doesn't pose much of a threat to like-sized ships, it can fry unwary fighters.
Line 71:
* In [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Revelation Space'', one of the [[Lost Technology|hell-class weapons]] is possessed by a sentient, alien computer virus and attempts to destroy an inhabited planet; disaster is narrowly averted by hitting it with the exhaust from a Conjoiner Drive.
** Also used in ''The Prefect'', where the Conjoiner engines of the lighthugger ''Accompaniment of Shadows'' are used to destroy the Ruskin-Sartorious habitat.
* Not exactly ''exhaust'', per se, but the [[
** Used in the first of the series (''On Basilisk Station'') when Honor cripples one of Havenite shuttles that were ready to summon the invasion fleet.
** This is how countermissiles work too. They don't have warheads; they just hit the impeller wedge of enemy missiles with their own wedge, destroying both with the feedback on their drives.
** The trope is also effectively [[Played With]] given that these wedges with their horrifying capacity for destruction are primarily used as ''[[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me|shields]]'' when they aren't used for propulsion, given that they effectively cover the ship completley from the top and bottom. This becomes very important in ''Mission of Honor'' when a group of ships have to use their wedges to try and protect the planets below from falling debris during an attack. {{spoiler|They only partially succeed. And the planets were [[Wham! Episode|Manticore and Sphinx]].}}
* In [[David Weber]]'s Dahak series, the gravitational "backwash" from the [[FTL|warp drive]] is used to blow up a star. Fun times abound when your [[That's No Moon|planetoid-sized ships]] use artificial black holes as ''propulsion''.
* In Sergey Lukyanenko's ''[[Line of Delirium]]'' novel, the main characters are infiltrating/storming a military orbital platform. Upon receiving a coded signal, their ship, sitting in the hangar bay, uses it's gravity engine to "push out" the hangar bay doors and then activates the plasma engines to fry the combat droids guarding it.
* In [[Arthur C. Clarke
* In [[
** Given when it was written (1960), this example should be a candidate for trope namer.
*** (For those who want to know the details: the ship is dived headlong towards the enemy base, and then flipped end-for-end and full thrust applied to cancel out the velocity gained. The shields are overloaded and collapse, and then the target follows. Twice.)
* The ''[[
{{quote|
** Also used in the climax of the novel "I Am Jade Falcon." The aging Falcon Mechwarrior Joanna is trapped in a fallen ''Summoner,'' having lost a leg in battle and with her weapons nonfunctional. {{spoiler|She activates her one remaining offensive option, the jump jets in her 'Mech's remaining leg, which causes the flare from the jets to impale [[Badass|Khan Natasha Kerensky]]'s [[Ace Custom|modified Dire Wolf]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|"Widowmaker"]] through the cockpit, killing her and making Joanna a Jade Falcon legend.}}
* Used as a particularly gruesome method of execution in Scarecrow by [[Matthew Reilly]], with the afterburner of a tied-down fighter jet.
* In Georgy Gurevich ''Overtake Only'' the protagonists who've just stolen an old photonic rocket from a museum ([[It Makes Sense in Context|it's a long story]]) deal with the pursuers by pointing the reflector at them and starting the engine, evaporating in the process not only them, [[What the Hell, Hero?|but a good chunk of the space station]] to which the rocket was docked as well.
* In the [[James Bond (
* In ''[[When Worlds Collide (
* In Poul Anderson's ''Harvest of Stars'', there is a treaty banning weapons in space. When the main characters get into a space battle with the bad guys, it is essentially a game of cat and mouse, each trying to slash the other with their exhausts while avoiding getting slashed themselves.
* Mack Maloney's ''Wingman'' series has an air pirate early on threaten to torture Hawk Hunter by strapping his face to the engine of his fighter and slowly turning up the power. While he never goes through with this threat, in a later book (''Freedom Express'') Hawk kills an escaping baddie by flying his Harrier over the jeep and cooking them until the obese lieutenant [[Ludicrous Gibs|bursts]].
* Used in ''Aeons Child'' in [[Robert Reed]] - a starship's fusion rocket is disassembled, brought inside the [[Big Dumb Object|Great Ship]], and reassembled to be used as a last-ditch weapon to purge a chamber of a hostile [[Genius Loci|Gaian]] entity.
==
* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' [[Pilot]], Wash uses Serenity's exhaust flame to ignite a planet's atmosphere as a way to disable/distract a Reaver ship after performing a "Crazy Ivan".
{{quote|
** Mal ''also'' intended to use the exhaust (both the flames and more importantly the physical pressure) against Burgess' troops in "Heart of Gold", but that plan never got off the ground.
* A ''[[Space: 1999]]'' episode, "Voyager's Return," concerned a probe whose drive system was lethal.
* In an ''[[Andromeda]]'' episode, the crew encounters an ancient Earth STL ship, which uses its massive fusion engine to rapidly accelerate to near-light speeds (it was built before humans learned about [[Subspace or Hyperspace|slipstream]]). In a pinch, this defenseless ship can use the same engine to incinerate enemy ships at the cost of precious fuel.
* Played with in ''[[Top Gear]]'' with a car shooting paintballs from its exhaust. It proved a highly effective weapon when one hit Clarkson [[Groin Attack|quite painfully]].
== Real Life ==▼
* ''[[Myth Busters]]'' had a jumbo jet's engines overturn a taxi, a schoolbus, and a smaller aircraft.▼
** They also set their own shop on fire testing a rocket engine ''indoors''. [[Don't Try This At Home]].▼
** ''[[Top Gear]]'' did the same stunt at one point, using a saloon car and then a Citroen 2CV.▼
* The Convair X-6 was a prototype of atomic-fueled bomber releases so much radioactivity on its path, to make it a weapon itself. The project has been closed as there was no way to reduce the emission when in friendly territory.▼
* The [[Fun With Acronyms|Supersonic Low Altitude Missile]] (also known as "The Flying Crowbar", or more formally [http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html Project Pluto]) would have been an unmanned nuclear-armed cruise missile with an unshielded nuclear ramjet leaving a deadly trail of fallout in its wake. Part of the plan was to have the SLAM run a pattern over the target country after it had delivered its bombs, intentionally irradiating the land.▼
* Inverted with the [[Orion Drive|Orion Project]], which would ''intentionally'' launch ''thermonuclear bombs'' out the back and catching the blast with a pusher plate on massive shock absorbers. Call it [[Mundane Utility|Exhaustized]] [[Recoil Boost|Weapons]]. Or not.▼
** The only space station ever to be really armed (an old Soviet station that had a machine gun on it) ran into problems with the reaction from the bullets pushing it out of its correct orbit.▼
* Thanks to Newton's laws, it's been argued that any kind of drive powerful enough to accelerate a large ship to appreciable speeds would make a phenomenal weapon against said ship's enemies.▼
** Consider the following: to get the space shuttle into orbit, it takes about 10 terajoules of energy. That's enough to boil over 1000 tons of iron, all delivered in eight minutes. That's an average of 20 gigawatts of power. For comparison, when people talk about possible real-world directed energy weapons, they talk in tens of kilowatts. A laser is more directed and longer ranged, but even the relatively wimpy chemical rockets used to get into orbit deliver about two hundred thousand to two million times as much power.▼
* The earliest war rockets tended to work this way. When Tippoo Sultan used them against the British in the Indian wars of the late 18th century, rockets tended to do more damage if you dropped them in a confined space and they ricocheted off the walls burning people with their exhaust than if you used them the conventional way. This was partly because they were too inaccurate to be directly aimed at targets, but another thing that played into it was the fact that such rockets couldn't really carry an explosive payload either.▼
* Almost all rocket-propelled weapons have a hazardous zone behind them. Size of that zone varies with weapon, but it is a very bad idea to stand behind an MLRS (or a humble RPG operator) during launch. Operators of man-portable rocket-propelled weapons are told not to fire their weapons if they have a wall behind their back.▼
** Averted by the German Armbrust and French/Canadian Eryx antitank launchers. The Armbrust exhausts a relatively gentle puff of plastic flakes while the exhaust gases are captured in the tube by sealing pistons. The Eryx has a tiny charge to kick the missile out of the tube, then the main rocket ignites at a safe distance. Both launchers can be used in enclosed spaces with no harm to the crew.▼
** Also partially averted by the [[AT 4]]-CS, which uses a salt-water counter-mass to absorb much of the blast.▼
* The General Dynamics F-111 was well known for dump-and-burn performances. Because the main fuel dump valve was located between the exhausts, opening it and bumping the afterburners would leave a spectacular trail of flame. This was a legitimate tactic for confusing heat-seeking missiles and an airshow specialty of the Royal Australian Air Force, even being performed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony.▼
* Also applies to warp drives - the Alucbierre Drive [http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-annihilating-effects-space.html would fry whatever you stopped at.] Then again it'd make interstellar wars pretty easy...▼
* The ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyGDxglTVgA Big Wind]'' is an old tank chassis fitted with surplus jet engines, built to fight oil well fires by ''blowing them out''.▼
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[GURPS]]: Space'' lists the offensive potential of several engines. Because GURPS assumes that most engines will not have particularly coherent exhaust streams they're relatively weak compared to normal armaments.
** The [[Rule of Cool|nuclear jetpack]] blasts superheated radioactive exhaust at everyone below it. Why anyone would wear such a thing is a different issue.
*** A BBEG using it to escape the heroes?
* SPI's classic boardgame ''StarForce'' uses a relative of this trope. In the game, "TeleShips" move [[Faster
* [[
* In Palladium's [[Rifts]] sourcebook "Mechanoids", Overlords and Oracles (evil, building sized robots with a bend for human extermination) are packed full of weapons, but still like the elegant process of flying a few meters over unprotected humans. Crispy bacon.
== Web Comics ==
* James from ''[[
* Inverted in '''[[
* An engineer in ''[[Vexxarr]]'' [http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=080210 pointed out] that since by definition hot plasma goes in the direction exactly ''opposite'' to the ship' acceleration, this also solves a fundamental philosophical dilemma -- "fight or flight".
* In ''[[
== Web Original ==
Line 144 ⟶ 124:
* You can use this in ''Gates of Zendocon'' on the Atari Lynx.
* In the ''[[Battlefield (
* PTX-40A in [[Capcom vs. Whatever|Tatsunoko vs. Capcom]] uses its thrusters as attacks in some of its command normals.
* In the Irem [[Shoot'Em Up]] ''Image Fight'', changing gears causes a tiny burst of exhaust that can do some damage in a pinch.
Line 156 ⟶ 136:
** This is a common attack in shmup games, the third boss of ''Ray Force'' and the Twin black MIGS boss of ''Aero Fighters'' do the same thing.
** One of ''[[Gradius]] Gaiden'''s stage 9 midbosses, Boost Core, has harmless exhaust...but only on the first loop. From the second loop onwards, its exhaust is lethal.
* The second boss in [[
* In ''[[One Must Fall]] 2097'', the Pyros robot is equipped with rocket boosters that double as flamethrowers. One particular special move has the Pyros use the boosters to reverse direction in midair, damaging any close-by opponent in the process.
* Several of [[Robot Buddy|R.O.B.]]'s attacks in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'' involve this. [[Star Fox (
* In ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles
* Vectorman's foot jets that allow him to [[Double Jump]] also allow him to deal damage to his enemies via the [[Goomba Stomp]] method.
* Space RTS [[
** [[Fridge Logic|Well of course it was]], [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|since they used mass drivers]].
* In ''[[Dead Space (
* In [[Metal Gear Solid|Metal Gear Solid 2]] the harrier boss burns you with its exhaust as one of its attacks.
* [[Kirby]]'s Jet ability has this when it's charging power, as well as when Kirby is attacking, at least in ''[[Kirby Super Star]]''.
** In the DS remake, it also causes damage while using it to hover, which is a surprisingly effective method of disposing of bosses and enemies alike at times.
* In ''[[Half-Life]]'', a tentacle monster is living inside one of Black Mesa's rocket test chambers. [[Kill It
* In ''[[Darius|G-Darius]]'', the boss "[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Death]] [[Meaningful Name|Wings]]", a [[Humongous Mecha]] [[Flying Seafood Special|manta ray]] tries to torch the silver hawks via exhaust from its manta ray "wings".
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' [[All There in the Manual|has a codex entry]] noting that a [[Cool Starship|dreadnought]]'s exhaust can melt through practically anything (we never see it used, though).
** Not just dreadnoughts; any ship's thrusters can melt armor "like wax under a blowtorch".
*** According to the (unofficial) Wikia;
{{quote|
** The Normandy generates Mass Effect fields that it "falls" into, in order to mask it's emissions when in stealth mode. Just ''imagine'' what multiple, sufficiently powerful directed Mass Effect fields could do under the right circumstances... [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Ships_and_Vehicles#Normandy_Shield_Upgrade:_Cyclonic_Barrier_Technology_.28CBT.29 oh, wait, that's suggested here], albeit in the form of shields rather than engines. Still!
** Finally played straight in the ''Arrival'' [[Downloadable Content|DLC]], when Shepard and Dr. Kenson escape from the Batarian prison, some guards arrive a bit late to stop them... and find themselves on the wrong end of their escape shuttle.
* The airship levels in ''[[
* In ''[[Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter]]'' and its later games, flying too close to a capital ship's rear thrusters causes damage. If you chose a non-engine location as a staging point for a "safe" point-blank attack, it would use a weapon jamming beam.
* In ''[[The Bouncer]]'', [[The Dragon|Mugetsu]] is killed by being dropped off the side of an airship, into its booster jets.
* Though it naturally doesn't come up in gameplay, ISA cruisers in ''[[Killzone]]'' can use their nuclear-powered beam thrusters as weapons, too.
Line 182 ⟶ 162:
* This is a surprisingly effective way to kill someone if your clones lack better weaponry (and sometimes even when they do due to the wonky physics making them ineffective) in ''[[Cortex Command]]''.
** It's also quite effective at killing enemy dropships when piloting a dropship yourself. Being that the ships are unarmed and with very weakly armored engines, the best course of action is to position your ship so one of its engines is exhausting on top of one of the engines of the enemy dropship, and hit the throttle.
* In ''[[
* Of all games, ''[[Einhander]]'' has one for the ''player character''. By changing speed, your craft gives out a burst of exhaust, which along with the manipulator arm may be the deadliest weapons in the game. Because of this, it's possible to beat a level ''without firing a shot''. Elsewhere in the game, the booster rockets for the satellite can kill you if you fly behind them.
** The Star Soldier series uses this variant as well. At times, a ring-shaped enemy ship will enclose you, and the fastest way to dispatch it is to mash the "speed change" button while firing.
Line 190 ⟶ 170:
* Sebulba in ''[[Star Wars]]: Episode 1 Racer'' has this, just like in the movie.
* The gunship in ''[[Perfect Dark]] Zero'' attacks with its engine flames after it [[Turns Red]].
* In ''[[James Bond 007: Nightfire]]'', Bond kills off Kiko with the exhaust of a Space Shuttle owned by Phoenix.
== Western Animation ==
* Inverted by skilled firebenders in ''[[
* [[Batman:
* Really bizarre example occurs in ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]''. Stitch is on the back of the evil shark alien's ship, and to attack him, the alien pushes a button that causes the thrusters to turn inward and blast Stitch (who is fine, being [[Nigh Invulnerable]] and in a Disney movie). Why would he even ''have'' a button that does that?!
** Space Barnacles? Or to cut tow cables that might be attached. Or to 'terminate' captured targets.
Line 206 ⟶ 186:
* ''[[Transformers Animated]]'': Prowl uses his jetpack to burn a Space Barnacle monster in "Nature Calls".
▲== Real Life ==
▲* ''[[
▲** They also set their own shop on fire testing a rocket engine ''indoors''. [[Don't Try This At Home]].
▲** ''[[Top Gear]]'' did the same stunt at one point, using a saloon car and then a Citroen 2CV.
▲* The Convair X-6 was a prototype of atomic-fueled bomber releases so much radioactivity on its path, to make it a weapon itself. The project has been closed as there was no way to reduce the emission when in friendly territory.
▲* The [[Fun
▲* Inverted with the [[Orion Drive|Orion Project]], which would ''intentionally'' launch ''thermonuclear bombs'' out the back and catching the blast with a pusher plate on massive shock absorbers. Call it [[Mundane Utility|Exhaustized]] [[Recoil Boost|Weapons]]. Or not.
▲
▲* Thanks to Newton's laws, it's been argued that any kind of drive powerful enough to accelerate a large ship to appreciable speeds would make a phenomenal weapon against said ship's enemies.
▲** Consider the following: to get the space shuttle into orbit, it takes about 10 terajoules of energy. That's enough to boil over 1000 tons of iron, all delivered in eight minutes. That's an average of 20 gigawatts of power. For comparison, when people talk about possible real-world directed energy weapons, they talk in tens of kilowatts. A laser is more directed and longer ranged, but even the relatively wimpy chemical rockets used to get into orbit deliver about two hundred thousand to two million times as much power.
▲* The earliest war rockets tended to work this way. When Tippoo Sultan used them against the British in the Indian wars of the late 18th century, rockets tended to do more damage if you dropped them in a confined space and they ricocheted off the walls burning people with their exhaust than if you used them the conventional way. This was partly because they were too inaccurate to be directly aimed at targets, but another thing that played into it was the fact that such rockets couldn't really carry an explosive payload either.
▲* Almost all rocket-propelled weapons have a hazardous zone behind them. Size of that zone varies with weapon, but it is a very bad idea to stand behind an MLRS (or a humble RPG operator) during launch. Operators of man-portable rocket-propelled weapons are told not to fire their weapons if they have a wall behind their back.
▲** Averted by the German Armbrust and French/Canadian Eryx antitank launchers. The Armbrust exhausts a relatively gentle puff of plastic flakes while the exhaust gases are captured in the tube by sealing pistons. The Eryx has a tiny charge to kick the missile out of the tube, then the main rocket ignites at a safe distance. Both launchers can be used in enclosed spaces with no harm to the crew.
▲** Also partially averted by the [[AT 4]]-CS, which uses a salt-water counter-mass to absorb much of the blast.
▲* The General Dynamics F-111 was well known for dump-and-burn performances. Because the main fuel dump valve was located between the exhausts, opening it and bumping the afterburners would leave a spectacular trail of flame. This was a legitimate tactic for confusing heat-seeking missiles and an airshow specialty of the Royal Australian Air Force, even being performed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony.
▲* Also applies to warp drives - the Alucbierre Drive [http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-annihilating-effects-space.html would fry whatever you stopped at.] Then again it'd make interstellar wars pretty easy...
▲* The ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyGDxglTVgA Big Wind]'' is an old tank chassis fitted with surplus jet engines, built to fight oil well fires by ''blowing them out''.
{{reflist}}
Line 214 ⟶ 209:
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Combat Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||