assymmetric
New Member
I would like to share a tactic I have been thinking about for some time and get some feedback. I am thinking from the standpoint that war could be considered in some ways an economic transaction where each opponents spends money with the goal of causing more economic harm to the adversary relative to the cost of such tactic.
Imagine taking a high altitude heavy bomber and outfitting it with 20 tons of fishing string on high power motorized spools, and flying over a city with the spools dispensing at high RPM, and dropping the fishing line (say 100 pound strength) over the city. At $2 per kilogram, the cost of the string would cost about 40 thousand dollars at retail cost (buying in bulk according to some prices online).
At the cost of 40,000 dollars, imagine the amount of economic interference and general mayhem that would cause a city. Obviously the string would end up everywhere, and any moving vehicle, wind, or animal movement would create dangerous spider webs of invisible line that would severe, block, entangle, and interfere with all operations within the city.
I can't help but think this would be the most cost effective ways of causing general mayhem, maybe by orders of magnitude compared to any other tactic that I could imagine. The persistence of the fishing line, and its strength relative to its weight, its low profile, and ability to spread unpredictably, would seem to make it extremely hard to deal with.
I like to throw out wild estimates, as it beats having no number at all. I would venture that the 40k investment, if dispensed over a 20 square mile industrial sector, could cause perhaps a billion dollars in lost productivity/clean up cost/damage. It would be even more interesting to consider 1000 sorties over a country and what kind of psychological/social impact it would have to its population. Thoughts?
Imagine taking a high altitude heavy bomber and outfitting it with 20 tons of fishing string on high power motorized spools, and flying over a city with the spools dispensing at high RPM, and dropping the fishing line (say 100 pound strength) over the city. At $2 per kilogram, the cost of the string would cost about 40 thousand dollars at retail cost (buying in bulk according to some prices online).
At the cost of 40,000 dollars, imagine the amount of economic interference and general mayhem that would cause a city. Obviously the string would end up everywhere, and any moving vehicle, wind, or animal movement would create dangerous spider webs of invisible line that would severe, block, entangle, and interfere with all operations within the city.
I can't help but think this would be the most cost effective ways of causing general mayhem, maybe by orders of magnitude compared to any other tactic that I could imagine. The persistence of the fishing line, and its strength relative to its weight, its low profile, and ability to spread unpredictably, would seem to make it extremely hard to deal with.
I like to throw out wild estimates, as it beats having no number at all. I would venture that the 40k investment, if dispensed over a 20 square mile industrial sector, could cause perhaps a billion dollars in lost productivity/clean up cost/damage. It would be even more interesting to consider 1000 sorties over a country and what kind of psychological/social impact it would have to its population. Thoughts?
