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Marshall and Sanow's survey results say you're wrong. Hmmm - published and referenced data versus AC claiming to be a "trauma surgeon". Sorry if you're not believed...

I'd like to be your sole source supplier of ammunition.

I''ll HALVE the price of what you currently pay, and retire rich...

http://www.chuckhawks.com/factory_ammo_prices.htm

Bit of advice: When shooting at targets in the air, hunters generally use a shotgun, IE a smoothbore firearm loaded with little balls of lead or bismuth* alloys. In any case, shotguns loaded with shot are hazardous for far shorter distances, which is why you're allowed to fire them into the air.

Given that they were hunting pigeons, shooting at the drone with a rifle would require the 'dipshit' to go back to his vehicle or building and retrieve a rifle, and it's a tough shot.

It's far more likely many of the hunters 'donated' a shot or two at the drone with their pigeon guns. Pigeons relatively small birds, a commonly recommended size is #7.5. As Dick Cheney so ably demonstrated while hunting quail using the same #7.5 shot you'd expect for pigeon, you can easily survive being shot in the face with it merely 30 yards away.

Given the way the protestors tend to operate, I can fully believe them going 'closer! closer! to the point that the drone ends up within easy range** even for short range shot. Then it's just a matter of a 'lucky hit', which isn't hard when each shot is tossing ~250 pellets at the target.

*Less enivornmentally hazardous than lead.
**With this type of shot, it's more a question of penetration at range than the hitting itself. If they're not doing enough damage, I'd imagine that a few might of had some shells loaded with larger pellets, perhaps #4-5, which would have more energy out that far, at the expense of fewer balls.

(someone threw a red bull can at her out of a car, which could cause serious injury)

Only for very small values of "serious". A beverage can weighs 14 grams, about the same as a 9 mm bullet.

Assuming the most awesome car at top speed, the speed of a Ferrari is 100 m/s while the speed of a rifle bullet (same link) is 1000 m/s. Considering that energy scales with the square of velocity, it would take one of the most expensive cars in the world at top speed to cause one hundredth of the damage with a beverage can as a bullet shot from a gun that you can buy at any gun shop in the USA.

I think highly of the British and recognize her many achievements during WWII even if American history texts are lacking in that respect.

I'm not on about who was better (and I recognize you're not, either), but you may be making my point - and you have a few inaccuracies.

The Japanese won a moral and military victory over the British Navy in the Pacific before the US involvement. Wish I could remember the names of those ships lost or the Japanese admiral who devised the plan. Point is, the east colonies were largely out at that point, leaving those you mention. The only protection for such shipping would have the US and British Navies - no disrespect, but the other countries didn't have sufficient size Navies for surface force escorts.

US casualties were on par with the UK - but the US had more in its Army alone than the combined services of the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

I submit the following points:

1. I don't know if it's true that the Spitfire (a marvelous airplane) won the air war or not, but I'll accept the statement at face value. That being said, and given you're not referring to the Battle of Britain, to which particular aspect do you refer? Ground support? Where was the UK going to get the men to double its effective fighting force for these ground battles, if not the US? Bomber escort? The Spit lacked the range, and that's assuming that the Lancasters, et al, would have been able to take to the air without US resupply. In addition, those Spitfires didn't do the job themselves, as the top three fighters in sheer numbers alone were all US - the P-47, P-51, and P-40. http://www.chuckhawks.com/p40.htm

2. Resupply. Had the US not entered the war, where would those supplies come from? The US and US Merchant Marine would have stayed out of harm's way. Snorkel detection did not allow Britain to win the sea war, neither did Britain win the sea war, neither would it have even it did without re-supply from the US. I guess for your argument to work, the US would have had to have been a den of mere shopkeepers, willing to supply the UK with Liberty Ships without any interest in the outcome (or something - the self-references become tangled at this point, but the historical inaccuracy in such a viewpoint alone would be worth a book - that no one would read). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship Those 2751 Liberty Ships weren't used to sail between the British Isles or Canada or India - they were bringing materiel with them - from the US. The production capacity of the UK was seriously threatened and would have diminished beyond your theory's basis had there been no US resupply, and without that resupply, the UK's ability to fight this hypothetical protracted war stretches the imagination to the breaking point.

3. Production capacity of Russia? No. http://www.amazon.ca/Russias-Life-Saver-Lend-Lease-U-S-S-R-World/dp/0739107364 Production capacity you ascribe is something they specifically lacked. The Ju-87D sucked against modern forces, but did quite well in the USSR, until US P-39s, with Soviet pilots, took to the air. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-39_Airacobra

4. It was not a war of attrition in 1942 when the US arrived in the European theatre. It was a war of bold strikes and new tactics for mechanized warfare.

I suppose in the US, Hollywood generally ignores the British in telling the story of the war; I find a lot of people think of the Brits like a Ladies Auxiliary or something. But you're doing the same thing in reverse. From the simplest (and not unreasonable) reading of statistics, then according to your version of history, the UK was going to win on its own, taking longer time,

Design an 8 cylinder internal combustion engine where each cylinder wall is the stator of an electric generator, and the pistons are the rotor. Deceleration of the massive piston (in comparison to the projectile) would generate a current spike onto the railgun rail. Still not enough? Use really massive pistons and a higher compression. Still not enough? Use a flywheel to store the energy.
The energy density of a flywheel is significantly higher than a capacitor bank and there are fewer energy losses.

The point is, if the induction pulse can be shaped correctly, it's not necessary to store the energy electrically.

Think of it as an energy conversion problem:

How much kinetic energy does one piston in an internal combustion engine contain:

From http://www.flatlanderracing.com/jechrys-sbft.html
Piston weighs 489 grams (1.08 lbs) stroke = 4"
Assuming 5500 RPM (181 trips up and down per second), pistons max speed is
181 trips/sec * pi * 4" stroke = 2298 in/sec = 191 feet/sec

From http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_ballistics_table.htm .308 Win. (150 Sp) has 2820fps and 2648 foot pounds of energy
e = mv^2 so projectile weight = .0003 lbs
The 1.08lb piston would need to move (2648 = 1.08 * v^2) or v = 49 feet/sec to have as much energy.

As you can see, one one pound piston in an engine running at 5500 RPM contains almost 4 times as much kinetic energy as a .308 round. The engine would stall if you tried to extract that much energy however:

The power output of a chrysler slant 6 engine is 134kw (mere 180 hp), power in watts of a 308 round is 3590 watt seconds.

Assuming railgun efficiency of 47%, energy extraction from the flywheel efficiency of 70% = 32%, you should be able to fire ((134/3.59)*.32)=11 rounds per second.

As far as the heating problem goes, pumped liquid nitrogen or water coolant + Gatling configuration should be close.

(Note: I mixed and matched some of the cylinder/engine figures, I couldn't find the information I needed tied to the same engine.)

Another cool Railgun link:
http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun2.htm

They make ammunition now that disintegrates on impact. It has enough punch to get through a layer of body/drywall but all the momentum is absorbed when it breaks apart and won't go completely through a wall.

They are calls Glaser safety slugs.

Apartments tend to be small and cramped. This isn't really a good scenario for a shotgun because it cases such a large projection from your body when navigating with them in a usable as well as accurate position. Something as simple as moving from your bedroom to your kids room to make sure they are safe can cause you to drop from a shooting position and then regain that position several times because of opening and closing doors or even tables and lamps in the hallway. Anyways, for tactical reasons, I would advise against shotguns for home defense in an apartment unless it is your only option and you already secured a defense plan.

You can find out more about some of the Exotic ammunition like the Glasers here. I'm not affiliated with that site in any way. I found it a while ago looking for some muzzle loading information. I didn't find what I was looking for there but was somewhat captivated by that article.

There actually does seem to be a 28 gauge, although I've never seen one:

http://www.chuckhawks.com/intro_gauges.htm

and CNN says that's what he was using. When you're the VP you probably get free loads from some lobbyist, so finding ammo at WalMart for an unusual gauge isn't a problem.

My grandpappy hunted with a .410 bore, although you don't see many of those anymore either.

".357 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the whole world"

A .357 is a powerful handgun, but there are several others more powerful. The current champ* appears to be the 500 S&W, which from the article generates 2600+ ft. lbs. with a 440 grain bullet. A .357 magnum generates 583 ft. lbs. with a 125 grain bullet according to Chuck Hawks' site. The same chart also lists the .357 as having the highest (in that list of cartridges) rate of lethality in street shootings, but what exactly that is a measure of isn't stated.

* pistol-only cartridge. Magnum research makes a .444 Marlin (a rifle cartridge!) revolver, and some manufacturers of single-shot pistols (Remington XP-100 and Thompson/Center, among others) also take different rifle cartridges, some of which generate more ft lbs than the 500 S&W, although you've got to wonder at the practicality. I use a wussie pad for my .30-06 rifle, I can't imagine a .30-06 T/C Contender pistol being at all manageable.

The same energy confined in a cartridge case, and released by firing it, produce pressures over 50,000 psi and bullet velocities up to about Mach 6.

As for whether this fusion reactor could explode or not, I don't think that analogizing with a rifle cartridge is going to tell us. I thnk we'd need to consider the actual physics, and it doesn't sound like either of us has the information to do that.

There's lots of energy in a boiler, and sure enough, it can explode violently (though they don't much anymore due to good equipment and safety practices). There's a lot of energy in a big tree too, but they rarely explode (stage trees are an exception). Not sure which analogy is the right one in this case . . . probably neither.

From Could Germany Have Won the Second World War?

The answer: yes.

I think that the USA, and to a lesser extent the USSR, held what might be called the decisive advantage in WW II. By which I mean that these two countries, singly or together, had the resources, manpower, and material to decide the war in favor of either the Axis or the Allies. Had neither become involved in the war in Europe, it would likely have become a stalemate; Germany and Italy would not have been able to conquer the British Empire, and the British Empire would not have been able to conquer Germany and Italy. Whichever side either of these two countries joined would have the advantage.

Once Hitler opened a second front by attacking the USSR, the Nazis were doomed. They did not have the resources in terms of people or material to defeat both the British Empire and the USSR simultaneously. The USSR probably did more than any other combatent to drain the German war machine. The Third Reich was bleeding to death in front of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, even before it was pulverized from the air by the Western Allies.

Probably Germany's best (though slim) chance to defeat the USSR would have been to talk Japan into attacking the USSR from the east (and leaving the US strictly alone). Initally, I suspect that Hitler was too arrogant to ask his Asian ally for help, even though he needed it desperately. Later, it was too late for both Germany and Japan. Also, the Japanese did not want to fight a war in Siberia that they probably could not win, especially as their Army was heavily engaged in China. They were a naval power, and the IJN could not contribute much to a war against the USSR. Of course, the IJN could have contributed a lot to a war against the Royal Navy in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, but that would have almost certainly brought the US into the war, an event that Germany was trying to avoid. Ultimately, Japan had less to contribute to a German victory than the USSR had to contribute to a British victory, so any Japanese strategy would probably have failed.

Similarly, once the US entered the war on the Allied side, Germany was doomed. Even if Hitler had refrained from attacking the USSR, America simply had too many resources. Just as in the First World War, the US and the British Empire (plus most of the rest of the Western Hemisphere) would have eventually won a war of attrition.

Again, probably Germany's best hope would have involved Japan and the USSR. If Hitler had refrained from attacking the USSR (Japanese diplomats were trying to get the USSR to join the Axis when Germany attacked, thereby demonstrating that at least some in the Japanese government had a much better concept of global strategy than Hitler did), and instead convinced both Japan and the USSR to join the Axis and help Germany, Italy, and their allies against the British Empire, the US, and their allies, it would have been a long and bitter war indeed, perhaps another stalemate. The posibility of stalemate or Axis victory would have been enhanced if Hitler also forced Spain into the war on the Axis side, taking Gibralter, driving England from the Mediterranean, and protecting Italy.

In fact, of course, Hitler did open a second front by attacking the USSR, and the US and UK made the European war their first priority after Japan drew the US into the war on Dec 7, 1941. So even though Germany gained Japan as an active ally, she was doubly doomed. By which I do not mean to imply that defeating Germany (and Italy and Japan) was easy. In fact, it was a long, costly, dangerous, bloody road to victory. But, the odds favored the Allies.

Fortunately, none of the Axis heads of state had any plan or strategy for a joint war effort, so the Allies were able to defeat them piecemeal. And the Japanese, who at least had a pre-war grand strategy in the Pacific, over extended themselves after their unexpectedly easy initial victories, and hastened their own defeat.

Since I have considered the possibility of the USSR fighting on the Axis side in WW II, it is only fair to examine the scenerio of the US joining the Axis. Had Hitler not attacked the USSR (and the USSR remained neutral), and had the US unexpectedly joined the Axis, then:

A major war would have been fought in North America, as Canada was already at war with Germany.

After (if) the US defeated Canada, plus Australia, New Zealand, and the rest of the British Empire outside of the UK (maybe with the help of Japan [!] in the Pacific and Indian Oceans), the US Navy could neutralize the Royal Navy in the Atlantic, and the US and German Armies and Air Forces together could defeat the RAF, invade the UK, and win the war for the Axis. Then, Germany could have attacked the USSR with a reasonable chance of success. Of course, politically, there was zero chance of such a thing happening. I would like to make a few comments about Adolf Hitler, since he personified the Third Reich, and made all of the strategic decisions. I regard Hitler as a superb (if evil) politician with great political insight. This allowed him to gain power, re-arm Germany, and gobble-up parts of Europe with impunity.

Once the war started, however, his weaknesses became evident. He had some tactical sense, probably due to his experience in WW I as a combat infantryman. But, he was a very poor strategist. As far as I can tell, he never had a "grand strategy." By which I mean a clear set of goals for the war and a plan to reach them. Hitler was, in fact, taken by surprise when England and France declared war on Germany. He had expected to partition Poland without fighting a major war, and had no plan beyond defeating Poland. Hence the period of "Phony War" after the defeat of Poland, while the German generals planned the campaign against France. When Italy joined the war, Hitler and Mussolini made no serious attempt to devise a common strategy. In fact, Mussolini's military mis-adventures in Greece and North Africa drained away valuable German military resources. After the defeat of France, Hitler seemed to have no idea what to do next, no plan at all for defeating the British Empire. Instead, he formulated his plan to attack the USSR, against the advice of his generals and without consulting his allies, and sealed the fate of Germany. Hitler fought the whole war on an "ad-hoc" basis, a campaign at a time. This lack of any coherent strategy cost Germany dearly. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into the war, Hitler made no attempt to formulate a common strategy with Japan. Again, he was taken completely by surprise (In truth, the Japanese leaders did not consult with Hitler, either, and may not have had much respect for him. Before the war, Admiral Yamamato declined an offer to meet with Hitler when the Admiral was traveling across Germany). I have always blamed this failure to consult with his allies, at least partly, on Hitler's arrogance. Hitler generally seemed to believe himself superior to his allies, as if he knew more. In fact, in terms of overall strategy, he knew less.