"Frankowski,.Leo.-.Tank.2.-.War.With.Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

A Mark XIX Main Battle Tank does not have a good hydrodynamic
form. It's mostly an armored fusion power supply with some
computers and a human being inside.

It moved itself around using a MagLev track-laying system, laying
magnetic bars in front of itself, gliding over them, and picking them
up as it left. When traveling over a ferro-magnetic surface, it could
keep the bars inside itself, magnetize the surface and then move
much faster over it. And when you put one on a real MagLev track,
it could really move out, hitting three thousand kilometers an hour,
in a vacuum.

Weapons and other useful things are strapped on the outside,
pretty much wherever they'll fit. However, for this mission, there
was a way around this unstreamlined shape.

Attached to the front of each tank was a long pole tipped with
something that looked a lot like an arrowhead from an ancient
crossbow bolt. When pushed hard enough through the water, and
with air injected just behind the arrowhead, a cavity formed behind
it that was big enough for the tank to ride inside. Once we were
moving fast enough, the air was no longer needed, and we were
moving in something close to a hard vacuum. This permitted us to
reach supersonic speeds, under water. At least it worked fine on
rocket-powered torpedoes, and we had even tested it, once, on an
empty tank, which was good enough for a Kashubian veteran.

When Agnieshka told me that everybody was ready, and the
moment had come when our orders said we should attack, I said,
"Ladies and gentlemen! It's time to see to the Earthworms' proper
education! We must teach them that it is not nice to invade
somebody else's planet. I'll see you again when we're airborne!
Let's move!"

But actually, it was Agnieshka who gave the firing signal. Timing on
this one was very important.

Dream World vanished and I was working at combat speed, which
is as fast as the human brain can operate without damage. For me,
that was fifty-five times normal. Soldiers in combat often feel a
natural form of this, where it seems that the world slows down
around them. What we used was machine augmented, and vastly
accelerated.

It is difficult, or perhaps impossible to describe fighting at combat
speed in a tank. You and your tank's computers become a single
entity. All of its sensors become your senses, and you can see
everything from thirty cycles per second up to and including hard
X-rays. Only it isn't exactly seeing. You are touching and hearing
and smelling as well, all at the same time. You can taste the