wildbill wrote:

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i will be travelling around oz with my little silky dog soon, what sort of protection can i have, stun gun, lazer, gun or what to help me please as have a hockey stick and a nulla nulla.

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If I may put my consultant's hat on for a minute:

To best design your armoury you first need to decide whether you prefer the "fight" or "flight" strategy. I travel by car and use a tent so my strategy is definitely "flight" as I am not armoured and can make a quick escape. A motorhome being a larger and less nimble target, you are probably better served by a "stand and fight" strategy.

You then need to determine the likely threats from land-based, airborne, or seaborne attack, obviously if you stay inland and away from navigable rivers you can eliminate the third possibility. You can reduce the airborne threat by staying mostly in cloudy and rainy areas, and the land-borne one by choosing camping locations protected by natural barriers such as mountains, rivers, and rubbish tips.

Having completed your Threat Assessment you must then decide on your armour requirements, as well as your optimal mix of defensive and offensive weaponry.

Most nomads agree that heavy metal elements make the most effective armour, and this is why a pass through Roxby Downs has long been an essential stop on any round-Australia itinerary, so one can pick through the mine tailings for nice flat pieces of uranium ore. Uranium is heavy, though, and rising fuel costs and militarily-irresponsible concerns about greenhouse gas emissions have caused many to resort to lighter materials such as nano-treated platinum, titanium-helium alloys, or, for those whose budgets do not stretch this far, cheaper alternatives like used industrial diamonds bought off eBay. You've expressed concerns about fuel consumption, so you could also consider kevlar, which is exceptionally light but relatively limited in its ability to defend against projectile munitions. In practice kevlar is adequate for most combat situations, but you may also want to consider the perceptions of other travellers, who will consider you a royal pussy if you show up in a Winnebago that's kevlar-coated rather than armour plated, and it's unlikely that they would allow you to fight on the front line unless their strategy was to make the enemy die of laughter.

On the weaponry side you have the full range of choices with a motorhome. Caravans, for example, cannot use cannons above 50mm due to the stresses that the recoil places on the drawbar (and it doesn't matter how much you reinforce the drawbar, this is a legislative restriction). Camper trailers, with their lower profile, would theoretically make the best platforms for heavy arms but no manufacturer has yet been able to exploit this potential capability without sacrificing the practicality of the kitchenette, meaning a well-armed camper trailer remains something of a Holy Grail. The higher ground clearance afforded by off-road versions makes it relatively easy to mount surface-to-surface rockets and missiles underneath (not to mention reload them, which any nomad will tell you gets harder as you get greyer), and helps to explain their popularity. As a motorhome, however, you have the key advantages of complete self-containment (no concerns about enemy engineers sneaking about cutting your umbilical to the towing vehicle) and - and this should not be underestimated - height. No camper would seriously entertain the idea of entering battle without at least one motorhome present (unless someone had remembered to pack a really good periscope). The perspective you can obtain across the field of operations is indispensible in battle, and as a motorhome owner you can use this fact to make a lot of friends out on the road, even during peacetime.

One trap for new motorhome owners that you should be aware of is the power consumption of the gun turret. It doesn't matter so much in skirmishes as one doesn't usually run out of fuel and can keep the batteries charged, but in siege situations some combatants have reported depleting both their fuel and batteries, and their solar generating capacity being insufficient to support more than two turret rotations per hour, which can be a real hindrance in anti-aircraft work. Some have even been forced to consume their uranium armour as an energy source so that they could watch Neighbours.

I could go on at length about specific weapons choices, but as these are very easy to spot on the majority of rigs, I really think your best bet is to have a look at what others are carrying and ask them about their experiences. Each afternoon most nomads assume formation in regiments and battalions to organise their night-time defenses; new fighters are almost always welcome, including at the regular dusk briefing, conducted around a campfire as it has been done for centuries. A word of advice though - don't believe everything you're told by hairy blokes with rear-mounted twin-barrelled 60mm anti-aircraft cannon, a lot of them are posers. Some of them are good at fishing, though.

wildbill wrote:

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then does a motorhome use a lot of diesel as put in $50 in adelaide and it was 3/4 full and now about 1/4 or a bit less, was towing my swift as well and sometimes i was doing 110, seems to be better at 100

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You haven't mentioned whether your motorhome is full-track, half-track, or just on bulletproof tyres, or the combat duration specification of its fuel capacity. Wear and tear on the track belts and pulleys increases exponentially with operating speed, so if you have a track drive you might want to factor in those costs too.

-- Edited by moblet on Wednesday 19th of September 2012 01:12:49 PM