cthia wrote:they wouldn't want to use KEWs anyway. KEWs would leave evidentiary evidence.
tlb wrote:What evidence do you think a KEW leaves, besides a big hole (of doubtful evidentiary value)? An energy weapon would also leave signs of destruction, but neither yields "fingerprints". I guess you could work out the metallic composition of the KEW, but how useful would that really be?
Anyway; if an evil group wanted to bombard a planet, they could throw small asteroids at it.
cthia wrote:Weapons can be traced back to the country of origin. Nuclear weapons can usually be identified by their weapons grade.
The quality of steel and even iron differs from country to country. I would imagine the quality of metals is different in the HV as well.
Manufacturing methods and materials simply vary.
I understand that, that is why I mentioned that the metallic content might be determined; but given the sort of gray and black markets that were happening in the old Solarian League and most likely elsewhere, determining where something was manufactured does not ensure that you can track the weapons through the supply stream. A KEW might not wear out, so they could have been created a century ago in a country that no longer exists and passed through an unknown number of hands since then. We already know that the Honorverse has a currency system that permits untraceable transactions.