The Last Battleship
I am not sure in what sense Iowa is the 'last battleship.' It does not seem to have been the very last in commission, but more likely was the last to be 'striken' from the navy list. This came after it rusticated for some years in the Suisun Bay mothball fleet, out of commission but at least nominally available for refurbishment and return to service. (In fact, it seems that even as a museum ship it is in some theoretical sense still available. But its next berth will almost certainly be its last.)
By exquisite coincidence Iowa passed under the Golden Gate Bridge on the day before the bridge's 75th anniversary celibration, and also happened to coincide with the commemoration of Memorial Day, the 'Murrican counterpart to Remembrance Day.
It all lends itself to any number of reflections. Swords and plowshares: After a lifetime of honorable service (70 years since launch, less a few months), Iowa is headed for a twilight afterlife as a waterfront exhibit, while the bridge remains a major regional traffic artery.
The transience of grandeur: The battleship era still conveys a powerful image, but it was remarkably brief, and Iowa's career belongs almost entirely to its epilogue. None of its class was ever seriously tested as a battleship, i.e. in action against enemy battleships.
In World War II the Iowas were used primarily as carrier escorts. During the Cold War era they were periodically recommissioned for offshore fire support. Functionally they were no longer capital ships, though size and impressiveness certainly qualified them for maintaining a presence, one of the most fundamental naval missions.
The first battleship is considerably harder to identify. The last generation of sailing 2-deckers and 3-deckers were called 'line of battle ships' in place of the older 'ships of the line.' But this usage disappeared when ironclads came along.
The first generation of ironclads had an amazing variety of armament layouts and general configurations. No one knew what the capital ship of the future would be like, which gives the era a wonderfully steampunkish flavor. Russia's Admiral Popov was a radical design even for the era, but shows how unsettled the design possibilities were.
By the 1880s the more bizarrely creative designs were set aside. A relatively standard type of capital ship emerged, exemplified by HMS Royal Sovereign, laid down 1889, and the term 'battle ship' came into use to describe them.
Today we mainly know them as pre-dreadnoughts. Let us pause to admire the meta-ness of that term. Pre-dreadnoughts ruled the waves for a generation, but for nearly all of that time absolutely no one thought of them as 'pre-dreadnoughts.' Our ideas about these ships are inevitably filtered through their successors, and for half the battleship era retrospective time flows backward.
The last engagement between battleships - there were never very many - was Surigao Strait in 1944, so that the battleship era lasted just 55 years. If we take Pearl Harbor as the end of battleship supremacy, 52 years. Thus the battleship epilogue, exemplified by Iowa's career, lasted considerably longer than the battleship era itself did.
In fact the battleship era was transitory, not really an 'era' at all. This may be kept in mind when thinking - and most of you are inevitably thinking - of battleships' possible future spacegoing counterparts. Relatively short periods can stand out in our minds and become nearly timeless 'eras,' when in fact they only lasted a few decades.
That said, in an an age of post-industrial technological maturity the overall configuration of capital vehicles might be as stable as it was in the age of sail.
Capital vehicles - how is that for a colorless expression? I have argued before in this blog, more than once, that the familiar and time-honored naval analogy may be misleading when it comes to space forces. Laser stars, as I have speculated about them, have only a fairly tenuous similarity to 'battleships.' If kinetics are dominant, the platforms from which they are deployed might be even more remote from the battleship image.
On the other hand, the similarities might turn out to be greater, if only because impressive weapon systems have power-political significance that extends well beyond their purely military characteristics.
Discuss.
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My phone camera image of Iowa passing under the Golden Gate Bridge was too low-res to be worth posting. The Tumblr image above comes from this naval history page.
1,169 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 1169 Newer› Newest»Byron,
And your cost just went up again. Missiles playing dead works just as well for conventional missiles, and they don't require a bunch of exotic technologies, which will undoubtedly raise the price significantly. Not to mention that the sensor is by definition an absorber of whatever it sees in.
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No not really, conventional missiles will be deflected/destroyed with much less input energy - that was the point of the optically "clear" missile. Thus the more conventional missile is less likely to be following a threatening path for as long a time period.
I did mention the sensor could be off board. Probably on the bus. Farther away from the Laser-Star.
Therefore only the receiver need be on the missile. Use a radio frequency - no way that it absorb the laser with that.
I am not sure cost is the big killer - If one thing our post war military industrial complex has shown is that it is possible to absorb very large costs for weapon systems that give a combat edge.
You can't really buy a better mass budget though.
--- The cost of transporting any missile is likely to far outweigh the price of any missile.
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I don't see the exotic technologies problem. You are already assuming large advances in electronics and optics to get the 100 MJ Laser-Star in the first place.
Any Lens that could be used for the Laser in space is potentially adaptable for a optically "clear" missile in Space.
(SA Phil)
RE: Milo regarding "quartz armor"
Yes I suggested in that comment that you might be able to match/partially match your frequency based vulnerable areas for your missile body and the electronics.
Thus if the electronics are vulnerable between X and Y frequency - you engineer the quartz/diamond (etc) to be less clear to those frequencies.
Ideally your missiles would have different frequency availabilities.
Semi conductors have different absorption rates based on composition. Varying these is used in thin film photovoltaic design.
Also I'm not trying to make an indestructible missile, just a less destructible one. So none of this would have to be perfect.
(SA Phil)
Another thought I had is -- since we have such better mirror technology in the Laser-Star future - why not exploit that for the Kinetic Side?
The buses of the first wave of kinetics can be used to tow big lasersail style foil mirrors behind them.
A low cost set of obscuring shields for the next wave of kinetics. Which can also tow mirrors, etc.
The Mirrors would be disposable, and so it doesn't matter if they melt/burn quickly. Just as long as they make the Laser-Star take shots it wouldn't normally take.
(SA Phil)
Locki:
No problem with the spirited discussion.
That said, I think you overestimate the vulnerability of the lasers and sensors. At least by an order of magnitude. I don't really have any numbers to back this up, but a total kill at 1/1000th of armor burn is a bit much.
The second problem is that the math on the lasers is wrong. 1/1000th of the cost buys you a lot less then 1/1000th of the firepower. The smaller power output is distributed over a larger area, so the overall intensity is more like 1/1,000,000th that of the bigger vessel. This assumes that cost scales linearly with mirror area, and mirror area and spot area are inversely correlated. So to achieve 1/1000th of the intensity, it would take 1/sqrt(10) of the bigger laser. That's about a 30 to 1 advantage, and if you drop the scorch advantage to 100, then it drops to 10 to 1. And then I launch the kinetics...
It's an interesting idea, but I really don't know how dominant it would be.
Tony:
Fighters can continue on to missions in the lower orbitals after the laserstars are out of the picture. Or your first wave is unmanned busses, but the your 2-x waves have scout/attack ships on carriers.
The techlevel appears to fluctuate wildly here. At 100 km/s, space is almost flat, and grav assist won't get you home. So they have to return on their own. Remind me again what they do?
Also inconsistent. If your idea of universal scanning at long range is ture, why do you suggest scanning drones positioned close to the target to begin with.
I can tell that a vessel using a GE series 7 Hall thruster, presumably SS Bob, left Mars today on its way to Jupiter. That's easy to do in Earth orbit. But I have no clue what happened at Mars.
I give up on drones. It was kind of a stupid idea. The internet and embassy staff are much better at it.
Who's deviding it up? We're talking about planets that are sovereign and in sovereign control of their surrounding space. That space stays put around the planet and moves with it. Also, since a planet has, by definition cleared out is own orbit, there's nothing but a few random crossing asteroids to contend with, legally speaking.
And I think that surrounding space would be defined as the space in which a body would move with the planet.
You have an inhabited object passing close enough and slow enough to board and inspect. So you board and inspect, and if the owner is up to no good, he forfeits his rights, just like anybody passing through your territory has always forfeited his rights for skulduggery, throughout history.
Ah. That kind of scan range. I have very serious doubts that board and inspect would be practical beyond vessels coming to the planet. The delta-V requirements are very high, which makes it quite expensive. Slow isn't in the cards.
Sorry, but you're wrong in your insinuation. The analogy I used is always how I have conceived the laserstar vs kinetics issue. You're trying to have it both ways by having the laserstar behave as a simple defensive system when it suits you, but equate it to a battleship when you want it's economics to seem more like the naval warfare economics of the battleship era.
Simple defensive system? What? It can kill anything with a smaller laser that wanders into range. That makes it a bit less defensive.
Now smaller ships can't defend themselves as well, but they're also not being overwhelmed by mass attacks. Or, if they are, only at the cost of not overwhelming somewhere else. And some number of ships may not be totally eliminated, even by an effective attack. A few -- or even many -- may proceed on to attack their objectives.
So it's possible to overwhelm all the laserstars, but not all of the smaller ships. Why is a smaller ship more defense-efficient? And why is a laserstar unsurvivable after an effective attack, but not a whatever else? What is this other ship, anyway? Is this the overcentralization thing again?
Phil:
We have no clue what the optical properties of any of these materials are outside the visible spectrum. At the very least, blinding lasers operating near the sensor frequency will do damage. And there simply can't be that many good candidates for some of these parts. I believe that diamond is a good absorber of UV light, which bodes well for space lasers.
Mirrors aren't going to be any good. Look in my paper, in the section on laser armor.
Tony:
I'm tired of playing defense. What does your space force look like? I've only seen glimpses. What sort of constellation would you send to take over a planet, for instance? (As soon as you can reasonably see that being possible.)
I have to agree with Byron on the small ship vulnerability to an extent
If it takes 200 missiles to kill a Laser-Star
And 20 missiles to kill a Scout/Attack attack ship, then you should be able to kill 10 Scout/Attack ships with a similar cloud you use to kill the Laser-Star.
The problem only comes in if the Scout/Attack ship is only slightly less vulnerable than the Laser-Star.
But at the same time the Laser-Star doesn't have the same Laser-Star vulnerability as the Scout/Attack ship.
The Socut/Attack ship really makes more sense when its capabilities make it almost competitive with a Laser-Star, so that if you have several it can beat it in a fight.
(SA Phil)
Phil:
We have no clue what the optical properties of any of these materials are outside the visible spectrum. At the very least, blinding lasers operating near the sensor frequency will do damage. And there simply can't be that many good candidates for some of these parts. I believe that diamond is a good absorber of UV light, which bodes well for space lasers.
Mirrors aren't going to be any good. Look in my paper, in the section on laser armor.
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I am a little confused - how is it you can have a super Laser with sufficient mirrors and optical lenses ...
But you cant have comparable mirrors and lenses on the other side?
I assume we are using the same tech levels on both sides?
The mirror doesn't have to "work" it only has to slow the laser down.
My only goal is to reduce the necessary size/mass of the KKV cloud, increasing the Laser-Star vulnerability.
Surely that is exactly what weapon engineers would be working on in a Laser-Star future.
Every time an effective weapon system comes out - people start looking for ways to defeat it. It has been like that since Chariots were invented.
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I also cant find what you mean referencing your paper. The Armor section is less than a page long and I don't see anything about mirrors there.
(SA Phil)
Also there wont be any lasers at the sensor frequency of the missile.
By low frequency I mean radio frequency, Kilohertz.
The Sensor platform itself would be out of range.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
... The laserstar as advertised is the optimum kinetic defense. But even the optimum defense is vulnerable to a big enough attack. One would have to expend a lot of concentrated effort to neutralize a laserstar, but once neutralized, it's gone for good (or at least for the duration of the war).
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Neutralising a laserstar is best done by attacking it at its most vulnerable point. Use a blinding laser to attack the laser itself.
An actively firing, unshuttered laser is several orders of magnitude more vulnerable than is a shuttered laser.
The "blinding range" of a laser will greatly exceed the "burning range" of the laser. Meaning I can use a laser several orders of magnitude smaller to blind your big laserstar before I get within "burn range." As long as the "blinding range" of my smaller counter-battery lasers exceeds the "burning range" of your laserstar you will lose.
So in a hypotehtical scenario one giant laserstar is approached by two much smaller (cheaper) ships. The laserstar begins actively firing at extreme blinding range. Both of my ships remain shuttered until they approach their own counter-battery "blinding range".
There is no need for my two ships to locate the laserstar since it is kindly broadcasting its position like a lighthouse in a storm.
Since the laserstar can only suppress one ship at a time my other ship gets in a free shot and knocks out the laserstar's main weapon.
In fact the bigger the laser on the laserstar the more vulnerable it becomes. eg bigger lens to target, it takes longer to close the shutter etc etc.
As long as you outnumber the laserstars by even a single ship you have a probable victory. And you are likely to outnumber them by quite a bit since you can get away with a much smaller blinding laser.
As long as my counter-battery blinding lasers can blind you before you can burn through my armored shutters we should have a win.
I have changed the topic, since it is more fresh.
And reply to Byron.
I delete my other post, and add following thoughts.
"What if you get attacked during the week or two the fighters are coming back?"
The mothership wont run away most times.
Bringing back a frigate will cost you much more then fighters.
Ok bring back a fighter will cost million dollars, but the hardware itself can be billions.
(
About the stealth thing : if you have narrow band filterings against jamming, and i put such thing to my fighter, then you will filter out its IR signs also, ok you move so the fighter has to use the thrusters to follow you, and most likely the gases will glow in many wavelengths, but then you ll need way more fuel then fighters, and still have trouble to get the new speed vector.)
To sum things, fighters are still way more flexible then missiles.
Lets see :
- defence against missile attacks, take them out outside cannon range, before they launch smaller warheads and start final boost phase
- it might dont have to use its full delta-V to charge a defenceless destroyer /laserstar already gone/ but the destroyer is still a threat, it can go kamikaze, or fire a railgun that is well protected inside the body
- they might fly between nearby fleets and bases
- bring them back will give feedback to R&D team, how their engines weapons systems served under battlefield conditions
- in PDF they can be reusable first stages of missiles
- they might guide your bombs if there are light-minute bombing ranges
Otherwise bring them back to mothership require less effort, then build and send new missile buses from your base.
You ll need supply fleets, every army needed to have supply lines they couldnt just pack everything.
This supply ships can be used to retrieve fighters, if coilgun launched fuel tanks arent enough.
The supply ships will be barely more then civilian ships, they rely on sails and ion-thrusters most times.
Non sequitur. Hitting an outboard motor at a thousand meters or a ballistic missile at a few hundred kilometers is not the same technical problem as hitting even a hundred meter long spaceship at several tens or hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
Hardly; this is a scale demonstration of tracking and killing a target using lasers in the tens to hundreds of kilowatt range.
If anything, it is more difficult than tracking and killing a target in space, since both platform and target are subject to turbulance or wave action, the beam is propagating through the atmosphere and subject to distortion and blooming, and the target is presented against the 300K background of Earth vs the 3K background of space.
Some other general points:
1. A bigger laser will have a longer scorch range than a smaller laser. Attempting to blind/scorch an enemy laser before it can scorch you is only possible if your laser weapon is bigger/more powerful than the one you are trying to blind.
2. Overwhelming a laser with KKV's has been discussed in one of the prior space warfare threads, for the proverbial 1 lightsecond ravening beam of death you would have to launch thousands of KKV's.
3. This means that one tactic would be to attempt to blind/scorch enemy sensors while launching your missile busses and again as the busses disperse the SCoDs, to limit the ability of the laser weapon to burn the oncoming KKV wave, or to make course corrections to sidestep the oncoming wave.
4. Obviously there would be multiple laser weapons platforms to diminish the effectiveness of the KKV wave, and multiple on and offboard sensors to limit the ability of enemy lasers to blind you. The KKV platforms will also hav to have space for thousands of busses and tens of thousands of SCoDs.
Byron:
"The techlevel appears to fluctuate wildly here. At 100 km/s, space is almost flat, and grav assist won't get you home. So they have to return on their own. Remind me again what they do?"
You're not reading what I wrote. Again.
The parasites are dropped on their attack trajectories, or something close to it, far, far away from the objective volume. The carrier either alters it's or bit or the parasites do. The carrier passes the objective volume at a safe distance, while the parasites enter it. The parasites deliver their attack and using either their own engines or some combination of their own engines and a gravity assist, rendezvous with the carrier somewhere past the objective volume. (And the carrier can maneuver too, to make this possible.) Timed correctly, the parasites should be well within their delta-v envelopes.
"And I think that surrounding space would be defined as the space in which a body would move with the planet."
For long-term surveillance, it's probably a necessity that you go into planetary orbit. Fair enough.
"Ah. That kind of scan range. I have very serious doubts that board and inspect would be practical beyond vessels coming to the planet. The delta-V requirements are very high, which makes it quite expensive. Slow isn't in the cards."
We're talking about sizable asteroids, not comets, here. They're not going to be passing at more than a few kilometers a second, if that. Also, you can predict when they're going to come into your sphere, and plan a police mission for the most efficient encounter, years in advance.
"Simple defensive system? What? It can kill anything with a smaller laser that wanders into range. That makes it a bit less defensive."
It's still ultimately defensive, because it has to defend its own existence first before it can do anything else. It's very effectiveness and expense makes that so.
"So it's possible to overwhelm all the laserstars, but not all of the smaller ships. Why is a smaller ship more defense-efficient? And why is a laserstar unsurvivable after an effective attack, but not a whatever else? What is this other ship, anyway? Is this the overcentralization thing again?"
A laserstar is a simple system grown beyond all concepts of proportionality. To go back to the first analogy I used a couple of years ago, it's a destroyer armed with a single battleship gun, that also has the added handicaps of having to maintain a perfectly straight course and exact speed while shooting. Destroyers armed with destroyer weapons will easily defeat it, while destroyers fighting each other will be more competitive with each other.
Or, to put it another way, in the eggshell and hammer world, you only get as many eggshells as you get hammers, and you lose a hammer for each of your eggshells your enemy hits. Better to have a bunch of finish hammers and lots of eggshells, than a few sledgehammers and a few egshells.
Byron:
"I'm tired of playing defense. What does your space force look like? I've only seen glimpses. What sort of constellation would you send to take over a planet, for instance? (As soon as you can reasonably see that being possible.)"
First of all, I won't have "constellations". I'll have divisions, squadrons, task groups, task forces, and fleets. No need to be inventive or to avoid historical terminology.
Aside from that, I'd have a reasonable number of balanced units. Space being the same for everybody, there really isn't much point in unit specialization. Just like artillery or strike aircraft, each ship would be mission-configurable through ammunition loadout. If the propulsion technology recommends specialization for tactical and strategic drives, I'd use carriers and parasites. Otherwise, I'd use something sized like a frigate or cruiser. The one thing I wouldn't do is build unbalanced, highly specialized units that are either totally offensive (kinetistar) or totally defensive (laserstar).
Locki:
I understand the concept fine. Just a couple problems. First, as mentioned above, the lasers are a lot less cheap then you thought. Second, if the target has a phased array, or secondary defense turrets, the whole plan goes out the window, as they can do the same to you.
TOM:
Narrow-band filtering is not going to make stealth work.
Otherwise bring them back to mothership require less effort, then build and send new missile buses from your base.
That is an excruciatingly simple-minded comparison. Any projectiles that a fighter launches will be missiles in and of themselves. They have significant mass, and unless the mission number is very high, it's more mass-efficient to use missiles. Nothing in modern combat has lead us to expect that it will be terribly high for major combat operations.
The flexibility of fighters is overrated. For putting holes in things, missiles are a better choice. Boost-phase missile defense is better performed by missiles, as they don't either go rocketing past (reducing the effectiveness of onboard weapons) or have to slow down, and maybe miss the window entirely. Kamikaze is out if there are people onboard. Why are shuttle runs important again? And a fighter with light-minute range better have a really large delta-V. Remember that average transit velocity is limited to 1/4th of delta-V.
The parasites are dropped on their attack trajectories, or something close to it, far, far away from the objective volume. The carrier either alters it's or bit or the parasites do. The carrier passes the objective volume at a safe distance, while the parasites enter it. The parasites deliver their attack and using either their own engines or some combination of their own engines and a gravity assist, rendezvous with the carrier somewhere past the objective volume. (And the carrier can maneuver too, to make this possible.) Timed correctly, the parasites should be well within their delta-v envelopes.
Sure. But what advantage do the parasites have over missiles? Particularly in this case, they'll spend most of their delta-V rendezvousing with the carrier. Why not skip that entirely?
We're talking about sizable asteroids, not comets, here. They're not going to be passing at more than a few kilometers a second, if that. Also, you can predict when they're going to come into your sphere, and plan a police mission for the most efficient encounter, years in advance.
Asteroids? I was talking about ships. Stopping and searching those is enough of a pain that it probably wouldn't happen.
It's still ultimately defensive, because it has to defend its own existence first before it can do anything else. It's very effectiveness and expense makes that so.
I suppose that makes sense.
Destroyers armed with destroyer weapons will easily defeat it, while destroyers fighting each other will be more competitive with each other.
And what destroyer weapons would those be? Several smaller lasers (unlikely to work unless you force the tech assumptions)? Or lots of kinetics? Again, this is not the ocean. The physics are slightly different. And as I pointed out at the time, tanks have a single gun. They seem to work just fine.
Tony:
First of all, I won't have "constellations". I'll have divisions, squadrons, task groups, task forces, and fleets. No need to be inventive or to avoid historical terminology.
You're just nitpicking. I used constellation as it is the generally accepted word here for a force of space warcraft.
Aside from that, I'd have a reasonable number of balanced units. Space being the same for everybody, there really isn't much point in unit specialization. Just like artillery or strike aircraft, each ship would be mission-configurable through ammunition loadout. If the propulsion technology recommends specialization for tactical and strategic drives, I'd use carriers and parasites. Otherwise, I'd use something sized like a frigate or cruiser. The one thing I wouldn't do is build unbalanced, highly specialized units that are either totally offensive (kinetistar) or totally defensive (laserstar).
This is almost a total nonanswer. What sort of weapons do they mount? How are they mission-configured? How would a battle look?
I'm not trying to be picky, and I really do want to know what you see this looking like, but the above is general to the point of uselessness.
Well, i havent read everything, but for the sake of future, lets keep the debate civil no need for accusations and further.
Protect small laser with shutters until enter into blinding range, yeah, with this you can counter a laserstar one scale bigger.
Just a few note of fighter flexibility versus common missile : you can do with an advanced fighter, that you launch a wave of interceptors, check, then new wave.
If you do it simply from battleship, the second wave wont arrive until torpedo launch final attack phase.
Maybe fighters even fire a third wave of kinetics in the form of shrapnels fired from railgun.
If you are targeted by big numbers of interceptors, fire all your missiles and fall back to battleship cannon range, together you can eat the few chem missiles you couldnt outrun.
If charging ships are close enough, fighters can be redirected to attack another target, if the first one was easy to break.
If multiple fleets can threaten the mothership, at the first one, the fighters can serve a rather protective role, while attack the second wave like missiles, then you can afford to retrieve them.
Of course there will be cases of kamikaze attacks, but even in that case they arent inferior to missiles, their weapons are good against point range defences.
Otherwise, if fuel will be cheap enough, and i suppose that when we will pass beyond orbital combat, they can be much more flexible then missiles.
"Sure. But what advantage do the parasites have over missiles? Particularly in this case, they'll spend most of their delta-V rendezvousing with the carrier. Why not skip that entirely?"
The advantage is humans on board at the decision point. How far is the carrier going to miss the battle volume? half a million kilometers? A Million?
"Asteroids? I was talking about ships. Stopping and searching those is enough of a pain that it probably wouldn't happen."
Go back and look at your comments. You mentioned both ships and asteroids.
Ships, like aircraft, have to get permission and follow flight plan. In the case of interplanetary spaceships, obviously the permission would have to be obtained prior to orbit insertion.
In the case of asteroids, board and inspect would be the order of the day, because the relative velocities make them more like trucks or trains than aircraft.
"And what destroyer weapons would those be? Several smaller lasers (unlikely to work unless you force the tech assumptions)? Or lots of kinetics? Again, this is not the ocean. The physics are slightly different."
I'm agnostic as to specific weapons. I suspect a mix of dumb kinetics, smart kinetics, and maybe even explosives. Dumb kinetics can be dodged, to some extent, missiles are relatively rare (compared to shotgunned dumg kinetics) and can be semi-effectively countered with short range lasers.
"And as I pointed out at the time, tanks have a single gun. They seem to work just fine."
Tanks also have armor, meaning they can't be neutralized with machine guns. A laserstar in the hammers and eggshells world is manifestly not a tank.
"Any projectiles that a fighter launches will be missiles in and of themselves."
Not if the fighter has a coilgun, otherwise it can be a simple chem-fueled warhead vs a fusion torch and advanced computers, defence systems.
Put some bases of watery asteroids, resupplying fuel can be more easily done than ammunition resupply.
"The advantage is humans on board at the decision point."
Well i'm convinced that most fighters will be drones, if things can be done with remote control no need to sacrifice humans, and yes i count with some kamikaze missions.
TOM:
Protect small laser with shutters until enter into blinding range, yeah, with this you can counter a laserstar one scale bigger.
At this point, the target mounts an even smaller laser and does the same to you. This rapidly devolves into a Mexican standoff.
you can do with an advanced fighter, that you launch a wave of interceptors, check, then new wave.
I went over this before. The effectiveness of a laser or kinetic projector is dependent on the closing rate. Either the fighter flies by at a much higher rate (admittedly, this might be compensated for by being able to fire as they go past, but at best you're just as well off staying put) or it takes a long time to make intercept, in which case the missiles have already split. Plus, the enemy could well launch again with the fighter out of position.
If you are targeted by big numbers of interceptors, fire all your missiles and fall back to battleship cannon range, together you can eat the few chem missiles you couldnt outrun.
You can't outrun the chem missiles unless you're using something else for your engine. Something quite far out, in which case you can't assume you'll face chem missiles. The delta-V requirements are too high.
Tony:
The advantage is humans on board at the decision point. How far is the carrier going to miss the battle volume? half a million kilometers? A Million?
For the ten millionth time. What decisions are there for humans to make? And how many of those decisions couldn't be made by remote control, particularly given that the fighter in this case isn't supposed to get anywhere near the enemy?
Ships, like aircraft, have to get permission and follow flight plan. In the case of interplanetary spaceships, obviously the permission would have to be obtained prior to orbit insertion.
And you don't think that a power owning a volume that it has no use for is a good idea why again? There is no compelling rationale to control anything outside the hill sphere, except you being contrary.
I'm agnostic as to specific weapons. I suspect a mix of dumb kinetics, smart kinetics, and maybe even explosives. Dumb kinetics can be dodged, to some extent, missiles are relatively rare (compared to shotgunned dumg kinetics) and can be semi-effectively countered with short range lasers.
Dumb kinetics are totally useless at even moderate ranges. Read section 8 of my paper.
Tanks also have armor, meaning they can't be neutralized with machine guns. A laserstar in the hammers and eggshells world is manifestly not a tank.
And why can't a laserstar have at least some armor? A faceplate and shutter capable of resisting at least small shrapnel is totally possible.
Not if the fighter has a coilgun, otherwise it can be a simple chem-fueled warhead vs a fusion torch and advanced computers, defence systems.
That could work, more because of cost then mass. On the other hand, it's likely to be a pure lancer, not a general-purpose vessel.
Byron,
Dumb kinetics are totally useless at even moderate ranges. Read section 8 of my paper.
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Basically - unless it were somehow a relavistic kinetic.
Which seems very implausible - considering how hard it is to even get a useful +10 Kps launcher.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"For the ten millionth time. What decisions are there for humans to make? And how many of those decisions couldn't be made by remote control, particularly given that the fighter in this case isn't supposed to get anywhere near the enemy?"
The fighter isn't supposed to get too close to the laserstar. It may get quite close to other enemy installations after the laserstar defensive system is neutralized.
WRT the bigger picture, I would never rule out the utility of humans on the spot. What that utility might be? Who knows? Pick your technological parameters and I'll give you a detailed answer.
"And you don't think that a power owning a volume that it has no use for is a good idea why again? There is no compelling rationale to control anything outside the hill sphere, except you being contrary."
Don't be testy, B.
The possibility of a through flight passing through a volume of space is independent of it's extent. That should be obvious. It's not at all hard to imagine a flight from Earth, say, passing through Mars's Hill sphere on the way to Ceres, given a certain planetary alignment.
Heck, how many spacecraft have passed through how many Hill spheres already, on their way to somewhere else? Gravity assists may not be all that easy to arrange in a future with a lot of spacecraft in low orbits around all the bodies of interest, but there's still the possibility of just passing through because things just worked out that way.
"Dumb kinetics are totally useless at even moderate ranges. Read section 8 of my paper."
See -- once again I refuse to rule things out simply because somebody's written a paper. Dumb kinetics may not ever be effective as a primary weapon against a maneuverable target, but they could definitely help battlefield shaping, because they are cheap and can be used to limit enemy maneuvering options.
Yes, mass and coverage is an issue with dumb kinetics, but you wouldn't wan't to run into even a few steel buckshot at orbital velocities, if you could avoid it. You can't Whipple shield radiators, and the toal impact area is going to be considerably larger than a ten meter circle, when those radiators are counted. Sorry, I don't believe in being able to perfectly point into the oncoming swarm to mamage this problem; any competent enemy could probably arrange things so that you would have incoming kineitc swarms separated by up to 10-12 degrees.
Also, against installations that can't maneuver -- like orbital stations and laserstars in maximum self-defense mode, unguided kinetics might in fact be adequate, either for the whole job, or for purposes of a pinning distraction while the effective attack is delivered.
"And why can't a laserstar have at least some armor? A faceplate and shutter capable of resisting at least small shrapnel is totally possible."
You're not shooting if your armored shutter is closed. Also, at the velocities we're discussing here, a Whipple shield is not going to do much against something that masses even as little as a few kg -- like a smart kinetic. And no thickness of real armor is likely to help. It's just mass to be projected from the impact point into the ship. If you're relying on pointing at the target and using nose armor only, the added vulnerability is that you're almost certainly putting a critical system behind any impact point.
Of course a dumb kinetic that the target doesn't know is dumb - may have uses.
Dummy missile or whatever.
Force the ship to waste a Point Defense effort - make it do a longer burn than it would have to make for one known to be dumb, etc.
(SA Phil)
Thucydides said...
Some other general points:
1. A bigger laser will have a longer scorch range than a smaller laser. Attempting to blind/scorch an enemy laser before it can scorch you is only possible if your laser weapon is bigger/more powerful than the one you are trying to blind.
--------
I think what they are proposing is a small ship that has a laser which has a blind range that is:
A) Greater than the kill range of the Laser-Star
B) Smaller and cheaper
They then fly two or more of the smaller/cheaper Lasers between the Blind range and the kill range of the Laser-Star.
While the Laser-Star is trying to blind Ship number 1 .. Ship number 2 goes and blinds the Laser-Star.
At which point one of the other ships fires a missile(s) at the Laser-Star and kills it, Since it can't really defend itself anymore.
(SA Phil)
Phil:
Even relativistic unguided kinetics are problematic at long range. It's the flight time more then anything that's the problem.
Tony:
The fighter isn't supposed to get too close to the laserstar. It may get quite close to other enemy installations after the laserstar defensive system is neutralized.
I'm having trouble seeing how that works without taking the fighter too close to the laserstar. If the laserstar knows it's doomed, it will probably shoot at the fighter instead of the kinetics. If the thing the laserstar is guarding needs to be destroyed, shoot missiles at it, too.
WRT the bigger picture, I would never rule out the utility of humans on the spot. What that utility might be? Who knows? Pick your technological parameters and I'll give you a detailed answer.
I'm going to call you out on this one. You have yet to give me a single concrete example of a split-second decision being required of a human under any technological parameters. So I'll use the scenario you described. Fighter attacking a laserstar-guarded installation. The exact technical parameters are up to you. I may quibble later, but I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever of human on the spot being useful.
The possibility of a through flight passing through a volume of space is independent of it's extent. That should be obvious. It's not at all hard to imagine a flight from Earth, say, passing through Mars's Hill sphere on the way to Ceres, given a certain planetary alignment.
I think you'd want to avoid that for astrodynamic reasons, but I'm not positive. Unless you chose to do a flyby, but that's unlikely under our tech assumptions. Gravity assist only works if you're fairly close to escape velocity, and we're way beyond that. I guess the question is how much extra volume you think they would get.
See -- once again I refuse to rule things out simply because somebody's written a paper. Dumb kinetics may not ever be effective as a primary weapon against a maneuverable target, but they could definitely help battlefield shaping, because they are cheap and can be used to limit enemy maneuvering options.
This sounds wonderful until you notice that you completely failed to answer the points I raised there. Either you didn't read the section or you don't have an answer. I worked out the math on exactly how much more effective a guided projectile is. A projectile capable of even very minimal homing is literally orders of magnitude more effective then an unguided one. It might cost significantly more, but 100 times more when shipping is factored in? No way.
Also, against installations that can't maneuver -- like orbital stations and laserstars in maximum self-defense mode, unguided kinetics might in fact be adequate, either for the whole job, or for purposes of a pinning distraction while the effective attack is delivered.
That's a fairly specific selection of targets. And they would posses significant maneuver capability. Not on a strategic level, but a few thruster pulses go a long way. The exception is very close targets, but then you run into the laser itself before you drop. Check the math on this one.
You're not shooting if your armored shutter is closed. Also, at the velocities we're discussing here, a Whipple shield is not going to do much against something that masses even as little as a few kg -- like a smart kinetic. And no thickness of real armor is likely to help. It's just mass to be projected from the impact point into the ship. If you're relying on pointing at the target and using nose armor only, the added vulnerability is that you're almost certainly putting a critical system behind any impact point.
And you became an expert on spacecraft armor when, exactly? Or did you skip that section, too? A smart kinetic is far more likely to penetrate a vessel's armor then an unguided one is, due to how they behave at impact. Armoring against unguided projectiles, particularly small ones, is not terribly difficult. Also, they can be burned up by the laserstar in question. The laserstar would probably sit right where it is, burn anything headed towards it, and laugh at the fighters. Unless you're throwing kilotons of ball bearings. Which then raises the question of how big the fighters are.
BYron,
Even relativistic unguided kinetics are problematic at long range. It's the flight time more then anything that's the problem.
---------
But the range they become a problem is larger than the 30 kps unguided.
I beleive those were a problem at "moderate range"
I think its a function of the target's ability to change its vector during the flight time of the unguided weapon.
A 0.3 C projectile is going to be a lot more like a laser than the 30 kps one. (assuming you could target it)
Still I cant see why you would go unguided (unless its a dmmy) even if you launched the missile from a Rail/Coil/Gas Gun -- unless the gun were such that it would destroy a guided weapon.
Unguided would work for blowing up cities and things though. Maybe Space Stations.
(SA Phil)
Phil:
Completely correct. However, if relativistic kinetics are at all feasible, the concept of moderate range will also be different. Flight time and dodging capability determine the practical range.
Maybe Space Stations.
Only on similar ranges to a ship. A space station will have some thruster capability, and particularly over long flight times, orbits actually help dodging. For more details, see Home Away From Home (posted here in the fall of 2010.)
"Protect small laser with shutters until enter into blinding range, yeah, with this you can counter a laserstar one scale bigger.
At this point, the target mounts an even smaller laser and does the same to you."
Without the big laserstar, the battleship is nothing... ok you burn all fighter mirrors, they burn your mirror, you have a big, rather undefended target.
". Something quite far out, in which case you can't assume you'll face chem missiles. "
You cant put reactor to every warhead.
If the fighter decelerate and hold a defensive position, at perimeter of ship at the boundary of cannon range, in case of the defensive role, its relative speed will be lower.
Otherwise : what if the fighter drags ammunition equal to its rest mass?
Fire all of them halfway, from cannons, decelaration solved.
Then torpedo vs fighter ratio is 1 : 2.
Now add in, that unlike common torpedos, the fighter wont be eaten by the first kinetic attack.
You cant put reactor to every warhead.
Metastable metallic hydrogen. High-energy batteries. Antimatter.
If the fighter decelerate and hold a defensive position, at perimeter of ship at the boundary of cannon range, in case of the defensive role, its relative speed will be lower.
Yes. But by that point, the missiles will have dumped their submunitions. Which defeats the purpose of boost-phase intercept.
Fire all of them halfway, from cannons, decelaration solved.
This is called a mass driver, but for this role, it's wildly impractical. I assume (because you're talking about a 1 to 1 ratio) that the muzzle velocity is equal to the fighter's velocity. No matter what, the delta-V will be 69.3% of muzzle velocity, assuming a sufficiently large number of shots. I assume this because otherwise the acceleration would be very high. Also, it removes any trace of flexibility, and drives the logistics burden way up.
Byron said...
Phil:
Completely correct. However, if relativistic kinetics are at all feasible, the concept of moderate range will also be different. Flight time and dodging capability determine the practical range.
------
True - Also if you can do relativistic kinetics you could presumably use a similair technique to achieve operatic propulsion performance.
(SA Phil)
Tom,
You cant put reactor to every warhead.
=======================
Interestingly - at present Solar Electric is close in performance per mass to expected nuke/electric preformance. With pretty much the same room to improve.
You could easily tow a solar panel behind every warhead.
Solar Ion drive missile busses would definitely be feasible.
Also since you have giant lasers as a given - you could use Solar Thermal propulsion for your missiles.
The final guided actions only need be simple jets of CFCs if the target has limited performance.
(SA Phil)
"But by that point, the missiles will have dumped their submunitions. "
Again : you can launch an interceptor, check, launch again from close range if the first one failed. If you do it from far away, the missile will break up.
"Also, it removes any trace of flexibility"
I dont think so. It can still drag various payloads, you can attach a life support unit to act like an assault boat to capture things for example while it is still able to protect itself. Do ferry jobs.
With its mass driver it can be more efficient in launching kinetics then a simple missile bus.
Ok how about the fighter drags more ammunition then its rest mass to decelerate?
The skeleton would be the reactor and mass driver and a short-range laser. You can launch shrapnels for point range defence, flak shells against battleships, interceptors vs torpedos.
And if you happen to be in a vicinity of a fuel base, you can really accept the simple attack and retrieve role.
Modern battles... yeah in America vs Saddam or England vs Falkland troops battles, in theese blitzkriegs reusability dont have that much value, but i think in near equal opponents.
"Interestingly - at present Solar Electric is close in performance per mass to expected nuke/electric preformance. With pretty much the same room to improve. "
hmm i didnt know that.
If that is the case, retrieving fighters can be done by magnetic sails, and plasma beams.
Magnetic sails are more efficient then solar panels.
Byron:
"I'm having trouble seeing how that works without taking the fighter too close to the laserstar. If the laserstar knows it's doomed, it will probably shoot at the fighter instead of the kinetics. If the thing the laserstar is guarding needs to be destroyed, shoot missiles at it, too."
In all honesty, I think you're wilfully refusing to see how things might work, when they call your prefferences into question.
Obviously, the fighter is behind the kinetics several thouand kilometers, or maneuvers off to one side or the other after dropping the k-bus(es). I can think of all kinds of ways to accomplish that over a few days, with very little delta-v expenditure. Remember, an attack like this has been wargamed over months or even years before being initiated. All of the trajectories, wepaons loads, and fuel/remass loads are readily calculable.
If the laserstar changes orbits periodically to complicate this type of targeting, I'm surethat all of the planning can be recalculated within certain parameters before execution. Maybe even some of the fighters have to risk getting scragged to deliver their attacks. Life's tough in the big city. Or you just send those specific fighters in as uncrewed drones. Not the most efficient way of doing things, but that's just a cost of doing business, if you win.
"I'm going to call you out on this one. You have yet to give me a single concrete example of a split-second decision being required of a human under any technological parameters. So I'll use the scenario you described. Fighter attacking a laserstar-guarded installation. The exact technical parameters are up to you. I may quibble later, but I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever of human on the spot being useful."
Your attack force, or a part of it, is behind a planet WRT the flag/command ship, and the defenders manage to take out all of your comm relay drones. That's not even a case of needing "split-second" decisions. Such a condition could last for several minutes. Even at 100 kps, the Earth would shadow you for more than two minutes.
"I think you'd want to avoid that for astrodynamic reasons, but I'm not positive. Unless you chose to do a flyby, but that's unlikely under our tech assumptions. Gravity assist only works if you're fairly close to escape velocity, and we're way beyond that. I guess the question is how much extra volume you think they would get."
I think I've already stipulated the Hill sphere. But it's not that small, for planetary bodies, even relatively small ones. According to The Wiki, the Hill radius for Mars is just under 1M km. I would think a significant number of flights could, over the course of decades, be expected to pass through that region for one reason or another.
"This sounds wonderful until you notice that you completely failed to answer the points I raised there. Either you didn't read the section or you don't have an answer. I worked out the math on exactly how much more effective a guided projectile is. A projectile capable of even very minimal homing is literally orders of magnitude more effective then an unguided one. It might cost significantly more, but 100 times more when shipping is factored in? No way."
Cost figured how? By mass? I guarantee you that 100 50-gram steel spheres is going to cost you orders of magnitude less than a smart kinetic massing 5000 grams. In fact, 1" bearing balls, loose, in wholesale quantities, cost about $2 apiece on the open market. I don't think you're going to get a smart kinetic for $200. If you can arrange an impact velocity of 100 kps, that's the energy equivalent of 56 kg of TNT for just one impact. (By your own Rick-equivalent scale, the TNT energy equivalent comes at 3 kps; 100/3 = 33.33; 33.33^2 * .05 = 55.54) I wouldn't want to have that happening to one of my radiator wings -- which are the parts most likely to get hit.
Byron:
"That's a fairly specific selection of targets. And they would posses significant maneuver capability. Not on a strategic level, but a few thruster pulses go a long way. The exception is very close targets, but then you run into the laser itself before you drop. Check the math on this one."
That's the selection of targets one would be likely to strike if you were, say, Mars, trying to knock Earth out of space. (Invading Earth is totally out of the question any time in the next thousand years, at least.)
Checking the math. A laserstar in maximum firepower mode -- which it would be in self-defense -- is not going to maneuver at all, because that induces jitter that it doesn't want.
A space station would have just enough maneuver capability to maintain orbital altitude and provide minimal debris avoidance. Going by the planned but never installed ISS Propulsion Module, that's .0026 fps of acceleration. Even if you had an hour's notice of incoming kinetics, you could change position all of 3.2 miles. (No wories about fuel supply -- contemplated burns for the ISS were in the hundreds of minutes, at times.) (We'll also ignore whether or not the station propulsion module is oriented to give thrust normal to the attack vector -- we'll say it is.) That's a circular area of 83.4M m^2. Let's say the attacker spreads his dumb kinetics across a 6 km radius circle, just to be sure. That gives an attack area of 113.1M m^2 at the nominal point of impact. If we get to attack the minimal cross section of an ISS size/shape station, we need 78,000 projectiles to guarantee one hit in the target area. So let's say 80,000 projectiles. At a kilogram apiece, that's 80 tons. At a more reasonable 50g apiece, that's 4 tons. Let's say we actually take 20 tons of ball bearings along to make real sure of getting two or three hits. That's less than three times the payload of an A-10 attack aircraft.
Of course, this is a radically pesimistic set of circumstances. There are all sorts of ways to feng shue the effective maneuvering time down to only a few hundred seconds. Once the laserstars are out of the way, once could probably get within a few thousand kilometers before short range defensive lasers were a problem -- if they were even mounted. Orbital stations really are sitting ducks.
Byron:
"And you became an expert on spacecraft armor when, exactly?"
I think I'm fairly competent in basic physics. I doubt either of us is particularly competent in fluid mechanics, which is what you're dealing with at these impact velocities, even with projectiles that are made out of steel.
"Or did you skip that section, too?"
Actually, you really don't say much more than is on Atomic Rockets. (You just put your own spin on it.) I've read all of that multiple times.
"A smart kinetic is far more likely to penetrate a vessel's armor then an unguided one is, due to how they behave at impact. Armoring against unguided projectiles, particularly small ones, is not terribly difficult. Also, they can be burned up by the laserstar in question. The laserstar would probably sit right where it is, burn anything headed towards it, and laugh at the fighters. Unless you're throwing kilotons of ball bearings. Which then raises the question of how big the fighters are."
Exactly how does a smart projectile behave differently at impact than a dumb one? They both turn into fluid whatever-they're-made-of almost immediately upon impact. The only variables are mass, density, impact velocity, and impact angle. Note that dumb kinetics do better on sectional density-related penetration parameters, because they're solid, whereas a smart kinetic has all kinds of voids throughout it's structure where reaction mass, control systems, and propulsion plumbing are situated.
In any case, as an attacker, I'd be banking on hitting a radiator surface, which is the biggest part of the target and can't be shielded -- not from multiple attack axes.
WRT the total mass of the "fighters", it could be anything from a few dozen to a few hundred tons, depending on your technoligical and tactical assumptions. What makes it a parasite craft and not an interplanetary ship is not size, but the fact that it is only euqipped with tactical drives.
There is a range issue with using lasers to scorch sensors.
Since the 'no stealth in space' concept is based on a ship's bright IR signature, that means the sensors will be using IR to find targets. If you place an IR bandpass fiter over the sensor, then only IR light will reach it. Everything else will be blocked.
That means that only an IR laser will be able to blind the sensor. Your X-ray RBOD may have an incredible scorch range, but you can't blind the IR tracking systems if they are protected by IR bandpass filters.
Hard X-rays would work, but the main objective of them is to penetrate the hull and fry the crew, which they would do at scorch range anyway.
Now if your IR lasers are powerful enough, maybe their scorch range will exceed the combat range of an UV laser. If not, your ship will be repeatedly hit before you can get within scorch range.
The lesson is don't bring an IR laser to a short wavelength gunfight.
Ron
Tony:
In all honesty, I think you're wilfully refusing to see how things might work, when they call your prefferences into question.
Funny. I'd say the same about you. There is no particular problem with the fighters in your scenario, but there is also no reason to prefer them over missiles.
Your attack force, or a part of it, is behind a planet WRT the flag/command ship, and the defenders manage to take out all of your comm relay drones. That's not even a case of needing "split-second" decisions. Such a condition could last for several minutes. Even at 100 kps, the Earth would shadow you for more than two minutes.
There are three major problems with this. First, killing all of the comm drones strikes me as wishful thinking. There is no way that one could reasonably expect to kill every line of sight between the two forces. It would be like arguing that Predator drones are vulnerable because of comm failure. Second, the entire attack would be meticulously planned. Thus, the carrier would be in a position in which it has a line of sight any time that a decision must be made on the timescale involved. Third, what decision is this, anyway? Changing the attack profile? The computer can do that just fine.
Cost figured how? By mass? I guarantee you that 100 50-gram steel spheres is going to cost you orders of magnitude less than a smart kinetic massing 5000 grams. In fact, 1" bearing balls, loose, in wholesale quantities, cost about $2 apiece on the open market. I don't think you're going to get a smart kinetic for $200.
I never said the cost per mass would be comparable. I said that, when the relative effectiveness and shipping costs are taken into account, the guided kinetic would be cheaper. If the guided is 100 times as effective, then yes, I think I can get it under $20,000. Even $2000 doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. And that doesn't account for the reduced cost of the vessel to push it around.
If you can arrange an impact velocity of 100 kps, that's the energy equivalent of 56 kg of TNT for just one impact. (By your own Rick-equivalent scale, the TNT energy equivalent comes at 3 kps; 100/3 = 33.33; 33.33^2 * .05 = 55.54) I wouldn't want to have that happening to one of my radiator wings -- which are the parts most likely to get hit.
First, 100 km/s seems kind of high. Second, it is perfectly possible to armor the faceplate against an impact of that magnitude. Third, it's not an explosive. If it hits the radiator, it leaves a small hole. Maybe a gash. Most of the energy goes into pieces flying off into space.
Of course, this is a radically pesimistic set of circumstances. There are all sorts of ways to feng shue the effective maneuvering time down to only a few hundred seconds. Once the laserstars are out of the way, once could probably get within a few thousand kilometers before short range defensive lasers were a problem -- if they were even mounted. Orbital stations really are sitting ducks.
Yes. Because the target in question is totally unarmored and unarmed. Ball bearings are relatively easy to burn. Melting a 50g iron sphere would take 51 kJ. Given that the object is in space, it should boil fairly rapidly after that. And as previously mentioned, armoring is not that difficult.
I think I'm fairly competent in basic physics. I doubt either of us is particularly competent in fluid mechanics, which is what you're dealing with at these impact velocities, even with projectiles that are made out of steel.
No, but while at school I talked with a professor who does research in space debris. The section on kinetic impacts is based on that conversation. So yes, shape does matter.
WRT the total mass of the "fighters", it could be anything from a few dozen to a few hundred tons, depending on your technoligical and tactical assumptions. What makes it a parasite craft and not an interplanetary ship is not size, but the fact that it is only euqipped with tactical drives.
Why not make a strap-on interplanetary drive section, which is then left back when it reaches the planet?
I said:
"In fact, {approx 50g] bearing balls, loose, in wholesale quantities, cost about $2 apiece on the open market. I don't think you're going to get a smart kinetic for $200. If you can arrange an impact velocity of 100 kps, that's the energy equivalent of 56 kg of TNT for just one impact. (By your own Rick-equivalent scale, the TNT energy equivalent comes at 3 kps; 100/3 = 33.33; 33.33^2 * .05 = 55.54) I wouldn't want to have that happening to one of my radiator wings -- which are the parts most likely to get hit."
Come to think of it, I'd probably attack with 5g projectiles. 10 x 5 kg TNT-equivalent hits on a laserstar's radiator wings would definitely be more effective than one hit on one of the wings. I might even go down to #4 buckshot -- 50 x 1 kg TNT-equivalents would really shred me some radiators.
Again : you can launch an interceptor, check, launch again from close range if the first one failed. If you do it from far away, the missile will break up.
Wait. Are you launching the second interceptor from the fighter? I'd assume that interceptors would be retargetable in flight, so if you expect a 50% kill ratio, launch a 1 to 1 salvo, then a 1 to 2 salvo, then a 1 to 4 salvo, and so on. The chances of a projectile surviving an impact are very low.
I dont think so. It can still drag various payloads, you can attach a life support unit to act like an assault boat to capture things for example while it is still able to protect itself. Do ferry jobs.
So you propose making a fighter with a mass driver which also serves as a weapon? Interesting idea. I can't think of any case in which mass driver as weapon has been used. The problem is that mass drivers are generally very low-thrust. The usual proposed application is moving asteroids, as it allows the use of part of the asteroid for remass. They are also quite power-intensive, which means radiators.
Ok how about the fighter drags more ammunition then its rest mass to decelerate?
The problem is using ammo for thrust. Period. Unless you're firing unguided stuff (and given the range that you'd have to stay at to be safe, that would be pointless) then the ammo is far more expensive then typical mass driver remass.
Tony:
Come to think of it, I'd probably attack with 5g projectiles. 10 x 5 kg TNT-equivalent hits on a laserstar's radiator wings would definitely be more effective than one hit on one of the wings. I might even go down to #4 buckshot -- 50 x 1 kg TNT-equivalents would really shred me some radiators.
So now you're moving into antiradiator shot. Simple answer. Heat sinks and retractable radiators. Not fun, but better then nothing.
Tony,
Cost figured how? By mass? I guarantee you that 100 50-gram steel spheres is going to cost you orders of magnitude less than a smart kinetic massing 5000 grams. In fact, 1" bearing balls, loose, in wholesale quantities, cost about $2 apiece on the open market. I don't think you're going to get a smart kinetic for $200. If you can arrange an impact velocity of 100 kps, that's the energy equivalent of 56 kg of TNT for just one impact. (By your own Rick-equivalent scale, the TNT energy equivalent comes at 3 kps; 100/3 = 33.33; 33.33^2 * .05 = 55.54) I wouldn't want to have that happening to one of my radiator wings -- which are the parts most likely to get hit.
-----------
Why not fire the dumb kinetic with a guided kinetic at a range where dumb kinetics are useful?
Missile bus transports a load of guided missiles,
Missiles seperate.
Missiles cross the Laser zone of death.
Once close enough that the Laser-star cant easily avoid it, the Missile fires 100's of ball bearings using an explosive charge. Like a high velocity shotgun... maybe adding 1 kps velocity.
The Missile could also be designed to fire the same charge when it detects it is being hit by the laser.
If still alive the guided missie then continues on its way colliding with the target.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"Funny. I'd say the same about you. There is no particular problem with the fighters in your scenario, but there is also no reason to prefer them over missiles."
Only if one presumes that one is always in contact with one's missiles and that light speed lag is insignificant. I'm simply not ready to make that assumption.
"There are three major problems with this. First, killing all of the comm drones strikes me as wishful thinking. There is no way that one could reasonably expect to kill every line of sight between the two forces."
Comm relays are highly specialized and expensive pieces of equipment. You might not have that many of them. They're also the first things I'd shoot if I had laserstars (just to play in your ballpark for a moment).
"It would be like arguing that Predator drones are vulnerable because of comm failure."
Well, they are.
"Second, the entire attack would be meticulously planned. Thus, the carrier would be in a position in which it has a line of sight any time that a decision must be made on the timescale involved."
No attack can be so meticulously planned as to defeat orbital mechanics. If your targets are on different sides of the planet when your attack passes through, ya still gotta engage them all.
"Third, what decision is this, anyway? Changing the attack profile? The computer can do that just fine."
The computer can make political decisions? That's why you put the human in the loop to begin with -- not to do the shooting, but to confirm the shoot order when the time comes.
"I never said the cost per mass would be comparable. I said that, when the relative effectiveness and shipping costs are taken into account, the guided kinetic would be cheaper. If the guided is 100 times as effective, then yes, I think I can get it under $20,000. Even $2000 doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. And that doesn't account for the reduced cost of the vessel to push it around."
A simple JDAM kit costs $25k. A smart kinetic is considerably more sophisticated than that -- more like a guided missile that costs anywhere between $250k and $500k.
I still think the cost of Mass is goign to be mainly in getting the missile into orbit and transported across interplanetary distances.
So I dont see the cost savings being such an important thing.
The ball bearing shotgun blast would be hell on whipple shields though
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"First, 100 km/s seems kind of high."
Not for a fusion drive, even a milligee one.
"Second, it is perfectly possible to armor the faceplate against an impact of that magnitude."
It is? If you use tank armor, maybe. I don't think one is going to be using that in space.
And I'm not shooting at your armored nose and forward wing edges anyway.
Third, it's not an explosive. If it hits the radiator, it leaves a small hole. Maybe a gash. Most of the energy goes into pieces flying off into space.
All I'm trying to do is cause leaks in your active cooling circuit. If I can't get a hard kill on that, I can certainly degrade it. Also, take not of my rethinking on the subject -- I'm going to cause a lot of leaks (and probably cause some problems inside you laser mechanism as well, since I'm hitting your unarmored flank).
"Yes. Because the target in question is totally unarmored and unarmed. Ball bearings are relatively easy to burn. Melting a 50g iron sphere would take 51 kJ. Given that the object is in space, it should boil fairly rapidly after that. And as previously mentioned, armoring is not that difficult."
Burn up all of the ball bearings or buckshot you want -- in one direction. I'm attacking from more than one direction at the same time.
"No, but while at school I talked with a professor who does research in space debris. The section on kinetic impacts is based on that conversation. So yes, shape does matter."
And I'm using spheres, as ISTR you specified.
"Why not make a strap-on interplanetary drive section, which is then left back when it reaches the planet?"
Overhead costs. It's substantially less expensive to make one engine of almost any power than it is to make an equivalent power output in multiple smaller engines. That's especially true once you factor in control equipment and tankage masses. The carrier is designed to do what it does efficiently, while the parasites are designed to do what they do efficiently. Depending on your assumptions, the ratio of carriers to parasites could be anywhere from, say, 1/4 to 1/50. Please don't get all wrapped around the axle thinking that just because they are "parasites" they are particularly small individually -- at a ratio of 1/4, each parasite could in fact be several hundred tons, fully loaded.
Tony:
Only if one presumes that one is always in contact with one's missiles and that light speed lag is insignificant. I'm simply not ready to make that assumption.
Or if one is willing to presume that said contact is not necessary.
Comm relays are highly specialized and expensive pieces of equipment. You might not have that many of them. They're also the first things I'd shoot if I had laserstars (just to play in your ballpark for a moment).
Compared to all the other pieces of equipment involved in this operation? Hardly. Just about anything that maneuvers independently will include relay functionality. Leave one a few light-seconds back. Out of laser range, and quite far for kinetics.
No attack can be so meticulously planned as to defeat orbital mechanics. If your targets are on different sides of the planet when your attack passes through, ya still gotta engage them all.
And this is how likely? Also, if it's the final engagement, the shoot/no shoot decision is already made.
The computer can make political decisions? That's why you put the human in the loop to begin with -- not to do the shooting, but to confirm the shoot order when the time comes.
If the missiles are in final engagement, then there is no need for that. Launching missiles at someone is hostile in and of itself. Backing down is extremely unlikely.
A simple JDAM kit costs $25k. A smart kinetic is considerably more sophisticated than that -- more like a guided missile that costs anywhere between $250k and $500k.
Why is a smart kinetic so much more sophisticated? It's no worse then early versions of the Sidewinder. Add in mass production and trim the US military-induced cost increases and it's quite affordable.
Burn up all of the ball bearings or buckshot you want -- in one direction. I'm attacking from more than one direction at the same time.
Why can I not fire in multiple directions at once?
And I'm using spheres, as ISTR you specified.
No, I specified spheres for the unguided kinetics. Guided ones would be long-rods.
Parasite sizing:
I was suggesting you take the next step and drop the concept of these being parasites. It's a full-size ship, with a strap-on drive system. So it might suffer relative to the carrier, but far less then you think.
Also, do you by any chance have numbers on these economies of scale? I'm trying to add them to the spreadsheet.
Tony:
Two more things. First, shoot/no shoot is a decision that will be made by the senior person on the spot. It's not going to be entrusted to the junior officer commanding the fighters. Therefore, to call it off, there has to be a link between the carrier (where I presume the Admiral is) and the missiles anyway.
Second, holding a fired missile to somebody's head is a bad choice. They'll cooperate until it's past, then open fire.
Ron:
At the cost of some sensitivity, you can restrict the ability to jam even more. That's what the narrowband filters TOM was talking about are. It's actually not a bad idea to put those on a ship's optics in combat. They should be operating at well below design ranges, so maximum sensitivity isn't required.
Having looked at all of this, I thought I'd offer my two cents.
There needs to be something to fight over for there to be war- threatening planets/nation states or (less likely) orbital industry. There has to be easy access to relatively cheap, powerful propellant, to get fighting platforms up into space, and perhaps some ways of armouring spacecraft against high-velocity impacts- if you want your platforms to be anything other than expendable tin cans totally reliant on point defense. If not you might as well just send all your platforms at targets and hope some get through, rather than rely on counter battery fire that saps your own strength. If they are cheap and expendable then why bother protecting them?
Tony,
It is? If you use tank armor, maybe. I don't think one is going to be using that in space.
And I'm not shooting at your armored nose and forward wing edges anyway.
---------
At knife fighting ranges or in close orbit you won't.
At 100,000 km you will.
Even the guided munitions will not be able to target discriminate much at those speeds, It is not going to do an operatic parabola up over the shield plate to hit the radiator from above or below.
If you are attacking from multiple vectors -- then there will always be part of the force attacking from on angle.
(SA Phil)
I think the main problem is one is thinking in superpower vs little third world country like blitzkriegs, i think in near equal participants.
So in my frame there will be multiple asteroid bases, supply lines, lifting things from an asteroid can be done by sailed ships.
Count in the various missions of small ships with various payloads : assault boat, patrol if you need to pacify some subdued little colonies and dont want to leave your battleship there, scan surface for hidden weapons, entering into underground shipyards, protect and blind passed missiles from back, attack etc.
You can get, that retrieve them can be more effective then just rely on ultra-smart missile buses, you dont know the exact parameters of enemy's abilities, you may fire twice the necessary amount of kinetics to some old frigate or defenceless missile bus.
TOM:
I think the main problem is one is thinking in superpower vs little third world country like blitzkriegs, i think in near equal participants.
Actually, I don't. A fighter is most useful in superpower vs. third world, as it has a good chance of coming back. Against an equal power, not so much. Given that I really don't expect to see that many battles, even the reusability is suspect. The fighter flies one mission per battle, so if a given fighter only participates in two to four battles, it has to be compared to the use of two to four missiles.
Count in the various missions of small ships with various payloads : assault boat, patrol if you need to pacify some subdued little colonies and dont want to leave your battleship there, scan surface for hidden weapons, entering into underground shipyards, protect and blind passed missiles from back, attack etc.
This falls under "patrol carrier" not "battle carrier." If you need to pacify an area, then a carrier makes sense. Pitched battle, not so much.
Byron:
WRT man-in-the-loop, I think we'll never agree.
Maybe it's my understanding of war as a human phenomenon, but I just think that humans need to do the shooting, at any expense that has to be accepted for that to happen. Humans also need to take risks, or it's no longer war -- just remote-control predation. Think of it as a real-world zeroth law, invoked for political and philosophical reasons.
"Why is a smart kinetic so much more sophisticated? It's no worse then early versions of the Sidewinder. Add in mass production and trim the US military-induced cost increases and it's quite affordable."
It doesn't have simple fins for guidance. It has a precision reaction control system. It doesn't have simple proprotional law guidance. It has target identification and discrimination sensors and processors, because the mission environment is likely to be full of all kinds of hot stuff. That's assuming it uses IR targetting. With a planet possibly in the background, it may in fact need radar guidance.
"Why can I not fire in multiple directions at once?"
You're the one that's suggested axial mounting, shooting out of the nose, and pointing the whole ship to aim. If you want to say, no, I've got a turret, I'll just send in enough kinetics to get the job done.
"No, I specified spheres for the unguided kinetics. Guided ones would be long-rods."
I've been talking about unguided kinetics all along, unless I specified otherwise. I thought it was pretty obvious in context -- all that stuff about ball bearings and buckshot.
"I was suggesting you take the next step and drop the concept of these being parasites. It's a full-size ship, with a strap-on drive system. So it might suffer relative to the carrier, but far less then you think."
It suffers in economy whatever it suffers. The degree, plus other technical and tactical factors will set the carrier/parasite ratio. Once again, I find specific numbers meaningless, with so many parameters to be considered, and intensely boring, given a qualitative understanding of what can and can't be done, in general terms.
"Also, do you by any chance have numbers on these economies of scale? I'm trying to add them to the spreadsheet."
Figure the ISP difference between nuclear-thermal (which is your tactical drive) and some kind of plausible, relatively near-term fusion drive, with milligee or centigee acceleration. That should be a factor of perhaps five to ten.
SA Phil:
"If you are attacking from multiple vectors -- then there will always be part of the force attacking from on angle."
Good. The targeted ship has to choose which way to orient it's armored aspect. One way or another the attackers will get at it's unarmored one. This is the space version of how US torpedo planes attacked Japanese cruisers and battleships in WW2: Attack from each side, 45 degrees on the bow. If the ship turns to minimize it's target aspect for one set of torpedoes, it automatically presents itself broadside to the other.
Tony:
Maybe it's my understanding of war as a human phenomenon, but I just think that humans need to do the shooting, at any expense that has to be accepted for that to happen. Humans also need to take risks, or it's no longer war -- just remote-control predation. Think of it as a real-world zeroth law, invoked for political and philosophical reasons.
I'm fine with agreeing to disagree. My view is that however nice the reasons for putting humans in danger would sound, they'd be ignored as soon as the casualties started.
On the other hand, most warships are built before the war...
It doesn't have simple fins for guidance. It has a precision reaction control system. It doesn't have simple proprotional law guidance. It has target identification and discrimination sensors and processors, because the mission environment is likely to be full of all kinds of hot stuff. That's assuming it uses IR targetting. With a planet possibly in the background, it may in fact need radar guidance.
Maybe somewhere in between. This is quite a ways off, and given how the cost of electronics keeps dropping...
You're the one that's suggested axial mounting, shooting out of the nose, and pointing the whole ship to aim. If you want to say, no, I've got a turret, I'll just send in enough kinetics to get the job done.
That is not for point defenses on a space station. Though I'm skeptical of two-direction attack in space. For most of the flight, they'd probably be close enough together to be attackable. Doing otherwise requires a lot of delta-V and fancy footwork. In orbit, it's easier, but not under the scenario you were describing.
I've been talking about unguided kinetics all along, unless I specified otherwise. I thought it was pretty obvious in context -- all that stuff about ball bearings and buckshot.
I know that. The start of the discussion thread was over my statement that guided projectiles were more likely to penetrate because they were long-rods. You disagreed.
It suffers in economy whatever it suffers. The degree, plus other technical and tactical factors will set the carrier/parasite ratio. Once again, I find specific numbers meaningless, with so many parameters to be considered, and intensely boring, given a qualitative understanding of what can and can't be done, in general terms.
I'm not sure what this means, exactly. I was attempting to raise an option for tactical drive deployment.
Figure the ISP difference between nuclear-thermal (which is your tactical drive) and some kind of plausible, relatively near-term fusion drive, with milligee or centigee acceleration. That should be a factor of perhaps five to ten.
That is not what I meant. The economies of scale between drives of the same type was what I was asking about.
Anonymous:
Since the 'no stealth in space' concept is based on a ship's bright IR signature, that means the sensors will be using IR to find targets. If you place an IR bandpass fiter over the sensor, then only IR light will reach it. Everything else will be blocked.
------------
Huh??!! Why would you ever choose to use an IR laser to blind an IR sensor? The range on an IR laser is crap :) The IR bandpass filter is going to help somewhat but its not a magi-tech immune to laser shield. Its still going to be much more fragile than the metal hull/armored shutter on my UV laser. I can still blind you well before you can burn through my armored hull.
A question for Byron re: phased array lasers.
I'm familar with phased array radars of course but how likely are phased array lasers?
My understanding is the effective range of a laser is dependent on diffraction and therefore increases in proportion to its arpeture (and inversely to its wavelength). Will a 20m wide phased array radar really have the same range as a conventional laser with a 20m diameter mirror and lens? Can you really electronically steer each tiny laser beam so the laws of physics treat it like a giant 20m wide lens?
Realistically my whole premise is based on the fact the most vulnerable part of a warship engaging in super long range multiple AU range fights are the sensors. All of your weapons should be aimed at disabling the opposing sensors to mission kill the hostile starship rather than being stuck in the old trope of blowing up the enemy starship in spectacular explosions (leave that for the propaganda holo-vids)
Locki:
I'm not terribly familiar with phased array lasers myself, but I'm still looking into it.
My understanding is the effective range of a laser is dependent on diffraction and therefore increases in proportion to its arpeture (and inversely to its wavelength). Will a 20m wide phased array radar really have the same range as a conventional laser with a 20m diameter mirror and lens?
Not quite, but it should be reasonably close. Given that the array doesn't have to move to change targets, it's probably fairly similar.
Can you really electronically steer each tiny laser beam so the laws of physics treat it like a giant 20m wide lens?
Pretty much. I've seen references to pointing accuracy being on the same order as spot size, which is significantly better than I expect from conventional lasers.
Tony,
"If you are attacking from multiple vectors -- then there will always be part of the force attacking from on angle."
Good. The targeted ship has to choose which way to orient it's armored aspect. One way or another the attackers will get at it's unarmored one. This is the space version of how US torpedo planes attacked Japanese cruisers and battleships in WW2: Attack from each side, 45 degrees on the bow. If the ship turns to minimize it's target aspect for one set of torpedoes, it automatically presents itself broadside to the other.
-----------------
To get that 45% your ships will need to be 140% farther away from each other than they are the target.
Suggesting they won't be able to support each other during the conflict defensively.
That sounds risky in an environment where defense is easier than attack.
(SA Phil)
Tony,
I think your man in the loop idea is an old warrior not wanting to admit the reason we always had warriors firing the weapons is we didn't have a choice.
I expect knights had a similar aversion when gunpowder made them obsolete. And fittingly the Battleship captains probably felt the same way about Airpower ending the ship to ship canon duel.
Its exactly the same reason as the zeroth law, romanticism.
At the engagement ranges and weapon speeds we are talking about here - even on the 10,000 km lower end - nothing is going to happen fast enough yet occur slow enough that that a couple second delay is going to amount to a hill of beans.
It will actually probably matter less than what a predator drone pilot faces with no communication lag.
Evasive maneuvers can be pre-programed to the extent they are needed. And the fire/don't fire decision isn't a split second one unless you are in near orbit.
Even the target discrimination the the Laser-Star will probably be largely automated.
Heck, the Laser-Star probably won't even have a crew on board.
(SA Phil)
Locki,
Realistically my whole premise is based on the fact the most vulnerable part of a warship engaging in super long range multiple AU range fights are the sensors. All of your weapons should be aimed at disabling the opposing sensors to mission kill the hostile starship rather than being stuck in the old trope of blowing up the enemy starship in spectacular explosions (leave that for the propaganda holo-vids)
-----------
Multiple AU range?
2 AU = 300 million km
I don't think we were talking fighting on that scale.
(SA Phil)
I don't think the sensors will be as vulnerable as everyone thinks.
First you can have sensor drones well behind your ships - so that the blinding enemy can't blind your sensors without exposing itself to some sort of shorter ranged attack by you.
Those backward observer sensors can communicate with your ship on multiple frequencies - so that even if you are being actively targeted by a diffuse beam you still have situational awareness.
Since the beam is diffuse your on-board sensors are not necessarily destroyed anyway. Protective devices will likely work at the lower power levels.
You can also have sensors that work at different frequencies. IR cameras, UV cameras, Visual light cameras, X-Ray cameras, Radar.
I think it helps to remember one side effect of No hiding is that no one needs to be close to see you.
(SA Phil)
I'd rather have a man-in-the-loop and at the helm of a spacecraft over a robotic drone for the simple reason of responsibility. If for some reason the drone loses contact with the manned C&C vessel and is left to make an important decision, who is to guarantee that the drone wouldn't inadvertently commit a war crime?
I feel that people need to be in combat so that people can take responsibility for the actions committed in combat. Who's to blame if a drone mistakenly destroys a starliner believing it to be an enemy mothership? It would make for an awkward session at the court martial if a missile takes to the stand...
I don't think the Star Liner will be coming at Warp Speed.
Several seconds lag won't make a huge difference in the PMF when things will takes minutes/hours to develop.
Back up communications are a lot smaller than a crew Hab.
No reason to give the Drone any shoot/don't shoot decision ability unless it is dealing with a KKV cloud.
(SA Phil)
Anonymous said...
First you can have sensor drones well behind your ships - so that the blinding enemy can't blind your sensors without exposing itself to some sort of shorter ranged attack by you.
Those backward observer sensors can communicate with your ship on multiple frequencies - so that even if you are being actively targeted by a diffuse beam you still have situational awareness.
(SA Phil)
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The issue at hand is you can blind the opponent well before they can shoot back - not that you can't hide.
Defence will be at a disadvantage here.
If you are defending a fixed target (eg planet/asteroid)there is nothing to "hide behind". The attacker merely has to methodically circle your asteroid destroying your sensor drone screen. You'll be forced to come up and play at some stage or risk being blinded.
Besides the lasers themselves are just as vulnerable as the sensors to the same blinding techniques. KO'ing the main gun on a laserstar is a mission kill.
Byron: Thanks for the information on phased array lasers I was guessing that was how they worked. So STNG had someone who knew physics when they created the Enterprise's phaser strips?
The phased array mightn't be as frightfully vulnerable as a lensed laser but the array itself is still a lot more fragile than an armored shutter. I should still be able to blind your phased array laser long before you can burn through my armored shutter.
The man in the loop argument sounds a lot like what Rick was speaking of in several of the earlier Space War threads, and I thought the general consensus then was manned military spacecraft would be more in the role of cutters and harbour patrol vessels to identify thigs up close in a high clutter environment (essentially in LEO).
An Apollo CM with the Apollo-Soyuz docking collar and a 20mm cannon mounted coaxialy to the front docking port would be more than sufficient (and quite Rocketpunk to boot). The real world application turned out to be the Soviet Salyut 3/OPS-2 (AKA Almaz) space station, which mounted and test fired a 23mm automatic cannon, but since the Almaz has no dedicated propulsion system, the cannon is only useful for self defense. Even in LEO, closing velocities will be rather low for this kind of inspection work, you actually want to get nice and close and do a visual inspection, or maybe even a boarding. Think of how long it takes a Space Shuttle/Soyuz/Dragon to approach the ISS and dock and you get a feel for that kind of work.
The idea that you could easily blind a military space platform really fall down when you consider that it will be carrying or surrounded by plenty of sensor drones operating in multiple wavelengths, as well as accepting off board information from accompanying spacecraft. In theory there may even be large space telescopes operated by the fleet which can send high fidelity pictures from orbit around the home planet (with the proviso there is a long time lag between the time the image was taken to the time the image was received.) This was alluded to in The Humanist Inheritance (aka The Last Great War) by Matthew Lineberger, where the American space fleet maintained a huge space telescope array in the asteroid belt to "zoom in" on areas of interest.
With this amount of information and the wide potential baseline of the various platforms, the space fleet (however you choose to name it) will have accurate 3D situational awareness right up to the moment of contact. Blinding or dazzeling sensors as fast as possible will be the first order of business so you can launch weapons and manouevre your ships while denying the enemy the ability to see your actions and take counter measures. Expect the same thing to be happening to you, of course.
Locki,
The issue at hand is you can blind the opponent well before they can shoot back - not that you can't hide.
Defence will be at a disadvantage here.
----------
How?
Unless the two sides have different capabilities you can only blind the opponent at the same range he can blind you.
(SA Phil)
Milo said:"Ferrell:
"Unless your shutters are heavily armored, then the armored side of a turret is going to give you much better protection."
Unless your turrets are heavily armored, then an armored shutter is going to give you much better protection."
Didn't we already have this discussion? And didn't we come to the conclusion that due to the fact that shutters need to move, and that the structure of the turret (being ridgid) can be armored much easier; that should mean that turrets can provide more protection then shutters can, simply due to more mass and a more ridgid structure, survive more damage then the shutter can. Also, the heavier the shutter, the slower it moves, the more wear it puts on the motors. Armored shutters sound good, but there are some serious problems with them.
Ferrell
Ferrell:
Didn't we already have this discussion? And didn't we come to the conclusion that due to the fact that shutters need to move, and that the structure of the turret (being ridgid) can be armored much easier; that should mean that turrets can provide more protection then shutters can, simply due to more mass and a more ridgid structure, survive more damage then the shutter can. Also, the heavier the shutter, the slower it moves, the more wear it puts on the motors. Armored shutters sound good, but there are some serious problems with them.
When did this happen? The turret's greater surface area is a significant problem. I can see two shutters, one a light "splinter" shutter, the other of a thickness with the faceplate.
On the moral issues of humans in danger, I have no particular problem with removing them. However, please note that I have never advocated autonomous offensive action. The only time the laserstar would be shooting without explicit orders is if it detects something that is coming towards it either too fast to dodge, or that is tracking it. Either way, that's not likely to be triggered by accident. Also, maybe a shootback setting would be available. I have a hard time seeing innocent action being mistaken for a high-powered laser.
All of that said, humans make mistakes, too (Vincinnes). And if you chose to give me a huge cost advantage because of your moral choices, I'll be happy to take it.
The shutter/turret armor problem could be one reason to use a higher frequency laser
If the mirror/lens were less than 1 meter instead of 20, it would be much easier to have an armored shutter that could open and close quickly - and the likelihood a completely open shutter was even hit would go down.
(SA Phil)
Locki:
Huh??!! Why would you ever choose to use an IR laser to blind an IR sensor? The range on an IR laser is crap :) The IR bandpass filter is going to help somewhat but its not a magi-tech immune to laser shield. Its still going to be much more fragile than the metal hull/armored shutter on my UV laser. I can still blind you well before you can burn through my armored hull.
I see you missed my point.
At ranges where your laser is only powerful enough to blind a sensor it is not going to damage the outside of the optics. The IR bandpass filter will prevent other wavelengths from reaching the fragile chip on the other end.
Unless you have some magical way to individually target the sensors, you will have to illuminate the entire ship by either spreading out the beam or by using a scanning pattern.
If the intensity of the spread out laser is powerful enough to burn through the filtered optics then you are close enough to damage the ship by focusing your laser to a tight beam.
Sure you can use lasers to blind sensors, but I think most people are greatly overestimating the ranges that it will work.
Ron
Well Locki talked about ruining the laserstar, two small lasers against one big laserstar, one big ruins one, the other ruins the big laserstar.
Byron : my fighters will be carried by a MOTHERSHIP I wrote so.
Battleships (or other mothership) will have equal range at best, so the mothership will ruin or damage their laserstars, they wont have much targeting accuracy against fighters.
They have to rely on coilguns plasma cannons hidden, well protected inside their bellies and charge to overcome the mothership.
Maybe the fighter has half the acc of a torpedo, unless we send a retrieval craft, but this is fairly compensated by its ability to protect itself, take out point-range defences with plasma and shrapnel cannons.
And they will fly a lot in orbit to do the transport and inspect jobs.
You can still have torpedos to weaken or take out the most advanced battleships, that can still emit serious firepower after faced with the mothership, but fighters can do the majority of jobs, they just have to fight their way through interceptors backed by the mothership, fire their cannons to point defence, and nuke the charging enemy.
If the intensity of the spread out laser is powerful enough to burn through the filtered optics then you are close enough to damage the ship by focusing your laser to a tight beam.
Sure you can use lasers to blind sensors, but I think most people are greatly overestimating the ranges that it will work.
Ron
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Nope. That isn't correct. Diffraction of a laser and hence its spot size increases with range. (see http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/08/space-warfare-v-laser-weapons.html)
The intensity of the laser energy been delivered by my counter-battery blinding lasers is low because the range is so high - not because I forgot to focus my beam down to a point.
No matter what sort of filters you put in front of the sensor a laser can burn out that sensor long before you can burn a hole through my armored shutter or metal hull. Which means to merely blind your expensive death ray of doom I can get away with a blinding laser several orders of magnitude smaller.
If everyone one is using lasers of about equal effectiveness then it is plausible no one will be brave enough to unshutter their sensors (or lasers) for fear of being blinded.
Sensor drones using passive sensors aren't going to find much if they go looking for UV/visible light/X-Ray emissions. The starship is radiating IR not every type of EM radiation known to man.
An active sensor is different and can operate on whatever wavelength it likes but the range will be dreadful (similar to our 500-1000km range radars today). The only passive sensor worth having is an IR sensor and I can blind that.
TOM:
Where did that come from? The question is not whether a laserstar and fighters can defeat a laserstar. It's if fighters, or some combination of laserstar and fighters, can beat a laserstar that costs the same as they do.
=Milo=
Tony:
"No attack can be so meticulously planned as to defeat orbital mechanics. If your targets are on different sides of the planet when your attack passes through, ya still gotta engage them all."
It makes more sense to engage all targets on this side of the planet, finish them off, then move to the other side of the planet.
Separation between planet sides works in your favor too. If you can keep your fleet together while the enemy doesn't, you can enact defeat in detail.
Having all your ships in one place wouldn't be good for orbit-to-surface capability, of course, but if your primary concern is defeating the enemy fleet in orbit-to-orbit combat then it's a pretty good approach.
"Maybe it's my understanding of war as a human phenomenon, but I just think that humans need to do the shooting, at any expense that has to be accepted for that to happen."
This would make one reluctant to use missiles or automated battleships against a target lightminutes away. Against a target only lightseconds away and within line of sight, missiles should do fine. The human decision is in whether or not to fire the missile.
An ICBM can take upwards of half an hour to reach the target. We still built them, though none ended up being fired in anger. Still, if one were, then that would be a human decision. Deciding whether or not to destroy a city and kill several million people isn't something you'd normally want to save until the last minute anyway.
Humans identify targets, and a human in the loop is necessary if you're concerned with the possibility of running into a new potential target during the mission and needing to decide whether to shoot it or not. Once a target has been identified, though, you can let the automated systems take over.
"Humans also need to take risks, or it's no longer war -- just remote-control predation."
And many governments would love to perform remote-control predation, if they could (meaning if the remote-control is sufficient to allow proper identification of targets and non-targets in an acceptable timeframe).
Ideologues are going to complain about how it takes the honor out of war, but pragmatists are going to not care.
For that matter terrorists are less concerned about collateral damage, so they'll definitely use robots if they can afford them. (But they probably can't afford space armadas.)
Locki:
"All of your weapons should be aimed at disabling the opposing sensors to mission kill the hostile starship rather than being stuck in the old trope of blowing up the enemy starship in spectacular explosions (leave that for the propaganda holo-vids)"
The problem is that sensors are going to be all over the ship, and there'll be spares that are initially protected. A spectacular explosion takes the ship out of the picture, immediately, no worrying about whether you managed to get every last sensor.
There's also the fact that if you're fighting a fleet of ships, they can share sensor data, so their effectiveness won't deteriorate much until you've blinded every last one of them. If you spectacularly blow a ship up, then that's one ship out of the way immediately, that won't bother you while you fire on the next ship.
SA Phil:
"First you can have sensor drones well behind your ships - so that the blinding enemy can't blind your sensors without exposing itself to some sort of shorter ranged attack by you."
Will sensors at that distance have a good enough view for accurate weapon targetting?
=Milo=
Locki:
"If you are defending a fixed target (eg planet/asteroid)there is nothing to "hide behind". The attacker merely has to methodically circle your asteroid destroying your sensor drone screen. You'll be forced to come up and play at some stage or risk being blinded."
If I'm defending a planet, I'll have sensors on the planet surface. Good luck taking THOSE out.
"I should still be able to blind your phased array laser long before you can burn through my armored shutter."
Except your armored shutter only works when it's closed. You can't blind me when your shutter is closed.
Ferrell:
"Didn't we already have this discussion? And didn't we come to the conclusion that due to the fact that shutters need to move, and that the structure of the turret (being ridgid) can be armored much easier;"
Turrets need to move too. That's the point of having turrets.
The shutter doesn't need to fold or anything. It can just slide in and out of position. It's just as rigid as a turret.
"Also, the heavier the shutter, the slower it moves, the more wear it puts on the motors."
Same for a turret.
Both shutters and turrets are constrained in minimum size by the size of the weapon they're mounted to. So no significant advantage there.
SA Phil:
"The shutter/turret armor problem could be one reason to use a higher frequency laser"
In space, it's always a good idea to use as high a laser frequency as you reasonably can with available tech.
Locki:
"Sensor drones using passive sensors aren't going to find much if they go looking for UV/visible light/X-Ray emissions. The starship is radiating IR not every type of EM radiation known to man."
Wrong. Objects in space, just like on Earth, are illuminated by the sun.
Without atmospheric scattering, there'll be a sharp difference between the lit side and the dark side, so how visible ships are depends on whether they're closer or farther away from the sun than you. But unless the enemy ship is exactly between you and the sun (in which case you'd have a hard time detecting it with infrared too due to staring directly into the sun), or the two of you are in the shadow of a planet (which IS a concern, but only some of the time), any enemy ship is going to be at least partially lit (like phases of the moon), and so sensors in any wavelength the sun produces will be useful.
Byron said...
This assumes that cost scales linearly with mirror area, and mirror area and spot area are inversely correlated. So to achieve 1/1000th of the intensity, it would take 1/sqrt(10) of the bigger laser. That's about a 30 to 1 advantage, and if you drop the scorch advantage to 100, then it drops to 10 to 1
-------
My apologies Byron. I missed some of the replies to my posts. I agree with your above analysis The counter-battery blinding laser can be a lot smaller, but perhaps 1/1000th of the size, is a touch optimistic. Certainly not the so cheap its disposable range.
Dammit between this and a swarm of networked offboard IR drone sensors my stealth in space idea is looking shaky. Don't make me invoke the Zeroth law to get my beloved submarine duel in space trope.
But I still think a laserstar has a great big glass jawed vulnerability right where the 30m wide mirror/phased array is sitting.
Instant-shuttering a 20m laser mirror seems quite hard. But how easy or hard is it to instant-shutter the multiple small elements of a phased array? Or to replace the damaged ones, for that matter.
In fact, how close must phased array elements be? Would it be possible (or interesting) to put them on several crafts?
WRT IR sensors, in addition to multiple sensor drones, you may also have multiple sensor parts. For example, the filter plate in front of it may be destroyed by a X-ray laser, but it may also be replaced by a spare one. Similarly (but slightly more complicated), the sensible chip may also be replaced when fried.
It also means that you can still peak a look despite risking your sensors, as you have spare ones.
That said, I'm sure you can use sensor-frying to bring submarines-in-space back if you craft your setting carefully enough.
Some time ago, I thought about using liquid metallic hydrogen for a stealth cold gas thruster/heat sink. The stuff has an incredible speed of sound, meaning that you can attain 10 000 s of Isp with cold exhaust. It is also so compressed that just using said thruster would absorb incredible quantities of heat (unless it acts in a funny way, like the evoked metastable metallic hydrogen)
The problem is, as you need hundreds of GPa, my rough calculations indicated that for a spherical tank, you'd need a hyperdiamond wall thick as a third of the internal radius. Which means that at best, you could do an Earth-Jupiter trip with it due to the added mass, not talking about the technological level required.
Depending on the ease of using hyper-hard materials, they may be used for 'discreet' kinetics (or plain heat sink) at some point, though.
Milo
Will sensors at that distance have a good enough view for accurate weapon targetting?
-----
Reduced accuracy would be a probable design compromise.
Although a ship that wasn't being blinded could still use sensors that were on the ship
(SA Phil)
Byron said...
TOM:
Where did that come from? The question is not whether a laserstar and fighters can defeat a laserstar. It's if fighters, or some combination of laserstar and fighters, can beat a laserstar that costs the same as they do.
---------------
This is a good point. If it is Laser-Star 1 vs Laser-Star 2 plus fighters ...
You would probably have to assume Laser-Star 2 had inferior capabilites to Laser-Star 1.
Otherwise trying to prove that superior force 1 can beat inferior force 2 seems pointless.
(SA Phil)
Locki:
My apologies Byron. I missed some of the replies to my posts. I agree with your above analysis The counter-battery blinding laser can be a lot smaller, but perhaps 1/1000th of the size, is a touch optimistic. Certainly not the so cheap its disposable range.
Dammit between this and a swarm of networked offboard IR drone sensors my stealth in space idea is looking shaky. Don't make me invoke the Zeroth law to get my beloved submarine duel in space trope.
But I still think a laserstar has a great big glass jawed vulnerability right where the 30m wide mirror/phased array is sitting.
No need to apologize. It happens. I was actually surprised that it scaled that strongly. In reality, it probably won't be quite that strong, as I'd expect bigger mirrors to cost more per unit area.
Hard sci-fi sometimes shatters our wishful illusions. It happens, and what comes out is often more interesting then what went in.
Eth:
I'm still looking into phased arrays. I've seen suggestions of diffraction efficiency on the order of 80 to 95%. However, this is with a split beam, which I believe prohibits individual shuttering. I still haven't found numbers for a microwave-style phased array, but it's likely to be a bit lower. If Luke is lurking, he should know.
Another interesting thing I saw was that these beams can be steered with an accuracy less then the spot size. This is a victory for the "shoot the piece off" camp, of which I may have to consider becoming a member.
Phil:
This is a good point. If it is Laser-Star 1 vs Laser-Star 2 plus fighters ...
You would probably have to assume Laser-Star 2 had inferior capabilites to Laser-Star 1.
Otherwise trying to prove that superior force 1 can beat inferior force 2 seems pointless.
Exactly. The entire point of the discussion is which is the better option to build a combat force around. This has to assume equal cost between the options when comparing firepower.
RE: Shutters vs turrets
The Shutter could be a turret --
In that the shutter could be mounted on a rotating mount- which moves like a turret
Another possibility is you could use hydraulic force to close a shutter rapidly - since you massive heated fluid availible -- from cooling the super laser.
(SA Phil)
Byron,
Exactly. The entire point of the discussion is which is the better option to build a combat force around. This has to assume equal cost between the options when comparing firepower.
--------
However -- that might just be the best way to counter an opposing force with comparable technologies-- build a force bigger than your opponent's.
(SA Phil)
If you have the technology and resources to create liquid metalic hydrogen and diamond tanks capable of holding it (and all the associated other bits and pieces); then you will probably have access to other superscience or magitech items to prosecute your war as well.
Personally, if you could create the said combination of tank and metallic liquid hydrogen, I'd say the best use would be as a heat sink for the assorted ship systems so you could ditch the radiators and all the associated weakness it brings. Of course failure of the tank or pressurization systems would spell total disaster for you and anyone nearby...
Getting sensor locks on a target in space is quite easy; the object is dazzeling against the 3K background temperature of space in the IR band, and reflects sunlight in virtually any wavelength you can imagine. The on board computer will be combining sensor information from multiple directions, angles and wavelengths to build a detailed picture of the object(s) in question; we might be looking at something with 100 or more eyes. Since you have tracked it for a prolonged period, you also have course information and can extrapolate where it is going and when it will reach point x; once it does a burn you simply recalculate. Even at operatic speeds you will be able to meet these conditions due to the vast distances in Space; only magitech drive that cancell inertia or provide relatavistic speeds will nullify these considerations.
Phil:
However -- that might just be the best way to counter an opposing force with comparable technologies-- build a force bigger than your opponent's.
I'd take that as a given. However, the underlying question is the most cost-efficient way to deploy space forces. The best way to answer that question is to look at forces of equal cost. Even if you have more money then the other guy, you still have every incentive to spend it well.
Byron:
"I'm fine with agreeing to disagree. My view is that however nice the reasons for putting humans in danger would sound, they'd be ignored as soon as the casualties started.
On the other hand, most warships are built before the war..."
Believe me, I don't think putting humans in danger is a "nice" thing, even in the most abstract terms. What concerns me is trying to "fight" without human risk. It seems humane, but it is actually about the most inhumane thing imaginable, because it makes conquest just an economic exercise. And then big economies just subjugate smaller ones, without even considering more than the money cost.
"Maybe somewhere in between. This is quite a ways off, and given how the cost of electronics keeps dropping..."
They're not getting that much cheaper. And military systems are always more expensive.
"That is not for point defenses on a space station. Though I'm skeptical of two-direction attack in space. For most of the flight, they'd probably be close enough together to be attackable. Doing otherwise requires a lot of delta-V and fancy footwork. In orbit, it's easier, but not under the scenario you were describing."
I only have to generate a few degrees of angular separation at the moment of attack. I'm sure that's within the delta-v of a nuclear-thermal parasite, if given a few days to set up the separation.
"I know that. The start of the discussion thread was over my statement that guided projectiles were more likely to penetrate because they were long-rods. You disagreed."
They're more likely to penetrate substantial armor. But because they're coming in from off-axis, even if only by a few mils, they're just as likely to hit unarmored parts of your nose-armored laserstar. I think I'd choose a smart kinetic design tha was as compact as possible, in order to facilitate efficient maneuvering.
"I'm not sure what this means, exactly. I was attempting to raise an option for tactical drive deployment."
It means there is some ratio of carriers to parasites where using carriers is more efficient than individual strategic drive busses. Given that there is some ratio, I find the exact number to be totally uniteresting in such conceptually abstract discussions as we have here.
"That is not what I meant. The economies of scale between drives of the same type was what I was asking about."
I. Don't. Care.
Neither should you. Every engineering principle I know -- and every engineering principle you should be learning -- should be sufficient to know that appropriate specializtion is always more efficient. beyond that, details are too dependent on numbers we can only wildly speculate about at this point -- which means they are meaningless.
See, you're caught up in quantitative analysis. And I understand that in a budding engineer -- they teach you all of this math, classical mechanics, thermodynamics, Fourier transforms, etc. What they don't seem to teach in school is integrating all of this technical minutiae with some pretty basic principles. Maybe they can't. Maybe it requires experience and mentoring. I don't know. What I do know is that details aren't all that important in conceptual discussion if you understand the problem envelope to begin with.
SA Phil:
"I think your man in the loop idea is an old warrior not wanting to admit the reason we always had warriors firing the weapons is we didn't have a choice."
Nope. It has everything to do with recognizing that there's a difference between war and predation. In fact, a lot of forms of predation has risks for the predator. What it really is is the difference between war and industry. When you minimize human risk to the point that there virtually is none, as long as you are careful, it's no longer war. It's an industrial exercise. And industrial exercises in pushing people around, with nothing but money at risk -- that is so not desirable. That's worse than nuclear weapons, because at least with nuclear weapons, people on both sides are still at risk.
"I expect knights had a similar aversion when gunpowder made them obsolete. And fittingly the Battleship captains probably felt the same way about Airpower ending the ship to ship canon duel."
The kights were coopted into the officer corps and still had plenty of scope to demonstrate (what they perceived to be) their social superiority. Battleship captains still had cruisers.
"Its exactly the same reason as the zeroth law, romanticism."
I know I've said this before -- I am about the least romantic person where war is concerned that you can imagine. I find heroism a farce, and "stirring" battle narrative a vaudeville. My opinion has everything to do with understanding that war has to have a human cost for both sides, or it isn't war. It's something potentially much worse.
"At the engagement ranges and weapon speeds we are talking about here - even on the 10,000 km lower end - nothing is going to happen fast enough yet occur slow enough that that a couple second delay is going to amount to a hill of beans."
Maybe not. It doesn't invalidate the principle that humans should be put at risk, for the sake of making war a moral decision, if for no other reason.
Tony,
I know I've said this before -- I am about the least romantic person where war is concerned that you can imagine. I find heroism a farce, and "stirring" battle narrative a vaudeville. My opinion has everything to do with understanding that war has to have a human cost for both sides, or it isn't war. It's something potentially much worse.
Maybe not. It doesn't invalidate the principle that humans should be put at risk, for the sake of making war a moral decision, if for no other reason.
=================
But don't you see? That is the romantic notion.
Not that you believe in the "glory" of war -- but that you believe there is some moral value to making it about a human cost.
(SA Phil)
Tony:
"Humans in danger" is fundamentally a moral issue. I'm not terribly interested in arguing it, nor do I feel particularly qualified. It's entirely technically feasible, which was my point all along.
I only have to generate a few degrees of angular separation at the moment of attack. I'm sure that's within the delta-v of a nuclear-thermal parasite, if given a few days to set up the separation.
If I'm using a phased-array laser, beam steering over a 40-degree cone is highly efficient. You'll need more then that.
They're more likely to penetrate substantial armor. But because they're coming in from off-axis, even if only by a few mils, they're just as likely to hit unarmored parts of your nose-armored laserstar. I think I'd choose a smart kinetic design tha was as compact as possible, in order to facilitate efficient maneuvering.
Not at all. Unless the laserstar is very long, the nose will still dominate. At 10 degrees, the nose will be 98.5% of full size, while the side is 17.4% of full. That's a fairly large off-axis angle, and to be the same apparent size, the side would need to be 5.67 times the size of the nose. Also, in this case, a little armor on the sides goes a long way because of the oblique impact.
Neither should you. Every engineering principle I know -- and every engineering principle you should be learning -- should be sufficient to know that appropriate specializtion is always more efficient. beyond that, details are too dependent on numbers we can only wildly speculate about at this point -- which means they are meaningless.
This depends on the economies of scale of the particular drives in question. Claiming that the fact that economies of scale exist makes carriers inevitable is simple-minded. How big are they? If the economy of scale is minor (a few percent) it might make sense to just strap the engine on. If it's larger, then the carrier is a better idea. But I refuse to accept that "appropriate specialization is always more efficient". If so, then why do we have multi-role fighters?
Phil:
Let it drop. Tony is afraid of what war would become if we pull humans from danger. From a purely technical perspective, there is no reason not to do so. This is probably why letting computers run things is generally considered a bad idea.
Tony,
They're more likely to penetrate substantial armor. But because they're coming in from off-axis, even if only by a few mils, they're just as likely to hit unarmored parts of your nose-armored laserstar. I think I'd choose a smart kinetic design tha was as compact as possible, in order to facilitate efficient maneuvering.
----
The long rod is also going to live longer under fire from the Laser-Star
Since for an equal mass, less will be exposed to the energy of the weapon - until the distances are so small the spot size is smaller than the facing edge of the rod.
(SA Phil)
SA Phil:
"But don't you see? That is the romantic notion.
Not that you believe in the "glory" of war -- but that you believe there is some moral value to making it about a human cost."
You have it precisely backwards. It's not that there is moral value in making it about human risk. It's that human risk gives it a moral dimension that has to be considered by people who wish to engage in war. It may not mean much to policy makers personally, but they have constituencies to whom it does mean something.
It puts a brake on things. I would think anybody would see the purely practical positive in that.
Byron:
"'Humans in danger' is fundamentally a moral issue. I'm not terribly interested in arguing it, nor do I feel particularly qualified. It's entirely technically feasible, which was my point all along."
If you ever join an engineering professional society, you will find an ethics clause in the society's policy. It's there for a reason. "They gave me money; I built it," is not a sufficient reason to do things. You're going to have to develop that moral muscle to do morethan just technically proficient work in your chosen profession, B.
"If I'm using a phased-array laser, beam steering over a 40-degree cone is highly efficient. You'll need more then that."
If you're using a phased array laser, I have no worry that you'll be able to target even one ball bearing, much less hundreds or thousands. Too many moving parts.
"Not at all. Unless the laserstar is very long, the nose will still dominate. At 10 degrees, the nose will be 98.5% of full size, while the side is 17.4% of full. That's a fairly large off-axis angle, and to be the same apparent size, the side would need to be 5.67 times the size of the nose."
The laserstar will be much longer than the diameter of its aiming mirror(s). Also, the radiator fins will be mcuh longer than their edge armor will be wide.
"Also, in this case, a little armor on the sides goes a long way because of the oblique impact."
Depending on the impact energies involved and the thickness of the armor, it's possible that the oblique impact will throw debris into the laserstar interior along almost the entire length of the impact track. If the armor is still penetrated, the remaining mass of impactor will have a considerable length of internals to attack before it passes all the way through or is worn away.
Also, since I'm primarily interested in disabling or seriously degrading your radiator fins, the oblique angle is to my advantage. It creates a larger impact cross section.
"This depends on the economies of scale of the particular drives in question. Claiming that the fact that economies of scale exist makes carriers inevitable is simple-minded. How big are they? If the economy of scale is minor (a few percent) it might make sense to just strap the engine on. If it's larger, then the carrier is a better idea."
It's simple, but not "simple-minded". (Another important distinction you have apparently yet to internalize.) A negligible advantage at a ratio of 1/4, say, might be significant at 1/8 or 1/12. Like I already said, the magnitude of the advantage sets the effective ratio.
"But I refuse to accept that 'appropriate specialization is always more efficient'. If so, then why do we have multi-role fighters?"
Technological convergence. But we're talking about a situation in which tactical and strategic propulsion technologies have not converged.
"Phil:
Let it drop. Tony is afraid of what war would become if we pull humans from danger. From a purely technical perspective, there is no reason not to do so. This is probably why letting computers run things is generally considered a bad idea."
Like I said, you need to develop that moral muscle, b. Engineering ain't only about the numbers. For example, to take an example from my own life, it's technically feasible to put yellow page business listings online. But in doing so, one enables lawyers and insurance agents to advertise. Seems like a trivial and somewhat comedic illustration, I know. But it adequately illustrates the principle.
SA Phil:
"The long rod is also going to live longer under fire from the Laser-Star
Since for an equal mass, less will be exposed to the energy of the weapon - until the distances are so small the spot size is smaller than the facing edge of the rod."
A long rod at even a slight off-angle will expose at least as much flank area as nose area. And a spread of long rods is not going to be coming precisely nose-on.
Also, maneuvering a long rod in pitch and yaw is harder than maneuvering a roughly cubic object of the same mass, due to angular momentum.
Tony:
If you ever join an engineering professional society, you will find an ethics clause in the society's policy. It's there for a reason. "They gave me money; I built it," is not a sufficient reason to do things. You're going to have to develop that moral muscle to do morethan just technically proficient work in your chosen profession, B.
Because everyone who doesn't agree with you on this is lacks "moral muscle". I honestly do not see the inherent ethical problem with removing humans from front-line warships. There are still humans who will probably be at least captured if not killed if the battle goes south, just not as many of them. The last point is that I am not going to be building these things. (It would be cool if I could, but that's not terribly likely.) Arguing about what the people who build them should do is really pointless. Either they will accept your ethical arguments, or they won't.
If you're using a phased array laser, I have no worry that you'll be able to target even one ball bearing, much less hundreds or thousands. Too many moving parts.
Moving parts? The entire thing is electronic. There are no moving parts at all.
It's simple, but not "simple-minded". (Another important distinction you have apparently yet to internalize.) A negligible advantage at a ratio of 1/4, say, might be significant at 1/8 or 1/12. Like I already said, the magnitude of the advantage sets the effective ratio.
No, it is simple-minded. Claiming that engine economies of scale alone dictate the existence of carriers is downright bizarre. What if these same economies of scale apply to the combat craft? Then it would make sense to make them large. Possibly too large for a carrier. Hence my suggestion. It's really no different from one of your parasites except in size.
Technological convergence. But we're talking about a situation in which tactical and strategic propulsion technologies have not converged.
Therefore, it is not always the case that specialization is better.
A long rod at even a slight off-angle will expose at least as much flank area as nose area. And a spread of long rods is not going to be coming precisely nose-on.
Also, maneuvering a long rod in pitch and yaw is harder than maneuvering a roughly cubic object of the same mass, due to angular momentum.
The question then becomes how long the rod is. A length ratio of 10 to 1 doesn't strike me as terribly outlandish, and it should get decent penetration. Also, the correct term is moment of inertia, not angular momentum.
Thinking farther on this, we're currently delving into the bigger ethical question of how far it is acceptable to go in removing humans from risk during war. Is using cruise missiles or drone strikes predation? What about armored vehicles? Is it OK so long as there is somebody at risk? And what about the fact that some people just won't care about the moral issues, and will build the things anyway? If we have to deal with SpaceHitler, I'm fairly sure that he won't care about the ethical issues of drones.
Byron:
"Because everyone who doesn't agree with you on this is lacks 'moral muscle'."
Not at all. The point I was making has to do with your admission that you did not feel qualified to discuss moral issues. You really need to rethink that, B. Engineering ain't just about the numbers. Trot that one past one of your instructors (that's actually done professional engineering in the real world of industry or construction) and see what he or she has to say.
"I honestly do not see the inherent ethical problem with removing humans from front-line warships. There are still humans who will probably be at least captured if not killed if the battle goes south, just not as many of them. The last point is that I am not going to be building these things. (It would be cool if I could, but that's not terribly likely.) Arguing about what the people who build them should do is really pointless. Either they will accept your ethical arguments, or they won't."
Future attitudes start right here, B, today. Look at how much we rely on the percieved wisdom of Greece, Rome, and a certain Jewish preacher, even today.
Beyond that, you're not seeing the ethical dilemma does not mean it does not exist. I'm not speaking ex officio myself here. The philosophy of human risk in warfare is one of the hotest topics in the field of military studies, and has been for many decades now.
"Moving parts? The entire thing is electronic. There are no moving parts at all."
In the cooling system, B. Once again, your mirror materials aren't optically perfect, and you're bathing them in ridiculously high energy fluxes of colimated light.
"No, it is simple-minded. Claiming that engine economies of scale alone dictate the existence of carriers is downright bizarre. What if these same economies of scale apply to the combat craft? Then it would make sense to make them large. Possibly too large for a carrier. Hence my suggestion. It's really no different from one of your parasites except in size."
If the same economies of scale applied to the combat craft, there wouldn't be a difference in engine efficiency between tactical and strategic propulsion, now would there? You're denying the distinction exists in order to prove the distinction might not exist. Circular argument.
"Therefore, it is not always the case that specialization is better."
Once again, read every word I write, B. I said "appropriate" specialization because the point needed that qualification. In this case, the specialization is appropriate because we have as much as an order of magnitude difference in propulsive efficieny under consideration.
The question then becomes how long the rod is. A length ratio of 10 to 1 doesn't strike me as terribly outlandish, and it should get decent penetration.
It only matters with relatively thick armors, B. And if I don't hit your armor, I really don't GAS about sectional density. Also, a whipple shield might easily cause a long rod to yaw, even if it doesn't slow it appreciably, or break it up.
"Also, the correct term is moment of inertia, not angular momentum."
Moment of inertia is a static property. Rotation is dynamic. Thus angular momentum, which is the product of moment of inertia and velocity.
Tony:
"Thinking farther on this, we're currently delving into the bigger ethical question of how far it is acceptable to go in removing humans from risk during war. Is using cruise missiles or drone strikes predation?"
Our enemies don't think it's very fair, and neither do a lot of third parties. Also note that we didn't JDAM Bin Laden because we didn't want to take that much risk with bystanders, nor did we want to forego the confrimation of a hard kill that we could get with a ground raid.
"What about armored vehicles?"
People have been using armor in warfare for a long time. And armored vehicles are hardly safe in combat. Lot's of ways to get killed in one.
"Is it OK so long as there is somebody at risk?"
I've never thought war was "OK", though it sometimes may be a lesser of two evils. That already sets it up as a moral dilemma from the start. You may think it quixotic, but a lot of people (not just myself) see the moral dilemma component of warfare as an important feature, for example:
"It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it." (Robert E. Lee, Battle of Fredericksburg, 1862)
"And what about the fact that some people just won't care about the moral issues, and will build the things anyway? If we have to deal with SpaceHitler, I'm fairly sure that he won't care about the ethical issues of drones."
Many people actually agonized considerably over strategic bombing in WW2. Even against Hitler, when the Allies really got the air campaign going at maximal effectiveness and minimal cost in late 1944, there were many who asked, in effect, were the Allies engaged in terror bombing, and if so, should they? Even with all of the racial overtones and the general viciousness of the Pacific War, there were still a significant number of policy makers that did not want to nuke Japan, no matter how much it miminmized risk to our forces.
Tony:
In the cooling system, B. Once again, your mirror materials aren't optically perfect, and you're bathing them in ridiculously high energy fluxes of colimated light.
So at worst it's no worse then a normal mirror. That's a far cry from "You'll never hit anything with that".
If the same economies of scale applied to the combat craft, there wouldn't be a difference in engine efficiency between tactical and strategic propulsion, now would there? You're denying the distinction exists in order to prove the distinction might not exist. Circular argument.
I was referring to the other systems on a combat craft. Things like weapons and sensors.
Moment of inertia is a static property. Rotation is dynamic. Thus angular momentum, which is the product of moment of inertia and velocity.
The MoI is what makes the projectile difficult to rotate or stop rotating. It is in fact the more accurate term.
Not at all. The point I was making has to do with your admission that you did not feel qualified to discuss moral issues. You really need to rethink that, B. Engineering ain't just about the numbers. Trot that one past one of your instructors (that's actually done professional engineering in the real world of industry or construction) and see what he or she has to say.
Because engineers are the ones who make moral decisions on putting people on spacecraft. Right. That's a question for the highest political level, not for the designer.
The problem that I have with claims that we should put people aboard for moral reasons is that not everyone will see it the same way. What will keep the space force from being used for predation is not the presence of humans on its ships, but the 'moral muscle' of the political leaders. There is no technical obstacle to drones, and someone who is interested in conquest is obviously not going to have moral qualms about using them. So under your proposal, the humans are only deterring those who wouldn't do it anyway. Going even farther, it's trivially simple to pull the people off a ship and run it remotely. Even if you explicitly designed the vessel to not have that capability, a software patch and a few weeks in the yard would add it. Long before anyone goes a-conquering, they'll do so. So all you've done is handicapped yourself with no benefit to anyone at all. Even things like terror bombings affected presumably innocent people.
Our enemies don't think it's very fair, and neither do a lot of third parties. Also note that we didn't JDAM Bin Laden because we didn't want to take that much risk with bystanders, nor did we want to forego the confrimation of a hard kill that we could get with a ground raid.
Exactly my point. What is the difference between somebody running a predator from his computer stateside, and somebody running a battleship from a console a few light-seconds away?
I would note that neither of the reasons you give for not bombing Bin Laden had to do with the moral issues of drones. One was the confirmation of death, while the other would have been a problem no matter what the delivery platform was.
Tony,
Like I said, you need to develop that moral muscle, b. Engineering ain't only about the numbers. For example, to take an example from my own life, it's technically feasible to put yellow page business listings online. But in doing so, one enables lawyers and insurance agents to advertise. Seems like a trivial and somewhat comedic illustration, I know. But it adequately illustrates the principle.
======
This is a philosophical difference not an Engineering one.
I have been involved in Engineering for nearly 20 years. I have several patents, and have been involved in dozens of projects. There is not a technical experience shortfall in my perspective.
The data on automating warefare is limited. It wasnt until very recently that we even had the ability to move humans farther away from combat.
But where we have had that ability we have done so repetitively -
Air to Air missiles instead of Dogfighting.
Cruise Missiles instead bombing runs.
And now Drone recon moving towards Drone attacks.
We will see this play out in the near future not the mid future - in 20 or 30 years we will have drones that are comprable in capabilities to piloted aircraft.
(SA Phil)
Byron,
Exactly my point. What is the difference between somebody running a predator from his computer stateside, and somebody running a battleship from a console a few light-seconds away?
---------
The difference is running the space battleship remotely makes even more sense than the predator.
(SA Phil)
We are already comfortable with automatically lethal weapons. We scatter landmines and did bombs indiscriminately. We only care if the killings are legally embarrassing. Shooting down an Iranian airliner was bad. The thousands maimed and killed from Vietnam-era bombs are not of international concern.
I think that the likely outcome is that standing orders will be issued to expert systems with human overrides involved. Look at the last spacex launch. The first attempt scrubbed on the pad due to computer override. Humans prepped the unit and certified it for launch, they told the computers to do it and they were in charge after that. Computers stopped the launch. Of course, humans had a red button as well but only computers could spot the chamber pressure problem in time.
Regardless of whether human lives should be on the line for us to take these things seriously, you can put money on us (humans) taking the dumbest expedients in the future. Foreign mercenaries, robot soldiers, indifferent and apathetic public, war for profit, etc, the mistakes of the past will be the mistakes of the future.
The non-romantic moral dilema in removing humans from combat is that less humans will die.
There is no way anyone is going to sell letting humans die as preferable to keeping them in a safer location unless there is a tactical advantage to having them there.
In this PMF its worse than that- the drone spacecraft will have higher performance in all areas.
Without the zeroth law there is no reason for humans in any sized combat craft.
Its beyond implausible - its fantasy.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"I was referring to the other systems on a combat craft. Things like weapons and sensors."
Ummm...what part of fighters have cheaper sensors (and also weapons) because they get closer to the target is not clear?
"The MoI is what makes the projectile difficult to rotate or stop rotating. It is in fact the more accurate term."
If you want. But IMO neither one is more correct than the other. Moment of inertia resists putting the object in motion, angular momentum must be cancelled to stop it. You're thinking about the system at rest, I'm thinking about it in motion.
"Because engineers are the ones who make moral decisions on putting people on spacecraft. Right. That's a question for the highest political level, not for the designer."
The concept of professional ethics is really wasted on you, isn't it?
"The problem that I have with claims that we should put people aboard for moral reasons is that not everyone will see it the same way."
No, they won't. But more people will be more cautious where they otherwise wouldn't have. Just because no solution is perfect doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to do as well as possible.
Tony,
The concept of professional ethics is really wasted on you, isn't it?
-----
That was a cheap shot.
Engineers designed nuclear missiles too.
Those and every other weapon of he modern age. Including the ones that kill with no human input like land mines.
(SA Phil)
jollyreaper:
"We are already comfortable with automatically lethal weapons. We scatter landmines and did bombs indiscriminately. We only care if the killings are legally embarrassing. Shooting down an Iranian airliner was bad. The thousands maimed and killed from Vietnam-era bombs are not of international concern."
So, soooo not true, JR.
Rules have existed for decades regarding the proper emplacement and recording of minefields. And not just international ones. Individual armies have had them for about as long as there have been small, portable mines.
We sure did indiscriminately bomb. But the guys doing the bombing paid a high price to do it, and far from everybody agreed that it should have been done. And now we have formalized rules of enegagment to control what limited bombing will still undertake.
And if you think unexploded ordnance in SE Asia is not an international issue, how it is, do you suppose, that you even know about it?
"I think that the likely outcome is that standing orders will be issued to expert systems with human overrides involved. Look at the last spacex launch. The first attempt scrubbed on the pad due to computer override. Humans prepped the unit and certified it for launch, they told the computers to do it and they were in charge after that. Computers stopped the launch. Of course, humans had a red button as well but only computers could spot the chamber pressure problem in time."
Extremely poor analogy, JR. The operation of a launch vehicle is a carefully planned event, within which the safe parameters of operation are known prior to initiation. Putting a robot in charge of that is a no-brainer. Combat is an emergent environment in which the parameters of safe operation are unpredictable from moment to moment. Putting a robot in charge of that just guarantees it will fail the first time the environment exceeds some parameter in a way that nobody would predict. And I can guarantee you that that happens in combat all of the time.
SA Phil:
"That was a cheap shot.
Engineers designed nuclear missiles too.
Those and every other weapon of he modern age. Including the ones that kill with no human input like land mines."
It's far from a cheap shot. Many of the men who designed atom bomb tried to stop it from being used, once they considered that the primary target -- the German Reich -- was defeated. At the other extreme, Teller positively pushed the development of the H-bomb, against considerable political and professional resistance, because he thought that it was going to be developed regardless, and he wanted to make sure the "right" people (in his mind) had it first. Both extremes involved serious ethical consideration of what was being done. Neither faction said, "I just work here."
Tony:
Ummm...what part of fighters have cheaper sensors (and also weapons) because they get closer to the target is not clear?
The part where you assume that economies of scale only apply to engines?
The concept of professional ethics is really wasted on you, isn't it?
Actually, it's that this hasn't yet come up in any of the stuff I've heard on engineering ethics. The safety and welfare of the public is the guiding principle here. Claiming that designing drones compromises that is a bit high-handed in my opinion. Or do you also condemn the designers of the Reaper?
Many of the men who designed atom bomb tried to stop it from being used, once they considered that the primary target -- the German Reich -- was defeated. At the other extreme, Teller positively pushed the development of the H-bomb, against considerable political and professional resistance, because he thought that it was going to be developed regardless, and he wanted to make sure the "right" people (in his mind) had it first. Both extremes involved serious ethical consideration of what was being done. Neither faction said, "I just work here."
Fine. I retract my previous statement about it not being in my department and join the Teller camp. Someone is going to do it no matter what, and by not doing so, you surrender a valuable advantage.
Thinking farther on this, the Hague Convention suggests itself as a possible parallel. At some point, the major powers get together and sign a treaty banning the use of "Unmanned offensive recoverable platforms" against each other. In practice, even non-signatories (like the US) follow the Hague convention all the time, because hollow-point ammo isn't that much better. I'm not sure whether the same will be true of drones. Of course, the command module could be detachable. The drawback is that there is no particular advantage unless everybody signs.
SA Phil:
"The non-romantic moral dilema in removing humans from combat is that less humans will die.
There is no way anyone is going to sell letting humans die as preferable to keeping them in a safer location unless there is a tactical advantage to having them there."
Even less humans will die if no war is fought, right? Putting humans at risk tends to make considerations of war more serious. Also, remote control war tends to be messy and not very effective at killing just the BGs. Automatic weapon systems tend to be indiscriminately destructive. On the other hand, there are known cases of laser guided bombs being guided off of targets, after they were already dropped, Because civilians wandered into the target area.
"In this PMF its worse than that- the drone spacecraft will have higher performance in all areas."
Less expense? Probably. Higher performance? It's doubtful any PMF tactical propulsion system is going to accelerate at more than a fractional G.
"Without the zeroth law there is no reason for humans in any sized combat craft.
Its beyond implausible - its fantasy."
And the zeroth law may be good enough, if it's based on sound ethical principles, like keeping humans always in control and always at risk.
Even less humans will die if no war is fought, right? Putting humans at risk tends to make considerations of war more serious. Also, remote control war tends to be messy and not very effective at killing just the BGs. Automatic weapon systems tend to be indiscriminately destructive. On the other hand, there are known cases of laser guided bombs being guided off of targets, after they were already dropped, Because civilians wandered into the target area.
What part of human-selected targets did you not get? The only automatic targeting system is for kinetic defense, and if the parameters on that are fairly restrictive, then accidents are no more likely then if a human was running the thing.
Less expense? Probably. Higher performance? It's doubtful any PMF tactical propulsion system is going to accelerate at more than a fractional G.
So? If that fractional G is greater, it could significantly improve strategic mobility.
And the zeroth law may be good enough, if it's based on sound ethical principles, like keeping humans always in control and always at risk.
Given that this is an ethical principle not recognized by a majority of people today, the possibility of it becoming one in the future is unlikely. Most opposition to drone strikes has to do with the strikes, not the drone.
One other comment: if we want to get right down to who should be in the loop, the leaders who start a war should have their asses on the line. Lead from the front and risk your own ass getting shot off, then we can see how eager for it you are.
It's not going to happen. The people who start the wars are either romantic fools or cynical opportunists. The romantic fool might find virtue in having his soldiers risk death but the pragmatist doesn't care.
As for industrial exercises, that's what WWII was all about, one economy vs another.
Tony,
It's far from a cheap shot.
-----
Unprocessed wild bovine fertilizer.
You accused Byron of not usnderstanding the concept of professional ethics.
I'll guarantee you he has never designed a drone Laser-Star capable of killing any humans indiscriminately.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"What part of human-selected targets did you not get? The only automatic targeting system is for kinetic defense, and if the parameters on that are fairly restrictive, then accidents are no more likely then if a human was running the thing."
So, where are your humans selecting the targets, and can they react in time to cause a miss if the target becomes fouled by noncombatants?
"So? If that fractional G is greater, it could significantly improve strategic mobility."
Ummm...how does a performance delta between two types of tactical craft improve strategic mobility?
"Given that this is an ethical principle not recognized by a majority of people today, the possibility of it becoming one in the future is unlikely."
It is an ethical principle not thought about by most people, one way or the other. But the people who are paid to think about these things do think about them. So do a lot of interested laymen (like myself) who follow their work.
And all of that is beside the point anyway. If people see war as a remote control affair, they will pay for it when it comes calling at their doorstep.
"Most opposition to drone strikes has to do with the strikes, not the drone."
When an enemy starts taking and killing hostages in response to every drone kill, or starts attacking targets in the US in retaliation, because they can't get back at us any other way, people will care about the drone.
jollyreaper:
"One other comment: if we want to get right down to who should be in the loop, the leaders who start a war should have their asses on the line. Lead from the front and risk your own ass getting shot off, then we can see how eager for it you are."
It's enough that the people who have sons and daughters in harm's way can remove the leaders if the leaders do something the people don't accept.
Also, I actually was at the risk of getting my ass shot off, JR. I wouldn't hold Bush 41 personally responsible. So I think maybe you're speaking more than a bit out of turn.
"It's not going to happen. The people who start the wars are either romantic fools or cynical opportunists. The romantic fool might find virtue in having his soldiers risk death but the pragmatist doesn't care."
Just more cliches from the cliche factory.
"As for industrial exercises, that's what WWII was all about, one economy vs another."
Ultimately, maybe. But a lot of people were at risk on all sides -- and a good number of them lost -- in the process. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that a lot of possible unpleasantness has been avoided in their memory over the interveing decades.
SA Phil:
"Unprocessed wild bovine fertilizer.
You accused Byron of not usnderstanding the concept of professional ethics.
I'll guarantee you he has never designed a drone Laser-Star capable of killing any humans indiscriminately."
Actually, I was saying I don't think he cares. He cleared that up by saying he wouldtake the Teller route. Good for him -- I probably would too, given the same circumstances. I just wouldn't kid myself that there was no moral dimension to the decision.
Tony:
So, where are your humans selecting the targets, and can they react in time to cause a miss if the target becomes fouled by noncombatants?
A few light-seconds back. And how often is a noncombatant going to blunder into a space battle unexpectedly?
For the record, they won't. You'll know where they are and where they're going long before they get there.
Ummm...how does a performance delta between two types of tactical craft improve strategic mobility?
Maybe Phil and I didn't assume that we were talking about tactical craft. Or maybe the fact that the parasite is less massive improves the delta-V of the carrier.
When an enemy starts taking and killing hostages in response to every drone kill, or starts attacking targets in the US in retaliation, because they can't get back at us any other way, people will care about the drone.
And these enemies would react differently if it was an F-16? News flash. They're terrorists. Terror is what they do.
Actually, I was saying I don't think he cares. He cleared that up by saying he wouldtake the Teller route. Good for him -- I probably would too, given the same circumstances. I just wouldn't kid myself that there was no moral dimension to the decision.
At the time I made the statement in question, I was trying to avoid this argument. Which failed miserably.
Tony,
Less expense? Probably. Higher performance? It's doubtful any PMF tactical propulsion system is going to accelerate at more than a fractional G.
---------
Some examples:
Definetly less expense.
Better mass budget.
Less need for radiation shielding.
The ship can be on deployment for years with no concerns as to the crew's well being.
More surviable during combat.
Much easier to send on a one way, or suicide mission.
Recovery methods that involve extremly long travel times are much more feasible.
The ship is harder to capture and use against you.
The crew can't mutiny/join the other side/desert/decide they arent getting paid enough/etc.
Less human error.
Lower chance for friendly fire.
(SA Phil)
Heck even the light bill is cheaper.
(SA Phil)
Byron:
"A few light-seconds back. And how often is a noncombatant going to blunder into a space battle unexpectedly?
For the record, they won't. You'll know where they are and where they're going long before they get there."
Really? You have perfect tactical intelligence to know that a station that appears to be a dot of light on your best sensor at several light seconds doesn't have a neutral party vessel in its vicinity? Wow...
"Maybe Phil and I didn't assume that we were talking about tactical craft. Or maybe the fact that the parasite is less massive improves the delta-V of the carrier."
Non sequitur. Build a bigger carrier with more fuel/remass. And since we're talking about weapons that mass several tons apiece, carried by high performance tactical craft that mass several dozens to hundreds of tons, I wouldn't expect a hab for two to three crewmemebers for two to three weeks to be more than a marginal addition to a scout/attack craft's mass.
"News flash. They're terrorists. Terror is what they do."
News flash. They won't always be terrorists. The same rules apply whether your drones are killing terrorists or just soldiers of an enemy army.
"At the time I made the statement in question, I was trying to avoid this argument. Which failed miserably."
And my point was that you took a stand, for the right reasons. Good enough.
SA Phil:
"Definetly less expense."
Really? The flyaway cost for a Global Hawk drone is $104M. The flyaway cost for a much more capable F-35 fighter is $197M. Give the Global Hawk, high speed, high maneuverability, and weapons delivery systems, I'd be surprised if it didn't cost more than the fighter.
Now, we can go back and forth about why this might or might not be, and how it might be differenti n the future. The point is that automation is not always cheaper.
"Better mass budget."
Different capability profile too.
"Less need for radiation shielding."
Now that's a fact, but sometimes having to support more stuff is the cost of doing better business.
"The ship can be on deployment for years with no concerns as to the crew's well being."
Which ship? The drone? It doesn't have multi-year mission lifetimes without being much more than a drone -- and probably manned, for maintenance, if for no other reason.
"More surviable during combat."
Highly speculative.
"Much easier to send on a one way, or suicide mission."
No more expensive to send a manned craft unmanned from time to time.
"Recovery methods that involve extremly long travel times are much more feasible."
Those kind of methods you use for recon probes, not for combatant spacecraft.
"The ship is harder to capture and use against you."
So your parasite has a bailout and destruct capability, just like fighters do today.
"The crew can't mutiny/join the other side/desert/decide they arent getting paid enough/etc."
All risks I'm willing to take.
"Less human error."
A remote drone pilot is less likely to commit an error than somebody who's ass is on the line in the cockpit?
"Lower chance for friendly fire."
Nope. A drone pilot is just as likely to shoot at a friendly drone as a parasite pilot is likely to shoot at a friendly parasite. If you mean less chance of a human getting in the way of friendly fire, I'm with you -- but I'm also willing to take that risk, because human risk is all part of the plan.
Really? You have perfect tactical intelligence to know that a station that appears to be a dot of light on your best sensor at several light seconds doesn't have a neutral party vessel in its vicinity? Wow...
No, the feed from the sensors on the drone tells me that. Honestly, most of the hand-wringing about neutral parties will likely disappear during a general war. If they blunder around near warships, they're either being used as human shields or they're just stupid. Either way, it's far more of a concern when you're blowing up the space station harboring terrorists, not the one guarding the planet you're trying to invade.
News flash. They won't always be terrorists. The same rules apply whether your drones are killing terrorists or just soldiers of an enemy army.
We have no experience of how non-terrorists will fight back against drones. Claiming that they will resort to terrorism if attacked by drones but not by manned aircraft is a bit of a stretch. Actually, it's an enormous leap.
Non sequitur. Build a bigger carrier with more fuel/remass. And since we're talking about weapons that mass several tons apiece, carried by high performance tactical craft that mass several dozens to hundreds of tons, I wouldn't expect a hab for two to three crewmemebers for two to three weeks to be more than a marginal addition to a scout/attack craft's mass.
Three points:
First, I'd doubt that two to three people would be combat-capable for more then maybe 12 hours. Assuming that one person always has to be on watch, you need at least four or five. Probably more if you wish long-term combat readiness.
Second, the mass per person will be significant. Even for three people, I'd estimate that the cabin will need to be somewhat larger then the Apollo CM, which massed, sans heat shield, 4.7 tons. That ignores the consumables on the SM. So at least 2.5 tons per person.
Third, there is no reason beyond moral ones to put humans aboard. Even a marginal addition costs money and possibly performance.
Really? The flyaway cost for a Global Hawk drone is $104M. The flyaway cost for a much more capable F-35 fighter is $197M. Give the Global Hawk, high speed, high maneuverability, and weapons delivery systems, I'd be surprised if it didn't cost more than the fighter.
Global Hawk does something totally different then the F-35. Removing a man from a current fighter might not save all that much today, but we are not discussing UCAVs of today.
Different capability profile too.
How so? You have yet to give a single concrete example of this.
Which ship? The drone? It doesn't have multi-year mission lifetimes without being much more than a drone -- and probably manned, for maintenance, if for no other reason.
At the very least, you don't have to rotate it home except for overhauls. Have a tender available for maintenance needs.
No more expensive to send a manned craft unmanned from time to time.
Except for the cost of the hab, and the extra engine to support the hab.
=Milo=
You know, every time I check this thread there seem to be several more dozen posts from Byron and Tony, and they don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than reiterating the same points and insulting each other.
Thucydides:
"Personally, if you could create the said combination of tank and metallic liquid hydrogen, I'd say the best use would be as a heat sink for the assorted ship systems so you could ditch the radiators and all the associated weakness it brings. Of course failure of the tank or pressurization systems would spell total disaster for you and anyone nearby..."
So we're back to operatic radiator-less ships that explode spectacularly when defeated?
Truly we have made stellar progress from our ignorant beginnings...
Tony:
"And then big economies just subjugate smaller ones, without even considering more than the money cost."
This already happens.
"It's not that there is moral value in making it about human risk. It's that human risk gives it a moral dimension that has to be considered by people who wish to engage in war."
The problem here is that you're succumbing to wishful thinking. You want warfare (or "predation") to always require putting humans at risk, because that makes war more moral by giving people an extra incentive to avoid it. However, that does not mean that war (or "predation") will always require putting humans at risk. If the technology turns out such that this isn't necessary then, well, tough luck. The laws of physics don't exist to support your moral notions.
"If you ever join an engineering professional society, you will find an ethics clause in the society's policy. It's there for a reason. "They gave me money; I built it," is not a sufficient reason to do things. You're going to have to develop that moral muscle to do morethan just technically proficient work in your chosen profession, B."
Unfortunately, as you yourself like to claim, people will often put the interests of their own group above that of others.
In a war, most people are going to be more interested in minimizing casualties on their own side than in avoiding risk-free "predation" (as you call it) against enemy combatants, regardless of moral issues with the latter.
People are going to be more interested in avoiding civilian casualties, and perhaps avoiding overly cruel weapons (in the sense of causing particularly painful deaths, not in the sense of being hard/pointless to fight back against), and so may accept some additional risk to their own soldiers for those causes. But enemy combatants? Nobody cares much about those.
"For example, to take an example from my own life, it's technically feasible to put yellow page business listings online. But in doing so, one enables lawyers and insurance agents to advertise."
Okay, seriously, why shouldn't they advertise? I know it's traditional to joke about how evil lawyers are, but the fact is that an advertisement from them really isn't going to be more annoying than an advertisement from anyone else. What harm would it do?
Byron:
"The last point is that I am not going to be building these things. (It would be cool if I could, but that's not terribly likely.) Arguing about what the people who build them should do is really pointless. Either they will accept your ethical arguments, or they won't."
Exactly. Fact is, history shows people working in the military have a long track record of, emmm, "fudging" on morals and doing stuff that civilians from the same society condemn. This includes militaries seen as the "good guys" on the grand-strategic scale.
=Milo=
Tony:
"Our enemies don't think it's very fair, and neither do a lot of third parties."
If a bunch of spearmen had to go against a machine gun nest, they'd complain it's "unfair" too. We still use machine guns.
The problem here is one of asymmetric warfare. There is a sufficiently big difference in capabilities between the sides that the weaker side is reduced to complaining that "arrgh, you're cheating!", yet still too committed to their ideology to be willing to surrender.
This has nothing to do with whether humans are putting themselves at risk or not, and everything to do with massive technological and economic advantage.
"Also note that we didn't JDAM Bin Laden because [...], nor did we want to forego the confrimation of a hard kill that we could get with a ground raid."
This was because bin Laden was a high-profile target rather than a generic enemy combatant. This is an exceptional circumstance, as the majority of combat is against generic enemy combatants, and so the majority of a military's forces are optimized for such.
"Many people actually agonized considerably over strategic bombing in WW2. Even against Hitler, when the Allies really got the air campaign going at maximal effectiveness and minimal cost in late 1944, there were many who asked, in effect, were the Allies engaged in terror bombing, and if so, should they? Even with all of the racial overtones and the general viciousness of the Pacific War, there were still a significant number of policy makers that did not want to nuke Japan, no matter how much it miminmized risk to our forces."
Yet, many cities in Germany and Japan still got firebombed, and Japan still got nuked.
Many people reading the history books today - and even contemporary commentators during the war - are ashamed of this, and criticize these actions as having been inappropiate. But that's exactly what I'm getting at. Militaries have shown that they will continue to do such things no matter how much civilians scream and protest. And perhaps, after the fact, historians might decide that these actions were wrong and "apologize", but that's not much consolation for someone dying of cancer in Hiroshima.
And now we're talking about "predation" on enemy combatants rather than civilians. There's going to be a lot less screaming and protesting about that.
Byron:
"Because engineers are the ones who make moral decisions on putting people on spacecraft. Right. That's a question for the highest political level, not for the designer."
Tony:
"The concept of professional ethics is really wasted on you, isn't it?"
I can respect an engineer who pulls out of working on a project because he finds it morally indefensible. However, what will most likely happen is the politicians will just assign a different engineer, one who isn't so scrupulous, to finish the project.
Unless there's only a handful of people in the world with the skills to build the thing in question, there are bound to be a few among them who value coin above virtue.
...I also find this discussion kind of funny given just a couple threads ago you were talking about how politicians should be allowed to make the important decisions, and the thought of people hired to build nuclear missiles deciding to sabotage them based on their personal moral convictions was disgusting.
=Milo=
Byron:
"Even things like terror bombings affected presumably innocent people."
Presumably?
Even killing random civilians will result in a small chance that some of them will turn out to have been criminals who had it coming. The majority of them, however, won't be.
It is statistically implausible that a bomb killing several hundred unidentified civilians will not affect a single innocent.
Unless you adhere to the Christian notion of "all humans are sinners", anyway.
Jollyreaper:
"We scatter landmines [...] indiscriminately."
Well, actually that's falling out of favor. International law currently puts some serious limitations on landmine use, intended to keep landmines from being forgotten about and killing a civilian decades later.
Many countries have signed the even stronger Ottawa Treaty which outright bans landmines, but the US hasn't.
SA Phil:
"There is no way anyone is going to sell letting humans die as preferable to keeping them in a safer location unless there is a tactical advantage to having them there."
A tactical or political advantage.
Avoiding political fallout from an automated system shooting a bunch of civilians is a political advantage that would motivate putting soldiers at risk.
Making sure the war is terrible just so people remember how terrible the war is is not a political "advantage" anyone who is already interested in starting a war is going to pursue.
Tony:
"Even less humans will die if no war is fought, right?"
Right!
So you admit that even with most combat platforms being automated, humans on both sides will still die, so people still have an incentive to avoid the war.
"On the other hand, there are known cases of laser guided bombs being guided off of targets, after they were already dropped, Because civilians wandered into the target area."
That's nice.
In space, civilians are not just going to wander into a target area out of nowhere in a matter of seconds or even minutes.
=Milo=
Jollyreaper:
"One other comment: if we want to get right down to who should be in the loop, the leaders who start a war should have their asses on the line. Lead from the front and risk your own ass getting shot off, then we can see how eager for it you are."
In WW2, many leaders, including Stalin, refused to evacuate even while the cities they resided in were being bombed, because they felt such a show of courage would inspire the troops. This was, in fact, one of the very few respectable things Stalin had done.
Barbarian raiders also regularly launched raids for their own glory and riches rather than to advance some higher-up's agenda.
And of course, many military officers of all ranks did lead from the front right up until the point in history where snipers made this outright "suicidal" rather than "risky".
The fact is, unwillingness to put themselves in danger has rarely been a vice warmongers possessed.
Tony:
"If people see war as a remote control affair, they will pay for it when it comes calling at their doorstep."
Fortunately, it won't come at their doorstep, because they're fighting it remotely!
"When an enemy starts taking and killing hostages in response to every drone kill, or starts attacking targets in the US in retaliation, because they can't get back at us any other way, people will care about the drone."
So that's blackmail.
I can force people to do things they would normally consider immoral if I threaten to kill a bunch of innocent hostages otherwise. That doesn't mean they were the ones in the wrong for not doing that from the beginning.
"Really? You have perfect tactical intelligence to know that a station that appears to be a dot of light on your best sensor at several light seconds doesn't have a neutral party vessel in its vicinity? Wow..."
First of all, it'd have to be pretty close. Distances in space are large enough that even a nuclear explosion next to a spaceship probably wouldn't hurt the next-nearest spaceship.
Second, who said you have to use the command ship's sensor data? The drone sends its sensor data to the command ship, which then sends orders back. This adds several seconds to the command loop (time taken for drone's sensor data to reach the command ship), but it would also make the correct choice much more obvious due to better data, which probably allows you to spend several seconds less thinking about it. In any case, a few seconds aren't that much, you can afford that kind of delay for any purpose except point defense.
Tony:
"News flash. They won't always be terrorists. The same rules apply whether your drones are killing terrorists or just soldiers of an enemy army."
If the enemy army is sufficiently well-funded to be considered anywhere close to a symmetric opponent, then their reaction will be "Hey, the enemy has drones! Why don't we have drones? We should totally steal this idea.".
"A remote drone pilot is less likely to commit an error than somebody who's ass is on the line in the cockpit?"
Actually, yes. If a pilot who's in direct danger sees something that might or might not be an enemy approaching rapidly, he's more likely to shoot it immediately to minimize risk to himself. If a remote pilot sees the same thing, he's more likely to take the extra time to confirm it isn't a civilian first, since without being in danger himself he's less concerned about the possible risk to the drone's safety.
If anything, the remote pilot is more likely to make the opposite error of treating the drone as too expendable, and not shooting when he should. A small number of such losses, however, would be considered acceptable to reduce civilian casualties.
RE: Tony about Drones
The drone will be semi-automated, there is no reason to duplicate an entire "human" bridge in the control area.
There are lots of missions where serving for years can take place- especially for a defensive platform like a Laser-Star.
Maintenance can be performed by maintenance crews on a service vessel. They do not need to "live aboard" -- why would you add numerous systems that could break down (the hab) to maintain other systems - many of which would require a specialized service crew (not just some onboard techs) anyway.
You also seem to bounce between large ships and small ones - whenever it suits your argument.
For orbital parasites the performance gains are even larger- since in those situations thrust is a factor. The drone with no hab will have the mass budget for both more thrust and more endurance.
I am discussing specialized combat craft here - not Drone patrol craft assigned to do day to day human interface duties.
If you have missions only a human crew can do, build a ship for that - don't tack it on to a ship designed for something else and degrade its performance.
(SA Phil)
Tony,
Really? The flyaway cost for a Global Hawk drone is $104M. The flyaway cost for a much more capable F-35 fighter is $197M. Give the Global Hawk, high speed, high maneuverability, and weapons delivery systems, I'd be surprised if it didn't cost more than the fighter.
Now, we can go back and forth about why this might or might not be, and how it might be differenti n the future. The point is that automation is not always cheaper.
====================
A Spacecraft is not a fighter jet. That pilot for the F-35 doesn't need a 100% artificial environment that will keep him alive for months.
What is the cost of not only keeping all those systems in place but all the additional launches, larger orbital support structure, escape systems, etc?
If you want to do an anecdotal cost comparison don't forget to compare the cost of a manned spacecraft to an unmanned one.
(SA Phil)
Sidestepping the issue of the morality of war, I got some technical space combat questions.
If you are using smart KE weapons, how are they going to hit the target if their sensors are blinded by defensive laser fire? When the lasers are ablating the armor into plasma, we are way past merely blinding the sensors. In such a high energy environment it would be very difficult to send targeting data to the weapon. So how does this supposed to work?
Since heat management is a huge issue in space combat, why not just mission kill a target by overheating it? Sure, blasting through armor with incredibly powerful lasers meets the factor of cool standard, but wouldn't it be easier to just warm the target up a few 100 degrees and bake the crew/computers?
Ron
Tony,
A long rod at even a slight off-angle will expose at least as much flank area as nose area. And a spread of long rods is not going to be coming precisely nose-on.
------------
Where do all these angles keep coming from?
The missile will be point directly at the target - for its entire flight.
Unless it is hit and then deflected by the laser-star. In which case I am still better off with the long rod because it will take laser longer to cause the deflection.
Due to the lower exposed area causing the missiles to be subjected to less of the Laser's energy.
It will also be harder to target - which is a really big deal.
------
There would be an entirely different missile designed for the high thrust, quick maneuvers environment.
(SA Phil)
Another thought on the cost of modern drones bogus comparison.
That is comparing a new technology with the cost of a derivative technology.
Lets see what the costs look like in 20 years.
(SA Phil)
Milo:
Presumably?
Even killing random civilians will result in a small chance that some of them will turn out to have been criminals who had it coming. The majority of them, however, won't be.
It is statistically implausible that a bomb killing several hundred unidentified civilians will not affect a single innocent.
I suppose it was a poor choice of words. I was specifically thinking of Japan, where everyone had been taught that the Americans were evil, and that suicide fighting them was glorious. And I mean everyone. Like the various groups of civilians who committed suicide rather then live under American occupation. It's a good thing that nobody had thought of suicide bombers yet.
Ron:
Sidestepping the issue of the morality of war, I got some technical space combat questions.
At last!
If you are using smart KE weapons, how are they going to hit the target if their sensors are blinded by defensive laser fire? When the lasers are ablating the armor into plasma, we are way past merely blinding the sensors. In such a high energy environment it would be very difficult to send targeting data to the weapon. So how does this supposed to work?
Basically, throw enough weapons at them that some will be able to get through unscathed. Also, use home-on-jam to avoid easy blinding.
Since heat management is a huge issue in space combat, why not just mission kill a target by overheating it? Sure, blasting through armor with incredibly powerful lasers meets the factor of cool standard, but wouldn't it be easier to just warm the target up a few 100 degrees and bake the crew/computers?
The problem is the amount of heat required to do that. A given reactor is going to put out three times as much heat as it does power. That heat has to be dealt with, and when you consider all the other losses that happen in getting the heat to them, it's relatively minor compared to the normal heat load.
Byron,
Second, the mass per person will be significant. Even for three people, I'd estimate that the cabin will need to be somewhat larger then the Apollo CM, which massed, sans heat shield, 4.7 tons. That ignores the consumables on the SM. So at least 2.5 tons per person.
===========
Apollo also didn't have a nuclear reactor on board.
And the other side of radiation shielding - if to save on mass you skimp on shielding to the front - expect the enemy to use particle beams and so on to dose the crew.
Even for "orbital parasites" this is going to be a big deal. Due to shielding differences the drone ship can be shorter allowing it to rotate a lot faster on its axis.
The computers can be shielded separately since they don't need to walk around and stretch their legs .. let alone do other volume intensive things like sleep.
(SA Phil)
I see the heating thing as a bit tricky also. To heat another ship up you need a laser which could produce more heat on your ship than it does on the target ship.
Even the high efficiency ones are only 65% or so.
And then creating the electricity isn't 100% efficient.
Leading to the question of which ship would overheat first?
My money would be on the heater not the heatee.
(SA Phil)
Since I was on a cruisin' to a bruisin' when it comes to blinding lasers and stealth in space I'm going to jump into the manned space fighter argument :)
I'll attack the argument right at its core. "The morality of unmanned killing machines."
FACT: The depression and suicide rate is HIGHER in drone operators than it is in front line infantry units. This is a well known, proven statistic and is counter-intuitive to armchair generals like ... well me.
UCAVs like the Predator do NOT make it morally easier to push the button. Humans do not easily kill easily and the remoteness from the life you just took seems to make it harder. There is no context for the killing.
There is a romanticism that if a warrior is in physical danger then they are making a more moral choice. I would argue the lessons of history show us that as kllling gets more remote we actually ask ourselves more moral questions.
In the era of direct face to face, hand to hand confrontation less moral questions were asked. The Romans lost far less sleep over committing genocide on multiple rival societies than we do about dropping the occassional bomb on am occassional terrorist.
Napololean happily marched a generation of his countrymen to their death and realistically the only thing he was sad about was losing his glorious empire.
Remote drone operators suffer more from combat stress, depression, suicide than do frontline troops shooting up people directly.
I don't think there are any moral issues about using a remote drone to kill someone rather than physically putting you ass on the line. Human nature means we have the time to ask ourselves more moral questions. It is arguable if you are under direct physical threat you are too busy being terrified/scared/surviving to make do with philosophical niceties like "is this just." The facts bear this out.
Realistically when you think about it in some ways our "manned" fighters are already remotely operated. A fighter pilot pushes on a stick, which talks to 5 computers, 4 of them agree, which then sends a signal down a wire, which then moves a control surface.
A remote fighter is merely replacing the wire with an encrypted radio signal.
The aforementioned advantages of an unmanned drone are overwhelming.
1. Persistence is overwhelmingly higher. I can coast my drone towards you slowly over 3 months. Not enough delta V to return to the carrier. No problemo. Recover the drone in 6 months time when the war is over.
Even today many experts expect the F-35 to be the last manned fighter we ever build.
A remote drone still has a human in the decision loop.
I'm a humanist so I believe this remoteness gives us more time to agonise over the morality of what we are doing. It makes us question ourselves more as we have more time to consider philisophical questions at hand rather than just fight for survival.
My faith in our shared humanity is born out by the men and women who have suffered, often silently, in defending our nations and making the hard decision to launch that hellfire. Tragically, it has cost more than a few of them their lives. Just because they are sitting on a chair in Langley separated by an ocean hasn't make that decision any easier.
Pretty nice production here, sorry i couldnt track it yet, but following thoughts :
http://worldofweirdthings.com/2011/12/30/why-space-fighters-would-actually-be-useful/
(For sake of new readers)
"being able to change your mind in mid-attack or deliver repeated shots to an enemy on the same fly-by. Those are not an ability than a TLAM or any other missile has."
A missile is a simple projectile, that can perform some course corrections to follow a single target.
Not like : whoops first target is gone, pick another one, recalculate your new intercept course with your altered mass...
Not like : launch first wave, check, fire second (maybe to another target...), fire coilgun shell
Produce enough delta-V to be able to threat multiple targets from middle or long range requires robust multiple start engines, otherwise they will burn out while trying to follow the fighter or other target.
You need pretty good compus, if the craft is too much dependant on remote control, then not just Cylons will hack it up, Iran could also do that with that spy drone, i dont think USA didnt used encryption...
Byron : with your expectations, your missile buses are rather like kamikaze fighters, kamikaze has its advantages, but many times, suppress fire from mothership /yeah suppress fire that is the correct term, the lascannon is rather like a machinegun/ and fighter charge with simple missiles and coilguns is enough.
Return fuel is 1-2% of the requirements of mothership and escort frigates.
Well, drones versus manned craft, Byron convinced me with this one.
In police and antiterrorist operations, immediate human level decision making can be necessary, you dont want that robots make decisions over the life of civilants, hostages, suspects...
But if you just want to blow up things, then its ok the leave the pilots behind, some will be still needed for tactics and things like that, but no need to explode or drown them.
TOM:
Didn't we go over this before? That article is based upon faulty analogies and wishful thinking. People want space fighters and manned vehicles, and continue arguing for them long after the technical case has been answered.
A missile is a simple projectile, that can perform some course corrections to follow a single target.
Not like : whoops first target is gone, pick another one, recalculate your new intercept course with your altered mass...
Not like : launch first wave, check, fire second (maybe to another target...), fire coilgun shell
Produce enough delta-V to be able to threat multiple targets from middle or long range requires robust multiple start engines, otherwise they will burn out while trying to follow the fighter or other target.
I've never assumed that. A fighter is exceedingly unlikely to get multiple waves of attacks. It has to launch early enough to avoid the defender's envelope, then veer off. It has only marginally greater recall ability then the missile, and recall is more or less irrelevant in a pitched battle anyway. A missile could be built with an advanced sensor system and a command link. No problem there.
You need pretty good compus, if the craft is too much dependant on remote control, then not just Cylons will hack it up, Iran could also do that with that spy drone, i dont think USA didnt used encryption...
I don't think they hacked into the actual command channel. And I've outlined (either here or in my paper) the means by which such attacks can be defeated.
Byron : with your expectations, your missile buses are rather like kamikaze fighters, kamikaze has its advantages, but many times, suppress fire from mothership /yeah suppress fire that is the correct term, the lascannon is rather like a machinegun/ and fighter charge with simple missiles and coilguns is enough.
Kamikaze is fundamentally stupid. You're throwing away a bunch of equipment and gaining very little. A pure missile bus doesn't have to worry about reusability, and it can skip expensive lasers and coilguns. The suppressive fire it can lay down is negligible, as it will be the first thing destroyed by the target.
Return fuel is 1-2% of the requirements of mothership and escort frigates.
That assumes the mothership would be on the same profile. That is completely untrue, so these sort of comparisons go out the window.
Locki:
I actually hadn't considered the psychological consequences for the drone operators. Still, I'm almost positive it's not worth putting them aboard. Screen carefully and remind them that the target is also a drone.
Byron:
I actually hadn't considered the psychological consequences for the drone operators. Still, I'm almost positive it's not worth putting them aboard. Screen carefully and remind them that the target is also a drone.
Sorry I'm not being clear. I'm actually arguing in favour of unmanned fighters.
I was addressing earlier posts arguing we had a moral obligation to put a real live pilot in the fighter because its immoral to make it so easy to remote kill someone and not to risk your own lives in war.
I was just pointing there is nothing easy or immoral about killing someone remotely. Our experience teaches us psychologically its harder to kill someone, remotely, in cold blood (eg sniper) than it is to kill them when you are personally fighting for your life in the middle of a giant furball.
Putting one of your own soldiers' lives on the line inside a space fighter doesn't make the combat more moral or encourage the pilot to make a more moral choice.
Thucydides said:
If you have the technology and resources to create liquid metalic hydrogen and diamond tanks capable of holding it (and all the associated other bits and pieces); then you will probably have access to other superscience or magitech items to prosecute your war as well.
Late-PMF technology, sure, but not necessarily magitech. We know how to produce hyperdiamond today. We may discover alternate hyper-strong material who are easier to manufacture. We are less than one order of magnitude below producing the necessary pressure. The mechanisms themselves are not much different from cold-gas thrusters, apart from the extreme conditions involved. Hell, there may even be easier ways to produce liquid metallic hydrogen or helium without requiring such pressure, for what we know.
The major problem won't be the technology, I suspect, but the industry. Being able to do those things don't mean that it won't be insanely expensive or difficult to produce on a large scale.
I'd expect that sensors would be good enough to still pick them up at this point, though. Even if meta-materials allow, say, to make them 'transparent' to the 3K or starlight background, the hydrogen exhaust may be detectable itself. Which would mean that the 'stealth' use would be quite limited to very special situations, due to the limited performances. Particularly when compared to the antimatter rockets who would probably exist at this point.
It would still make it for a great heat-sink with some little bonus propulsion, though.
Milo:
So we're back to operatic radiator-less ships that explode spectacularly when defeated?
They would probably still use radiators to not waste the stuff. They would retract them when attacked, though.
And what's wrong with ships exploding? Today's satellites hit by missiles (the closest thing we have to space battle) do explode.
I don't know if it would be spectacular, though. Particularly as the tank may just be breached instead of shattered.
Locki:
Humans do not easily kill easily and the remoteness from the life you just took seems to make it harder.
That's interesting. But now that you say it, it makes sense. People whose life is threatened will have no choice. People behind their screen do have the choice, and so will have to choose.
Napololean happily marched a generation of his countrymen to their death and realistically the only thing he was sad about was losing his glorious empire.
The thing he was sad about was probably that France was invaded. Surprisingly, he was more of a modern nationalist (one of the very first) than an imperialist. Imperialism was more for him a way to neutralize foreign threats without letting battles happening on French soil (due to how messy warring armies tend to be for the place).
But the point still stands, that his wars caused thousands upon thousands of deaths didn't seem to bother him much.
Even today, those who start wars seem to rarely shed tears about the (sometimes countless, and often mostly civilian) deaths they cause, unless it indirectly cause them electoral losses.
Rarely is still better than never, I guess.
To be less cynical, many will care about effectiveness first, be it to accomplish selfish or selfless goals. After all, if they are managed to become the rulers, chances are that they don't let abstract morale concepts stop them much.
People make poor decisions when they are under stress. Being physically threatened is pretty stressful. A better decision (either more moral or better tactically) is made when neither your life nor the life of your comrades is on the line.
It is arguable that even for missions traditionally considered better for direct human control, like anti-piracy patrols unmanned drones will give you better, more humane options. Humans make better decisions if they aren’t under stress and their lives aren’t directly on the line. For example:
Scenario 1:
The manned fighter, Glorious Heroism with a crew of 6 souls, is dispatched to investigate a supposed freighter behaving suspiciously and is over 300,00 clicks off the major trading routes. Lieutenant Soapbox, his childhood friend Sergeant Squarejaw, their sometimes triangular love interest, Specialist EverTease, and 3 red shirts depart in their fighter to investigate and board the freighter to check everything is A-OK. Nobody knows much about the red shirts since they are new but it is presumed they have promised their pregnant highschool sweethearts to return home safe. The freighter accelerates erratically, its communication laser gyates wildly and “accidentally” scores a direct hit on your main sensor array knocking your sensors out for the 30 minutes it’ll take a redshirt to replace the main array. It could be an accident or maybe it’s a disguised pirate dazzling you whilst it sets itself up for a kinetic kill shot. Captain Soapbox has précised 3.206 seconds to decide whether to open fire to protect his ramshackle crew. He figures there is an 80% chance it’s a pirate. And besides he lost his favourite little brother to a similarly dastardly pirate ploy just last week. To protect his crew he reluctantly opens fire and destroys the presumed pirate ship. 3 weeks later it turns out it really was a 420 passenger freighter that was just acting more moronic than usual. Captain Soapbox feels real bad but luckily the USSN clears him of all blame and he goes on to become an admiral.
Scenario 2:
The same freighter behaves suspiciously. An unmanned drone is dispatched to investigate. It is dazzled by the communication laser and signals back to the mothership for instructions. The drone operator is 80% sure it’s a pirate but he’s going to give a freighter with potentially 420 souls onboard the benefit of the doubt. They launch a 2nd drone to cover the first and then close to within visual distance. It is revealed the freighter’s Russian captain somehow conspired to fill his water bottle with Vodka and has let his pet chimpanzee take the controls. It’s a close call and after an extensive investigation the merchant navy promises to put a vodka proof interlock on all of its crew’s waterbottles.
I can see very few situations where putting a live crew member into an unknown situation gives you a better option. In the end even the strictest, craziest, most politically correct, most FRENCH ROE mean you can open fire if you are under direct threat. A drone allows you to hold off a touch longer to gather more information and make a better decision without have to act hastily to protect your crew’s lives.
TOM,
"being able to change your mind in mid-attack or deliver repeated shots to an enemy on the same fly-by. Those are not an ability than a TLAM or any other missile has."
----------
I don't see a traditional standoff kind of "fly-by" happening in any attack with kinetics - unless its in near orbit and the closing speeds are low.
Because your missiles would need extremely energetic drives to achieve the correct vector.
The fly-by instead would have to be nearly a "fly through" where the attacker would need to be on a nearly opposite vector to the target. (Or the target nearly stationary- in a relative sense)
And once you have passed the target if they are still alive or not, you can't fire any more because you wont be able to generate enough velocity in the kinetics.
With lasers you could do a fly-by of course.
(SA Phil)
I think that the main constraint will be the acceptable delay in decision-making.
Cruise missiles can attack fixed targets because no thinking is required. Here is the building hit it. Something like close air support is complicated and you can't just set a robot loose on that.
If earth is at war with mars, depending on the orbits, maybe 80 minutes delay in communication. That may prove unacceptable. Then you need a command crew to go out with the fleet. But they might be able to safely tag along 30 light seconds back.
In the freighter scenario above, the question is how far out is the freighter from the humans and what is the threat profile? Does it have to get close or can it do bad things from all the way out there? That determines how the threats are handled.
If the FTL comes in at the poles of the system primary and ships fly in from there and kinetic kill vehicles are hard to counter then you want people out there in charge of the weapons to make the call but the weapons themselves are surely remote. Fire a missile on an intercept course. It can either explode on target or, if the delta-v allows for it, slows and flies in formation. It can inspect and blow up if necessary.
If FTL allows for showing up near a planet, then the ship might already be in range of laser battlestations. But it might still be in targeting range but defenders are unclear of the threat.
If there's not a lot of trust and weapons are highly lethal, I think there will be mandatory exclusion zones and approach vectors and speed limits and ant variance will result in lethal force.
As far as automation goes, I would not be happy with sending a drone fleet to handle something politically complicated. There needs to be human oversight of command decisions even if the follow through is by automatics. The key is whether telepresence works sufficiently.
The ICBM comparison makes sense. We are happy firing missiles across the world to hit known targets. The Russians were happy with cruise missile barrages against carrier battlegroups and could also retarget in flight. But it's complicated to do close air support, interdiction, etc. We have used manned aircraft, drones are also working. I think this is pointing towards the shape of the future.
"I can see very few situations where putting a live crew member into an unknown situation gives you a better option. In the end even the strictest, craziest, most politically correct, most FRENCH ROE mean you can open fire if you are under direct threat. A drone allows you to hold off a touch longer to gather more information and make a better decision without have to act hastily to protect your crew’s lives."
Expendabiity is indeed a highly prized commodity in politics and warfare.
Locki:
Sorry I'm not being clear. I'm actually arguing in favour of unmanned fighters.
No, you were being clear. I was just trying to forstall anybody who latched onto this point.
On the other hand, I'm not totally sure the the psychological problems will be much different if the crew is on the vessel. From their point of view, it looks the same either way.
I also like the point about people being more cautious when they're flying a drone. Both points stolen for the paper.
=Milo=
... any enemy ship is going to be at least partially lit (like phases of the moon), and so sensors in any wavelength the sun produces will be useful.
I've been thinking hard about the usefullness of passive sensors in wavelengths other than IR. I accept the sun emits EMR of all frequencies but to be effiently picked up by a detector my ship will need to reflect back those same frequencies (eg reflect UV or red or green light).
Simply painting my ship black will mean none of the visible wavelengths nor UV will be reflected back at your passive sensors. Which means your sensors are reduced to looking for a very small UV or blue or red or x-ray shadow in a very large sky. It'ld be hopeless. A black ship simply won't reflect any of the other useful detection wavelengths the sun is emitting.
The only wavelength passive sensors will work in is IR since my ship is radiating it. Active sensors in other frequencies (LIDAR/Radar)will be relatively short ranged for space combat.
So my blinding lasers get to live another day. Now if I can just work out how to blind a networked swarm of IR sensor drones I'll have my stealth ...
Wow.
Okay, you've convinced me. Drones los!
However, I still think the laserstar is a sitting duck that should never be built, for purely practicaly reasons.
Just to put a bit of historical perspective in things, Air Marshall "Bomber" Harris did not get a place of honour at the victory parade at the end of WWII, nor did the members of RAF Bomber Command receive a separate campaign medal for their contribution to the war effort because of the distaste for that form of "remote control" warfare.
This despite the fact that (due to the technology of the time) mass bombing raids were incredibly dangerous for the RAF crews, and they suffered a very high proportional loss rate, or even the acceptance of air power theories by the very politicans who put resources towards building and using the bomber fleet.
I think a lot of people are failing to distinguish between pragmatism ("well, it gets the job done at the lowest cost") and morality ("is this the best possible way to achieve the goal?"), a dynamic which is true in both war and peace.
Tony:
Okay, you've convinced me. Drones los!
I'm as shocked as you are. Thanks for the debate, though. It's thrown out a lot of ideas.
However, I still think the laserstar is a sitting duck that should never be built, for purely practicaly reasons.
We can't expect you to come around all at once, can we? :-)
Seriously, I can agree to disagree on that.
Thucydides:
Be careful to distinguish between RAF Bomber Command, and the USAAF. I've found several interesting posts on Bomber Command which suggests that Arthur Harris didn't get invited because he insisted on pursuing an ineffective strategy, not because of distaste for terror bombing. Or at least that distaste for terror bombing had more to do with practical problems then with moral ones.
Thucydides:
"I think a lot of people are failing to distinguish between pragmatism ('well, it gets the job done at the lowest cost') and morality ('is this the best possible way to achieve the goal?'), a dynamic which is true in both war and peace."
The problem is that practical measures are most often interpreted as the "best" way to accomplish a task. I really can't argue against that, since I am a convicted pragmatist myself.
Having said, that, what's practical in the short run can be an absolute disaster in the long run. But nobody ever listens to Cassandara...
Ill bet it will be a lot easier for a drone operator to destroy another drone though.
Or even to assume any craft in the "combat area" is a drone.
Just to add one argument to the anti-drone side
(SA Phil)
=Milo=
Eth:
"And what's wrong with ships exploding?"
I was joking :)
"Even today, those who start wars seem to rarely shed tears about the (sometimes countless, and often mostly civilian) deaths they cause, unless it indirectly cause them electoral losses."
Many frontline soldiers seem perfectly okay with the civilian deaths, too.
Sometimes they deliberately cause them, like when ordered to supress a peaceful demonstration with tanks. The soldiers involved chose to obey that order.
Locki:
Side note, I'm using =Milo= to sign my posts since Blogger won't let me sign them properly. To avoid confusion, please don't use the == format when you're addressing me, as opposed to claiming to be me.
"I can see very few situations where putting a live crew member into an unknown situation gives you a better option."
It would be necessary if you want to do a boarding inspection. Which will often be necessary in these circumstances.
Indeed, there is little purpose for the patrol craft to fly closer to the ship without planning to board it, as that doesn't really give you any new information. You might as well ask the captain whether he's letting his chimpanzee play with the controls over long-distance radio.
Jollyreaper:
"Something like close air support is complicated and you can't just set a robot loose on that."
Close air support is per definition in cooperation with ground forces, so you could in principle have the plane be a robot controlled by the humans on the ground who would already be designating its targets anyway.
Not sure why you would do so, however, since the squishy infantry are probably more vulnerable than the pilot anyway.
"If earth is at war with mars, depending on the orbits, maybe 80 minutes delay in communication."
The distance between Earth and Mars varies from 4 to 21 lightminutes. Though when they're near-opposite, the sun will be getting in the way possibly necessitating a communication relay, raising communication times above 21 minutes.
This is for one-way communication. Two-way communication (the lag between a drone detecting something and being able to act on it, if it's reliant on remote instructions) takes twice as long.
Thucydides:
"I think a lot of people are failing to distinguish between pragmatism ("well, it gets the job done at the lowest cost") and morality ("is this the best possible way to achieve the goal?"), a dynamic which is true in both war and peace."
My attitude is to start by ruling out those solutions which I consider immoral, then determine the most cost-efficient solution from among the remaining ones.
SA Phil:
"Or even to assume any craft in the "combat area" is a drone."
That's an interesting point. If you're used to facing drones, you could indeed forget that a ship might have live people on it.
As far as I can tell, to solve this you'd need to either use an IFF broadcasting that a ship has humans onboard, or look for hab signatures (like a ship section which is warmed to a steady 293 kelvin).
Of course, there will probably be a noticeable difference between civilian ships and military ships, even when those civilians are suspected of being terrorists, pirates, or smugglers.
Locki,
The only wavelength passive sensors will work in is IR since my ship is radiating it. Active sensors in other frequencies (LIDAR/Radar)will be relatively short ranged for space combat.
-------
Hmm.
Does your ship have a nuclear reactor on board?
Is it transparent to visual light?
I think your ship will have other wavelengths even passive sensors will pick up.
(SA Phil)
Sorry I still couldnt read enough, when i 'll have time, i try to make proper answers, just some further thoughts on topic i'd like to share.
Tony : I think the laserstar should be built, if enemy attacks with pure kinetic swarms.
Everything has its place : long-range kinetics for bombarding really though targets, laserstars for suppress fire and defence, cheap simple short-range missiles and shells to destroy laser-suppressed targets; frigates, cruisers and battlecruisers for area control, motherships for invading, capturing, fast attack and patrol craft for orbital and mothership missions.
Drones :
I wondered on a situation, what if the comm arrays fail?
What if the enemy asks for truce, and the drone just continues fighting, even if it could see, others stopped it?
/Yeah Japanese soldiers also did that./
Well even the neimods of SW didnt risked, that their drones operate purely on their own, when there is no command center.
I dont think this is a really such a big disadvantage, considering the merits of higher survival rate of good pilots, who are deeply responsibe for their actions, and destroying the command center will cripple any army, but it can be good to have some redundancy, multiple command centers, and network of control officers.
From a filmmakers viewpoint : ok drop some scenes where the statists die in their fighters, if the hero needs to crashed to an alien planet, s/he should rather sit in a frigate or something like that.
But other things can be kept.
I never spoke of the USAAF, and to their credit they attempted to use a different strategy (although realistically, their technology wasn't that much better than the RAF, and mass USAAF bomber raids were pretty much exercises in carpet bombing as well).
The snubbing of Air Marshal Harris was quite hypocritical, since he received support and resources from the very politicians who refused him and his men the honours in victory. As far as how effective the bombing campaign was, there was no real way to determine it at the time, and even today there are heated arguments even with the results of post war surveys and other historical evidence to draw upon.
Byron:
"Be careful to distinguish between RAF Bomber Command, and the USAAF. I've found several interesting posts on Bomber Command which suggests that Arthur Harris didn't get invited because he insisted on pursuing an ineffective strategy, not because of distaste for terror bombing. Or at least that distaste for terror bombing had more to do with practical problems then with moral ones."
Ohhh...I think he got snubbed for the intentions he enthusiastically pursued, rather than for how effectively he pursued them. And that still doesn't explain why Bomber Command crews didn't receive a distinctive service medal. They didn't do anything but fly and die.
Also, attempts to cast the USAAF as fighting the "good" war, while Bomber Command fought the "bad" war ignore a few things:
Bomber Command had to fight, even they weren't being too effective in terms of damage assessment, because it was really the only way that Germany could be directly attacked by Great Brtain for a long time. At the very least they diverted effort from the Eastern Front. (Not so much Africa, because that was always a sideshow in German eyes to begin with.) The Kammhuber Line and local city defenses weren't exactly cheap to maintain.
Even if the early attacks -- and even the Battle of Berlin -- weren't war winning in themselves, they did do damage that the Germans could ill afford. (Because they really couldn't afford any stress on their industrial system or domestic order.) The damage and loss of life may have been out of proportion to the effects on the German war economy, but when you're trying to win a finish fight, you don't scruple at throwing ten punches to get one good one to land -- you just accept the necessity.
Bomber Command was not toally bereft of power or ability. They did help author the Hamburg firestorm, which put the fear of God (if not literally, then figuratively) into Speer. They just couldn't follow it up with the further concentrated attacks that Speer feared would unhinge the German war economy.
Speaking of Hamburg -- and Dresden and Japan in general -- the USAAF wasn't exactly above attacking civilian targets for the purpose of terror.
When Harris was forced off the spot on strategic bombing, and contributed to transportation targets and tactical support, his large force, capable of putting a thousand planes in the air on a single day, was highly effective, even in daylight. In the World at War televison series, British General Brian Horrocks talks about the day in 1945 he had Cleves "taken out" by a Bomber Command attack. He said that it made him feel "a murderer", because he knew he had condemned the city to certain destruction.
Changing topics, I realized that somewhere upthread someone posted about using Magsails as auxilliary propulsion system for the space warship (or spaceship in general).
This is actually a nod to pre battleship (indeed proto battleship) times, when early ironclads with primitive steam engines carried a full sailing rig in order to economize on coal. Even some turreted ships were built this way, such as the HMS Monarch (1868), and less successfully, HMS Captain (1869).
Thucydides:
"Changing topics, I realized that somewhere upthread someone posted about using Magsails as auxilliary propulsion system for the space warship (or spaceship in general).
This is actually a nod to pre battleship (indeed proto battleship) times, when early ironclads with primitive steam engines carried a full sailing rig in order to economize on coal. Even some turreted ships were built this way, such as the HMS Monarch (1868), and less successfully, HMS Captain (1869)."
Unlike wind sails, magsails have to have power pumped into them to work. (Let's set proposals to use superconductors aside as being too speculative.) Which is not to say they don't work, it's just that they're not for free. If your other drive is a nuclear thermal or chemical, you're going to have to have a separate electrical generation capability for the magsail. Or have a bigger electrical plant than strictly necessary for life support.
Tony,
Unlike wind sails, magsails have to have power pumped into them to work. (Let's set proposals to use superconductors aside as being too speculative.) Which is not to say they don't work, it's just that they're not for free. If your other drive is a nuclear thermal or chemical, you're going to have to have a separate electrical generation capability for the magsail. Or have a bigger electrical plant than strictly necessary for life support.
-------------
I suppose you could use a bimodal NTR to have high thrust and then use it to power a mag sail - but it sounds like it would have abysmal performance.
A Magsail basically counts on the craft being almost no mass, a NTR is a big mass.
This sounds like a good job for a Tug/carrier to go pick up the exhausted ships after they make their attack run.
Maybe they save just enough fuel to adjust to a predefined vector range and then coast along, while the Tug comes along and rendevous a couple of weeks later.
(SA Phil)
By fuel I mean propellant there - a NTR would have unlimited fuel on the scale we are talking about.
(SA Phil)
The cost of having a full sailing rig was to increase the amount of crew, interfere with the firing arcs of the guns and (if you were not careful) potentially destabilize the ship in heavy weather.
The only reason to even consider such a thing was the steam engines were too unreliable and burned too much coal to make long cruises possible. I see any attempt to add hybrid propulsion to a spacecraft in the same light (a means of economizing on remass). It is an interesting idea, and I'm sure someone will probably try it out one of these days...
=Milo=
Thucydides:
"The only reason to even consider such a thing was the steam engines were too unreliable and burned too much coal to make long cruises possible. I see any attempt to add hybrid propulsion to a spacecraft in the same light (a means of economizing on remass)."
That is exactly the light in which I proposed it.
Power is not trivial to come by on a spaceship, but it's far less of a hassle than propellant.
hmm hybrids
How about a combat craft that uses a bimodal NTR for combat propulsion and electricity...
Equipped with a dual mode neutral particle accelerator.
Mode 1 is a low velocity/high particle density beam used to accelerate missile busses, and a direct fire weapon as point defense/closer range.
Mode 2 is a higher velocity/lower density beam used as a lower duty cycle/high efficiency propulsion system.
The ship shoots its way to and from home.
(SA Phil)
Anonymous:
Hmm.
Does your ship have a nuclear reactor on board?
Is it transparent to visual light?
I think your ship will have other wavelengths even passive sensors will pick up.
Sure the nuclear reactor will emit x-rays/neutrons etc but they’ll be absorbed by the hull/shielding and re-emitted as waste IR. The x-rays aren’t going be penetrating through the hull and detectable at 10,000km. UV light, visible light emitted by the sun will be absorbed by the black hull and re-emitted as IR. The only wavelength worth looking in is IR.
Equipped with a dual mode neutral particle accelerator.
Mode 2 is a higher velocity/lower density beam used as a lower duty cycle/high efficiency propulsion system.
Nice idea but wouldn’t a neutral particle accelerator for high efficiency, high ISP propulsion be really really low thrust? It would take years to get anywhere. Ditto maglev sails. This type of high efficiency propulsion virtually guarantees unmanned warships in all class sizes because of the extreme transit times. Or have we already decided every combat craft including motherships will be fully unmanned?
Tony said …
However, I still think the laserstar is a sitting duck that should never be built, for purely practicaly reasons.
Keep fighting the good fight Tony. I agree with you! The laserstar is horribly vulnerable to counter-battery fire from a blinding laser. The closest modern analogy would be self propelled 155mm Howitzers facing off in modern opposing armies. Since it is so easy to track artillery shells with radar counter-battery fire can arrive in minutes. The Howitzers are forced to fire off a few shells and then scoot off quickly and change location before the counter-battery 155mm fire arrives. Similarly the laserstar may squeeze off a few shots before having to slam shut its armored shutter for fear of losing its main gun and been mission killed. The analogy is imperfect because for laserstars the problem is greatly excaberated as a smaller laser can effectively suppress it at a far longer range. It would be like the americans opening up with a battery of 155mm shells (range 35km) and the Russians being able to suppress them with every dinky 20mm cannon placed within a 60km radius of the American artillery battery.
I think the primary weapon will be kinetic kill weapons. Lasers will be a secondary weapon system for sensor blinding, point defence or suppressing the nearest space dicatator's impressive but impractical giant phallic symbol laserstar.
Locki,
Sure the nuclear reactor will emit x-rays/neutrons etc but they’ll be absorbed by the hull/shielding and re-emitted as waste IR. The x-rays aren’t going be penetrating through the hull and detectable at 10,000km. UV light, visible light emitted by the sun will be absorbed by the black hull and re-emitted as IR. The only wavelength worth looking in is IR.
===============
You are going to have a fully shielded nuclear reactor on a PMF non-operatic space craft?
Interesting.
That might solve the human crew quick turning parasite problem though I suppose.
Might be a little lethargic in the acceleration or endurance department though.
Not sure why you would use a 100% black hull either - something reflective would heat up less.
(SA Phil)
Locki
Nice idea but wouldn’t a neutral particle accelerator for high efficiency, high ISP propulsion be really really low thrust? It would take years to get anywhere. Ditto maglev sails. This type of high efficiency propulsion virtually guarantees unmanned warships in all class sizes because of the extreme transit times. Or have we already decided every combat craft including motherships will be fully unmanned?
---
Yes it would be low thrust probably in the realm of other Electric drives.
It also would suffer from a weakness that unlike constant thrust electric drives it would need to cycle at some frequency so that it wouldn't burn out/melt. And so it would likely be less effective than a decent electric drive.
But it might be able to get a decent DeltaV for a low amount of propellant.
The NTR was there for the high thrust portion of the mission.
I don't see why you would need high thrust for any ship that wasn't intended for the "front lines" - so this concept would be more for lancers / scout-attack ships or an orbital combat specialist.
(SA Phil)
You are going to have a fully shielded nuclear reactor on a PMF non-operatic space craft?
Interesting.
That might solve the human crew quick turning parasite problem though I suppose.
Might be a little lethargic in the acceleration or endurance department though.
Not sure why you would use a 100% black hull either - something reflective would heat up less.
If you have a high thurst NTR I assume you have a huge amount of propellent that needs to be stored somewhere. You might as well wrap it around the nuclear reactor so it serves quadruple duty as propellent/armor/shielding/emergency heat sink.
With regards to my ever fashionable black stealth paint job. I always figured if you have enough radiators to handle the waste heat of a nuclear reactor, gigawatt lasers, computers, cryogenically cooled sensors etc then the tiny additional bit of heat you absorb from your black paintjob as compared to a pimped out reflective silver job would be negligable. Unless you are fighting around Mercury of course ...
To be honest when it comes to anything non-operatic PMF I am a total killjoy. I suspect everything will be automated or remote control. If there's anything worth mining it'll be automated. Exploration? Automated. Solar energy panels? Automated servicing. Tourism? Get a 100 inch retina OLED TV - and oh broadcast it automatically. Space is a horrible environment for humans. Even for tourism there are enough wonders here on our own planet (deep sea vents, antarctic lakes, Everest, Amazon, Africa Savannah) to keep all but the most narcistic billionaire occupied for several lifetimes.
So in all likelihood anything my drone is shooting up is highly unlikely to have anyone onboard.
And we can get away with high ISP, low thrust, multi-year transit times for our warships.
Appendum:
Assuming non-extreme conditions(exclude fighting near Mercury) wouldn't a black paint job be the ideal colour for the hull of a high energy warship that needs to radiate away all that waste heat?
Black is the ideal colour for a radiator in space. A black hull can serve to increase the surface area radiating away waste heat as IR. A reflective silver job may be good for Space Drug Lords but it will effectively cut down on your surface area able to radiate away waste heat.
A smaller laser will not be able to supress a larger laser; the scorch range of the big laser will be far greater than the scorch range of the small laser.
Even saying you can build 2 or 3 small lasers for every large one isn't sufficient; unless they have really impressive closing speed the larger laser will simply pick them off while they are attempting to close.
And since a large laser platform will (by definition) be large, it will also have plenty of room for its own on board KKV battery (assuming it isn't operating as part of a larger formation, there the primary KKV salvo could be passed off to an accompanying ship); it can launch while supressing enemy lasers; burn incoming KKV clouds that are smaller than the "overwhelm" number, then follow up with kill shots once the battle has closed to kill rather than scorch range.
Painting a ship black will provide some protection against sensors operating at different wavelengths, but no paint or material is 100% absorbent, you will degrade the ability to sense in other wavelengths, and the tradeoff is you will be even brighter in IR against the 3K background. If metamaterials work as promised you have a better chance of directing radiation "around" your enclosed volume, but you will still have the heat signature (and a point of IR radiation with no apparent source will probably attract a lot of interest.
RE: Locki
I dont think most space craft will have complete hulls
Mostly open frames where compartments are enclosed only if they need to be.
Radiation shielding beyond a shadow shield sounds like a waste of valuable mass budget.
An open structure NTR ship can probably run rings around its fully enclosed much more massive competitor
On Radiators:
I dont think radiators are black because black is the best color per se - but that the materials used tend to be black
(SA Phil)
Thucydides said...
A smaller laser will not be able to supress a larger laser; the scorch range of the big laser will be far greater than the scorch range of the small laser.
-----------
Hi Thucydides. I covered this in detail before and was probably a bit long winded. Look back through some of my previous posts. In brief terms an armored shutter is thousands of times tougher than a naked laser array. To calculate the range at which you can suppress a laserstar you need to compare the burning range of the laserstar (the range at which it can burn through an armored shutter) to the blinding range of a laser. As long as I have a laser big enough to blind your unshuttered laser before you can burn through my armored shutter I have effectively suppressed your main gun.
All I have to do is advance towards you with all of my lasers shuttered and dare you to start firing. Since an armored shutter is thousands of times tougher than a phased array laser and possible tens of thousands of times tougher than a traditional mirrored laser (the optics refocus the hostile laser energy back down onto your own array) I can suppress your huge laserstar with a counter-battery laser at least one order of magnitude smaller. Byron calculates about 1/30th the size. I suspect the difference is even greater.
With regards to propellent as shielding. I've long accepted future warships will be open framed (ugly, so anti-operatic) but they will probably be at least 50% propellent by mass. You might as well cluster the propellent tanks around the reactor.
s337101 said...
With regards to propellent as shielding. I've long accepted future warships will be open framed (ugly, so anti-operatic) but they will probably be at least 50% propellent by mass. You might as well cluster the propellent tanks around the reactor.
--------
Doesnt cyro tankage become an issue if you are going have neutron/xray heating from the reactor?
I see putting the tanks between the crew and the reactor since you need to deal with that heat reguardless - but dealing with heat caused by things that would normally just go into space seems like extra work for nothing.
(SA Phil)
SA Phil:
"Doesnt cyro tankage become an issue if you are going have neutron/xray heating from the reactor?
I see putting the tanks between the crew and the reactor since you need to deal with that heat reguardless - but dealing with heat caused by things that would normally just go into space seems like extra work for nothing."
Levels of radiation that are harmful over long periods of time don't necessarily come with immediately palpable levels of heat. Besides, long-endurance cryo tanks require an active refrigeration system to scavenge and re-cool the contents as it boils off. Such a system could always be sized to absorb any extra heat intorduced by nearby neutron and x-ray sources. The mass of the extra capacity is, in effect, drawn from your radiation shielding budget, not your propellant tankage mass. The balance would be where supporting extra propellant cooling masses less than more solid shielding.
=Milo=
SA Phil:
"I dont think radiators are black because black is the best color per se - but that the materials used tend to be black"
Wrong.
s337101:
"As long as I have a laser big enough to blind your unshuttered laser before you can burn through my armored shutter I have effectively suppressed your main gun."
Your laser cannot blind me as long as your shutter is shut. What part of this are you not understanding?
RE: Tony-
But they are talking switching from a one side shielding to complete reactor shielding
That sounds like a lot of extra mass just for a NTR that has "gamma/xray invisibility" -
At some point might be better switching back to chem fuel.
(SA Phil)
SA Phil:
"But they are talking switching from a one side shielding to complete reactor shielding
That sounds like a lot of extra mass just for a NTR that has 'gamma/xray invisibility' -
At some point might be better switching back to chem fuel. "
If it has invisibility in that band, it'll be more visible in IR simply because the cryo tanks have to be cooled and the waste heat radiated away. TANSTAAFL.
I think the plan is to make a stealthy ship except to IR and then blind the Laser-Star and other sensors to IR. An eye poke battle.
The chem fuel has the advantage of being a lot cooler when not burning (less intense blinding needed presumably) And no pesky gamma/xrays
(SA Phil)
If it has invisibility in that band, it'll be more visible in IR simply because the cryo tanks have to be cooled and the waste heat radiated away. TANSTAAFL.
-------
Well that and its black .. to cut down on visual.
=================
As Mr Adams mentioned ..
"It's the wild colour scheme that freaks me," said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, "Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you've done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?"
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats-which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned-were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.
=====================
(SA Phil)
Ehhh...if the laserstar's sensors are so vulnerable to blinding, what's the point? Weapon systems are dependent on all of the subsystems being effective and durable. If any one of them isn't, there's no weapon system to deploy in the first place. Seems like a solution in search of a problem.
SA Phil:
On Radiators:
I dont think radiators are black because black is the best color per se - but that the materials used tend to be black
No, radiators are black because black material is more efficient, which is why we talk about black body, IIRC. Apparently, emissivity is equal to absorptivity (for a given wavelength). So a perfect mirror would be an abysmal radiator.
That's probably why survival blankets for cold environments are silver : they will radiate far less of your body heat.
You could still have silver radiators, if you want them to not radiate in the visible spectrum, I suppose. But they would be black in the IR spectrum (or whatever wavelength you want them to emit the most)
Maybe such radiators could be made to work close to the star, by making them reflective to the wavelengths the star emits the most.
So where do people think the best location for the propellent tanks is? This is probably the main design compromise any warship faces.
Afterall a warship is going to want a huge mass fraction as propellent to give it maximum delta-V. More than 50% of its mass will be propellent.
Since the propellent is non-volatile it can serve double duty as damage protection (unlike a gasoline tank).
1. Do you put it around the nuclear reactor to help protect it from damage and block some of the radiation it is emitting. But is the damage protection worth the extra heat load you will generate?
2. Put it around the crew habitat to protect the crew from cosmic rardiation, nuclear explosions and hostile weapons.
3. Place it around your weapons and vital electronics to help protect them from damage (electronics are sensitive to cosmic radiation too)
4. Put it well out of the way, on the spine, so it doesn't absorb x-rays from the nuclear reactor and add to your waste heat load. Structurally it probably makes the warship simpler and so you can get a higher mass fraction as propellent (higher delta-V).
Perhaps a combination of the above?
re: where to put the propellant
Somewhere on a ship that wont get shot at.
The best warships would be expendable since significant loss of propellant means that ship probably won't get home.
The second best place would be on ships designed to spend most of their propellant on their attack run and then get picked up by some more vulnerable ship with a great Delta V.
(SA Phil)
Re: Eth
Thanks - I suppose it makes sense for the radiators to absorb IR as much as possible to pull heat away from the coolant.
I had read something about quartz/diamond radiators proposed instead which just radiate the IR directly from the coolant.
(SA Phil)
The propellant question is really the defender's advantage -- since they presumably aren't going anywhere.
And thus even though Laser-Stars would be great for attacking enemy ships - they probably wouldn't make ideal attack ships.
(SA Phil)
Milo said ..
Your laser cannot blind me as long as your shutter is shut. What part of this are you not understanding?
============
I think you are being wilfully stubborn.
The laserstar dare not fire if there is any hostile laser withing blinding range. The moment the laserstar unshutters its laser to defend itself every dinky little secondary laser I have un-shutters itself and knocks out your main gun.
Yes the blinding range of the laserstar is greater than my smaller lasers but this is completely irrelevent since my lasers stay shuttered until the very moment we are both within blinding range and until you start firing.
Because blinding an unshutttered laser is multiple magnitudes easier than burning through a armored shutter I can afford to have a lot more (30 to 1000 times more) smaller blinding lasers for the same cost of your laserstar to keep your laserstar suppressed.
Having a laser as your primary weapon is moronic since it can be suppressed (eg forced to stay shuttered) by a much smaller, cheaper laser.
My logic is sound. Please think carefully through the scenarios before throwing out the same counter-arguments we've been going through for the last 2 days.
Tony said...
Ehhh...if the laserstar's sensors are so vulnerable to blinding, what's the point? Weapon systems are dependent on all of the subsystems being effective and durable. If any one of them isn't, there's no weapon system to deploy in the first place. Seems like a solution in search of a problem.
---------------
Hmm - well if you had a ship that had a tiny profile in all EM except for IR (which is basically argued as the hardest to achieve)
The any sensor platform at all would be vulnerable to blinding/shrouding in the IR spectrum. So Laser-Star, Scout/Attack, Battleship, Fighter, Star Caravel, all would have the same vulnerability.
Kind of like an invisible man who is only invisible after he pokes you in the Eye, who also walks around in big bunny slippers so as not to make noise walking.
Active stealth in space I suppose.
(SA Phil)
So, I've got a question: how would you define a "Space Battleship" ? a Laserstar, a Kineticstar, a Drone/Daughtership Carrier, something that sports a ginormous rail/coil gun, or does it depend on size? Or perhaps the biggist warship is always refered to as a Battleship, regardless of type? Or, maybe all combat spacecraft will come to be called 'Battleships'...
Personally, I'd call a battleship something that no other single warship was likely to defeat.
Ferrell
Not a bad definition.
Then when you upgrade past that .. a Dreadnaught is a big battleship designed to kill other battleships.
(SA Phil)
It occurs to me that this eye poke scenario is really only going to mainly achieve is reduce the targeting resolution and target switch time -
Since presumably the Laser-star (or other target) would have backward observers that can send info from farther away with some communication lag.
Slowing down the Laser-Star's shooting and resolution would be a big deal of course.
(SA Phil)
Locki,
I think you are being willfully stubborn.
-----------
So what the Laser-Star needs are a series of optical filters to protect it from being blinded by puny lasers.
Then the small lasers get blocked by the filter and the Laser Star ignores the blinding laser-fighters and focuses on KKVs.
Until such time the laser-fighters get close enough for the Laser-Star can blow them apart -which it then does, probably with a smirk on the gunner's face.
The exact frequency of the Laser-Star's laser and the filter ranges would be a closely guarded military secret.
If its one of those lucky variable frequency laser Laser-Stars it can do even better, it can have multiple filter sets allowing it to chose the best frequency to ignore the puny space-fighter lasers.
(SA Phil)
So what the Laser-Star needs are a series of optical filters to protect it from being blinded by puny lasers.
Then the small lasers get blocked by the filter and the Laser Star ignores the blinding laser-fighters and focuses on KKVs.
My scenario still holds. A firing laser even if it is "filtered" is still hopelessly vulnerable to blinding lasers.
Bandpass filters will help make the laser slightly tougher but they are not a magitech shield immune to all other forms of EM radiation.
1. The filters themselves are vulnerable to getting burnt I can still burn through a filtered laser long before you can burn through an armored shutter. So I can still effectively suppress you laser with a much smaller counter-battery blinding laser.
2. Besides I'm likely to be using a similar wavelength laser(UV) so it'll go straight through the filter anyway.
Locki,
My scenario still holds. A firing laser even if it is "filtered" is still hopelessly vulnerable to blinding lasers.
Bandpass filters will help make the laser slightly tougher but they are not a magitech shield immune to all other forms of EM radiation.
====================
You are only in blinding range - I am not trying to be immune, only to filter out your blinding energy.
You are only hitting the laser-star with a diffuse beam. You would have to be if I have a fractional light second blaster O' death. No other way for you to target the Lens at that range.
In the 100 MJ Laser-Star scenario I have incredible optics technology. (or it wouldn't work anyway.)
==========================
==========================
1. The filters themselves are vulnerable to getting burnt I can still burn through a filtered laser long before you can burn through an armored shutter. So I can still effectively suppress you laser with a much smaller counter-battery blinding laser.
==================
I am not even going to try to burn through your armored shutter until you are close enough to just blow up. Don't care about your shutter.
==========================
=========================
2. Besides I'm likely to be using a similar wavelength laser(UV) so it'll go straight through the filter anyway.
I would use a lower wavelength laser on purpose then, The Laser Star isn't designed for mobility.
Visual light sounds like it would be a good one for targeting - If I can see the ship through the lens/mirror I can hit it with the laser (maybe).
I would use IR -- but someone else is going to poke me in the IR eye.
====================
====================
I think the biggest thing people forget about the Laser-Star is the targeting. A lot depends on the relative targeting capability.
It doesn't matter if a high UV laser has a tiny spot size if you can't target at those ranges.
The Laser-Star .. supposedly .. is the King of targeting. It is a floating observatory. It can target at ranges no Laser-Fighter can match and thus can blast Laser-Fighters apart at ranges they can't burn through anything.
Now if the targeting supremacy is over-rated and the Laser-Fighters have more of a parity --- well I wondered that in the other thread.
(SA Phil)
Ahh -- also the filter is BEFORE the the lens/mirror from the point of view of the Laser-Fighter
Not After -- After would be bad(tm), it would mean the energy required to filter would be a lot higher.
Which means the filter has to be pretty massive, since it would be like another lens - probably only reasonable to mount on a Laser-Star.
(SA Phil)
You are only in blinding range - I am not trying to be immune, only to filter out your blinding energy.
You are only hitting the laser-star with a diffuse beam. You would have to be if I have a fractional light second blaster O' death. No other way for you to target the Lens at that range.
============
Reasonable point but I think you are mistaking the definition of "blinding range". It is merely the range at which I can blind a laserstar - filtered or not.
Since any sort of filter you can imagine is a lot more fragile than ceramic armor I can still suppress the laserstar with much smaller, more numerous and cheaper secondary lasers.
Realistically how much protection does everyone think a filter buys you? I have a pair of Oakley sunglasses absolutely guaranteed to block out 99.99% of all UV light and prevent cataracts. Now if the chinese were firing a weaponised UV laser at me I know I'd rather have my ass behind a ceramic/carbon nano-tube/titanium Whipple Shield than behind a pair of sunglasses.
Presumably the range you can blind an unfiltered Laser-Star is much longer than the range you can blind a filtered one.
The filter isn't going to be a pair of sunglasses. Ir wouldn't even be that today.
The Laser-Star filter is going to be advanced optics designed by the same people capable of making a lens/mirror that can survive being used to focus a 100 MJ laser.
Its purpose will be to reduce the energy that passes through to the lens to some tiny fraction of the input energy - thus when that energy gets focused by the lens it will be harmless.
Depending on the energy of the Laser-Fighter's beam - it would need to be actively cooled, etc
But as I mentioned the Laser-Fighter's beam presumably won't have all that much energy since it would have to be defocused to hit such a tiny target as a 20 meter lens from such a large distance.
Without the various sides working out the math I don't see how this goes beyond you say X I say Y.
Even if you really insist X.
Because I'll still just say Y.
I really don't see how you beat the Laser-Star in the scenario where all the variables were determined to favor the Laser-Star. (100 MJ/ high GW laser with fractional light second accurate kill power and targeting)
A more balanced scenario would be a better place to start.
(SA Phil)
The Laser-Star filter is going to be advanced optics designed by the same people capable of making a lens/mirror that can survive being used to focus a 100 MJ laser.
Its purpose will be to reduce the energy that passes through to the lens to some tiny fraction of the input energy - thus when that energy gets focused by the lens it will be harmless.
There is no need to crunch math here.
A filter works by absorbing the unwanted wavelengths of light and converting it to heat.
As long as your filter is significantly less heat resistent than a ceramic shutter my scenario stands. Your laserstar can be too easily suppressed by a smaller laser.
A filter may force me to use a slightly bigger counter-battery laser but as long as my armored shutter is tougher than your filter I can still suppress you with a smaller laser (albeit not as small as originally imagined).
The engineering problems of a filter able to "armor" a laserstar are non-trivial. It will need to possess all of the following imposing qualities:
a. Optically pure enough to not be destroyed by the laser its protecting
Whilst also:
2. Blocking the other wavelengths of light efficiently. No trivial matter since a filter is NEVER 100% effective. It will end up absorbing some of the energy of your own laser and converting it to heat. Even if its 99.9999% effective I'd bet 0.0001% of the death ray of doom at point blank range is enough to destroy your own filter.
In addition to:
3. Being tough enough to not warp/distort under heating from an opposing laser
And not least:
4. It needs to be top secret for once the opposition gets a hint of the wavelength of your laserstar it is ineffective. Even tuning your laser and swapping filters is ineffective since as soon as you start firing at one of my ships I radio the exact frequency you are using to all of me fleet and they promptly hit you with counter-battery fire designed to go straight through your filter.
Can you truthfully handwave all 4 problems away and claim a filter solves your problem.
As long as the armored shutter is a lot tougher than the filter I can suppress you with a smaller laser.
My, admittably limited, knowledge of materials science suggests the ceramic, non-transparent armor is going to be a lot, lot tougher than any sort of filter you can imagine.
Well, wouldn't battleships themselves be intended for taking out other battleships? Only in an arms race would you say ok, this is the top dog so we are making something even more powerful to take on the top dog. It's only when you have apecialized roles that aren't conducive to ship-killing that you would see ships optimized for that. Back to the essential question of "why would you build anything else?"
The future of manned carrier aviation looks pretty boring because there's only going to be two airframes on the ship, F-35 varjants and variants of the new common airframe that will be used for AWACS and cargo and ASW and so forth. It'll be like galactica with vipers and raptors only. Aesthetically, I like a diverse flight deck.
I believe economy of force will lead to diversity but the details will depend on the relevant technology. But you don't send your battleship out hunting pirates, you don't send destroyers up against battleships, you don't tie up battleships with escort duty when the biggest threat the enemy has is a fast patrol craft.
I also agree with the notion that size is not an ultimate defense and a force with a striking power of x is stronger split among four hulls than concentrated in two or one.
Some questions about blinding vs killing.
Two lasersstars approach. If one tries to blind the other, that's a diffuse beam aimed at covering the whole ship because only a little energy is required to ruin optics, right?
So, if it's just two of them, what happens? 1 fires first and blinds the sensors but the laser is shuttered. Could 2 time a counter-battery shot back at 1? Would the primary laser and emitter need to be used for the long range shot?
Or would the scenario wind up both ships could blind each other without being put out of action? Presumably replacing fried optics and emitters is something they are equipped for so blinding is a very temporary kill.
So in that case, would both ships hold fire on approach and thus be playing chicken, waiting until they are in the optimum envelope for a first hit to be crippling?
Assuming that the lasers aren't searchlights and can't just be left on, have a cycle time and generate tons of heat. Radiators are covered during attack do heat sinks have to suck up waste heat until the battle is over. Therefore the ships only have so many shots until needing to resort to emergency cooling.
Given plausible ships and not star destroyers, I would think that close hits should become crippling. The closer they get, goes from blinding to scorching to crippling to one-shot-one-kill.
Therefore if it's two ships vs one the two would fire sooner. They have more shots in reserve before they overheat and can risk one getting blinded while the other still fires. These less effective ranged shots would cause more damage than the single ship can dish in return.
Would it make sense for the typical warship to have an armored front and not much on the sides, the idea that you keep the business end pointed at the enemy and your ass end away from the fight? And you try to avoid getting flanked and hit on the side by fighting in a constellation?
In a stern chase, the engine would be vulnerable. Would it be possible to have the engines on gimbal mounts so that the ship can more forward with the armored end facing the enemy and retreat the same way?
jollyreaper said...
Presumably replacing fried optics and emitters is something they are equipped for so blinding is a very temporary kill
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It has always bugged me that people have presumed replacing the optics of a laser or sensor that has been violently destroyed would be easy, quick, hell even fun, in zero-G.
A laserstar capable of hitting targets at light seconds of range would be a feat of precision engineering unlike anything else in modern history. It may not even be physically possible. Its targetting sensors would have to be equally precise.
I put it to you replacing the compenents and maintaining the degree of required precision would be no easy thing under ideal conditions and impossible under zero-G combat conditions.
A modern analagy is if you knock out the radar on a carrier with an anti-radiation missile that radar is down for the count. Hell if a sniper drops his rifle down a cliff and cracks his optics and misaligns the receiver with the barrell he's down for the count.
If you violently blind a laser or sensor it will not be a simple case of fetching your nearest spare acme laser components (tm) and plugging it in before you begin blasting away again.
A blinded laserstar or sensor is down for the count.
Locki,
As long as your filter is significantly less heat resistent than a ceramic shutter my scenario stands. Your laserstar can be too easily suppressed by a smaller laser.
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No. You ar ignoring relative laser Power.
Even in your scenario The correct statement would be -- As long as the Small laser can hit the Big laser's filter AND it is less resistant to that power level ... than the Big Laser hiting the Small Laser's armored shutter at the Big Laser's power level.
You have already said the lasers are orders of magnitude apart in power level. That is how you can afford all the small lasers in the first place.
The reason the filter would work is not that it can absorb a beam equal to the Big Laser's it is instead hitting a beam equal to the Small Laser's.
Throw in the targetting discrepancies and the Small Laser is fighting uphill.
This is why I suggested the math will be important.
You need to know
a) Relative power levels at the target
b) The Targetting accuracy advantage of the Big Laser vs the Small Laser.
Its a battle between a guy with Flamethrower and a myopic guy with a Cigarette Lighter and you are suggesting the hot air coming off the Cigarette lighter is going to cause the Flamethrower to malfunction.
(SA Phil)
As another illustration.
The Laser's can have exactly the same power level at the source ..But at the target if the spot size of the Big Laser is 1 and the spot size of the Small Laser is 10-- then the Big Laser has 10 times the relative power at the target as the Small Laser as far as blinding/burning through something.
(SA Phil)
Replacing fried sensors may not be cheap but it simply must be done and in a timely fashion. Otherwise it becomes too easy to knock a ship out of the campaign.
Terminology suggestion: blind for killing sensors, de-fang for killing lasers.
Should we make any distinction between kill (ship is gone) and mission-kill (ship is of no further use at the moment) and campaign-kill (ship can't fix what's wrong with internal resources, must retreat to mobile space dock or possibly all the way back to a friendly base)?
A mission-kill might satisfy a tactical commander but a strategic commander won't rest easy until the hull is either destroyed outright or too damaged to repair.
jollyreaper said...
Replacing fried sensors may not be cheap but it simply must be done and in a timely fashion. Otherwise it becomes too easy to knock a ship out of the campaign.
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Necessity or not replacing targetting sensors or precision laser optics is probably physically impossible in the field.
To hit a small moving target at 300,000+ km range will literally require the laser to be precisely aligned to within a nanometer of its life. Its just not the sort of thing you have a go at repairing in the field. Its possibly not even possible to do in a lab. After $12 billion and a decade of hard work the American Anti-Ballistic Laser was cancelled because they couldn't reliably focus the laser on a missile at a mere 500km range. The engineering problem is immense.
We all have to face up to the facts a huge laser capable of hitting targets at light seconds range is theoretically imposing but the same laws of physics dictates the laser is more analagous to a very delicate microscope rather than a robust weapon of war.
I think many of you are arguing backwards. We should not be determining if the very expensive laser can be protected from attack or repaired quickly. We should be asking is this delicate, expensive, precisely aligned weapon system worth taking to war in the first place.
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